Although Second Young Master Xie was extremely annoyed and said many sarcastic things when he saw Xie Xuanying in the study the next day, Xie Xuanying was completely unmoved and even felt that his second brother was being a bit excessive.
The Great Xia valued etiquette and law. His second brother was the legitimate eldest son, and his title was a sure thing. Even if he died, it would most likely be inherited by his son. At present, his second sister-in-law was already pregnant, so the position of Marquis of Jinghai would sooner or later belong to the second branch.
Since I am not competing with you for the family property, why should you interfere even with my striving for a future?
Without an official post and without prospects, when Dan-niang entered the household in the future, how was he supposed to support the family?
His disapproving attitude further provoked Second Young Master Xie.
“San-lang is truly capable,” Xie Er said lightly. “I wish you success in suppressing the rebellion, a triumphant return, and enfeoffment as a marquis and appointment as a prime minister.”
Xie Xuanying glanced at him and said nothing.
Marquis of Jinghai said, “Er-lang, say a little less. War is no child’s play. Swords and blades have no eyes, so you must be extra careful.” Then he admonished the third son, “San-lang, you were too rash this time. If anything goes wrong, how could your mother bear it?”
Xie Xuanying lowered his head and said, “As a subject, if I cannot share the sovereign’s worries, I fear I would fail to repay his profound grace.”
Marquis of Jinghai sighed and instructed, “The matter has come to this. You must be extra careful. In all things, do not act on your own judgment. You should follow Commander Jiang’s lead in all matters. Do not be arrogant or conceited. Understand?”
“I understand.”
After being earnestly instructed by his father for quite a while and subtly admonished twice more, Xie Xuanying finally obtained what he wanted – one of his father’s retainers as his deputy and a hundred private soldiers as his guards.
And then there was nothing more.
Marquis of Jinghai had privately raised soldiers of his own, but the number was not large, roughly a little over a thousand. Marquis of Jinghai had given some to his eldest son and quite a few to his second son. When it came to the third son, it definitely could not be more than what the two elder brothers had received, lest he harbor improper ambitions.
These one hundred private soldiers were the most the father could allocate to his legitimate second son, and even that was out of consideration for the fact that he was going on a campaign.
But with only these one hundred men, who might not even be willing to submit to him, what could he accomplish in battle?
The next day, Xie Xuanying went into the palace.
“I would like to borrow a few people from Your Majesty for use,” he said.
The emperor drew a breath. “How many did your father give you?”
Xie Xuanying answered with complete honesty, “A hundred guards and one scribe.”
The emperor shook his head vigorously. It was only natural to value the legitimate eldest son. That the mediocrely talented Second Young Master Xie would inherit the title was not a bad thing for an emperor. But the prerequisite for reclaiming military power was that he had a son.
As long as he did not have a grown biological son, he would have to support the Xie family to ensure that, if anything happened to him, the Xie family could look after Rong’an.
“If your father will not give them to you, I will,” the emperor said, patting him on the shoulder. “Two thousand imperial troops; you may choose your own subordinates. As for the army supervisor, let Liang Hua go with you.”
Liang Hua was a Brush Supervisor in the Directorate of Ceremonial and concurrently Seal Supervisor of the Imperial Horse Administration. He was often sent by the emperor on external assignments to serve as an army supervisor.
Xie Xuanying knelt and thanked him. “Thank you, Your Majesty.” Then he raised his head and looked at the emperor with some hesitation, his expression slightly unnatural. “There is one more matter…”
He rarely asked the emperor for anything, and even more rarely hemmed and hawed.
The emperor found it curious. “What, there’s more?” He could not help joking, “Surely you are not asking me for a sword of supreme authority?”
Xie Xuanying shook his head and said, “I have thought carefully for several days. The bandit leader’s technique for bewitching the people is probably a rare kind of trickery. However, after asking around for several days, everyone says they have never seen such a sleight of hand.”
The emperor deliberately said, “I do not know either.”
“I would like to ask Your Majesty for a favor – to ask the people around you.” He looked very troubled. “This matter is against the rules, but if the witch’s scheme can be broken, it may have an unexpectedly great effect.”
The emperor was equally concerned about the so-called divine arts and asked, “Whom do you want to question?”
“My teacher’s daughter. She seems to have studied illusion techniques.” Xie Xuanying said stiffly, “Please grant your grace and permit me to question her.”
The emperor had a good memory. Although Cheng Danruo was only a minor female official, he still remembered her family background. He could not help saying, “There is such a thing? Then summon her.”
And so, Cheng Danruo had an audience with the emperor for the third time.
After hearing the whole story, she looked at Xie Xuanying with considerable speechlessness. The eunuch had said the emperor had something to ask her, and she had assumed it was a question about medicine. She had never expected it to be about magic tricks.
He looked straight ahead, staring at the floor tiles beneath his feet, and asked her, “Do you know?”
“Sitting suspended in the air on a lotus platform, and a staff producing white snow,” Cheng Danruo said thoughtfully. “That is actually not very difficult.”
Xie Xuanying could not help being surprised.
He had said he wanted to ask about illusion techniques, but in reality, he had only wanted to see her once before going off to war. He had not expected that she actually knew how to break the trick.
“Truly?”
“It is only a tentative guess,” Cheng Danruo said. “Bodies of those who died from plague should be cremated. Since Eternal Venerable Mother understands medical principles, she might choose cremation. In that case, as long as the staff is soaked in salt water in advance, when the water vapor evaporates at high temperature, salt crystals will precipitate out. If there is no fire, then perhaps an alkali was used – people living by salt lakes often make use of this principle: in summer they sun-dry salt, and in winter they scoop out alkali.”
The emperor listened and found it quite reasonable, nodding slightly.
Xie Xuanying immediately asked, “And the levitation?”
“It has to do with the lotus platform and the staff,” Cheng Danruo said, trying to describe it, but unable to make it clear. She simply said, “Please, Your Majesty, lend me the use of the Imperial Household Directorate.”
The emperor immediately said, “Approved.”
Xie Xuanying thought of another detail and opened the memorial. “When Eternal Venerable Mother distributed talisman water to the believers, she often displayed divine power. The tea that had received Buddhist power would change color dramatically, becoming very different from before.”
Cheng Danruo asked, “What color changed to what color?”
“From blue to red.” The Embroidered Uniform Guard was a first-rate secret police organ, no less rigorous than the Eastern Depot. “If the believer’s heart was not sincere, the talisman water would turn back to blue. The Wusheng Cult often used this to test the believers’ piety.”
She: “…” This Eternal Venerable Mother should have been a Taoist nun.
Look at her skill in chemistry.
“If it is blue, butterfly pea tea can do it,” she said. “Add vinegar and it turns red; add alkali and it turns blue.”
When Eunuch Shi heard this, he immediately ordered the relevant items to be brought and personally brewed the tea.
Butterfly pea flower tea was not common, but the imperial palace gathered the finest things from all under heaven, and even the most obscure items were kept in reserve. After some effort, blue flower tea was obtained from the Imperial Tea Room, and Eunuch Shi personally brewed a pot of blue tea.
Then, white vinegar was dripped in.
A simple acid-base change occurred.
The emperor could not help laughing, and the gloom in his heart instantly dissipated by more than half. Since the change in the talisman water was a trick, then the levitation technique was obviously not some immortal art either, but also a sleight of hand.
The Eternal Venerable Mother was not a chosen person.
She was nothing but an ordinary mortal, so what was there to worry about?
Heaven’s mandate lay with Xia!
“Palace Apothecary Cheng is indeed well versed in pharmacology,” the emperor said delightedly. “I will wait to see you break the levitation trick. Chief Attendant, send someone to the Imperial Household Directorate and have them properly assist Palace Apothecary Cheng. I want to see results tomorrow.”
Eunuch Shi bowed. “Yes.”
The Imperial Household Directorate was a construction department that served the emperor exclusively, responsible for making furniture and procuring curios for the emperor.
When the emperor wanted backgammon or bone tiles made, or when makeup cases were to be prepared for the empresses and consorts, these tasks were handed over to them.
In other words, there were many carpenters.
Eunuch Shi instructed his adopted son to take her to the Imperial Household Directorate. As one might expect, a workshop of that sort could not be located inside the palace itself, but rather in the Imperial City, beside Taiye Pool.
It was a rare opportunity. Xie Xuanying pretended to be interested in this and followed along very naturally.
The emperor did not think much of it and even believed he understood his eagerness: this was his first assignment, and wanting to do it perfectly was only human nature. Especially since his own biological father was not optimistic about him, straining every nerve to do it beautifully was also the kind of thought proper to a young man.
Therefore, apart from the meticulous Eunuch Shi, who found it slightly strange, no one else noticed anything unusual.
And so Cheng Danruo left the palace gates and arrived at the Imperial Household Directorate.
The seal supervisor greeted them eagerly, calling him “brother” again and again, and hurriedly called for tea to be served.
“What wind has blown Young Master Xie and Brother here?” The Seal Supervisor was nearly forty and addressed Eunuch Shi’s adopted son, who was around thirty, both affectionately and respectfully. “Has His Majesty given some instruction?”
Eunuch Shi’s adopted son waved his hand. “I am just running errands. Today, you are to follow Aunt Cheng’s instructions. Whatever she tells you to do, you do it. His Majesty is waiting.”
The Seal Supervisor was of the fourth rank.
The Palace Apothecary was of the seventh rank.
But inside the palace, who cared about rank?
“Have a seat, Auntie.” The director eunuch clasped his hands in his sleeves and said with a smile, “I have long heard of your great name. What can we do for His Majesty?”
Cheng Danruo declined the tea and said, “I need a skilled carpenter to make something for me.”
“What difficulty is there in that? Do you have any requirements for the materials?” The director eunuch was extremely accommodating. “We still have quite a lot of ivory, rosewood, white sandalwood, red sandalwood, and ebony in the storeroom.”
Cheng Danruo closed her eyes and said as calmly as she could, “Ordinary wood will do.”
However, the emperor’s needs, no matter how ordinary, could not be all that ordinary.
Cheng Danruo was assigned a father-and-son team of carpenters, as well as rosewood that could sell for more than a hundred taels of silver on the market.
She quickly drew a rough sketch, asked whether they could understand it, and whether it could be finished before tomorrow.
The props for the levitation trick, to put it plainly, were just a wooden frame. The carpenter father and son expressed that it was no pressure at all, and asked whether she needed dragon-pattern carvings, which would take more time.
Cheng Danruo said, “Make the staff into a pine tree and the base into a mountain of the immortals. It will have better symbolism.”
“No problem.”
As a doctor, she was already responsible and careful enough in her work. Even so, from the greetings to the end of the explanation, it took less than two hours in total.
It was now around one in the afternoon. It was still early to return to the palace, and since she had finally come out, she really did not want to go back to the palace city right away.
Eunuch Shi’s adopted son had already returned to report. The other eunuchs were either busy or could not be bothered to pay attention to her. She walked slowly out of the Imperial Household Directorate, and unexpectedly no one came to ask about her.
Cheng Danruo could not help stopping under a tree and gazing at the lake scenery not far away.
The autumn air was crisp, and the scenery of Taiye Pool was quite nice.
She walked a stretch, stopped for a while, then walked forward another couple of steps, and before she knew it, she had reached the West Park Gate.
Behind the gate, someone waved to her.
Cheng Danruo was slightly surprised. She looked around and, only after making sure no one was there, went over.
“This way.” Xie Xuanying slipped into the small path behind the gate.
There were no tall trees in the imperial palace, but the Western Park was full of towering ancient trees, with winding paths leading in all directions.
Cheng Danruo had only followed him in for a short while before she was obscured by the dense forest and could no longer see what was around her. Fortunately, the one leading the way was Xie Xuanying. If it had been anyone else, she would not have followed them in at all.
He did not go deep either. After making sure they would not be discovered, he stopped and pulled her into a rockery to hide.
Cheng Danruo asked, “What is it that is so mysterious?”
Xie Xuanying told her about the decree to suppress the rebellion. “I do not know how long this campaign will take. I am taking Centurion Zheng with me. Be careful in the palace. I will not be able to help you in time.”
She nodded. “Have a safe journey.”
Xie Xuanying was silent.
She thought about it and asked politely, “Do you want me to prepare some wound medicine for you?”
He said, “Mm.”
Cheng Danruo was speechless. What was so hard to say? He could have just said it directly. So she said, “When are you leaving? I need to prepare in advance. It would be best to have my adoptive father send someone to fetch it, to save trouble.”
Consort Chai had a good reputation in the inner palace, and one major reason was that she permitted palace staff to meet their families outside the gate during festivals.
The Mid-Autumn Festival was a holiday for reunion, and her day had not yet been used, so it was just the right occasion.
“You,” Xie Xuanying secretly drew a breath, “do you have nothing else to say to me?”
“Yes.” Cheng Danruo pondered. “What kind of plague is in Shandong?”
