Chapter 4

Prince Huai's Residence. The study.

Chu Huaiyin stood before his desk, rice paper spread out and his weasel-hair brush fully loaded with ink. Just before he set brush to paper, an oriole suddenly folded its wings and alighted on the windowsill, singing a clear, lilting song.

His brush hand paused. When he finally began to paint, what emerged was a charming little oriole, lifelike in every detail.

"Ji Yang, what have you found about the person I asked you to investigate?" Chu Huaiyin suddenly thought of Zhang Zhou and his remarkable vocal mimicry. A man, yet the voice he assumed was even clearer and sweeter than an oriole's.

A black shadow vaulted through the window and knelt to beg forgiveness. "This subordinate investigated everyone in the capital named Zhang Zhou. There are eleven in total, but none have matched so far."

The implication was: Master, surely someone hadn't made a fool of you...

Ji Yang had thought no one in the world who dared make a fool of his master while facing his intimidating presence had been born yet. As it turned out... well, there was always someone better, always a higher mountain.

"Mm." Chu Huaiyin nodded slightly, his emotions unreadable. "No need to investigate further."

Ji Yang glanced at his master's expression. He didn't seem to care?

That made sense. They had met by chance; why pursue the matter to its roots?

After Chu Huaiyin left, Ji Yang inspected the desktop as usual. Sometimes his master left orders on paper, and as a subordinate, he had to carry them out. Besides, few people in the world could enter Prince Huai's study. As one of them, Ji Yang naturally had to take responsibility for tidying it.

An oriole occupied the upper-left corner of the rice paper. The rest was filled with four large characters in wild cursive: "Deceive, fabricate, create illusions."

The brushstrokes drew taut, sharp as an unsheathed sword.

He rolled up the top sheet of rice paper. The ink had seeped through to the next, and the one beneath that... every sheet in a stack half a foot thick bore those four characters clearly!

Even the Sage of Calligraphy, whose brushstrokes penetrated three-tenths of an inch into wood, could scarcely have done better!

"'Zhou zhang wei huan'-to deceive and falsify..."

Ji Yang murmured the four-character idiom, and realization struck. So that was it...

The man was truly bold. From the very beginning, his name had blatantly told his master, "I'm lying to you. Don't believe me."

So did his master care, or... care?

A crowd had gathered outside the general's estate, which had lain quiet for years.

At the center of the crowd, a boy of fifteen or sixteen lay sprawled on the ground, his face bruised and swollen from a beating. A burly man with a brutish face held up a gambling agreement bearing a red handprint. "Friends and neighbors, my surname is Huang, and I own the Heavenly Longevity Gambling House. The day before yesterday, after Jiang Xin lost everything at my gambling house, he borrowed five thousand taels of silver from me, putting up the general's estate as collateral. He promised to repay six thousand taels, principal and interest, within two days. Those two days are up, and Jiang Xin cannot pay. We've come to collect the deed to the general's estate as agreed. It's all here in black and white. Bear witness, everyone!"

The boy on the ground was named Jiang Xin. After the Jiang father and son died in battle, no one remained to inherit the general's estate, and it passed into the hands of a collateral branch. Most men of the Jiang Clan had fallen on the battlefield, and even its collateral branches had few members. At nine years old, Jiang Xin had suddenly shouldered the future of the Jiang Clan, frightened, overwhelmed, young, and helpless.

At first, Jiang Yao had still been there to watch over him. After she died, the impressionable boy had been coaxed into a gambling house within days. His wagers grew larger and larger, until this year, at fifteen, he finally gambled away even the ancestral estate, the last property the family had.

A peddler carrying trinkets for sale could not bear it and spoke up. "The general's estate was bestowed by the founding emperor himself. The men of the Jiang Clan were men of iron, defending our homes and country, yet now... alas!"

The peddler let out a long sigh, and those around him began speaking up too.

"Give him a few more days."

"The Jiang Clan hasn't had it easy."

"Boss Huang..."

"If only I had more to spare. We could all pool our money... ah, six thousand taels really is too much."

Quite a few people began reaching for their purses. But while six thousand taels posed little difficulty for a wealthy household, ordinary people could not scrape together even half that amount if they sold everything they owned.

A foot pinned Jiang Xin at the waist, leaving him unable to move. With difficulty, he raised his head to look at the plaque overhead. The bold, powerful characters reading "Estate of the Nation-Defending General" had been written by the founding emperor himself.

"A century's legacy, ruined by my hands."

Two burly men held a plaque bearing some unknown name, gold lettering on black, ready at any moment to replace the general's estate plaque.

At last, Jiang Xin could no longer hold back his wails. He had never wanted this. He had let the Jiang Clan down. He was cowardly, gullible, useless—not even as good as a peddler. Even in the underworld, he would have no face to meet the general!

His ten fingers clawed at the rough paving, streaming blood. Generals and their warhorses had departed for battle from here for generations. The bluestone slabs countless people had trodden would finally be covered in the last man's blood and tears, all their valor and glory consigned to gather dust in history books.

Jiang Xin suddenly surged to his feet and hurled himself resolutely toward the stone lion by the entrance. Neither of the two burly men managed to stop him. A wave of sighs rose from the onlookers—the century-old Jiang Clan was coming to its end. Whether witnessing this with their own eyes was fortunate or unfortunate, none could say.

Bang- A wooden pole flew through the air and struck the ground at Jiang Xin's feet. He stepped onto the round pole, slipped, and pitched forward, hitting the ground and losing consciousness.

The crowd parted like the sea before Moses in the direction the pole had come from. Someone recognized Jiang Zhanyu's maternal grandson.

"Bravo!" As though a street performance had reached its climax, the uncomprehending onlookers applauded, their eyes full of anticipation. He was the son of the current Left Chancellor, after all. He must be very rich.

Meng Zhou dusted off his hands, a steamed bun still stuffed in his mouth. He took it out and bit off a large mouthful, bulging his cheeks, chewing as he met everyone's eyes with cool aloofness.

I'm so poor I'm eating steamed buns.

Can't afford it.

Just passing through.

As for why he was so poor, that was another tale of bitter tears.

When Jiang Yao married, her father had felt guilty that the pressing war had forced a hasty wedding. He had practically emptied the family treasury for her dowry, a procession stretching for miles that left everyone green with envy.

After her father and brother died in battle, Jiang Yao spent all her savings on repeated inquiries into their whereabouts. She refused to believe that the two people who loved her most in the world could have died without even leaving their remains behind. She even remembered how, the night before Jiang Yi left, she and her younger brother had still been at odds over her marriage.

"Sis, watch out for Meng Fushan. If he bullies you, I'll deal with him when I get back!" Only sixteen, Jiang Yi was already a head taller than Jiang Yao. He held his chin high and refused to look at her, unwilling from beginning to end to call Meng Fushan his brother-in-law.

Jiang Yao never lived to see that promise fulfilled.

The person in contact with Jiang Yao sent back battlefield relics every few months-scraps of cloth, armor, things of unknown origin. In any case, Jiang Yao recognized them at a glance as her father's and brother's belongings and trusted this person implicitly, pouring her entire dowry into that bottomless pit.

Meng Zhou's instinct told him Jiang Yao had been swindled. Otherwise, why would she have spent everything searching for them after the court had confirmed their deaths? That had directly forced her to depend on the Meng family for survival for her son's sake in the years that followed. And who, exactly, had been capable of obtaining the Jiang father and son's belongings? Was whoever lay behind this connected to their defeat and disappearance?

Everyone held their breath, eyes fixed on Meng Zhou, silently waiting for him to finish his steamed bun and say something.

Why hadn't he finished that bun yet?

Was it really that delicious...?

Someone swallowed.

Ten meters away, Chu Huaiyin withdrew the folding fan he had been about to throw and tucked it into his sleeve. Once he saw Meng Zhou's face clearly, his phoenix eyes narrowed.

"Meng. Zhou." Chu Huaiyin rolled the name over his tongue several times before uttering the two syllables.

Beside him, Ji Yang saw how his master seemed to want to dismantle those syllables and grind them to dust as he spoke, and secretly broke into a nervous sweat.

An incense stick's time earlier, someone had reported that the Jiang Clan's residence had been gambled away by Jiang Xin. Remembering his master's instruction to "keep an eye on the Jiang Clan," Ji Yang had immediately sent someone to redeem it. Chu Huaiyin happened to be passing and had simply decided to come in person.

The situation remained unclear. Though Chu Huaiyin had been entrusted with this, he could not openly intervene. If the general's estate could be sold once, it could happen again. He had to treat the cause as well as the symptoms... Looking at the half-dead Jiang Xin on the ground, Chu Huaiyin curled his lips, then shifted his gaze to Meng Zhou at the center of the crowd.

This little kitten really did love standing up for others.

With so little strength, yet still baring his fangs and claws, he made one want to seize those paws hard and force him to swallow back every effortlessly spoken lie, word by word!

Ji Yang had served beside Chu Huaiyin for over a decade, yet he still could not always fathom his master's deeper meaning. Now, for instance. With a complicated expression, he watched Meng Zhou gnawing on his dry rations as though no one else existed. It had to be him. Only someone this blithe could provoke the King of Hell.

While tidying the study, Ji Yang had even mourned "Zhang Zhou's" fate, only to learn without warning that his real name was Meng Zhou.

Meng Zhou-someone his master had promised to protect.

Ji Yang could only marvel at his luck.

Boss Huang watched in stifled frustration as Meng Zhou finished eating. According to his information, Meng Zhou's position in the Meng household was worse than a servant's. He did not believe the boy could produce six thousand taels; even sixty would probably be a struggle. But with everyone watching, he could only wait, feeling as blocked up as though he had forcibly swallowed ten steamed buns.

Meng Zhou had truly only taken a different route home on a whim today, only to encounter such a thorny problem. His movements were unhurried, but his mind raced.

It was there in black and white, made binding by the Jiang Clan head's signature and handprint. Right now, there was no solution except producing real silver to repay the debt. Even if the Jiang Clan had truly changed hands, the ancestral precepts engraved into their very bones and blood would not permit them to repudiate a debt like street thugs.

Meng Zhou was strapped for cash; even his steamed bun no longer tasted sweet. Lady Zhou controlled the Meng household and would not let a single coin reach him. He had been here neither a particularly long nor a particularly short time, and could not immediately find a suitable way to make money. Nor did he have anyone to borrow from.

"Six thousand taels! Do you have it or not? If you don't have it on you, you can go home and get it. I'll wait right here." Certain Meng Zhou could not produce it, Boss Huang feigned generosity with his words.

"Did I say I would repay his debt?" Meng Zhou looked puzzled.

Boss Huang choked. According to what those above had told him about Meng Zhou's temperament, shouldn't he be tearfully begging for a few more days?

He barked gruffly, "In that case, men, take down the plaque!"

"Wait." Meng Zhou's voice was not loud, but everyone present heard him clearly. "Jiang Xin accepts his gambling losses. The Jiang Clan will never shamelessly repudiate a debt. But this estate was bestowed by the founding emperor. If you intend to remove its plaque, Boss Huang, should you not first bring the matter before His Majesty and obtain his permission? How about this: wait until I have reported to His Majesty on your behalf. It will not be too late to act then."

A gambling house operating under the emperor's very nose was necessarily legal and had someone backing it. Boss Huang was hardly a brute who could be cowed by a few words from Meng Zhou. He considered briefly. If Emperor Tianyuan learned that the Jiang Clan had mortgaged an imperially bestowed residence to a gambling house, there was no telling who would suffer. Once the emperor was displeased, the Jiang Clan would lose both face and substance, and everyone would condemn them as unworthy descendants.

This generation of the Jiang Clan really were all fools.

"Very well, I'll wait three more days!" Boss Huang shed his ferocious look and readily agreed.

Meng Zhou watched Boss Huang's departing figure stride away and hiccuped.