SEHE Chapter 130

Fog

The Emperor’s heart shook with turmoil.

When he looked at Pei Yanci again, the other had already concealed his emotions, once more becoming that respectful and cautious person from before.

The more he looked, the more it seemed like the appearance of someone with deep schemes.

There was also another possibility—that he had maintained this youthful appearance continuously for decades or even over a hundred years?

“Since ancient times, loyalty and filial piety cannot both be fulfilled. This minister is Minister Zheng’s adopted son, but even more so, Your Majesty’s subject. There is still a whole cartload of such evidence.” Pei Yanci saw him becoming somewhat distracted and called his thoughts back with a loud statement.

“Zhen will investigate the Zheng family matter thoroughly. You should first return…” Halfway through his words, the Emperor had already raised his hand in the air, then drew it back. “You should stay in the palace for a period of time. This matter involves many people. Your righteous act of denouncing your own family will surely attract much resentment. It’s safer in the palace.”

“Yes.” Pei Yanci respectfully rose.

Having knelt for quite a while, he staggered as he stood, and upon crossing the threshold of the great hall, he glanced at Li Ren’an waiting by the door. He closed his eyes and collapsed forward onto him.

“Ah!” Li Ren’an cried out in alarm, hurriedly supporting him. “Your Majesty, Pei Daren has fainted!”

****

Pei Yanci endured while someone kneaded all the bones in his body, then pulled open his back collar, their gaze substantial as they stared at his brand mark. After waiting a while, until the discussion behind the folding screen was about finished, only then did he struggle to open his eyes.

Li Ren’an was waiting by the bedside. Seeing this, he excitedly called out, “Pei Daren, you’re awake.”

The discussion behind the folding screen ceased.

Before long, the Emperor and the imperial physician came over.

Pei Yanci moved to bow, but the Emperor excused him. “The wound on your forehead is not serious. Be careful these few days and don’t let it touch water.”

“Yes, many thanks, Your Majesty.” Pei Yanci said quietly.

“How much do you understand about Daoist methods?” the Emperor asked directly.

A flash of surprise crossed Pei Yanci’s eyes, then he said, “Not very well.”

“If you don’t understand, you can learn. You are the Imperial Academy Chancellor. You should have been responsible for Zhen’s Qingci scrolls originally. Since you’re injured these days, temporarily stay by Zhen’s side and observe Zhen’s pill refinement and cultivation. When your injury heals, you can begin writing.”

(TL: 清詞 (Qingci) literally means “pure/official records, edicts, or imperial writings”)

“…Yes.” Pei Yanci responded, then said, “This minister staying in the palace might disturb Your Majesty’s cultivation. How about Your Majesty assign a troop of soldiers to guard this minister’s residence? To outsiders, you can say this minister is under house arrest, which would also let people see Your Majesty’s impartiality in treating the Zheng family members.”

As he spoke, he bowed again. “Whenever Your Majesty wishes to see this minister, this minister will definitely enter the palace at the first opportunity.”

The light in the Emperor’s eyes flickered and surged in his pupils. After a long while, “Very well, as you wish.”

After everyone left, Li Ren’an stepped forward and said, “Your Majesty, Pei Daren doesn’t seem like someone who understands the arts of cultivation and ascending to immortality. Young people are reckless and careless. Your Majesty’s cultivation sessions are all at critical moments. What if he startles you and disrupts your qi flow?”

Participating in the Emperor’s cultivation was an honor that even the Son of Heaven’s close ministers might not necessarily have.

“Zhen has his own calculations.”

Li Ren’an saw the impatience in the Emperor’s eyes toward him and hastily lowered his head fearfully.

“Have Huo Cun investigate this person thoroughly. Every detail, everything—Zhen must know it all.”

“Yes.”

****

When Pei Yanci returned to his own residence, he saw an old acquaintance.

“General Peng.” He cupped his hands. “I’ve troubled you this time.”

“Just following orders,” Peng Chulang’s expression wasn’t very good. Following Tangxi Zhui and His Highness the Crown Prince was one thing, but the Emperor suddenly ordered Pei Yanci confined and required him personally to guard him. “What did you commit? His Majesty also told me to collect something from you.”

“Something very important.”

Pei Yanci handed him the evidence of illegal salt and iron trading, asking him to be sure to personally deliver it into the Emperor’s hands.

“Even without you saying so, I know the gravity of this matter.”

After Peng Chulang turned and left, just as Pei Yanci was about to return to his room to change clothes, he saw Wang Lingche emerge from inside.

“Brother Pei, what happened to you?”

The wound on his forehead had been bandaged, but his moon-white robe was stained with a patch of ink and blood, looking utterly miserable.

He grabbed Pei Yanci’s hand and said quietly, “Why are there soldiers outside? I seemed to see General Peng earlier. What trouble have you gotten into? Do you need me to go to the Wang family to intercede?”

“Brother Zhaohui, how well have you been watching over this residence for me? It hasn’t been robbed, has it?”

“I went home during New Year’s and stayed there. I only returned these past two days after the Lantern Festival.” Wang Lingche sighed and said, “After staying here another half month, I’m going to the temple outside the city to be ordained.”

“A good thing. You’ve always loved Buddhism. Living in a temple, you can also be free from worldly troubles. By the way, has your sister’s engagement been broken off?”

Wang Lingche shook his head and said, “I tried to persuade them for a long time. In the end, my sister bribed a fortune teller to say the horoscopes were incompatible, that they had affinity but no fate. By coincidence, the legitimate eldest son of the Zheng family’s second branch lost his wife to difficult childbirth last winter during the deep cold—both mother and child were lost. During New Year, my parents changed my sister’s engagement to make her his replacement wife.”

“Marriage shouldn’t be discussed during mourning period. Be careful someone uses this against you.” Pei Yanci reminded him. “You’d better break it off as soon as possible.”

“It was all done privately, so there’s no need to worry about that. Even if it gets out, since no grand feast was held, at most there’ll be a few words of reproach. I only blame myself for being useless as a brother—wanting to break it off but unable to. Now it’s my sister who found a way to change her own engagement. As her brother, I was no help at all.” Wang Lingche lamented. “Instead, she’s the one advising me, telling me to do what I want to do. Since I want to leave the secular world, I shouldn’t listen to my parents’ wavering words and should just get ordained and be done with it.”

“Your sister lives more clearly than you do. She’s also capable, much stronger than you.” Pei Yanci smiled lightly. “If you really can’t let go of worrying about her, then simply return to secular life. In the future, if you inherit the family business, you can also protect her and prevent her from being bullied in her husband’s household.”

Wang Lingche stared at his smile, blinking innocently and blankly. “Why do you always urge me to return to secular life and pursue an official career?”

Pei Yanci looked at his confused expression and deliberately stepped forward, leaning close. “Last time when you kissed me—does that count as breaking your vows? If you don’t return to secular life, what can you do?”

“You!” Wang Lingche said indignantly with shame. “I told you it was an accident. You’re not allowed to mention it again, especially not in front of Buddha.”

“You’re deceiving Buddha. You’ll be thrown into a vat of boiling oil.”

Wang Lingche’s face filled with terror, then he suddenly realized, “No, wait—I haven’t shaved my head yet, so I don’t officially count as entering Buddhism.”

“Stop being conflicted. The bureaucracy needs you, the Wang family needs you. Your will to enter Buddhism isn’t firm enough,” Pei Yanci said.

“Do you need me?” Wang Lingche blurted out.

“I do.”

Otherwise, how could he possibly let Wang Lingche move in? The Wang family was a great source of support.

He didn’t see the flash of unnaturalness on Wang Lingche’s face.

“Don’t stand so close to me.” He turned to avoid him. “Half a month from now when I go to the temple, I plan to shave my head completely. My sister has already grown up and doesn’t need my protection anymore. As for you…”

“There will likely be changes in the court regarding the Zheng family,” before he could continue, Pei Yanci interrupted, simply speaking plainly. “I was the one who reported them. If people find out your sister was once engaged to the Zheng family, her reputation might not be good, which could affect her future marriage prospects.”

“This happened?” Wang Lingche instantly cast aside everything else and immediately made to leave the residence.

But the Northern Barracks Imperial Army had already surrounded the residence. How could they possibly let anyone leave?

Pei Yanci watched his panicked and helpless appearance at the gate, then returned to his own room with peace of mind.

As soon as he opened the door, he heard the second startled cry of the day.

“Xiao Pei’er, you’re injured!” Tangxi Zhui anxiously stepped forward, wanting to touch him but not daring to, his index finger rubbing helplessly in the air.

“I’m not made of porcelain that will shatter at a touch.”

Thinking of something, Pei Yanci’s expression paused. He suddenly embraced him, burying his head in his chest. “Ah, I’m dizzy, there’s bleeding. Tangxi, I have no strength to change my clothes.”

“Who was just saying they weren’t made of porcelain?”

He seemed quite lively and capable of making mischief.

“Tangxi…” Pei Yanci lifted his face, blinking his eyes, looking at him pitifully. “It hurts.”

Tangxi Zhui’s breath caught. He swept him up in his arms.

Pei Yanci comfortably soaked in a bath, put on casual robes without tying the waist sash, and ordered a table full of dishes to eat directly in his room.

Outside, rain began to fall. At first it was light, but within a quarter hour it grew heavy.

A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, tearing a long gash in the dark clouds, followed by rumbling thunder.

“This year’s spring thunder came a bit early.” Pei Yanci closed the window and turned to see Tangxi Zhui heating water for tea, with the brazier still burning.

He had grown accustomed to Pei Yanci’s way of drinking tea.

“The weather’s changing.”

In the afternoon, they heard that the Zheng family had been raided. Over five hundred people in the Zheng residence, not one was spared—all were taken away by the Elu Bureau.

Some people in Anjing were still wondering what was happening. Some didn’t even know about the Zheng family raid and were directly taken away when the Elu Bureau broke down their doors, after which there was no more news.

A nightmarish night.

Someone later calculated the number of officials whose homes were raided that night: two hundred thirty-seven families of fifth rank and below, fifty-eight residences of third and fourth rank officials, forty-two second rank officials, six first rank dignitaries and nobles.

All of Anjing was sleepless through the night.

The sound of drizzling rain, urgent hoofbeats, heart-rending wails, desperate screams… Through the hazy white gauze window paper, seeing the shadowy reflected figures—after that night, these became the nightmares of thousands.

And the next day, even more people became prisoners of the Elu Bureau.

Not just Anjing—far away at the border, a group of generals were also escorted back to the capital within days. From top to bottom, there was a great purge.

Some keenly caught on that this was specifically targeting the Zheng faction. Others similarly scented an opportunity to exploit.

Qi Lan hurried from the central hall through to the rear courtyard. Gu Yueqian was in the back garden pruning peony branches. These delicate flowers nourished with hot spring water could bloom splendidly even in this cold weather just after the Start of Spring.

“Mother Consort, the court’s hand has reached the border.” Qi Lan dismissed everyone and said quietly, “I just obtained the list of those detained this time—many veteran generals from the older generation. If the Old Yellow Emperor is truly this confused, isn’t this a once-in-a-millennium opportunity!”

“Even border generals were touched?” Gu Yueqian’s expression grew solemn. She set aside her pruning shears. “This matter is quite significant.”

The Emperor had always disapproved of the Zheng family’s overwhelming power and wanted to use them as an example. She had always known this.

The Zheng faction implicated civil and military officials throughout the court. Half the court would be completely caught in the net, directly dealing a severe blow to state power. She knew this, and the Emperor couldn’t possibly not know it.

To act at this moment—could there be some deeper meaning?

This timing truly puzzled her.

It was as if an invisible hand stirring up wind and clouds in the fog had made the current situation even more confusing and unclear.

And urgent.

Because it seemed nothing had been prepared.

The person doing this hadn’t prepared beforehand, the opponents hadn’t prepared, and they as observers also hadn’t prepared, to the extent that they had noticed no signs whatsoever beforehand.

The time to demonstrate their political acumen had arrived.

“It seems Anjing’s situation will become chaotic. While they haven’t yet thought of you, return to Great Xi tonight.” Gu Yueqian decided decisively. “Everything has been prepared for you in Great Xi. We’ll coordinate from within and without. Great Yu and Great Xi will eventually be unified!”

The people of Great Yu only thought that she and her son had been expelled from Great Xi, but that was merely appearance.

When they fled back to their country, relying on selling intelligence to Jiang Yi that led to Great Xi’s devastating defeat, they weakened the power of the current Empress Dowager’s clan and also created a situation of warring princes in Great Xi. They had watched the snipe and clam fight. Now was the perfect time to return and reap the rewards.

Gu Yueqian gripped his hand, full of reluctance. “My son, this journey will be short—a year or two at least, long—three to five years. Take good care of yourself, listen more to the words of the ministers and uncles I’ve left for you, and don’t act impulsively or recklessly again.”

“I understand, Mother Consort.” Qi Lan patted the Second Princess’s hand and turned to order people to prepare luggage and horses.

Before the sky had even darkened, the Princess’s residence gate was knocked upon.

Li Ren’an’s face bore its unfading obsequiousness toward the mother and son. “Your Highness, His Majesty invites you both to enter the palace for a family banquet.”

Gu Yueqian and Qi Lan’s expressions tightened. They exchanged covert glances, their hands clenched into fists beneath their sleeves.