The Son of Heaven's question made the courtyard fall silent.
Xu Chu stood as straight as ever, then slowly glanced around.
This was only a side courtyard, not large at all.
Seven or eight gray-haired old officials.
The last imperial guards the Chancellor had left to preserve the Emperor's dignity, barely more than a dozen.
Behind him stood a squad of Tiger Guards, along with himself, a massive body the Chancellor had praised more than once.
So he answered with complete honesty.
"Your Majesty's thought… may be difficult."
Liu Xie nodded. Without noticing it himself, much of the weakness had already faded from his face.
"Still… I think it must be tried."
Something felt wrong.
Xu Chu instinctively tried to draw his sword, yet the movement that had always been effortless suddenly felt unbearably heavy. His arm, usually like iron, now felt weighed down by stone.
His body swayed. He collapsed to the ground.
"Your Majesty… intends to poison me?"
Even speaking took effort.
Liu Xie was not much better. He too slid to the ground, though the shifting expressions on his face showed he had long prepared for this.
"Not poison… merely… something left behind… by those ministers wrongly slain by Cao.
It is called… mafeisan."
He stopped wasting strength on words and instead began crawling toward Xu Chu, dragging himself forward with both hands and feet.
Nearby, the loyal old officials and imperial attendants surrounded the five Tiger Guards with anything they could use, even their own bodies, hemming them in tightly.
After a painful struggle forward, Liu Xie finally managed to pull Xu Chu's sword free.
Yet he no longer had the strength to raise it.
A faint fragrance drifted toward him.
Without even looking, Liu Xie knew who it was.
He could no longer feel his hands, but he saw the sword slowly lift.
Its point aimed at the throat that had once haunted both husband and wife in their nightmares.
The hand gripping the hilt was his.
Wrapped around it was his wife's hand.
"Bohe."
Empress Fu Shou slowly pressed the blade downward until it pierced through.
"Let me help you."
---
"I shall assist the Director."
Dong Jue wiped his right hand once. A thin blade no longer than a finger appeared in his palm. With a few swift motions, the roasted chicken and duck on the tray were neatly divided into portions, bones included.
He flipped his wrist, and the blade vanished again.
Jia Xu nodded.
"A product of Yi Province. Truly exquisite craftsmanship."
"I have heard that in Jing Province, Guan Yu now carries a long-handled blade called the Crescent Moon Saber, said to be sharp enough to cut metal like mud. It seems the rumors are true."
Dong Jue smiled, quickly arranging dishes onto Jia Xu's plate with his chopsticks.
"Compared to our Jing Province repeating crossbows, those are trivial."
After a few bites, Jia Xu nodded in sincere agreement.
"That modular heavy crossbow truly is something unheard of. Zhuge's talent borders on the uncanny. Without it, stabilizing the Chancellor's residence would have required far more effort."
"Who does not know Director Jia's schemes? Your foresight is uncanny as well."
Jia Xu burst into laughter, shaking his head.
"Gong Xi's eloquence is uncanny too. Had your lord sent you to Jiangdong back then, he would have had nothing to worry about."
---
At the same time, Xin Pi, whose mind was in utter turmoil, heard Wei Feng behind him sigh to his companions with a smile.
"With this device to assist us, eliminating traitors truly gives us no cause for worry."
Xin Pi could not help sighing again.
Early that morning he had gone, as usual, to the Chancellor's residence. As one of the two Chief Clerks, his daily duties were heavy, especially now that the Henan army had failed to break through Mengjin Pass defended by Huo Jun. Meanwhile, his daughter had gone earlier to her husband's household in Shangdang, where his elder brother was stationed, and no news had come from the war zone.
He had barely begun work when Wei Feng and the others walked in behind him, carrying heavy crossbows.
Wang Bi, the other Chief Clerk, sensed something wrong. He did not even get a sentence out before he was killed on the spot.
Then Attendant Geng Ji and Inspector Wei Huang filed in one after another, and just like that, control of the Chancellor's residence was seized.
Xin Pi could not understand it. Without his or Wang Bi's approval, how could the residence guards possibly allow heavy crossbows longer than an arm inside, and five of them at that?
If not for those five crossbows, Wei Huang could never have taken the residence so easily.
But what was the use of this?
The Chancellor's residence handled Ye City's administration, but the city's safety rested on General Xu Chu. As long as that fierce general heard of this…
Heard…
Xin Pi stared at the scene before him.
Five Tiger Guards lay there, their faces and hands torn and bloody. Nearby were over a dozen corpses, most belonging to the old officials Wang Bi used to mock as pedantic fools, along with several young palace guards.
Most striking of all was the massive body lying farther off.
The corpse was almost perfectly intact. There was no sign of a struggle at all, only a single bloody hole at the throat revealing how he had died. Yet his face still held an expression of overflowing fear and disbelief.
What kind of situation was this?
It was as if the Tiger Fool had died at the hands of a supreme swordsman, unable to offer the slightest resistance from beginning to end.
Xin Pi looked at the frail Emperor standing nearby, leaning on a sword, then at the corpse whose arm was thicker than the Emperor's thigh.
For a moment he wondered whether he had struck his head on rising this morning and was still dreaming.
Some were confused. Others were perfectly clear-headed.
"Your servant congratulates Your Majesty for purging traitors and clearing the imperial road!"
Xin Pi lowered his head. From the figure's back alone, he recognized him immediately.
Minister of Works, Hua Xin.
The Emperor leaning on the sword slowly nodded. Xin Pi then saw the Empress lean close to the Emperor's head, whisper something, before she spoke aloud.
"Minister Hua, rise. His Majesty says he knows you possess both talent and ability, and hopes you will serve the state and bring peace to the people."
Then the Empress swept her gaze leftward.
"Xi Lü once framed Kong Beihai. He shall be charged and temporarily detained."
Next came Xin Pi's turn.
Before she could speak, he stepped forward himself.
"Ye City is large. Surely there is at least one cell that can hold me."
This time the Empress's expression turned earnest.
"The city is unsettled and hearts are anxious. We ask Chief Clerk Xin to stabilize the people. In doing so, Hebei may avoid further chaos."
Xin Pi stood there, seeing the Emperor's pleading expression in the distance, the Empress's sincerity before him, and the unwilling face of his elder brother Xin Ping drifting through his mind.
He let out a long sigh and accepted the order with cupped hands.
---
Dong Jue reached out for another bite of food, but now a trace of worry had appeared on his face.
"Even if the Chancellor's residence is temporarily secure under Inspector Wei, and the Eight Palace Guards are roughly settled by His Majesty, there are still six armies outside Ye City…"
Jia Xu wiped his mouth and looked regretfully at the dishes only half eaten before him.
"I am getting old…"
Then he shook his head.
"Gong Xi, do you think a great army can simply walk into the city?"
"Ye City does not belong only to the Cao clan. There are also the Zhen, Xun, and Sima families."
"And of course the Jin family under your lord's control, and the Cui clan where your Zhuge strategist's old friend resides."
Dong Jue grimaced. Without Jia Xu this entire scheme would likely have been empty talk, yet he still hesitated to believe.
"But the Zhen clan and the Cao clan are not—"
He stopped when he saw Jia Xu looking at him with something close to pity.
"Gong Xi, do you truly not know how strong Liu Xuande now is? Or do you think great clans are like elite troops, united from top to bottom?"
The question was clearly not meant to be answered.
Jia Xu pushed his chopsticks lightly across the plate, hesitating for a moment before finally setting them down.
"Though we lack many allies and time is short, at least this plan has so far proceeded steadily without mishap…"
He had not even finished the sigh when the gatekeeper came running in, breathless.
"Master Jia! Master Jia! The two Cao princes have started fighting each other outside the city. The killing cries are shaking the heavens!"
Dong Jue saw Jia Xu's body sway slightly. He suddenly turned and asked,
"The records Jin Yi sent earlier about Cao Zihuan secretly purchasing cane sugar. To whom did you deliver them?"
"You instructed me to give them to Cao Zijian. I delivered them to his residence and watched a middle-aged scholar take them inside."
After hearing the description, Jia Xu sighed deeply.
"Yang Xiu… no wonder. No wonder."