Chapter 7
Chapter 7
After offending two major forces in court one after another, my colleagues all began to look at me sideways.
The emperor believed far too much in fate and divination. Whenever officials, high or low, were to be promoted, he would always come ask whether it was auspicious or ill-omened.
He asked me about each of the five candidates in turn.
I studied the hexagram and reported back, “Imperial Father, not one of them meets the Heavenly Lord’s favor.”
He sighed in distress.
Then I suddenly cut open my finger and painted a crimson star sigil on my forehead.
I muttered incantations under my breath, burned incense, and prayed for guidance.
My eyes rolled back, my whole body shook violently, and my fingers danced wildly through the air.
“This is… inviting a god!”
“His soul is leaving his body to invite a divine spirit to possess him!” the people of the Imperial Observatory cried out in shock.
No. It was just a little trick convincing enough to fool them.
By the time I returned to normal, a name had appeared in the sacred ash from the burned tortoise shell.
“Imperial Father, this is Heaven’s will.”
Shen Shujue was merely a seventh-rank minor official from the Ministry of Works.
He belonged neither to the Crown Prince Faction nor the Fifth Prince Faction.
The emperor frowned. “Can he do it?”
I said respectfully, “This is a divine decree. Your son does not know. Everything is for Imperial Father to decide.”
The emperor hesitated for a long time, but in the end, he still issued the decree.
Shen Shujue was appointed acting Minister of the Ministry of Revenue.
In half a year, Shen Shujue cleared out years of entrenched corruption in the Ministry of Revenue.
He was a clever man, but not a rigid one.
Once the Ministry of Revenue had enough silver, the first thing he did was send money to the emperor’s private treasury.
The emperor was delighted. With another flourish of his brush, he promoted Song Xin to official in charge of flood control along the Yellow River according to the results of my divination.
Song Xin was from the Empress’s maternal family. Everyone in court knew it.
Two months earlier, I had divined a conflict in the stars and declared that the Fifth Prince should not enter the palace to see the Empress for nearly three months.
The Empress doted most on this biological son of hers.
With that move, I had greatly offended both the Empress and the Fifth Prince.
And now I had caused someone from the Fifth Prince’s faction to be promoted.
The ministers discussed it among themselves, while I merely smiled enigmatically.
“Everything I do is by divine decree. My conscience is clear.”
Almost everyone believed me.
Every time the emperor asked me to perform divination, the results showed no bias after several readings.
Some of the people promoted had no faction at all, while others came from the two great factions.
But all of them performed rather well in office.
It looked as if I had absolutely no selfish motives.
Only Ah Fei and I knew it was nothing but misdirection.
In secret, we were promoting scholars from humble backgrounds.
Shen Shujue and Song Xin both became my people.
I had deliberately built up an image of fairness, selflessness, and a clear conscience.
It was so the suspicious emperor would believe that I truly had no faction of my own.
When it came to promoting officials, I had offended the Fifth Prince and the Crown Prince in succession.
He was very pleased with such an isolated minister.
Using the emperor’s trust, I developed my forces in secret.
Two years later, at seventeen, I became the National Preceptor of the Great Zhao Dynasty.
Ah Fei had stayed by my side all along.
But now, I had to send her away.
A commandant of the Imperial Guards had died.
“Imperial Father, the result of the divination points to one of your son’s guards. But your son believes I should avoid suspicion. You should promote someone else instead.”
The emperor’s face was hidden behind the curling incense smoke.
He waved a hand at me. “No matter. It is only a commandant. Since the calculation has revealed him, We shall issue the decree.”
When I sent Ah Fei into the Imperial Guards, she hesitated and grabbed my hand. “That plan… are you really going to carry it out?”
I smiled at her. “Trading a pair of eyes for the position of commander of the Imperial Guards is well worth it.”
Ah Fei, I was born a gambler.