When the song ended, the Chunde Emperor raised his winecup in a toast. “Two days ago, great joy filled my heart when the Fourth Prince was blessed with a pair of dragon-phoenix twins. To celebrate the continuation of the Imperial bloodline, I invite all of you gathered here to eat, drink and be merry!” he said.
Everyone raised their winecups in unison and thanked the Emperor for his kindness.
Just as everyone put their winecups down, the Imperial Oracle, the Piaomiao Zhenren, Tao Miao, suddenly stood up and walked to the centre of the main hall. He knelt, then raised a brocade box above his head respectfully with two hands. “As per your Majesty’s orders, Chen has refined longevity pills for your Majesty. I refined many ingredients over a period of seven times seven days, or forty-nine days, and the product was these three Immortality Pills. May the Emperor live a life as eternal as the heavens!” he declared.
Xiao Chengjun looked darkly at Tao Miao. This fellow had been a key actor in the Taishan matter, which had been aimed solely at unseating him as Crown Prince, and for that, he had been conferred the title of Imperial Oracle. He didn’t believe that this Tao Miao had good intentions in creating these so-called “Immortality Pills”. The Imperial Court was already in chaos, and he was just adding oil to the flames.
The Chunde Emperor looked very pleased. He wasn’t surprised, and it seemed that he already knew about Tao Miao refining the pills. He waved a hand at Huai Zhong to ask him to bring the Immortality Pills to him. “You have done well, beloved official Tao. Reward him,” the Emperor declared.
“These Immortality Pills must be taken with strong liquor,” Tao Miao said as he knelt in thanks to receive his reward. He deliberately said this in a nonchalant tone, as if he weren’t surprised by Emperor’s favour at all, but he couldn’t hide the pride he felt – it showed plainly on his face. Xiao Chengjun saw it all too clearly from where he sat.
Lou Jing was stationed even closer to Tao Miao. He saw the three gleaming black pills in the brocade box and had to resist the urge to curl his lip in derision. This sort of thing was very easily faked. He himself could take a box of hawthorn pills and swear to heaven and earth that they were Immortality Pills, and no one be the wiser. At the end, when the Emperor was six feet under, he wouldn’t be able to pursue the matter of why he passed on despite taking the Immortality Pills either, so he’d be perfectly safe even if he had been lying about the pills’ ability to make one live forever.
On the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, nothing out of the ordinary happened, but the Yulin Troops had to prepare for the Imperial ancestral worship rites at the Imperial Ancestral Temple the next day. The honour guard, the horses and sedans all had to be ready in advance. Lou Jing and the Right Commander-General both had to lead the honour guard of twenty-four Yulin Troops in patrolling one round around the Imperial Ancestral Temple. It was too late to return home after, and as such, they had no choice but to spend the night sleeping in the palace.
Xiao Chengjun was alone in his residence, making arrangements for the New Year celebrations.
“The New Year gifts were all sent out to the recipients before the twenty-third day of the twelfth month,” the butler said, holding out a list of gifts for Xiao Chengjun to have a look. “The return gifts have also all been received.”
Xiao Chengjun scanned the list. All these were done according to precedent, and things were very unlikely to go wrong. He suddenly saw the name “Jing Wang residence”, and he paused. “Has there been any news from Jing Wang these past two days?” he asked.
In the eleventh lunar month, Lou Jing had dragooned a doctor from Jinzhou into coming to the Capital to have a look at Xiao Chengjin.
That doctor was a very famous barefoot doctor in the Northwestern regions. He only used traditional remedies, and so was not considered a legitimate doctor, and he had never treated anyone who was a member of the nobility.
The thin, withered old man was very sloppy-looking, and Xiao Chengjun couldn’t help frowning slightly in disapproval when he looked at him. He believed in Lou Jing though, and so gave the go-ahead for this slovenly-looking doctor to start treating his younger brother.
The barefoot doctor didn’t know that Xiao Chengjin was an Imperial Prince, and he confidently started looking his patient over.
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“Sigh, you rich people are just so good at blindly doing counterproductive things,” the old man said after taking Xiao Chengjin’s pulse reading. “You need to stop staying in this warm humid place at once.”
The Imperial Physicians had said that Xiao Chengjin wouldn’t live past winter, so what they were doing now was flogging a dead horse anyway; they might as well try this barefoot doctor’s methods to see if there was any improvement. Xiao Chengjun had entered the palace immediately to inform the Empress of this development, and Empress Ji had broken with precedent, ordering people to build a dilong in the Jing Wang residence so that he could move back there to live.
Jing Wang had moved back to the Capital in the eleventh month, and a month had passed since then. Jing Wang’s condition had not improved much, but it also had not worsened. The tension in Xiao Chengjun’s heart finally eased a little when he heard this.
“This servant went to send the banquet gifts to Jing Wang today, and I heard that Wang ye has not been coughing much these past two days. The pain in his joints has also gotten better,” the butler said, smiling at Xiao Chengjun.
“That’s great,” Xiao Chengjun said, his face breaking into a glad smile.
“Reporting to Wang ye, someone who says that he is the Imperial Oracle requests an audience,” a guard said, stepping forward. That person had come suddenly without an invitation, and the guards refused to let him in, coming to report to their master first.
The smile on Xiao Chengjun’s face faded. Yesterday, Tao Miao had presented the Immortality Pills at the banquet with great fanfare and had received the Emperor’s favour. What were his intentions in coming to look for him today?
“Ask him to wait in the side atrium,” Xiao Chengjun instructed. He ordinarily would not have bothered entertaining a rubbishy fraudster like Tao Miao, but the latter was, unfortunately, in receipt of the Chunde Emperor’s favour at present, so it wasn’t wise to make his disdain too obvious.
“This old Oracle greets Min Wang Dianxia,” Tao Miao said, still dressed in his grey Taoist robes. He held a foot-long horsetail whisk in his hand, and he looked very much like an immortal descended from heaven.
“What brings you here?” Xiao Chengjun said, sitting down on the host’s seat and looking at him coldly.
Tao Miao froze for a second. He hadn’t thought that this Min Wang Dianxia’s aura would be so intimidating. Xiao Chengjun’s simple action in sitting down felt like it carried the weight of Taishan with it, and his bearing immediately commanded respect. He was completely different from the Third and Fourth Princes. Tao Miao couldn’t help internally revising his assessment of this dignified Min Wang.
He forced down the uneasiness that was building in his chest and smiled at Xiao Chengjun. “I’m sorry to impose on you this close to the New Year, but this concerns a very important matter…” Tao Miao said, pausing deliberately at this junction to look at Min Wang’s expression.
Xiao Chengjun showed no reaction at all. When he saw that Tao Miao had stopped speaking, he simply picked up his teacup.
Unless it was understood that the host and the guest were engaging in idle chatter that day, the host picking up his teacup was a signal to invite the guest to leave. What Xiao Chengjun was saying in picking up his teacup was, if you don’t have anything to say, then please leave immediately.
Tao Miao became flustered. He pretended that he hadn’t seen Min Wang lift his cup, and continued speaking. “This matter concerns Jing Wang,” he said.
Xiao Chengjun’s hands paused in the act of raising the teacup to his lips. His expression still remained bland, but his eyes became even colder. “Speak,” he said.
“This old Oracle heard that Jing Wang was poisoned when he was young, and has not recovered even to this day,” Tao Miao said, pulling out a small box from his sleeve. “This is a special elixir that I refined. It is a panacea that can cure a hundred poisons, and if the Second Prince takes this elixir, he will be able to live.”
Xiao Chengjun closed his eyes. Only a few people in the Imperial family knew that the prognosis for Xiao Chengjin was that he would not live past winter, and he didn’t know where this rude oaf was coming from, saying this to him out of the blue. He was intensely offended. “Guards,” he called.
The moment the words left his mouth, four tall, strapping guards walked into the room.
“Feed one pill of this supposed elixir to the Imperial Oracle. If he is still well in seven days, then he can come and speak to me again,” Xiao Chengjun ordered. He already knew what Tao Miao was going to say even before the latter opened his mouth.
This man was merely one of the Minister of the Right’s chess pieces. He wasn’t going to let this fellow get off easily regardless of whether his motive was to impede him in the Imperial Court or to cause Xiao Chengjin’s death by his hand!
“Mmph… Dianxia…”
Tao Miao didn’t have time to react before the guards caught hold of him, forced his mouth open and shoved a pill into his mouth, practically flinging it to the back of his throat as they did so.
“Cough cough cough…” Tao Miao choked.
“See the guest out,” Xiao Chengjin said, waving a hand dismissively to signal to the guards to throw the shell-shocked Tao Miao out of his residence. In trying to get his younger brother involved in political machinations, Tao Miao had touched one of Xiao Chengjun’s raw nerves. Nobody could touch Xiao Chengjin, absolutely no one! Not even the Emperor!
Tao Miao had not recovered from the shock of having his own elixir pill forced down his throat when he was tossed out of the Min Wang residence and flopped down face-first into the snow.
Tao Miao was henceforth blacklisted as one of the persons Xiao Chengjun was determined to see dead.
The Imperial family all had to rise early the next day for the Imperial ancestral worship ceremony, so all the princes who had left the palace to set up their own residences entered the palace on the evening of the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month to formally greet the Empress, then stayed overnight in the palace to save time the next morning.
These Imperial Princes stayed in the Chonghua Palace, which was part of the external palace. The Chonghua Palace was reserved for princes and members of noble houses who stayed overnight in the palace. Xiao Chengjun held the highest rank out of all of the princes, and so he stayed in the main residence. The Third and Fourth Princes stayed in the side residences.
Lou Jing tossed and turned on the hard bed in the guards’ quarters. He couldn’t sleep. He hadn’t slept in the same bed as Xiao Chengjun for three nights now. When Xiao Chengjun was in his residence, and he was in the palace, there was nothing that could be done, but now, Xiao Chengjun was in the Chonghua Palace, which was just a stone’s throw away from the Yulin Troops’ sleeping quarters. Lou Jing was also very familiar with the security arrangements in the palace from his time as a Deputy Commander, and it wasn’t impossible for him to slip over to Chonghua Palace unnoticed.
With this thought in mind, Lou Jing couldn’t sleep any more. He got up and slipped out the back window.
Lou Jing ran through the guard patrol timings in his head in the dark. Three breaths later, he leapt onto a wall, landing softly on the glazed tiles. He lay in wait for another three breaths, waiting for the guards to walk past, then flipped back down, running lightly along the back wall to the main residence of Chonghua Palace.
“That idiot Tao Miao didn’t manage to get him to accept the pills?” The Third Prince’s frustrated voice could be clearly heard coming from the brightly lit side residence.
“Dianxia, Min Wang not accepting the pills is a good thing. It’s much too obvious a move…”
“What do you know?” Xiao Chengduo asked, annoyed. “This was a scheme that would have killed two birds with one stone! Doesn’t Xiao Chengjun treasure that worthless fellow the most? Why is it that today…”
“Dianxia, be careful what you say,” the person beside the Third Prince cautioned. It was only then that Xiao Chengduo desisted, but he still angrily cursed Tao Miao a few times before letting the matter drop.
Lou Jing narrowed his eyes. He didn’t dally by the Third Prince’s residence any more, and leapt over the corridor into the main residence.
“Why are you here?” Xiao Chengjun asked. He was going through the honour guard arrangements when he heard the sound of the window bar moving, and looked up to see a familiar figure land noiselessly in front of the window, then spin around to close it softly with nimble hands. He couldn’t help smiling.
“I missed you something fierce…” Lou Jing said, squatting below the window. He didn’t move closer to Xiao Chengjun, looking up at him with puppy dog eyes.
Xiao Chengjun chuckled, then walked over to pull Lou Jing to his feet and brushed the melted snow off his clothes. It had stopped snowing earlier, and the snow that collected on Lou Jing’s clothes must have been the ones he brushed past on the walls and rooftops. “Palace security is very tight. You had better get back quickly,” he said. The Yulin Troops had to wake up even earlier than the Imperial family to get ready, and Lou Jing’s little excursion meant that he would probably sleep less than four hours that night.
“I’ll leave after I stay with you for a while,” Lou Jing said. He knew that he couldn’t mess around in the palace, and so pulled Min Wang Dianxia onto the mattress to sit down. He cuddled into Xiao Chengjun’s embrace and nuzzled him.
Xiao Chengjun smiled as he let Lou Jing do as he pleased. The two didn’t say anything. Chonghua Palace wasn’t a place that was within their control at all, and who knew how many people were spying on him right now. They just held each other for a brief moment, each thinking their own thoughts in their hearts. After that, Lou Jing lifted his head and wordlessly asked for a long kiss before reluctantly leaving through the window again.
On the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month, the Emperor led his hundred officials in worshipping Heaven, informing the ancestors of the year’s achievements, and praying for a good and prosperous year ahead.
Lou Jing rode on a tall stallion at the head of the honour guard. In the early light of dawn, he looked even more dashingly handsome than usual.
The Third Prince Xiao Chengduo sat in his sedan, surveying the people gathered there. His eyes fell on Lou Jing, and as he gazed at that astoundingly handsome face, the covetous look in his eyes became more and more apparent. “Have the arrangements been made?” he asked the young eunuch next to him in a low voice.