14
Xie Xuanchen looked up, his expression toward her very strange. Realizing what he might be thinking, Mu Mingtang quickly waved her hands. “Don’t misunderstand. I’ve never actually used it. I just learned it just in case. Since there’s nothing else to do right now, don’t get your hopes up—I’m just going to give it a try.”
In truth, Xie Xuanchen was rather skeptical. The shackles custom-made by the Imperial Prison—how could they be so easy to open? However, Xie Xuanchen had never been good at dealing with women. He hadn’t been able to handle his own mother back in the day, and now that Mu Mingtang was speaking to him, he felt embarrassed to refuse.
Xie Xuanchen extended his right hand and let Mu Mingtang do as she pleased. She noticed that he was holding his hand in mid-air, supporting the full weight of the heavy shackle with just the strength of his arm. Just watching him made her feel tired. “Your highness, why don’t you rest your hand on the bed? I can sit on the footrest and work on it there.”
“It’s fine.” Xie Xuanchen was indifferent. “Just do what you need to do.”
What a stubborn temper. Mu Mingtang said nothing more and simply nodded. “All right, then.”
Mu Mingtang busied herself with her work, while Xie Xuanchen couldn’t even be bothered to watch. “Official court locks are not so easy to open. Mine are even more particular—cast entirely from black iron, with a specially made lock core. There are only two keys in the entire world, and they cannot be replicated. Moreover, both keys must be used together to open the lock. Ordinary thieves might pick civilian locks, but how could they open a court lock? They’ve never seen such a mechanism, they wouldn’t know—”
At that moment, a faint click sounded. Mu Mingtang quickly caught the shackle and said, “I’ve opened it.”
Xie Xuanchen’s words hadn’t even faded. As much as he dreamed of breaking free from these shackles, he was the son of a high-ranking official and had been exposed to such things from a young age. He harbored an inexplicable trust in the court’s craftsmanship. Common street thieves might pick ordinary people’s locks, but a lock commissioned by the imperial court—how could that be opened?
Mu Mingtang had already finished speaking, yet Xie Xuanchen still hadn’t processed it. Mu Mingtang was struggling to hold up the heavy iron cuff by herself. Xie Xuanchen was so shocked that he didn’t even think to help her.
She slowly set the iron ring down on the bed. Xie Xuanchen felt the weight lift from his hand. He looked down at his wrist, still unable to believe it.
“You…”
Mu Mingtang smiled very modestly. “I’m not really very good at it. I was just giving it a try. As it turns out, I managed to open it by chance.”
To spare Xie Xuanchen’s sensitive feelings, Mu Mingtang deliberately made her achievement sound smaller than it was. The truth was that mastery often resides among the common people—especially those with exceptional skills, who all dwell in the marketplace.
The old thief who taught her lock-picking was exactly such a person. When Xiangyang fell, everyone lost their means of survival and could only flee north in panic. The old thief hadn’t wanted to teach her initially. But halfway through the journey, fearing he wouldn’t survive and that his family’s hereditary skill would die out with him, he reluctantly passed it on to Mu Mingtang.
In the old thief’s own words: “Old thief that I am, I don’t expect you to carry on my legacy, and don’t go around saying you’re my disciple. I’m only teaching you, an outsider, because I’m afraid this skill will be lost. Thievery is immoral, but the craft itself is innocent. Whether you use it or not in the future has nothing to do with me.”
Who would have thought that Mu Mingtang would end up using it here? It was a strange twist of fate.
Xie Xuanchen stared at her for a long time without blinking. Then, he suddenly reached out. “Give me that.”
“What?”
“Your lock-picking tool.”
Mu Mingtang quickly presented the thin gold wire. Xie Xuanchen took it and turned it over in his hands, examining it from all sides. Seeing him scrutinizing it so carefully, Mu Mingtang proudly leaned in. “It’s made of pure gold. I specially twisted it off one of my ornaments.”
Was that the point? Xie Xuanchen gave Mu Mingtang a skeptical glance, then refastened the open shackle. He took the thin gold wire and began probing into the keyhole himself.
“How did you open it?”
“Very simple. You probe inside until you feel where the pins are. Then you manipulate the stiffer pins. Once the few effective pins are pushed flat, that’s it.”
Xie Xuanchen fiddled for quite a while, but nothing happened. Completely baffled, he asked, “There are several pins inside. Which ones do you push?”
“The stiffer ones, the ones with more resistance.”
More resistance? What kind of description was that? Xie Xuanchen tried for a long time but still felt that all the pins felt the same. If he hadn’t witnessed it with his own eyes, he would have suspected Mu Mingtang was playing tricks on him. He tried many more times, but all ended in failure. He handed the gold wire back to Mu Mingtang and fixed his gaze on her. “You try again.”
“Oh.” Mu Mingtang complied and reached for the iron ring on the bed. But Xie Xuanchen suddenly stopped her and extended his other hand instead. “Try this one.”
Mu Mingtang had no objections. The two lock cores were indeed different, with very complex internal structures. Mu Mingtang slowly manipulated the pins, calculating their positions. Finally, she touched something—again, a faint click.
This time, Mu Mingtang didn’t need to say anything. Xie Xuanchen himself felt the lock open. He pried the black iron ring apart with his own hands and found himself momentarily speechless.
Xie Xuanchen said nothing, and Mu Mingtang didn’t dare speak either. After a moment, she quietly defended herself. “This really is the first time I’ve picked a lock for someone. I’ve never tried it before.”
Mu Mingtang’s intention was to explain, but Xie Xuanchen found the statement only made him feel more conflicted. He sighed and suddenly asked, “What business did your family used to be in?”
“Antiques. Vases, porcelain, calligraphy, paintings—a bit of everything.”
“Then how do you know how to pick locks?”
“I learned it on the road from a thief.”
Learned it on the road—not even trained from childhood. Xie Xuanchen sighed and gave up trying to make sense of Mu Mingtang.
“Fine. Go by your instincts and open the other two as well.”
After Mu Mingtang picked the locks, she stood at the foot of the bed, watching Xie Xuanchen, suddenly afraid to speak. They both remained silent for a long while. Finally, Mu Mingtang softly asked, “Your highness, the locks are open. Would you like to get up and walk around?”
These shackles had been an obsession that haunted him even in his unconsciousness, something he could never forget. But at this moment, Xie Xuanchen suddenly dared not move. Mu Mingtang stood beside him, watching quietly. After a moment, she smiled and said, “I was being too careless. Your highness has been ill for a long time and needs to rest and recuperate slowly. There’s no need to rush. I don’t understand medicine—I was just talking nonsense. Please don’t take it to heart, your highness.”
Before Mu Mingtang could finish speaking, she saw Xie Xuanchen steadying himself against the bed frame, trying to stand up. Startled, she quickly moved to support him, but Xie Xuanchen pushed her away. “No need.”
He had only woken up a short while ago, and simply standing up nearly exhausted all his strength. But he stubbornly refused to let Mu Mingtang help him. He sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, catching his breath. He tried several times before finally managing to lift himself off the bed.
The moment he stood steady, his body began to sway precariously. Mu Mingtang hurried forward to steady him. With her support, he managed only two steps before becoming too weak to move further. She quickly helped him back to bed and tucked him in. “Your highness, it’s all right. We’ll take it slowly.”
Xie Xuanchen had been unconscious for too long. Even though his limbs were uninjured, he was now so weak that walking even two steps was difficult. Mu Mingtang fetched some water and carefully helped him drink. “Your highness, you’re just too weak from just having woken up. That’s why you have no strength. Once you’ve rested and recovered a bit, you’ll be fine. Now that the locks are open, we have plenty of time.”
Xie Xuanchen’s expression was indifferent, the color of his lips so pale it was almost nonexistent. “Now I can barely walk two steps. I’m no different from a cripple. What difference does it make whether the locks are open or not?”
“How can you say it makes no difference?” Mu Mingtang slowly sat down on the footrest. Her skirt spread out across the floor, its vibrant colors like a begonia blossom.
“You’ve only just woken up and are too weak—that’s all. You’ll get better.” She deliberately smiled as she spoke. “If you ask me, even weakened as you are now, you’re still stronger than most people. Those chains were so heavy that I couldn’t even lift them with both hands, yet you could raise them with one arm without any trouble.”
Such clumsy comfort. Xie Xuanchen merely twitched the corner of his mouth. “That’s not how it works. Measured by an ordinary person’s standard, my body might seem acceptable. But compared to how I was before… the difference is too great.”
Mu Mingtang understood the logic perfectly. A tiger and a rabbit were never judged by the same standard from the very beginning. Xie Xuanchen had once been renowned far and wide, his title as the God of War passed from mouth to mouth. Everyone loved to praise geniuses. But when a genius suddenly fell from grace, the harshness of public opinion was far more brutal than for someone who had never been famous at all.
Especially for Xie Xuanchen himself. He knew better than anyone what he had once been like. Now, reduced to such weakness, needing help even to walk—surely he was the one who found it hardest to accept. Mu Mingtang couldn’t find the words. Anything she said would feel hollow. She stood up, took away the cup, and tucked Xie Xuanchen’s blanket back in. “I’ve never been one to believe in fate or destiny, that a person’s life is predetermined. In my view, a capable person can thrive anywhere. Geniuses surpass so many others even as children—clearly that’s no accident. When they grow up, if they’re willing, they’ll still be geniuses.”
Xie Xuanchen didn’t respond. He looked utterly exhausted, his eyes already closed. Mu Mingtang didn’t leave. She stayed by his side for a while, and when she was sure he was sleeping peacefully, she quietly tucked the corner of his blanket in.
Xie Xuanchen seemed to be deeply asleep, with no reaction at all. Mu Mingtang felt that Xie Xuanchen’s attitude toward life and death was very contradictory. While unconscious, he had sensed that something was wrong with the porridge and would rather starve than drink it. Yet after waking up, he seemed utterly convinced that he was going to die.
She had heard that his mother was killed by the Emperor Gong of Later Jin, that his father had died under mysterious circumstances, and that his trusted confidants and deputy officers had all supposedly been killed by him. A commander-in-chief turning his blade on the comrades who once fought beside him—Xie Xuanchen must carry a heavy burden of guilt. So, his instincts fought for survival, but his reason could not accept the person he had become.
Looking at this face that was both familiar and strange—Mu Mingtang couldn’t help but whisper, “To awe external enemies and pacify the feudal lords—that is what it means to bear the title ‘Martial Peace.’ Today, in the north, there are the Rong enemies; in the west, the Tibetans; in the south, the Dali Kingdom; and beyond them, the Uyghurs and the Western Xia. Powerful enemies surround us. And since the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun were ceded, they remain foreign territory to this day. Though the current emperor welcomes broad advice, he favors scholars over warriors, content to rule a corner of the realm. The people beyond the capital still live in fear, not knowing if they’ll survive from one day to the next. The Ye Dynasty needs you. The realm needs you.”
Xie Xuanchen’s lashes rested quietly, with no response, as if he had fallen into a deep sleep. Mu Mingtang paused for a moment, then whispered even more softly, “I need you, too. I’ve made an enemy of Jiang Mingwei. If I’m ever alone, she will never let me off. I’ve finally had a chance to hold my head up high. How embarrassing would it be if I ended up down and out again?”
Mu Mingtang’s voice suddenly caught. She turned her head away and wiped the tears from the corner of her eyes. In a low voice, she said, “Roads are made by walking them. Fall down, then get back up again. You have always been the hero in my heart, the one who can turn the tide single-handedly. I will always stay with you, your highness.”
**