"What cunning methods, what a venomous heart!"
Ding Feiyong muttered to himself, his fingers trembling-not from fear, but from rage, a rage suppressed for three years that threatened to devour him whole.
He clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into his palms. Pain stabbed through him, but he felt none of it. That sting was not even a ten-thousandth of the agony in his heart.
When his elderly father had died of illness, Emperor Chen had come to the residence in person to offer condolences. Dressed in plain mourning robes, he had wept bitterly before the bier, tears and mucus streaming down his face, nearly fainting.
Every civil and military official at court had marveled at the favor and posthumous honors His Majesty bestowed upon the old Chancellor. Yet during that very visit, Emperor Chen had suddenly flown into a rage and kicked Hua Zhong, the Imperial Physician kneeling nearby, to the ground. Denouncing him as "an incompetent physician who has imperiled the state and killed a loyal servant," he had kicked Hua Zhong until he vomited blood and lay dead on the spot.
At the time, Ding Feiyong had merely felt something was strange about it. Hua Zhong might not have been the greatest physician of the age, but he had been one of the most experienced Imperial Physicians in the Imperial Medical Academy. His father had been gravely ill for a long time, and Hua Zhong had tended him day and night, sparing no effort. How could the emperor, in a fit of anger, have laid all the blame on him?
Looking back now, that had been no outburst of fury. It had plainly been murder to silence a witness.
Ever since Imperial Preceptor Li Xingzhi had disappeared, Emperor Chen had begun suppressing the Knowledge and Practice