Li Shimin listened without speaking for a long while.
"Yin Kaishan... is my chancellor," Li Shimin said. "You mean you are Yin Kaishan's grandson?"
"Yes." Xuanzang kowtowed.
Li Shimin immediately ordered someone to summon Yin Kaishan.
Yin Kaishan arrived at the imperial study. When he saw Xuanzang, then the letter, the blood letter, and the undershirt, tears streamed down his aged face.
"This is my daughter Wen Jiao's handwriting!" Yin Kaishan held the letter in trembling hands. "This child... is Wen Jiao's son? My grandson?"
Xuanzang knelt before Yin Kaishan and called out, "Grandfather."
Yin Kaishan pulled him into an embrace and wept too hard to speak.
Li Shimin watched the scene and sighed.
He ordered arrangements made for Xuanzang and Yin Kaishan to acknowledge each other, while also dispatching people to investigate the old case of Liu Hong's murder of Chen Guangrui.
The matter spread throughout Chang'an City. The people discussed it endlessly, all saying that Master Xuanzang's origins were truly extraordinary.
The Water-Land Assembly came to a successful conclusion.
Those Lost Souls never appeared again, and Li Shimin's sleep returned to normal.
He trusted Xuanzang more and more, often keeping him at his side and consulting him whenever something arose.
The days passed one after another, and Chang'an City remained prosperous and bustling.
That day, two monks came to the main streets of Chang'an City.
They wore tattered kasayas and were dressed like wandering monks.
Yet their bearing was far from ordinary. Their gazes were deep, their steps unhurried; they did not seem like common wandering monks.
They stopped at the busiest intersection and took a kasaya and a staff from their sleeves, laying them on the ground.
The kasaya was entirely golden, embroidered with all manner of precious Buddhist Sect imagery, gleaming beneath the sunlight.
The staff