Loyal and Devoted to the State

"That's a member of the Li family. Old Liu, you'd better bring out the skills you keep buried at the bottom of your chest!"

Zhou Yi opened the food box. Four cold dishes and four hot dishes, eight in all, complete in color, aroma, and flavor.

The wine flask also held a century-old vintage. To find such fine wine overnight, the Warden must have put considerable thought into it.

"Of course."

Chef Liu curled his lip. "I used every scrap of skill passed down from my ancestors for eighteen generations, terrified I might offend a nobleman."

The Heavenly Prison's small kitchen had plenty of unspoken rules, especially regarding Cell Block Nine. Chef Liu had to tailor the meals according to a prisoner's family rank, official position, and degree of kinship.

They absolutely could not all be treated the same. If a duke's family and a vice minister's family ate identical dishes, trouble would surely follow afterward!

Those young dandies of noble houses had nothing better to do than compete over face and prestige. If I could eat four cold dishes and four hot dishes in the Heavenly Prison and drink century-old wine, then I had more face than you with your four hot dishes!

To ordinary people, the reasons those noble dandies fought over jealousy and rivalry were simply the result of being so full they had nothing better to do, idle enough for their balls to ache. Yet every official in the Heavenly Prison still had to indulge them.

The Long family had held the greatest power during the Chongming Dynasty. Now, the treatment once reserved for Young Master Long had been transferred to the Li family.

Li Wu had pacified the internal strife across Fengyang Kingdom's north and south. After a year of reorganization, he had once again commanded a million-strong army northward to wage war against the Great Yong Dynasty, swearing to reclaim the three lost provinces.

His current power and influence surpassed even that of the Long family during the Chongming Dynasty!

Carrying the food box, Zhou Yi first went to Cell Block Nine, where he encountered Zhu Xiaowei, who was on daytime watch.

Zhu Xiaowei repeatedly warned him, "Old Zhou, you must serve him carefully. That lord is a vicious man. If he goes mad, I wouldn't dare save you!"

Zhou Yi asked in surprise, "Sir Xiaowei, I'm only here to deliver food..."

"Do you know why that lord was thrown into the Heavenly Prison?"

Zhu Xiaowei lowered his voice. "He let his troops plunder the trade routes, then pretended to suppress bandits and slaughtered several villages to claim military merit!"

"..."

Zhou Yi was silent for a long while before asking, "Who would dare expose something so horrifying?"

Letting troops plunder, killing innocent civilians to claim merit!

Each was a crime worthy of exterminating nine generations. Li Wu, the great general, would surely be included among the Li family's nine generations. That man was currently commanding a million troops on the northern campaign. One mishandled step could turn heaven and earth upside down!

Now even Zhu Xiaowei knew of it. Clearly, it could no longer be concealed or covered up. It was tantamount to announcing the Li family's crimes to the world.

Zhou Yi did not believe the court—or rather, the Emperor Hongchang—had the courage for that!

Zhu Xiaowei said, "Who else could it be? Naturally, Chancellor Zhang!"

After the Emperor Hongchang ascended the throne, he had bathed Chancellor Long's remnants in blood. None of the four Grand Secretariat ministers escaped implication. The current Chief Minister was Zhang Zhengyang, the Emperor's teacher from his days as a prince.

"No wonder."

Zhou Yi had never met Zhang Zhengyang, but from the rumors circulating among the common people, he only felt that the man was a capable pillar of the state.

It was said that after Zhang Zhengyang became Chief Minister, his first memorial had broken Fengyang Kingdom's predicament of troubles both within and without.

Pacify the interior before repelling foreign foes; north first, south afterward!

The Emperor Hongchang's exemption of all taxes for five years had likewise been a strategy proposed by Zhang Zhengyang. It won over the hearts of the people under the rebels' rule, thoroughly cutting off the problem of rebel forces surviving defeat and rising again from dead ashes.

In seven years as Chief Minister, Zhang Zhengyang was the only man who could be spoken of in the same breath as Li Wu.

Cell Block Nine.

Zhou Yi opened the cell door, took the dishes from the food box, and arranged them on the table.

"My lord, it's time to eat."

"Mm."

The prisoner sat cross-legged on the soft couch in the inner room. Without even opening his eyes, he gave a soft grunt through his nose.

Zhou Yi bowed and withdrew. The feeling this man gave him was not that of an ordinary noble dandy putting on wild arrogance to show he stood above others. Rather, he looked down on everyone from the very marrow of his bones.

"Fearless because he had something to rely on!"

Several days later.

Zhou Yi came to the small kitchen to collect the meal and discovered that Chef Liu was gone.

"What's wrong with that fellow?"

Rumors about prisoner Li Xiong's crimes had already spread like wildfire through the markets. A few days earlier, many people had even beaten the imperial drum to cry injustice, claiming to be relatives and clansmen of those villages.

The court played deaf and dumb, pretending not to hear.

In the end, constables from the capital prefecture took each petitioner away one by one, throwing them into prison on charges of gathering a crowd to cause trouble.

After that, the capital prefecture became the people's outlet for venting their anger. Its gates were smeared with all manner of filth every day.

The censors submitted memorials impeaching the Shenjing Prefect, listing crimes such as mistreating the people, failing in oversight and duty, sheltering a vicious criminal, and more. Yet not half a word had anything to do with the Li family.

The Shenjing Prefect had no choice but to submit a memorial begging forgiveness, after which he ended up squatting in the Heavenly Prison.

In only a short time, Shenjing had become a place where winds and clouds shifted. The eye of the entire storm lay in Cell Block Nine.

Chef Liu had apparently gone mad. Zhou Yi hurried to find Zhu Xiaowei and ask how he was supposed to deliver the meal today.

With a face full of righteous indignation, Zhu Xiaowei said, "He's a Heavenly Prison inmate just like everyone else. He eats what everyone else eats. There's no need for special treatment!"

Zhou Yi frowned slightly, then abruptly understood. "News has come from the north?"

"You fellow..."

Zhu Xiaowei did not hide it from him. In any case, it could not be hidden for many more days. "At noon tomorrow, every member of Li Xiong's branch of the Li clan will have their homes confiscated and beheaded. The Brocade Guard will probably be delivering people here before long!"

Zhou Yi asked, "At the great general's request?"

"Truly, an old thing becomes a monster, and an old man becomes wise! Old Zhou, with how sharp you are, how have you spent your whole life delivering meals?"

Zhu Xiaowei lowered his voice. "The Warden said the great general personally wrote a blood petition, declaring that the Li family should have been implicated for nine generations. He knelt and begged His Majesty for leniency beyond the law, asking that only Li Xiong's branch be executed!"

"The great general is upright!"

"The great general is wise!"

Zhou Yi and Zhu Xiaowei looked at each other, their eyes filled with shock. They could only feel that a storm a hundred times greater than anything before was about to sweep through the capital.

Cell Block Nine.

Zhou Yi poured thin porridge into a bowl, tapped the bars with his spoon, and called out.

"Time to eat!"

Li Xiong glanced at the slop, shock flashing through his eyes before calm returned. "It seems my dear cousin, for the sake of his own reputation, intends to send his own uncle's family to their deaths!"

The clan ethics of this era stressed that relatives should conceal one another's crimes. Li Wu's actions were despised by the great aristocratic families.

Zhou Yi asked in surprise, "You already knew?"

Li Xiong said coldly, "Watching you lot of petty, scheming flies fawn on the high and trample the low was enough to tell me that the situation outside had changed."

"At noon tomorrow, your entire family will be executed."

Zhou Yi said, "Your parents, wives, concubines, and children will all pay for your greed with their lives!"

Li Xiong remained expressionless and glanced at Zhou Yi, seemingly mocking and scorning him.

"Do you have a son? How old is he this year? Was he born adorable? In the future, perhaps he would practice martial arts and join the army, or perhaps study literature and sit for the civil examinations. He would marry a virtuous wife, and then you would have grandchildren. Or perhaps you have a daughter, who would one day marry..."

Zhou Yi described unhurriedly a happy scene of family reunion, children and grandchildren gathered around one's knees.

Li Xiong's expression gradually changed. When he heard the final sentence—"your ten-something-year-old son, his head goes crack, falling to the ground, blood spraying several feet"—his eyes turned red with fury.

"...At ten or so, he probably understands nothing. He'll ask you why they're cutting off his head. Will it hurt terribly?"

Zhou Yi said with a smile, "I'll teach you a method. Before the execution, get your son drunk, so if he encounters an executioner with a dull blade that can't slice through flesh cleanly, he won't suffer a hundred times more!"

"Get out!"

Li Xiong roared, "What do you know? My cousin only cares about leaving his name in the annals of history. He keeps such a close watch on our clansmen and relatives that he won't even allow us to do business!"

"I followed him through years of war. I spilled several pints of blood on the battlefield, yet when I returned to Shenjing, I had no silver to host banquets and was mocked as a country bumpkin!"

"I couldn't embezzle military pay, and I couldn't become a merchant. So I could only rob!"

Li Xiong said coldly, "I risked my life fighting on the front lines, while those damned nobles sold military equipment to Great Yong. It was treason either way, so why couldn't I take it from them?"

Zhou Yi asked in confusion, "Then how do you explain killing innocent civilians to claim merit?"

After venting, much of Li Xiong's resentment had dissipated, and his expression returned to calm. "Someone had to bear the blame for plundering merchants. Those people simply had the bad luck to be chosen by me!"

"If you had led troops into noble estates and beheaded those traitors selling smuggled military equipment on the spot, perhaps General Li would have spared your life. But you did not dare. You could only slaughter ordinary civilians!"

Zhou Yi shook his head. "With your nature of bullying the weak and fearing the strong, you seem no different from a petty, scheming fly like me who fawns on the high and tramples the low, do you?"

Li Xiong slowly turned his head and finally gave Zhou Yi a proper look.

"Sharp-tongued!"

Zhou Yi shrugged and left carrying the bucket.

"When your family arrives later, I'll arrange for you and your children to share a cell. Cherish your last night together!"

Hall of Heavenly Mandate.

Not a sound could be heard.

The Emperor dismissed the eunuchs attending him, leaving only Chief Minister Zhang Zhengyang in the hall.

"Teacher, this turmoil is far too dangerous."

The Emperor Hongchang descended from the dais, personally carrying over two brocade stools. He sat level with Zhang Zhengyang and faced him.

"Your Majesty, this subject is also helpless."

Zhang Zhengyang bowed in salute, then sat and said, "Civil officials may harbor disloyal hearts, but even rebels with power like Long's can be overturned in a single night with one's hand reversed. But military officials such as Li Wu, whose courage and strategy overshadow their sovereign and whose merits cover all beneath heaven..."

He paused there, seemingly weighing his words. After a moment, he said, "He is already capable of deposing and enthroning an emperor!"

The Emperor Hongchang frowned deeply. "Teacher, Minister Li diligently serves the royal cause abroad and is strict with his clansmen at home. How can a man like him be mentioned in the same breath as the Long rebel?"

"That is precisely what makes him terrifying and dreadful. If Li Wu were greedy and brutal like the Long rebel, it would be one thing. Yet he is strict with his clansmen to win the hearts of the people, clearly harboring grand ambitions! When Li Xiong committed his crime, this old subject sent men to make it public. My original intent was to make Li Wu submit a memorial, so that the court, compelled by circumstances, could spare Li Xiong's family."

Zhang Zhengyang said, "How could this old subject have imagined that Li Wu would be ruthless even toward his own uncle and cousin? Can a man so heartless, faithless, and decisive in slaughter possess even the slightest loyalty or righteousness?"

The Emperor Hongchang asked in confusion, "Li Xiong's crimes are intolerable to heaven's principles. What does Teacher mean by this?"

"Use this to shatter Li Wu's golden body of reputation. He may command troops, and he may campaign south and conquer north, but he absolutely cannot possess a worthy name renowned throughout the realm!"

Zhang Zhengyang said, "The people will never permit a man who shelters relatives that slaughter civilians to hold the realm in his hands. Then Your Majesty may rest easy with your head upon a high pillow."

The Emperor Hongchang shook his head. "Teacher, the histories say that the realm belongs to those with powerful armies and sturdy horses. If Minister Li truly harbors treasonous ambitions, given his prestige within the army, I have no certainty..."

"What the histories say is not wrong, but they cannot be trusted completely."

Zhang Zhengyang said, "After the chaos of the Long rebel during the late Emperor's reign, the people have only known peace for a few years. They absolutely do not wish for turmoil to arise again. With the hearts of hundreds of millions of people united thus, it is the great tide of the age, not something armies and horses can force their way against!"

The Emperor Hongchang was silent for a long time, yet he still slowly shook his head.

"Minister Li is loyal and devoted to the state. Back then, he followed the late Emperor's testament, then pacified the north and swept through the south. Only then do I have what I possess today!"

"Minister Li has not failed me, and I will not fail Minister Li!"