Chapter 6

I spent seven days in prison. No one came to question me.

It was as though I had been forgotten.

Only when Xianrong hurried in on the tenth day did I learn that His Majesty was gravely ill.

Everyone was making plans for themselves. Naturally, no one had troubled to summon me.

Xianrong said the capital was in turmoil. With this trouble hanging over me, I would do better to lie low elsewhere.

“I can’t rest easy leaving you here. I’ve already paid the people here, and there’s a carriage outside. Change into these clothes and come with me.”

I hesitated. “But Father…”

“I’ll speak to your father. By the way, do you have a token I can keep? Leave it with me. Once everything is settled, I’ll send someone to bring you back.”

Looking at her anxious face, I felt briefly dazed.

Xianrong pushed me. “Why are you still standing there? Hurry, come out with me.”

“Sister-in-law, please look after my parents.”

She paused, then smiled. “Silly girl. Go on. Oh, and give me that token.”

Watching her eager eyes, I slowly took the jade pendant from my robe.

She snatched it and hurried me into the carriage.

“Ah Si, take Miss Kong away at once.”

The horses whinnied and surged forward. Lifting the curtain, I saw Xianrong watching us from the road.

There was cruelty in her smile.

I sighed.

So we had reached this point after all.

When the carriage entered the wilderness beyond the city, I blew my fire stick alight and quietly held it near the window.

Its distinctive purple smoke drifted into the air with the wind.

Before long, someone stopped the carriage.

Their leader asked what to do with Ah Si.

“Kill him,” I said quietly.

I settled in a country residence outside the capital. Each day, I had someone release a pigeon at the place Xianrong had arranged in advance.

At first, Xianrong had meant for me to die.

Only my death could make the breach between the Kong family and the crown prince irreparable.

By her usual standards, the temple plot was riddled with holes. Only speed could keep people from understanding what they saw and heard.

But she could do little about the emperor’s sudden illness.

Events had outrun her plans. She could only resort to this inferior course.

The martial woman’s appearance years ago had been far too suspicious. Father had used almost every means available to investigate in secret.

Following the few traces he had, unraveling them one by one, he gradually came to suspect Xianrong.

She had deliberately approached my brother from the start.

Once he loved her completely, she arranged for him to die for Lu Feibai.

That would alienate Father, a staunch supporter of the crown prince, from Lu Feibai.

Then, step by step, she could bring him into her service.

My departure three years earlier seemed to be that of a heartbroken girl whose betrothal had been broken.

In truth, I went to investigate her.

A princess, yet able to command forces from the martial world.

I had to uncover, step by step, every resource she held.

During those three years away, I survived dozens of attempts to assassinate or poison me, narrowly escaping them all.

She was behind every one.

I had to admit that Xianrong was born to manipulate people’s hearts.

Every month she sent a solicitous letter, weaving in accounts of the crown prince’s bliss with Xue Yifu.

Then she ended by indignantly lamenting my unfair treatment.

Had I not already known the truth, she might have deceived me too.

At the beginning of the year, she suddenly wrote to suggest I return.

She said the couple had grown apart and that the prince had called my name when drunk.

I was wondering at this change when Father wrote that the emperor’s headaches had worsened, and he had fainted several times.

Everything became clear at once.

Unable to dispose of me away from the capital, she wanted me back where she could seek an opportunity.

With my brother’s memorial approaching, she was unusually attentive, endlessly reminding me not to forget my hatred.

On the day itself, she arrived early to offer incense, in plain mourning clothes with a flower in her hair.

She even defended me and rebuked Xue Yifu.

She thought her performance excellent.

At each memorial over those three years, she had appeared overcome with grief.

Everyone in the capital knew she loved my brother deeply and regarded herself as his widow.

Yet she had never once visited his grave.

She and Xue Yifu played off one another to lead Lu Feibai to the Thousand Buddhas Temple.

That way, everyone present would have to accompany him.

If she could not kill me, she would ruin me.

And the quickest way to ruin a woman was through her chastity.

Father had only one son and one daughter. His son had died for Lu Feibai.

If his daughter’s reputation was destroyed because of Lu Feibai as well, the Kong family would lose its greatest bargaining piece.

Then, offered enough in return, Father would very likely change sides.

What she did not know was that in those three years, under cover of touring mountains and rivers, I had already uncovered every card she held.