Qian Jiaoniang easily recalled the conversation she had overheard in the tent. Her instinct told her the two matters were connected. If what they were scheming touched upon peril for the court itself, then the stakes were unimaginably high. It seemed that what they sought from afar was none other than the treasure behind Zhao Yaoqian. Likely they were plotting something momentous.
Leaning against the white jade balustrade, Qian Jiaoniang half-closed her starry eyes, lost in thought.
Xing Muzheng came up behind her, kissed her shoulder, and laid his strong arm along hers. “What are you thinking of?” he asked.
She turned her head. “Have you investigated the Zhao family?”
Burying his face against her neck, Xing Muzheng replied, “I have. Lord Zhao and his close followers all perished in that battle to defend the city. Zhao Yaoqian’s mother died when she was six. Her mother’s family were commoners, and after her mother’s death they broke off all ties.”
“No letters or anything of the sort?”
“I had all the letters and drawings in Zhao Yaoqian’s rooms examined. Nothing useful turned up.”
Qian Jiaoniang slanted him a look. “When did you examine them?”
“Ah Da brought them out for Master Lu and the others to see.”
“Master Lu?”—why, was this not the very man who taught Chou’er the arts of mechanisms? So he too was involved?
“Mhm. Master Lu is utterly absorbed in the craft of mechanisms. Where under heaven has more intricate mechanisms than the imperial tombs? He is even more intent than I.”
Qian Jiaoniang pressed her lips together. “So Master Lu knows what you are planning?”
“Craftsmen like him care nothing for the affairs of the world. He thinks only of finding the imperial mausoleum.”
“…You truly mean to have that treasure no matter what?”
Xing Muzheng spoke frankly: “With that treasure, everything becomes far easier.”
“So that is why the gentlemen all urge you to take Miss Zhao as a concubine?”
Knowing there was no concealing it, Xing Muzheng gave a grunt of assent.
“Doesn’t that put you in a bind?”
He scooped her out of the pool. “What bind? If no clues are found and she insists on taking the veil, then at worst we abandon the treasure. It only means walking a longer road.” He dried her body and drew a light robe over her shoulders.
“Truly?”
“Truly.” He paused, then said with some caution, “But if we could obtain it, all the better. Couldn’t I simply… take her by force?”
Qian Jiaoniang was so furious she nearly choked. “Xing Muzheng, you’re nothing but a soldier-ruffian!” It truly drove her mad!
Just as husband and wife were quarreling sharply over this, the urgent voice of Hongjuan came from outside the screen: “My lord, my lady—there is grave news at the gate!”
Qian Jiaoniang never allowed the maids to approach while she and her husband were in the hot spring pool, for fear they might overhear what they should not. Hongjuan was the most proper of them all; for her to come rushing like this could only mean something momentous.
The two of them dressed and stepped out—and indeed, the news was momentous.
Emperor Taikang had passed away.
This was outside Xing Muzheng’s expectations—and outside everyone’s. Emperor Taikang had died suddenly in the night, gone in utter silence. The purple sandalwood box of elixirs by his side was found empty. It seemed he had swallowed the “immortal pill” he had refined and gone off to ascend.
The news struck without warning.
Though Xing Muzheng bore no great loyalty to Taikang, neither would he ever have betrayed him. Taikang had been his patron: in peril he had entrusted Xing with heavy command, and after victory he had rewarded him with a city to govern. He had even concerned himself with Xing’s household affairs—though his meddling was ill-judged, it had been well-meant.
Facing toward Yongan City, Xing Muzheng bowed three times.
The emperor gone, national mourning of thirty-six days was declared: no examinations, no marriages. Yet the state cannot go a single day without a ruler. Before the mourning began, the new sovereign ascended the throne—the Third Prince, Wu Song.
The heavens had changed. Peaceful days were unlikely to last.
By the new year, though the mourning period was over, the new emperor, in grief, proclaimed that the holiday must not be spent in excess revelry. Thus the new year was passed in unusual quiet. Not long after came Xing Muzheng’s birthday.
Xing himself cared little for birthdays, with or without celebration. But Qian Jiaoniang, who now cherished him deeply, could not bear not to give him the best of everything. Such a day had to be marked. For fear of gossip, she held the banquet only within the Marquis’s residence, inviting only the notables of Yunzhou. The spring-blue birthday robe of indigo brocade Xing Muzheng wore that day she had stitched herself, every stitch her own hand. She had also procured from Master Liu Zihao a painting of “Rivers Clear, Seas Calm,” which pleased Xing Muzheng greatly.
Her embroidery had grown ever more refined; combined with Xing Muzheng’s tall, commanding figure, the robe she had worked so carefully was truly stunning. When he walked, he seemed to carry the wind itself. Normally indifferent to clothes, today when others praised his attire, though his face remained calm, it was plain he was pleased—especially when he said words that made all think: “My virtuous wife now grows lazy with her needle; only I can coax a robe or two from her.”
