The nighttime assassination attempt at the Cining Palace. The medical attendant who fell into the palace pond only entered the palace a few years ago. His surface record was clean, but in truth, a distant cousin of his was a palace maid at the Weiyang Palace. When Consort Ning’s poisoning of the prince came to light, a number of palace maids at the Weiyang Palace were dealt with, and that distant cousin was among them.

As someone who moved freely in and out of the Imperial Pharmacy, it was easy enough for him to secretly stockpile medicine and make an attempt on the prince’s life. Afterward, the palace guards searched his quarters and found the same medicine there. First the Suihongzi, then the medical attendant. When both matters were laid before the Emperor, he flew into a fury and ordered the Embroidered Guard to conduct a thorough investigation of all involved parties, and once again increased the guard detail at the Cining Palace and for the Sixth Prince.

At the Eastern Palace, the Crown Prince stared at the weiqi board before him. Grand Secretary Xu’s unfinished game lay there waiting, but he could not bring himself to study it for even a moment.

It was only a single bowl of non-lethal medicine, yet his Imperial Father was making such a tremendous fuss over it, dispatching the Embroidered Guard twice. Ying Fusheng appeared to have lost everything, and yet where in this palace was there a prince who warranted such favoritism? Not even the First Prince ever received this much in the past.

If the Xiao clan behind the Empress Dowager also made their move… The Crown Prince told himself to stay calm. His Imperial Father’s favoritism had its limits. The Xu family would help him, and others would help him too, as long as he held firmly to his position as Crown Prince.

“What has Mother been doing these past few days?” the Crown Prince asked.

A palace attendant replied, “Her Majesty the Empress has been at the Kunning Palace. She has only sent people to the Imperial Medical Office a few times recently.”

“Is she ill?” The Crown Prince grew slightly anxious.

Seeing his expression, the attendant explained, “It doesn’t seem so.”

His mother was looking into the Suihongzi matter after all. The weiqi board before the Crown Prince grew more and more muddled the longer he looked at it. Consort Ning went mad at this particular moment and already aroused his mother’s suspicions. “Tell Mother that I have been suffering from frequent dizzy spells lately and wish to stay at the Kunning Palace for a few days.”

The attendant immediately grew tense. If His Highness the Crown Prince were ill, Her Majesty would worry. “This servant will go inform Her Majesty.”

No new word came from the Cining Palace. The Crown Prince’s mind was in turmoil. If his mother managed to uncover something, the situation would be entirely different. He could not let her find anything. He rose to his feet, and as he turned, he knocked against a decorative piece sitting on the table.

It was a gift Consort Ning presented to him at his birthday celebration two years ago. He kept it here all this time.

In the past he could leave it sitting there without a second thought. Now he could not.

A vague unease came over the Crown Prince, and he put the piece away without thinking.

After Consort Ning’s fall from grace, he received something delivered by a palace attendant. He recognized the attendant as someone from Consort Ning’s palace. He disposed of the letter without reading it, and two days later the attendant was gone. Even so, the Crown Prince remained unsettled and on edge.

“Your Highness, there is a palace attendant outside requesting an audience,” an attendant reported.

“I will see no one!” the Crown Prince said coldly.

Just then, he noticed a slip of paper tucked into the place where he normally kept his books, though he had no idea when it appeared there.

His expression shifted slightly when he saw it. The note bore no name, only four characters: “Be patient. Do not act rashly.”

The Crown Prince’s heart clenched. He looked quickly around the room, but there was no one else in the palace.

He had no idea when the note was placed there. He read it and immediately threw it into the brazier, watching until it burned to ash.

“Never mind telling Mother. I won’t be going.”

He gave the order and watched the note disappear. Gradually, his heart settled. It was fine. Someone was still helping him.

* * *

The storm over the Suihongzi affair did not die down in the palace. After a thorough investigation, the Embroidered Guard found irregularities in the circumstances of the medical attendant’s drowning. A subsequent autopsy revealed no signs of struggle on the body, and the edge of the palace pond bore no marks either. By the Embroidered Guard’s standards of examination, the death was suspicious. The man either took his own life or was killed in advance by someone else.

The matter of the medical attendant seemed straightforward on the surface, yet someone dared to act at the very moment the affair of the Suihongzi, a secret relic of the previous dynasty, just came to light. Whoever it was showed no regard for the imperial family whatsoever. The Emperor’s anger was what prompted him to order the Embroidered Guard to handle it.

Consort Ning barely fell before someone moved against the Sixth Prince. There was certainly something suspicious in the connection.

“We can’t find anything. It was cleaned up too thoroughly,” the deputy said. “You arrived early, so some traces weren’t cleared away in time, but this body is far too convenient.”

Qi Hanzhou’s gaze dropped slightly. Convenient was an understatement. According to the testimony of Song’an, the personal eunuch who delivered medicine to Ying Fusheng, the footsteps he heard that night belonged to this medical attendant. The same face, and yet the person who delivered the medicine had martial training, while the drowned man showed not the slightest foundation in any martial discipline.

If Consort Ning truly developed a mental illness, then who was the one scheming against both her and the Sixth Prince from behind the scenes?

“The Suihongzi is not bad news for us.” Qi Hanzhou lowered his eyes and handed back what his deputy presented. “We originally assumed the threat came only from the court. Now it appears the inner palace is not clean either. There are far too many places near the Emperor where someone could interfere.”

The assassination attempt could be made into either a large or a small matter, yet Ying Fusheng deliberately exposed that suspicious bowl of medicine and brought the affair before the Emperor. Once the palace was deemed unsafe, the Emperor would grant the Embroidered Guard greater freedom of movement within it.

They only just discussed cooperation, and Ying Fusheng already handed the Embroidered Guard an opportunity.

“But this subordinate does not understand,” the deputy said, frowning. “The person who drugged Consort Ning erased so much evidence to keep us from investigating, yet chose to make such an obvious move at this moment. Wouldn’t that make it easier to be exposed?” He could not make sense of it. They could have quietly buried the whole thing, yet instead acted so conspicuously. “Now everyone knows someone is targeting the Sixth Prince, and the Emperor has ordered the guards to be more vigilant…”

Qi Hanzhou caught something odd in his deputy’s words. “Xuanjiu, what did you just say?”

“This subordinate does not understand the purpose of whoever sent the Suihongzi. Now everyone knows someone is targeting the Sixth Prince…” The deputy, Ye Xuanjiu, repeated himself. “Is there something wrong with what I said?”

“Everyone is watching the Sixth Prince.” Qi Hanzhou repeated the words back. “His purpose.”

……

Inside the Cining Palace, security was tight.

Following the assassination attempt, the Empress Dowager ordered everyone in the palace to be reviewed, and as a result several attendants were replaced.

Song’an watched his master. Since the night of the assassin, the prince suddenly grew much quieter.

After Consort Ning was taken to the cold palace she fell silent, with countless pairs of eyes fixed on her. Ying Fusheng visited her a few times. With the stimulation of the calming incense and the heart-clearing tea, her mind returned to normal, but in a place like the cold palace, where everyone believed she was mad, the more clearly she tried to prove her sanity, the more the imperial physicians would dose her with powerful medicines.

“For the next few days, the imperial physicians will still come to check on you. Going forward, the preparation of your medicines will be handled by the small dispensary rather than the Imperial Medical Office.” The Empress Dowager looked at Ying Fusheng sitting beside her and, noticing a faint blankness on his face, said, “Little Six.”

Ying Fusheng came back to himself. “Grandmother.”

“It’s nothing. Go rest.” the Empress Dowager said.

Ying Fusheng took his leave. Stepping outside, he saw the patrolling attendants. He knew perfectly well that the Cining Palace had informants and was not clean. As long as the “person” behind him remained unexposed for even a day, someone would not stop testing him.

But there was no one behind him.

This was the first-mover advantage he held in this game of chess.

The medical attendant affair aroused the Empress Dowager’s suspicions. She conducted successive investigations of everyone inside and outside the Cining Palace and dealt with several attendants who had some connection to the Weiyang Palace. The palace’s investigation into the Suihongzi was not yet over. Song’an was sharp and well-informed about palace affairs. The Suihongzi was eventually traced back to two elderly serving women, who were then taken away by the Embroidered Guard and heard from no more.

This matter was now in Qi Hanzhou’s hands. He would not need to involve himself further.

In his previous life, the Qi family managed to uncover so much. This time they would move even faster.

“Your Highness,” Song’an said.

Ying Fusheng turned his head slightly toward the Empress Dowager’s chambers. “Has Grandmother’s cough improved these past few days?”

“Her Majesty the Empress Dowager is fine. Aunt Yu has been busy with your affairs these past few days,” Song’an said.

Would she really be fine? In his previous life, Ying Fusheng’s memories of the Empress Dowager were sparse, just as his memories of his own youth were sparse. What he remembered clearly were all matters of the court. In those days his mind was consumed with throwing the court into chaos, with stirring everything into complete upheaval. When his illness grew severe, he entertained even more extreme thoughts.

In his previous life, the Empress Dowager fell gravely ill and died. To everyone’s eyes, she was old and could not endure a serious illness. But now, knowing that someone executed the medicine-delivering attendant after his rebirth and erased every trace, the matter looked entirely different.

The Empress Dowager’s illness and the Empress’s neglect of the inner palace were what gave Consort Ning her opening. His grandmother would not die for several more years yet, and her health at present was still reasonably sound, with few minor ailments. For someone like that to fall gravely ill and die quietly was suspicious in itself.

With the Empress Dowager gone and the Empress still in the palace, only if both of them were compromised would it be possible to plant informants near his Imperial Father, which in turn would lead to the future palace coup.

Either the Xu family had a problem, or there was someone disloyal within the Xu family’s circle.

Whoever was hiding within the palace went very deep. To conceal something this significant from the Embroidered Guard, and for the Qi family not to catch a trace of it until ten years later, the other side’s net spread far deeper than he imagined.

There was simply no way to guard against it completely.

“From now on, whenever new attendants enter the Cining Palace, keep a careful eye out,” Ying Fusheng instructed. “Especially around Grandmother.”

Song’an took the words seriously. He heard the weight of concern in the prince’s voice.

“Do not make any noise about it in the palace. Keep watch for a particular attendant for me. This person should be around forty years old by now, deaf and mute, performing miscellaneous duties in the palace. A few years ago she may have been punished and sent to the Laundry Bureau. Her current whereabouts are unknown.” Ying Fusheng paused here, his memory growing faintly fragmented. “She was a female official. If you find anyone matching that description, watch her.”

In his previous life, this person was the one who told him the truth about his origins.

Song’an rarely heard the prince speak to him like this. He replied solemnly, “This servant will remember.”

In the side hall, the Cining Palace was furnished with a number of new additions.

Ying Fusheng passed through them and walked to the weiqi board. The game was a chaotic, disordered mess. No wonder a certain someone said this game had no principles to it. With the Ning family removed from the board, this move produced neither a win nor a loss. Several days passed and the Eastern Palace remained quiet. That Crown Prince brother of his remarkably managed to hold himself in check.

Ying Fusheng paused, his fingertip resting on one of the pieces. He could already feel the urge rising in him to sweep all these people off the board entirely.

“Your Highness, someone from the Embroidered Guard has arrived.”

Ying Fusheng came back to himself, and the shadow in his eyes cleared at once.

Qi Hanzhou was faster than he expected.

A voice came from outside, a palace attendant reporting.

“Young General, His Highness must take his medicine in half an hour. Please do not take too long,” a Cining Palace attendant said.

When Qi Hanzhou entered, Ying Fusheng was half-reclining against the edge of the bed. His gaze fell lightly on the man.

Song’an dismissed the other attendants from the room. In a short while, only Qi Hanzhou and Ying Fusheng remained.

“The General came sooner than I expected,” Ying Fusheng said, sitting up from the bed. His complexion was no different from the night of the assassination attempt.

Qi Hanzhou noticed a subtle difference.

From the military pay case to the Huguo Temple to the Ning family case, Ying Fusheng never concealed his intelligence in front of him, and he knew the secrets of Youzhou City. That was why Qi Hanzhou paid attention to this person and tested him on several occasions.

But none of this was known to anyone else. Not even the Emperor.

Before all this, once the Ning family matter was settled, Ying Fusheng’s sickly and timid appearance posed no threat to anyone. Now, with the assassination attempt and the Emperor’s heightened attention, he somehow became conspicuous in everyone’s eyes despite appearing to pose no threat at all.

The assassination, reckless as it seemed, drew more attention from the Emperor, but it also placed him under layers of scrutiny.

A chill crept down Qi Hanzhou’s spine. If Ying Fusheng was not unguarded with him, he would be doing exactly what everyone else was doing right now: watching Ying Fusheng, then investigating everyone connected to him, tracing the whole affair to its source, and even planting informants at his side.

If this person’s original target was Ying Fusheng, then the risk taken with the medical attendant last night likely had something to do with his own presence there.

When he paid that nighttime visit, this person took him for the mastermind behind Ying Fusheng.

“Your Highness knows his target is you,” Qi Hanzhou said.

Turn the scheme against the schemer. With everyone watching, Ying Fusheng’s movements would become all the more visible.

“Then can the cooperation we left unfinished continue?” Ying Fusheng said. “The Young General can use me as a channel to investigate the person behind all this. Our goals are the same.”

Qi Hanzhou frowned. This person knew perfectly well he was the target, yet remained entirely composed about it.

As if being the mark of so many was something he welcomed, something he accepted without resistance.

“The Ministry of Rites,” Ying Fusheng said.

Before Qi Hanzhou could speak, Ying Fusheng already knew why he came. “How so?”

“The Ning family was indeed conspicuous and easily made enemies in the court. I did use the Crown Prince’s faction against the Ning family earlier, but if someone moved before me, the situation is different.” Ying Fusheng said quietly. “The Minister and the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites falling at the same time looks like killing two birds with one stone, but think of it another way. Losing two senior officials from the Ministry of Rites at this moment means the Ministry of Rites will have vacancies.”

Bringing in a replacement Minister from outside the capital to take over, a newly arrived official would need time to fully take control of the Ministry’s staff.

Without enough time, the Ministry of Rites would be a sieve.

“This year’s spring examinations were delayed,” Qi Hanzhou said, his gaze sharpening slightly.

The Emperor spent these past years away on military campaigns and only returned in triumph the previous year, after which heavy snowfall struck across the land. The spring examinations, which should have been held in the second month, were pushed back again and again and finally set for the fifth month. The spring examinations were organized by the Ministry of Rites. This year the Ministry had a new Minister and was short one Vice Minister. If someone wanted to plant people through the court, the spring examinations were a perfect opportunity.

“You understand court affairs better than I do, Young General.” Ying Fusheng smiled. “The chief examiner for the spring examinations was originally set to be the Minister of the Ministry of Rites.”

He tapped the board with a pointed air. “Now, with the new official still unfamiliar with his duties, if I were my Imperial Father, I would choose from among the suitable candidates.”

“The Vice Minister who impeached the Minister not long ago…”

Ying Fusheng sat still, both hands tucked into his sleeves, giving him an inexplicably well-behaved look. He said softly, “If I remember correctly, his name is Chen Yuanli.”