Great Xing, the capital.
The night was as black as ink, splashed across the densely packed rooftops, shrouding this empire's seat of power in a layer of silent, oppressive darkness.
Inside the study of the Vice Minister of Revenue's residence.
Xu Qing sat behind a mountain of memorials and archives, an old wolf-hair brush pinched between his fingers, his brows tightly furrowed. The candlelight illuminated his face—one that was too young, yet carried a weariness and world-weariness far beyond his years, making it appear even paler.
He had been sitting rigidly in this small study for three hours.
Spread out on the desk before him were the newly expedited military expenditure approval documents, along with a series of heart-wrenching lists of compensation for fallen soldiers. Behind every name marked with a vermilion brush was a once-living soul, a broken family.
The air was thick with the strong scent of ink and the peculiar, aged smell of paper, mixed with a faint, almost imperceptible hint of blood. That scent had seeped into the military dispatches from the battlefield, traveling thousands of miles to reach this very study.
Xu Qing rubbed his aching temples, feeling exhaustion surge over him like a tidal wave. He unconsciously lifted his head, his gaze passing over the flickering candle flame to land on a piece of calligraphy hanging on the opposite wall.
The calligraphy was not top-tier; the brushwork was still somewhat immature, but it carried a unique sharpness and spirit of a youth refusing to compromise with the mundane world.
— Solemn in Solitude.
This was a gift from Su Ming five years ago, after the Qionglin Banquet. Back then, one was a newly minted jinshi, the other a Hanlin compiler, both brimming with ambition, believing that with their knowledge, they could cleanse the world and restore a bright, clear heaven to the land.
But five years had passed. That childlike heart they had once treasured had long been scoured and ground into a different shape by the murky, bottomless mire of the capital.
One had been exiled to the northern frontier, his fate unknown.
The other... had learned to bury all his sharp edges and pride deep beneath a façade as warm and smooth as jade.
Xu Qing's gaze lingered on those two characters for a long time, so long that the candle flame let out a faint “crackling” sound. His thoughts, as if guided by that soft noise, instantly rewound back to that unforgettable, blood-red dusk of five years ago...
...
Five years ago, the capital, Xizhi Gate.
On both sides of the official road, the crowd was packed, shoulder to shoulder. The common folk were like spectators at a lively fair, their faces carrying a mix of curiosity and schadenfreude as they pointed at the prisoner cart procession.
Xu Qing was among that surging crowd. He wore a set of washed-out, coarse cloth shorts, with a bamboo hat pulled low, hiding his face—one that had already gained some notoriety in official circles—in shadow.
He was just an onlooker, a helpless onlooker.
“They’re coming! They’re coming!”
Someone in the crowd shouted, and the front instantly stirred into commotion.
Xu Qing stood on tiptoe, straining his neck to look forward.
He saw him.
He saw that old friend with whom he had once drunk under the moon, exchanged impassioned words, and discussed the state of the empire with such vigor.
Su Ming wore a prison uniform soaked in blood and filth. Heavy, cold iron shackles bound his wrists and ankles, dragging across the stone road with a grating, piercing sound.
His hair was disheveled, and his face and body were covered in lashes, some wounds so deep that the flesh had split open.
But even so, Su Ming’s spine remained straight as an arrow.
He did not lower his head, he did not wail, nor did he even glance at the commoners throwing rotten vegetables and stones at him. His gaze was as calm as the depths of a deep pool, passing through the clamorous crowd to stare into the distant north, stained blood-red by the setting sun.
At that moment, Xu Qing felt a surge of hot blood rush to his head. He almost couldn’t control himself from rushing out to tell everyone that this man was wronged! He was no traitor; he was just... a stumbling block in someone’s path to profit!
But his arm was firmly grasped by a stronger hand.
“Master Xu, calm down!”
The one holding him back was a trusted strategist sent by his teacher, Vice Director of the Imperial College Liu Wenyuan. The strategist’s voice was extremely low but carried an undeniable authority.
“If you rush out now, aside from dying with him, it’s useless! Have you forgotten Lord Liu’s instructions? Where there’s life, there’s hope! As long as the green hills remain, there’s no fear of running out of firewood!”
Xu Qing’s body trembled violently. He bit down hard on his lip, a hint of the taste of blood spreading through his mouth.
His nails, at some point, had already dug deep into his palm. That sharp, stinging pain seemed to be the only way for him to find a sliver of clarity amidst the burning anger and helplessness that gnawed at his heart and bones.
He could not act impulsively.
Su Ming had fallen; he could not fall as well. If he also fell, this great injustice would truly never see the light of day.
The prisoner cart slowly passed by.
In the instant it brushed past Xu Qing, Su Ming seemed to sense something. His calm gaze tilted with an almost imperceptible subtlety in Xu Qing’s direction.
No words. No expression.
But Xu Qing understood.
What that look said was—Live on.
The prisoner cart disappeared into the distance at the end of the road. The crowd gradually dispersed, leaving only a mess behind.
Xu Qing remained standing there, like a petrified stone statue.
It wasn’t until the strategist who had held him back lightly touched him that he snapped out of his daze. He slowly unclenched his tightly balled fist and opened his palm.
In the center of his palm, four deep, bloody crescent-moon marks bled freely.
...
From that day on, Xu Qing seemed to become a different person.
The “Xu Lunatic” of the Hanlin Academy, who would argue with colleagues until his face was red over a single word, had vanished. In his place was a silent, reclusive official buried in old papers all day.
He no longer participated in any court debates, no longer voiced any opinions on any injustice. When others were promoted, he offered his congratulations; when others embezzled, he looked the other way. He had sheathed all his sharp edges, turning himself into a tepid, harmless “pebble.”
Everyone thought this once-brilliant young talent, after suffering the blow of losing his closest friend, had completely given up and sunk into despair.
Even the Yongchang Marquis’s household, who had been watching him in secret, gradually let their guard down.
But no one knew.
During the day, in the dusty storerooms of the Ministry of Revenue, Xu Qing organized and cataloged the dusty old account books one by one, keeping everything in perfect order.
At night, when the entire capital was fast asleep, the candlelight in his study would often burn until dawn.
He would compare the key data on military spending, grain transfers, and equipment losses that he had memorized during the day with the ledgers from the past ten years, checking each entry one by one.
This was a project vast enough to drive any accountant to despair. But he worked like the most devout ascetic, day after day, year after year, without ever stopping.
At the end of the first year.
On a stormy, snowy night, Xu Qing finally found the first clue in the subtle discrepancies between two account books for military equipment purchases, separated by three years.
An inconspicuous ironware shop under the name of the Yongchang Marquis’s household, during a small-scale border skirmish between Great Xing and Western Flame, had falsified the loss of three thousand sets of iron armor under the pretext of “battle damage.” The military funds, enough to equip a full battalion, had eventually flowed through seven or eight money houses and into the private treasury of the Yongchang Marquis’s heir.
The evidence was far from sufficient. This clue was like a single scale from a leviathan breaking the surface of the deep sea. Seemingly small, the behemoth hidden beneath was enough to tear anyone who dared approach it to pieces.
Xu Qing held the piece of grass paper covered in his calculations and analysis to the candle flame, watching it slowly turn to ash.
He said to himself in his heart.
Wait a little longer.
---
