In the side hall of the Cining Palace, a thin night breeze slipped through the unlatched window, and two shadows swayed faintly in the candlelight. Qi Hanzhou had not come in his python-embroidered robes tonight. He wore night-black clothes, and his gaze dropped slightly, passing over Ying Fusheng’s face. “At the Huguo Temple, this subordinate told Your Highness that Your Highness is a prince, a body of a thousand gold.”

A body of a thousand gold… the Qi family’s loyalty was to the imperial throne, but it was not blind loyalty.

If the Qi family truly wished it, moving against a prince was not beyond them.

“The Young General knows this, yet has not reported it to my Imperial Father.” Ying Fusheng looked at him and raised his hand to the side of his own neck, where a healed sword scar lay. “The Young General’s blade was an inch further than before.”

He lowered his hand and kept his sideways stance. “I know the Young General’s secret. Now you know mine. We are even.”

His composure was unexpected. Secrets and threats were simply mutual leverage to him, not the kind of fatal evidence that should have shaken anyone. Yet the ease in his voice allowed no one to lower their guard, for not long ago this same person, wearing this same face, had moved the court with his own hands.

Qi Hanzhou’s gaze drifted toward the window. “Your Highness is very clever.”

“That still requires the Young General’s willingness to keep the secret with me.” Ying Fusheng said it lightly, and just as lightly turned the matter back to Qi Hanzhou.

Ying Fusheng smiled. Qi Hanzhou watched him, and in the quiet, every movement Ying Fusheng made took on weight. A cunning face, a calm face… this was the second face Qi Hanzhou had seen on him, and this one carried deliberate pretense.

Every step he took was difficult to read. He suffered years of poisoning at his own mother’s hands. An ordinary prince who discovered such a secret might not have thought as deeply, and might well have been rendered helpless by his age. But he had not. He made use of Hu Buyu, the Xu family, and the Embroidered Guard, and built everything with his own hands.

What Qi Hanzhou found most inexplicable was that there was no one standing behind him.

The only family with close ties to Ying Fusheng was the Shen family, and everyone knew that connection was maintained through his study companion Shen Yunfei. Imperial children had maternal clans behind them: the Yun clan behind the First Prince, the Xu clan behind the Crown Prince. Ying Fusheng had none. Qi Hanzhou had investigated the Ning family, and over the years they had done almost nothing to build a foundation for the Sixth Prince at court. The Ning family had been gaining prominence, and a favored prince should have been an opportunity to draw in allies.

He had known about the Suihongzi early. He had known Consort Ning’s intentions, and so he had pushed the Ning family up with his own hands, then pulled them down with his own hands.

The two of them fell into silence. Ying Fusheng took a few steps away. Qi Hanzhou’s sword did not move.

That faint test concluded, Ying Fusheng walked to the window and latched it properly where Song’an had left it loose. The hall held nothing now but the sharp smell of medicine. He said quietly, “Let me guess what the Young General came to find me about. The Suihongzi is a substance from the previous dynasty, and it appeared inside the imperial palace with no traceable origin. Anything connected to the previous dynasty is a matter that strikes at the imperial family’s most sensitive nerve. My Imperial Father will certainly investigate, and he will send the Embroidered Guard to investigate.”

Ying Fusheng coughed. His cold had not yet cleared, and talking at length made his throat uncomfortable. Qi Hanzhou watched his frail appearance, reached over without a word, and drew the heavy curtain across the inner doorway to block the draft coming through. He seemed indifferent to his own condition. The hall was saturated with the smell of medicine, yet he had been perfectly willing to fall into the water and use it to draw people’s sympathy without a second thought.

The underfloor heating in the inner room was running. Qi Hanzhou lowered his eyes slightly and watched Ying Fusheng walk barefoot to the incense stand and extinguish the burning calming incense.

“Forgive me, Young General. Too much of the incense and one falls asleep quickly…”

Ying Fusheng moved to the desk. An unfinished game of weiqi sat unsorted on it, along with several volumes of essays. His sleeping quarters were simple enough to take in at a single glance, and no matter who came to search, they would find no trace of any contact with anyone outside the palace.

Qi Hanzhou looked away. “The Suihongzi is not something the Ning family could have obtained on their own.”

“No,” Ying Fusheng said, looking at him. “So who was it that gave the Suihongzi to the Ning family?”

Something shifted briefly in Qi Hanzhou’s expression. “So you used the Ning family as bait.”

Ying Fusheng had used the Ning family to make them a target at court, not only to bring others out to move against them, but to watch whether anyone at court would move to protect them. A secret substance like the Suihongzi appearing in the palace meant that tracing its origins was the most critical thing of all.

Ying Fusheng did not respond. His hand moved among the pieces on the weiqi board, his eyes unreadable, his manner carrying an indescribable ease. As he spoke, he began placing pieces on the board, black and white with no order, no rules, no strategy at all.

“There is no formation here,” Qi Hanzhou said.

Ying Fusheng kept moving pieces. “I don’t know how to play weiqi.”

“But pieces are ultimately meant to be used. Why should one be bound by other people’s rules?”

When he spoke of using pieces, the gaze he turned upward was uncommonly sharp. He picked several pieces out from the board and dropped them into the pot.

“The Young General has something he wants to investigate,” Ying Fusheng said. “So do I.”

Qi Hanzhou’s expression did not change. He only watched.

“Youzhou City fell in part because the intelligence dispatched to the capital did not arrive in time. That is what the Young General wants to investigate.” Ying Fusheng tapped the weiqi board and turned to look at him. This time there was no sharp blade at his throat.

The hall was quiet. A cold edge surfaced in Qi Hanzhou’s eyes. “Four years ago, Your Highness was only six.”

“If that were all, the Young General would not be here talking to me.” Ying Fusheng gave a quiet laugh. His fingertip traced across the weiqi board, drawing a faint sound. “The garrison at Youzhou City was sharp. The intelligence was carried by a special courier riding hard. The delay was not caused by a blocked route. Someone suppressed the report. That person was not at the border. They were at court.”

Qi Hanzhou’s fingertip rested on the hilt of his sword. Cold spread from the depths of his eyes. “Your Highness never wanted cooperation.”

Ying Fusheng drew a new piece from the board and set it down with an unhurried hand. He paused, his gaze sharp as a needle. “You investigate your Youzhou City. I investigate my own matters. Each takes what he needs. Is that not good?”

Suddenly, footsteps sounded outside the hall. Qi Hanzhou looked toward the door almost instantly. The sudden noise silenced them both at once.

Outside the hall, Song’an’s voice and another person’s drifted in quietly.

“The physician prescribed it. His Highness has been having trouble sleeping lately, so a calming broth was prepared especially.” The voice belonged to a medical apprentice. Since the Emperor had ordered treatment to draw out the Suihongzi’s poison from Ying Fusheng’s body, physicians and apprentices had been coming and going frequently.

Song’an said, “Leave it with me.”

The sounds outside faded quickly.

“It’s a medical apprentice delivering medicine,” Ying Fusheng said.

Qi Hanzhou’s gaze moved briefly to the window. The apprentice’s footsteps gradually receded.

Song’an brought the medicine in. He had been waiting outside for some time, and only when he saw that the figure in black had not harmed the Highness did he let out a breath. “Your Highness, medicine from the Imperial Medical Office. Drink it while it’s warm.”

Qi Hanzhou watched Ying Fusheng take the bowl, his gaze passing over Song’an before settling on Ying Fusheng’s hands. Ying Fusheng took medicine every day. Without it, the Empress Dowager would worry. As he accepted the bowl, he gave Song’an’s hand a small pat to settle him.

Then Qi Hanzhou suddenly reached out and stopped Ying Fusheng’s hand before he could drink. A sharp look passed through his eyes. “When I came, I checked the situation around the palace. Within the span of one incense stick, no one should have been able to approach the Cining Palace.”

Ying Fusheng stopped. Song’an said at once, “The medicines in this hall are all checked with a silver needle.”

Since Consort Ning’s affair, Song’an had made a habit of checking the medicines almost every time.

“That person’s footsteps were light and steady. Not the gait of an untrained person.” Qi Hanzhou took the medicine bowl directly and held it close to smell it. “The Suihongzi can be added to medicine without detection. How do you know there are no other secret substances from the previous dynasty? Did you recognize the person who delivered it?”

“Physician Chu’s apprentice, he comes often…” Song’an’s words trailed off. Ying Fusheng turned his head. Qi Hanzhou set the bowl on the table, placed a piece of reagent stone into it, and a faint sediment appeared in the liquid. He frowned. “This cannot be drunk.”

Song’an realized the gravity of it. “His Highness has been sleeping poorly and often convulses in his sleep. This was a newly added medicine from the physician.”

Something had been added twice now. If the Suihongzi could be attributed to Consort Ning’s illness and her harm of the prince, then what was the reason for this? Such methods, such relentless effort to move against a single prince?

Someone wanted him dead.

A chill ran through Qi Hanzhou. He turned and caught something strange in Ying Fusheng’s expression.

Ying Fusheng’s gaze had settled on the medicine bowl, but his eyes seemed to drift. He appeared to be looking at the bowl with its unknown addition, yet also to be looking past it at something else. Qi Hanzhou hesitated, then heard him ask, “How far have you gotten in investigating the attendants around Consort Ning?”

Ying Fusheng looked up, his eyes cold. “The Embroidered Guard could not trace the Suihongzi’s origins. The person is already dead.”

Qi Hanzhou felt something odd in his manner but answered anyway. “A eunuch who handled medicine purchases inside the palace. He died on a winter night last year.”

“Last winter night…” Ying Fusheng murmured.

Qi Hanzhou turned slightly and completed the account. “A winter night, a palace pool. A few days before he fell into the water, Your Highness had fallen into the water and taken seriously ill.”

Those words landed, and Ying Fusheng’s expression changed for just an instant.

Qi Hanzhou caught that flash of something, and before he could think further on it, a sound came from the window.

“Who’s there!!” A shout came from outside the hall. It was Ying Fusheng’s guards.

Qi Hanzhou snapped to alertness and swept his gaze toward the window. A figure was fleeing in haste. “It’s the same person!”

That person watched Song’an deliver the medicine and come to check on the situation, but tonight Qi Hanzhou tampered with the window. The two guards stationed outside the Cining Palace’s side hall reacted immediately, and the sound of rapid footsteps closed in from that direction. Qi Hanzhou’s expression sharpened. He heard the steps coming fast.

“There is a rear window in the side hall,” Ying Fusheng said, coming back to himself. “Go first.”

In a matter of moments, Qi Hanzhou had vanished through the window, as swiftly as he had come.

Ying Fusheng looked at Song’an. He understood what his master meant and shouted at the top of his voice, “Assassin!! There’s an assassin!!”

The Cining Palace attendants jolted awake. An assassination attempt at the Cining Palace in the middle of the night was no small matter! The palace went on alert at once. Song’an watched the lights outside flare to life, then turned back to see Ying Fusheng step to the side, take the reagent stone Qi Hanzhou had dropped into the medicine bowl, and in the next moment lift the bowl and take a mouthful.

“Your Highness!” Song’an cried.

Ying Fusheng held it in his mouth and immediately spat it out. The palace attendants came rushing in from outside at that moment and walked in on Ying Fusheng retching up the medicine. Aunt Yu’s face went pale with shock. “Someone come quickly!!”

The night was still. A bright moon hung high.

Qi Hanzhou melted into the darkness. Looking ahead, he could see the unlatched window of the side hall. The entire Cining Palace had been roused by the shout of “assassin” from the Sixth Prince’s attendant, and the speed with which they had gone on alert was faster than anywhere else in the palace.

In the distance, the palace walls rose deep and heavy. The patrolling garrison soldiers moved along the palace road and sprang into action the moment they heard the shout. Qi Hanzhou looked back. That person was hidden within the small confines of a palace wall, yet the depths behind them were impossible to see the end of.

He looked a moment longer, then turned and disappeared into the palace.

In the darkness, a young person dressed in a medical apprentice’s clothes was running. The footsteps were extremely steady. Several people followed behind. “What a nuisance.”

Before long, the figure vanished between the palace walls and disappeared without a trace. By the time Qi Hanzhou shed his night clothes and arrived, the Embroidered Guard had already surrounded a pond. The medical apprentice’s body floated in the water, the appearance of someone who had fallen in a panic and drowned.

“Commander!” The Embroidered Guard was startled to see Qi Hanzhou there. “This person ran out of the Cining Palace and was spotted by the brothers on patrol. Already dead.”

Qi Hanzhou crouched down and pulled off the waterlogged shoes. The soles of this person’s feet were very thin.

This was not the same person. This body had no martial training…

A chill crept up Qi Hanzhou’s back.

It had been a test.

“What is the situation at the Cining Palace?” Qi Hanzhou asked.

The Embroidered Guard said, “The physician has already gone over.”

Inside the Cining Palace, the medicine bowl was intercepted by the physician who had rushed over. Physician Chu had indeed prescribed medicine for Ying Fusheng and had instructed an apprentice to deliver it, but by the proper timing, it should not have arrived at the Cining Palace so quickly. The moment he heard that the Sixth Prince had drunk the medicine and vomited, the physician came in the middle of the night in a state of alarm.

The medicine was taken away for close examination. Word that the apprentice had drowned in the pond reached the Empress Dowager.

Her expression shifted. She told Aunt Yu to stay and watch over Ying Fusheng, then turned and walked out.

“The physician says several potent herbs were added to the broth. Not poisonous in themselves, but for a body already ravaged by the Suihongzi, medicines that are too harsh will damage the organs.” A palace attendant came to report. “His Majesty’s side has word that the Suihongzi investigation has reached a dead end, and the Embroidered Guard has not found the person who gave Consort Ning the Suihongzi.”

“Whether he will ever fully recover is uncertain. Now that the Ning family has fallen, there are still those unwilling to let him go.”

The Empress Dowager’s expression darkened. Consort Ning had fallen, then the Ning family had fallen in turn… and the Sixth Prince’s cold had not cleared for days because of the Suihongzi. A child like that dying young in the deep palace would have surprised no one. The palace held many princes and princesses, and some had not yet grown up before their maternal clans were already scheming on their behalf.

The Emperor’s affection for him had caught certain people’s attention. Someone in the palace could not tolerate his existence.

Inside the hall, Aunt Yu stayed until Ying Fusheng’s breathing steadied before stepping away. Song’an was still shaken and remained at Ying Fusheng’s side.

Ying Fusheng’s gaze drifted toward the distance. The lights outside the hall were still burning. The Empress Dowager had not slept.

The one who had truly given Consort Ning the Suihongzi was not among those few attendants who had taken poison and died. Someone capable of obtaining a substance from the previous dynasty would never leave such an obvious trail… he knew there was another person behind the delivery of the poison to Consort Ning, possibly someone at court who had come into the picture later, and that person’s reach had already extended into the palace.

In his past life, it was the Qi family who had come to him first. This time, he moved ahead of them.

Exposing the Suihongzi to the Embroidered Guard, exposing it to his Imperial Father, had also been part of his plan, a way to use outside force to probe the depths of things.

But he had still been too slow. The person who delivered the poison had cleaned up their trail as far back as last year.

He should have realized it in his past life. Given how utterly foolish the Ning family had been, how could they have managed a child swap within the deep palace on their own? But in his past life, his condition had been too poor, body and mind both failing, one move behind. When he finally learned the truth of the swap, he fixated on taking revenge against Consort Ning and sought help from the Xu family, wasting a period of clarity for nothing. By the time his mind began to cloud over, he had already fallen behind.

In his past life, the court  shifted greatly in the period before the new emperor took the throne. The Xu family, the Ning family, the Zhou family… too many people stood behind the Crown Prince’s faction. Who helped the Ning family carry out the swap? What role did the Xu family played in it? What were the true intentions of the others standing behind the new emperor?

In his past life, the Qi family never found that person. Neither had he.

Now, he could only work backward from the outcomes of his past life to reason out the causes.

Ying Fusheng was thinking when a sharp pain suddenly stabbed through his forehead.

“Your Highness!” Song’an saw his expression change and moved to call Aunt Yu from outside, but Ying Fusheng said suddenly, “No need to call anyone.”

Ying Fusheng’s forehead was damp with fine sweat. He pressed Song’an’s hand down. The pain in his forehead cut through his thoughts, and his eyes were unusually clear.

The people connected to his past life passed through his mind one by one. Ying Fusheng turned it over, his expression unreadable.

Song’an saw his Highness’s state and was anxious, but then heard him ask, “Song’an, do you still remember who was in the Weiyang Palace on the night I woke up after falling into the water?”

Song’an paused and thought carefully. “His Highness falling into the water was a serious matter. That night there were the Weiyang Palace attendants, several physicians from the Imperial Medical Office, and people from other palaces as well.”

“Quite a crowd,” Ying Fusheng murmured.

The only place he had shown a crack was the change in his attitude toward Consort Ning on the night he was reborn.

In less than half an hour, the person behind all of this had already noticed something off, and arranged for the attendant who delivered the Suihongzi to die in an accident last year.

Which meant that while he had been laying his plans against Consort Ning, the person who gave her the poison had already written the Ning family off as a dead piece.

Consort Ning had only been the first move. He knew her character inside and out. That mother of his was ruthless enough and foolish enough. With the right handling, she was a piece to be used, and naturally she had been a piece on someone else’s board long before that.

He made the Ning family a target. So had the person who sent the poison.

Tonight had been a test. That person wanted to test him, to see who stood behind him.

Why? Letting the Suihongzi matter die quietly would have been the safer choice. Acting recklessly would only put his Imperial Father on higher alert. Unless the person behind it had no choice. Unless it was because of Qi Hanzhou.

Qi Hanzhou’s night visit had been an unexpected variable. The person watching him could not tell the difference, so the one behind it all had taken the risk to find out who was backing him.

The Cining Palace, or the Imperial Medical Office… someone was watching him. In his past life, the inner palace descended into chaos too quickly. The Empress Dowager died, the Empress’s seat had been left empty, and spies had been placed around his Imperial Father. A scheme of that scale could not have been built in a day.

“Hidden deep enough.”

Ying Fusheng’s gaze drifted to the high beams of the sleeping quarters. The darkness in his eyes deepened.

The cold desolation of the cold palace was nowhere around him now. The warmth of the brazier curled through the air. His enemies were more than one.

On this vast and tangled web, every hand that had ever moved a piece was guilty.

How can a single person going mad be enough?

Not a single one of them would get away.