“Father, then we’re letting that bitch off too easily!”
Hearing his father had returned, Young Master Gao, who had been bedridden, immediately scrambled up and rushed over shouting.
“Why didn’t you kill her on the spot!”
What answered him was a sharp smack.
Young Master Gao staggered back clutching his face, staring at Gao Lingjun in terror and grievance.
Gao Lingjun reached out, yanked him back, and his bloodshot eyes bored into him.
“What exactly did you say to Prince Ping!” he roared. “Exactly what did you tell him?”
“Father, I said exactly what you told me to say – that His Highness should confess his crime to His Majesty, just confess to His Majesty,” Young Master Gao shouted.
“Then why did he end up struck dead? Why did he end up struck dead?” Gao Lingjun bellowed. As he shouted, muddy tears spilled from his eyes.
How did he die… how did he just die…
“Father,” Young Master Gao cried, looking as though he were about to weep as well. “His Highness was confessing. To show his sincerity, he only knelt outside the hall…”
Gao Lingjun raised his hand and slapped him again.
“You call that sincerity?” he shouted in fury. “Everyone else avoided that topic, yet he had to shout it out in public! That was slapping His Majesty in the face – that’s coercion! That’s treason! That’s disloyal and unfilial!”
Though he didn’t believe in gods or spirits, after hearing what had happened – especially the words Prince Ping had spoken – he couldn’t help but believe it was divine punishment.
To do something like that and say something like that… it truly deserved a lightning strike from the heavens!
Young Master Gao cried out in grievance.
“Father, I wasn’t the one who told him to go! It wasn’t my doing!” he protested. “His Highness insisted on going despite all dissuasion. We couldn’t stop him – no one could!”
Yes, no one could stop him.
As the saying goes: If the King of Hell orders you to die at midnight, no one can keep you alive until dawn.
“Heaven’s calculations cannot surpass man’s, and man’s cannot surpass Heaven’s,” Gao Lingjun murmured, pushing Young Master Gao aside in despair. It was as if all strength had been drained from him; he collapsed onto the floor.
The retainers all rushed forward to support him, but compared with usual, their faces also carried clear unease.
Prince Ping was dead…
Prince Ping was dead…
What were they to do?
“What to do? Even without Prince Ping, we still have the Empress Dowager.”
Leaning against the armrest, Gao Lingjun – who had already wiped away his tears -spoke in a hoarse voice.
The Emperor was gravely ill now, and the Empress Dowager was acting as regent.
“Our Gao family is still the foremost imperial in-law!”
The retainers exchanged glances.
“But, my lord… the Empress Dowager’s regency is not something that can last forever,” one of them said.
If the Emperor failed to wake, the Empress Dowager could govern for ten days, half a month, perhaps even half a year. But the ministers would never allow her to govern indefinitely. Furthermore, given her age, she simply could not continue to rule long-term.
If one were to speak of someone suitable to take up the regency, that would be the Empress.
The Empress!
“My lord, the Song family has already entered the capital overnight,” one of the retainers said quietly.
The Empress’s natal family, the Song clan of Laiyang, had always been like the Empress herself – so invisible within the deep palace that the world often forgot there even was a Laiyang Song family that had produced an empress.
Good. Good. Good.
Gao Lingjun ground his teeth.
Hearing this, Young Master Gao, who had been sitting to the side, couldn’t help but interject.
“Father, the Song family still can’t compare with us. Besides, with the Empress Dowager acting as regent, you can’t just replace the Empress so easily,” he said anxiously. “Father, what’s urgent now is that wretched Cheng girl. The day after tomorrow she’s going to draw lightning – if she succeeds, are we just going to let this matter end like that?”
Gao Lingjun turned his head toward him with a vicious glare, making Young Master Gao shrink back at once.
“You think this matter isn’t already settled?” he said through clenched teeth. “From the moment the Empress Dowager asked that question – ‘are you able’ – it was already settled!”
How was it settled?
Young Master Gao stared blankly.
“What if she fails to draw lightning?” he blurted out. As soon as the words left his mouth, he shuddered and instinctively shielded his head.
A teacup came flying and smashed against him with force.
“If she can’t draw it down, then it has even less to do with her!”
…
“Even if she does draw the lightning, does it have anything to do with her?”
In Golden Water Park, beneath one of the best-positioned pavilions, two officials were speaking as they watched the busy activity on the wide riding and archery field.
All around the field, layers upon layers of awnings had been set up, crowded with people. Many government personnel were maintaining order.
“Look at all those people bustling about, look at all those strange things…” one of the officials continued, his gaze sweeping across the grounds as he recited softly, “Paper kites… iron rods…”
At this, he withdrew his gaze.
“They need to set up all this just to draw lightning – how can anyone still claim she was secretly harming someone behind the scenes? What happened to Prince Ping happened in the palace. Could anyone possibly have done all this openly inside the palace?”
The other official nodded, watching the scene with great interest.
“Did you place a bet?” he asked with a laugh.
“Who would bet? It’s completely one-sided – they can’t even keep the betting stalls open,” the first official chuckled.
At that, the two looked around again at the bustling crowds.
“What kind of situation is this? It’s livelier than New Year’s,” he said, shaking his head.
“Well, it’s better than having the whole city gossiping that Prince Ping being struck by lightning was a heinous crime,” the other remarked.
“The Empress Dowager is grabbing at any cure she can find,” the first sighed.
The other official smiled slightly.
“Even so, at least there’s a doctor willing to take the case,” he said.
As they were talking, a commotion rose from the field. They turned quickly to look and saw that Cheng Jiao-niang had arrived.
“Say what you will – just watching someone summon wind, call rain, and draw lightning is spectacle enough,” they laughed, lifting their heads to look at the sky.
The scorching sun from the morning was gone, but the sky was overcast. There wasn’t the slightest breeze – hot, heavy, and stifling – and with the crowd packed together, the air felt even more oppressive.
Ban Qin fanned Cheng Jiao-niang rapidly with the fan in her hand while glancing up at the sky.
“Miss let me do it,” the maid said anxiously at her side.
Since yesterday, the girl had run over from the Zhang household, and this was a sentence she had repeated nonstop from morning to night.
“Miss, I… I’ve done this before, after all,” she whispered, unable to hold it in.
This made Zhou Fu, standing nearby, turn his head to look at her.
This maid…
She was the one back then, wasn’t she?
“You’ve drawn lightning before; I haven’t. So this time we switch – I’ll draw the lightning, and you wait. Do you dare?” Cheng Jiao-niang asked.
The maid nodded rapidly.
“I dare, I dare,” she said.
“Miss, I dare too,” the other maid and Ban Qin said anxiously.
Cheng Jiao-niang looked at them and smiled faintly.
“Good. Then go stand around the straw figure, and when the time comes, listen to my instructions,” she said. She paused, then added, “You must listen – don’t take a single wrong step, don’t be even a moment late, or you truly might die.”
The three girls nodded and, without a trace of hesitation, ran toward the center of the broad riding field.
There, a straw figure had already been set up.
Watching the three maids run off, the surrounding crowd grew even more excited.
“Is it starting?”
“Is it about to start?”
“Start what? Forget lightning – there isn’t even any wind.”
Cheng Jiao-niang paid no attention to the noise around her. She picked up one of the kites laid out nearby.
It was a butterfly-shaped kite, beautifully painted.
“I haven’t flown a kite in a long time,” she murmured, almost to herself. After a slight pause, she lifted her head and looked at the people in front of her. “Who wants to play together?”
The remaining people were the household maids, and upon hearing this, they all rushed to raise their hands.
“I do!”
Three or four maids called out noisily, but a single hand reached past them and took the kite.
Seeing that it was Zhou Fu, the maids quickly fell silent and stepped back with their hands lowered.
Cheng Jiao-niang didn’t say anything. Instead, she picked up the copper bells and wire beside her and began attaching them to the kite. After finishing, she slowly picked up the spool of string and lifted her head to look at the sky.
As she looked upward, all the gazes gathered on her followed in the same direction.
“All right,” Cheng Jiao-niang said, lowering her gaze again. She gave Zhou Fu a slight smile – then turned and started to run.
With her first strides, a fierce wind suddenly rose, roaring across the entire field.
“She looked once and summoned the wind!”
One of the two officials standing beneath the outermost pavilion couldn’t help exclaiming along with the crowd. He squinted his eyes, pressing down his wind-blown robe with a hand.
“The wind is innocent in all this,” the other official said with a laugh.
He had been watching closely from the start; the leaves had already begun to tremble before the young lady started running. It was just that everyone’s attention had been fixed on her.
The string slipped swiftly through her hand. Cheng Jiao-niang turned to look and saw him holding the kite high in the air.
“…I told you the wind was coming…”
“…Ah-Fang, you’re teasing me again…”
Giggles scattered on the wind.
“…Ah-Shan, you can let go now…”
Rumbles of thunder rolled through the air. The wind was so strong it stung the eyes, and the mat shelter nearly lifted from the ground.
The kite was flying higher and higher. Zhou Fu couldn’t help glancing over. The young lady was still jogging lightly, looking up at the sky, then at him, her face lit with a radiant smile.
That smile…
He had never seen her smile like that before.
No, that wasn’t right – he had seen such smiles every spring outing, when his sisters flew kites and laughed just like this.
It was simply that he had never seen her smile that way.
Zhou Fu instinctively took a step forward. Thunder cracked overhead, and raindrops as large as soybeans began to fall.
The field filled with the sounds of wind, rain, and the roaring, bustling noise of the crowd.
“It’s actually raining! It’s actually raining!”
A young servant under the mat shelter shouted frenziedly, pointing outside. The rain pelted the shelter like crackling beans, echoing loudly in a chaotic din. Amid the noise and commotion around them, the servant had to raise his voice to be heard.
“Look, Young Master, look!”
Qin Hu had been gazing outside the entire time – why would he need prompting?
“Of course it would rain,” he said. “She never lies.”
The servant turned to look at him.
“Ah, Young Master, if you already knew, then why did you come to watch?” he asked.
Because I wanted to see. I wanted to see just how difficult it has been for her.
Qin Hu gazed outside. On the vast, open ground, the girl was the only one still running. She clutched the spool, letting out the string, her clothes already soaked. In the violent storm, she swayed like a frail willow, as though she could be snapped at any moment.
She ran, she strode, she tugged at the line, and she looked up at the sky. The rain blurred Qin Hu’s vision.
Was she like this back then too?
In the lonely temple, with the sinister, leering bandits lurking in the shadows, on that wild, stormy night.
Just like this, alone, she pleaded with heaven for a chance to live.
Yet the world saw none of this. What they saw was only her fearsomeness, without considering that such terror was her defense against an even more terrifying reality.
And wasn’t he just the same? How could he have said those things back then? How terrible people can be – and how terrible he himself had been.
Qin Hu raised his head. With a crack, a bolt of lightning split the dark sky, and screams erupted around him.
His heart nearly stopped.
No, this won’t do. It’s too dangerous, far too dangerous.
The girl was still running. The kite had long vanished from sight, yet she kept on.
Qin Hu pushed past the stunned soldiers blocking his way and rushed forward.
“Stop! Stop! Don’t run anymore!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
Cheng Jiao-niang seemed to have heard him. She glanced back but only quickened her pace, running straight toward the straw figure at the center. With all her might, she hurled the iron kite spool at it.
The three maids around the straw figure were already soaked through, trembling and swaying in the wind and rain.
“Get down!”
Following the girl’s shout, all three Ban Qin threw themselves to the ground.
A flash of white light erupted in the field, accompanied by a deafening blast. Under the mat shelters, people screamed and fell to the ground in waves.
Flames surged up from the center.
The standing straw figure burst into fierce fire even amidst the pouring rain.
The noise and clamor died instantly. Apart from the sound of rain, wind, and distant rumbles of thunder, the scene fell into complete silence. Every gaze was fixed on the burning, fallen straw figure in the field.
Mother of mercy…
The two officials helped each other up, somewhat disheveled, and stared at the scene, murmuring in awe.
Even though they had anticipated it, witnessing it with their own eyes brought a shock that was truly beyond words.
…
“…At that moment, there were four people in the field, but the lightning struck only the straw figure… Just like that day in front of the hall… It only struck His Highness, while the attendants nearby were unharmed…”
Under the eaves, a servant gestured animatedly, his words flying with excitement.
Chen Shao withdrew his gaze from the sky and looked at the banana leaves being washed by the drizzling rain.
“…The storyteller said – that storyteller, the one Lady Cheng invited to explain things to the crowd – said that even though everyone was in the field, when the lightning came down, those three maids and Lady Cheng had all crouched low. The straw figure was the highest, and lightning strikes the highest point, so only the straw figure was hit…”
“The storyteller told everyone that during thunderstorms, you should never linger in open areas. If you’re caught outdoors with no choice, and lightning strikes, you must crouch low or squat with your head covered. Never raise your hands or hide under tall trees…”
The servant grew more and more animated as he spoke, but Chen Shao cut him off.
“…All right, you may go now,” he said.
The servant, interrupted, was quite puzzled.
“Later, after everyone saw and heard what happened, they all said that lightning can truly be drawn down, and that Prince Ping’s incident really was an accident,” he hurriedly added.
Surely the master would be interested in this news.
Yet Chen Shao simply shook his head.
“Go on now,” he said.
The servant, still somewhat confused, had no choice but to withdraw.
Hadn’t everyone come to witness the lightning-drawing precisely for Prince Ping’s sake? To show that Prince Ping wasn’t struck because of some unforgivable evil?
Why did it seem as though the master didn’t care at all?
…
“Care? Aside from those in the palace…”
At the Golden Water Park, the burning straw figure had already been extinguished by the rain, leaving behind a charred stump in the field. Yet the surrounding crowd still hadn’t dispersed, buzzing with discussion.
Two officials squeezed their way through the crowd, one of them gesturing toward the direction of the palace as he spoke.
“…Only those inside the palace care. Who else would?”
He continued, glancing back at the lively scene.
“Look, the officials who came here are all inconsequential, minor figures like you and me. None of the influential court ministers showed up.”
“How Prince Ping died no longer matters. What they need to know and what they care about is simply that His Highness Prince Ping is dead.”
“What’s more, this whole affair doesn’t prove anything either – except how difficult it is to summon lightning, and that Lady Cheng isn’t capable of killing someone from a distance.”
These words made the other official disagree. He stopped walking.
“But doesn’t this prove that Prince Ping’s death wasn’t due to unforgivable evil, but was instead a tragic accident?” he asked.
The first official smiled, with a hint of deeper meaning.
“Then can you prove why this tragic accident happened to Prince Ping, and not to someone else?”
The second official was taken aback, frowning.
“Because Prince Ping was the tallest at the time,” he said.
“Then can you prove why Prince Ping was the tallest?” the first official pressed on.
“Because… because he was confessing his crime at the time,” the other replied.
“Because it was him, that’s why it was him,” the first official said with a smile. “The event itself may have been an accident, but the person the accident befell was specifically him – and not anyone else. So, it’s still him.”
Not him, yet it was him?
What kind of riddle is this? What Zen paradox is he posing?
The second official frowned.
“…So it turns out lightning really can be drawn down…”
“…Prince Ping truly was unlucky, running into such an accident…”
“…Ah, accidents happen – others didn’t encounter it, but he did. It seems it was meant to be…”
“…Exactly, exactly. I was in an open space that day too, and I was even standing and running… Why wasn’t I struck? It was just meant for him, he was meant to be struck…”
As the voices of the crowd surged around him, Young Master Gao spun around, enraged, and raised his hand.
“Beat them–” he shouted, ready to erupt in fury.
The servants around him quickly clung to his arms and wrapped around his waist, holding him back desperately.
“Young Master, you mustn’t!”
“Young Master, the master has also forbidden you from stirring up trouble!”
“Young Master, you can’t cause a scene now!”
They all chattered urgently, clinging to him and pleading with all their might.
Though Young Master Gao had always been violent and tyrannical, this time, no one was afraid of him anymore.
After the incident at Desheng Pavilion over the courtesan dispute, Master Gao, upon returning, had already dealt with all those who had followed the young master that day.
The chicken had been killed as a warning – now it was up to these monkeys to remember the lesson.
“Damnit!” Young Master Gao ground his teeth, his eyes wide with fury. “This whole mess did nothing except clear that girl’s name and give her fresh prestige! Prince Ping gained nothing good from it at all! What the hell was the point of letting her summon lightning in the first place?!”
Still fuming, he kicked over a low table inside the mat shelter.
Suddenly, one of the servants had a flash of insight.
“Young Master,” he said urgently, “Summoning the lightning proved that Prince Ping’s death was an accident. That actually aligns with the celestial signs: the appearance of Taibai, the meeting with the lunar eclipse – the Crown Prince is in danger, and His Highness truly did encounter peril. This shows that Prince Ping really was the rightful Crown Prince!”
Young Master Gao stared at the servant for a moment, then swung his arm in a wide arc and slapped him hard.
“Who the hell wants to prove that?!”
“Even if he wasn’t destined to be Crown Prince, as long as he was alive, we could have made him the Crown Prince – we could have put him on the throne!”
