Chapter 25

Meng Zhou turned sideways to avoid the blade and said, neither servile nor overbearing, "I'm from the capital, traveling to Jiangnan. I missed the mountain pass, so I hoped to spend the night in this ruined temple. It's dark and raining heavily. Would you mind one more person?"

"The capital?" Guan Jiasheng's eyes shifted, and he sheathed his sword. "Please come in."

As the door opened, wind and rain swept inside, making the flames flicker and nearly go out. Only then did Meng Zhou discover that Guan Jiasheng was not alone in the temple. A woman lay asleep on the floor, while a servant boy hugged a bundle and dozed against a pillar.

They seemed to be Guan Jiasheng's household.

Even setting aside the Guan family's wealth and influence in the capital, Guan Jiasheng was the prefect of Suzhou, overseeing the region on the emperor's behalf. How had he ended up in such a sorry state? Deep in the mountains at night, with wind and rain darkening everything, his wife and servant boy were fast asleep, yet Guan Jiasheng had come out at the slightest sound. Had he been tossing and turning, or was he on his guard?

Meng Zhou found the corner farthest from Madam Guan and sat down. This earned him several extra looks from Guan Jiasheng, who finally could not resist asking, "Do you know me?"

Meng Zhou's lips curved. "Who wouldn't recognize the third-place laureate? A friend said I bore a seventy- or eighty-percent resemblance to you. When I saw you just now, I offended you, my lord. Please forgive me."

"I've been away from the capital for five years. I never thought anyone would still remember me." Guan Jiasheng lowered his voice. "How are things in the capital now?"

At these words, Meng Zhou became even more certain that Guan Jiasheng was rushing back to the capital on some urgent business.

Meng Zhou had plenty to say. That old man last time had not even let him finish. "The crown prince is assisting in governing the country and working tirelessly to make it prosper. He has won unanimous praise at court and beyond. If you return to the capital, Lord Guan, a wise ruler will have a worthy minister. It would be a blessing for Great Wei."

He meant every word. After all, it had once been his dream. Who could have known pregnancy would cut it short halfway?

Guan Jiasheng paced back and forth and asked who exactly Meng Zhou was.

Meng Zhou thought that Chu Huaiyin must have launched a very public search after his disappearance. Perhaps everyone in the capital already knew. Once Guan Jiasheng arrived, if some busybody mentioned it to him, wouldn't Meng Zhou's identity be exposed? What if that person was Chu Huaiyin? Wouldn't Guan Jiasheng tell him everything about meeting Meng Zhou in the ruined temple?

Better to tell him directly and ask him to keep it secret.

"Meng Zhou..." Guan Jiasheng said with some regret. "I have heard a little about what happened to the Jiang Clan. I have always admired Old General Jiang's bearing. Meeting you today, I can see something of his integrity in you."

"Mm." Meng Zhou covered his lower abdomen, feeling rather guilty. What integrity did he have, a man running away from his debts?

With their identities out in the open, Guan Jiasheng talked a little more, mentioning his experience serving in Suzhou and his relatives in the capital. He spoke most often of Old Madam Guan, saying that when he left to take office, he had promised to bring his mother osmanthus cakes from Qiong Ridge when he returned to the capital.

Meng Zhou listened quietly. He more or less understood that none of this was what Guan Jiasheng truly wanted to say.

Just as Meng Zhou thought Guan Jiasheng would not reveal what was really on his mind, the other man changed the subject and asked whether he had heard of the Flower and Stone Convoys.

"The Flower and Stone Convoys? The Liang Dynasty's last emperor was obsessed with flowers, birds, rocks, and mountains and neglected affairs of state. He mobilized the entire country to search for unusual rocks and artificial mountains, hoping to build the largest imperial garden in the capital. Some of those ornamental rocks, such as Lake Tai stones, stood several zhang tall. Transporting them to the capital exhausted the people and drained the treasury. Everywhere they passed, bridges were dismantled and city walls demolished. The people could no longer survive, and eventually the dynasty fell. Those shipments of flowers and stones were called the Flower and Stone Convoys." This was a question Meng Zhou could answer.

"Correct. The plans had already been drawn up then, and the emperor sent hundreds of teams to Jiangnan to find stones according to those plans. Most of the great gardens in Jiangnan today belonged to descendants of the leaders of those stone-seeking teams. After the Liang Dynasty fell, there was no longer any need to transport the unusual stones they had collected to the capital, so they built gardens locally and settled down."

At this point, Guan Jiasheng glanced at his sleeping wife and the two servants and gestured for silence. "We'll disturb A-Lan. Let's go to the rear hall to talk."

Meng Zhou glanced at the two servants and followed Guan Jiasheng to the back.

"Of a thousand people with a thousand faces, only you resemble me, Brother Meng. We are also officials of the same court, and our ancestors enjoyed a close friendship. Meeting today truly seems fated. So I will speak plainly. If anything happens to me in the future, at least someone will know something of it."

This was Guan Jiasheng's fifth year as prefect of Suzhou. Normally, he would return to the capital the following year to report on his duties. But this year, several bloody incidents had occurred in Suzhou's gardens in succession.

They looked like acts of revenge, but after inspecting the sites, Guan Jiasheng discovered that every garden where murders had occurred had toppled artificial mountains and displaced wood and stone. The scale of the disturbance was unlike an ordinary brawl. After he ordered servants to restore several gardens, he discovered that several Lake Tai stones were missing.

It seemed someone had come specifically to steal the unusual stones and killed the owners when they tried to stop them.

Some gardens remained unharmed, but when Guan Jiasheng visited each one, the owners gave evasive answers, saying someone had paid a high price for several stones a few years earlier, though they knew no details. The households where the massacres had occurred seemed to have refused to sell and been forcibly wiped out.

"Lake Tai stones may have ornamental value, but isn't killing people over a few rocks utterly deranged?" Meng Zhou could not understand it.

Lake Tai stones were so large and difficult to transport. Wouldn't taking them away expose the culprits, unless they had a dedicated means of transporting them? Something flashed through Meng Zhou's mind, but he failed to catch it.

Guan Jiasheng nodded. "I didn't understand at first either. Later, murders occurred in the garden nearest the prefectural residence as well. Before that, its owner had been on good terms with me. Thinking of the recent string of bloody incidents, he became terrified and told me a story he had heard from his great-grandfather as a child, asking for my protection."

It turned out that the Liang emperor had squeezed the people dry, levying vast sums in taxes and spending it all on the imperial garden. Later, uprisings frequently broke out across the land. Feeling that his realm was slipping away, the emperor moved all the wealth in the national treasury and sealed it away, leaving it for an ambitious descendant to restore the dynasty. The treasure map was somewhere in the garden that had never been completed.

No one knew precisely where. The garden had covered a thousand mu; how could anyone dig up a tiny treasure map?

The artisan responsible for designing the garden possessed extraordinary skill. Supposedly, as long as the garden's central section-Qing Garden-was built strictly according to the plans, the treasure map would appear. The plans for Qing Garden had been divided into more than a dozen portions, carried by different people who traveled separately to Jiangnan to seek stones, without communicating with one another.

"So someone is trying to build Qing Garden to get their hands on this enormous treasure, or even rebel?" Meng Zhou guessed. Why did someone want to rebel every single day? Couldn't they just live in peace?

Guan Jiasheng was deeply worried. "I submitted a memorial to the court about this, but received no reply for a long time. Men in black even came to my home and threatened me to stop investigating. But more than half the gardens in Jiangnan have been destroyed. Presumably, all the Lake Tai stones needed for Qing Garden have already been found. I kept submitting memorials and even asked friends to carry letters to my colleagues at court, but they all vanished like stones sinking into the sea, without a ripple. With no other choice, I had to go to the capital myself. The journey has hardly been peaceful."

Meng Zhou was filled with worry. He had thought Chu Huaiyin only needed to wait for his ascension, yet a whole crowd of people were waiting for their chance to rebel. Now that he knew, he could not pretend nothing had happened.

Guan Jiasheng suggested they part ways first thing the next morning.

Meng Zhou fell asleep with worry weighing on him, only to be awakened an hour later by cramps in his lower abdomen. The old man had told him not to travel. Meng Zhou had not listened, and now retribution had come.

He dared not take it lightly and planned to go down the mountain immediately to find a doctor.

Guan Jiasheng was startled awake as well. "The rain has stopped. Follow this mountain road down and you'll reach a small town. You can't drive a carriage in your condition. I'll have a servant take you."

Meng Zhou did not refuse. Holding his stomach, he casually pointed to the thinner of the two. "Then let me borrow your man, Brother Guan."

Guan Jiasheng had urgent business and needed to leave early in the morning. He instructed the servant to take Meng Zhou to the town and catch up with the main party once Meng Zhou was safe and well.

The mountain road was dark and rugged. Cold sweat beaded Meng Zhou's forehead, and his face was pale, yet his eyes were as bright as a wildcat's. He stared at the driver's back, his hand resting casually on his boot.

He wanted to investigate Jiangnan, but with the stones already in their hands, the rebels had probably relocated. Yet if he returned to the capital with Guan Jiasheng to help Chu Huaiyin, how would he explain his disappearance? And he probably would not be able to hide this belly anymore.

Chu Huaiyin would hit me, wouldn't he?

Would I have to cry again?

Meanwhile, in the capital.

Emperor Tianyuan died a natural death after reigning for twenty-four years. Chu Huaiyin ascended the throne, taking the era name Qining. The ceremony was kept simple.

Dressed in imperial yellow, Chu Huaiyin stood with his hands behind his back on the white marble steps, his bearing imposing, his dark gaze fixed on the western sky edged in gold. In the end, one person was missing from the ascent up those ninety-nine white marble steps.

After reporting on official matters, Ji Yang said that General Jiang Yi would reach the capital in another half month.

"How are the repairs to the general's residence progressing?"

"They will be completed today. As Your Majesty ordered, the room Meng Zhou occupied has been sealed and excluded from the work."

Not only the room he had occupied-even Qianyang Lake had been closed, with pleasure boating forbidden. He was practically behaving like a foolish ruler.

Yet the excuse Chu Huaiyin found was highly beneficial to the country and its people.

Most of those who amused themselves on the water were wastrels. Now they had all been sent to schools or training grounds to be reforged.

Only when this dissolute culture disappeared would Qianyang Lake reopen.

The common people voiced their support. They would rather do without Qianyang Lake than encounter wastrels on the streets every day and fear for their lives.

Behind him, Ji Yang hesitated to speak. Catching his discomfort out of the corner of his eye, Chu Huaiyin said, "Speak."

"Your subordinate has no right to question this, but Jiang Yi endured ten years of hardship to avenge his father. His strength of character commands admiration. If he learns that Meng Zhou..." Ji Yang cautiously glanced at Chu Huaiyin. Seeing no objection, he continued, "Jiang Yi values his family so deeply. If someone sows discord, with Your Majesty having entrusted four hundred thousand soldiers to his command, should anything happen..."

Eighteen years earlier, Jiang Yi and his father had been driven into a desperate situation by enemy troops and fallen to the bottom of a cliff. Before his death, the old general had protected his son even at the cost of his own shattered body. In the end, Jiang Yi survived, though gravely injured. After waking, he lost his memory for three years. Three years later, he bade farewell to the person who had saved him and set out to avenge his father. By then, the Northern Frontier army had long since passed into other hands. With neither troops nor authority, Jiang Yi resolutely infiltrated Northern Di alone, intending to carry out an assassination.

That undertaking lasted ten years. Jiang Yi learned Northern Di's troop formations, deployments, terrain, and provisions, yet never found an opportunity to approach his target. Later, he heard that Chu Huaiyin had taken command of the army. His father had held the eldest prince in the highest regard. After weighing his options, Jiang Yi decided to return to Great Wei.

Chu Huaiyin did not disappoint him. With Jiang Yi's help, he smashed through Northern Di's army. When Jiang Yi learned what Meng Fushan had done, his eyes reddened with rage. He asked Chu Huaiyin to help protect Meng Zhou, and Chu Huaiyin agreed.

Five years later, as tensions rose in the capital, Chu Huaiyin returned to lay his plans, entrusting the four hundred thousand troops on the Northern Frontier to Jiang Yi.

There was more to the battle eighteen years earlier than met the eye. To avoid alerting the enemy, Jiang Yi had insisted on continuing to use an alias.

Chu Huaiyin remained silent for a long time. He had broken his promise.

"I trust him."

Just as he trusted Meng Zhou.

At the first light of dawn, Meng Zhou knocked the doctor awake. The doctor yawned, his anger automatically extinguished at the sight of a gleaming silver ingot.

He even thoughtfully offered to decoct the medicine, musing that men capable of conceiving really did all come from wealthy households. Look at that lavish spending. Tsk, if only seven or eight came every day.

After resting for a while, Meng Zhou felt reasonably well and set out again with an assortment of medicines.

"I'll go to the capital with your master."

The servant stammered, "D-don't. You won't catch up with the master..."

Seeing no one around, Meng Zhou abruptly drew the dagger from his boot and kicked the servant to the ground. Planting a foot on his chest, he pressed the blade against the artery in his neck.

Chu Huaiyin had given him this dagger. It was exceptionally sharp, and a line of blood soon appeared on the servant's neck.

"Talk. Who are you passing information to?"

He had long felt something was wrong with this servant. When he and Guan Jiasheng talked late at night, everyone else had succumbed to sleep, but Meng Zhou had seen at a glance that this man was only pretending.

Meng Zhou had found it strange. To make him expose more flaws, when Guan Jiasheng offered to have a servant take him down the mountain, Meng Zhou had casually chosen this man.

Sure enough, he had discovered more suspicious details along the way.