Late at night, atop the gate tower of Zijin Mountain.
In the darkness, Lu Lingcong made a light, precise move as a sharp gust of wind flickered past, and within moments, the guard slumped unconscious against the wall.
He gestured behind him, and Lu Shuqing, who was clad in a thin cloak, followed silently and grasped his father’s hand. The city of Jinling spread out soundlessly before them in the night with the lamplights becoming the most ordinary yet special markers, tracing the positions of palaces, markets, landscapes, and fortresses.
However, the lantern above their heads could not be left lit.
Lu Lingcong picked up the bow held in the guard’s hand, looked sideways at Lu Shuqing, and raised an eyebrow in a silent signal.
Lu Shuqing took the bow, drew the string, and notched an arrow. After aiming for a moment, there was a soft “twang”, and the lantern hanging under the high eaves was extinguished.
Consequently, the distant points of light became even clearer.
Lu Lingcong spoke softly, “As you can see, we’re currently in the northeastern part of the city. Mufu Mountain lies to our northwest by the river, while the Prince’s Mansion is due south. The Taichu Palace sits between Mufu Mountain and the residence; these three locations nearly align along a single axis. As for the Jinling Arsenal, it occupies the former site of the Jiankang Arsenal from the Southern Dynasties, situated to the southeast of the imperial city, not far from the Prince’s Mansion.”
Lu Shuqing looked toward each of the directions he mentioned and said, “The Arsenal… considering the precedent of the armament case back then, Father will surely lead the troops there personally.”
Lu Lingcong said, “I will lead the Xuanshi guards to station at the Arsenal nearby. The remnants of the Tiger Division at Mufu Mountain are too conspicuous; they won’t make it in time, and the risk is too great, so I will leave them to Master Xiao. Li Qi, Zheng Xiao, and the other former Tiger Division generals will split up to assemble their old subordinates scattered across the four major camps.”
“How many troops can be incited to defect besides the Tiger Division’s own men?”
“The situation changes in the blink of an eye; no one will know until the final moment. But ultimately, the key to winning a coup lies in decisive action, not entirely in numerical strength.”
“Can we not control the gain or loss of the Imperial Guards?”
“The Central Yulin Guard is tightly controlled by the Wang family, there’s no point even thinking about getting a hand in it—there will be a bitter struggle against them, and we must rely on Lady Cui and her brother. As for the Outer Yulin Guard, the Cui family has already opened channels there. When the time comes, they’ll secure the Gongche Gate and take the opportunity to let the Hewei into the palace. Your aunt will lead them to seize control of the Empress Dowager, to prevent her from passing messages to the Prime Minister’s Mansion outside the palace.”
Lu Shuqing asked, “What about Uncle?”
“Father and Mother have expressed our loyalty to your uncle, and he likely understands what we intend to do. He holds no military power, but the Son of Heaven’s name carries more authority than a tiger tally. If he is willing to involve himself in the conflict between Prince Zhao’s Mansion and the Wang clan, matters would be far easier to manage. However, all our preparations and planning must be predicated on the assumption that he will remain deaf and mute throughout, taking no action at all; we cannot leave anything to chance.”
Lu Shuqing asked again, “And what about home?”
“Prince Zhao’s Mansion… does not station troops.”
Lu Lingcong met his eldest son’s surprised gaze and explained, “In a coup, not every one of your enemies has to die, nor can you kill every one of them. When spears and halberds are pointed at your own kin, you need to see that behind them are the vast masses of your fellow countrymen who are closely connected to you. You must think of the matter of ‘guarding the rivers and mountains’; though you may not necessarily sit on the dragon throne yourself, you must, after all, continue to live in this nation.
“We are purging the emperor’s side of corruption, not trying to take your uncle’s throne. Once this battle is over, the Xie family’s grievances must be redressed, yet Prince Zhao’s Mansion must still be able to stand its ground. That is why not a single soldier can be deployed from this mansion.”
“The same applies to wars of expansion—you fight them to ultimately rule newly won lands, which means winning over the people, not forming factions over differences in bloodline and slaughtering them to the last. Am I being clear, Qing’er?”
Lu Shuqing processed this information in silence. After a moment, he did not answer but instead asked with some hesitation, “One last question—Father, why are you teaching me this?”
“You could ask many, many questions,” Lu Lingcong said with a faint, forced smile along with a sigh. “It is because I am afraid.”
“Four years ago, on the night I left you, your mother, and your sibling behind to join the Tiger Division on my own, regret struck me before I had even left Jinling; and I was afraid. I have carried that regret ever since, and that fear has never left me.”
“I regretted that I left in such haste that I couldn’t even wait for your mother to wake up to say a single word to him, and I certainly didn’t have time to settle you and your sister either. At that time, I only thought about how I wouldn’t see your mother for a long time; I never imagined that even Ningning would end up wandering in a foreign land.
“What I feared was them suffering and me never seeing my wife and daughter again; I feared that I would die in battle and be separated from all of you by life and death. Even if the Tiger Division were invincible in battle, I was still scared to death—scared to death of dying.”
Lu Shuqing instead gave a nonchalant smile. “Who isn’t afraid of death? When I was little, I used to cry whenever I thought about how you and Mother would eventually die and leave before me. Mother even made up those stories to coax me, but if there truly were souls within the lamp wicks, where would all the parting sorrow in this world come from?”
Lu Lingcong blinked. “When he was pregnant with you, the wish he made was for you to never know the words ‘parting sorrow’ in your life. If he heard you say that he would secretly feel distressed and sad again.”
He continued responding to Lu Shuqing’s doubt, “I am afraid, so I have prepared a path of retreat for you and your sister. You will not be stained with blood, nor should you ever be. You have decades of life ahead of you; you will leave the capital far behind and live out the rest of your days without having to bear any grudges or debts of hatred. It is precisely because of this that I am teaching you these things; teaching you is the only way this has meaning.”
“Leave the capital far behind…” Lu Shuqing savored these words, which he had never even dared to imagine, and murmured, “Father, do you know what happened after Mother and Ningning left the capital?”
Lu Lingcong said, “I know some of it. What about you? Did Mother tell you?”
“I also know some of it. When we were trapped in Mount Tang, I asked a few questions to pass the time.”
The father and son exchanged what they knew while piecing together a complete yet hazy story regarding their closest kin.
In truth, the “Iron Certificate with crimson script” of that year had entirely extricated Xie Jing from any involvement in the Xie family case; legally speaking, he was innocent. However, Lu Lingcong had personally issued the decree to strip him of his status as the “Princess Consort Zhao,” which meant that Xie Jing either had to hide at home without ever stepping foot outside, or he had to leave. Furthermore, after the Xie family’s execution and Lu Lingcong’s departure from the capital, the Imperial Guards had forcibly broken into Prince Zhao’s Mansion several times with a hardened attitude to drive out the not-yet-recovered Xie Jing. Even if he had wanted to stay, he could not either.
All of the Xie family’s properties and assets in Jinling had been seized, leaving Xie Jing with nowhere to settle. Making a living on his own was nearly impossible—too many people in the city recognized his face, and no one dared to employ him either.
Thus, Xie Jing could only take Lu Shuning and travel far away.
Not long after leaving the city, they encountered the Wu family merchant caravan. The caravan originally intended to give the mother and daughter a ride back to Chen Commandery. However, for one, Xie Jing was uncertain if there were pursuers waiting for him in the shadows, and for another, he knew nothing of the situation back in his hometown. Fearing he might pointlessly implicate the Wu family and his clansmen, he declined.
He traveled all the way north; his initial destination had always been Yongzhou. This was not because he had heard Lu Lingcong describe He Gao as a “warm-hearted” person, nor was it, as he had told He Gao, that his “arrival in Yongzhou was unintentional.”
In the New Year of the seventeenth year of Zhenyou, the batch of Lantian jade tribute sent by the Prefect of Yongzhou, He Gao, later became a critical piece of evidence against the Xie family. In collusion with half the imperial court, The Prime Minister’s Mansion accused the Xie family of privately stealing the Imperial Seal made of Lantian jade and subsequently hoarding a massive amount of Lantian jade to deceive the public, intending to secretly transport it to Chen Commandery with treasonous intent.
Xie Jing’s original motive was simply to seek personal verification as to why He Gao had sent such a specific, life-destroying gift at that particular juncture.
His and Lu Shuning’s appearances caused no end of trouble along the way; during the day, they hardly dared to show their faces while traveling. At first, Lu Shuning often asked when her father and brother would come to find them, but she gradually realized that the road ahead and home were in two diametrically opposite directions, and so she stopped asking.
Xie Jing hid in Yongzhou for nearly three years and stayed by He Gao’s side for over half a year, yet the result he obtained was not what he had expected—since He Gao did not know his true identity, Xie Jing asked through indirect hints, only for He Gao to say, “How would I dare to maintain connections with old friends and former students since I left the capital? Forget about the jade, I haven’t even sent a single needle, let alone to the Xie family with whom I had no prior dealings with!”
Later, when Xie Jing gained access to the Prefect’s Mansion storeroom accounts and had the chance to investigate thoroughly, he found no suspicious records of social exchanges with anyone in the capital. The return gifts sent by Xie Yan back then had been intercepted at some unknown point and never reached Yongzhou at all; thus, He Gao was completely oblivious to the matter.
According to his meaning, it was clear that someone had used the Prefect of Yongzhou’s name as a pretext to send that batch of Lantian jade, which indirectly sent the Xie family to their deaths. Later, when the mansion was confiscated and the sentence pronounced, the Wang family had indeed “deliberately” avoided investigating the jade’s origin in any depth, nor did they take any public action against He Gao, who had allegedly “presented” it.
Truth and falsehood were hard to distinguish, and the past was already gone. Xie Jing found it difficult to pursue the matter without evidence, so he could only settle within the Prefect’s Mansion until the winter of the third year of Jingyu, when he encountered Lu Lingcong and the Tiger Division coming to the aid of Yongzhou.
“I do not know Lord He. Although Grand Tutor Zhang and Lord He were once colleagues and close friends, he never mentioned him to me,” Lu Shuqing asked. “Father, do you think Lord He truly didn’t know, or…”
Lu Lingcong did not answer immediately. He had always thought he understood He Gao, but ultimately, He Gao had only been his teacher for a period before he was ten years old. Since then, correspondence had been cut off, and his impression of He Gao might truly be biased. However, the principle of “one may criticize his lack of courage, but one must not doubt his loyalty” was also something He Gao had taught him.
After a long silence, Lu Lingcong said, “I am inclined to believe he truly was unaware, and that the person behind the scenes sent the gift using the Prefect of Yongzhou’s name as a cover; or else it was, in fact, a coincidence. He Gao did not know beforehand that this batch of gifts would become the tool to topple the Xie family, and afterward, he refused to admit it out of guilt. In that case, the person behind the scenes secretly targeted this batch of gifts and made a great fuss over them during the raid on the Xie household.”
Lu Shuqing thought for a moment: “I don’t think it was the Prime Minister’s Mansion. Back then, Grandfather only gave that Lantian jade Imperial Seal to the Prince’s Mansion; he never gave any similar hints to the Prime Minister’s Mansion or the Linhai Palace. Before Zhong Zhao died, he also said he only ever exchanged information with the ‘master’ behind him and was not under the Wang family’s command at all. The Wang family could only have known we held such a seal on the night they raided Wuyi Lane at the earliest; they would have had no way to set the Lantian jade trap in advance. The reason the Wang family did not pursue the source of the jade later was that they wanted to finalize the Xie family’s treasonous intent. If the origin of the jade changed, the Xie family’s charges would naturally no longer hold firm.”
Lu Lingcong nodded. “Apart from your grandfather, your mother, and me, only Zhong Zhao knew that the Lantian Jade Seal was in Prince Zhao’s Mansion. This matter, along with the location where your grandfather hid the secret edict before his passing, was disclosed by Zhong Zhao to his ‘master’—the person behind the scenes.”
“So, the one who made an issue of the jade materials is the same anonymous person who imitated Mother’s handwriting to reveal the location of the real secret edict to the Wang family! He didn’t stain his own hands with blood, yet he handed the Wang family two blades in a row!”
Lu Lingcong gave a silent nod of agreement. After a pause, he added, “It is not that he does not stain his hands with blood; it is just that he hasn’t done so these past few years. When he tried to ‘save’ your mother by taking your life and mine more than ten years ago, he didn’t believe in the principle of killing with a borrowed knife.”
Lu Shuqing suddenly understood. After Ding Yu’s death and Ding Jian’s flight to the northern desert, this anonymous person likely had few subordinates left to deploy. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have trusted only Zhong Zhao for so many years, nor would he have stopped using efficient but high-risk methods like assassination after two failed direct bloody conflicts, turning instead into a conspirator acting as an information broker.
“But… didn’t this person want to save Mother? Did he not know that if my maternal grandfather’s family suffered, Mother could hardly remain unscathed?”
“You forgot the Iron Certificate with crimson script,” Lu Lingcong reminded him. “Not even your uncle or the Empress Dowager can override the authority of the Iron Certificate. However, as those in power, the Wang family can enjoy the privilege of partially distorting its interpretation. It can allow a person to live—it can ‘only’ allow one person to live. And this anonymous individual clearly knew very well that your maternal grandfather and uncle would certainly give the chance of survival to your mother.”
Lu Lingcong left half a sentence unsaid, not having the heart to tell his son that even if Madam Xie and Lady Yao had not died in Wuyi Lane, and even if Xie Jun had not been rescued by Zhang San and the entire family had been thrown into the Imperial Prison, the anonymous person would have found other ways to send them all to their deaths to achieve his goal by ensuring that only Xie Jing lived to the end.
Lu Shuqing fell silent. In truth, that was precisely how it had unfolded—his mother had not died, and the hidden mastermind’s objective of “saving Xie Jing” had been achieved in a profoundly tragic way.
“Father, how can one truly see a person for who they are?”
Following Lu Lingcong’s words, Lu Shuqing continued his questioning, speaking with unusual bluntness. It was clear that Lord He’s character; described by his father as a reliable elder and the savior of his mother and sister, yet whose true nature remained obscured, had left him deeply confused.
Lu Lingcong shook his head. “‘Duke Zhou was still troubled by slander, and Wang Mang was still humble and courteous before usurpation[mfn]People’s real nature only becomes clear with time, good and evil can look the same in the present.[/mfn].’ Until the day everything is truly revealed, who can really see through anyone’s true nature?”
He stroked Lu Shuqing’s hair and said softly, “People are not fixed; a person only becomes a definite self within specific circumstances, and different choices lead them toward different destinies. Can you say that the version of a person who makes one choice is truly him, while the version who makes another choice is not? Just as right now, I cannot clearly see what kind of person Qing’er will grow into; and even though your mother and I have known each other for more than ten years, I have never truly seen all of him. My good son, you are not yet at the age where you need to see through everyone, and in truth, you have no need to see through everyone either. The art of balancing power and the methods of managing people that Father want to teach you were mostly observed by your grandfather. When I was young, I disavowed these tricks, feeling they were too shrouded in darkness. But having reached this age, I find myself involuntarily using the very ’emperor’s craft’ I once looked down upon.”
He turned his face and looked earnestly at Lu Shuqing, “I have spent half my life trying to distance myself from my father, only to discover in many desperate moments that, in some sense, my father was right. I am somewhat like my father, or perhaps I am simply unable to ever truly escape him. I only hope that in the future, when you think of your father, you won’t have to be quite so conflicted.”
Lu Lingcong spoke to him of “your father” as if describing a distant stranger. Clearly, both father and son felt a sense of dazed hesitation regarding the subject.
In truth, to Lu Shuqing, for a long time there had been little difference between Lu Lingcong as a father and someone like Xie Jun; an elder brother. He took him everywhere to play, led him in “testing the law personally,” and occasionally joined him in feigning compliance while secretly disobeying his mother.
In this regard, his parents were very different; Xie Jing had remained in his memory from the beginning as an image of infinite tenderness—care, and unsparing doting, and he remained so to this day. But Lu Lingcong had not appeared in his world as a towering figure from the start; to him, he represented neither authority nor restraint.
Lu Shuqing had ignorantly witnessed his father’s “growing up” after the family catastrophe, so he never believed it necessary to be like so many sons in this world who, while yearning to become their fathers, simultaneously thirst to overthrow them.
“You and Mother are both very good. Although you aren’t the people I aspire to become, you are the kind of people I would want to have as friends.”
Lu Lingcong understood, “You want to be someone like your aunt, don’t you?”
The kind of unyielding sharpness and vigorous, blooming vitality Lu Lingzhen possessed; that daring spirit to cast everything aside for the sake of freedom, was something that both her brother and sister-in-law marveled at and could never reach.
Lu Shuqing nodded, stood on his tiptoes, and looked toward the mountain passes north of the capital with a touch of hope, “…Everything is ready. We only wait for Aunt’s early and triumphant return.”
