Grinning broadly, full head of white hair, but with bright, piercing eyes and agile movements—it was none other than Lei Ting, the master of Leizhen Sect.
“Just as Minister Yuan predicted, the Empress was indeed forced into desperation and wanted to act. That very night she brought restorative medicine to the Imperial Study to beg forgiveness from the Emperor. This woman is very skilled at playing the benevolent role. If this old fellow hadn’t borrowed Liu Ning to divert her attention and had the Emperor pretend to drink her medicine, His Majesty would already be lifeless by now.” He was following Yuan Cheng’s orders to secretly protect the Emperor during the peace talks.
“The Empress truly dared to poison the Emperor?” Wasn’t she afraid of being discovered? Mo Zi was shocked.
“When someone takes the blame for her, naturally she has nothing to fear.” Yuan Cheng wrote the character for Hao.
“Does Minister Yuan miss the young master?” Lei Ting was deeply moved. “Hearing from Luo Ying that you’re cold toward the young master, this old fellow thought, regardless, you’re still father and son. Being cold is just the appearance of a strict father, for the young master’s good.”
Mo Zi laughed. “He likes to practice writing complex characters—it has nothing to do with whether he misses his son or not. Elder Lei needn’t praise him.”
Lei Ting laughed heartily. “If that’s the case, when the young master turns five, Minister Yuan should give him to this old fellow. I’ll take him for seven or eight years and toughen up his body. This child will shoulder great responsibilities in the future—he cannot lack the ability to protect himself.”
Yuan Cheng looked at Mo Zi. Her face clearly showed reluctance, so he planned to politely decline.
But Mo Zi spoke first. “If Senior doesn’t mind, it would be Yuanbao’s good fortune.” Regardless of what the little one would do in the future, having a master like Lei Ting teach him martial arts would give him one more chance at survival in this era where human lives were like grass.
Yuan Cheng pondered briefly. “Seven or eight years is somewhat long. I still want to teach him to read and study. How about this—half a year with Senior, half a year at home. Neither side would be delayed. Would that work?”
Lei Ting readily agreed.
Mo Zi looked at Yuan Cheng gratefully and continued the previous topic. “Who will the Empress find as a scapegoat?”
Yuan Cheng pointed at himself.
Mo Zi still didn’t know what his plan was. “This is truly absurd. The Emperor fell ill in the palace. What does it have to do with us?”
“Have you forgotten there were extra dishes at yesterday’s banquet?” Yuan Cheng said half.
“Just a few fresh fish—” Mo Zi’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell me the Empress will say there’s something wrong with the fish? But these fish were caught from the lake at the traveling palace—in other words, the Emperor’s own place. The imperial kitchen doesn’t just cook whatever ingredients anyone provides. Everything goes through strict scrutiny. Before the fish reached the Emperor’s mouth, it had to be tasted by eunuchs first. Besides, His Majesty wasn’t the only one who ate the fish yesterday. You, Wu Yanqie, the Empress, Noble Consort Ying, and I all ate it.”
“When someone wants to frame others, they only need one excuse. These fish were offered by us.” This single point could leave people unable to defend themselves.
“Isn’t this being punished for possessing jade, creating something from nothing?” Mo Zi was indignant.
“Want to make a bet? Before the midday meal, the palace will take action, surrounding the Yuan Mansion completely, with evidence and witnesses saying we Song people poisoned the Great Zhou Emperor, demanding we submit and confess our crimes.” False evidence was easy. Find a cook, say he was bribed by them to put poison in the fish plate for His Majesty. Because it’s a chronic rare poison, silver needles can’t detect it. And the little eunuch who tested for poison has probably already been killed by now, but his corpse will be brought out as evidence.
“The Empress frames us to clear herself of suspicion while killing us, throwing Song territory into chaos so Great Zhou and Daqiu can jointly send troops to divide it up.” Mo Zi’s eyes suddenly brightened. “I know what the Empress wants to do now. She harms the Emperor to death—the one who can ascend the throne in Great Zhou can only be that young prince. He’s young and understands nothing, so naturally court affairs must be handed to the Empress Dowager to handle. Rule from behind the curtain! This is the Empress’s ambition, or rather, the first step. In the future, like Wu Zetian proclaiming herself Empress, the Wang family will become the imperial clan, and Great Zhou will change dynasties.”
“At this time, it appears so.” Yuan Cheng said to Lei Ting again, “Elder Lei, I must trouble you to protect His Majesty.”
Lei Ting grunted in acknowledgment, stepped out treading on shadows, and left silently without a trace.
Mo Zi paced back and forth. “I should have thought of this earlier. Wang Yang spoke of catastrophic disaster, but looking at Wang He with his civil official bearing, I couldn’t see any ambition. And the Wang family’s Shan Shi and Bai Shi—at most they’re just self-righteous and somewhat arrogant. Only Empress Wang, one step away from the Son of Heaven, with the Wang family as backing, colluding with Daqiu, crippling the Crown Prince, killing the Emperor—only then can she control the ministers by controlling the young prince. Who would have thought, truly who would have thought—both being Wang Yang’s daughters, my mother hid away for love, only growing flowers and plants, while Empress Wang is wildly ambitious, wanting to obtain the imperial throne.”
“One can only say they are both extremely intelligent women. Whatever they decide upon, they won’t turn back—they’ll walk that path to the very end.” Yuan Cheng summarized their common trait.
“Then what should we do?” Mo Zi asked. The Emperor wasn’t poisoned but still claimed serious illness—clearly this was aimed at the Empress.
“We’re not Great Zhou people but Song people. Even if the Empress can fabricate evidence to frame us, she cannot immediately throw us in prison. Instead, she’ll temporarily confine us here and deal with us after the Emperor passes and the new emperor ascends. She probably can’t figure out why the Emperor is on the brink of death yet hasn’t immediately died, so right now she can only wait. She waits for her part, we do ours—mutually non-interfering.” Yuan Cheng’s gaze swept across Mo Zi’s lower abdomen. “When soldiers come to surround the mansion in a bit, you continue feeling dizzy and unwell, and I’ll continue writing our son’s name.”
“Still pretending?” Mo Zi smiled bitterly.
Yuan Cheng smiled quite cheerfully, lowering his head to write the character Hao with flourishing strokes, as if very much engaged in a battle of wills.
Before noon, the palace indeed dispatched a large contingent of Qianniu Guards who surrounded the Yuan Mansion so tightly not even water could leak through.
A grand eunuch proclaimed the Empress’s edict at the gate: “After careful investigation, on the Double Ninth Festival, Song territory’s Minister Yuan and his wife Lady Song bribed a cook in the imperial kitchen to poison the fresh fish they offered, with malicious intent to harm the Great Zhou Emperor. This crime has been established. They should be immediately imprisoned, but because Minister Yuan and Lady Song are not Great Zhou subjects, and the Emperor once proclaimed to the realm they would be safely returned, this palace temporarily confines them in their current location, to be dealt with after the Emperor recovers.”
That afternoon, the Empress again proclaimed an edict to all officials: “The Emperor is gravely ill—the realm grieves. However, court politics cannot be delayed for a single day. The Second Prince will temporarily supervise the state, with Li Ren and Wang He as regency chancellors. The Six Ministries shall report national affairs to them.”
At the early morning court the second day, Wang He and Li Ren led all officials in submitting a memorial, saying the prince was too young and might struggle with the great responsibility of supervising the state. They requested the Empress bring her son to the Golden Throne Hall to jointly deliberate on politics.
The Empress refused.
The young prince personally went to the Central Palace Hall to kneel and plead with his mother.
Only after much pleading did the Empress finally emerge. Starting from the third day, she sat beside the dragon throne in the Golden Throne Hall, behind the young prince, formally directing the realm’s affairs.
Xiao Yi went to wander around the marketplace and returned to tell Mo Zi, “The words Minister Yuan had people spread are now circulating through the streets and alleys. The common people clearly hold a skeptical attitude toward the Empress deliberating on politics, especially those scholars.”
Yuan Cheng had people spread two messages. First, on the Double Ninth lantern-releasing boat, the Empress swept Imperial Consort Chen into the water. Second, that evening the Empress went to the Imperial Study to deliver medicine to the Emperor, yet pinned the blame for the Emperor’s serious illness on the Song people. They also distributed a hand-copied manuscript recording the Emperor’s words and deeds, secretly circulating it in the marketplace, increasing the authenticity of the matter about the Empress delivering medicine and the Emperor being placed under house arrest.
After just a few days, the rumors grew more intense, already describing the Empress as a viciously scheming woman. What intensified matters was that five hundred scholars in the capital submitted a joint memorial requesting cancellation of the Empress’s political deliberation rights, citing the imperial decree established by Emperor Wuyuan that rear palace women must not interfere in politics.
The Empress was furious, saying someone was secretly plotting rebellion. She dispatched the Capital Protection Army to arrest nineteen leading scholars who submitted the memorial and threw them into the imperial prison.
The scholars became even more furious and submitted another joint memorial, accusing the Empress of being power-hungry and attempting to restore the female emperor system, which was why she flew into a rage and arrested people. Since Great Zhou’s establishment, joint memorials from scholars had always been handled with two approaches: adopt but don’t reward, or criticize but don’t punish. The Emperor would either adopt the remonstrance but not grant official positions to the scholars, or say a few words of disapproval but not punish the scholars. This encouraged their active political participation while not creating special channels to officialdom—they still had to properly participate in the imperial examinations.
The Empress was a woman, and moreover a woman who had just tasted the flavor of power in managing the realm. Inevitably she became somewhat carried away. Never mind what precedents—the more fiercely the scholars made trouble, the more she wanted to suppress them. In the end, she actually selected three with the hardest heads from among the seventeen leaders and had them beheaded at the Meridian Gate.
This time, scholars throughout the capital felt endangered.
While the Empress was smugly pleased that her strong-armed approach worked well, she didn’t know that her standing among the common people had already completely collapsed. Most people, after seeing and hearing things with their own eyes and ears, deeply believed the two rumors.
That night, Yuan Cheng followed Lei Ting in secretly infiltrating the Emperor’s sleeping quarters. After the Empress began deliberating on politics, within just a few days she had drastically purged the palace, including quite a few people from the Northern Divine Sect. It was precisely because of this opportunity that a group who outwardly pledged loyalty to the Empress but were actually loyal to the Emperor managed to infiltrate. Therefore, Yuan Cheng entering the palace wasn’t an impossible mission.
The Emperor lay on the dragon bed. Yuan Cheng stood in the shadows of the bed curtains, conversing in whispers.
“His Majesty’s illness should begin improving starting tomorrow.” Yuan Cheng said.
The Emperor didn’t speak.
Yuan Cheng naturally wouldn’t think he was asleep. “Is Your Majesty heartbroken?”
“How could I not be heartbroken? I always thought the Empress was my virtuous helpmate. Who would have thought she was actually a venomous scorpion woman? Not only did she prevent the consorts from bearing children, she also deliberately spoiled the Crown Prince, forcing him onto a dead-end path. Now she’s even controlling court politics, regarding herself as an empress. I’m not dead yet!” It wasn’t that he had nothing to say—he had too much bottled up inside.
It was Yuan Cheng’s turn to listen quietly.
“It’s my fault. When Father Emperor was alive, he once warned me not to trust others’ words too easily. As an emperor, one must be able to be ruthless and sever emotional attachments. But from beginning to end, I couldn’t do it. Now, not only have my own brothers rebelled against me, even my wife has rebelled against me. I consider myself not to be a tyrannical or incompetent ruler—why have I ended up betrayed and abandoned by all?” The Emperor was in pain. “Minister Yuan, you’re very intelligent—you must know the reason.”
Yuan Cheng lowered his eyes. Mo Zi said the strong without compassionate hearts—this one was the compassionate without a strong heart. Too benevolent, too gentle—it easily breeds corruption and darkness, easily arouses the ambition of the strong to take advantage of vulnerabilities.
“If not for Your Majesty’s benevolence, Yuan could never have cleared the Yuan clan’s name. The most difficult thing to control in the world is the human heart. Your Majesty needn’t be troubled by certain people. The Xiao family, Wei family, and quite a few ministers still stand on your side.” Yuan Cheng only spoke kind words.
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