Foresight
Nuo Ping returned, hurriedly changed his clothes, and made his way to Qinghui Courtyard. He was pacing beneath the eaves, faint white breath escaping his quickened gasps, his complexion grim. The moment he saw Bai Jingyan entering the courtyard gate surrounded by her maids, he rushed forward to meet her and offered a cupped-fist salute.
"My lady."
Bai Jingyan turned her head slightly and glanced at Chun Tao, who handed the umbrella over to Nuo Ping and then, with the other maids, stood rooted in place without moving a step.
Only after holding the umbrella open above Bai Jingyan's head and walking with her all the way to the ginkgo tree in the garden did Nuo Ping fold it closed. Only then did Bai Jingyan turn to face him.
"Nuo Ping, tell me."
Nuo Ping exhaled the hot breath churning in his throat and dropped to one knee.
"My lady, I beg your forgiveness for my offense!"
For an instant, her grip tightened around the hand warmer she carried, but Bai Jingyan forced herself to remain calm as she answered.
"Nuo Ping, get up."
Nuo Ping rose and looked at her, weighed down with guilt.
"Today, at the entrance of the Quanfang, the Liang King was assassinated. He was stabbed repeatedly with blades—his condition is critical! I was trying to return before the Capital Magistrate sealed off the streets when I ran into an old comrade covered head to toe in blood! Only after I brought him home did I discover he was one of the assassins! Nuo Ping has committed a crime!"
Mid-sentence, Nuo Ping dropped to his knee again.
Bai Jingyan lightly caressed the hand warmer in her grip. The hot blood that had been surging through her body began to boil at Nuo Ping's words—his condition is critical. If the Liang King were to die just like this, how many of the calamities yet to come could be stopped before they ever began!
Her heart pounded wildly, beyond all control. She pulled Nuo Ping to his feet.
"Nuo Ping, where is he now?"
"In the woodshed of the rear garden."
Nuo Ping's face had gone dark with remorse, convinced that he had brought disaster down upon the Zhenguo Duke Estate.
"With the Capital Magistrate sealing the city as we speak, I couldn't very well force him out of the estate. This failure is mine. My lady, I beg you to punish me!"
As he spoke, Nuo Ping made to kneel yet again, but Bai Jingyan stopped him.
"You've already brought him here—punishing you would change nothing. I'll have to think about what to do with him."
Bai Jingyan's deep eyes gave no hint of where her thoughts ended.
After standing beneath the tree for a moment, she spoke again.
"Nuo Ping, take me there."
She wanted to know why the Liang King had been targeted for assassination. If she could secure even a single piece of evidence against him, might she not be able to lay a trap along his path to the throne!
Above all, only by learning who had moved to kill the Liang King could she judge whether this man was worth sparing.
With only Chun Tao at her side, Bai Jingyan followed Nuo Ping through the falling snow into the woodshed behind the rear garden. But inside, there was nothing—nothing but a long, dragged-out trail of blood.
As she stared at the dark smear stretched across the earthen floor, Bai Jingyan shifted her gaze to the towering pile of firewood.
"Honorable sir, you are under the protection of our Bai family. Why do you hide yourself?"
Chun Tao's heart plunged in an instant, and without thinking she stepped forward, spreading her arms to shield Bai Jingyan behind her, her eyes brimming with vigilance.
Bai Jingyan tapped Chun Tao's hand lightly, signaling her to lower her arms. The man hiding behind the firewood must have realized he was already discovered and saw no further use in hiding, for he shoved the logs in front of him aside.
Half the face of the man leaning against the woodpile behind them was covered in congealed bloodstains, which made his already deathly pale complexion seem even more ghostly. Dressed in black and weakened by grave wounds, he appeared frail and powerless—yet a fierce, predatory aura still radiated from him in waves.
Bai Jingyan betrayed nothing on her face, but her grip on the hand warmer had tightened into iron.
This assassin, rescued and carried in by Nuo Ping, was the man who would one day become the Crown Prince's most brilliant strategist—Zhen Xiangzhi. Yet in her past life, Zhen Xiangzhi had never won the Crown Prince's trust, and when his talents went unused, his heart sickened and he passed from the world.
Zhen Xiangzhi looked Bai Jingyan up and down, then curled his lips into a sneer.
"My lady, since you'll need to claim credit with the Liang King for this, what do you intend to do with this assassin?"
"Zhen Xiangzhi!"
Nuo Ping shouted.
She raised a hand to quell his anger.
"Sir, how did you know I am the Bai family's eldest daughter?"
Zhen Xiangzhi gave a low laugh, baring blood-flecked white teeth as he leaned back insolently where he sat.
"The way Nuo Ping waits on you with such deference—you could only be the mistress of the Zhenguo Duke Estate. And the women of this estate all train in the martial arts; their constitutions are said to be iron. A cold like this they could shrug off in a single layer of thin silk, yet you're wrapped in a fox-fur cape of the finest grade. That tells me you're the lady who was wounded on the battlefield years ago, when she marched out alongside the old Duke himself. There's no mistake."
"Sir, might you tell me why you tried to kill the Liang King?"
Bai Jingyan asked.
"Does that man not deserve to die?"
Zhen Xiangzhi's deep black eyes burned with a resentment that seemed to pierce the heavens—like a torch that would set a parched grassland blazing to ash.
"He plays the obedient servant, the trembling loyal subject, while behind the curtain he leads packs of men to commit outrage after outrage—abusing his office, wallowing in greed, cutting down lives as carelessly as mowing grass! He killed my wife and my child just to drag me under his heel and squeeze me dry. I—cough, cough...!"
Overcome by emotion, Zhen Xiangzhi coughed up blood mid-sentence. Clutching his chest, he lifted his head and stared at Bai Jingyan, smiling with a chill that raised the hairs on one's neck.
"How pitiable, the loyal souls of the Bai family. Serving the great Jin with the devotion of a guard dog at its master's gate—before long, you'll find yourselves just like me: family torn apart, everything you have stripped away!"
"How dare you!"
Chun Tao flared up in fury.
"My lady, pay no heed to this madman's ravings. Nuo Ping, order the guards to hand him over to the authorities at once!"
"I will follow your instructions, my lady!"
Reluctant though he was in his heart, Nuo Ping knew the Zhenguo Duke Estate could not be allowed to become entangled in this affair.
But Bai Jingyan, listening to Zhen Xiangzhi's words, felt a great wave surge through her chest, and she could not suppress her astonishment.
So Zhen Xiangzhi foresaw the Bai family's downfall from the very beginning.
Recalling the assessment that Xiao Rongyan, the Prince Regent of Great Yan, had once given of Zhen Xiangzhi in her past life, Bai Jingyan made her decision in the space of a breath.
She handed the hand warmer she was holding to Chun Tao and stepped two paces closer to Zhen Xiangzhi.
"My lady!"
Chun Tao called out anxiously.
Then, beyond all expectation, Bai Jingyan bowed in deep, formal reverence toward Zhen Xiangzhi. Even Zhen Xiangzhi was startled. Unable to fathom why she would make such a gesture, he clutched the hem of his clothes tightly.
"M-my lady!"
Nuo Ping was utterly at a loss.
"You have read our Bai family's loyalty, sir, and you have foreseen the dire straits we are soon to face. Then I beg you—teach me what remedy the Bai family may yet employ."
Bai Jingyan's expression was composed and unflinching, without a trace of reserve. She had shown no anger even at his overreaching words—instead, a calm so absolute it bordered on the uncanny, as if she had already known that every word he spoke was true.
In any case, it was the Bai family who had saved Zhen Xiangzhi's life, and treating a debt of gratitude like straw cast to the wind sat ill with his nature. He bit down on his lip.
"From your reaction, my lady, I'd say you've foreseen this affair yourself. Then I'll waste no breath on pleasantries. Zhen has but one thing to say. If the Bai family is to survive, the Duke of Zhenguo must step back from his post.
The invincible legend of the Bai Family Army has long since grown bitter in the current Emperor's mouth. The Duke's temperament is upright to the bone and his loyalty absolute, which means he has made enemies among the court's pack of corrupt ministers for years upon years. As the saying goes, a crowd's mouth can melt iron, and a man hounded by accusations enough will be destroyed by them. The Emperor on the throne today can no longer tolerate the Duke, so swollen with merit is he. If the Duke does not withdraw now, then the seventeen men of the Bai household will, I fear, all meet their ends in the Southern Border."
Every word Zhen Xiangzhi spoke matched, with terrible precision, the fate of her past life—the seventeen sons of the Bai family, every one of them losing their lives in the Southern Border.
Bai Jingyan lifted her head to look at him, and a shiver ran through her body.
The Emperor himself?
In her past life, Bai Jingyan had never once imagined that the Emperor would be the one to destroy the Bai family. Generation after generation, theirs had been a house of loyalty and martyrdom. They had walked through the world with their heads held high—men of a strength and rectitude that could hold up the heavens themselves.
Just as Zhen Xiangzhi had said—the loyal men of the Bai family had shown the great Jin nothing less than the devotion of a guard dog at its master's gate.
A crowd's mouth can melt iron, and a man hounded by accusations enough will be destroyed by them.
Bai Jingyan clenched her fists. A light flashed through her mind.
"I am grateful for your teaching, sir."
Bai Jingyan bowed once more.
Chun Tao hurried forward to support her, and Bai Jingyan spoke again.
"Nuo Ping, see that Master Zhen is well cared for."
Nuo Ping answered with feeling.
"Nuo Ping accepts your command!"
Bai Jingyan turned her gaze to Zhen Xiangzhi.
"If it pleases you, Master Zhen, then I would ask you to—"
"The moment my wounds are healed, Zhen will be gone!"
Before she could even finish, Zhen Xiangzhi cut her off.
He understood her intentions perfectly well. He raised a cupped fist in salute.
"My lady, I beg your understanding. In a moment of madness I moved to assassinate the Liang King, and for it many of my comrades paid with their lives. Zhen is bitterly, bone-deep remorseful this very hour. But what Zhen pursues in this life lies in the court of the realm, and though I be dashed to pieces, bone ground to dust, I will stop the Liang King from ascending the throne. I will not live out my days hiding in some rear garden."
How could the breadth of Zhen Xiangzhi's aspirations ever be captured by a word as small as "great"? A man of petty ambition would never have entered the Crown Prince's household in her past life to begin with.
Bai Jingyan had no wish to coerce him out of obligation for a debt owed. After a brief silence, she returned his bow and spoke.
"The court is a sea, and you, sir, are the flood dragon that dwells within it. May you achieve all that you desire—may the flood dragon meet his waters, unfurl his talents without restraint, and soar to the highest of heights."
Deeply moved by her words, Zhen Xiangzhi clutched his chest and, with great effort, raised himself upright to offer Bai Jingyan a formal salute of respect—a rare sight indeed, from a man like him.
Bai Jingyan gave a small nod, took the hand warmer back from Chun Tao's hands, and retraced her steps the way she had come.
Though Zhen Xiangzhi had refused her aid, his words had opened her eyes.
She remembered the Lament to the Emperor her mother had left behind before taking her own life in prison in her past life. She remembered the scholars of Dadu, hearts aflame with righteous indignation, thundering in full pomp that the Bai family's merits must be restored. And she remembered the Liang King in his princely manor, wringing his hands over how he could share in the Emperor's burdens when he had no power to do so.
A crowd's mouth can melt iron, and a man hounded by accusations enough will be destroyed by them—so this was how fearsome the tongue of man could be.
Even the Emperor, holder of the supreme authority, had something he feared: the mouths of the people, and the wrath of the crowd. The Emperor dreaded that long after the years had passed, he would leave behind the infamy of one who persecuted the loyal and true.
Whether her grandfather still lived, she could not yet know. But if he had already met his end in the Southern Border, then the Bai family had no path of retreat left to take.
If there was no retreat, then they must advance. They must raise the Bai family's name to its very zenith—so high that the Emperor, cowed by the crowd's unrelenting mouths, would never dare lay a hand upon them.
Great Jin could not, in the end, escape its doom at the hands of Great Yan. But if the Bai family's reputation alone could shield them—