A carriage came to a stop outside the crowd. Spring snow fell like drifting cotton, its pure white color melding with the bloody scene. Prince Jia glanced toward the execution platform from within the carriage, then immediately turned back, his entire body trembling as he collapsed to his knees. His hands clenched into tight fists, knuckles turning white.

His eyes reddened with the strain, tears suddenly welling up.

“Yonggeng, today, I finally dare to offer sacrifices to him.”

This voice echoed in his ears, and Prince Jia broke down crying.

Li Xizhen’s eyes moistened, yet she remained seated, not bending down to help him up. Wind and snow swept through the window, bringing piercing cold. She gazed into the vast misty expanse where the crowd grieved. Many young scholars wearing casual robes knelt beneath the execution platform weeping. “Your Highness, Minister Zhang devoted his entire life to teaching countless students. Even young people who never met him, as long as they read his poetry and writings or heard of his life’s story, all respectfully addressed him as ‘Master.’ They weep for him, feel injustice on his behalf. But what about you, Your Highness? He was your teacher. Beyond weeping for him, do you not feel indignation in your heart?”

Prince Jia looked at her with tear-filled eyes.

“Your Highness, this consort wishes to ask you: now that you know the person who treated you best, who was your friend, died wrongly—does your heart not ache? Today your teacher dared to sacrifice his life to vindicate that man’s innocence. But what about you, Your Highness?”

Li Xizhen looked at him. “Will you still leave Yun Jing?”

“I…”

The tendons beneath Prince Jia’s sleeves tensed.

“If this consort were Your Highness, bearing the weight of these two lives upon my shoulders,” Li Xizhen enunciated each word, “even unto death, this consort would never leave Yun Jing again.”

If he left, who would still care about the name Xu Hexue? Who would restore his innocence? The current sovereign father? Prince Jia’s eyelids brimmed with tears.

But this sovereign father had just executed the teacher he most revered in this life.

Upon the execution platform, the blood had not yet dried.

Heavy snow like goose feathers shrouded the entire city of Yun Jing, falling in flurries within the imperial palace as well. Outside Qinghe Hall, Meng Yunxian knelt until his knees grew stiff, cold, and numb to the point of losing sensation, yet he still had not been granted an audience with Emperor Zhengyuan.

“Minister Meng, be careful.”

Pei Zhiyuan no longer wore his usual smiling face. He supported Meng Yunxian as they descended toward the base of the white jade steps, but unexpectedly Meng Yunxian’s foot lost strength. Pei caught him in time, preventing him from tumbling down the long stairway.

Meng Yunxian crouched beneath the white jade balustrade, one hand gripping his walking stick, shoulders trembling.

Pei Zhiyuan crouched behind him, grief filling his own heart as well. He held back again and again, softly calling: “Minister Meng…”

“He sought death with all his heart.”

This voice emerged from Meng Yunxian’s throat. “I originally thought that with the clues in that letter from Yongzhou, today he would surely practice restraint before His Majesty, that he would certainly heed my words and not make things difficult for His Majesty. I thought he would value his life a bit more…”

“Before going to Qinghe Hall, he told me that after seeing His Majesty today, we would go together to East Street to get a shave. I thought he finally no longer blamed me. I thought that because of this clue, he was finally willing to speak with me properly, willing to associate with me as in former times. I thought we could work together to seek justice for his best student.”

Tears accumulated in Meng Yunxian’s eyelids. “But Minxing deceived me. He had already determined to die, which is why he was willing to say such things to deceive me.”

At this moment, Meng Yunxian finally understood why Zhang Jing had recently kept provoking His Majesty. Whether it was Transport Commissioner Zhou Wenzheng of Wanjiang’s memorial proposing to change private promissory notes to official ones, or his great disrespect today in Qinghe Hall—all were part of his calculations.

He used words no one else dared speak to provoke the sovereign father. He used words the sovereign father least wanted to hear to entice him. Though an emperor’s scheming runs unfathomably deep, he had grown accustomed to these dozen-plus years when his edicts were as Heaven’s commands and his subjects dared not disobey. Zhang Jing forcing His Majesty to issue a self-reproaching edict was tantamount to wounding His Majesty’s dignity.

Zhang Jing deliberately led His Majesty step by step into the abyss of losing control. He personally placed the blade in His Majesty’s hand, wanting His Majesty to lose his reason and kill him.

Meng Yunxian and Zhang Jing had been friends for many years. Though during those fourteen years, one was demoted and the other exiled, with no correspondence between them, at this moment Meng Yunxian could comprehend why Zhang Jing did this.

“A single letter from Yongzhou is insufficient proof, and with Du Cong already dead, it’s impossible to clear the stain from General Yujie’s name. Chongzhi wanted to use his own death to make all under Heaven reexamine his student’s name. His students are everywhere—his final words before death will surely be remembered by some. As long as someone is willing to reconsider the name Xu Hexue, as long as someone develops doubts because of his dying words, he will have won.”

“He knows Prince Jia’s temperament, and knows that even I cannot make Prince Jia change his mind. He is also using his own death to manipulate Prince Jia.”

Zhang Jing knew that Prince Jia held this teacher in great regard, so today he made Prince Jia witness with his own eyes the sovereign father he feared executing his teacher.

Xu Hexue’s wrongful fate and Zhang Jing’s death would henceforth forever weigh like two mountains upon Prince Jia’s shoulders. Let us see whether he would retreat or press forward.

Zhang Jing also calculated against Emperor Zhengyuan, using the moment when his head ailment flared to force him to lose his reason. Meng Yunxian knew that when Emperor Zhengyuan in Qinghe Hall awakened, he would surely regret today’s edict.

Zhang Jing was originally the blade he intended to use, the instrument he meant to employ to intimidate the imperial clan. With his great reputation, countless admirers existed. When Emperor Zhengyuan pardoned his exile and permitted him to return to the capital as Vice Minister, he also intended to demonstrate benevolence.

Killing Zhang Jing would lose the people’s hearts.

At this critical juncture, Emperor Zhengyuan absolutely could not proceed as if nothing had happened to perform the Feng and Shan ceremonies at Mount Tai.

“Perhaps Minister Zhang never blamed you at all.”

Pei Zhiyuan’s eyes grew hot. “When he severed ties with you back then, it was because he feared that continued association would displease His Majesty and cause you trouble—not just demotion, but the same fate as his…”

Only now did Pei Zhiyuan finally understand the essence of these two ministers’ relationship—seemingly diverging paths, yet actually mutual admiration.

Meng Yunxian’s heart ached even more. He gripped his walking stick tightly, remembering those words about “benevolent ruler and upright minister” he had once spoken to Zhang Jing. From that moment, Zhang Jing understood what was in his heart.

If the ruler lacks benevolence, then the New Policies have no hope.

During his fourteen years of demotion, Meng Yunxian had come to understand this: if the sovereign father was not sincere about implementing the New Policies but merely using them to play at power schemes, then the New Policies would fail once and would fail a second time.

Meng Yunxian had long since stopped placing hope in the current sovereign father.

After returning to Yun Jing, most matters he proposed were inconsequential.

“Chongzhi understands me…”

Meng Yunxian covered his face and wept, snow pellets covering his temples. “Chongzhi understands me…”

The various intense colors permeating this imperial palace diminished the snowy atmosphere and cold mist. The sunlight on the eaves withered—unlike a spring scene, it resembled severe winter.

Zhang Jing’s corpse was collected by He Tong and others. Ni Su held that seemingly ever-dispersing ball of light, following behind them, walking with them.

She could not enter the gates of the Zhang residence, so she stood outside for a while with those tear-wiping scholars. Darkness quickly fell completely, yet this snow still had not stopped.

She stood for a long time without moving, snow pellets accumulating on her, freezing her entire body stiff and cold. She did not understand why this human world sometimes became so cold.

So cold that ice formed in the very marrow of one’s bones.

On the road back to South Huai Street, lamplight along the roadside was sparse. She carefully protected that ball of light against her chest, bringing it back to the medical clinic.

Pushing open the door to his room, Ni Su searched out all the incense candles, lighting them one by one until they filled the entire room. Then she sat before the table, earnestly watching that ball of light, hoping it could transform into his appearance.

But it did not.

“Xu Ziling.”

Holding it, she called out several times.

It remained that faint ball of light, suspended in her palm.

In the boundless silence, Ni Su looked toward the writing desk opposite. Upon it rested a paper kite. She stood and walked over, reaching out to pick it up.

This was an oriole.

He had personally carved the bamboo frame, personally added the colors—from structure to form, every aspect was beautiful.

He often sat alone, either quietly reading or making paper kites beneath the corridor eaves, like a handful of clear, cold snow that sunlight could never quite melt.

Ni Su sat before the writing desk by lamplight, but unexpectedly her sash caught on a nearby box. The box was rectangular and long, appearing designed specifically for storing scroll paintings, yet its clasp was not fastened securely.

She set down the paper kite, extracted the sash caught on the clasp, and opened the long box. Inside lay a painting, resting quietly.

Ni Su recognized it as the one from when she and Xu Ziling went boating on Yong’an Lake—the one she had personally commissioned someone to mount.

Ni Su reached out to touch it.

After a long moment, she withdrew it from the box, untied the binding ribbon, and spread it out on the desk.

She remembered every detail of this painting, remembered the expression and appearance he wore that day when, sitting beside her, he used the brush she had thrust into his hands to paint the lake scenery.

The green willows like silk along Yong’an Lake’s shore, the shimmering waves of light upon the lake, a single pleasure boat, birds flying in formation…

But at this moment,

Her gaze fell upon the Xie Chun Pavilion in the painting. The pavilion should have been empty, yet somehow, at some unknown time, a woman’s silhouette had been added.

Wearing robes identical to hers, hair styled in the same coiffure as hers, holding a cup of fruit drink in her hand.

Even the wisps of hair at her temples blown by the wind were rendered so clearly.

Tears clustered and fell from her eyes without warning.

The lamplight here was bright. Ni Su raised her hand, and that floating, pale white light settled once more into her palm.

She recalled today’s execution platform, recalled the words Zhang Jing had spoken, recalled how Xu Ziling had disregarded everything to bend down and shield his teacher’s body.

She suddenly realized,

That falling executioner’s blade had not only taken his teacher’s life—it had also killed him again.