“The decree has come down. Drafted by the cabinet, reviewed by His Majesty, sealed by the Directorate of Ceremonial.
“Marquis Fengan, Wei Jun, guilty of heinous crimes without pardon. By law he should be executed by slow slicing, but in consideration of his father’s past military merit, commuted to immediate beheading.
“Xianan Marquis, Wei Yan, as clan head failed in governance, indulged his brother and retainers to break the law and harm the people. In light of being maternal grandfather to the Second Prince, his marquisate is stripped, reduced to Xianan Earl, the title no longer hereditary, stipend reduced three grades. His son, Earl Changning, Wei Que, stripped of his title, stipend reduced two grades.”
“Ninety percent of the Wei family’s estates and farmlands are confiscated to the court; all plundered property to be audited and returned; their wealth used to compensate victims, the remainder entered into the treasury.”
“Noble Consort Wei, for defying imperial will and oppressing the inner palace, is stripped of her rank and demoted to Consort of the Fourth Rank, ordered to confinement and reflection.”
As Su Yan listened, he silently ticked off the items on his blacklist:
Wei Jun—dead. Target achieved.
Noble Consort Wei—demoted. A fourth-rank consort sits at the very bottom, and with her shut away in the Cold Palace, the rest of her life will be lived in bitter wind and chilling rain. Target achieved.
The Wei family’s extra lands confiscated, plundered wealth returned to the people, the bulk of their riches poured out for compensation and the treasury. To this one could sing: “What you ate of mine, spit it out; what you took of mine, return it back.” Target achieved.
Wei Yan wasn’t executed—he was demoted to a one-time-use earl. His son lost even that title, and his grandson would be nothing but a commoner. Probably it was for the Second Prince’s sake—his maternal grandfather was a direct relative within three generations; if a major crime were declared, he would inevitably be implicated. This condition was most likely something the Empress Dowager insisted upon, for the Second Prince’s future. The objective… half achieved.
All in all, this outcome was still barely acceptable. Of course, leaving Wei Yan alive was leaving the roots uncut—when the spring wind blows, the weeds might sprout again.
He couldn’t let his guard down; sooner or later, he would have to dig out those roots as well.
Su Yan weighed his little abacus in his heart, while over there, Censor Chu Qiu came in high spirits to deliver the good news: “This battle brought down the treacherous clan that imperiled the state, and my worthy brother’s merit is indispensable. I hear the ‘Twelve Memorials of Impeachment against the Wei Clan’ have already been handed to the court gazette for publication. My worthy brother’s name will soon spread across the land!”
Su Yan sincerely thanked him for his powerful support. After exchanging a few more courtesies, Chu Qiu took his leave.
Everyone thought Su Yan had won a great victory in court, but he himself felt no joy.
—not that he wasn’t glad, but he couldn’t say why. Just a dull heaviness, as if a wad of cotton stuffed in his chest. Not heavy, but tangled and tearing.
Su Yan sighed soundlessly and decided to volunteer for the job of supervising the execution—be the black-and-white judge escorting Wei Jun to the underworld, offending those already offended to the very end.
Ah Zhui, I’ve avenged your elder sister… So could you come back to see me, and burn a stick of incense for her together with me? Standing beneath the old peach tree in the courtyard, Su Yan looked up at the branches thick with peach blossoms. His eyes grew damp.
He blinked, forced down the sourness in his throat, and decided to pay a visit to Master Yingxu’s medical hut to see Ruan Hongjiao.
—
When he arrived at the hut, Chen Shiyu wasn’t there; his disciple said he’d gone out on a call.
Su Yan left his gifts, then, as if at home, walked straight to the back courtyard, to the large ward where the gravely ill were housed. The medicine boy said Ruan Hongjiao was in the last room. As Su Yan neared the doorway, he heard voices inside.
…It was Gao Shuo.
Gao Shuo stammered through ten sentences, and Ruan Hongjiao would only reply with one, lukewarm.
Normally, with such cold responses, even a saint would lose interest in conversation. But Gao Shuo treated that one-in-ten reply as a prize, and kept stammering on, the sharp, efficient spy’s aura he usually carried gone without a trace.
Standing outside the curtain, Su Yan listened to a few exchanges and discerned three things:
Ruan Hongjiao knew her cheek was scarred. She was pained and a little dejected, but not hopelessly despondent.
She did not resent Gao Shuo for ruining her looks—on the contrary, there was some gratitude.
At the same time, she felt his pity and attempts to please her were a kind of condescension—like those men who believed women must value their beauty, who thought women were born to be cherished like delicate flowers. It was the same deeply rooted condescension, so she had little desire to answer him.
Poor Gao Shuo, clueless about a woman’s heart—an awkward bachelor, the more earnestly he fawned, the more she recoiled.
The road is long and the journey far—keep at it, young Gao! Su Yan silently cheered him on. He decided not to disturb them, and instead left fruit and medicinal food along with a note for Ruan Hongjiao at the door before turning away.
As he passed through the courtyard, he overheard two apprentice boys pounding medicine under a tree, chatting idly.
Apprentice A, skeptical: “…Real or fake? How’s that possible! That’s the Emperor—a dragon among men! And you say in the dead of night he came to our hut just to chat with Master? Rubbish, you’ll bite your tongue bragging like that.”
Apprentice B grew anxious: “It’s true! Look at my eyes—bright, aren’t they? I saw it with my own eyes, and when I brought tea inside, I heard with my own ears Master calling him ‘Your Majesty.’ The Emperor even had two guards with him, standing on either side of the door like temple vajras. Their faces—you couldn’t even look straight at them.”
“Why?”
“Because their gaze carried killing intent! One look at you, and it’s like a knife peeling your skin. They must be top-class experts!”
Apprentice A, envious: “Whoa… then it really was the Emperor! What kind of luck is that, to glimpse his face up close? Your ancestors’ graves must be smoking with fortune.”
Apprentice B, smug: “Not just smoking—three plumes rising straight to heaven! I even secretly overheard some of their conversation.”
Apprentice A, curious: “What did you hear? Tell me quick!”
“I heard—ah, but only because you’re my best friend will I tell you. You mustn’t spread it around! Master warned us: that night must never be spoken of.”
“Got it, don’t worry! Out of your mouth, into my ears—no third person will know. Now hurry up!”
Since it concerned the Emperor, Su Yan was curious too. He hid behind the tree and listened closely.
The first thing he heard, though, was an earth-shattering bombshell—
“The Emperor’s head ailment has worsened. It may affect his eyesight—he might go blind…”
The young apprentice, not knowing the weight of his words, embroidered the fragments he overheard with his own imagination. The more he spoke, the graver it became, as if the Emperor had contracted a terminal illness that would take his life before dawn. Su Yan’s heart pounded in terror.
Clutching the tree trunk, his legs still weak, he listened until his vision went dark and he nearly collapsed.
He drew a deep breath, forcing himself calm. He couldn’t just take rumor as truth. He had to confirm with Master Yingxu.
But after waiting half an hour at the hut, Chen Shiyu still hadn’t returned. Su Yan couldn’t wait any longer. While it was still light, he decided to enter the palace and see the Emperor himself.
—As for in what capacity he would ask—whether as a loyal subject concerned for the dragon body, or something else—he hadn’t thought it through, nor did he have the time.
Right now, he only wanted, urgently, to see the Emperor… the one whose name was imprinted on both his body and his heart—Jintang.
Su Yan left the hut, hastily boarded his carriage, and ordered Xiaobei to head straight for Donghua Gate.
The Eastern Palace lay just inside Donghua Gate. With the token the Crown Prince had given him, he could pass unhindered into the front court of the imperial palace—but beyond that, entry to the inner forbidden gates required a direct imperial summons.
After Su Yan reported his name outside the Forbidden Gate and waited for the eunuch messenger’s reply, nearly half an hour passed before he finally received the message: “Lan Gonggong has given word—the Emperor has already retired. He will see no one.”
But it was only just the end of the Shen hour; the sun was sinking in the west. Not to mention the Emperor, who rose early and worked late—even ordinary commoners would not be asleep at such a time, unless their health was unwell.
Su Yan grew all the more anxious, suspecting the Emperor’s head ailment might have flared up again, leaving him in great discomfort.
He begged the eunuch to report once more and deliver the note he had written to Lan Xi. But the eunuch clearly did not wish to trouble himself with more errands, found an excuse, and slipped away.
Su Yan could only sigh at the gate. After much hesitation, he returned home in dejection.
No sooner had he stepped into his courtyard than he saw Su Xiaojing, sitting in the gatehouse like a frightened quail. At the sight of him, the boy suddenly jolted awake, leapt up, and hurried over, hand covering his mouth as he whispered into Su Yan’s ear: “My lord… he’s here again!”
“Who is here again, Qilang? Yu Wang?”
“No… the Emperor is here again!”
At once Su Yan recalled how the Emperor had once visited his residence in secret. That time, when he was convalescing at home after a concussion from the tunnel explosion, the Emperor had silently entered his bedchamber, and even honored him by sharing supper together.
Su Xiaojing had seen Emperor Jinglong before. Unlike when facing the Crown Prince or Yu Wang, before the Emperor he carried a natural fear, like a young deer before a tiger. Thus, after receiving the august presence, he hid in the gatehouse, waiting anxiously for his master to return.
“The Emperor is in our house? Which room?” Su Yan asked quickly.
“In the main hall,” Su Xiaojing said.
Su Yan straightened his robes and strode to the third courtyard, where the main hall stood.
Outside were indeed a dozen imperial guards standing watch. When they saw him, they bowed and said: “His Majesty awaits you inside.”
Su Yan nodded, pushed the door open, and closed it behind him.
—Not that it mattered whether the door was shut or not. Imperial guards were like vajra statues of iron and stone: they neither saw nor heard what they ought not to, and at the first order, they would act without fail.
Once the door closed, Lord Su cast aside all pretense of demeanor, flung off his cumbersome outer robe, and hurried into the inner chamber.
Hearing the commotion, the Emperor lifted the curtain and came out—just in time to be caught in Su Yan’s embrace.
He wrapped an arm around Su Yan’s waist and laughed: “Rare to see my Official Su so forward—is this a hungry tiger pouncing on prey, or a fledgling sparrow throwing itself into the forest?”
Su Yan, slightly breathless, did not wish to speak for the moment. He only clung to the Emperor’s waist, burying his face in the chest before him, inhaling deeply the imperial fragrance clinging to his robes.
The Emperor soothed him with a hand on his back: “What has happened? I am here.”
I am here, you need not worry.
So long as I am here, I will be your pillar of jade holding up the sky.
—But, Your Majesty, who can be your support, so that you might at times lay down your heavy burdens and rest?
Su Yan’s throat tightened, and he let out a sigh almost like a groan: “My Emperor…”
The Emperor paused, his smile fading, but a light seemed to kindle in his eyes. He held the man in his arms even tighter, and whispered at his ear: “My beloved minister.”
