The Minister of the Court of State Ceremonies had not yet shaken off the reek of wine, but his expression was stern. He opened his mouth to speak, but caught sight of Zhao Wujiang standing nearby and stopped himself mid-sentence.
Dugu Yihe’s sword-like brows furrowed. His gaze swept over Zhao Wujiang, and before he could speak, Zhao Wujiang tossed back a cup of wine and took the initiative:
"Oh dear, Your Excellency, I must be going. I just remembered I have matters to attend to back in the palace!"
*Such quick reactions, such sharp wits—no wonder he can converse so amiably with Dugu Yihe...* The Minister, Li Chenxu, flickered his gaze. Half-drunk yet still sober, his mind raced.
"This official will not see you out," Dugu Yihe said, his eyes glinting.
"Thud, thud..." Zhao Wujiang patted his chest. Inside his robe rested the letter from Dugu Yihe. With a warm smile, he said, "Rest assured, rest assured."
Dugu Yihe nodded. Dealing with a smart man was wonderful; no excess words were needed.
Zhao Wujiang cupped his fists, his steps slightly unsteadied by a veneer of alcoholic haze. He stepped away from the seat of honor, descended the steps, and brushed past rows of guests.
"Grand Eunuch Zhao, why leave in such a hurry..."
"I am hosting a banquet tonight, Grand Eunuch, might I hope for the honor of your presence?"
"I have a rare curiosity at my manor, Grand Eunuch, how about we view it together...?"
"..."
The guests, deep in their merrymaking, saw Zhao Wujiang leaving and showered him with goodwill, eager to forge ties with him.
Cupping his fists and muttering "Another time for sure, another time for sure," Zhao Wujiang was supported by the Dugu family servants as he stepped out the main gates and boarded his carriage.
The carriage set off. Zhao Wujiang hung his head, looking fast asleep after too much wine. The horses' hooves clattered rhythmically while the driver shouted commands and cracked his whip.
Scarcely a street away from the Dugu estate, Zhao Wujiang abruptly snapped open the head he had been lowering and closing. There was not a shred of drowsiness in his eyes. He slowly felt inside his robe, and when he pulled his hand out, Dugu Yihe's letter was already unfolded.
Word by word, his gaze swept across the page. His emotions surged, gradually kicking up towering waves.
...
Back at the Dugu estate’s banquet hall, the guests drifted to the music of strings and flutes, drinking and carousing at their ease. Those who drank themselves into a stupor were steadily hauled out of the main hall and sent to guest rooms.
The people inside the hall grew fewer and fewer.
Li Chenxu, the Minister of the Court of State Ceremonies, was a thin-faced middle-aged man. His pupils were deep and dark, the outer corners of his eyes slanted upward. When he smiled, he looked kindly and approachable; when he didn't, he was as cold and sharp as a solitary wolf.
"Brother Dugu, how long do you intend to wait?"
His voice was icy, his brows flared in anger, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the drunken man of moments ago.
Dugu Yihe raised his wine cup in a toast to him, downed it in one go, and curved his lips into a deep smile. "What is it?"
"The Baiyue Kingdom of the Western Regions has come to the capital to pay tribute," Li Chenxu said, his face sinking.
"Oh? Surely it isn't time for their tribute yet?" Dugu Yihe's eyes flickered.
Li Chenxu twirled a celadon porcelain cup in his hand:
"Brother Dugu, I refuse to believe you haven't seen that this is a probe...
Zhao Changyuan fell ill at the Northern Frontier, and the Northern barbarians are growing restless. The Loulan remnants in the Southern Frontier have also repeatedly tried to cross the border, sparking conflicts with the Daxia Southern Defense Army.
Now, a small Western nation like Baiyue arrives to pay tribute?
Hmph, what tribute are they paying at a time like this?
And they are even offering a woman, babbling on about a marriage alliance?
Who doesn't know the peerless beauty of Western Region barbarian women?
Back in the days of the late Emperor..."
"Li Chenxu!" Dugu Yihe's voice suddenly rose.
Li Chenxu gave a start, realizing he had almost spoken too much in his moment of distraction... He viciously slugged down a mouthful of wine.
"I am leaving. A princess has arrived, and as Minister of the Court of State Ceremonies, I must go receive her..."
With that, he flung his wide sleeves, strode out with the vigorous steps of a tiger, and left the main hall.
Dugu Yihe let out a long breath. Some matters ran too deep and spanned too much time; he had no wish to bring them up lightly.
He slowly leaned back in his chair. With the guests of merrymaking mostly dispersed, the hall grew gradually desolate, leaving behind a mess of debris. His gaze was distant and profound, staring straight out of the hall as he wondered what to make of it.
After an unknown length of time, an old man with entirely white hair and beard slowly emerged from behind the screen. It was none other than the old steward, Afu. He bowed deeply:
"Master, the matter has been handled..."
Chapter 13: Dugu Yihe's view on Zhao Wujiang
...
"Mm..." Dugu Yihe emitted a low hum.
"Master..." Steward Afu bowed at his side, hesitating as if he had more to say. After turning it over in his mind several times, he finally voiced his doubt:
"Given how intricate and complex the power struggles within the inner palace are right now, to expose a portion of our strength just for... a little eunuch... to eliminate a Grand Eunuch...
And behind that Grand Eunuch... ah, is it really worth it?"
"Not worth it."
Dugu Yihe propped one leg up on his chair. Now that only he and the old steward remained in the hall, he could drop all pretense and sit however he pleased:
"But the man he will become is entirely worth it.
Mingyue enjoys favor, and he played an indispensable role. Even Liu Meier, the granddaughter of that old fox Liu Zhe, was favored—word has it that was partly due to the Emperor acting on his suggestions!
When have you ever seen the Emperor adopt the suggestions of a petty eunuch?
Sometimes the Emperor doesn't even adopt the proposals of the Three Ducal Ministers and Nine Ministers. What does that tell you?"
"It tells us the Emperor thinks very highly of him?" The old steward widened his aged eyes.
"Right, that's one thing. precisely because the inner palace situation is so convoluted, the strength of a group is sometimes far less clean, decisive, and effective than the strength of a single individual."
Dugu Yihe smiled, a somewhat brazen smile born either of appreciation for Zhao Wujiang or smug satisfaction in his own judgment.
"For all these years, there have been countless eunuchs in the inner palace, yet only he, Zhao Wujiang, has walked so close to the Emperor..."
Dugu Yihe smacked his lips.
"Fill it up."
Steward Afu respectfully poured Dugu Yihe another cup of wine.
Dugu Yihe tossed it back.
"Fill it up again.
Secondly, there is his character. When petty men hurl malicious words at him, his joy and anger do not show on his face. This is capacity—breadth of mind!
To face danger without showing cowardice, this is grit—supreme courage!
To gain profit and pursue even more profit, this is greed.
Insatiable greed is a bad thing; but to be greedy for things that *can* be taken is a good thing!
Because he understands. He understands his present weakness, he understands the shallowness of his current foundation. To accumulate that foundation, he has no choice but to be greedy—he *must* be greedy!
He can assess the situation and read people's expressions. With capacity, grit, and an understanding of greed, a man like this is bound to ascend to high positions one day!"
Steward Afu was already frozen in place. His mind trembled. He had served the master for a very long time and had never heard the master give such a high evaluation to a young man.
"M-Master, then can he be trusted?"
Afu asked again.
"He is Zhao Shou's grand-nephew... of clean background, trustworthy... but just how trustworthy... remains to be tested further."
Dugu Yihe knocked over the wine goblet on the table, his tone carrying the haughty dominance of one looking down upon all living beings:
"The Emperor's willingness to favor Mingyue shows acceptance of the Dugu Clan, but the Northern Frontier affair has once again made the Emperor suspicious of us.
Let the truth of this Northern Frontier affair be brought to light...
I only wonder if certain cowardly spirits in the shadows will be able to hide themselves..."
The master was finally preparing to make a move... Steward Afu felt a shudder in his heart. He bowed and retreated:
"Master, Afu will go make preparations at once."
...
Inside the carriage.
"Grand Eunuch Zhao, a foreign diplomatic delegation is passing up ahead, escorted by personnel from the Court of State Ceremonies. I'm afraid we'll have to wait a moment before we can pass," came the apologetic voice of the driver from outside, mingled with the chaotic chatter of commoners.
"No matter."
Zhao Wujiang slowly folded the letter and steadied his mind. He lifted the carriage curtain at his side and poked his head out to look.
The sides of the imperial road were packed with commoners. He could only peer through the gaps in the crowd to make out the procession slowly moving down the avenue.
Two snow-white camels were laden with a flower-decked carriage. The drivers were Westerners wearing fur caps and barbarian attire.
Escorting the carriage were four robust men with bare chests and long scimitars hanging at their waists.
The Court of State Ceremonies' procession led the way, while these five people and two white camels followed at a leisurely pace.
As Zhao Wujiang lifted the curtain to gaze intently, the camel bells jingled merrily. The curtain of the flower carriage was lifted from within, extending a delicate, slender hand, followed shortly by a head with skin that seemed ready to break at a touch and a peerless, breathtaking beauty.
"Oh, look, look! Is that their princess?"
"Barbarian beauty, the rumors do not deceive!"
"No wonder the late Emperor launched a western expedition..."
"..."
The commoners fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of her face burst into exclamations of wonder.
The din failed to drown out Zhao Wujiang, whose gaze locked onto the face of the person up ahead.
It was a face veiled in light gauze, revealing only a pair of beautiful eyes and the bridge of a nose, yet enough to hint at a devastating, nation-toppling beauty.
Eyes rippling like water, clean and clear, innocence mingled with curiosity as they sized up Zhao Wujiang.
Their eyes met. The delicate figure in the flower carriage flashed a bright, lively look and waved at Zhao Wujiang: "Hey."
Her Daxia speech, tinged with a Western Region accent, was crisp and bright.
Was this what the Minister of the Court of State Ceremonies had wanted to tell Dugu Yihe—that the Western diplomatic mission had arrived in Daxia?
Zhao Wujiang dropped the curtain, cutting off the view.
The figure in the opposite carriage let out an apparent huff of displeasure, then dropped her own curtain as well, proceeding toward the Court of State Ceremonies amidst the clamor of the crowd.
...
Back in the Imperial City, Zhao Wujiang walked the palace paths with his hands tucked into his sleeves, moving at an unhurried pace.
Making twists and turns, he penetrated deep into the inner palace.
Just as he was about to step into the Hall of Mental Cultivation, a slender figure in green by the roadside waved at him: "Little Zhao!"
Zhao Wujiang smiled warmly and hurried over, his large arm naturally wrapping around the waist of the beauty who trotted up to him:
"Sister Qinger..."
"Hmph." Qinger swatted away Zhao Wujiang's wandering hand and chided, "I've been waiting for you forever. Her Ladyship wants to see you."
"Then I apologize for keeping you waiting..." Zhao Wujiang smiled. Qinger possessed a unique beauty when she wore her mock-angry expression; her pale green palace dress constrained a voluptuous figure that belied her years, tracing out exceptionally exquisite curves.
The two of them laughed and bantered all the way, Qinger occasionally squealing as Zhao Wujiang took advantage of her a couple of times.
They quickly reached the Hall of Serene Phoenix, belonging to Empress Dugu Mingyue. Announcing their arrival, they pushed open the doors and stepped inside.
"Your servant greets Her Ladyship." Zhao Wujiang bowed slightly.
In the small courtyard of the Hall of Serene Phoenix, Dugu Mingyue sat beside a stone table, resting her chin in her hand. Seeing the visitor, her face blossomed into a smile:
"No outsiders here, sit down."
Zhao Wujiang readily took a seat on the stone stool beside her. The table was laden with pastries and fruits, but his gaze was instantly drawn to the full mounds on Dugu Mingyue's chest.
Because she was resting her chin in her hand, Dugu Mingyue had propped this pair of mortal weapons directly on the table, making for a most pleasing sight.
"Zhao Wujiang, the man you wanted is in the side room."
Dugu Mingyue seemed somewhat distracted. Her mind was entirely occupied with thoughts of how to be even more alluring to the Emperor—what should she wear?
Or perhaps wear nothing at all?
Or go completely unclad underneath?
"Thank you, Your Ladyship. Has he spilled how he plotted against my Third Grand-uncle?"
Zhao Wujiang lowered his gaze slightly, his tone carrying a solemn gravity.
A trace of contemplation crossed Dugu Mingyue's breathtaking face. She bit her red lip and shook her head:
"When the people at home captured him, they were a bit heavy-handed. He knocked himself out cold, and I suppose he hasn't woken up yet..."
Zhao Wujiang nodded, stood up, and walked toward the side room.
Pushing the door open, he found the room devoid of light. A fat, bulky silhouette lay sprawled on the floor.
Zhao Wujiang closed the door with his backhand and slid the wooden bolt into place. All daylight was shut out, plunging the room back into darkness. He flicked a fire-starter into flame and, by its feeble glow, walked step by step toward the dark figure on the ground.
Crouching down, Zhao Wujiang discovered that Grand Eunuch Chen Zhenghua's hands and feet were all bound. Presumably fearing that Chen Zhenghua might flee, the men who captured him had thoughtfully broken the joints in his legs and feet.
A flash of cold steel—Zhao Wujiang drew a dagger. With a cold gaze, he drove it straight down. The blade instantly plunged into the Grand Eunuch's thigh, tearing flesh and gushing blood. He turned the dagger with a blank expression.
"Aghhh!!!"
The intense, wracking agony shocked the unconscious Chen Zhenghua awake. He snapped his eyes open and, in the dim firelight, beheld a pair of eyes as indifferent to all life as a judge of the underworld, and heard a voice as frigid as a grim reaper:
"Grand Eunuch Chen, we meet again."
Chapter 14: The Loulan Gu-worm Appears Anew
...
"Zhao... Zhao... Wujiang..." A shrill, hoarse shriek rang out. Grand Eunuch Chen Zhenghua stared in terror at Zhao Wujiang's grim reaper-like face, his body writhing frantically as he tried to break free from his bonds. But the pain of his broken limbs followed closely behind, overwhelming him like a tidal wave.
He shrieked continuously:
"Dog! Let this official go at once, or I'll make you wish you were dead and beg for life in vain, I'll make you end up just like your Third Grand-uncle... Ah!"
Zhao Wujiang twisted the dagger expressionlessly. The sound of churning flesh echoed throughout the room, and the heavy stench of blood began to drift. In a flat tone, he said:
"Answer my question. Or I will kill you."
"I'll answer, I'll answer, I choose to answer!!" Grand Eunuch Chen immediately shrieked:
"Ask away, just ask!"
"Why did you murder my Third Grand-uncle?"
Zhao Wujiang's gaze was ice-cold.
The Grand Eunuch wriggled his corpulent frame, his eyes bloodshot:
"He broke the rules. He found out things he shouldn't have known, so he had to die!"
"So you killed him? Ha?"
Zhao Wujiang roared, gripping the dagger tighter and churning it savagely before pulling it out and driving it heavily back into the black-red wound.
"Ah! I was only following orders, I was just... Ah... following orders!"
The Grand Eunuch's body convulsed in spasms.
"Orders? Whose orders?"
Zhao Wujiang's face was frosty. He thought of the letter Dugu Yihe intended to pass to the Empress, and a thread of connection seemed ready to snap together in his mind.
"It's... urgh... it's... cough, cough, cough..."
The Grand Eunuch tried to force the words out, but the moment they reached his lips, they were forcefully choked back. He gurgled black liquid from his mouth, his features twisting abnormally as if enduring excruciating agony.
The liquid was like ink—thick and viscous, while emitting a nauseating stench.
"It's... urgh, mm... it's... er..."
The Grand Eunuch muttered incoherently, black liquid continuously pouring from his mouth. His entire set of eyeballs seemed ready to pop out of his fat cheeks:
"It's..."
"What is it? Speak!" Zhao Wujiang leaned closer, wanting to hear clearly, and grabbed the Grand Eunuch by the collar to haul him up.
"It's..." A turbid gurgle issued from the Grand Eunuch's throat, and then he froze in place, losing all breath entirely.
"Motherfucker." Zhao Wujiang released his grip on the Grand Eunuch, slumped backward in defeat, and dropped heavily to the floor.
After a long while, his gaze brightened in the darkness. He scrambled back to his feet, seized the dagger, and thrust it toward the Grand Eunuch's chest.
"Squelch."
The blade pierced flesh and muscle. Zhao Wujiang dragged the dagger downward at a slant, carving a deep vertical slash across the Grand Eunuch's chest.
Then he hacked heavily across it in the opposite direction, turning the wound into a cross shape. Hot, reeking blood gushed out like a geyser. Three silver needles flew from his sleeve, hissing as they buried themselves into the flesh.
A faint squelching sound indicated that something had been struck.
With trembling hands, he grasped the tails of the needles and slowly pulled them upward...
What appeared before his eyes was a worm.
Short, white, soft, and bearing a single eye.
"A Loulan Gu-worm!"
Damn it... Zhao Wujiang cursed aloud, a suffocating, sinister aura assaulting his heart:
"Am I still dragged into this after all?"
...
Beneath prosperity lies trickery, just as beneath daylight lies shadow.
This was an ancient palace hall that had weathered countless storms. Inside the hall, trees grew, their fallen leaves carpeting the entire structure.
The trees were laden with fruit—which turned out to be hanging corpses wrapped in vines.
The corpses were riddled with holes, their rotting flesh blackened and sickly green. Short, soft, white, single-eyed worms crawled back and forth among them.
Beneath the trees sat two old men. Before them stood a bamboo basket filled entirely with verdant green leaves.
"The worm carrying Seventy-three is dead."
"Dead is dead. Just a worm. We need only retrieve Seventy-three in time."
"But... that worm seemed to have been interrogated to death by someone else..."
"Then won't Seventy-three... also die? Oh well, it's only Seventy-three, of little consequence... By the way, whose worm was carrying Seventy-three?"
"Chen Zhenghua, a eunuch."
"Then he truly was just a worm... Ah, what a pity. Number Nine inside Zhao Changyuan of the Northern Frontier is missing."
"Shall we have them investigate?"
"Forget it. Major events are about to begin; we shouldn't expose too much."
...
"Snap!"
Zhao Wujiang tightly shut the wooden box, safely storing away the Loulan Gu-worm extracted from the Grand Eunuch's body.
Although they were both Gu-worms, Zhao Wujiang could clearly sense that this worm was far weaker than the one he had previously encountered inside Great General Zhao of the Northern Frontier.
Having inherited the medical arts of his Third Grand-uncle Zhao Shou—and surpassing his master—his mastery of the ancestral imperial mystic acupuncture needles was nothing short of miraculous. He simply preferred to keep a low profile and usually had no opportunity to display it; now, using it to seal away a Gu-worm was effortless.
He put away the wooden box and stepped out of the side room.
Passing through several chambers, Zhao Wujiang returned to the small courtyard. Dugu Mingyue was still deep in thought, with Qinger seated beside her.
"Done?"
Seeing Zhao Wujiang return, Qinger's eyes lit up. Joy bloomed on her face, but remembering that Her Ladyship was right beside her, she quickly reined it in.
"Mm."
"Her Ladyship wants you."
Zhao Wujiang nodded. Coming to Empress Dugu's quarters, he had anticipated that the Empress would ask questions, seeing as he was the man standing at the center of the inner palace's storms lately.
"Your servant greets Her Ladyship."
Dugu Mingyue raised her head. "Sit down."
Zhao Wujiang sat beside the stone table without standing on ceremony. He picked up a piece of fruit from the table, selected a banana, and slowly peeled it.
Zhao Wujiang's handsome visage reflected in Dugu Mingyue's eyes, yet this unbothered, at-ease demeanor instantly brought a flash of anger to her face:
"Little Zhao, why did you suggest to the Emperor that he favor Consort Liu?"
Ugh...