On the fourth day of the eleventh month in Jinghe Year Fifteen, winter came to Jing Capital.
Inside and outside the palace walls, morning frost lay like snow, and icicles hung from the upturned eaves.
Only at the Dragon Hour did daylight slowly begin to brighten...
First gray-white, then pale gold, it crept inch by inch over the ridge beasts of the Palace of Heavenly Purity and fell into the Imperial Study.
Inside the Imperial Study, warmth filled the room.
Silver Frost burned in a brazier, smokeless and odorless. A small jar at the corner of the desk held two sprigs of early-blooming wintersweet.
On the Imperial Desk, memorials were stacked into a small mountain.
Emperor Jing of Zhou held his brush, reviewing them one by one.
Crown Prince Jiang Heng sat beside the desk, passing them over one by one.
Observing governance was the Heir Apparent's daily lesson.
Between father and son, one reviewed while the other handed over the papers.
Until they reached Shen Duan's memorial...
Jiang Heng paused briefly, then passed it over all the same.
The emperor took it and unfolded it. It was a routine memorial concerning year-end performance assessments.
The emperor opened it. Its contents were nothing more than year-end promotions and transfers for bureau officials of the Six Ministries: so-and-so filling this post, so-and-so transferring to that appointment. Dozens of names filled the pages, all already vetted by their ministries, with draft recommendations prepared, proposing approval.
So the emperor gave it a cursory glance, lifted his brush, and wrote "Approved" at the end.
Beside him, Jiang Heng said, "Father, there is something I am unsure whether I should ask."
"Speak."
"Reading Chancellor Shen's memorial, I saw that the promotions and transfers of the Six Ministries, the advancement and removal of dozens of