Chapter 7
Chapter 7
The events following the fall of Hangu Pass were far more difficult than the fighting itself.
With Grand Commandant Chen executed, a power vacuum opened in the imperial court, and various factions began to stir. Xie Changgeng entered Chang’an under the guise of “protecting the throne.” Nominally, he was a loyal subject who had come to the emperor’s aid; in reality, everyone knew he was now the most powerful man in the world.
The Emperor summoned him.
The Son of Heaven was a mere thirteen-year-old boy. As he sat upon the Dragon Throne, his imperial robes were two sizes too large, making him look like a snail shrinking into its shell.
Xie Changgeng performed the full ritual of three prostrations and nine kowtows.
When he rose, the Emperor looked at him and suddenly began to cry.
A monarch’s tears are the most useless yet heaviest things in the world.
Xie Changgeng said nothing. He simply knelt there, quietly waiting for the Little Emperor to finish weeping.
When he finally emerged, his expression was grim.
I followed behind him as we traversed the long palace paths, flanked on both sides by the desolate, withered trees of winter.
“What did His Majesty say?” I asked.
“He asked me…” Xie Changgeng paused in his tracks. “He asked me if I was going to become another Grand Commandant Chen.”
I fell silent.
A thirteen-year-old child had already learned to test a person’s heart in the most direct way possible.
Or perhaps, this deep palace had taught him that every benefactor eventually becomes an enemy.
“How did you answer?”
Xie Changgeng continued walking. “I told him that I would not.”
“Did he believe you?”
“I don’t know.” His voice grew distant. “But it is enough that I believe it.”
Watching his silhouette at that moment, I suddenly felt there was something within this man-not courage, not strategy, but a sincerity that bordered on foolishness.
In this world, the sincere either die first or survive until the very end.
There is no middle ground.
In the winter of the Yongjia Seventh Year, Xie Changgeng was appointed Grand General and Overseer of the Department of State Affairs, taking full control of both military and civil administration.
Undercurrents surged through the court. Though I did not attend the morning audiences, news reached me without fail.
Han Xi’s network of scouts had already spread into every alleyway of Chang’an.
And the nature of my work had changed as well.
Back in Shuofang, my opponents were enemies in the light-the Chen Clan, the Rouran, and the King of Qi. Now that we were in Chang’an, the enemies were the hidden intentions of the human heart.
The great noble families, the remnants of the empress’s kin, the lingering eunuch factions, and the rising scholars of humble birth-every faction was testing Xie Changgeng’s limits.
Did he want to be a Duke of Zhou, the loyal regent, or a Wang Mang, the usurper?
Even I wasn’t certain of the answer.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, but rather because power is a thing that changes people.
My grandfather once taught me a saying: “The deadliest poison in the world is not hemlock, but the Dragon Throne. No one who sits upon it ever leaves unscathed.”
I wrote these words on a bamboo slip and placed it on Xie Changgeng’s desk.
He read it but said nothing, nor did he move the slip away.
It stayed there for a long time.
Until one late night, he summoned me to his study.
When I entered, he was staring blankly at a letter. The handwriting was unfamiliar, but the signature made my heart skip a beat-
Shen Yuan.
It was a letter from my grandfather.
“Your grandfather wrote to me,” Xie Changgeng said, pushing the letter toward me. “Read it.”
I took it and scanned the lines quickly.
The letter was brief, containing only three sentences.
The first: “I am dying; I have no regrets.”
The second: “I entrust Shen Heyi to you. I hope you treat her well.”
The third: “Though Chang’an is fine, do not forget Shuofang.”
My hands began to tremble.
Not because of the third sentence.
But because of the first.
Grandfather was dying.