Because Cheng Chang had already given instructions the night before, the moment Yun Xi’s group arrived at Wangshan Villa, Steward Lin brought A’Jiu straight to the nearest heated chamber and summoned a physician’s attendant to tend to her.

Yun Xi and Yun Luo waited outside the chamber for a while, but there was nothing they could do to help, so they withdrew to the Chuntai Pavilion outside.

While they waited, Qin Zhong arrived as well. Qin Zhong was A’Jiu’s father — a burly, broad-shouldered man with a hot temper to match. Hearing early that morning that something might have happened to A’Jiu, he’d grabbed the nearest horse and ridden straight for the western part of the city, only to be intercepted along the way by Cheng Chang’s men and brought to Wangshan Villa instead.

It was early morning now. Steward Lin brought tea and refreshments to the Chuntai Pavilion, pouring tea for those seated with a smile. “This tea was just picked this spring, before the rains, up in Lin’an — fresh as can be.”

Cheng Chang took his cup and was about to drink when he noticed Yun Xi still had none, so he passed his own cup to her first.

Yun Luo glanced at Cheng Chang, then at Yun Xi, and seemed on the verge of saying something before holding back.

After a moment, he turned to Cheng Chang instead. “I haven’t yet thanked Your Highness properly for coming to our aid.”

Cheng Chang said, “General Xuanwei needn’t stand on ceremony.”

Earlier, on the road to Wangshan Villa, Yun Luo, worried about A’Jiu’s injury, had only briefly told Yun Xi the broad strokes of what had happened over the past years. Though Yun Xi now understood that Yun Luo had gone into hiding in order to find proof of Prince Ling’s treason, doubts still churned within her, and she asked, “Brother, if you already knew that Father was killed because of Prince Ling, why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why didn’t you let me know you were still alive? I could have worked with you here in Jinling — we might have found proof of his treason that much sooner.”

Before Yun Luo could answer, Qin Zhong spoke up. “The reason your brother never told you any of this was for your own good. What was Marquis Zhongyong’s household like back then? Forget telling you the young general was still alive — any letter from us old subordinates trying to reach Jinling would’ve been intercepted by Prince Ling’s men along the way. And besides, the young general barely survived that battlefield — he spent nearly half a year bedridden just to stay alive, and it took the better part of a year before he could even walk again. If we’d told you right away, wouldn’t that have just left you sick with worry for nothing?”

Yun Xi asked again, “Then how did you find out about Prince Ling secretly copying the map and colluding with the enemy?”

Yun Luo said, “After Father died in battle, I felt something was wrong. Our Yun clan has guarded the frontier for a hundred years, and Father was a formidable general — even with a shortage of grain, there was no way it should have ended with tens of thousands of soldiers dead. So before I followed Zhaoyuan north to the frontier, I’d already secretly decided to uncover the truth. But once I got there, Commander Qin told me that everyone who’d known the truth had already died. They’d searched for a long time and found nothing — until the night before the battle…”

The night before the battle, Yun Luo had gone to find Zhaoyuan to discuss strategy against the enemy. From a distance, he’d seen Zhaoyuan speaking with a stranger. He’d been too far to hear clearly, but fortunately he could read lips, and he’d caught fragments — the stranger mentioning the northern frontier’s defense map, saying, “His Highness Prince Ling has promised to give two cities’ worth of pastureland to the Second Prince, to help him raise troops and claim the throne.”

“That was how I learned Prince Ling had been colluding with Samur, the Second Prince of Daman, all along — and that it was Zhaoyuan who had been carrying messages between them.”

“With battle so imminent, I didn’t want to spook anyone into acting rashly, so I sent a letter to Jinling asking for reinforcements, without mentioning Prince Ling at all. Then I went deep into danger myself, trying to stop Zhaoyuan’s betrayal before it happened — but he set fire to the grasslands, trapping our soldiers there. I barely survived myself.”

“I knew that without solid proof, clearing Father’s name would be nearly impossible. So after A’Jiu carried me back to Jishan Fu, I had one of the old subordinates find a corpse that closely resembled me, attached it to my ruined right arm, and passed it off as my own body — successfully fooling even Pei Lan. After that, I lived in hiding on the frontier, trying to find a witness who could clear Father’s name. Eventually, I met Ning Huan. He told me that Father’s expedition to the frontier all those years ago had actually been at the request of the late Crown Prince — that it was the Crown Prince who had sent Father to the frontier to find and protect the Fifth Prince.”

“The Fifth Prince?” Yun Xi said, startled.

“That’s right,” Ning Huan said. “The year the late Empress fell gravely ill, the Fifth Prince and the young eunuch attending him fled to the frontier. Before she died, the late Empress had entrusted the Crown Prince with finding the two of them. The Crown Prince trusted Marquis Zhongyong deeply, and so he entrusted this task to him.”

Hearing this, Cheng Chang fell into thought for a moment before asking, “Why does Guard Ning say the Fifth Prince ‘fled’ to the frontier? Was someone hunting him?”

“That’s rather a long story,” Ning Huan said. “Does Your Highness recall that the Fifth Prince’s birth mother was actually Consort Wan, who served the late Emperor — the one later known as Dowager Consort Wan?”

Cheng Chang nodded slightly — Zhou Caiying had mentioned her to him before.

“Back when His Majesty was still heir apparent, he and Consort Wan had already grown close…”

At the time, the late Empress had still been Crown Princess. Though she and Emperor Zhaoyuan had treated each other with courteous respect, she knew perfectly well his heart lay elsewhere. Rather than obstruct the relationship between him and Consort Wan to secure her own position, she had actually helped arrange opportunities for them to meet.

Though Consort Wan’s looks weren’t especially striking, her temperament was gentle and unassuming, her character kind and virtuous, and she possessed considerable talent besides — she was a master painter in her own right. Over time, she became the one closest to Emperor Zhaoyuan’s heart.

“Among the previous Emperor’s many sons, there were fierce rivals on every side. When the previous Emperor died suddenly, the man who was then Crown Prince — the current Emperor — happened to be away from Jinling, and the court was thrown into some turmoil. Fortunately, Prince Cong helped steady the court in the interim. But Consort Wan, as one of the previous Emperor’s concubines, was sent to the East Chamber quarters at Mingyin Temple, just as the other consorts were.”

“Not long after arriving at Mingyin Temple, Consort Wan discovered she was pregnant. She trusted the late Empress a great deal at the time, and when the Empress came to visit her, she told her the news and asked for her help. Unfortunately, as it happened, the Empress herself was pregnant around the same time.”

Women — so many injustices could be endured when they fell only on oneself. But the moment it touched one’s own flesh and blood, restraint gave way to fierce, desperate struggle.

The late Empress knew exactly how devoted Emperor Zhaoyuan was to Consort Wan — she even knew he had once told her, “If you bear me an heir, we’ll name him Xu, for the rising sun at dawn.”

In a palace crowded with imperial heirs, what did “the rising sun” imply? Anyone paying attention could guess easily enough.

But the Empress’s own child was the legitimate heir, and she had no intention of letting anyone else compete for the position of Crown Prince in the future. After many sleepless nights, she finally decided to have Consort Wan killed before Emperor Zhaoyuan returned to the palace.

The late Empress had, in truth, never done much evil in her life.

This was the first time she’d ever plotted to take a life, and she hardly knew where to begin.

After much deliberation, she found a steward-monk at Mingyin Temple and an old eunuch, and ordered them to lock Consort Wan in her quarters and set the place ablaze, staging it as an accidental fire.

Fortunately, both the monk and the eunuch were men of good conscience, unwilling to take a life — especially not that of a pregnant woman.

Outwardly, they accepted the Empress’s order, but privately they found a woman’s corpse, placed it in the woodshed, and set the fire there instead, reporting back that Consort Wan had died.

Since this was the first time the Empress had ever ordered a killing, she hadn’t dared examine the body herself, and so she was easily deceived by the two of them.

“Your Highness has surely visited Mingyin Temple before. Mount Pingnan, where the temple sits, is vast, and because it’s home to an imperial temple, ordinary people don’t dare wander it freely, let alone search it. After deceiving the Empress, the monk and the eunuch brought Consort Wan to an extremely secluded spot halfway up the mountain, at the back of the temple grounds, and hid her there. It was there that Consort Wan safely gave birth to the Fifth Prince, Cheng Xu.”

“Call it the wheel of heaven, good and evil each meeting their due reward. The late Empress, having harbored murderous intent, found herself unable to sleep night after night after Consort Wan’s ‘death,’ consumed by fear and worry until she fell ill. In the end, she failed to protect her own unborn child — the legitimate heir was lost at seven months, and the Empress’s health was damaged so severely she could never bear children again. It was because of this that she came to raise the First Prince — later the Crown Prince — as her own.”

In truth, that might have been the end of the story.

In the eight years that Cheng Xu grew up in hiding, aside from the encounter on Mount Pingnan with the young, injured Cheng Chang and his two playmates, he never crossed paths with another outsider. At the time, Cheng Xu had made Cheng Chang promise: “Don’t reveal where I am. Don’t tell anyone I’m here.”

Young Cheng Chang, wanting badly to repay Cheng Xu for saving his life, had kept that promise faithfully for years afterward, never breathing a word of it to anyone — not even his own parents.

But the year Cheng Xu turned eight, he fell gravely ill.

“At the time, the Fifth Prince lay unconscious on his sickbed for three days straight, unable to take food or water. With nowhere left to turn, Consort Wan went to Mingyin Temple and sought out the Attendant of Rites then stationed there — Master Fang.”

“Fang Yuanshan — Fang Furan’s father?” Cheng Chang asked.

“Yes,” Ning Huan said. “This Fang Yuanshan was a man of considerable talent, but his sharp-edged temperament had made him enemies from the moment he passed the imperial examinations. While his peers rose through the ranks, he remained stuck as a mere Attendant of Rites at the Court of Imperial Sacrifices. Resentful and hungry for advancement, and being quite clever besides, he quickly deduced — once he learned Consort Wan had gone into hiding halfway up the mountain following a fire — that the fire could only have been ordered by the Empress herself.”

“He pretended to agree to Consort Wan’s request, promising to fetch a physician and inform the Emperor. Instead, he went straight to the Empress and told her that Consort Wan was still alive.”

“Fang Yuanshan told her he could keep silent about what she’d done to Consort Wan all those years ago — he wouldn’t breathe a word to the Emperor — but in exchange, he wanted the Empress’s help getting out of Mingyin Temple.”

“By this point, years had passed, and the Empress had grown far more composed in handling matters like this than she’d been the first time. Learning that Consort Wan and Cheng Xu were both still alive, she didn’t panic. Instead, she sent Fang Yuanshan away to wait for word, and then passed the information along to Consort Lu — Emperor Zhaoyuan’s favorite at the time, and Prince Ling’s birth mother.”

Yun Xi asked, “Isn’t Prince Ling the son of the Imperial Noble Consort?”

“He isn’t, by birth,” Ning Huan said. “Prince Ling’s birth mother was actually Consort Lu. It was only later that His Majesty ordered her name struck from the consort registry and had Prince Ling formally placed under the Imperial Noble Consort instead.”

The Empress told Consort Lu that the Crown Prince had always been sickly and likely wouldn’t live long, that the Second Prince had already died young, and that the Fourth Prince was dim-witted — leaving only the Third Prince, clever and capable, with a future beyond measure.

This was, of course, a none-too-subtle hint about the succession.

The Empress went on to say that though her own son, Xuan’er, showed promise, there was still the matter of a Consort Wan and a Cheng Xu living at Mingyin Temple — and that this Consort Wan and her son were the true treasures closest to the Emperor’s heart.

Consort Lu asked — if the Emperor cared for Consort Wan so much, why not simply bring her back into the palace? His power was secure by now; surely he could grant her some suitable title and bring her in without difficulty.

The Empress explained that this was precisely because the Emperor had no idea mother and son were even still alive — and that no one else knew it either.

“Consort Lu, already lured by the Empress into fantasies of the succession, decided upon hearing this that there was no turning back. She sent assassins to Mingyin Temple to kill Consort Wan and Cheng Xu — and that was the Mingyin Temple massacre of years past.”

Cheng Chang had heard something of what followed from Zhou Caiying before.

By the time Emperor Zhaoyuan arrived, Consort Wan was already dead, and Cheng Xu and the young eunuch beside him had vanished. Grief-stricken, the Emperor had gone to see the secluded quarters where Consort Wan had lived — and found the walls and writing desk covered in her paintings, every single one of them of him. Some strokes were refined and practiced — her own hand. Others were clumsy, unpracticed — where she’d guided her son’s small hand to paint alongside her. By her bedside lay a poem she’d copied out in her own hand, a line reading: when spring ends, flowers fall, and neither knows the other’s fate.

Only then did Emperor Zhaoyuan understand — all these years, Consort Wan had been waiting for him.

Born into an imperial family, the bonds between husband and wife, between brothers, even between father and son, are worn down and broken by decades of storms and treachery within the deep palace walls, until little of anything pure remains.

And so, to Emperor Zhaoyuan, what he had shared with Consort Wan was something singular, irreplaceable.

In truth, had Consort Wan lived, had she properly entered the palace, it’s entirely possible that, over time, Emperor Zhaoyuan’s regard for her might have faded like anyone else’s.

But her death had turned her into the one unhealed wound closest to his heart, forever.

“Once His Majesty learned it was Consort Lu who had killed Consort Wan, his hatred for her knew no bounds, and he ordered her put to death at once. He’d meant to investigate the truth behind the fire at Consort Wan’s quarters as well, but Fang Yuanshan was far too clever — he’d already silenced everyone who knew anything. And since His Majesty had always trusted the Empress completely, the trail never led back to her.”

“After Consort Lu’s death, His Majesty’s hatred spread even to her son, and he grew to despise Prince Ling as well. But Prince Ling was only eleven at the time and couldn’t be left without a mother, so His Majesty simply handed him off to the Imperial Noble Consort.”

The Imperial Noble Consort had never had children of her own, and gaining a son should have been cause for celebration. Instead, this particular son turned out to be nothing but a curse in the Emperor’s eyes.

The Imperial Noble Consort came to see Prince Ling as a burden. She looked after him reluctantly for two years, and once he entered the Hanlin Academy for his studies, she left him entirely to fend for himself.

“After the Mingyin Temple massacre, Zhou Hongguang, the Bureau Director of the Ministry of Rites, was blamed for responding too slowly and driven out of Jinling on some invented charge, leaving his position vacant. The Empress then made good on her promise, using her family’s influence to have Fang Yuanshan transferred into that post at the Ministry of Rites. From there, his career advanced rapidly.”

From that point on, Emperor Zhaoyuan began sending people to search for the Fifth Prince, Cheng Xu — but year after year passed without a single lead.

Until the year the late Empress died.

“The higher one climbs in court rank, the harder each step becomes. By the year the Empress fell gravely ill, Fang Yuanshan had already risen to Vice Minister of Rites. To reach the rank of Vice Minister before the age of forty was already remarkable by any measure — but he wasn’t satisfied. Fearing he might never rise further, he went to the Empress and asked for her help securing one more promotion.”

Yun Xi said, “If he wanted to rise further, that would mean the rank of Minister, or perhaps concurrently holding the position of Chancellor in the Secretariat. Surely a promotion of that magnitude would be difficult even with the Empress throwing her full weight behind it — why would she agree to something like that so readily?”

“Indeed — which is exactly why he’d made sure, long before, to hold something over her that left her no choice but to agree.”

Cheng Chang asked, “Are you saying that the reason the Fifth Prince, Cheng Xu, and the young eunuch survived the Mingyin Temple massacre at all was because Fang Yuanshan secretly protected them?”

“Exactly as Your Highness says,” Ning Huan said. “At the time, the Fifth Prince and the young eunuch were nothing more than two children — the only reason they survived a massacre of that scale was that Fang Yuanshan secretly had them let go. But he didn’t spare them out of kindness. He wanted to keep two living witnesses, proof that the late Empress had once ordered Consort Wan’s death — proof that had kept Consort Wan and the Emperor apart for years, right up until her death. He was holding this over the Empress’s head, so that he could use it to rise even further.”

“Fang Yuanshan told the Empress that, all these years, he’d kept men secretly watching over the Fifth Prince, ready at any moment to bring him and the young eunuch back.”