Heavenly Prison.
Watchtower.
Whenever Zhou Yi felt troubled, he came here to gaze into the distance, with nearly half the imperial city spread beneath his eyes.
Sensing the boundlessness of heaven and earth, understanding that fullness and emptiness had their measure.
Climb high and look far; broaden the heart.
"Eh? Lord Liu is here too!"
Zhou Yi climbed to the top of the tower and saw Warden Liu in an emerald-green official robe, hands clasped behind his back and worry on his face.
Warden Liu sighed. "The situation in the capital has been turbulent lately, with winds and clouds turning strange and unpredictable. My mind was troubled, so I came up to enjoy the view."
"A place like Shenjing gathers the essence of an entire kingdom. It has never known peace."
Zhou Yi looked toward the eastern gate of the imperial city, where the vermilion walls and green tiles glowed gold beneath the setting sun. "Back then, I stood here with the former Warden Lord Lei... No, the former former former warden, and watched Duke Who Pacifies the Nation crush the Dragon Rebellion with our own eyes!"
Warden Liu suddenly understood. "Lord Lei? So that young man surnamed Lei from a few days ago was a descendant of the Lei family?"
"Thank you for allowing it, my lord."
Zhou Yi shrugged. "I've spent so long in the Heavenly Prison that I know many people. I have to give consideration to all sorts of relationships."
"Old Zhou truly is a treasure of the Heavenly Prison!"
Warden Liu was deeply envious. Recently, quite a few dignitaries had treated Zhou Yi as an honored guest. Compared to himself, after ten years buried in cold study, even if he worked himself to death, he would only ever be a minor eighth-rank official.
Zhou Yi smiled. "Lord Liu flatters me. You are the stabilizing needle of the Heavenly Prison."
This was not deliberate flattery. Warden Liu rarely handled affairs; whenever he came on duty, he merely drank tea and chatted, while the two captains bustled about before and after him. He seemed to have no interest in power.
Yet not a single coin of the Heavenly Prison's benefits had escaped Warden Liu's grasp. Even matters as trivial as prison guards entering the prison were known to him in crystal clarity.
Such management wisdom made Zhou Yi increasingly feel that he had underestimated the ancients before!
Warden Liu asked, "Did Old Zhou come here because something is troubling you as well?"
Zhou Yi nodded. "I suddenly realized there are too many clever people in this world, and it dealt me quite a blow."
After advancing to Innate Grandmaster, his strength had soared. His colleagues often praised and envied him, so Zhou Yi had inevitably grown somewhat arrogant, and his conduct had become increasingly unrestrained.
Chancellor Zhang's schemes were like morning bells and evening drums, deafening and awakening. He needed to reflect on himself properly.
Warden Liu asked curiously, "Just how clever was he, to make an old fox like you feel so dejected?"
"Seemingly inadvertent soaring prices actually affected changes in the fate of the nation!"
Zhou Yi sighed. "A wind rises from the tip of the green duckweed. That is a true master. Now that I've learned it, one day I'll certainly use the same method myself."
"Recognizing early that you are merely an ordinary man is not necessarily a bad thing."
Warden Liu's gaze narrowed slightly. He casually glanced at the imperial palace, then said helplessly, "The tide belongs to them. We are only spectators. What else can we do?"
"Deep affection does not last long; brilliance taken to the extreme brings harm!"
Zhou Yi said with easy grace, "I can't match their wisdom, their political schemes, or their hidden depths... So I'll respond to ten thousand changes with no change at all. Leave them alone. If I outlast them, I win!"
"Haha, no wonder they call you an old turtle in private."
Warden Liu clapped in admiration, then changed the subject. "Old Zhou, do you truly not have even the slightest desire for power and influence?"
"Of course I do! Who doesn't want to hold power and sleep with beauties?"
Zhou Yi laughed. "I nearly forgot—I've already achieved the latter half."
Warden Liu's face was full of admiration as he cupped his hands. "A thirty-year patron of Spring Breeze Pavilion—I have long heard of you. A pleasure to meet you, a pleasure to meet you!"
"So-so. There is still a long road ahead!"
Zhou Yi replied, "Since I already have wealth and honor, why risk my life again? In this chaotic situation, who can see clearly who will win in the end?"
"It is actually easy enough to see. Go warm up a cold stove; whether they win or lose, things can never turn out too badly!"
Warden Liu muttered to himself, seeming to speak to Zhou Yi, yet also seeming to speak to himself.
Zhou Yi said, "Better not. Three princely estates have already been wiped out. I'll ask you for leave and go out for a while, then return to duty afterward."
"Go."
Warden Liu nodded in agreement. After standing dazed for a moment, he added,
"If the Liu family's descendants ever fall upon hard times and come seeking help at the Heavenly Prison, I hope Old Zhou can find them a position too."
"That is only proper!"
The twenty-seventh day of the twelfth lunar month.
It should have been a time of nationwide celebration, welcoming the New Year with joy.
But Minister of War Liang Dong had cruelly oppressed the soldiers and withheld their pay, and the Capital Garrison mutinied.
"Cleanse the emperor's side!"
Sun Xiangming, the former Governor-General of the Capital Garrison, raised a call from on high, gathered his old subordinates, and led troops into the city through Shenjing's northern gate.
The officer guarding Shenjing's northern gate had once been a guerrilla commander in the Capital Garrison. During Liang Dong's ruthless suppression of its officers, because he had offered too little silver, he had been demoted all the way down to guarding the city gate.
That night.
Sun Xiangming led the Capital Garrison army in an assault on the imperial city. Government offices and estates throughout Shenjing watched from afar. They neither aided the mutineers nor sent help to Emperor Yongxing.
The Imperial Guards numbered less than one-tenth of the Capital Garrison, and the enemy also possessed siege equipment. Before long, casualties became severe.
Emperor Yongxing ordered the Brocade Guard and the eunuchs of the inner court to all take to the walls and resist the enemy, no matter what it took to hold back the mutineers' assault.
The first burst of courage is followed by weakening, then exhaustion. They only needed to hold until dawn. If the imperial city remained unbreached, the mutineers would collapse and retreat on their own.
The Imperial Ancestral Temple, witness to the rise and fall of dynasties.
If the temple stood, the dynasty stood; if the temple fell, the dynasty was lost.
At midnight.
The Imperial Ancestral Temple of the Fengyang Kingdom was empty and silent.
The officials originally on duty had heard in alarm that the Capital Garrison army was besieging the imperial city, and all ran home to bar their doors.
Whether or not the Capital Garrison could breach the imperial city, bandits would certainly take advantage of the chaos to burn, kill, and plunder throughout Shenjing. Tomorrow, everything could simply be blamed on the mutineers.
A shadow leaped through the night, finally landing in the central hall of the Imperial Ancestral Temple.
Outside the central hall stood a huge bronze cauldron nearly as tall as a man, with three legs and two handles. The mountains and rivers engraved upon its body corresponded one by one with the prefectures and provinces of the Fengyang Kingdom.
The Rivers and Mountains Cauldron had been cast after the Grand Ancestor of Fengyang founded the kingdom.
Whenever the dynasty held sacrifices, the hundred officials knelt before the cauldron, while the reigning emperor offered incense.
The shadow circled the Rivers and Mountains Cauldron, trying several methods of detection before confirming that it was merely a solid bronze cauldron, with no warning mechanisms or anti-theft traps of any kind.
The Rivers and Mountains Cauldron weighed several tons. It was already extremely difficult to steal, and even if someone got it out of the city, they could not evade official inspection.
Furthermore, though the Rivers and Mountains Cauldron was one of Fengyang Kingdom's three treasures, its symbolic significance outweighed its practical value.
If a thief went to heaven-shaking lengths to steal the cauldron, at most it would make the Zhao imperial clan lose face. Beyond that, it could only be melted down and sold as bronze—earning cabbage money while risking the extermination of nine generations.
Thus, the officials of the Imperial Ancestral Temple could never have imagined that anyone would steal the cauldron. They might sooner have expected someone to scrape off the gold paint from the emperors of past generations!
"I thought I would have to wait until the Fengyang Kingdom fell and this Imperial Ancestral Temple was half abandoned before coming here. Who knew I would encounter such a heaven-sent opportunity? The northern city gate stands wide open, the Imperial Ancestral Temple is unguarded, and everyone's eyes are fixed on the imperial palace."
"This treasure is destined to be mine!"
Zhou Yi dispersed the shadows, revealing the appearance of a white-haired old man. Even if he ran into an acquaintance, they would not recognize him.
He lowered his body, bent over, and crawled beneath the cauldron, wrapping both arms around one of its legs.
"Up!"
Zhou Yi gave a low shout. With a rumbling roar, the Rivers and Mountains Cauldron, which had not moved in over three hundred years, rose from the ground.
Mana circulated as he once again activated the Shadow Talisman, and a mass of black mist enveloped the Rivers and Mountains Cauldron.
Using the night as cover, Zhou Yi raced wildly toward the northern gate.
Under the crushing weight of such a bronze cauldron, forget using lightness skills to leap and fly—even running produced booming thuds.
Fortunately, the streets were utter chaos. Some bandits were breaking into homes and robbing them, while patrolling soldiers took the chance to wreak havoc themselves. With gold, silver, and jewels before their eyes, no one paid attention to such sounds.
At this time, the northern gate stood open, guarded by only a dozen or so soldiers.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
A huge mass of pitch-black mist charged toward them with explosive momentum, like a crazed barbaric bull.
"Ghost!"
The soldiers on guard did not even think of stopping it. In a panic, they threw down their weapons and scattered in all directions.
Zhou Yi carried the Rivers and Mountains Cauldron out of Shenjing, placed it on the prepared carriage, and cracked his whip as he headed north.
Recommending this book—it is very interesting.
It is the alternate account of a top-tier author another author greatly admires.
Before you continue