Chapter 8
1132 Words
The fourth watch. Snow pellets struck the withered leaves in the courtyard with a sharp, ceaseless rattle.
The side gate opened. Zheng Wantang untied her black cloak and tossed it to the guard beside her. Han Changluan had already changed into grey clothes and slipped out of the city to chase down the supply convoy. The courtyard was empty.
She had barely crossed the threshold into her study when a sudden rush of footsteps broke the quiet outside.
The double doors burst open. Lin Ruo stumbled in, her clothes streaked with snow and mud, her face drained of color.
Zheng Wantang sat down, picked up her cold tea, and took a sip.
“Speak.”
Lin Ruo shoved the door bolt home with trembling hands.
“Zu Ting has sent shadow agents to the northwest border! He’s hunting for proof that the Prince is colluding with the enemy!”
She slammed a worn ledger onto the desk, its ink still wet.
“Old Li, the night-soil collector north of the city, brought word. The waste barrels in Zu’s western courtyard are full of scraps with the smell of mutton.”
Yecheng’s pampered officials, with their refined tastes, wouldn’t touch frontier dried mutton—coarse, gamey stuff—not even to feed their dogs.
Lin Ruo’s words came fast, her finger stabbing at the ledger’s pages. “Shopkeeper Zhang traced it further. Zu’s one-eyed steward just bought out three shops of dried meat and barley cakes, plus fifty leather water skins. Enough to feed twenty men for half a month.”
“And there’s more.” She caught her breath. “Our crippled veteran who collects slop in the back alleys found a scrap of paper in the fresh ashes from Zu’s kitchen. On it was the red clay seal of the northwestern relay station.”
Frontier mutton. Travel rations. The northwestern relay station.
The threads wove together into one clear design. Before Old Han left, he had warned them: if Zu’s men were heading west, they meant to fabricate proof of treason.
Zheng Wantang’s gaze fell on the ledger.
Three days. She had spent three hundred taels of silver to build a network of eyes in the city’s gutters, and with nothing but night-soil, slop, and kitchen ash, she had laid bare the secret operation of the empire’s highest minister.
A useful set of skills.
She tapped her knuckles twice on the desk. Everyone with eyes in the world knew how Gao Changgong felt about the imperial family. Colluding with the enemy? Preposterous.
But on paper, proof was proof. If those forgeries reached the palace, the entire Lanling household—hundreds of heads—would fall.
“Forgery takes work.” Zheng Wantang spread her hands, ticking off the requirements. “A personal letter. The Prince’s private seal. A route for the messenger to the Northern Zhou. All three are needed.”
“The Prince’s seal is locked in our own storehouse. If Zu Ting wants to make the charge stick, he must have it forged here in Yecheng.”
Lin Ruo stiffened.
Zheng Wantang gave the order. “Send word to Old Han. Sweep the city for failed scholars, corrupt clerks, anyone who works in seal carving. Keep your eyes wide. Look for anyone who has come into sudden wealth in the last half month—or anyone whose whole household has disappeared.”
“Find them. Keep them alive. That’s our first card against Zu Ting.”
Lin Ruo grabbed a charcoal stick and began writing.
“Second order. Find Zu’s bookkeeper.” Zheng Wantang tapped the ledger on the desk. “Zu just surrendered ten thousand taels in gold to fill the treasury. There will be a hole in his own accounts. Find the man who manages them.”
“Where he drinks. Whose bed he sleeps in. Who he sees each day. Every man has a weakness, and where there is weakness, a mouth can be opened.”
Lin Ruo acknowledged the order and turned, plunging back into the storm.
The doors closed again.
Zheng Wantang walked around the long desk. She drew out a three-foot sheet of paper and picked up a sharpened stick of charcoal.
The games of power in Yecheng could not be played with eyes fixed on the mud. You had to look at the sky.
Her wrist turned. The first name on the page.
**Gao Changgong.** The soul of Great Qi’s army. The life she had to protect.
The charcoal moved left. The second name.
**Zu Ting.**
Above it, she circled a third.
**Gao Wei.**
A thin line connected the two men. It was simple enough: the young Emperor Gao Wei feared a general whose shadow was too long. So he kept a greedy dog like Zu Ting to do his biting. This was the way of emperors.
Zheng Wantang’s hand paused.
Something was wrong.
Zu Ting was ruthless, pragmatic, self-serving to the bone. Forging treason was a crime that would annihilate nine generations of his clan. If Gao Changgong survived the front and marched back to the capital, the army’s vengeance would fall on Zu Ting first. And Gao Wei’s weak hand could not grant him immunity.
Unless—beneath Yecheng’s murky waters, there was another power. A power that could promise Zu Ting something far greater than the Emperor ever could.
The charcoal hung in the air. A moment later, it struck the far right of the paper.
**Lu Lingxuan.**
Empress Dowager. The Emperor’s wet nurse. The true power behind the court of Great Qi.
Days earlier, in the great hall, Lu Lingxuan had waved her gold-painted fan and spoken a few idle words—and Zu Ting had handed over ten thousand taels in gold to fund the army.
A reminder. If you do not serve your master well, the blade hangs over your neck.
The charcoal scraped across the paper. Zheng Wantang drew a thick, black line from Lu Lingxuan’s name, crossing half the page, driving straight through Zu Ting’s.
*Crack.*
She dropped the broken charcoal into the brush washer.
She brushed the ash from her fingers and looked at the map of power on her desk.
Zu Ting’s hunt for proof of treason was nothing but a blade in someone else’s hand. This was a trap set for the army—for the Lanling household.
The hand that held the blade was in the rear palace. It belonged to Lu Lingxuan.
She would burn an entire household to pave a road of blood for her own ascent.
Zheng Wantang raised her eyes to the black sky outside the window.
*You think this household is an easy fruit to crush?*
*Then I will tear the roof from Great Qi’s halls first—and turn this world on its head.*
- Writer
