A Sniveling Coward
The Emperor, who mere moments ago had been unable to conceal his astonishment at his son's audacity, found Prince Liang's words circling round and round in his mind. The two characters for 'my brother' snagged on something in his heart—a father's affection—and though rage boiled up in him, it went no further than slamming his hand against the armrest.
"You wretched boy! Tell me at once, and truthfully—what exactly have you done?"
"Father, you know it well. King Xin is the legitimate heir, and so I always stayed close to him and received his care and protection for years! After you stripped him of his title and cast him down to commoner status, my heart was in utter turmoil. It was then that King Xin's retainer came to find me."
Prince Liang wiped his eyes and nose with his sleeve.
"His retainer came to me and begged me... begged me to save my brother's life, just this once. I had told Brother before, you see—that I admired Lady Bai, the eldest daughter of the Bai family. And I had confessed to him as well, about my association with Lady Bai's maid. Somehow that retainer had learned of it, and he told me this was how I could save Brother. At first I refused! I was too frightened!"
Having spoken this far, Prince Liang stole a careful glance at the Grand Princess, and his voice shrank.
"Prince Zhenguo is already dead, but Brother still lives—so saving him was the most urgent matter, the retainer said! The place where Brother was exiled is so harsh and wretched, and a brother raised in luxury from childhood could never endure it. Father... King Xin is my own flesh and blood brother! And he is the legitimate son you cherish most! I would have done anything to spare his life. That is why I accepted their request!"
The Emperor's hand, clenched white-knuckled around the armrest, slowly loosened. If... if it had truly been done to save King Xin, then perhaps such a thing could be forgiven.
"And this retainer? Where is he now?"
"Father, the retainer told me that once I had met with Jin Deokso, I was to leave the capital. But..."
Prince Liang shuddered violently, as though dredging up a memory he wished he could forget.
"But... Jin Deokso is dead, and the retainer has vanished. I... I'm so frightened, Father."
Prince Liang wept as he spoke, tears and snot streaming down his face—the very picture of a useless, sniveling little wretch, abject and spineless to his core.
Playing the fool, feigning stupidity, he intended to thrust every last shred of responsibility onto King Xin—and so he had gone to the special trouble of dragging Jin Deokso into it as well. What was more, he was now attempting to wriggle free of the entire affair by pinning the military grain case—the very one Yu Zhen was investigating—on King Xin too.
"Then what of Yu Huanzhang?" the Emperor demanded, pointing at Gao Sheng and the imperial guards. "These two men came out of the Liang King Estate! And this letter—did you not write it yourself?"
"It was King Xin's retainer who told me that Yu Huanzhang was in the capital. He instructed me to keep watch over Yu Huanzhang, and before he departed, he told me to slip this letter into Prince Zhenguo's study, then take Yu Huanzhang to the Court of Judicial Review and strike the Dengwen Drum—to expose Prince Zhenguo as a traitor to the state. If I followed his instructions, he said... I could save my brother. That is why I sent Gao Sheng to keep watch over Yu Huanzhang."
Prince Liang cautiously raised his terrified face, shot a furtive look at the Emperor's darkened expression, then ducked his head again as though cowed.
"My original plan was to plant the letter in the Zhenguo Duke Estate, then drag Yu Huanzhang here to beg an audience with you, Father, and plead for mercy on behalf of the Bai family. The men of the Zhenguo Duke Estate are dead already, and I believed that you, Father, with your benevolent heart, would never take the lives of the Bai family's surviving widows and orphans. And... I believed it would save my brother.
But when I learned today that Lady Bai had read this letter aloud before the assembled court, I realized that, just as I had feared, this matter could not be smoothed over quietly. So I believed instead that the affair had to be made larger—that only then could King Xin be saved. Father... I only ever wanted to save my brother!"
Even as he spoke, Prince Liang kept glancing at the Grand Princess. Then, like a child, he wept in heartbroken, plaintive sobs.
"Honored Great-Aunt, the men of the Bai family are all dead. The dead cannot come back. Is what you truly want... my brother's life? We are one family."
The Emperor's hand, wrapped around the armrest, trembled faintly. It was true that this son of his was a fool and a coward, but he thought—his heart, at least, was warm. He had only wished to save his own brother; how could anyone fault him for that?
The Grand Princess held her silence for a long moment before she finally spoke, her voice heavy with weariness.
"Your Highness, can you truly dismiss all this as mere family business? The Son of Heaven who breaks the law must suffer the same punishment as the commonest subject—and from what you have said, King Xin appears to be implicated in this military grain affair."
Having come this far, the Grand Princess's voice choked.
"My youngest grandson had his belly slit open by enemy soldiers... and inside was nothing but dirt and tree roots. If there had been army provisions, he would not have died so miserably. I understand that King Xin, hungry for glory, coerced Bai Weiting into launching a campaign to steal military merit. His hunger for achievement, I can comprehend. But to sever the provisions of his own great army? What conceivable purpose did that serve? Did he harm his own nation's soldiers just to rob them of their hard-won honors?"
The Grand Princess rapped the letter sharply with her hand.
"There is more here I cannot understand. Your Highness's letter states that if Yu Huanzhang ever threatened to reveal his disobedience—or every fact of his collusion with you—you would send his family down to the Yellow Springs along with him. What exactly did you and Yu Huanzhang conspire to do?"
"It was... to frame Prince Zhenguo."
Prince Liang collapsed onto his own feet, all strength gone from him, and looked up at the Emperor with glistening eyes.
"Father, I only wanted to save my brother. I know how dearly you hold him. Whenever Brother suffers, it wounds your heart, and I simply could not stand by and watch you in such pain."
How utterly pure. How his filial devotion pierces the very heavens. Bai Jingyan lowered her head.
"Your Highness, you have committed a grave wrong!"
The Grand Princess seized the armrest, rose to her feet, and fixed Prince Liang with a steady gaze before speaking with deliberate formality.
"The foundation upon which the great families of this realm can stand is precisely two words: reputation! King Xin's life is not even in danger, yet you sought to purchase his honor by staining the Bai family's name. That is your first wrong!
Moreover, the men of the Bai family hurled their lives away to defend the rivers and mountains of Great Jin. As a prince, you repaid that sacrifice with treachery—scheming so that these loyal martyrs would be branded traitors in the histories. That is your second wrong!
And finally—you are the Emperor's son, a man who may one day inherit the throne. If you commit wrongs such as these, how will the people of the world look upon our imperial house? Who, hereafter, would dare risk his life for Great Jin? Who would protect the imperial authority of our dynasty?"
Prince Liang wore the expression of a man waking from a dream. Then, tears and snot streaming, he prostrated himself before the Emperor.
"Father... this unworthy son has done a foolish thing. I was wrong. Truly, deeply wrong. Father, I am a coward—I am not capable of plotting anything so elaborate. There was only one thing in my heart: to save my brother. And now I have caused a disaster of this magnitude..."
The Grand Princess turned her head toward the Emperor.
"Your Majesty, the words written in this letter are sharp, ruthless, and brimming with killing intent. Whether Your Highness is truly as ignorant and weak as he claims—or whether these are another man's words put to paper in his own hand—must be thoroughly investigated.
According to the loyal guardsmen of the Duke of Zhenguo's household, they pursued a suspicious figure and followed him as far as the Liang King Estate. Roughly half a shijang later, that same man emerged again. Master Yu Zhen—send men to question the servants of the Liang King Estate. Where was the Liang King at that hour, and was he alone? Once we have those answers, we shall know whether this letter came from the Liang King's own hand—or whether there is yet another hand behind it."
Prince Liang's heart pounded against his ribs; head bowed, he trembled uncontrollably. The moment he recalled that he had written the letter himself, he squeezed his eyes shut. In his haste, he had made a crude, unforgivable blunder.
But he refused to lose like this. His thoughts regrouped with remarkable speed. Only moments ago, he had said that King Xin's retainer had departed after killing Jin Deokso.
"If one's desire to save a brother was truly desperate, and one was merely ensnared in someone else's scheme, then the matter might be allowed to pass. But if a trap was deliberately laid—if something further was being schemed—then it means the Liang King thought deeply enough to weave a plot without a single seam... Your Majesty, you would do well to consider this carefully."
The Grand Princess spoke slowly, letting each word settle.
Bai Jingyan, standing sheltered behind her grandmother, said nothing at all. She understood perfectly well that her grandmother had just planted a seed of distrust toward Prince Liang in the Emperor's heart.
Once suspicion takes root, even the most trivial, inconsequential details swell into something ominous.
Her grandmother understood the Emperor better than Bai Jingyan ever could. If the Emperor came to learn that Prince Liang was not the feeble creature he appeared, but a man concealing his true face, then naturally he would begin to recall how close Prince Liang had been to the Second Prince.
If Prince Liang had, in fact, planned everything meticulously today—first framing the Bai family for treason, then feigning terror while conveniently producing the revelation that Jin Deokso's death and the Southern Border grain affair were both tied to King Xin—and if the Emperor came to know this... what would he think?
He would realize that Prince Liang was a far more formidable son than he had ever believed. And he would conclude that this son was formidable enough to slip entirely beyond his grasp—beyond the span of his own palm.
If a prince worthy of inheriting the throne possessed both brilliant stratagem and acting skill sufficient to deceive the entire court—and if the Emperor learned that such a prince had escaped his control—would he truly dare let that son live?
The Emperor would live in dread that, the moment he let down his guard, Prince Liang would cast off the mask of the docile lamb and bare his vicious fangs. He would begin to imagine this son leading soldiers into the palace just as the Second Prince had—taking his life and seizing the imperial authority for himself.