The Praise of All the People Under Heaven
At the sight of King Yang's face hardening into stone, the vanguard soldier accepted the letter, tucked it into his breast, and made for the exit without a moment's delay.
He had left through the side gate and thrown himself onto his horse, tearing off in such a frantic rush that he never heard the whistle ringing out behind him.
More than a dozen guards had been lying in wait at various points around the King Yang Estate. Catching Xiao Ruohai's whistle signal, they sprang onto their horses and gave chase toward the sound at full speed.
The vanguard soldier had only one thought—deliver the letter quickly—and so he never noticed the masters closing in behind him.
At last he drew rein before a shabby shop dealing in paper funeral goods, tucked away in a secluded corner of the northern alley, and dismounted.
Xiao Ruohai raised both hands high and shifted their shapes in rapid succession. By the time the soldier rapped on the door, the guards with the finest martial skills had already quietly encircled the shop.
The shop was old and none too large.
The soldier had no time even to tie off his horse; he hammered on the door in desperation while Xiao Ruohai fixed him with the stare of a hawk. The moment the door opened, the hands he had held so high clenched into fists.
Four or five guards dropped down from the roof. Before the soldier could so much as cry out in alarm, they looped an iron chain around his neck. Two of them heaved on the chain and trussed him up tight.
But disaster had come wrapped in a thick aura of danger. Inside the room, the eminent master Gao Sheng's body reacted before his mind did to the sounds stirring on the rooftop. Backing away, he drew his sword with lightning speed.
The instant Gao Sheng saw the soldier captured, he hurled himself out of the room as though taking flight. His blade emerged wreathed in killing intent—not to save the vanguard soldier, but aimed straight at him.
Gao Sheng's movements were too fast for the eye to follow. To the Bai family guards, he was nothing more than a streak of shadow bursting forth, and before any of them could even unsheathe a sword, his blade had plunged into the vanguard soldier's chest.
The steel sank half a handspan into the soldier's flesh—and then could drive no deeper. As Gao Sheng turned his head toward this unforeseen development, he met the calm, heavy gaze of Xiao Ruohai. In that instant a crushing pressure rolled off the man. Gao Sheng shot toward the entrance at blurring speed.
The two men clashed in a brief, vicious exchange, sparks flashing several times before it was over. To the Bai guards, both were little more than flickering afterimages—proof enough of how extraordinary their skills were.
Gao Sheng could not conceal his astonishment as he beheld Xiao Ruohai: a longsword in one hand and a dagger in the other. The man had parried every sweep of his swift blade—while wielding both at once.
Had he retreated even a heartbeat later, the dagger in Xiao Ruohai's hand would have punched through the back of his neck.
In that moment Gao Sheng felt an indescribable thrill. It was the exhilaration of a man who had stood alone at the summit for far too long finally meeting an opponent worthy of his skill.
But now was no time for dueling. He bore a duty, a mission he could not abandon.
Xiao Ruohai pressed his attack without granting Gao Sheng so much as a breath, while the other Bai guards stormed into the shop selling paper funeral goods.
Within the room, the ring of blade against blade sounded a few times—then came the agonized scream of Yu Huanzhang. Gao Sheng's eyes narrowed. He tried to fight his way back inside to save the man, but he could not shake Xiao Ruohai off.
The guards seized Yu Huanzhang exactly as planned and headed straight for Wude Gate. Gao Sheng was finally forced back into the room, and Xiao Ruohai followed him in.
The sound of deadly combat rang out without pause. The vanguard soldier, jolted awake at last by the shock and confusion of nearly being cut down, thrashed and screamed all he liked, but he could not free himself from the guards of the Bai Estate.
"Who sent you?"
Blood poured from the soldier's chest.
One of the guards, recalling the motion the soldier had made—reaching into his breast for something—searched his clothing and fished out a single sheet of paper. Unfolding it and reading what was written, his eyes went wide. Then, seething, he brought the scabbard of his blade down on the soldier's head and knocked him senseless.
"God damn it all! A scheme like this! Trying to pin charges of treason on our Duke's Estate? That cur King Yang thought far too lightly of us!"
The guard folded the letter carefully and tucked it into his own breast.
"Move as planned. Take this son of a bitch to Wude Gate—now!"
Hearing that the vanguard soldier was to be taken to Wude Gate, Gao Sheng itched to bolt outside—but he could not disentangle himself from Xiao Ruohai. Whenever he tried to seize the man, he slipped away like water; whenever he tried to shake him off, he clung like mud on the skin. Thinking of Yu Huanzhang, now taken alive, Gao Sheng's eyes turned to ice.
That man Yu Huanzhang... he cannot be left breathing.
The scrape of a sword slashing through the room rang out. Blood sprayed in all directions.
Xiao Ruohai could not deny that Gao Sheng's martial skill was uncannily superb. The Duke's Estate had brought only its very best, and yet—fighting what amounted to ten men at once—Gao Sheng had not only killed three of the guards in succession but wounded Xiao Ruohai as well.
The thick stench of blood pulsing through the room churned the stomach.
Gao Sheng feinted an attack at Xiao Ruohai, then twisted away with startling quickness and drove his longsword into Yu Huanzhang's body, held fast in a guard's grip. The blade punched through his back and out his chest. It was the work of an instant, without a flicker of hesitation.
Gao Sheng could not allow Yu Huanzhang to fall into the hands of the Duke's Estate. If the man spilled everything—every secret scheme he had plotted with King Yang—the prince, already starved of the Emperor's favor, would be buried once and for all.
But in the moment he struck at Yu Huanzhang, his back lay fully open to Xiao Ruohai's reach. Having no intention of killing Gao Sheng, Xiao Ruohai twisted his longsword instead and bored it through the man's shoulder.
Yu Huanzhang's eyes flew wide as if they would tear apart, and blood burst from his lips. He bowed his head to gaze at the longsword piercing his own body, then craned his neck back to meet Gao Sheng's murder-filled eyes—and with an expression of utter disbelief, breathed his last.
Xiao Ruohai's longsword had skewered Gao Sheng's shoulder blade; his dagger hovered at the nape of his neck. Gao Sheng's knees buckled and touched the floor.
Xiao Ruohai prized the man's extraordinary skill too much to kill him. Gasping for breath, he spoke, hoping to drag Gao Sheng back to the Bai Estate for Bai Jingyan's sake.
"Your martial prowess is nothing short of remarkable. Why serve a base creature like King Yang? Come out of the shadows and join our—"
Before Xiao Ruohai could finish, Gao Sheng flung his own throat onto the dagger pointed at it, seeking death. He meant to die.
Xiao Ruohai, who valued talent above nearly all things, was so startled by the sudden movement that he hastily pulled the dagger back. In that split second, Gao Sheng wrenched free the very blade that had run Yu Huanzhang through and hurled himself out the window—he was going after the vanguard soldier.
Xiao Ruohai cursed under his breath and gave chase at once, clashing again with Gao Sheng, whose grievous wound streamed blood without cease.
Within the palace, the Emperor listened as the Grand Princess wept and poured out her grievance. He lifted his gaze from the letter in his hand and turned it toward Bai Jingyan, who stood in graceful silence at the Grand Princess's side.
The Grand Princess was weeping too hard even to gather herself.
"We had only just laid the heroic spirits of the Bai family to rest, and already King Yang was this desperate to smear their name with such vile means! The men of the Bai family threw their bodies before the nation—and were they not the King of Zhenguo and the Duke of Zhenguo, whom Your Majesty himself ennobled? To invent crimes that never existed and slander them so... I cannot begin to comprehend it.
Was this done merely to defile the honor of the dead? Or was it meant to cast blame on Your Majesty's judgment—to reproach you for trusting the wrong man? Unless it was to shame your decision to honor 'the one who sold the nation' as a loyal minister and raise him to a princely title..."
The Emperor turned his eyes from Bai Jingyan back to the Grand Princess.
Her final words had plunged straight into the Emperor's most tender wound.
By punishing his legitimate son, the Xin King, and posthumously ennobling Bai Weiting as King of Zhenguo, the Emperor had won the acclaim of all the people under heaven.
But if this letter had truly made its way into the study of Bai Weiting of the Duke's Estate—what would the people of the world think of their Emperor then?
He had let the Bai family play him for a fool, casting aside his own legitimate son—and the man he'd called a loyal minister turned out to be a traitor who sold his country!
The people would conclude that this Son of Heaven was incompetent. They would look upon him as a fool, easily deceived!
Rage surged up in the Emperor, beyond all containing.
"Your Majesty—Prince Yang has arrived. He waits outside the door..."
Gao Demu murmured the words low, close to the Emperor's ear.
"Then drag that beast in here!"
Gao Demu turned and bade the summoning officer bring King Yang in. Pale as death, the prince came stooping through the entrance with a terror-stricken face. At the sight of the Emperor's dark, frost-cold expression, his legs seemed to give out entirely; he collapsed to his knees right at the threshold and had to be half-carried by the officer to the center of the great hall, where he sank down once more.
With a cowed glance toward the Grand Princess and Bai Jingyan, he belatedly opened his mouth.
"F-Father, your son offers his respects."
The Emperor gave his doltish son a single look, then turned his attention back to the letter.
Courage no bigger than a bean, and weak as water besides—could such a creature truly have possessed the cunning to forge another man's handwriting, to plant a letter of treason on the Duke's Estate, to scheme so far? He doubted it.
The Emperor's gaze drifted once more to Bai Jingyan, who stood with head bowed, saying nothing. If this was a stage she had set—what was it she truly wanted?
Could it be that because the men of the Bai family were all dead, she meant to see every one of the Emperor's sons dead as well?
The Emperor's temples throbbed. First the Xin King, now King Yang...
"Respects? How very peaceful you must think I am!"
The Emperor's voice was crushing in its weight.
"You wretched boy! Speak, and speak quickly! Why did you order your servant to bribe a maid of the Duke's Estate? Answer me—why did he mean to slip this letter into the King of Zhenguo's study!"
King Yang trembled from head to toe as he kowtowed, then put on the appearance of a terrified man desperately confessing the truth.
"Father, I beg you, calm your wrath. Your son... your son has long adored the Eldest Miss Bai. But she despised me so utterly that, in my desperation, I committed this idiotic act. Father, forgive me!"
The Emperor narrowed his eyes and tapped the letter resting on the table with one finger.
"You adored the Eldest Miss Bai... and so you forged the King of Zhenguo's handwriting and tried to plant a treasonous letter of collusion with the enemy in his study. Is that your story?"
King Yang's eyes went round. The blood drained from his face.
"Father, what are you saying? Your son only sent the Eldest Miss Bai a few love letters! I merely borrowed the King of Zhenguo's name in falsehood... to— to compel her to marry into my household! That is all!"
"That letter in Your Majesty's hand was carried to the side gate of our Duke's Estate by King Yang's own servant. When the servant passed the letter to a maid of our residence, we seized him before a crowd of witnesses—and read it aloud before every one of them! Your Majesty, if you doubt it, summon that servant and our maid and question them yourself!"
the Grand Princess said, her voice thick with tears.
"I... it was Dong Ji I sent! And the letter I gave Dong Ji was a love letter!"
King Yang came crawling on his knees toward the Emperor, wailing like a man so panic-stricken he had no idea how else to prove his innocence.
"Father, ask Dong Ji yourself! However great a fool your son may be, could I ever have concocted something like this!"