Having said those words, she raised her hand — no need for anyone inside the residence to open the door. The soldiers had already kicked it in with a single blow.

As the soldiers surged through with torches held aloft, ransacking the entire residence inside and out, they found nothing but a few half-asleep servants and maidservants. No one else was there.

Fang Jinshu fixed a cold stare on one trembling maidservant and demanded through clenched teeth: “Where is that wretch Su Luoyun?”

The maidservant shook with fear and said urgently: “After the Crown Princess moved back here, she never left her room. We all left meals at the door and her senior maidservant carried them in. She… she should be in her room!”

Hearing this, Fang Jinshu pulled a sharp blade from the belt of the guard beside her and walked into Su Luoyun’s room.

The room was pitch-black. But from behind the curtained bed came a sound that might have been a frightened, muffled whimper.

Understandable, of course — a blind woman who could not see, hearing the door kicked in at the dead of night, would naturally be terrified.

Fang Jinshu smiled coldly, raised the blade, and swept aside the bed curtain. She then flicked the covers back with the tip of the blade — and brought the knife slashing down toward the person’s face.

She had been suppressing her hatred of Su Luoyun for far too long.

In countless sleepless nights, she had deeply regretted not using a dagger to slash up that woman’s face the very first time they met — letting her off too lightly with words alone.

If she had done it then, scarring the wretch’s face with that blade, would it not have saved her so much trouble later?

Now she wanted to carve several marks into Su Luoyun’s pretty face first — to relieve just a little of the hatred that had been choking her heart.

With that thought, she hacked savagely in the direction of the pillow.

But strangely, even though Fang Jinshu felt blood spatter onto her own face, the person on the bed made no great cry.

Just then, someone lit a candle, and the room came into dim view.

The person on the bed, overwhelmed by pain, writhed and rolled off onto the floor.

Fang Jinshu looked closely — the blood-smeared woman did not look at all like Su Luoyun. And she had a cloth stuffed in her mouth, and her body was bound with rope.

When the blood was wiped from her face and the cloth removed from her mouth, the woman let out a shriek of pain: “Princess Consort, spare me! Spare my life!”

Fang Jinshu stared hard for a moment — and then it struck her all at once. She recognized this woman. Was this not Huai Xia, Su Luoyun’s close-attending maidservant?

“What are you doing here?”

Huai Xia was in such pain she could barely breathe, and only wept: “This servant does not know either. I was sleeping perfectly well in the palace — I do not know how I ended up here…”

Fang Jinshu looked around the room. The furnishings were all in order, but the tabletops were visibly covered in a layer of dust — it was plain that no one had lived here for quite some time.

She looked back at the weeping Huai Xia, and her heart gave a sudden lurch — a faint, gathering sense that something was badly wrong.

At that moment, a commotion erupted in the street outside the lane — the sound of many people surging toward Qingyu Lane.

As Fang Jinshu moved quickly toward the exit with her men, she found that the entire lane had been sealed off without a gap.

When warriors in Iron Mask Army armor poured into the lane and pressed her and her people into an inescapable corner, Fang Jinshu forced herself to remain composed and called out loudly: “I am the widow of the Rui Prince — daughter-in-law of the late Emperor! Who are you people? By what right do you block my way?”

The man at their head was dark-complexioned, with a ring of bull-horn tattoos on his wrist marking his many battle distinctions. He was not the least bit cowed by Fang Jinshu’s words, and simply glared back: “I act under the Crown Prince’s orders to apprehend the traitorous and rebellious criminal Fang Jinshu. Since you are indeed the widow of the Rui Prince — then I have the right person.”

Even as he spoke, he raised his blade and moved to seize her.

But Fang Jinshu’s personal guards were not without skill. They immediately closed around the Princess Consort and fell back urgently. But at that moment, soldiers came pouring over the wall of the neighboring courtyard — the residence that had once been Su Luoyun’s own — and hit Fang Jinshu’s group from both front and rear, surrounding them with no avenue of retreat.

In the clash of swords and spears that followed, Fang Jinshu was caught in the fray. She let out a sharp, wretched cry as a deep gash was carved across her right eye.

When she was pressed down to the ground with her hair disheveled, she was still screaming with all the force she had left: “Who dares touch me! I am the future Empress Dowager! The Emperor has already died in the palace! My son will ascend the throne! I am the Empress Dowager of all the realm — touch me and I will have your nine clans put to death!”

As they bound her and dragged her out of the lane, she found the entire street leading to the imperial palace lined with fully armed soldiers — and looking at the color of their armor, they were not the forces her father and the noble families had deployed. They were black-clad, black-armored Iron Mask soldiers.

The Iron Mask Army was Han Linfeng’s direct command — it should have turned north to resume the northern campaigns. Yet without any warning, it had appeared all over the streets of the capital.

Fang Jinshu stared at the dense ranks of Iron Mask soldiers filling the streets. The wound on her face burned like fire, and in her heart a sinking dread grew heavier by the moment.

If Han Linfeng’s Iron Mask Army had suddenly appeared — did that mean the palace coup was not going smoothly?

Curse it all. Had not You Shanyue promised long ago that he had already persuaded Princess Yuyang, far away in Yun Zhou, to defect to the Shizi’s side — and persuaded Zhao Dong to support the Ninth Prince’s orphan?

What had actually happened inside the palace? And where was her father?

Just then, a carriage came rolling slowly out of the neighboring Tianshui Lane.

As it drew level with Fang Jinshu, the carriage curtain lifted slightly, and a bright, luminous face appeared behind it.

Fang Jinshu, pressed to the ground and struggling to lift her head, looked through the blood blurring her eyes — and saw that the person seated inside the carriage was none other than Su Luoyun, whom she had searched for everywhere and failed to find.

So she had been here all along — only not in the Shizi residence everyone had assumed, but one lane away, in Tianshui Lane.

And now Su Luoyun looked down at her with cool, measuring eyes — and showed not the slightest sign of being blind. Had her eye condition somehow healed again in these past few days?

“Su Luoyun! You set a trap for me! Do you know who I am? I am the future Empress Dowager! You — a cast-off wife — actually dare to have me arrested? What audacity!”

Hearing Fang Jinshu’s screaming, Su Luoyun only said coldly: “A trap only works when someone is willing to walk into it. Everything that has brought you to this day, you brought upon yourself. I do not have the power to place someone in a position of injustice against their will.”

Fang Jinshu laughed, bitter and unresigned: “You think arresting me means you have won? Do you even know — your greatest backer is gone! Han Linfeng died at Yan County. And that is your doing! If he had married me instead of you, he would never have met such an early death, drowned in a raging flood!”

Su Luoyun had no patience left to go on speaking with a madwoman. Xiangcao, unable to bear listening any longer, deliberately called out loudly: “Crown Princess, the Crown Prince is waiting for you in the palace. Do not waste your time saying another word to a shameless lunatic!”

Fang Jinshu went still at Xiangcao’s words, staring blankly: “How can that be — how could he have survived the Yan County flood a second time?”

Just then, from somewhere in the distance came the sound of a horse riding at full gallop. In the blaze of the torchlight, a warhorse came thundering forward at the head of the column.

Fang Jinshu strained to lift her head, peering through the blood clouding her eyes — and made out the figure of a tall, handsome man dropping swiftly from the saddle, gold helmet gleaming, expression cold, dark brows sweeping sharply into his temples. It was unmistakably the Crown Prince Han Linfeng — the man who was supposed to be trapped in Yan County.

An expression flashed across Fang Jinshu’s face — something between disbelief and wild, complicated feeling — before she broke into a desolate, cold laugh: “How could I forget. You are always the most capable… Han Linfeng, you have deceived me so cruelly.”

Han Linfeng did not spare her even a glance. He walked past with a cold expression, eyes filled with cold fury, heading straight for the carriage: “I sent people to bring you somewhere safe long ago — and you simply refused to go. In the middle of all this chaos, what if something had gone wrong?”

Knowing the night would bring upheaval, Han Linfeng had dispatched people early to bring Su Luoyun to a safer location. But she had said that if she were seen moving, and someone discovered it, all the plans she and the Emperor had been laying would be ruined at the last moment. And besides, the most dangerous place was often the safest — the darkness beneath the lamp, as they say. And indeed, her neighbor’s courtyard had been in uproar just now, while her own small residence had remained entirely undisturbed.

Han Linfeng had only just finished suppressing the coup inside the palace when he heard that someone had broken into the Shizi residence in Qingyu Lane. He leapt onto his horse and raced there at full speed. When he saw Fang Jinshu bound and disheveled on the ground, and Su Luoyun sitting at ease in the carriage, he finally let out a long, slow breath.

But Fang Jinshu was laughing again, loudly: “So what if you were not drowned? You came back too late. Your father the Emperor has just died. Right now the entire court is turning against you. Tell me — will the people of the realm think you are the one who murdered his father to seize the throne? The day you beg me for mercy is still ahead of you!”

She was deliberately saying things to enrage him — but Han Linfeng could not even be bothered to look at her anymore.

Only at the sound of her sharp, cutting voice did his brow contract in distaste. If he had truly been as weak and vulnerable as the conspirators had imagined, then the one who was now bloodied and bound on the ground would be Su Luoyun.

If he had once felt some measure of guilt toward Fang Jinshu because of that old letter, he felt none at all now. This woman’s heart was truly vicious.

He could not even be bothered to speak to her further. He simply ordered her mouth stuffed with cloth, then had her escorted to the imperial dungeon. Before much longer, her father and brothers would be joining her there.

Just then, another palace eunuch came galloping up on horseback, his voice shrill and carrying: “The Lu Guo Gong’s Fang family, together with the Wang family and other noble households, conspired to enter the palace and assassinate His Majesty. All these treasonous ministers have been seized! His Majesty summons the Crown Prince to the palace to guard the imperial person!”

Whether by design or simply no effort to lower his voice, the eunuch’s words rang out through the dark night without restraint — by the time he had finished his full gallop through the streets, it was likely that half the residences in the capital had heard every word.

Fang Jinshu heard it. The color drained from her face. With the filthy cloth stuffed in her mouth, she could not speak — but inside her head she was screaming: How is that possible? How can the Emperor still be alive? The signal from the palace had clearly indicated success… Does this mean the palace too was a trap? Then her father and clansmen are…

Watching her last handhold dissolve, Fang Jinshu descended into frenzy once more. She tried to lunge to her feet and throw herself at Han Linfeng — but the large men beside her showed no mercy, pinning her back down and landing two hard slaps across her face before hauling her away like a dead dog. Dragged out alongside her was the traitorous Huai Xia — though she had been cut too severely by Fang Jinshu and had lost too much blood; she seemed unlikely to hold on much longer.

Han Linfeng had already mounted again, preparing to escort Su Luoyun back to the palace. But Su Luoyun turned her head back for a lingering last look at Tianshui Lane.

She had been living quietly in this old residence in Tianshui Lane all this time. When Han Linfeng had ostensibly “departed for” Yan County, he had actually doubled back halfway, disguised himself, and slipped into Tianshui Lane with her.

These past few days had been some of the most leisurely Han Linfeng had known since becoming Crown Prince. He had spent entire days with nothing pressing to attend to — following his younger brother’s example, keeping his heavily pregnant wife company, teasing the few cats in the household, and lounging contentedly in the sun.

But such a peaceful interlude was all too brief, and now she had to take her reluctant leave of it.

Han Linfeng, seeing her turn back with that wistful expression, guessed what was in her mind and said warmly: “Once things in the palace are settled, I will bring you back here from time to time for a rest.”

Su Luoyun smiled and looked down at her swollen belly: “In a few more months it will be time to give birth. Where will I find time to come here and play house?”

In those unhurried days, Han Linfeng had even carved a small wooden sword and a little wooden horse for their future child with his own hands.

He gave a quiet laugh, then turned his horse and rode at full speed back toward the main palace.

* * *

In the brilliantly lit great hall, the Emperor Han Yi — who was supposed to have “died” — sat on the dragon throne with sharp, clear eyes, waiting for his son to arrive.

Han Linfeng bowed in salute to his father: “Every one of the traitors who infiltrated the palace through the rear gates has been dealt with — a few kept alive for interrogation; the rest cut down inside the inner passage. I have stationed elite soldiers around the palace perimeter. Your Majesty’s safety is assured.”

Han Yi nodded and asked: “And all those who participated in the conspiracy — have they all been brought in?”

Hearing Han Linfeng confirm it, Han Yi let out a long, slow breath. He had been holding that breath for a very long time.

Ever since his accession, the noble families and veteran ministers had been looking for every opportunity to obstruct and trip him up. But these noble families had deep roots and wide branches — if he had dealt with them by force simply because of political disagreements, not only would history write badly of him, it would be nearly impossible to manage court opinion.

Han Yi understood: to deal with these entrenched old enemies, petty corruption alone would not be sufficient grounds. They had to commit crimes that were truly monstrous before he could punish them openly and justify it to the world.

It was Han Linfeng who had offered him the stratagem — the stratagem of “showing weakness.”

There was a precedent for this in the Zuo Commentary: when the younger brother of Duke Zhuang of Zheng was growing insolent and overstepping his bounds, the Duke’s ministers urged him to deal with the unruly subordinate immediately. But Duke Zhuang believed the time was not yet right. He adopted the attitude of simply waiting — allowing his brother to grow ever more reckless and unbridled, until the brother finally launched a full rebellion. Only then did the Duke move to deal with him.

The craft of “waiting” was a deep one — like fattening a pig. Only when the crimes had become so numerous they could not be recorded, and one moved swiftly to slaughter at precisely the right moment, was the action both justified and satisfying.

And so, as the old ministers pressed them relentlessly from one side, father and son had kept “showing weakness” — allowing people to feel that the new Emperor was too lenient in handling his ministers, that he was restrained by excessive caution.

As for the occasion to show weakness, one naturally had to expose a genuine vulnerability. The court knew well that the Crown Prince would do anything for his wife — and so, after Su Luoyun identified that Huai Xia had been bought by the Shu Consort inside the palace, who had given her the precious Bo country bracelets, she and Han Linfeng had devised the performance of the relapsed eye condition and the marital breakdown.

There was also a private consideration on Han Linfeng’s part. The palace was full of old and new personnel intermixed, full of hidden dangers — with Su Luoyun carrying a child, threats could come from any direction without warning. Using the pretext of a domestic quarrel to get her out, then hiding her quietly in Tianshui Lane, meant he no longer had to worry about her food and daily care.

On You Shanyue’s side, Han Linfeng had kept applying pressure, steadily goading the old villain until his patience snapped and he accelerated his treachery.

All this while, Old Cui and his people had been slaughtering carrier pigeons at a frenzied pace — they had complete knowledge of all communications passing between the conspirators.

Now, these ministers had been deceived into believing that the Emperor had died, and had led armed forces into the palace in the dead of night — sealing their guilt as traitors who had attempted to murder their sovereign. At last Han Yi could order the executioners to sharpen their axes and begin removing heads with clean, decisive strokes.

In the small hours before the Gate of Meridian, the ringleaders of the rebellion were bound in rows across the ground. The Lu Guo Gong and others were still attempting to shout their defense: “Your Majesty! When we saw fire break out in the palace, we feared for Your Majesty’s safety — we brought our men to the palace to rescue the Emperor!”

But in the middle of his shouting, he caught sight of Han Linfeng standing before him — and went rigid with disbelief, unable to trust his own eyes.

“You… you were supposed to be trapped by the floodwaters at Yan County!”

Han Linfeng gave a cold smile: “The flood at Yan County existed only in the relay dispatches — written for those who wished to believe it. Please rest assured, my lord — the Yan County dyke is solid. The villains who attempted to blast it open have all been apprehended. Lord Lu Guo Gong — this way, please. Your daughter is already in the imperial dungeon, awaiting your company.”

At this, the Lu Guo Gong finally understood: he had walked straight into a trap laid with meticulous care. Which meant that all the talk of father and son at odds, and all of the Crown Prince’s apparent despondency these past weeks, had been a performance.

He tried to open his mouth to argue — but a dirty cloth was stuffed in before he could make a sound, and he could not call out another word.

By the time the sky had not yet brightened, half the people in the capital knew what had happened that night.

The entire city was placed under curfew, entering a state of wartime lockdown. No one was permitted to enter or leave at will.

In the great hall, the Emperor publicly condemned the monstrous crimes of the noble families who had conspired with the rebel remnants to infiltrate the palace and attempt to assassinate him. With iron-clad evidence before the court, and their armed rush on the palace beyond all denial, not one minister among the assembled civil and military officials stepped forward to speak for the condemned traitors.

Even those who counted themselves students and allies of the Fang and Wang families knew that any association with this stench would leave them infamous for a thousand years. They were now desperate to distance themselves — the last thing they would do was step forward.

Though the palace coup had not succeeded, blood ran in rivers before the Gate of Meridian all the same.

The Fang family’s ancestors had enjoyed a place of honor in the imperial ancestral temple — they had been Great Wei’s unrivaled meritorious subjects, a family of the highest distinction. But blinded by greed, they had dared to use the Ninth Prince’s orphan as a pretext for rebellion. This crime admitted no redemption. By rights the nine clans should be exterminated in full — but the Emperor, in his clemency, decreed that outside the principal offenders who were to be beheaded immediately, the remaining family members would be spared death. They would, however, be stripped of all property and exiled: the men reduced to servitude, the women consigned to houses of pleasure.

As for all others who had taken part — they were executed in full.

Those veteran ministers who had spent their days shouting and hectoring the Emperor and Crown Prince in the court all stood before the Gate of Meridian on the day of the executions, watching head after head fall like stalks of cut grain.

The new Emperor’s iron-fisted methods were finally laid bare for all to see.

Even those ministers who could not stomach the bloodshed and fainted were doused immediately with cold water and forced to watch until it was done.

As for the nation-destroying You Shanyue — he had actually heard of the coup going awry even before the Lu Guo Gong, and had rushed in a panic to the docks, intending to escape to open sea. The one person he had cared about all his life was his sickly son, and going into this grand gamble for the realm, he naturally had not been willing to stake his son’s life as well. He had long since sent ships ahead carrying his entire fortune, along with his precious son.

Now, seeing which way the wind was blowing, he only needed to board a ship and make his escape. With money and men, he could live comfortably anywhere in the world.

But when he arrived at the docks and stepped out of his carriage, the ships he saw were lined with tall, imposing soldiers. He had walked straight into a waiting net.

A seasoned gambler accepts the outcome of the bet — and so the wizened old man, when brought before Han Linfeng, still managed a rasping, mocking laugh despite everything: “The winner is king and the loser is banished — you played the better hand, and this old man concedes. However, you should know that my money houses are spread everywhere, and I long since relocated all the silver reserves. If the slightest disruption occurs, a great many merchants stand to lose everything. If you bear any gratitude for the role I played in putting your father on the throne, spare me my life. I will buy my own freedom with silver — how does that sound?”

Han Linfeng found the old man still attempting to leverage him even at this juncture — and felt it rather amusing: “You think a great deal of yourself. Your capital — is it the ten ships you sent ahead with your son to open sea? After sailing a wide circle in the outer waters, every one of them has arrived at Ninghai dock. By this hour, the silver should already be boxed and dispatched to the Xiangrong money houses in every region. Any patron of yours who holds a note of exchange can redeem it in full at a Xiangrong money house.”

The moment You Shanyue heard the name “Xiangrong,” the eyes buried in his wrinkled face went wide. That upstart money house had been opened by a merchant calling himself “Gongsun Ju” and had been competing with him head-to-head this whole time.

You Shanyue had sent people repeatedly to investigate, and had never been able to locate this mysterious merchant who appeared nowhere and left no trace.

Now, hearing what Han Linfeng said, the truth struck him all at once: “So the mind behind that money house was yours all along!”

Han Linfeng smiled slightly: “You flatter me, Master You. Commerce is not my area of skill. But it seems you have forgotten — the Crown Princess is a proper merchant by trade. Her experience in the world of business may be shorter than yours, but her ability in it is no less than your own. At the very least, every coin she has ever made is clean.”

You Shanyue stared, eyes round — and understood at last that this cunning husband and wife had been laying traps for him long, long ago.

“…How did you discover my conspiracy with the noble lord marquises?” This was the thing You Shanyue could not work out above all else. If he could only learn who had betrayed him, even if he could not escape now, he would make sure that traitor’s family was ruined.

Han Linfeng smiled faintly and said in an unhurried tone: “What betrayed you was, of course, your own arrogance and conceit. Did you truly believe your carrier pigeon communications were so impenetrable? Your coded letters — their original cipher was broken by the Crown Princess long ago.”

You Shanyue froze. What? His secret had been cracked by that seemingly frail woman?

He found himself thinking back to the time on Xianyin Mountain when he had shown off to her, bragging about his prized carrier pigeons — and how impudent and dismissive his words had been. Su Luoyun at the time had seemed like an utter simpleton, showing no reaction at all, only weeping her way through a tearful account of her grievances and pleading for his help.

He had not imagined, not for a single instant, that a woman he had not seen worth a second glance had been quietly uncovering his secrets — and silently dismantling his entire golden empire without a sound.

He sat there dazed for a moment. Then suddenly, like a punctured bladder, he crumpled — hunching forward and prostrating himself on the ground, tears streaming down his face as he wailed: “Crown Prince, this old man may have no merit, but he has endured hardship in your service. For the sake of the small role I played in helping His Majesty ascend the throne — spare my son’s life, please!”

Han Linfeng looked at the now utterly deflated old schemer with cold, composed eyes, and said slowly: “You spent your life addicted to gambling, and ended up in prison because of your own vices. Rather than reflect and reform, you shifted the blame for your own failures onto the laws of Great Wei. You repeatedly challenged the law — running money houses and lending at usurious rates to bleed the common people dry, while secretly supporting various rebel factions to destabilize Great Wei’s foundations. Do you know how many innocent people were cast into displacement and suffering because of what you did? In doing all of this, you ought to have known the weight of your sins and that they would bring ruin upon your descendants. His Majesty’s edict has already been issued: all your titles and honors are stripped, all your property and land confiscated and turned over to the state. And you yourself, as a commoner who conspired to assassinate the sovereign — your crime reaches to the nine clans. Your son will suffer the same fate as you… death by slow dismemberment, as a warning to the world.”

By imperial decree this could not be undone. When he heard these words, You Shanyue let out a howl like a wounded animal. Han Linfeng waved his hand, and people dragged the old man away.

To break a man’s will is the most complete form of punishment. To hold ten thousand miles of empire, one needed both a great compassion in the heart and the authority of thunder when it was called for. The Emperor who had come to power late in life was growing ever more accomplished in the arts of rulership.

* * *

Among those equally shaken by the Emperor’s methods was Empress Zong.

Ever since the Shu Consort — once so lavishly favored — was beaten to death in the inner palace for conspiring with the rebels and passing intelligence to them, Empress Zong had fallen ill again.

It was not grief for the pampered consort that had brought her low. It was sheer, belated terror.

Empress Zong finally understood, with the clarity that comes too late, just how close she had come to playing a very dangerous gamble. Had her son Han Xiao not known his historical precedents and made his position plain before the court, she had been only a step away from becoming the mother of a son who coveted the Crown Prince’s position — a label that would have placed them squarely among the treacherous and scheming.

If the kneeling session before the ancestral shrine had taught the Empress to understand the rules of the palace and to preserve the Emperor’s dignity, then the rivers of blood that had run before the Gate of Meridian drove the lesson far deeper. The Emperor, without a moment’s softening, had ordered his most beloved consort beaten to death — and this finally made the Empress feel a full and bone-deep awe of her own husband as sovereign.

Su Luoyun saw the ailment in her mother-in-law’s heart and could only offer gentle, soothing words of comfort, telling her to rest quietly and care for herself.

She reminded her that when the Emperor had pretended to be overcome and collapsed, he had sent away every other consort and kept only his Empress by his side — proof enough of the trust he placed in his long-wedded wife.

Empress Zong, looking at Su Luoyun now, found herself thinking back on the convincingly acted blindness that had fooled even herself — and could only sigh in quiet admiration.

This daughter-in-law, along with her own eldest son and her husband, were all cut from the same cloth: smiling faces concealing sharpened blades, calculating enough to exhaust even the dead.

To think she had once looked down on Su Luoyun’s origins. Now, looking back, she understood — only someone with a mind as intricate and quick as her daughter-in-law’s could navigate the deep palace with such effortless ease. Ah, Liangzhou had been so much simpler. People’s hearts there were like sweet potatoes — solid all the way through.

Living among people whose hearts were riddled with holes like lotus seed pods — these days were truly exhausting.