Hire an assassin to kill his own father?! Shen Yunfei’s body went rigid. He stared at Ying Fusheng in shock, but the latter remained unmoved and simply continued. “Choosing the assassin requires two people, each meeting two conditions. The first: someone who frequents the haunts of the capital’s wealthy and powerful, addicted to gambling and drink, with a volatile temper. The second: someone who regularly visits teahouses, a man of letters, frustrated and going nowhere in life, preferably someone who has had a conflict with the garrison troops outside the capital.”

Shen Yunfei found it all incomprehensible. Listening to Ying Fusheng’s words, the whole thing sounded like a fantasy.

But the next thing Ying Fusheng said was enough to root him to the spot.

“You are no scholar, but you know plenty of dissolute companions.” Ying Fusheng’s voice was clear and unhurried, yet each word landed on Shen Yunfei like a blow. “You keep company with idle young wastrels and often go out to the outskirts of the capital. You know the back roads between the outskirts and the city particularly well.”

Shen Yunfei’s mind was already in turmoil. “How do you know that?”

“Young General Qi was not wrong. Your riding technique differs from everyone else’s. The only place in the capital where you could have trained your horse is the stretch of woodland behind the garrison grounds outside the city.” Ying Fusheng laid out the problem in a few words. “Today we are going to the outskirts. You will have enough time, and I can serve as your witness. Whether you do it or not is up to you.”

“If you want to do it, I will teach you how to hire the assassin.”

…

At the third quarter of the shen hour, the streets of the capital were busy with people coming and going. The Shen residence sat in the southern part of the city. The surrounding area was quiet, with almost no foot traffic, and the atmosphere was somber. A few scattered soldiers from the capital garrison were patrolling outside. Vice Minister Shen had been placed under house arrest within the residence. Over the past few days, family members of soldiers caught up in the military pay case had come repeatedly to cause a scene, and paper money had been scattered all across the front of the gate.

A retainer was chatting with the owner of a tea stall. Qi Hanzhou was dressed in plain clothes. He watched the family members’ procession disappear into the distance before the retainer came over and said, “That was General Chen’s household. Today is the third day they have come to make trouble. The tea stall owner sets up here every day and says that aside from the troublemakers, the Shen residence has been very quiet these past few days.”

Qi Hanzhou furrowed his brow, his gaze drifting to the garrison soldiers on patrol. “These are not men from the Court of Judicial Review?”

“It is like this: Vice Minister Shen has dealings with the capital garrison on ordinary days, and there have been quite a few disturbances. The garrison specifically sent men over, saying it was to protect Vice Minister Shen.” The retainer said, “Young General, is something off?”

Qi Hanzhou took the tea the stall owner handed him and seemed lost in thought. At that very moment, a shout suddenly rang out from inside the Shen residence. “Vice Minister Shen has been attacked!!”

Both men paused and immediately set down their teacups. Qi Hanzhou gave a slight nod. The retainer vaulted over the wall into the residence, spotted the fleeing assailant, and immediately tackled him to the ground. By then, the other attendants of the Shen household had already rushed over. Qi Hanzhou entered the study of the Shen residence and found Vice Minister Shen collapsed on the floor, bleeding from his abdomen. He frowned. “Seal off the Shen residence. No one is to enter or leave.”

Vice Minister Shen had been confined to the Shen residence, and nearly the entire Shen household was at home. Yet the assailant had managed to slip inside while the incident unfolded, and had known that Vice Minister Shen would be spending an extended period in the study at that hour. He had avoided every single servant in the residence, used a sedating incense to go straight to the study, and attempted to kill Vice Minister Shen. Had the Shen household’s attendants not arrived in time, Vice Minister Shen would have died on the spot.

“Young General.” The retainer drew close. “He is trained, but his martial skill is not high.”

Vice Minister Shen had taken a slash to the abdomen. The assailant was captured on the spot.

When the Chief Justice of the Court of Judicial Review arrived, he nearly went faint at the sight. He quickly ordered his men to take over. “Many thanks to Young General Qi.”

“Father!”

Qi Hanzhou gave a brief nod of acknowledgment. When he turned back, he saw the Shen family’s youngest son come running in, his face full of panic, a fine sweat already on his brow. Shen Yunfei immediately dropped to his knees to examine Vice Minister Shen’s injuries. When he saw the wound, his face went white with fright. “My father’s injuries…”

“The cut is not deep. The Vice Minister is fortunate,” the physician said quickly.

Qi Hanzhou’s gaze paused and rested on Shen Yunfei for a moment. Then he caught a faint, clean scent of medicine. He turned back and saw Ying Fusheng standing at the doorway. Ying Fusheng happened to look up at that moment, and the eyes on that pale face were unnervingly calm.

But it lasted only an instant. When others looked over, a measure of concern had already settled into his expression.

“Your Highness, you cannot go in,” the palace attendants and retainers blocked his way.

Ying Fusheng stopped just short of the threshold. “How is Vice Minister Shen?”

The situation at the Shen residence was dire. With Young General Qi’s lockdown in place, nearly every servant in the household came under investigation. It was worth noting that aside from the youngest son, every member of the Shen family had been under house arrest and under constant watch. Committing a crime under the eyes of everyone like this, without alerting the Shen household’s guards, left only one possibility upon careful examination: someone had opened a door from inside the Shen residence to let the assailant in.

“Everyone in the Shen residence must be investigated,” the Chief Justice declared.

Qi Hanzhou looked toward Shen Yunfei. He was sweating heavily, whether from anxiety or something else.

The Chief Justice noticed Qi Hanzhou’s attention on the matter. “Young General?”

Shen Yunfei’s complexion was terrible, with dark circles under his eyes, and he had the Sixth Prince to vouch for him, having spent nearly every moment of the day at the Sixth Prince’s side.

Qi Hanzhou withdrew his gaze, thought of Shen Yunfei’s riding technique, and looked toward Ying Fusheng again.

Ying Fusheng’s expression was almost without flaw.

With the Shen residence under attack, the palace attendants accompanying Ying Fusheng, worried for the prince’s safety, quickly escorted him back to the carriage.

Qi Hanzhou watched Ying Fusheng walk away, his frown deepening. “What brought him here?”

The retainer lowered his voice. “Today the Wenhua Hall group went to the outskirts. The study companions came along. When word reached us, the Sixth Prince was at young Master Shen’s side. What is it, Young General? Is something wrong? With what happened at the Shen residence today, we now have grounds to investigate the military pay case.”

“True.” Qi Hanzhou turned back to look at the Shen residence behind him. “Only, it is too convenient.”

Convenient enough that it felt as if someone had personally placed the opportunity in front of them.

Men from the Court of Judicial Review came and went. The garrison soldiers standing guard outside were also placed under suspicion. The entire Shen residence was gripped with unease.

News of the attack on Vice Minister Shen reached the palace, and the Emperor flew into a rage. He ordered the Court of Judicial Review to conduct a full investigation into the attack.

Under harsh interrogation, the assailant eventually revealed that the person who had hired him was a scholar. The scholar had neither wealth nor power, and previously had a conflict with Vice Minister Shen. No one knew where he had gotten the money to hire an assassin to enter the residence and carry out the attack. When the scholar was arrested, he was in a teahouse, scared out of his wits. Under the very first round of questioning, he said someone had approached him to hire the assassin, with the goal of staging the scene to look like Vice Minister Shen had taken his own life out of guilt.

The other party even produced an official seal. If the deed was done, they would arrange for him to enter government service.

The scholar had been frustrated and going nowhere for a long time, and indeed had conflicts with the capital garrison troops. There were almost no loose ends.

When this came to light, the entire court was shaken.

What had begun as a single military pay case, with Vice Minister Shen on the verge of being convicted, had now exploded into a hired assassination, which could only mean there was a real hand pulling the strings behind the scenes. Once this lead emerged, after the Shen residence was sealed off that day, Young General Qi actually found two informants with ill intentions hidden within the inner quarters of the Shen residence. The moment they were discovered, both took poison and died, unable to be questioned, yet the discovery sent a chill through everyone.

Someone had planted spies inside the Shen residence and also tried to kill Vice Minister Shen and stage it as a s*icide, all out of desperate urgency to close the military pay case.

The Emperor erupted in fury at court. With General Chen involved, and a loyal official framed on top of it, the case was immediately handed to the Embroidered Guard for a thorough investigation into every matter connected to the Shen family, inside and out. The assailant and the scholar held in the Court of Judicial Review became the only breakthrough, and the two major factions at court immediately began distancing themselves from any responsibility.

Shen Yunfei had not expected that within just a few days of the attack, the Shen family’s situation would turn so completely on its head. The day he walked into the study and saw the gash at his father’s waist, his heart had seized with terror. The Sixth Prince had told him not to inform his father beforehand, that letting things unfold naturally would be the most convincing. The Sixth Prince had laid out every detail of how to hire the assassin, from the teahouse to the tavern, including the choice of people. Those exacting conditions had actually led him to the right candidates, and the hired assassination had succeeded.

But how had the Sixth Prince known in advance that the right candidates existed? And how had he known the exact timing of the garrison’s rotation outside the capital, allowing him to open a side passage for the assailant to enter the Shen residence? None of this could be explained. He had only carried out what looked like a plan riddled with holes at every turn, and yet it had worked. It had even led Young General Qi to uncover the spies hidden in the household.

He heard that his father had regained consciousness and rushed over. The moment he stepped inside, he was met with a furious reprimand.

“Father!” Shen Yunfei dropped to his knees.

Vice Minister Shen told him to stand. What others could not piece together, he could. He also knew that his son alone could not have devised a plan this precise. “This was not your idea. Who told you to do this? Hiring an assassin, deceiving the Emperor. How did you dare!”

“It was the Sixth Prince… The Sixth Prince said this was the only way to save you.” Shen Yunfei knew the audacity of what had been done. Seeing his father’s wound reopen from the agitation, he quickly explained on the Sixth Prince’s behalf. “I was the one who begged the Sixth Prince for help. He said hiring an assassin was the only way to find an opening for the Shen family.”

The Sixth Prince… the Ning family?

Vice Minister Shen rested his hand on the edge of the bed. As he listened to Ying Fusheng’s plan from Shen Yunfei’s account, the face that had aged so visibly over these past few days seemed to regain a trace of color. The image of the Sixth Prince, Ying Fusheng, whom he had only glimpsed from the side at the palace banquet, passed before his eyes. He still remembered those earnest words, and the sight of Vice Minister Ning basking in glory at court afterward. The Shen family and the Ning family had never had any dealings, and Vice Minister Ning always steered well clear of him. There was no way the Ning family would help him.

“Tell me everything…”

Shen Yunfei, hearing this, immediately laid out every arrangement the Sixth Prince had instructed him to make.

“How did the Sixth Prince come to know all these people?” Vice Minister Shen could not believe it. Even he himself had never noticed any of this. Was the Sixth Prince not still just a child?

Shen Yunfei did not know. Being told to hire an assassin to kill his own father had already been an act against all reason. The exacting conditions the Sixth Prince had described had genuinely led him to the right candidates. Over these past few days, with the Court of Judicial Review going back and forth in its investigation, Shen Yunfei had felt certain he was about to be exposed. But he had not been. Instead, the investigation had turned up a trail of damning evidence against the assailant and the scholar.

He said, “The Sixth Prince said that if you woke, you were to read this letter.”

Vice Minister Shen’s mind went hazy. With trembling hands, he opened the letter Ying Fusheng had given him and read it with great care.

But when he finished, his hands would not stop shaking. He immediately told Shen Yunfei to burn it completely.

“So that is how it is… So that is how it is…” He seemed to have aged several years in an instant. Once the letter had burned to nothing, he said, “Yunfei, what the Sixth Prince has done is a great kindness to our Shen family. Help me up. I must go to the palace and seek an audience with His Majesty.”

Vice Minister Shen had been conscious for only half a day. Disregarding his injuries, he went to the palace that very night to seek an audience with the Emperor, saying he had an urgent matter to report.

When word reached the Eastern Palace, the Crown Prince was so startled he knocked over his teacup. He asked urgently, “Is this true?!”

“It is true!” The palace attendant knelt. “His Majesty has ordered the Embroidered Guard to conduct a full investigation. Everything connected to the Shen family, every detail from beginning to end, is to be investigated. Your Highness, will what we did at the training grounds be discovered?”

The Crown Prince’s expression tightened. The runaway horse at the training grounds had indeed been his doing. He could not allow Shen Yunfei to become his own study companion, and had mobilized part of the Xu family’s influence to arrange it. He only needed to wait for the military pay case to close, and everything would have been seamless. But then Vice Minister Shen was attacked, and the “accident” involving Shen Yunfei could very well be dug up and re-examined. “No. This cannot come to light!”

If his imperial father found out, it would all be over.

The Crown Prince paced back and forth, growing more alarmed with every thought. “The Embroidered Guard, how far has the investigation gone?”

“They are still interrogating the scholar. The scholar can no longer give a useful confession, but what he said about the official seal has implicated certain officials at court. The officials overseeing the imperial examinations are likely to get drawn into this.” The palace attendant said, “This hired assassination is too convenient. There is every chance someone is trying to use the military pay case to drag those officials in.”

The Crown Prince had no interest in any of that. Whatever happened to those people was no concern of his. His maternal grandfather would handle it. What he was worried about was the training grounds.

“No. I have to find a way.”