In the early hours, Zhou Junwu had also already woken.

He went up to sit on the city tower facing south of the imperial city, the morning breeze carrying a chill, and beneath the pale gray sky, watched the lights of the city gradually flickering to life below.

Whenever something major was happening, he had a habit of coming here to survey the situation.

It always made him think of Jiangning, too.

Fuzhou had waterways crisscrossing it in a manner similar to Jiangning, gardens and residences scattered along the water, dotted with all sorts of trees — after the passage of time, crowded yet somehow still arranged with a certain order. But overall, the old city of Fuzhou always felt a bit smaller than Jiangning to him; the misty rains of Jiangnan he remembered had a deeper, damper quality, dominated by inky black tones, while Fuzhou favored white-washed walls, its roof tiles a bluish gray — more like Jiangning with the watercolor washed thin, less lush and moist.

Jiangning was just one small, insignificant town within the vast Wu Dynasty, and yet this remote corner of Fuzhou, where he’d taken refuge, was already the largest city under his rule as Emperor. Even so, he couldn’t quite manage to govern it properly.

Standing on the city walls, he often found himself thinking such thoughts.

This particular morning, his thoughts about Jiangning had turned unusually specific.

Looking east from these city walls, in the Princess Imperial’s residence tucked among the trees, his teacher’s child had come here from thousands of li away. It was the kind of thing no one would believe if he said it aloud — as though carrying some strange, hidden significance.

Thinking back on it, as heir to the princely household, and later as heir apparent to the nation, he’d had many teachers over the years. During that stretch of time in Jiangning, his time with the man named Ning Yi hadn’t, in truth, been anything like formal instruction — compared to Grandfather Kang, Grandfather Qin, and all the many proper Confucian scholars who came after, much of what Ning Yi had taught them was miscellaneous knowledge, broadening their horizons, offering all sorts of novel ideas, running little experiments with him and his sister, teaching his sister strange things called “equations,” telling him the earth was round.

If that were all there was to it, it might seem like nothing worth mentioning — and yet somehow he remained the teacher who’d left the deepest impression on him.

But over the course of his life, he had, after all, met many outstanding people — Grandfather Kang, Grandfather Qin, Zong Ze, Yue Fei, and, even as the dynasty crumbled, they had all been heroes, men whose hearts stayed steadfast as iron until death. What Ning Yi had actually taught him back in Jiangning hadn’t amounted to much — life in Jiangning had been leisurely, and he’d been a minor prince destined for a life of mediocrity; when the two of them, bound by the name of teacher and student, happened to meet, Ning Yi, beyond discussing miscellaneous worldly matters, would also talk about seizing the pleasures of the moment, and seeing his enthusiasm for tinkering with things, taught him to make little flying devices like sky lanterns — really, thinking it over honestly, the man probably hadn’t taken him very seriously as any kind of proper disciple at all.

It was only afterward that the matrilocal son-in-law from the cloth merchant’s family had gone north, expanded the Zhu Family workshop, taken over the Secret Investigation Bureau, and when the Jurchens marched south, helped Grandfather Qin hold Bianliang; and later still, cut down his own emperor-uncle with a single blade, personally struck down men like Tong Guan right there in the throne hall, raised an army in rebellion, and afterward fought his way across the empire in a series of battles at Xiaocang River… Perhaps it could only be said that a man always grows up gazing at the retreating back of another man.

In the blink of an eye, more than a decade had passed. He himself had gone from a dull-witted young prince to a dull-witted emperor, trembling as he led a group of comrades — men worthy of being called outstanding — through this corner of refuge, having already staked his very life on it, and yet never quite managing to turn things around. There was so much he wanted to say to his former teacher, and yet he always felt he’d only end up being thoroughly scolded for it.

And he found himself wondering, too — after more than a decade apart, was the teacher he imagined in his mind still truly the same teacher as before? That gentle, unhurried elegance he’d had back in Jiangning — after all he must have gone through these past ten-odd years, might he have become something else entirely?

Of course, the teacher’s second son, whom he’d met the day before, did seem, in temperament, somewhat like himself — the kind of unreliable, dull-witted junior relation. At the time, he’d thought the boy rather crude and unschooled, a disgrace to his teacher’s name, but thinking back on it now, wasn’t he himself much the same? A sense of kinship suddenly warmed within him.

Over these ten-odd years, his teacher had taught so many people — surely they couldn’t all have been exemplary students like Zuo Wenxuan or Zuo Wenhuai. There had to be some third-rate specimens among them too, much like himself and this Ning Ji fellow, and his teacher had probably grown used to that by now. Thinking about it this way, he and that Ning Ji kid turned out to be kindred spirits after all.

He thought about going to the Princess Imperial’s residence, offering the boy a bit of his own experience as a foolish elder, closing the distance between them a little — but there was still a great deal to be done today, so all he could do for now was wait here.

Matters within the city had already been arranged. Around the hour of the tiger, looking out from the palace walls, the city — where before only patrolling guards and night watchmen carrying lanterns had stirred — was gradually coming alive with light. The Military Academy, the newspaper office, and other places had already stirred awake. Jun Wu raised his spyglass and looked out; amid the dimness, there seemed to be hidden figures moving through the city as well, linking up to spread the first wave of the morning’s news.

The decision to have the Beiwei and Zhenhai armies march out to provide relief and take in refugees, in response to the fall of Lin’an, had already been settled internally the day before. Though the formal edict had not yet been publicly issued, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to those opponents closely watching the goings-on within the imperial city — they didn’t need to wait for daybreak to prepare themselves.

Before the anticipated return of the fleet, the situation in Fuzhou was rather like an act of fishing — the fish, hooked through the mouth, could only struggle with everything it had before being reeled in, while the old fisherman could only alternate between reeling the line in and letting it out, wary all the while of the line snapping.

Past the middle of the tiger hour, a commotion arose from the direction of the newspaper office — the first assassination attempt, aimed at Li Pin. Not long after, two more disturbances broke out elsewhere in the city.

At the exact hour of the rabbit, the eastern sky had begun turning the pale color of a fish’s belly. Amid crowing roosters and barking dogs, the students of the Military Academy marched out of the school in formation, drawing crowds of early-rising residents along the road.

Small disturbances kept cropping up around the city, and reports came in to Jun Wu one after another — some drew a wry smile from him, others made him frown. The summer sun rose gradually higher, the morning breeze growing warmer, like a pot of soup slowly coming to a boil.

Past the hour of the rabbit, a eunuch came to report that Li Guang, Hu Quan, Tong Chaomei, and other officials had, one after another, requested an audience — clearly meaning to question him over this round of major moves. Jun Wu sighed, then had them brought in one by one…

On the other side of the city, it was also morning.

In a courtyard, small groups of men were sharpening their blades, all of them eating and drinking as they worked. Huang Shengyuan sat in a chair beneath the eaves, sipping a bit of porridge, his gaze grave as he studied them.

Those who’d come with him to Fuzhou this time were all kinsmen of his own branch.

The Huang family had run smuggling operations in Putian for many years and had become a prominent local clan. Huang Shengyuan wasn’t part of the family’s main line, but he’d managed to rise from a side branch to become the clan’s second-in-command, through sheer ruthlessness, and through knowing how to read the times and bend when necessary. He was a hero of sorts — though leaning far more toward the crafty, opportunistic kind than the truly heroic.

The Huang family had enjoyed wealth and status for generations now, and Huang Bailong, head of the main line, had, like so many of Fujian’s great clans, begun cultivating a taste for refinement, hoping to build a legacy that would last for generations. He cared about appearances; Huang Shengyuan cared about the family’s actual substance. Having spent a lifetime doing the family’s dirty work, Huang Shengyuan had grown rather contemptuous of Huang Bailong’s airs.

What’s more, Huang Shengyuan had ambitions of his own. As the Huang family gradually cleaned up its image, with its younger generation taking up scholarship and charitable works, his own branch was perpetually kept under the main line’s thumb, unable to rise, and even had to take the blame whenever something went wrong. If a side branch wanted to rival the main line, the Huang family would need some kind of extraordinary change.

Of course, now that such a change was actually at hand, Huang Shengyuan found the decision agonizingly difficult too.

As the head of the Huang family’s dirty work, his ties to the Pu and Chen family water bandits ran deeper than Huang Bailong could have imagined — though that didn’t mean Huang Bailong had lost control over the clan’s assets. As a smuggling family with deep roots in Putian, Huang Bailong had his own vast network of connections; Huang Shengyuan, on the other hand, through more than a decade of managing the family’s affairs, had forged closer friendships with some of the more ruthless, cutthroat water bandits.

When the Pu and Chen family bandits had risen in rebellion, Huang Bailong had sat back calmly, cutting ties with certain figures as needed — but Huang Shengyuan hadn’t had that luxury of composure. His ties with the Pu and Chen factions had persisted all along, and he’d even quietly urged Huang Bailong, in private, to prepare for the possibility of rebellion.

But Huang Bailong was more like a spokesman for several of the shadowy figures pulling strings within Fuzhou this time — he wouldn’t take a clear stance unless truly pushed to the brink.

Huang Shengyuan had also once considered marrying his daughter into the palace — if she turned out obedient and well-favored there, rebellion wouldn’t even be necessary, and his branch of the family would no longer need to bow and scrape before the main line. Unfortunately, just as things had begun moving in that direction, while making private contact with Chen Shuangran’s band of desperadoes, his daughter had caught the eye of that grandmaster-level monster, and after being violated, had died.

According to that grandmaster, the daughter had taken her own life.

This was Huang Bailong’s fault, really — from the time she was small, he’d had her enrolled in the clan school to study the Women’s Teachings and Women’s Admonitions and the like. She’d studied well, had become known far and wide as an accomplished young lady from a good family — and then, before she’d even been married off, this had happened to her.

With that, the path into the palace was closed off entirely, and on the other hand, his dealings with the Chen family bandits couldn’t be brought to light either; on top of that, with his daughter dead, he’d also earned the enmity of that vicious “Tiger Shark” Zhan Yunhai. Huang Shengyuan was at his wits’ end.

Afterward, he’d naturally come to suspect that the whole affair might well have been a trap Chen Shuangran had set for him upon learning of his intent to send his daughter into the palace — but with things having gone this far, how many choices did he really have left? Having made his decision, he’d brought his men to Fuzhou, resolved to clean up the mess himself, working tirelessly and quietly on Chen Shuangran’s behalf — canvassing, persuading, coordinating — but in doing so, he’d only sunk himself deeper and deeper into the affair.

From the moment Chen Shuangran’s people had demanded he personally take up arms and stir unrest the day before, Huang Shengyuan had understood that he’d been gradually maneuvered into her grip, step by step — turned from a partner with a stake in the enterprise into a mere pawn expected to charge the front line at her command.

The morning breeze stirred, dawn’s light spilling in over the courtyard wall, when a graying companion came in from outside, bringing a newspaper with him. “That little wretch was right — the Emperor’s sending troops, he’s actually gone through with it.”

“…Where would he even find the resources for that.”

Huang Shengyuan drew a breath, took the paper in hand, and looked it over for a while before setting it down. Some things he’d already sensed in his heart, but reaching an actual decision remained difficult all the same.

“Chen Shuangran’s a madwoman, but the official reports won’t be wrong — the Ministry of Finance’s coffers were empty long ago, and the Emperor’s private funds are all spent too. Sending troops to provide relief, running on nothing but the belt-tightening described in this paper?”

“There’s word privately circulating too — apparently on the first of the month, the Emperor hosted over a dozen households at a banquet, with the Liu family leading the way, planning to spend their entire family fortune supporting the court’s relief efforts for the disaster victims…”

“That’s a load of damn nonsense — I was there on the first myself, if that had really happened, I’d have heard about it…”

“…”

Huang Shengyuan tossed the paper onto the table. The man beside him said nothing further. After a moment like this, Huang Shengyuan stood up.

“…But you’re right about one thing — with the situation as it is, it’s time to be forced to pick a side.”

He waved over a young man standing beneath the eaves nearby and clapped him on the shoulder. “Pack your things immediately, head back to Putian as fast as you can, find your second uncle, and tell him our branch is going up into the mountains. Once things are arranged, go with your second uncle to find Huang Bailong and force him to make a decision. Tell him — we’ve rebelled here in Fuzhou, and we’ll expose every last bit of the Huang family’s dirty dealings if we have to. He has no choice in the matter — the Emperor here needs money, and he won’t spare the Huang family either. Whether he joins us or not, the rest of you are heading up the mountain.”

The young man grinned broadly, then clasped his hands together in a bow. “I’ve been wanting to head up the mountain for ages.”

“Go on, then.”

He patted the young man’s shoulder, and the youth ran off toward the courtyard gate. Huang Shengyuan kicked aside a nearby chair, sending it crashing and shattering against the wall, then stood quietly in the morning sunlight, drawing a long breath.

Around the courtyard, figures exchanged glances, weapons were tossed to companions, and some strapped short blades to their sides.

“Everyone here knows full well the grudge we have with the He family.”

The He family, led by He Yuanchen, had been locked in decades-long strife with the Huang family within Putian’s underworld.

Distant voices drifted in from the street outside the courtyard. Huang Shengyuan’s gaze swept across the group.

“Now — it’s time to kill.”

“…I don’t want to kill people.”

Beneath the morning sun, atop the imperial city walls, Jun Wu ate his breakfast while receiving Li Guang and Hu Quan. The two men looked at the Emperor’s breakfast — just as the edict had described, two steamed buns and a plate of pickled vegetables, remarkably plain fare.

“…But according to the Ministry of Justice’s report, since the early hours, there have been eleven brawls and assassination attempts within the city, large and small, four of them particularly severe, involving more than ten people each in acts of revenge killing… Someone attempted to assassinate Master Li Pin in the early hours but failed; however, in the south of the city, the bandit Tunyun struck at the imperial merchant Mister Puyang, who is now gravely wounded — the imperial physician has already gone to attend to him… In the east of the city, someone also infiltrated the city patrol’s gunpowder depot, which was thankfully discovered in time, though it still caused an explosion — you must have noticed it on your way here…”

Li Guang and Hu Quan listened, sighing inwardly.

“…In truth, we came seeking an audience not over these minor matters happening in the city right now.” Li Guang stepped forward. “Rather, it’s that many of this round’s measures were originally still under discussion in the Cabinet, and Your Majesty proceeded without informing us — this borders on unilateral action, I’m afraid. It risks leaving the various ministers rather disheartened.”

“Oh, disheartened, are you.” Jun Wu took a bite of his bun, sighing as he nodded, then after a moment said, “So then, aren’t these all rather small matters I’ve done? The Military Academy is merely a school — sending its students out to do some work hardly requires the Cabinet’s approval; the Beiwei and Zhenhai armies opening their borders to take in refugees is simply what’s called for in a time of war — that’s disaster relief, hardly some grand matter of military engagement. As for my calling for shared hardship and belt-tightening — hasn’t that been the case ever since we entered Fujian? I’ve done my part; the various ministers ought to cooperate in turn.”

“Your Majesty’s reasoning here is, frankly, rather like covering one’s ears while stealing a bell.” Hu Quan couldn’t help stepping forward as well.

Jun Wu turned his gaze toward Hu Quan. “I could stop covering my ears, if you like.”

The court in Fujian had long been divided into several factions, large and small.

Among them, Cheng Zhouhai, Wenren Buer, and others carried over from Qin Siyuan’s era, along with a number of officials from Jiangning, naturally belonged to the core faction most trusted by Jun Wu and Zhou Pei; meanwhile, a portion of officials and ministers native to Fujian formed what looked, on the surface, like a group with few senior figures, but in truth had deep roots and controlled much of the local grassroots — the local faction. The core faction, toward the local faction, alternated between courting and relying on them, and dividing and suppressing them — this had long been the prevailing dynamic in the middle and lower ranks of the court.

Many of the officials led by Li Guang and Hu Quan were renowned ministers who had followed Jun Wu south, several of whom had already made names for themselves back in the Zhou Zhe era, and quite a few among them represented great clans from across the realm. After Zhou Yong’s death, these men had followed Jun Wu to Fujian, hoping to revive the Wu Dynasty and reclaim their homeland. Many among them were far from mediocre — Li Guang and Hu Quan, for instance, were both capable ministers of outstanding skill and rather radical ideas — but upon arriving in Fujian, they’d found themselves facing an emperor even more radical than they were, to the point where they could barely keep pace. This left the outside faction, the faction of renowned ministers — who should by rights have formed the court’s core — in a genuinely awkward position.

The one truly responsible for all this was, of course, Ning Yi.

Whether it was the so-called New Confucianism he’d pressured Li Pin into developing, or the concept of constitutional monarchy passed along through the Zuo family, both struck everyone as the most heretical, unorthodox ideas imaginable. The group had already debated this extensively before — and it wasn’t really a matter of Confucian faith at its core. At bottom, Li Guang and the others believed constitutional monarchy simply wouldn’t work, because the common people weren’t sufficiently educated and enlightened; the idea of using the strength of the lower classes to push back against the mid- and upper-tier bureaucracy, distributing power to achieve clean governance — however you looked at it, it seemed unworkable given the present circumstances.

And beneath all this lay an even more direct, practical logic.

What the renowned-ministers faction truly sought to preserve, at its core, was the old consensus of the Wu Dynasty as the legitimate Confucian ruling house, the family-state. In their original vision, they’d hoped Jun Wu would rally the realm under the banner of “ruling the world together with the scholar-officials,” and that even in this broken, fractured world, he could ultimately gather the hearts of the righteous and restore the Wu Dynasty. And even after that vision had been shattered by Jun Wu’s own rebellious turn, men like Li Guang and Hu Quan hadn’t entirely given up — even as they argued with Li Pin and others, they continued working within the court, and continued to remonstrate with unwavering candor before Jun Wu himself.

On one hand, though Jun Wu’s thinking had been “corrupted” by Ning Yi into something rebellious, in terms of character and conduct he truly was the most moving, admirable prospect the Wu Dynasty had produced in generations — on the battlefield he led from the front, his heart burning with genuine passion, and in private, his conduct was marked by virtue and frugality; beyond his unconventional ideas, anyone could clearly feel his humility and modesty. A young emperor of this caliber was worth cherishing — especially since he was now the only one left.

On the other hand, the renowned-ministers faction remained firmly convinced that Ning Yi’s path simply wouldn’t work — and if it wouldn’t work, then sooner or later it was bound to fail. Once it failed, Jun Wu would still need to fall back on their methods and walk the traditional path of politics; shifts in the prevailing winds, the rise and fall of individual figures — these were, after all, common occurrences. And so, over the years, even as a number of officials had grown disillusioned with Jun Wu and left, those who remained, like Li Guang, had grown ever more direct and blunt in speaking their minds before him.

Toward the Fujian-native faction, Jun Wu could be honey-tongued yet utterly ruthless — outwardly full of kind words, but merciless when it came to killing, earning himself a rather dark reputation for it. Toward the renowned-ministers faction, however, he’d essentially never come down hard on any of them. Sometimes he was mocked with veiled sarcasm, sometimes scolded to his face, and occasionally, when he couldn’t take it anymore, he’d fly into a rage and shout right back at them — but even then, the harshest thing he ever actually said amounted to little more than “get out, get far away from me, I don’t want to see you again.” At the end of the day, he understood well enough that these men weren’t truly his enemies.

When the news of Lin’an falling again had come in, Jun Wu had immediately summoned his cabinet ministers to discuss it. In truth, distressing as the matter was, for Li Guang and the others it actually amounted to a political advantage. The Wu court’s retreat to the southeast, taking things slow and steady, had, to some degree, let it evade responsibility and obligation toward the realm as a whole — but Lin’an carried real symbolic weight for the Wu Dynasty. With Lin’an fallen, Fujian would need to send troops to reclaim it, and once reclaimed, Jun Wu could rally the entire realm under the banner of the Wu Dynasty’s legitimate rule — at which point the young Emperor’s efforts to push past the scholar-officials and drive his “reverence for the throne, expulsion of the barbarians” agenda would face resistance on an entirely different scale than what he currently dealt with, tucked away in Fujian.

On the other hand, sending troops required money, and with the Ministry of Finance’s coffers already scraped dry, and Fuzhou having little left to squeeze, if troops truly were to be sent, there would be no option left but to borrow against the future to cover the present. He would need the Emperor to make far more concrete political commitments to the realm as a whole, promising various interests to all manner of outside parties. And so, the moment the news arrived, Right Chancellor Li Guang and the others had begun, on one hand, emphasizing the Ministry of Finance’s shortfall, and on the other, working hard to persuade him, offering him a way out — if only the Emperor would relent, come to his senses, and return to Confucian tradition, they could bring in massive “investment” from across the realm.

Who would have thought that the Cabinet’s deliberations had turned out to be nothing but a formality — before any resolution had even been reached, the Emperor had simply bypassed the Cabinet entirely, playing every trump card the Military Academy had to offer on one hand, eating pickled vegetables and tightening his own belt on the other, while quietly mobilizing his two strongest armies under the banner of disaster relief — creating an impression that seemed at once like an all-out push to march out and, at the same time, entirely uncommitted to any such thing. This left the renowned-ministers faction’s carefully prepared momentum striking empty air, and all they could do was curse the Zuo family for monopolizing the court’s public discourse, grumbling that the Emperor still hadn’t learned his lesson.

The two of them faced off for a moment atop the city wall, and Hu Quan spoke, grief-stricken: “The realm has lain in ruin for so long, and now Lin’an suffers yet another catastrophe. Your Majesty bears the hopes of the entire realm — if you falter now, unwilling to march north, it will surely leave the hearts of all under heaven cold with despair…”

“But if I decide to march north right now, I’ll be at the mercy of your demands.”

“We serve Your Majesty with utter sincerity — how could you call it extortion? Your Majesty’s words wound us deeply.”

“‘Ruling the world together with the scholar-officials’ — isn’t that all this amounts to? What’s new about it?”

“Li Pin is new — but are we not new as well, in our own way? When the world reaches its limits, change follows. Over these years, has our own thinking not evolved as well? It’s only that the complex, useful changes in this world tend to happen quietly, without fanfare — to expect a single idea to transform the whole realm overnight is nothing but a child’s fantasy.” Li Guang said. “And even setting that aside — Your Majesty is indeed something new, but in the past, when Your Majesty showed the bearing of a sage ruler, the family-state tradition, so deeply rooted, has always been such that a sage ruler revives it, while a mediocre one lets it decay. Your Majesty…”

“I’m not — I haven’t — don’t put words in my mouth…” Jun Wu waved his hand vigorously. “This debate over principles has gone on long enough. The matter isn’t finished yet, let’s not go over it again — surely my resolve is clear enough to you both by now!”

Li Guang stepped back and sighed.

After a moment, Jun Wu sighed as well.

“It’s not that I don’t want to reclaim Lin’an…”

He said slowly.

“These past years, on many matters, you and I have argued — and I think, by now, we’ve argued it out clearly enough. I don’t hold hatred for the scholar-officials — I simply feel there are too few among them who are genuinely useful, and too many who are selfish. Something needs to change. These ideas have been pushed forward for years now; even if not every man stays iron-hearted until death, there needs to be some result to show for it eventually. The two of you, my teachers, have been doing great work far longer than I have — I learned these very methods from watching you…”

“Before marching out, I need to send the Military Academy’s students down to the ranks. I want to see whether they can actually integrate into the army, whether they can carry my thinking, my convictions, into the troops themselves, so the soldiers understand what they’re fighting for. And if I want them to genuinely believe in it, then at the very least, they mustn’t be fighting for your sake, or for the sake of my Zhou family — they need to be told what family and nation truly mean, they need to understand that we are all equal…”

“Lin’an has fallen — this is a grave matter, countless lives will be lost, the people will suffer terribly, and this is a sin upon my Zhou family. But I cannot agree to rush into some hasty bargain with the profiteers of this world simply to march out sooner. Are you truly doing this for the sake of those suffering people? Or are you merely tending and pitying your own herds of cattle and sheep…”

“So many people in this world have already begun to awaken. I can lose, but I cannot retreat. If, at a moment like this, I waver, indecisive — my teachers, could I still face those I’ve killed across Fujian these past two years? Did I truly kill them out of private gain? Am I truly so ruthless, so cruel and violent… No. If I could, I would have loved to live as a carefree young prince in Jiangning, coasting through life without a care. Even as Emperor, all I’d want is to be remembered for benevolence, to be given the posthumous title of a ‘Benevolent Ancestor.’ But I can’t choose that path — this world demands that I choose the way of the sword, and yet the Wu Dynasty cannot well have a ‘Martial Emperor’… so perhaps I’ll settle for being remembered as harsh instead—”

The sun had climbed higher, the trees along the city walls swaying in the hot wind, unrest stirring below. Jun Wu had finished his steamed bun, his eyes clouded with gloom and grief. Li Guang cupped his hands. “In truth, that the Wu Dynasty has come to this is no fault of Your Majesty’s. These years since you took the throne have been fraught with hardship, and much of it we old men have witnessed with our own eyes. In truth, this old minister also agrees that the scholar-officials ought to be treated better.”

“I’m not trying to complain about my hardships. Everyone who’s followed me here to Fujian these years has suffered — there’s no use dwelling on it. I only ask that the two of you, my teachers, stop pressing me on this any further. As for this business of revering the throne and expelling the barbarians, I understand if you don’t agree with how far we’ve taken it — but if I abandon it halfway now, I fear you’d think even less of me for it…”

“As for Lin’an — I’m not saying we should abandon it, nor am I being timid about it. The Military Academy’s students are going to join the Beiwei Army; if we can establish a solid system for taking in and comforting the refugees, then whatever territory needs reclaiming can, in time, be reclaimed steadily. But a meal must be eaten one bite at a time, a task accomplished one step at a time — only by staying grounded and moving steadily can anything truly be achieved. What do the two of you think?” He knew they favored the gradual approach, and so put it to them this way.

Li Guang and Hu Quan had no choice but to step back. “Ah, our concern got the better of us — this old minister was too hasty.”

“I like standing on this city wall, looking outward, not because I’m surveying the situation, but because this place often reminds me of Jiangning.” Jun Wu gazed out beyond the wall, falling silent for a moment before sighing. “Thinking of Jiangning makes me think of the old Wu Dynasty too — back then, flowers bloomed on brocade, nothing to worry about at all, how fine that was… But the Jurchens wouldn’t let us go on living like that, and ever since that teacher of mine appeared out in the southwest, the world simply couldn’t be governed the way it used to be. I don’t know how the two of you feel about it, but lately, thinking of the Wu Dynasty, I often find myself recalling an old poem — not one of those songs of peace and prosperity. I remember it was when I was a boy, Grandfather Qin Siyuan recited it to me… a poem I didn’t understand at the time, something like ‘the willows I planted long ago, swaying gently south of the Han; now I watch them wither and fall, and grieve beside the riverbank’…”

As he said this, he smiled faintly, and perhaps moved by the verse, Li and Hu both let out quiet sighs as well.

Then Jun Wu turned his head. “There is something, actually, that I’d like the two of you to help with today.”

He pointed down over the palace wall. “As I said, I don’t want to kill people, but given the state of Fujian right now, there are some things I simply can’t avoid. Regarding all this unrest within the city, I need it investigated. Master Cheng Zhouhai wanted to take charge of it, but I refused him — he kills too readily, something’s not quite right in his head, I don’t like it… Thinking it over, a matter of this magnitude probably needs someone like Lord Li presiding over it, to give the realm a fair and balanced account…”

“So, Minister Li, Minister Hu… would the two of you be willing to share this burden with me?”

…

As the hour of the dragon drew to a close, making their way down the stairs along the palace wall, both Li Guang and Hu Quan wore complicated expressions. They then saw Tong Chaomei, a senior official from Fujian, coming up with an air of solemn resolve. The two groups exchanged greetings but said nothing further.

Tong Chaomei, his long beard flowing, strode upward wearing the posture of a man ready to die a martyr’s death.

“His Majesty… is gradually learning how to be an emperor.” Li Guang murmured with a soft sigh, and there seemed to be a note of genuine relief in his voice as well.

Hu Quan laughed too. “Draws a fine picture, hands us a fine pot to hold… but it really is true, there’s something to it now.”

“From His Majesty’s perspective, what he’s doing is the right move. We’re the neutral faction — give us a promise of steady, gradual progress toward reclaiming Lin’an, then send us out to press down the opposition. Both the picture and the pot, divided up quite neatly… and it falls to us to carry it.”

Hu Quan laughed, a touch of irony in it, then after a moment glanced back. “What do you suppose Tong Chaomei will say to His Majesty, Lord Li, and what will His Majesty say to him in turn?”

“Tong Chaomei’s the leading figure of the Fujian faction — given his standing, he’s likely here to remonstrate boldly, though it won’t do much good… His Majesty will probably say something like this to him: my army’s marching to retake Lin’an, but everyone knows there’s no money for it. Give me some money, and I’ll set out sooner. Don’t give me any, and we’ll all just keep going back and forth here, ha ha ha ha…”

“Hahahaha…”

Sunlight fell over them, and both men laughed, then sighed and shook their heads.

“…Lord Li, do you think His Majesty… stands a chance?”

“…As His Majesty himself said — ever since that man came out of the southwest, the great affairs of this realm… honestly, neither you nor I can see clearly where they’re headed anymore…”

“…Let’s just keep going… and keep watching.”

The morning breeze gradually grew warm.

In front of the Princess Imperial’s residence, carriages and horses bustled noisily.

These past several days, Fuzhou had seen one incident after another, and from last night into today, yet another major development had unfolded, so that every day now, nobles and their wives from every faction converged on the Princess’s residence — partly out of genuine concern, partly to gather whatever news they could — and the residence always saw to it that everyone was given a proper breakfast.

Today’s breakfast at the Princess’s residence was notably plain, emphasizing the theme of shared hardship. Around the time the Military Academy students marched out of the city, Zhou Pei, wearing a composed smile touched with a certain sternness, handled the various visitors converging on her. She was, by now, a fairly seasoned political operator, well-practiced at not letting her inner turmoil show through in how she dealt with others — but in truth, this particular morning, there was no small amount of anxiety in her heart.

Breakfast had already come and gone, and the late-rising Zhou Fuyang was still slowly finishing hers out back. Once Zhou Pei had wrapped up her business and was preparing to take the little girl to go find the young thief who’d stolen her lollipop the day before, she learned from Zhao Xiaosong and Yue Yinping that the young thief called Sun Wukong, seeing how lively things had become in the city, had already slipped out of the Princess’s residence after a scuffle with Yue Yun.

“…How could you all just let him leave?” Zhou Pei frowned.

“Ma-, Master Cheng gave him his word — that he’d be free to come and go as he pleased.” Yin Ping answered, then, working the conversation sideways, went on to report on him a bit further to Zhou Pei — how, as he’d left, the boy had also viciously cursed the Wu Dynasty’s court and the Yue family as a bunch of useless bastards.

“I imagine he was just speaking out of anger, without much thought,” Yin Ping added, after finishing her little report.

“He probably had good reason to say that…” Zhou Pei remarked offhandedly.

“…Er?” A muscle twitched at the corner of Yin Ping’s eye.

“…Probably… had his reasons.” Zhou Pei corrected herself, then decided not to press further into what those reasons might be. “In that case, that just leaves the girl from yesterday, dressed up as a boy…”

“Right, Master Cheng says she’s a hostage — with her here, we don’t have to worry about Sun Wukong running off.” Yin Ping said, then lowered her voice. “She’s back in girl’s clothes today. Quite pretty, actually.”

“I’ll go take a look.”

Zhou Pei turned toward the back of the Princess’s residence, passed through several corridors, and entered the courtyard where Ning Ji and the others had been settled. It was already around the hour of the snake, and the morning sun, filtering through the great banyan tree beside the courtyard, spilled golden light across the grounds. A girl in a long skirt sat on a stone stool in the courtyard, her simply pinned-back hair adorned with a small flower, yellow and white; she held a small bundle of them in her hand as well, eyes closed, seemingly lost in thought, the golden sunlight falling across her hair and face.

Little fox-charmer… Zhou Pei murmured silently to herself, looking at the flower tucked at the girl’s temple — a woman who knew how to make herself appear this pure and innocent was, more often than not, deeply calculating underneath.

But when she waved off her attendants and quietly approached, she found that the girl, eyes closed, flower in hand, was in fact murmuring softly what sounded like the cadence of a sutra recited in prayer for someone’s blessing — which set her mind at ease, and she let go of her earlier suspicion.

Zhou Pei had no way of knowing that Ning Ji, thinking of Zuo Xingzhou’s death that morning, had been in a thoroughly foul mood, brawling and cursing with Yue Yun for a full hour straight, with Qu Longjun doing her best to comfort him the whole while. When Ning Ji saw the city’s unrest flaring up and, on his way out, plucked a few yellow flowers to hand to Qu Longjun, she’d tucked them into her hair at the temple.

Yue Yun had run off too. He and Ning Ji had fought to a draw, trading blows evenly, but after enduring a barrage of secondhand embarrassment while watching Qu Longjun try to console Ning Ji, he’d stormed off as well, muttering curses about how “shameless dogs like that deserve to die.”

The soft rustle of footsteps roused the girl from her sutra recitation. She stood, and seeing it was Zhou Pei, lowered her head and offered a deep bow.

“This humble subject, Qu Longjun, greets Her Highness the Princess.”

“No need for ceremony.” Zhou Pei smiled, then added, “Mm. Your name is Qu Longjun, not Long Aotian.”

Beneath the great banyan tree, Zhou Pei walked into the dappled shade and sat down on a long stone bench, gesturing for Qu Longjun to sit beside her. “Master Cheng tells me you’re actually the daughter of General Qu Rui.” Qu Longjun answered honestly, and under Zhou Pei’s questioning, told her, bit by bit, how she’d come to know Ning Ji, and everything that had happened since that fateful moment of first seeing the peach blossoms…

At this very moment, the chaos within the city was steadily building toward its peak…