CH 146

The one who stopped Tang Fan was Zhou Jing — not a nameless junior, but the husband of Princess Chongqing. These days, he managed the Imperial Clan Court, being the consort-kin of highest repute today.

Princesses of this Dynasty resembled the former Song’s, having weak sense of existences; after marrying someone, the married couple of nobodies becoming estranged and ultimately ending in despair was a common occurrence. Princess Chongqing was an exception, however, because she had been birthed by Empress Dowager Zhou, the little sister of the current Emperor. Only that layer to her identity was enough to make people look at her differently.

This Princess had a decent life, having married a husband of good temperament. His ability to study was no inferior to that of the average scholar, and when younger, he had been a handsome young man that had gotten into the Late Emperor’s good graces. The Princess and her Consort had a great relationship, tied together in perfect harmony for over twenty years, a loving married couple that was the envy of everyone in the family.

“Are you well, Consort Zhou? The last time we parted was the Great Court meeting. Seeing how you look chipper, you’ve been getting on fine, I presume?”

Zhou Jing differed from garbage consort-kin like Wan Tong, so even Tang Fan didn’t dare to be discourteous when seeing him, quickly getting off the sedan chair to greet him. Still, he was a bit perplexed, because despite knowing of each other, they rarely interacted. Zhou Jing acted carefully in his words and actions, yt he had suddenly moved to block someone on the street — that was pretty unordinary.

“Chipper?” Zhou Jing smiled, pained, and pulled Tang Fan to a side. “Solon Tang, I came to ask for your help!”

Tang Fan was even more surprised at that. “Those are heavy words, Consort Zhou!”

Zhou Jing sighed. “We are open people that don’t speak in secrets; the situation is urgent, so I won’t give you the runaround. Something happened in our home!”

“The Princess Estate?”

“Precisely, ours… hah. I’ve been arguing with the Princess over something these past few days. I heard that you’re a god at solving cases, so I want to request that you help us determine this, lest the Princess accuse me unjustly!”

Princess Chongqing might hold favor, but after marrying into the Zhou family, she had shown considerate respect to her in-laws, not relying on her favor to act spoiled at all, and thus earning praise. To say nothing of her having a huge fight with her husband, to say that Zhou Jing had run off to find him was already really odd.

Contrary to Tang Fan’s fondness for discovering truths, he absolutely did not want to get mixed into marital problems — as the saying went, upright officials would find it hard to judge familial matters. When the married couple quarreled from the head of the bed and reconciled at the foot, would he, as a middleman, not end up unlucky? Thus, hearing that, he smiled bitterly and replied, “I can’t help you with this. Please look for someone more qualified than I!”

Then, he freed his sleeve from Zhou Jing and turned to flee.

However, Zhou Jing moved a lot faster than him, grabbing his arm with such force, Tang Fan felt that if he tried to break away again, his official uniform would be yanked off, so he was forced to stop. “Consort Zhou, you and the Princess a married couple — if you have things to talk about, sit down and talk about them, and then the rain will pass and sky clear up. Why the need to make this bigger than it is? I’m afraid I can’t help you!”

“You haven’t hear me out yet! How could you know that you can’t help?!” Zhou Jing answered angrily.

Tang Fan felt powerless. “You can see that my windchill is not yet gone, and I’m in the middle of hurrying home. Can’t we speak about this another day?”

What a joke! A Princess and her Consort having a row was not something he wanted a part in at all!

“That’s easy to deal with. Come back to our home now; I’ll have a good banquet prepared for the table, and explain things to you in detail. In any case, you let me bump into you today, so you have to help me think of something! Solon Tang, I beg of you — if the Princess keeps making a fuss and word gets around, I’ll have nowhere to put my dignity!”

That set of words, both yielding and coercive, made Tang Fan unsure of whether to laugh or cry. Even if he wanted to refuse, he wouldn’t be able to, because the man was holding fast to his sleeve.

He sighed. “Can’t I just not go?”

“No,” Zhou Jing said decisively.

The two of them were going back and forth in the middle of the street, and with their out-of-the-ordinary statues, they were attracting quite some attention. Seeing that if they didn’t leave, the Five Districts Office was going to be summoned, Tang Fan could submit, tell the litterbearers to go make a report on his behalf, then get on to Zhou Jing’s carriage.

The Princess Estate carriage was spacious enough for two brown men to sit down in with room to spare. The seats were padded with thick silk cushions, leaving one barely able to feel the bumps of the wheels going on the road, but Tang Fan wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it. Since he had just been in the blowing, cold wind outside, suddenly getting onto a warm carriage immediately caused him to sneeze, tears and snot both flowing out of him.

Zhou Jing peered at him, saying with concern, “You’re still young, Solon Tang. You have to take care of yourself.”

Tang Fan covered his mouth with a kerchief, inwardly rolling his eyes. Who was the one that brought me here?

Seeming to sense his resentment, Zhou Jing laughed dryly. “I was backed into a corner, too. Please forgive me.”

“Dare I ask the reason why you and the Princess were fighting?” Tang Fan asked, powerless.

No one else was around aboard the carriage, yet Zhou Jing kept it vague. “It’s nothing more than a trivial thing. Once we’re at the Estate, I’ll explain it to you.”

Tang Fan suddenly felt that something was off.

Zhou Jing was a man of even temper, and Princess Chongqing was not a woman of arrogance. On top of that, they were not newlyweds. Even if there was any sort of immense conflict — which Tang Fan didn’t believe — if it really was major, why would Zhou Jing block a Cabinet minister halfway through his travel to invite him to his house for meditation? Tang Fan’s relationship with Zhou Jing was not so deep that the other would allow him to make judgements on his familial matters, let alone a familial matter between a Princess and her Consort.

Thinking of this, Tang Fan put away his handkerchief. His voice was a little stuffy from the windchill, but he sounded more stern. “Is there something you need to tell me, Consort?”

Whenever he got serious, few could maintain nonchalance beneath his keen gaze. Zhou Jing was no exception, automatically shying away from it. “You will know very soon. Please don’t ask further.”

The carriage stopped at the Princess Estate’s front gate. The servants, upon seeing that a young man they had never seen before was with the Consort, had some respect, as well as curiosity, in their actions. Mentally guessing after the other’s status, they quickly came to know it, as the Consort called him ‘Solon’.

Solon was certainly not someone’s courtesy name. Within the Great Ming, there were only seven people that could be called that: the Viziers, equivalent to Prime Ministers. They subordinated just one person, and prevailed over many.

Even though that position was less stable than the nobility of consort-kin, founding families, and influential families, frequently getting rotated every few years, it could not be denied that someone who could become a Solon doubtlessly grasped the power of Great Ming’s Pivot, and also determined the realm’s fate.

Also, this young man appeared to only be in his late twenties. If he was a Solon, an ‘elder’ of the Pavilion, could there have ever been such a young Prime Minister?

Well, it wasn’t like there wasn’t one now, really.

Well-informed servants quickly brought someone to mind, and the age of that man happened to match with this one in front of them. Still, they hadn’t expected that the legendary young and promising Solong Tang was such a handsome, elegant character.

Hm. While he was walking, he was constantly covering the lower half of his face, as if his health was not so good?

Tang Fan didn’t have to spare time to observe the reactions of the servants, and Zhou Jing clearly had no thought to, rushing forward with him non-stop. Even his smile was gone, which made Tang Fan nearly think that something major happened with the Princess.

That was, until they arrived at the study in the rear courtyard.

The rear courtyard, and even the study, were generally not open to outsiders, unless they had an extremely familiar relationship with the host family. That was because the study was a key location, where people of status would often store a large amount of important documents — the host’s own family might not be allowed to enter it, to say nothing of guests.

And yet, Zhou Jing had brought Tang Fan directly here. He opened the door, saying to someone inside, “Ah-Shu, I invited him here.”

The one inside could be none other than Princess Chongqing.

She was over forty, but her good looks were still in place, making her look not a day over thirty, not much older than Tang Fan.

He didn’t dare to slight her, cupping his hands in a bow. “May you be in good health, Princess.”

The Princess gave her husband and look, and the latter understood. “I’ll go outside for a walk. You two can talk, first.”

At this point, no matter how stupid Tang Fan was, he would have been able to realized that things were complicated. And he wasn’t stupid at all.

To have made her own husband keep watch outside himself, what she wanted to say must be of high importance. For that reason, Tang Fan didn’t hurry to ask, instead waiting for the other to speak first.

She smiled bitterly. “Sir Tang, please excuse us for inviting you here, but this matter is unavoidably crucial. I don’t have typical contact with you, but I have heard of your talents many times. Hence was why we boldly made a fuss. Please forgive us.”

He tone was suave and soft, truly being similar to the rumors outside. Completely lacking a Princess’s spoiledness, she also diminished her posturing as soon as she spoke; even if Tang Fan had still had a thread of unhappiness, it would have long been overlooked.

“There is no need to be so polite, Princess. This humble official is here to listen.” With that, Tang Fan had to take out a handkerchief, cover his mouth, cough, and then sniff, ending it with a pained smile towards Princess Chongqing. “I’m still suffering from windchill. Please excuse my rudeness.”

She knew well that the only rude ones were them, disregarding his illness to stubbornly cut him off in the middle of his travels. However, she and her husband hadn’t had a choice but to employ such a method. Her brows lightly creased, but it was not aimed at him; rather, she was brewing her words, seeming to think about whether she should say them or not.

Tang Fan didn’t prompt her. The two sat in silence, with only the sound of Zhou Jing’s footsteps lightly echoing outside.

After a good while, the Prince slowly started, “When I went into the palace to visit Mother Empress, I hear that the Crown Prince was ill, so I visited him while I was out.”

Hearing that this was related to the Crown Prince, Tang Fan suddenly came to look a bit more serious, waiting for her to continue.

“At the time, I didn’t notice anything strange. Because he’s ill and in poor spirits, I didn’t remain for long, only for about a quarter-hour before I took my leave. However, after returning home, I remember one thing, and the more I thought about it, the more I felt that something was off… he had wandered the palace in his youth. You must have heard of that, Sir Tang?”

Tang Fan nodded. It would not be good for the Princess to bring up Consort Wan, but there was pretty much no one inside or outside of the palace that didn’t know of that.

“When he was three, he tripped and fell on a doorsill due to someone’s negligence in care, bumping his head open. It left a scar that can be seen to this day. I wasn’t present at the time, I only heard Mother Empress tell me of it later. What few know is that the Prince also injured his pinky on his left hand during the fall, where a splinter had pierced skin and caused him to bleed. Even today, a slight scar of that can be seen.”

She took a deep breath. “However, when I met the Crown Prince, I inadvertently glanced at his finger, and I didn’t see the scar.”

At this point in the conversation, she had only been saying what she had seen, but the implication hidden inside of her words was alarming.

Tang Fan’s brow lightly furrowed. “You’re sure that the scare can still be seen today?”

The Princess grimaced. “I’m not sure that I hadn’t seen wrongly. This is not a small matter, so I’m too afraid to rashly enter the palace to confirm it. However, when I met the Prince a month ago, I did see a tiny scar on his hand. There’s no way that in the span of a month, a scar that he’s had since childhood has suddenly vanished.”

“What about the scare on his forehead?”

“It’s still there.”

“When you first entered the East Palace, did you come across anything that was different from before?”

She thought. “No, actually.”

“Were the Prince’s behaviors or speech abnormal?”

“I only said a few things to him. He was laying in bed at the time, and I couldn’t see anything wrong.”

“What of the people at his side? Was anyone swapped out?”

“I don’t think so, but I don’t interact with him much ordinarily, and rarely pay attention to his attendants.”

Seeing Tang Fan mutter to himself, she sighed. “I know that this is too ridiculous and hard to believe. If I saw wrong, it would be nothing, and I would suffer a reprimand at worst, but if it’s true, the consequences will be beyond imagination. We were thinking about it, but didn’t dare to make too big of a fuss, so we had to invite you here under the name of a quarrel. As you see it, how should I handle this?”

Tang Fan smiled painfully. “This humble official has never seen the Prince in person before. It’s much too hard to make a judgement on this.”

“I know that I’ve caused trouble for you, Sir,” the Princess apologized.

Everyone was solely based on her suspicious, and that suspicion’s evidence was only a scar that was so subtle, it was nearly-imperceptible. Her not having seen the scar didn’t exactly mean that the Prince was a fake — maybe shining light had led to her seeing things. Furthermore, impersonating the Crown Prince was such a huge thing, that once the conspiracy came to light, not only would the perpetrator lose their head, but it would implicate a huge stretch of people.

Thus, the Princess had been too afraid to say something, only able to quietly get Zhou Jing to bring Tang Fan for a discussion.

“How about I go into the palace and ask Mother Empress?” she proposed.

He shook his head. “The Dowager and Crown Prince might not meet much more than you do. People in the palace talk too much, so it would be bad if things got too big. As that’s so, this humble official will find someone to ask about before I come to a conclusion.”

The Princess sighed in relief. “That’s the best way. I hope that I saw wrong.”

The curtain of night slowly descended. Today was the fourth of the first month. All officials were on vacation, every bureau in the capital stopping business.

Even so, the capital’s streets did not become lively because of the New Year’s Festival. The only lively areas were the market on Dengshikou and a few alleys in the vicinity. Everywhere else remained the same, going quiet after nightfall.

An inconspicuous, plan litter parked at the back entrance of a similarly-inconspicuous residence. A litterbearer came up to knock on the door, the sound not loud, so that the surrounding neighbors wouldn’t be alerted.

Not long after, the door was opened from the inside by a middle-aged man with sharp features. He said something quietly to the litterbearer for a short bit, who turned back and stooped to say something unknown to the litter’s cabin, immediately after which someone disembarked it and entered the residence.

A stick of incense later, that person came out from inside, got on the litter, and quickly left from there. Less than a quarter-hour after the other left, the door opened yet again, and the middle-aged man also left in a rush, his figure quickly fading into the night.

No one had expected that this would all fall into the eyes of someone with motive.

The Forbidden City.

Wang Zhi’s steps were a bit faster than before. He couldn’t see much of it, but the eunuch behind him was trying pretty hard to follow. The latter dared not complain, only able to quietly quicken his pace while praying that the lantern he held wouldn’t go out because of this.

By coincidence, right as he thought that, a burst of cold wind blew, and the candle swayed a few times, as if actually about to go out. He jumped in fright and looked at Eunuch Wang up ahead, but the other didn’t even turn his head.

Honestly, were he not worried about being too eye-catching, Wang Zhi would have gone even faster. But he couldn’t do so now.

After Huai En’s departure, his subordinates had almost all been eradicated, replaced by Liang Fang’s people. Even the Eastern Depot was no exception, as Chen Zhun no longer occupied the spot of Chief Eunuch, having quickly been booted off to the Supervisory of Seals to feed the mosquitoes.

Why did Liang Fang have this confidence, and lack of fear about being reprimanded by the Emperor? It was related to the one backing him, no question.

Wang Zhi remained, and it was kind of hard for him to clap one-handed.

The reason he had not been struck down together with him was that his conduct was sly upon sly, unlike how Huai En clearly stood on the side of the Crown Prince and civil officials, and that it was still by Consort Wan’s hand that he had received promotions. After Huai En left, he had aptly drawn closer to and yielded to the Wan party. That posturing had paralyzed them, and he was allowed to stay, but the price he had paid was leaving the two important spots of the Supervisories of Royal Steeds and Ceremony Management, and going for the Supervisory of Glyphs.

He still had some manpower, but they all had needed to be re-positioned after he returned to the palace. Many hadn’t been able to climb into corresponding spots, meaning that their power was relatively small, and they could not fulfill a role.

People inside the palace felt more comfortable than those outside of it. People had soon gone to kick him while he was done upon seeing that he had lost power, but he was not someone that could be bullied easily. After his return to the palace, his aggressiveness was restrained beneath a gentle, low-key disguise, and the adaptable Eunuch Wang remembered those people’s mugs, having jotted them down onto his blacklist long ago.

If anyone believed that he was living a miserable life inside the palace, they would be horribly wrong, though.

An emaciated camel was still bigger than a horse. Eunuch Wang still grasped his own influence, and Huai En had even transferred some of his own people to him. As a result, Liang Fang didn’t dare to push too much against Wang Zhi. After crowding Huai En out, he had turned a blind eye to Wang Zhi, else the two deeply-rooted Great Eunuchs would be forced into desperate straits and counterattack him, the end results being a loss for both sides.

These difficulties, Wang Zhi had never told Tang Fan. No matter how formidable the latter was, his abilities were limited, and besides that, outside subjects could not meddle in palace matters. Such was greatly taboo. Ever since Wang Zhi had returned to the palace, the two had subconsciously diminished contact, this thread to go unused unless it was absolutely necessary.

Countless one-time contacts, all for the Crown Prince. This time was no exception.

Once he received Wei Mao’s tip-off, he couldn’t wait to find an excuse to go into the East Palace. He had to see with his own eyes before he could be at ease.

Usually, at this hour, the Crown Prince might still be studying, but with his recent illness, he would go to bed early. It looked pretty unusual for Wang Zhi to request an audience in the middle of the night, so he was inevitably barred outside, where the East Palace members informed him that the Crown Prince had since gone to sleep.

However, Wang Zhi was not powerless. He had brought with him the Empress Dowager’s statement. “The Dowager was listening to sutras, suddenly heard a medicinal sutra, and, preoccupied about the Crown Prince’s illness, ordered me to come bless him with Buddhist sutras, so that he might recover a bit sooner.”

As the Dowager had spoken, the palace-goer didn’t continue to block him, going in to make a report. Not long after, he came out again to say that the Crown Prince was awake, and willing to see him.

Hearing that, Wang Zhi stepped forth. The bedroom of since-extinguished candles was lit up again with an arm-thick candle, which brightly lit up most of the hall. The bed curtain was half-drawn, and the Crown Prince was supporting himself into a sit, preparing to go change his clothes.

Wang Zhi stopped him. “Please sit, Your Highness.”

The Prince didn’t fight it, smiling at him. His expression had a hard-to-conceal weariness and weakness. “I’ll have to trouble you with bringing my thanks to Grandmother, Eunuch Wang. When I get better in a few days, I will go to thank her.”

His words and actions were not strange at all, his intonation the same as ever. Wang Zhi didn’t see him every day, but he interacted with him often — in his opinion, at least, there was nothing off. Still, the Prince had doubtlessly lost a lot of weight, his cheeks slightly sunken and some blue around his eyes, with was a bit alarming.

“No need to be polite, Your Highness. Eunuch Huai is very concerned about you, and if he hears that you’re ill, he might get pretty anxious.”

The Crown Prince smiled bitterly at that. “I’m useless. I couldn’t protect Huai En, I… I really let him down.”

Those words weren’t flawed, Wang Zhi thought to himself.

Then, he witnessed the Crown Prince cough like his lungs were tearing apart, the manner of which was simply frightening. The servant nearby quickly stepped up to pat the Prince on the back.

Wang Zhi scanned his surroundings briefly, asking, “Your Highness, why don’t I see Cui Yong?”

That was the Prince’s personal attendant.

“I’ve been coughing through the night and can’t fall asleep. I once was prescribed some calming pills by the imperial hospital before, and they’ve already been used up. He went to ask for some for me.” The Prince then asked the servant, “Is he still not back yet?”

“No. Attendant Cui left a little under a half-shichen ago.”

There was no issue with that sentence. Wang Zhi couldn’t pick any faults out of it, at least. He decided that he was going to leave the East Palace and go take a look in the hospital.

While the servant spoke, his eyes inadvertently flitted across the Crown Prince’s left pinky. The other’s lower half was covered by a blanket, both of his hands placed to the sides, his left one lightly gripping the blanket; its pinky happened to be obscured. Wang Zhi couldn’t exactly grab his hand to check it over.

“Eunuch Wang?”

Wang Zhi snapped out of it. “Do you have an order, Your Highness?”

The Crown Prince smiled powerlessly. “I asked you just now; are you used to being in the Supervisory of Glyphs yet? Do you want me to speak to Father Emperor, so you can return to the Supervisory of Royal Steeds?”

Wang Zhi shook his head. “Thank you for you goodwill, but it’s not too appropriate for you to speak on this. So that you aren’t implicated, please don’t speak about it.”

At that, the Crown Prince sighed, saying nothing.

“You should take medicine, Your Highness,” the servant nearby whispered.

It wouldn’t be good for Wang Zhi to stick around, so he took his leave upon seeing this. In the end, he was not as familiar with the Crown Prince as Huai En was — if the latter was still around, he would be able to tell if something was off with the Prince better than he could.

Unfortunately, Huai En was still burning incense for the Great Ancestor in Nanjing, too far away to be of help.

Wang Zhi left the East Palace for the hospital. Cui Yong was indeed there; because the pills needed to be made on-demand, he was in the middle of helping the imperial physicians. Wang Zhi asked him a few things about nothing other than the Crown Prince’s condition; judging by Cui Yong’s tone, he didn’t believe that anything was amiss with him.

Wang Zhi had reaped nothing at all from this trip. He almost suspected that because he typically pushed Tang Fan around, the other had seized a chance to mess with him, instead.

However, that idea was fleeting. Wang Zhi knew that Tang Fan wasn’t like that. When it came to serious business, he was never vague about things.

Wang Zhi had no idea that Tang Fan was being cautious from hearing Princess Chongqing out. Because Wei Mao had been a medium and time had been limited, Tang Fan hadn’t been able to explain things in full, only able to tell Wei Mao to pass word on for Wang Zhi to pay more attention to the Crown Prince’s status. Due to this, Wang Zhi had gone to the Empress Dowager in the middle of the night to acquire Buddhist sutras and deliver them to the East Palace, yet he had found absolutely nothing.

He returned to his own residence. A home outside of the palace was inferior in comfort to one inside it, but with Wang Zhi’s seniority, him wanting to arrange the house he lived in comfortably was no issue.

He had his subordinating eunuch get water boiling, comfortably soaked in a hot bath, then sat on his bed with his blanket in his arms, beginning to analyze.

Having interacted with Tang Fan for such a long time, he had learned how to emulate the other’s way of thinking, but after pondering for a long while, he still couldn’t figure anything out.

Forget it! This bothersome junk is something for Tang Fluffy to do!

Wang Zhi put out the light and went to bed.

However, he hadn’t expected that before he could send news out of the palace, the next day of the fifth — the very day Court officials were to resume their jobs — Tang Fan would be denounced.