Along the palace avenue, purple, scarlet, blue, and green receded like an ebbing tide.
Still brooding over Shen Duan's veiled mockery, Kou Yuan caught sight of Wei Zi ahead.
He quickened his pace, caught up with Wei Nisheng in a few strides, and called:
"Zi'an! Zi'an!"
Wei Nisheng stopped and turned. "Lord Kou."
"Just now in the hall, Qi Zhao put on that sanctimonious act and turned around to bite me. Why did you not say a word?"
Kou Yuan stared at him, his gaze burning.
"You were impeached for 'favoring your faction and attacking dissenters.' With your eloquence, who in the entire court could outargue you?
Yet you simply watched him drag us into the mire?"
Wei Nisheng lowered his eyes and sighed, a measure of helplessness in his voice:
"Lord Kou, I was impeached too!
Though the charge of 'favoring my faction and attacking dissenters' came from a fraudulent memorial, I remained under suspicion.
Had I spoken in my own defense, would I not have lent substance to that very charge?
You saw it yourself, Lord Kou...
In the hall, all I could do was lower my eyes."
"Besides..." Wei Nisheng paused, his voice sinking.
"Vice Minister Qi was once your disciple, after all.
Had I attacked him, it would have looked as though I were throwing stones at a man already down a well.
It would hardly have reflected well on you, either.
So, after weighing it over, I thought it best to say nothing."
Kou Yuan watched him for a long moment, then swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue.
How could he fail to hear the hollowness in that explanation?
All that talk of "reflecting well on Lord Kou"-he was plainly washing his own hands of everything.
But Kou Yuan also knew this