Chapter One Hundred: The Grand Finale
Wen Jiangyue lifted his head and said evenly, “A visitor is here. Send him in.”
The servant hesitated for a moment, then replied, “Yes, my lord. I shall invite him at once.” He turned to leave. Wen Jiangyue was terribly weak and exhausted, so the chief steward hurriedly brought him a stool. “Wen Yu, you have toiled hard for two days. There is truly no one to tend even a small candlelight at Yu’er’s spirit hall anymore.”
In the capital, everyone has sharp eyes and sharp minds; they know exactly what to do in every situation. When the Wen household was prosperous, they had all flocked to curry favor. Now that trouble came, they wished they had never set foot in this city. Not even one mourner had come.
“My lord, this servant has not suffered,” the steward said, trying to persuade him. “You must guard your health. We are all at this age now; what is there left worth clinging to? It is fortunate, I suppose, to have seen through such sycophants before they ruin you.”
Wen looked at the man who had served him for over fifty years. For a moment he remembered meeting him years ago as a timid, shivering boy; now both of them were old. “After the funeral, you may leave this estate,” he said.
“Your Excellency!” the steward replied.
“My left and right hands have both escaped this storm, and I have no plans left for myself. But you are different—you have wife and children, and your grandson is only five years old. This whole life you have stayed in the inner household and never touched those deadly dealings. If you leave now, you can still keep your life.”
“Your Excellency, a servant is born of the Wen household and dies a ghost of the Wen household,” he answered.
“Do not speak such words. Think first of the children. It is settled. A guest is arriving.”
At that moment Li Jing and Gan Sui came in. They naturally moved to salute Wen Jiangyue. Both froze, unable to imagine how a man could age so terribly in a single night. Wen sat before the spirit hall in plain blue cloth, expression serene, yet his eyes were full of pain.
After saluting, Wen asked, “You still have black mourning sashes on your arms. Will you offer incense for Yu’er?”
“Since we have come, of course,” Gan Sui said.
They took incense from the steward, performed the courtesy of peers, and inserted them into the censer. The steward helped Wen up, and Wen offered a proper greeting. “I never expected your first incense and first offering for Yu’er to be from you two. Whatever grievances we had between us, old as I am, I am grateful that you came to see him off.”
“He was a good man,” Gan Sui said. “Meeting him once was enough. The two of us owe him this much.”
“Good men do not live long,” Wen muttered. “Only cursed people like me have the strength to endure.”
“Your Excellency—” the chief steward hurriedly interrupted.
“Enough. You did not come here merely to offer incense.”
“We promised yesterday,” Gan Sui said. “I told Her Majesty I would uncover the truth of what happened to the eldest prince.”
“Have you found it?”
“Yesterday’s assassin is still alive. This is his confession. Please read it.”
Wen Jiangyue took the paper. Since his illness, his vision was blurred; he squinted and studied it from afar. For a long while, he folded it and slipped it into his sleeve. “I understand. This is an affair of the family; I will handle it myself. You should return now.”
“Your Excellency, this is not only your household matter. It is tied by many threads to the recent horse-racing poisoning case. It is no longer just yours—it concerns the imperial lineage, concerns the crown.”
“Councillor Gan speaks so grandly. Is it truly a matter of state, or merely a matter involving Consort Gan and her lady?” Wen asked with dark amusement. “I know you and the honored empress were close. But now Her Ladyship is no longer in peril; a few days’ rest and she will recover. Is Gan Councillor truly unwilling to spare this house?”
“Not possible. What the former empress consort did violated imperial law. A lesser man like Gan cannot oppose the law. In private, I told you when we spoke then: my wife and children are my last boundary. If anyone reaches for them, even if it costs my life, I will send that person to ruin beyond return. Lord Wen, please let your empress come out.”
“Your lordship has only just regained from grave illness. Do Gan Councillor truly think this house has no one to stand in your place?” the chief steward muttered, already reaching to send for guards to drive them out.
“Wen Yu, go summon the lady,” Wen said.
“Your Excellency!”
“Go. What one sows, one reaps. It is too late to plead now. Go.”
“No need to summon,” Gan Sui’s lady replied, as if she had already been waiting for this. “I have been expecting you.”
Lady Wen entered from the doorway in plain garments. Her face held neither grief nor joy, as if she were living death itself. She sat down on a chair and said, “If you have questions, ask freely.”
She spoke as one who had practiced this role.
Gan Sui and Li Jing exchanged a glance, then Li Jing asked bluntly, “Was the earlier horse-racing poisoning connected to Lady Wen?”
“Yes. I had someone fetch Wenyuan’s jade pendant. Then I gave a great handful of silver to that thief and pretended indifference so he would steal the pendant, thereby making it appear that the first prince had hired poisoners,” she said with a smile, looking full of malice as she regarded Wen Jiangyue. “You, my lord, had intended to strike at the Son of Heaven in the Lushan Palace. I simply struck first. I regret only that I did not give you the chance.”
She turned to Gan Sui. “Still, I must apologize. My original target was the emperor and the Wen house. I did not expect the noble empress to be dragged in as collateral. It is unfortunate.”
Gan Sui ground his teeth, swallowing violence.
After sipping tea, Lady Wen went on, “Of course the false charge against the eldest prince would never have stood. It was never my aim. My aim was his death.”
Her composure broke into a rush of laughter and fury, then she steadied herself with a breath. “You disappoint me. You made me wait so long to come. It hardly matters. Every grudge has a name and every debt a debtor. My revenge will be settled soon enough.”
Gan Sui suddenly remembered her earlier threat linking empress and family, and asked, “What do you mean by that?”
“I heard you and His Majesty entered the city together. You should now both be within the palace,” she said, turning toward Wen Jiangyue with a slightly wild smile. “Do you think that fool in the palace believes you are already dead? Might he still throw one final gamble?” she cackled.
“Come,” Gan Sui said. “We go to the palace first; leave someone here.” They left quickly and rode in at once.
When Gan Sui and Li Jing had gone, Wen Jiangyue gazed at his wife, who had shared his days and nights, and felt an unbearable strangeness. “After so many years of marriage, I thought I had never wronged you. I never imagined you could hate the Wen house to this depth.”
She replied, “Can you truly imagine? When was it ever about your own sake? I have always adjusted to your family’s face, to your motherly Empress’s dignity, to your daughter, to your children. After I gave birth, my child was taught from infancy to serve the Empress Dowager and the Second Prince. That I could endure. But my child—that only child of mine—because of you… he died. Not once did he see me before he died. He lies in wild fields with no bones to recover. My only son. He died by your hand!”
“Never again will I underestimate the ways of women in the inner chambers,” Wen said, his voice turning hoarse. “Now this entire Wen house will be buried with you.”
“Do not be so certain,” she answered. “I have sent you a gift as well. Wait and see.”
Without a word to him, she slipped back inside. Wen hurried to his study. Soon a bleak laugh came from inside. “It is finished—everything is finished!”
Soon he came back out and called the chief steward. “You know the way. Before the place is sealed, pack what is needed and leave with the children.”
“Your Excellency!”
“Go quickly.”
“It cannot be. The eldest prince is not yet interred. How can I leave?”
“A dead man is not as important as the living. Go quickly.”
“Come with me, your Excellency.”
“I have no future left,” Wen said. “The Wen house has no roots left. What destiny remains? What meaning is there in living? I will not go. You leave. Forget me. If they split my body apart, perhaps you’ll even have to put a thin coffin over me. Go now.”
“Your Excellency…” the steward wept.
Wen Jiangyue did not reply. He walked slowly back to the spirit hall.
Gan Sui and Li Jing rode hard for the palace gate. Both had passes that allowed easy entry, and they met little resistance. On the way to Purple-Sun Hall they saw a crowd of imperial physicians sprinting and knew they were already late. They entered in time. At the gate itself stood the emperor, who did not even glance at them; he shouted at the physicians, “Why are you not in yet?”
The physicians quickened their pace. Once the emperor entered the room, only then did Gan Sui and Li Jing see that the wounded man was Anzi. He had a deep wound on his shoulder, pale from blood loss, his face damp with sweat.
“Our humble servants—” one began.
“Enough ceremony,” the emperor snapped. “Come up and treat his wound.”
The physicians sprang up. The wound was severe but not mortal, and after they stanching it, he drifted into a heavy sleep.
The imperial physicians stayed to watch him. The rest withdrew. Gan Sui and Li Jing then stepped forward. The emperor rubbed the ache in his temple and asked, “You were to go to the Wen estate and arrest someone. How did you come here so quickly?”
Gan Sui recounted everything about Lady Wen.
“The woman in the inner chambers was dangerous and poisonous,” the emperor said. “May she be torn to pieces for the hatred in her heart.”
“We had thought something had happened to Your Majesty,” said Gan Sui, “but it was the Eldest Prince.”
“She came to me saying the Grand Consort had submitted a petition. In my haste, I saw nothing. I never imagined she had such skill,” he said. “Those in the Wen house are insufferable.”
“Your Majesty, the essential evidence is still missing.”
“Your Majesty, Prince Ding requests audience.”
“Emperor’s Uncle? What business does he bring at such a time?” he said. “Send him in quickly.”
The Prince was the late emperor’s younger brother, delicate in health since childhood. The former emperor had loved him and kept him in the capital. Prince Ding had long kept to himself, showing no ambition for the throne. He came at rare important times.
“The old minister bows,” he said.
“You need not kneel so deeply, Uncle. Stand. What urgency brings you?”
“The gatehouse received something today that chilled me when I saw it. I brought it straight to Your Majesty,” he said, offering a small casket.
Chi Nansing took it and opened it, then said to Gan Sui, “Perhaps we have found the key.”
That night, the Imperial Guard encircled the Wen estate. Citing dozens of charges—attempting to kill the imperial heir, embezzlement, and reckless killing of many—they seized Wen Jiangyue and sent him to prison. The moment the guards entered the gate, Lady Wen kicked away the stool beneath her and hanged herself in the Buddha Hall.
Every servant was detained. Only the steward’s family vanished without trace.
When the guards reached Wen’s chamber, he was still in a plain cotton robe, with his ceremonial robe folded neatly beside him. “So, is it time to go?” he asked.
“Yes, my lord,” Gan Sui said, helping him up. “And do not worry. Your eldest son will be buried properly.”
Wen Jiangyue studied him in silence, then said, “Thank you,” and squeezed his hand.
A mighty minister was led away in irons, bound to a prison cart. Behind them marched the many household staff, also imprisoned. If their innocence were ever proven, they would be sold onward, passed from owner to owner like horses and carts.
Gan Sui and Li Jing were ordered to take Wen Jiangyue to the Ministry of Punishments for confession. Gan Sui, with officials from the Ministry of Revenue, came to inventory property. When they spread out the goods, there was a peculiar stone among them. Gan Sui put it into his pocket.
In the outer rooms there was little else. In the study, the Minister of Revenue said, “There is a yin-yang lock here.”
“A yin-yang lock?”
“A yin-yang lock is made from ice-cold jade. When the secret chamber was first sealed, a special liquid was placed in its core. The mechanism sits above it. If the lock is tampered with, all wealth inside dissolves at once. This lord thought not even a single coin for us.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “People used to say this lord could rival kingdoms in wealth. To return home with so little is hard to bear before the Son of Heaven.”
“Could this be the key you gave me?” Gan Sui asked, holding out what he had been given. The minister stammered, “Councillor Gan…”
“Open it,” Gan Sui said.
When the cellar lock gave way, the Minister of Revenue nearly staggered backward. This was no private cache but a mountain of silver and gold. This year, after the salt merchant scandal, the treasury itself had surged; silver now poured in like floodwater, filling the entire vaults with no space between.
Wen was by then a man beyond redemption, yet before an imperial order reached him he had already taken his life in the heavenly prison. Even in death he remained proud: only he could end himself.
At dawn the next day, Noble Consort Wen sat motionless in the hall, dazed by the news a young maid had brought. She rose to ask her attendant what to do, then remembered the attendant had disappeared.
She could not understand how everything had changed overnight: the attendant dead, her father arrested, the stepmother had taken her life, and the Wen house collapsed in ruin. What now for her?
“The imperial decree!” called a eunuch outside.
“Your Highness, the decree has arrived,” said the maid, helping her kneel. A decree was read: “For believing treacherous words, for failing to distinguish loyal from traitor, for allowing palace attendants under your command to harm the imperial heir—though your son the Second Prince was reared by you, this is no full pardon. Your title as Noble Consort is revoked. You are reduced to the rank of palace attendant and banished to the Palace of Clear Autumn. Thereafter, behave properly and guard your tongue.” It ended: “Receive.”
“I must see the emperor,” she said, not extending her hand.
“The emperor is tending the Eldest Prince and cannot receive you.”
“I must see him,” she said, standing abruptly.
The imperial messenger snapped a fly whisk. “No one says otherwise. For a crime as large as Lord Wen’s, Your Excellency has been spared the worst. You live still because His Majesty is merciful. Why force this?”
Lady Wen drew a short dagger and held it to her throat in a blur. “I said it again: I will see the emperor today, or none of this will look well. I shall do it.” Her eyes shone.
“If Your Excellency insists, I will report it at once. Whether His Majesty receives you I cannot promise.”
“Do so. I will wait.”
The messenger returned to Purple-Sun Hall. The emperor, meanwhile, was still at breakfast with Anzi. His shoulder wound made every movement painful; if he reached for anything it tugged at it, so the emperor fed him with a spoon himself. Hearing the message, he paused and then said, “You may go. I have heard enough.”
“Father—” Anzi began.
“Not your concern. Drink your porridge.”
After breakfast, Chi Nansing set out for Noble Consort Wen’s palace.
Noble Consort Wen usually favored scarlet. If not full red, she wore plum-red shades. That day she was dressed in a deep crow-blue robe. When she saw Chi Nansing, her voice was cold. “So the emperor can still find my room. I had thought he had forgotten where I stayed long ago.”
“You did not come to repeat those useless words,” he said.
She ignored him and ordered tea. When he did not touch it, she laughed. As she laughed, tears began to fall. “You and I met through this very cup of tea. Without that day’s cup, how would all this have come to pass?”
“Consort, are you reopening old debts? If you had not poisoned me with that drink, how could—”
“So the emperor thinks all blame rests on me?” she wiped her tears. “Stop your pretense. It was you who needed my family’s strength to remove the Third Prince. You sought out the Wens yourself. My only fault was giving the maid that medicine. Do you think I know why Lin Yun died? She saw through it. Though she swore heaven to you, she saw that in the end you would abandon her for power.”
“Be silent!”
“Your Majesty is angry because of hurt pride,” she said. “You can bear a lie, but not the truth. I will tell you plainly: the root of Lin Yun’s death is you. It was you who brought her medicine to force her. If there is guilt, you share it too.”
Chi Nansing made no rebuttal.
It was as if she had lost any remaining interest in persuasion. “Lin Yun understood it in her heart long ago: power is supreme. I did not. I thought if she died, you would one day look at me truly. Yet after so many years, did you ever really look at me once? I came today to ask: do I still hold even a grain of a place in the emperor’s heart?”
“No.”
“That is laughable. Truly laughable.”
“Though you have fallen in rank,” Chi Nansing said, “you are at least the mother of the Second Prince. Your stipend is reduced, but enough for you to live. Live on your own from now on.”
Then he left. She may have heard him or not. She sank into her own world, unable to pull herself back.
In one night the capital had turned upside down. The once renowned Wen estate became a shell. Nothing in this world stays the same. Many people who once did business with Lord Wen now trembled; a family’s rise and fall can vanish on one command from the throne. The prince-tutor, whose wife had saved the prince’s life, now entered Wenyuan Hall and was made de facto vice-chancellor. The future looked bright for him; it was astonishing to see a man’s wife be willing to sacrifice so everything for ambition.
Then they remembered themselves. Once they had dealings with Lord Wen. If the emperor truly wished to pursue it, they could not escape. Several officials were arrested. Only later did people learn that, besides those with real evidence and those who had directly assisted Wen, everyone else was first raised up and then eased down again. The turbulence of the court gradually settled.
Rumor spread that on the autumn ancestral rites the emperor would formally announce the Eldest Prince as Crown Prince. Every day, people calculated where to place themselves and chose to flatter Gan the tutor, for he now sat closest to the prince.
Just as everyone in the capital thought to approach him, the Gan household abruptly ceased receiving visitors. They said Madam Gan had only recently been frightened at the racecourse and had not yet recovered.
Gan Sui had many matters these days and could not keep watch over Banxia. He gave strict orders to his attendant Xiangyu, who slept by her side, never to let Banxia step out. Banxia then discovered that the maid was a genius at this. Especially Xiangyu: whenever Banxia so much as turned toward the door, she would fall to her knees at once. The speed, the precision—like a little swallow that had learned to kneel at once. Kneeling was not enough; tears came instantly, and the degree of her sobbing depended on how stubbornly Banxia persisted. In short, not one of the two could pass her. Madness, indeed.
Anzi, wounded and worried that Banxia would fret herself sick, slipped away for a while and happened to meet her when she was again making a fuss about going outside. “Your sister is being restless,” he said. “When your husband returns he will certainly scold you.”
“You’ve come back. Is your wound much better?”
“It was only skin-deep,” he said. “Nothing serious. But you must care for yourself and build strength. How can you keep this up?”
“I’m mildew-in-rotting indoors,” Banxia said. “I only want some air.”
“Please come with me this time. Stay with me. Just talk with me.” He said.
She sat and talked with him when he looked so pitiful. She heard that Gan Sui had returned. The whole afternoon passed with no chance to go out.
When Anzi saw Gan Sui, he left in a rush, as if fleeing. “One chat with him a whole afternoon—it feels like a life sentence. I do not know what to say next. Better to leave.”
At night Banxia bit into Gan Sui’s shoulder. “It’s all your doing. Everything points to you. You won’t let me go out. What a nuisance!”
Gan Sui sighed. “All right, all right, I am hateful, hateful. Are you not biting me enough? Let us go to another place and bite properly.”
He leaned in and kissed her lips at once. “Ah! You terrible creature. Talk decently and you become vulgar and shameless. Mmm…”
A month later, Director Li returned from medicine in the deep woods with a dose. After the emperor took it and another half month of recovery, Dr. Li finally exhaled with relief while taking his pulse. Anzi watched and grinned like a child.
By the time August neared, Gan Sui was summoned almost daily by Lin Tianyu to go out. Their wedding drew near, and Lin Tianyu behaved like a man struck with pre-wedding panic, obsessing over every trivial detail. Were it not for the lighter political schedule then, Gan Sui thought he might slap him awake and tell him this is marriage, not war. “And when you married, you were still a lone wolf,” he thought bitterly.
That night, the deputy chancellor returned home with his good mood gone. He pleaded, almost weeping, for a second wedding ceremony. Banxia refused in plain words. Marrying is so terribly cumbersome: the formal garments, the heavy make-up, the endless details and rituals. Part of why she had cherished marriage was its weight of meaning, and that is exactly why a second one seemed unbearable.
Unable to accept, Gan Sui turned fierce and demanded his rights. Banxia had to submit and was nearly spent. He kept muttering that there was no need for ceremony, that a bridal-night should still be shared. He clearly needed only an excuse to make trouble. Nuisance.
The day of Lin Tianyu’s wedding to Li Yuzhu arrived quickly. One groom was a top general and uncle to the crown prince-to-be; the other the cousin of a rising Minister of Justice. The ceremony was anything but ordinary. Even without counting the ten-li long stretch of red decoration, the three days of continuous banquet at a hundred tables gave everyone reason to rejoice and gossip.
On the wedding day the Crown Prince came, and the Emperor as well. The emperor sat at the honored seat. Lin Tianyu came with a wine cup and said to Chi Nansing, “Congratulations.”
“Thank Your Majesty,” he replied.
Though much remained unspoken between them, they could never return to the old brother-like closeness. At least that was one kind of completeness: if not friends, then ruler and minister.
After drinking deeply, Chi Nansing said, “I cannot carry so much wine. I will sit in the garden.”
The Lin estate had not changed through the years. He sat on a long pavilion and drifted into old days like a dream:
“South brother, if you marry me, you must love me well and truly. If you ever fall for another, I will never want you again.”
“Alright.”
“You already have another. I do not want you anymore...”
“Yun’er!”
He suddenly woke with a jolt. All that remained before him was the mild wind. What was gone would not return.
In September, the emperor ascended Ling Mountain with his officials and offered sacrifice to Heaven and Earth.
“Let the royal lineage be secured and the state made unshakable. The legitimate son, Anzi—gentle as a phoenix, beautiful in form, and pure in mind—shall be set apart in youthless vanity, composed in conduct, filial and affectionate by nature, and worthy of both people and spirits. We hereby appoint him Crown Prince, to inherit Lianga’s eternal household. Let this rite be completed according to ritual and in submission to the public heart. To Heaven, to the ancestral temple, to the state altars—we make this offering. The Crown Prince shall offer incense to the ancestors.”
Anzi, in crown-prince court robes, walked step by step toward the censer. A ceremonial eunuch handed him incense and wax.
“Bow, offer to Heaven, kneel!”
Anzi knelt, and behind him all ministers followed.
“Rise. Ceremony complete! All high ministers salute.”
“Bowing to His Highness the Crown Prince, long live, long live, long long live.”
“All ministers, rise.”
Anzi lifted his hand. In the east, a round red sun climbed slowly up the horizon. Golden light spilled across his face. Chi Nansing looked up to the sky, thinking, If Yun’er can see, she can see him now—our son standing at the highest peak of Liang.
After Anzi took the crown-prince position, Lin Tianyu himself requested permission to go to the frontier.
When Anzi heard the news, he hurried to find him. Gan Sui came with him. As soon as they met, Gan asked, “Why now? You go to the border too?”
“Why not ask her?” he said to his cousin by marriage. “And who am I to leave a place where I grew up for the front?”
“I did ask. She is willing. And you know me—you are no longer comfortable here in the capital. I am a man of campaigns; what am I doing in court?”
“Uncle,” Anzi said.
“It’s fine. You are grown now, with plenty around you. Why would an uncle fret like this? Better that I stand guard for you at the border. Know that no one in Liang will dare invade with me nearby.”
After the first autumn rain, Anzi sent Lin Tianyu away.
Six years later, Chi Nansing abdicated to Anzi and made ready to travel across the realms.
“Father,” Anzi asked, “will you leave me too?”
“Now that the land is peaceful, there is no reason not to place it in your hands,” he replied. “Your mother long wished to see every corner of Liang. I would like to do that for her now.”
“And will you return?”
“Of course. This is my home. And you are still here.”
“Then return soon.”
“Certainly. I entrust the people of Liang to you. Do not fail them, and do not fail your ancestors.”
“I will do my best.”
When Chi Nansing set out, Chi Zaiyuan insisted on going with him. Since his mother had died, it had been Anzi who cared for him, and lately people had been feeding enmity between him and Anzi. To end their scheming, he chose simply to follow Chi Nansing away from the court.
“Brother,” he said, “you govern the court with a free heart. I will take care of Father for you.”
He had grown a lot. What had happened before did not interest him any longer; he only wanted to live the present well.
After he sent father and brother off, Anzi suddenly understood what it meant to be an emperor alone.
Fortunately, there was Gan Sui, who brought little things Banxia prepared each day and eased a little of his pain.
Yuhai and Liuguang had grown wild. They were little troublemakers all day, like tiny demons. In this age there was no school to send little devils into. Banxia was left with a pounding head from their noise and longed, with sincere longing, to return to the modern age.
Perhaps from overthinking, at night she slipped in and out of herself and returned to modern life in a daze. The next morning she woke still confused, and told Gan Sui, “Last night I think I returned to the modern world. I even ate so much ice cream and chocolate.”
“So… did you eat those things because of a dream?”
“No. I also dreamed of an old woman who told me I could become the emperor’s mother-in-law, hahaha. Isn’t that funny? The emperor’s mother-in-law, which would be Anzi’s mother-in-law, right? So funny.”
Banxia meant it as a joke, but Gan Sui grew tense. He thought Anzi was too old now to set his heart on fresh young grass. They needed strict distance.
The next day Anzi sent a message: “Brother-in-law, why did you glare at me today? I did nothing. Is there no family warmth left at all? I am surely the most miserable emperor in the world—crying, truly.”
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