Three days later, it was Lady Gao’s birthday.
Lady Gao had never liked extravagance. After her husband’s death, she had stopped holding birthday banquets altogether. Every year on this day, she would simply eat a vegetarian meal at the residence and have Ye Xian accompany her to Da Ci’en Temple to offer a lantern. That was how she celebrated.
This year was no exception.
Several days in advance, Lady Gao had already announced that she would not be accepting gifts or visitors. Only a small family dinner would be held in the flower hall.
She had not even invited Xu Jingting.
Yet Gu Jinzhao came.
She did not come as an outside guest.
A few days earlier, Lady Gao had specifically asked Nanny Feng to pass along a message:
“This year, I would like Jinzhao to come share a simple meal with us on my birthday. Just a few of us. No need for formalities.”
The words sounded casual enough.
But when Nanny Feng delivered the message, she had added one extra sentence.
“Madam said Miss Gu is not an outsider.”
By the time Gu Jinzhao arrived, the table in the flower hall had already been set.
It was not a round banquet table.
Instead, a long huanghuali wood table stood in the center of the room.
Only Lady Gao and Ye Xian were seated there.
Lady Gao sat at the head.
Ye Xian sat on her left.
Seven or eight simple home-cooked dishes were arranged across the table.
In the center sat a bowl of longevity noodles.
The noodles were not entirely uniform in thickness.
Several strands were noticeably thicker than the others.
Lady Gao explained that Ye Xian had personally kneaded the dough and pulled the noodles that morning.
A few uneven strands were unavoidable.
When the maid led Gu Jinzhao inside, Lady Gao immediately beckoned her over and seated her on her right side, directly across from Ye Xian.
Today, Jinzhao wore a lotus-purple high-collared jacket.
Ye Xian’s gaze lingered on her face for only the briefest moment.
Then he lowered his head and arranged her bowl and chopsticks.
The movement was casual and unobtrusive.
Yet he positioned them just far enough away from the hottest bowl of soup on the table.
During the meal, Lady Gao recounted stories from Ye Xian’s childhood.
She told them how, when he was seven or eight years old, he had climbed to the highest point of a rockery just to retrieve a stone.
He had struck his forehead and bloodied his face.
Even then, he had not cried.
Nor would he allow anyone to apply medicine.
“He was afraid the scar would leave him disfigured and nobody would marry him later.”
Gu Jinzhao could not help laughing.
She remembered the expression on Lady Gao’s face when she had shown her the dent in that rockery during an earlier visit to the Marquis Residence.
Apparently, this joke had been repeated in the Ye family for more than ten years.
Ye Xian set down his chopsticks and took a sip of tea.
Perhaps he was suppressing a response.
Maybe something along the lines of:
“Someone is willing to marry me now.”
Or perhaps:
“She wouldn’t mind even if I were scarred.”
After dinner, Lady Gao went outside the flower hall to burn incense and offer prayers.
Standing before the altar, she clasped her hands together and silently faced the nearly full moon hanging in the night sky.
The incense flames flickered.
Her lips moved slightly, as though she were speaking to someone.
Every birthday, she would stand alone like this for a while.
She never needed anyone to accompany her.
Ye Xian stood beneath the corridor and watched his mother’s back from afar.
He did not approach.
Gu Jinzhao stood several paces behind him.
She did not approach either.
Only after Lady Gao finished her prayers and returned to her room to rest did the servants clear away the table.
Soon, only two people remained in the flower hall.
Moonlight poured through the windows.
The peony garden outside seemed almost translucent beneath its glow.
A night breeze drifted in from the garden, carrying a faint floral fragrance.
Suddenly, Ye Xian spoke.
“My mother was very happy today.”
His voice was quiet.
“She hasn’t celebrated a birthday like this in a long time.”
“Madam said earlier that this was the liveliest birthday she had since the Late Marquis passed away.”
Gu Jinzhao looked at him, a hint of mischief in her eyes though her tone remained calm.
“There were only three people. How lively could it have been?”
“My mother deliberately replaced the round table with the ancestral long table.”
“That table is normally brought out only during ancestor worship ceremonies.”
“It isn’t used on ordinary days.”
He paused.
“In her eyes, you’ve already become one of our own.”
His voice dropped so low during the last sentence that it almost sounded like he was speaking to himself.
The evening breeze swept through the hall and caused the candle flame to tremble.
Ye Xian raised a hand to shield it.
Only after the flame steadied did he withdraw his hand.
“The lanterns.”
“Whenever it’s Mother’s birthday, we light the eternal lamps throughout the garden.”
“There are new ones hanging beside the rockery, around the lotus pond, and outside the peony garden.”
He turned and began walking away.
After taking two steps, he glanced back.
“The last time you wandered around the rockery, you didn’t really get a chance to look closely.”
“Tonight is a good opportunity.”
Then he asked:
“Coming?”
She followed him.
As expected, the stone lanterns around the rockery had all been replaced with new lamps under Nanny Feng’s supervision.
They were not expensive decorative lanterns.
Just ordinary celadon oil lamps.
Yet each had been polished spotless.
The wicks were freshly twisted from new cotton.
Their flames burned steadily.
More than a dozen lamps had been arranged throughout the garden.
Some nestled between cracks in the rockery.
Others stood upon stone pedestals beside the lotus pond.
Several lined the bamboo fencing around the peony garden.
Together they cast a warm glow over the entire estate.
The stone textures of the rockery.
The moss along the pond.
The soot stains accumulated upon the lanterns through countless years.
This residence had been arranged in this manner since the days of the Late Marquis.
After Ye Xian inherited it, not a single tree or blade of grass had been altered.
He merely remained here year after year, replacing the lamp wicks with fresh ones.
“Heir Apparent.”
Gu Jinzhao stopped beside a cluster of Xiangfei bamboo and tilted her head upward toward the swaying shadows of the leaves.
“Today is Madam’s birthday.”
“Did you make a wish?”
“No.”
Ye Xian stood beside her with his hands behind his back.
His tone remained calm.
“Even if I did, it would be useless.”
“Most of the wishes I made in the past never came true.”
“Then make one now.”
She smiled faintly.
“I’ll remember it for you.”
Ye Xian turned to look at her.
Moonlight filtered through the bamboo leaves and illuminated her face.
Her features seemed even more distinct.
The clear autumn-water eyes reflected the lanterns throughout the garden.
And something else.
“When I was little…”
He suddenly spoke.
His voice was soft, as though he feared disturbing something precious.
“When I lived in the old house in the western district, there was a little girl next door.”
“She clung to my sleeve every day and refused to let go.”
“She followed me wherever I went.”
“I found her annoying and kept trying to avoid her.”
“So she’d crouch in a corner and cry.”
“She cried until I turned back and gave her candy.”
“Only then would she stop.”
He paused.
“For those two years, I thought I hated her.”
Another pause.
“Then she left.”
“I waited for her at the alley entrance many times.”
“She never came back.”
“One New Year, every child in the family received lucky money.”
“I wrapped a pine nut candy in red paper.”
“I planned to give it to her when she returned.”
“I waited through the first month.”
“Then through the Dragon Boat Festival.”
“She never came back.”
The bamboo leaves rustled softly in the night breeze.
Gu Jinzhao remained silent for a moment.
Then she extended her hand toward him, palm facing upward.
“It’s not too late to give it now.”
Ye Xian lowered his gaze to her open palm.
Then he laughed.
The sound was very soft.
Like a breeze escaping from deep within his chest.
But Gu Jinzhao heard it clearly.
It was not his usual indifferent snort.
Nor a perfunctory chuckle.
It was a genuine laugh.
Helpless.
Warm.
Tender.
He placed his hand over hers.
His fingertips were cool, carrying the clean scent of bamboo leaves in the evening breeze.
“Too late.”
“The candy melted long ago.”
“Then I’ll make up for it.”
Gu Jinzhao curled her fingers around his.
With her other hand, she pulled a small oil-paper package from her sleeve and placed it in his palm.
Pine nut candy.
Before leaving home that morning, she had carefully wrapped it in fresh oil paper.
Ye Xian stared at the package for a long time.
Then he tucked it into his sleeve.
His long fingers loosely clasped hers.
Then he called her by name.
“Zhaozhao.”
Gu Jinzhao froze.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
His voice was low and deep.
“I just felt I should call you that once.”
In the distance, fireworks exploded beside the city moat.
A golden bloom burst across the night sky with a loud crack, illuminating half the Marquis Residence gardens.
Then another.
And another.
The fireworks flickered and faded.
Gu Jinzhao understood.
He had not made a wish.
Because the wish he wanted most was already standing before him.
By the end of June, the capital entered the hottest period of the year.
The cicadas screamed themselves hoarse.
The bluestone streets became scorching hot beneath the sun.
If someone poured a basin of water onto the ground, it would hiss into white steam and disappear almost instantly.
Ji Minzhong’s case advanced rapidly amid the oppressive summer heat.
Less than five days after the private residence near Qingfeng Academy burned down, two incidents occurred in the northern part of the city.
The first involved a warehouse at Tongzhou Wharf.
Officials from the Canal Transport Administration seized it after discovering discrepancies between the customs declaration and the actual cargo.
The paperwork listed a shipment of Jiangnan brocade.
Upon inspection, however, old records were discovered hidden beneath the cargo.
Several unsigned letters were mixed among them.
The canal officials dared not interfere.
The matter was reported upward through the proper channels until it eventually reached the Censorate.
Shortly afterward, Deyuan Pawnshop in Liutiao Alley caught fire.
This blaze was small.
Only one corner of the rear storeroom burned.
However, during the firefighting efforts, neighbors rushed inside to help.
One soldier spotted a lacquer box decorated with cloud patterns in gold.
It was identical to the one found in the private residence near Qingfeng Academy.
When the news reached the Marquis Residence, Ye Xian was reviewing inspection reports from the City Patrol Office in his study.
After someone connected the two incidents and reported them together, he offered only one response.
“He’s panicking.”
“When people panic, they make mistakes.”
Outside, the noon sun blazed fiercely.
The cicadas shrieked endlessly.
A newly added potted bamboo plant stood inside the study.
Ye Xian had personally ordered it transplanted from the rear hillside.
The bamboo stalks stood tall and elegant.
Their leaves rustled softly in the breeze flowing through the room.
During the following days, the atmosphere at court gradually changed.
First came a Censorate impeachment accusing an official from the Ministry of Personnel’s Evaluation Bureau of accepting bribes during the assessment of capital officials.
Every accusation struck with precision.
Each personnel appointment referenced in the memorial was supported by dates, signatures, and official records.
The memorial did not directly target Ji Minzhong.
Instead, it removed a single piece from the board first.
The Evaluation Bureau.
To impeach the bureau’s director was to strike the mountain and warn the tiger.
Ji Minzhong had controlled that office for over a decade.
No one had ever dared challenge it directly.
Now a sword hung over his head.
He could no longer remain hidden behind illness.
He had to emerge and defend his protégés.
But before he could submit a self-defense memorial, the second impeachment arrived.
This one targeted an official from the Ministry of War’s Armory Bureau.
The charge stated that four years earlier, the official had shifted responsibility for the diversion of southwestern grain supplies onto a low-ranking warehouse clerk.
The evidence was irrefutable.
Ye Xian had recovered the original transfer records from supplementary archives at Da Ci’en Temple.
The missing portions had been completed using the Imperial Stud Court horse-transfer lists copied by Gu Jinzhao.
The connection between the Ministry of War official and Ji Minzhong’s profiteering from the grain supply case was finally proven.
The third impeachment memorial targeted Ji Minzhong himself.
It was brief.
But the accusations were devastating.
Embezzlement of military funds.
Illegal trafficking of salt and iron.
Collusion with frontier generals.
Illegal seizure of farmland.
Attached to the memorial was a lengthy evidence list.
The Old Prince’s private records.
The Ministry of Justice’s land-verification reports.
The warehouse inventories recovered from Tongzhou.
The Zhao family land-deed registers.
The accounting books from the diverted grain shipments.
And one dried purple bamboo leaf preserved beneath an extremely thin sheet of wax paper.
After the three memorials reached the Office of Transmission, Ji Minzhong’s office at the Ministry of Personnel became practically deserted.
Though he remained at home under the pretense of illness, reports arrived continuously.
Messengers informed him that the Evaluation Bureau director had been summoned to the Censorate.
Then came news that the Ministry of War official had spent an entire night being questioned.
At the beginning of July, the locust trees throughout the capital bloomed at their peak.
Pale yellow petals drifted through the streets.
They settled upon the bluestone roads and were crushed beneath passing feet.
Inside the palace, silence reigned.
Even the dripping of the bronze water clock could be heard clearly.
The Emperor sat behind his desk.
A thick stack of files lay open before him.
Ye Xian stood in front of the imperial desk.
His dark robe hung neatly at his sides.
His back was straight as bamboo.
The palace attendants had all withdrawn from the corridor outside.
Only Zhang He remained standing at a respectful distance.
“I’ve reviewed your evidence.”
The Emperor looked up.
“The Right Censor-in-Chief has reviewed it as well.”
“Yesterday he told me something.”
“‘Ye Xian’s offensive is worthy of a Left Vice Censor-in-Chief.'”
“‘Steady. Methodical. Advancing step by step without haste.'”
The Emperor paused.
Then smiled faintly.
“I think he understated the matter.”
“The evidence in these memorials is extraordinarily thorough.”
“Military horse transfers.”
“Land-verification irregularities.”
“The academy fire.”
“The Deyuan Pawnshop fire.”
He fixed his gaze on Ye Xian.
“I only have one question.”
“Were you the one who arranged those fires?”
“The fire at the Qingfeng Academy residence had nothing to do with me.”
Ye Xian answered calmly.
“Ji Minzhong set that fire himself.”
“He ordered his men to douse the empty residence with oil and burn it.”
“He wanted me to believe the evidence had already been destroyed.”
“The City Patrol Office had men watching nearby.”
“They arrived less than half an incense stick after the fire began.”
“Questioning the neighbors revealed that carriages had been parked behind the residence the previous evening.”
“Meaning the evidence had already been moved before the fire.”
He withdrew an official inspection report from his sleeve and presented it.
“As for Deyuan Pawnshop, that fire was indeed my doing.”
“The Zhao family’s pawnshop was the final transfer point for Ji Minzhong’s evidence.”
“Without touching the pawnshop, the land deeds would never have surfaced.”
“The fire was extremely small.”
“No one was injured.”
“No property was significantly damaged.”
“It existed only to draw the City Patrol Office into conducting a search.”
“The lacquer box was discovered during that search.”
“Every piece of evidence was immediately registered according to procedure and transferred under official seal to the Censorate.”
“As Left Vice Censor-in-Chief, I have authority to take necessary emergency measures to preserve evidence.”
“The purpose of the fire was to ensure the evidence was recovered publicly under official supervision.”
“Had we waited until morning, the lacquer box would have vanished through the secret passage.”
He bowed.
“I am willing to bear all consequences.”
Ye Xian spoke at considerable length.
The Emperor remained silent.
A thin ribbon of agarwood incense drifted upward from the bronze burner on his desk.
He examined the patrol office signatures.
Then the dried purple bamboo leaf attached to the land records.
Suddenly, he laughed.
“You have the exact same temperament as your father.”
“He once stood before me and said precisely the same thing.”
“‘I am willing to bear all consequences.'”
The Emperor’s gaze softened.
“Do you know what I told him?”
“I do not, Your Majesty.”
“I told him, ‘You cannot bear them.'”
The Emperor’s smile faded.
“Later, he died while serving in office.”
“I never had the chance to do anything for him.”
“You’re his son.”
“I don’t wish to owe the Ye family another debt.”
He closed the files.
“I authorize you to investigate the matter fully.”
“I’ve already approved the impeachment memorials.”
“The Ministry of Personnel’s Evaluation Bureau and the Ministry of War’s Armory Bureau will both be investigated.”
“As for Zhao Heng, Marquis of Northern Defense…”
The Emperor’s eyes sharpened.
“Tell him to come see me personally.”
Silence filled the imperial study once more.
Outside, the cicadas sang endlessly.
Like the final annotation to a case that had dragged on for four years.
Ye Xian stood quietly in the hall.
After a long pause, he finally spoke.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
The Emperor waved a hand dismissively and reopened the files.
Then, as if casually remembering something, he asked:
“Speaking of which…”
“What’s the name of Gu Dezhao’s daughter?”
Ye Xian lifted his eyes.
“Gu Jinzhao.”
“I heard from Zhang He that she has some courage.”
“She helped you keep watch on Ji Minzhong’s movements at Fuguang Temple.”
“Now that Vice Minister Gu’s reputation has suffered due to these false accusations, once Ji Minzhong’s case concludes, I will see that proper credit is recorded.”
“A father who teaches his daughter well deserves recognition.”
Ye Xian lowered his head.
“I thank Your Majesty on her behalf for your gracious favor.”
Outside in the corridor, Zhang He heard the Emperor laugh.
The sound was not loud.
But one of the palace maids in the nearby attendants’ quarters quietly made note of it.
His Majesty was in an exceptionally good mood today.
Outside the palace, Chang’an Street shimmered beneath the blazing midday sun.
Several children squatted beneath a tree, flicking stones at one another.
The cicadas sang louder and louder.
The entire capital lay beneath waves of summer heat.
And inside the study at Changxing Marquis Residence, the newly transplanted bamboo remained lush and vividly green.
Outside the window, another cicada began to sing.