Dawn was approaching, the world pitch black. In a meditation chamber at Baiyun Temple, a single bean-sized flame flickered.
Outside, the sound of hurried, urgent footsteps continued.
The young lord of Prince Cong’s household had vanished, and all four guards who had accompanied him lay dead. Everyone had searched the mountain all night, combing through nearly every corner — but the young lord was nowhere to be found, alive or dead.
Panic had spread through everyone present. This was a major imperial rite of sacrifice, the mountain thick with clansmen and imperial guards — and yet such a bloody incident had occurred regardless.
Yet in stark contrast to the unease outside, the person seated in the meditation chamber appeared entirely at ease, playing a game of Go alone, not the slightest trace of worry in his brow or eyes.
Before long, three knocks sounded at the door outside, and a figure clad in a black cloak pushed the door open and entered. Seeing the person seated within, he removed his hood and bowed. “Your Highness.”
It was the same censor from the Ministry of Justice’s prison, the one who had crossed paths with Cheng Chang a few days earlier.
“How is it going?” the seated figure asked unhurriedly, twirling a black stone between his fingers.
“Reporting to Your Highness, the imperial guards have searched the mountain again, still no trace found. Prince Cong urgently sent someone back to the palace, alarming His Majesty and the Grand Empress Dowager. His Majesty has ordered General Xuan Zhi to personally lead a thousand imperial guards to Baiyun Mountain. They should arrive around daybreak.”
“They sent the Commander of the Palace Front Guard directly?” the seated figure said, mildly surprised, then smiled and asked, “Have they searched beneath the cliff?”
“Already searched. That cliff is very high — below it is Baiyun Lake, with a shallow shore covered in loose rocks. Falling from that height, he’d shatter to pieces on the shore, and even if he fell into the lake, his life would hardly be spared. He’s almost certainly dead — it’s just… for some reason, they still can’t find the third young master’s body.”
The seated figure asked, “And the cliff face itself?”
“It’s a sheer wall. There are some crossbeams, but they’d barely stop a falling man. The imperial guards and our men have already checked it with lanterns and found nothing. Once it’s light, we’ll search again.”
“But rest assured, Your Highness — the imperial guards don’t know that the third young master ultimately fell from the cliff. They’ve already withdrawn to search elsewhere. The men still stationed there are all ours. If daylight brings any discovery, we’ll go all the way — lower someone down on a rope and give him a push.”
The seated figure nodded, placing a stone on the board.
After a moment, he laughed. “This cousin of mine is quite the curiosity. I hear that the year he was born, a fortune-teller read his fate and said he was destined for a short life — at most he’d live to his coming-of-age year. The only way to extend his life was to reverse the heavens and earth.”
“Reverse the heavens and earth?”
The seated figure gave an “Mm.” “Back then, our great-grandmother had already named him ‘Zhǎo.’ Later, believing the fortune-teller’s words, they changed it to ‘Chǎng.'”
“I hadn’t heard that before, this subject’s first time,” the censor said. “Though this subject does know that the third young master was actually the second son in the household — he had one elder brother above him. Princess Consort Cong, seeing how exceptionally he’d turned out at birth, feared his fortune too thin to bear it, and insisted on calling him ‘third young master’ instead, hoping that when the King of Hell came to claim souls, he might overlook him.”
“Self-deception, nothing more,” the seated figure said, placing another stone.
Then he asked, “You said earlier that Mingying jumped off the cliff himself?”
“Yes. The third young master was apparently frightened at the time. Seeing our assassins closing in, he jumped off the cliff on his own.”
“Have those assassins all been dealt with cleanly?”
“All of them were death-sworn men — those who could be hidden have been hidden, and the ones used as decoys were disposed of once they left Baiyun Mountain,” the censor reported. Then, with a smile, “This subject had actually been worrying over how to bring the Marquis of Loyalty and Valor’s case to Prince Cong’s attention. Never expected the young prince of the Prince of Nan’an’s household would end up helping us along.”
“Oh?” the seated figure asked, surprised. “Cheng Ye?”
“Precisely. When the young prince learned the third young master was missing, he told Prince Cong that yesterday afternoon he’d run into the third young master at the western Guanyin Shrine, where the third young master claimed he was seeking a safety talisman for a friend. Later, when the young prince returned to the main temple, the third young master said he had business at Qingfeng Court, so the two didn’t travel together.”
“After hearing the young prince’s account, Prince Cong immediately sent men to Qingfeng Court. By now they’ve likely found the witnesses connected to the Marquis of Loyalty and Valor’s case, and learned that the third young master was killed precisely because he was investigating that very case.”
“Prince Cong, wanting to know the cause of his son’s death, will inevitably follow the thread of the Marquis’s injustice — and it will lead straight to Yao Hangshan. With Prince Cong’s help, bringing down Yao Hangshan will be effortless for Your Highness.”
The seated figure nodded with satisfaction. “This is excellent. The Prince of Nan’an is a loyal, upright official, always cautious and prudent, and Cheng Ye himself is a man of great integrity. Father, though he says nothing of it, values the Prince of Nan’an’s household highly in his heart. For this matter to be brought to Prince Cong’s attention through Cheng Ye — it won’t arouse any suspicion at all. Truly, heaven itself aids me.”
“Your Highness, there is one more matter,” the censor said after some thought. “The Marquis of Loyalty and Valor’s household — that lone daughter. Should she be eliminated as well?”
The seated figure paused. “Yun Xi?”
“Yes. Last time this subject suggested eliminating her, Your Highness said… someone wished to protect her. But over this past half-year or so, she’s grown quite close to the third young master, even helping him investigate Your Highness’s identity. There’s no telling how much of what the third young master knew, he may have told her. Now that we’ve already dealt with the third young master, to avoid future trouble, perhaps we should also—”
“No need,” the seated figure interrupted, before the censor could finish.
The censor was taken aback, and couldn’t help but say, “Your Highness has always acted with such decisiveness. This… who exactly is this person, that Your Highness would repeatedly show them such consideration?”
“It’s not entirely because of that,” the seated figure said after a moment of silence. “A mere orphaned daughter of the Marquis’s household can’t stir up much trouble.”
“Furthermore, even if the entire Marquis’s household were wiped out, if Prince Cong pursues the Marquis’s case and finds no one in court to echo him, it won’t amount to much. The Yun daughter is a stubborn one — she once knelt before the palace gates for Yun Luo’s sake. If she discovers her father was wronged too, she’ll surely sink her teeth in and not let go. Yao Hangshan is secondary — if she can tear off a piece of whoever stands behind Yao Hangshan, this prince ought to thank her.”
“But she is… after all, just a daughter.”
“Being a daughter is precisely what makes it good,” the seated figure said with a smile. “Have you forgotten what the unrest in the outskirts was actually about?”
“This—” the censor began, “Your Highness killed two birds with one stone. Taking advantage of the drifting bandits causing trouble in the outskirts, you sent men to infiltrate and collude with the mountain bandits. On one hand, Your Highness instructed Luo Fuyou to deliberately botch the suppression effort, so His Majesty would grow suspicious of Yao Hangshan. On the other, you slipped assassins in among the bandits causing chaos on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, to take the third young master’s life. This way, the bulk of the blame falls on Yao Hangshan.”
“Later… though the death of the Yao household’s second young miss was an accident, Your Highness skillfully used it to lure the third young master into the Ministry of Justice’s prison, to question the wronged Luo Shu, and through her mouth, reveal the injustice surrounding the Marquis of Loyalty and Valor.”
“All of that is in the past now,” the seated figure said. “Father sees clearly. He knows the unrest in the outskirts couldn’t have grown so large from mere bandits alone — the real trouble lies with the drifting rebels causing the chaos. Now that the Mid-Autumn disturbance has passed and most of the drifters have retreated, sending someone to suppress the rest — as long as they have some ability — should go smoothly enough.”
“The Yun daughter is more than capable, both in martial skill and in commanding troops. By doing this, Father is effectively crediting her with the achievement. She’s only a commandant now, but once she returns and handles a few more real matters, being named a general is only a matter of time.”
“Your Highness, this subject doesn’t understand,” the censor said. “If His Majesty wishes to reward the Marquis’s household, why not simply let General Yun Luo inherit the title, and bestow honors on the general’s widow? Why go through all this trouble instead to elevate a lone daughter?”
“What’s there not to understand? Since ancient times, emperors have always feared military power slipping from their grasp. A general with too much military prestige risks overshadowing the sovereign’s own authority. But if that general is a woman, such concerns are much reduced. Once he no longer needs her, he recalls her to the capital, arranges a marriage for her to someone posing no threat to imperial power, and the military authority reverts to the throne as a matter of course.”
“Besides, the Yun daughter genuinely has real ability. Cultivated properly, she may surpass even the old matriarch of her time.”
“By Your Highness’s reasoning, then, the Yun daughter’s future… won’t stop merely at some low-ranking general’s title? But given her temperament, if she keeps pursuing the Marquis’s case this way, and it draws out Yao Hangshan and that one other person, that’s manageable. But what if she uncovers that the reason the old Marquis pursued the enemy beyond the border in the first place was because we—”
Before the censor could finish, the seated figure cut him off with a sharp, piercing glance.
“Father’s health has already declined a great deal,” the seated figure said after a long pause, sighing slowly. “Even if the Yun daughter wants to investigate, she’ll need sufficient time to do so.”
“What I truly fear is… that halfway through her investigation, the sky over Jinling will change.”
And the one seated on the dragon throne will change as well.
Such words, once spoken, already amounted to treason.
Even though no ears lingered inside or outside the chamber, the censor couldn’t help but shudder upon hearing this. After a long moment, he clasped his sleeves together and bowed reverently before the ambitious figure seated before him.
Before long, dawn broke.
The palace’s imperial guards had arrived, and all the troops in the mountain now answered solely to Xuan Zhi’s command, split into more than a dozen units to search the mountain once more.
Who could have known — a full morning of searching, even delaying the heaven-worship rite itself, still turned up no sign of Cheng Chang.
With a bloody incident having occurred on Baiyun Mountain, the clansmen had no choice but to split into three groups: one, following Prince Cong and Xuan Zhi, continued searching the mountain; another, led by Prince Ling, remained at the temple to complete the remaining rites; and the last set out ahead, returning to the capital.
Prince Cong stayed at Baiyun Temple for a full seven days. During those seven days, the imperial guards nearly turned the entire mountain upside down, yet Cheng Chang seemed to have vanished into thin air — not even a scrap of his clothing could be found.
With no other choice, the imperial guards extended the search further afield. Before long, guards could be seen everywhere — from within Jinling itself to a hundred li beyond the city walls.
Once word spread, all of Jinling knew that the young lord of Prince Cong’s household had disappeared, and that the circumstances were suspicious. It was said Princess Consort Cong had fainted from grief several times over this, and had since fallen gravely ill, not yet recovered.
Yet even as chaos gripped Jinling, the bandit unrest in the outskirts was gradually settling down.
When Yun Xi first arrived in the outskirts, she did not act rashly. She first went to the local government office and rooted out the clerk who had colluded with the mountain bandits. Then, following the terrain map the bandit leader had given her earlier, she had her soldiers disguise themselves as bandits and, led by the clerk, pay respects at each of the seven bandit strongholds in turn.
Once her people were properly placed, she struck decisively the moment the timing was right — within a single day, she led her troops to wipe out four of the bandit strongholds and captured over two hundred mountain bandits.
The remaining three strongholds’ bandits, mixed in with the scattered drifters, fled in disarray — but Yun Xi’s men, already placed in advance, tracked their movements and left markers along the way. Within three to five days, she had rounded up every last one of them.