YUN RONG XIAN (雲榮羡)

  Day 15, 4th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Taishan Province, Tian’an Sect

  Jiang Feng, stop. Stop.

  He paced again—back and forth, hand twitching over the hilt of his sword, sweat dampening the polished metal of the sheath. Occasionally, he’d pause, neck craned upward like he expected the ceiling to provide an answer, then resume his agitated circuit.

  He repeated this ritual a dozen times more, before finally halting beside my desk, palms resting on its edge.

  “How are you so calm, Your Highness?”

  I didn’t respond. I turned to another page of the memorial I had been reading. Since the attempt on my life, Jiang Feng had not closed his eyes for more than a few minutes at a time. And ever since my shadow guard confirmed Ze Zhiwei’s involvement, the last of his calm had dissolved entirely. He had entered a state beyond fatigue, where his body staggered and his mind burned with regret.

  In his current condition, Jiang Feng would not be able to react to a real threat. Not from instinct, and not from strength. If an assassin walked in now, he might die before even drawing his blade.

  The side of the desk creaked under his weight. Then came an unpleasant sound—click, clack. The tip of his sword tapped the tiled floor, again and again. Click. Clack. It broke through the rhythm of my reading, forcing my mind to track the sound rather than the ink.

  I set the memorial down, deliberate and loud, and looked up. My eyes fixed on him. Nothing more was needed.

  He straightened at once. “At your service, Your Highness.”

  I brushed the space where he had leaned, retrieved the next memorial, and continued reading.

  “I’ll go outside and receive my punishment,” he said softly, head bowed.

  “You’ll go home,” I replied. “Get some rest.”

  He faced up, mouth half-open in protest. I raised a hand. The silence resumed.

  “You are my bodyguard. If you can’t follow a simple command, how can I trust you with my life?”

  “Your Highness…it’s because I’m your bodyguard that I must atone. I failed.”

  His vision was sharp and his aim with a bow was accurate enough to strike a wasp from the air. Still, his mind stayed more rigid than it needed to be. That quality, no doubt, came from our zhǎngbèi.

  “What would our zhǎngbèi say?” I asked.

  Jiang Feng dropped to his knees without hesitation. “zhǎngbèi would not have made my mistake.”

  “But you are not Liu Maodi (劉泖廸).”

  The name alone was enough.

  Liu Maodi (劉泖廸) was our senior sect brother when Jiang Feng and I were young disciples. Even just a mention of his name would make Jiang Feng concede, and I used that to my advantage. He lowered his head farther, spine loosening under the weight of it.

  Then Jiang Feng rose slowly, limbs heavy and disjointed, and made his way out of the room like someone older than he was. I gathered the memorials into a neat stack.

  It was almost time.

  The court—namely the Emperor—expected a verdict by the end of the day. A satisfactory answer to find my assassin guilty. After all, that assassin hadn’t simply made an attempt on my life, they had also disrupted the Emperor’s precious birthday ceremony; both of which were crimes punishable by death.

  These memorials were meant to contain witness statements, guard rotations, shadow records, and sealed evidence from our informants in the Ministry of Justice. All the truths. All the facts.

  It’s funny that truth is only a matter of perspective.

  ***

  “Wu Mengmo (武夢魔), do you admit your crime?”

  Minister of Justice, Chen Yahui (陳雅惠), spoke with a voice of steel. She was not a loud woman, but her words never asked twice. Even the most impudent of men found silence in her presence.

  The man in chains let out a dry laugh, some cracked sound that echoed like an insult. Then he spat at his own reflection on the polished floor.

  “It’s an honour to die a martyr,” he said.

  The Empress frowned. I didn’t look, but I could hear it in the tightening of her breath, in the slight shift of her robes against the stone bench as she leaned forward. The man’s chains clinked again. Too loose for resistance, but loud enough to distract.

  Her voice was careful, as it always was when she doubted her senses: “Yun Hui. This is not Ze Zhiwei.”

  She was right. The man on his knees was not Ze Zhiwei. He was no assassin, only a boy who had gambled his life in the wrong direction.

  But the court did not need the truth. It needed resolution.

  The chamber’s atmosphere was unusually strained, though no one raised their voice. The senior ministers had already decided who they believed responsible. To most, the Ze Household was a rot that needed cutting out. To others, it was An Lingqi’s name that carried the right weight of inherited guilt.

  I had taken them both of their names off the table.

  The man kneeling before us—Wu Mengmo—was not my enemy. And today, he'd be my tool.

  I knew exactly what the court saw when they looked at Ze Zhiwei: a volatile element with the audacity to rise beyond his station, the intelligence to mask it, and the stubborn restraint to survive. The blood of the fallen Liantai Sect.

  A threat to the current rulers.

  With his failed assassination attempt, Ze Zhiwei practically handed me the executioner’s axe. And coupled with the imperial blood of ten generations behind me, I had the power to erase him from the line of succession with a single decree.

  I didn’t.

  A tiger raised in a garden will still kill. But that same tiger, if harnessed correctly, could also kill my enemies.

  Ze Zhiwei was dangerous, yes. But not to me. Not yet.

  If I let him fall, I would be praised for my judgment. But if I kept him alive, I would learn where his loyalties strained. More importantly, his continued existence served as a counterbalance to those senior courtiers who still believed they held the reins of power.

  Ze Zhiwei was a placeholder; a convincing way for me to continue holding the illusion of being weak. I had divided the military so that half were directed under his name.

  After all, the low-level tier-four deity that I posed as, shouldn’t be holding so much military power—royal blood or not.

  The ministers saw it and whispered. Which was good. Because whilst they watched him, they did not watch me.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  I turned my head slightly. Wu Mengmo was silent now. Before I picked him as Ze Zhiwei’s scapegoat, he had been sentenced to surgical mutism and emasculation for another crime. The change to a death sentence would be a blessing, considering what he had done.

  I had spoken to him days prior.

  In his cell, he had laughed as if nothing touched him. I remember the way he leaned against the wall, eyes bright with a kind of emptiness that only comes when a man has already lost everything.

  He had raped the second daughter of the Zhao family and shattered two lineages in one night. Not out of lust. Out of spite.

  Spite against the Zhao Household’s insidious corruption that had turned his family into slaves.

  Spite against his father for treating his wives and daughters as political bartering chips for forming alliances.

  He was the only heir to his name. And he had chosen ruin.

  There was no redemption for him.

  But there was use now. For me.

  He was wrong by all Confucius standards. But I pitied him, for his failure, not for his crime. He had not tried to destroy the world. He had merely tried to escape it.

  Perhaps this was mercy. Although, what would I know?

  The court watched me. Their silence was the silence of held breath, of power waiting to shift from one hand to another.

  Justice is for those who cannot control outcome. I controlled it. The hearing was a formality now.

  The ink was dry. The truth was set. I stepped forward and offered the memorial with both hands.

  “Minister Chen,” I said, eyes low, “please have a look.”

  It’s funny that truth is only a matter of perspective.

  ***

  With the assassination case closed and a convicted rapist sent to death, my mind cleared.

  It was dangerous to have a free mind. Inattention left openings. Openings, that others could exploit. I reached for the next memorial: a thick, brown slip of paper pressed into the pile like a reluctant confession. I unfolded it.

  Grand Secretary Zhao’s disease prevention proposal for the Hongchen City epidemic stared back at me, containing flawless brushstrokes. If only the content was just as perfect.

  Execution of all known contacts? It was less policy than purge. Quarantine was logical. Systemic slaughter was not.

  I hunched over the desk, brush tapping lightly against the surface.

  So far, the disease claimed all who contracted it. Five moons of fever, delirium, bleeding eyes, then death. The bodies left behind were desiccated husks. No known treatment, no traceable origin. It was almost too precise. As if crafted.

  The kind of meticulous style expected of Liantai Sect.

  A knock at the outer screen.

  “Your Highness, Crown Prince Yun Rongxian,” the maidservant’s voice drifted in. She bowed low enough that her forehead nearly grazed the wood.

  “At ease.”

  She straightened. “Thank you, Your Highness.” She gestured behind her without turning. “Immortal Chun Li is here to see you.”

  I set the memorial aside and rose. The Empress had said I would be assigned a new alchemist. The position had been vacant for years. Her sudden urgency, of course, was likely a consequence of the Emperor’s banquet debacle.

  Which had one person’s name all over it.

  Immortal Chun Li bowed as she entered. “May I present Alchemist Su Tang,” she said. “She achieved the highest score on the recent exam. The Imperial Alchemist Guild has personally selected her to be your…”

  She hesitated—searching for a palatable word. Servant would have been accurate. But for some reason, the esteemed Head of the Imperial Alchemist Guild treaded carefully around that word.

  I looked to the girl beside her.

  Head bowed. Hair hastily pinned with a splintered stick that barely qualified as a hairpin. Chun Li gave her a discreet nudge.

  She straightened. And she looked like someone had just slapped her, as her unmistakeable eyes widened.

  “Alchemist Su Tang, was it?” My tone was even. Measured.

  The uninvited intruder at the library. The girl who had pinned my face to the floor and stabbed me with a needle. The alchemist who had blown up the examination courtyard.

  I’d asked my shadow guard to investigate her, but the portraits they returned were unconvincing guesses at best.

  She looked better in person.

  The alchemist bowed her head frantically in some desperate attempt to avoid eye contact. Then she raised her hands. Not in surrender, but to offer something: a palm-sized, cloth box.

  She spoke with an awkward formality: “Your Highness, I present the tier-six Qi-Accumulating pill. I hope this gesture shows my good will.”

  I accepted the box without comment. It wasn’t the pill that mattered—it was the intent behind the presentation.

  Chun Li kept smiling, as if she couldn’t feel the silence stretching tight between us. “Your Highness, may I excuse myself?”

  “You may,” I said.

  I kept my eyes on Su Tang. She didn’t flinch. Head bowed, posture held. A statue.

  If she wants to stay that way, let her.

  I returned to my desk and picked up the next memorial. The brush resumed its rhythm against the paper, as if nothing had happened. But my thoughts had already shifted.

  Alchemist Su Tang was reckless. And now, she was under my roof. I would have to learn her purpose. And what the Empress wanted, seeing that she assigned her to me.

  ***

  The time it took for three incense-sticks to burn passed in silence. The girl remained kneeling, posture immaculate; her arms lifted and back straight. Her discipline was impressive, almost mechanical. But in silence, even the most polished performances begin to crack.

  Suddenly, without prompt, she stood in a clean, swift motion. She turned with soldier-like precision and began walking toward the door. Forty-five minutes of wordless posturing, and only now you choose to leave before I dismiss you. Why bother kneeling at all?

  “Alchemist Su Tang, His Highness has not dismissed you yet,” the attending eunuch said, stepping forward with a perfunctory arm raised to stop her.

  She turned slowly to face him. Then to me. Her head dipped, a parody of submission. “May I be excused, Your hiGHnEss,” she said, voice curling at the edges with sarcasm.

  The eunuch flared, “How dare—”

  I raised a hand. That sort of outrage only invites escalation. People like her were not tamed with volume. They responded to calculations.

  What about a honey trap?

  I picked up the sheet I had just written and walked over. Even at a one-step distance, she held her ground, gaze steady. She was shorter than me, her frame thin, but not fragile.

  I held the page between two fingers, just at her eye level.

  She took it carefully, trying not to brush against my skin. But her hands were trembling. Barely—but enough to send a subtle pulse through the paper, one I could feel. A crack in her armour.

  “You waited,” I said. A quiet gesture to acknowledge her effort. “Here are your duties.”

  She turned the page over as if expecting more. A flicker of disappointment passed across her face, though quickly masked.

  “All these duties must be completed before the sun sets today.” I left no room for negotiation. I was curious to see if she would argue. Perhaps she’d flick her head back and snap out some smart remark.

  She didn’t. Instead, she inclined her head with formal precision.

  “Yes, Your Highness. Do you require this servant for anything else?”

  I stepped forward, narrowing the distance again. She moved back—just a fraction. But she moved.

  “There are two rules in my manor,” I said evenly. “First: never lie.” I studied her. A shallow breath in. No eye twitch. No clenched jaw. That reminded me of someone else.

  “The second: do not bring me trouble.”

  She bowed again. “Your servant will try her best.”

  A neutral phrase. Pliable. But her tone was neither subservient nor sincere. Just…unreadable.

  The girl turned around and strode out without another word nor a complaint.

  That other person is like that. I know who.

  “She’s interesting, isn’t she?” the eunuch remarked.

  I gave him a look.

  “Hey, that’s no way to look at your senior.”

  “Your disguise is slipping,” I said. Almost all of the eunuchs that have been placed in my palace cannot speak.

  “Hah. Very funny,” Liu Maodi grinned, reverting from eunuch to trickster in an instant. “My face-changing technique is world class. No one would ever know.”

  He enjoyed this far too much.

  “I have an inquiry.”

  My senior’s light-hearted grin turned sharp and careful.

  “Find out where the alchemist use to live, what she use to do, who she interacted with frequently.”

  It’s rare for people to display similar mannerisms with others unless they know each other. That self-control, that sharp-tongued sarcasm, and the fact she was an alchemist.

  I should pay An Lingqi a visit.

  “Done. I’ll leave you, Xiao Hui,” he added with mock formality. “Got to visit my other precious disciple. Don’t worry. I won’t reveal myself.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  Liu Maodi hadn’t shown his real face to anyone since faking his death—except me. Even Jiang Feng, the man who owed him his life, remained in the dark.

  “Tsk, tsk,” my senior sighed dramatically, tilting his head. “One is stubborn. One is stoic. Clearly I’ve failed to raise virtuous disciples. What should I tell our master in the afterlife?”

  He grinned again, the kind that meant trouble. “Never mind. I’ll handle it. Including your inquiries.”

  He gave a shallow bow and, as always, disappeared into air that no longer held him.