Chapter 546

“Your sons are incompetent and have failed Your Majesty’s grace. Father, please calm your anger!”

Emperor Yan’s expression remained gloomy as he looked down at his kneeling sons.

Ordinarily, his gaze fell far more often upon the State of Qian, Great Chu, the Jin lands, and the desert. But whenever he turned those eyes upon his own sons, what they were thinking and what they were doing could, in truth, be seen through at a glance.

He was not some decrepit puppet monarch sitting on the Dragon Throne while others led him by the nose. At the very least, he did not believe he had become one.

A long time passed.

Emperor Yan reached over with his left hand and gripped his right wrist, then glanced at Wei Zhonghe beside him.

Wei Zhonghe immediately went out and returned with a basin of ice water. Clearly, it had been prepared in advance.

Without trying to hide anything, Emperor Yan lowered his right hand into the icy water. Only then did the spasms and numbness ease slightly.

“Cough... cough, cough...”

After a fit of coughing, Emperor Yan said:

“Get up. Keep eating.”

“Your son obeys.”

“Your son obeys.”

The princes all rose, returned to their places, and resumed their meal.

The Fourth Prince had knocked over his bowl of porridge earlier. Emperor Yan pointed at the food remaining before himself, then looked at the Fourth Prince.

Wei Zhonghe carried the leftovers over and placed them before him.

“Thank you, Father.”

The sound of chewing once again filled the Imperial Study.

Emperor Yan leaned back in his chair, his right hand still immersed in the basin of ice. His gaze, however, continued moving across the four sons before him.

The eldest was in Nanwang City, but less than a month after he left, news had come that the Barbarian princess was pregnant.

The second had lost his marriage to the Commandery Princess, but two concubines at his side were already with child.

The Crown Prince was the heir apparent of the realm. For the past few years, he had also carried the responsibility of marrying into the Marquis of Zhenbei Residence. It was not that he had lacked women before. In truth, so long as an imperial prince wished it, he would never lack women.

More importantly, producing descendants for the imperial house was itself one of a prince’s duties.

Only one prince could become emperor and rule all beneath Heaven. The remaining princes were expected to spread the branches and leaves of the imperial clan.

Even the emperor himself was naturally expected to produce many children for his own line. An emperor without an heir could shake the foundations of the state and very easily trigger turmoil.

There was a compromise: select a child from a collateral branch and adopt him into the direct line. But after you died, you had better not imagine that boy would truly regard you as his father, even if you had handed him the throne.

In this age, allowing the blood offerings of one’s descendants to be cut off was among the most tragic and unacceptable fates imaginable.

The women around the Second Prince before this had probably always been drinking contraceptive decoctions. After all, if there was to be a legitimate son, it was best for that son to be the legitimate eldest, and that position had been intended for the Commandery Princess.

But now, clearly, the Second Prince no longer cared.

The Fourth Prince already had a Secondary Consort in the princes’ residence. She too was not far from giving birth.

The Fifth had remained alone all this time. He was now at the Wang River and was said to spend every day among craftsmen.

The Sixth already had Ji Chuanye, the eldest son of this generation of the Ji Clan.

Little Seventh was still young.

They were his sons.

Two more of his sons were elsewhere.

They were the continuation of his bloodline, the continuation of the Ji Clan, the continuation of Great Yan.

Before long, the third generation would slowly multiply as well.

Still, there was little emotion in Emperor Yan’s eyes.

At last he withdrew his right hand from the basin. Wei Zhonghe carefully dried it with a towel.

One by one, the princes finished eating.

The Crown Prince sat upright and proper.

Ji Chengjue sat with his head slightly lowered.

The Fourth Prince felt rather overfull.

Little Seventh felt as though the bran had scraped his throat raw and desperately wanted some sheep’s milk.

“Cough, cough... cough...”

Emperor Yan coughed again.

“Tea.”

Wei Zhonghe hurriedly called:

“Bring tea.”

A eunuch soon arrived carrying a cup. Wei Zhonghe took it and placed it before Emperor Yan.

Emperor Yan lifted the cup and removed the lid. The dense, bitter fragrance of ginseng immediately spread through the room.

When a body began to fail, it rarely declined in a neat, gradual line. More often there came a sudden slide.

Ji Runhao had never liked tonics. After ascending the throne, he had removed many supposedly body-strengthening and life-prolonging rarities from the tribute lists sent by the provinces.

But now, if he did not drink a cup of ginseng tea after noon, he could barely summon enough energy to carry himself through the afternoon.

He was the emperor.

He was the ruler of Great Yan.

An emperor should either die suddenly, or remain fully alert.

What a state feared most was an emperor who still sat on the Dragon Throne while his mind had already become muddled. Such an emperor could only become a calamity to his own country.

After half a cup of ginseng tea, a little light returned to Ji Runhao’s eyes.

“We... are old.”

Three words.

Yet they struck like a thunderclap, as though the entire Imperial Study had begun to tremble beneath them.

Even Eunuch Wei immediately dropped to his knees.

This towering Son of Heaven had already displayed his edge while still residing in his princely mansion. As Crown Prince, he had already taken control of state affairs. After ascending the throne, he had exhausted heart and blood in governance, and only through that relentless labor had Great Yan reached its present strength.

Faced with the head of the Li Clan, whose military power had dominated the frontier for a century, he dared trust him like his own hands and feet.

Faced with the legitimate son of one of Great Yan’s foremost aristocratic houses, he dared love him like a blood brother.

He dared throw open the palace gates and permit thousands of cavalry from outside the capital to enter the imperial precinct!

He dared send one letter into the desert and make the Barbarian tribes afraid to let even a single warhorse ride east!

When Master Zang entered Yanjing to sever the dragon vein, he had denounced the whole thing as nothing more than jianghu swindling!

He wagered everything on several hundred thousand iron cavalry and launched wars against two states at once. In the end, Jin was destroyed. And now, a million soldiers and civilians fought the Chu outside Zhennan Pass, while countless civilian laborers streamed along the official roads toward the battlefield he had chosen, piling up the grand design of his ambition with their own hands.

He had always been winning.

Whatever dared stand in front of him, he moved aside.

For centuries, Great Yan had been ruled jointly by the Ji imperial house and the aristocratic clans. From without, it suffered the humiliation of the Barbarians. From within, neighboring states watched it hungrily.

Under his rule, the aristocratic clans had been ground into dust.

The Barbarian King had sent his princess to marry into Yanjing.

The Three Jin lands had entered Yan.

Qian trembled and dared not look north.

Chu now stood on the edge of disaster.

He was the emperor.

The emperor of the State of Yan.

He himself was the symbol of the Great Yan Dynasty!

After exhausting his heart and blood to this day, he had achieved feats that three generations of sovereigns before him had failed to accomplish.

And yet, now, with his own mouth, he had admitted it.

He had said it himself.

He was old.

Every prince was shaken to his core.

The greater an emperor’s talent and ambition, the harder it was for ordinary father-son affection to exist between him and his children, because his energy had long since been spent upon court and battlefield.

The Son of Heaven had no sentiment.

Nor did the imperial family.

This generation of Great Yan princes feared their imperial father down to the marrow.

Because they knew him.

Because they shared his blood.

Precisely for those reasons, they could perceive more clearly than outsiders what kind of terrifying existence their father truly was.

Aside from Little Seventh, none of the adult princes dared truly believe that something called “father-son affection” still existed between them and their imperial father.

On the day the Marquis of Jingnan exterminated his own clan, Emperor Yan permitted Empress Tian to return home and visit her family, forcing her to witness with her own eyes the blood flowing through the Tian residence that night and every one of her relatives dying.

The day after praising Little Sixth as the son most like himself, Emperor Yan personally issued a secret decree ordering the Marquis of Jingnan to crush the Min Clan on charges of treason.

Consort Min received a length of white silk.

Little Sixth still could not forget that day.

He had bribed several eunuchs guarding the Cold Palace and slipped inside to bring his mother food and necessities.

He pushed open the door.

And saw her.

His mother’s face was deathly white.

White enough to frighten anyone.

His mother’s eyes were opened so wide that the eyeballs looked ready to burst from their sockets.

Her tongue hung outside.

She looked as though she were smiling.

And also as though she were crying.

Little Sixth had not fled in terror like other children might have.

He had stood beneath her for a very, very long time.

He simply stared.

At his mother.

At the consort his imperial father had once doted upon most.

At the openhearted woman whom the eunuchs and palace servants had all genuinely loved.

And so, for many years afterward, Little Sixth never missed his mother.

Because the image of her hanging there had already been branded too deeply into his mind.

Whenever he thought of her, that was what appeared.

No loving picture.

No warm scene.

Only that final appearance.

So he chose not to think of her at all.

The Crown Prince’s body swayed slightly.

He still wore a sachet inside his robes.

Within it were dried flower petals.

His imperial mother had, in truth, already been mad for several years before her death.

Even so, after learning that he was finally going to marry, she had used one of her brief daily periods of lucidity to sew a sachet for him with her own hands.

When she gave it to him, her haggard face had been filled with guilt.

She said she had originally wanted to lead the palace embroiderers and personally make the robe he would wear at his wedding.

But she could no longer do it.

Though she had been born into the prestigious Tian Clan, her embroidery had always been excellent.

Before she married, Tian Wujing had often worn clothes his elder sister had made for him.

After she became betrothed, she had even made clothing with her own hands and had Tian Wujing, who loved following the then Crown Prince everywhere, deliver it for her.

She did not contend.

Not when she became Crown Princess.

Not when she became Empress.

When Consort Min entered the residence, the spectacle was enormous. Silver and gold had poured down like rain, and every servant in the household had immediately bowed and scraped before her.

But Empress Tian had neither raged nor resented it.

She had simply thought: with the financial strength of the Min Clan supporting her husband, perhaps he would be able to handle state affairs more easily in the future.

And then she died.

She died on the night of the Sixth Prince’s wedding.

That day, Yanjing witnessed a spectacle rare even across ten years.

The next morning, the palace mourning bells rang.

She had once told her son that she wanted only to see him marry.

She wanted to watch him take his bride by the hand and walk before her so she could pass some of her own jewelry to her daughter-in-law.

She had kept waiting.

Seeing him marry had probably become her final obsession.

But in the end, she had not lived to see it.

And her death itself had become the greatest obstacle to the Crown Prince’s marriage with the Commandery Princess.

The Crown Prince raised his head without meaning to.

He looked once at his imperial father.

Then silently lowered his gaze again.

His mother’s death had been sudden.

And yet, somehow, it had also seemed so natural.

But even as her son, he did not dare investigate too deeply.

Nor did he possess the strength to do so.

This imperial father.

This imperial father seated so far above them.

This imperial father who seemed inviolable, like a god.

He had actually admitted it with his own mouth.

He... was old.

When a father said he had grown old, his sons felt no grief.

Instead, without exception, something rose from the deepest part of their hearts:

You have finally grown old.

So even you can grow old.

Ji Chengjue opened his mouth, then closed it again.

His eyes had reddened.

To an outsider, it would look as though the Sixth Prince had been overwhelmed by sorrow.

In truth, a hatred vast enough to blot out the sky had surged into his heart.

The tiger was finally old.

Did that mean he could finally...

The Crown Prince bit hard into his lower lip.

To outsiders, it looked as though emotion had overcome him.

In truth, he was controlling himself.

Controlling himself so he would not laugh.

As Emperor Yan’s sons, they had long since learned how to conceal their emotions.

More than that, they had learned how to blend truth and falsehood together until no one could tell where one ended and the other began.

“Father is not old! Father is still in the prime of life! Father will live ten thousand years, ten thousand years, ten thousand times ten thousand years!”

Little Seventh’s voice rang out.

In a setting like this, under an atmosphere like this, perhaps only a child could speak without taboo.

Little Seventh stood and walked toward Emperor Yan.

As he went, he said:

“Father is the Son of Heaven of our Great Yan. Father will be blessed with ten thousand years of longevity and always be my father. My father will never grow old.”

Children of the imperial house learned how to speak from the time they were small.

Born in the palace and raised in the palace, it was impossible not to.

The words Little Seventh spoke now were probably things his mother had taught him.

But that did not matter.

At least he had finally broken through the oppressive atmosphere and allowed the scene to move on.

The Crown Prince spoke sincerely:

“Where is Father old? Our Great Yan still requires Father at the helm. It cannot do without Father. And Father merely suffers the occasional minor ailment. You have simply overworked yourself on affairs of state lately and forgotten to rest. A few days of quiet recuperation and you will recover. Your son begs Father to preserve the Dragon Body!”

The Sixth Prince and Fourth Prince followed the Crown Prince and kowtowed together.

“Your sons beg Father to preserve the Dragon Body.”

Little Seventh had made it halfway across the room and had been preparing to hug his father’s leg. But when he suddenly saw all his elder brothers kneeling behind him, he immediately dropped to the floor as well.

“Father, please preserve the Dragon Body.”

Ji Runhao’s gaze swept across his sons.

A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

Wei Zhonghe remained kneeling at his side. From the corner of his eye, he caught that slight curve of the Emperor’s lips.

He was the emperor’s close eunuch, attending him day and night.

Naturally, he understood that Emperor Yan was not smiling because his sons’ consolation had moved him.

And indeed, that was not the reason.

This scene of loving father and filial sons looked perfectly sincere to outsiders.

But Emperor Yan knew very well that, aside from Little Seventh, every adult son kneeling below him might be saying that he wished Father ten thousand years of life, while secretly hoping he would drop dead this very moment.

Good.

Good.

Excellent.

These were the fine sons Ji Runhao had raised.

Father and sons understood one another perfectly, yet still had to perform the scene.

It felt much like kneeling in the ancestral temple during the holidays to worship the ancestors.

All of it... perfunctory.

“We... truly are tired.”

Ji Runhao coughed lightly.

Then he said:

“As imperial princes, as descendants of the Ji imperial bloodline, it is only right that you share the state’s burdens. Crown Prince.”

“Your son is here.”

“Beginning tomorrow, We will go to the Rear Garden to recuperate. You have already acted as regent for some time. Continue doing it properly. Wei Zhonghe.”

“This slave is here.”

“You will accompany Us and live in the Rear Garden as well.”

Wei Zhonghe smiled.

“Your Majesty, naturally this slave must stay at Your Majesty’s side and serve you. This slave cannot bear to leave Your Majesty.”

“Pass down Our decree. Transfer Yang Mingguang to serve as Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review. Transfer Dou Yingde to serve as Vice Minister of the Court of the Imperial Clan. Transfer Ma Hongkui to serve as Defense General of the West Gate Capital Garrison. Transfer...”

In one breath, Emperor Yan reassigned eight officials.

Without exception, every one of them belonged to the Crown Prince’s residence.

They held posts there.

In other words, they were members of the Crown Prince faction.

The new appointments were not extraordinarily high, nor had anyone ascended to the heavens in a single leap.

But all of them were deputy chiefs, and in some cases chief officials, inside real yamen beneath the Six Ministries.

With these eight men promoted at once, the strength of the Crown Prince’s faction would swell immediately.

Because this represented a direction.

And that direction meant... the transfer of imperial power.

Another emperor could not simply appoint so many officials in one breath like this.

Emperor Yan could.

Because there was no longer any voice in the court that dared openly oppose him.

He was the true Son of Heaven.

“What is the name of that companion at the Crown Prince’s side?” Emperor Yan asked.

Wei Zhonghe answered:

“Replying to Your Majesty, he is called Li Yinglian.”

“Have him provisionally take the seal as Seal-Holding Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. This slave will make the handover later.”

The Seal-Holding Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial was often called the hidden chancellor of the inner court.

That was because he held the power of red-ink approval: reviewing memorials submitted by the chief ministers before the emperor issued his final decision.

Great Yan had no Grand Secretariat, but the process by which imperial orders became law still followed formal procedure. A decree required the seal of the chief minister as well as the Directorate of Ceremonial’s red-ink approval before it could properly be issued as a legally effective imperial edict.

Of course, Zhao Jiulang obeyed His Majesty in all things, while Emperor Yan’s word carried absolute weight throughout the court. So in many cases, Emperor Yan’s command was already the true edict. The formal process either did not matter or existed merely to be followed afterward.

Li Yinglian had only been the chief eunuch of the Crown Prince’s residence.

Now he would provisionally hold the seal of the Directorate of Ceremonial.

And the Crown Prince was already regent.

That meant the affairs of the court, and the power to issue imperial decrees, had effectively all been entrusted to the Crown Prince.

And... behind Great Yan’s Directorate of Ceremonial stood the Secret Intelligence Department.

This time, Emperor Yan had truly delegated power with frightening generosity.

This was no longer merely a political signal.

It was not merely a change in the wind.

It was almost as though His Majesty had taken his own intent and slapped it directly across the faces of every court official still watching which way the weather would turn.

He was the Crown Prince.

He would be the future emperor of Great Yan.

Naturally, no one would be naive enough to believe that Emperor Yan had truly retired to the Rear Garden to become an Emperor Emeritus.

Emperor Yan had not abdicated.

The Crown Prince had not ascended the throne.

Great Yan’s sky still rested in Emperor Yan’s palm.

But the groundwork had now been laid openly.

And the meaning was clear.

Emperor Yan’s gaze slowly settled on Ji Chengjue.

“Chengjue.”

“Your son is here.”

“Assist your Second Brother properly. Keep state affairs running smoothly. Also, the supplies required by the army campaigning against Chu must not suffer the slightest failure. This is a war of the state.”

“Your son obeys the decree.”

Ji Chengjue kowtowed and accepted the command.

“Dismissed.”

“Your son takes his leave.”

“Your son takes his leave.”

...

Outside the palace gate.

Ji Chengjue was preparing to board his carriage when, unexpectedly, the Fourth Prince followed him over again.

“You’re still riding with me?” Ji Chengjue asked.

“Your carriage is cooler.”

The two entered the carriage.

Eunuch Zhang drove them away.

Ji Chengjue said:

“You can go ask the Crown Prince for an assignment now. He can issue the decree directly. Zhao Jiulang won’t block it either, and I won’t need to trouble myself.”

“No. You’re just accepting this?”

“Father’s attitude is already obvious. Tomorrow... no, beginning tonight, the direction of the entire court will change. My Sixth Lord Faction will soon be a fallen tree with the monkeys scattering.”

Imperial princes could fight.

But unfortunately, the man serving as referee had climbed down and openly started favoring one side.

“I don’t believe you’ll simply accept your fate like this. Little Sixth, that isn’t the sort of man you are.”

“I’m a father now.”

“Ah. True...”

The Fourth Prince’s voice fell.

“Little Sixth, do you think I should still go ask for that assignment?”

“Why not?”

“Suddenly I feel that living in the princes’ residence isn’t so bad after all.”

“Fine. Keep living there. Once the campaign against Chu is finished, we still have to fight Qian. Maybe another assassin from Qian will show up.”

“...” The Fourth Prince.

“Fourth Brother.”

“Mm?”

“You and I are brothers. True, I’ve always looked down on you a little. Sometimes I even think Fifth Brother lives more clearly than you do.”

“You...”

“But until the day truly comes, I will not turn blade against my own flesh and blood. On that point, you may rest easy.”

“Then tomorrow... no, in a few days, I’ll go see Second Brother.”

Ji Chengjue nodded.

“I still have to finish my last stretch as his sparring partner. Whatever happens, the campaign against Chu cannot be allowed to fail.”

“Of course. In the end, both of us bear the surname Ji.”

The carriage took a detour and stopped first at the princes’ residence.

The Fourth Prince got out.

Then the carriage continued onward.

Ji Chengjue’s expression slowly darkened.

He began speaking to himself.

“Do you think you can still live long enough? Or do you think the campaign against Chu will end quickly enough? Is that why you believe you still have time?”

“You are old. The moment you began admitting you were old, the moment you told others that you were already old, you stopped being the man you once were.”

“Are you afraid? Are you angry? I know you are afraid. I know exactly how angry you are.”

“I have finally waited until the day you grew old. Finally... I waited long enough.”

Ji Chengjue lowered his head.

He bit the back of his own hand, leaving behind a clear row of teeth marks.

Then he smiled.

“I’m a father now.”

[End of Chapter 546]