The trees at the horizon looked like watercress, and the islets by the river resembled the moon.
Lu Min leaned against the railing and gazed into the distance; the magnificent scenery of Qingjiang was all in sight.
The Yuanjiang Tower was situated atop a relatively high hill, with the tumultuous river five li ahead and the grand imperial capital looming seven li behind. Through all four seasons, whether after rain or in snow and fog, it was always a splendid view. One glimpse of this place revealed countless sights and the graceful legacies of several dynasties. Many gifted scholars had left behind immortal writings here.
However, not everyone liked to put on cultured airs, and Lu Min was the prime example of such a person. As the second prince of the Qi Dynasty, people both inside and outside the court spread word that he was a boorish fellow who disliked reading, as coarse as any street thug.
Rumours were ultimately just rumours. Even though Emperor Lu Zhang of Qi was not fond of his son, he still made a show of it on the surface.
After being taught by a group of Hanlin scholars for over a decade, unless one was born utterly stupid, one could at least pass the entry-level civil examination.
Indeed, Lu Min did not like the moral teachings in books. He wished to forget them early on and actually succeeded, but some things would still surface in his mind at unexpected moments.
For instance, certain verses that evoked sad memories of past events.
It seemed as though the tip of his nose could smell the aroma of chrysanthemum wine. Even though the Double Ninth Festival had ended, the trend of climbing high places had not subsided.
Even by the end of the ninth month, as the autumn wind grew chillier with each passing day, Yuanjiang Tower was still teeming with people. Everywhere, one could see literati raising cups and singing aloud.
Some were there for family reunions, others were there for farewells among old friends.
In this colossal city of Taijing, countless events occurred every day, sending off the joys and sorrows of countless people.
“Commander, that person has arrived; he just disembarked.”
A servant, dressed as a family retainer, approached Lu Min and reported softly.
Because Lu Min’s identity was a special case, even though he had chosen to remain hidden in the shadows, the Jinyiwei were still uncertain how to address him.
After all, openly, the second prince was still a traitor on the run. Everyone in and out of court treated him like a dead man, and there was no possibility he would ever again become heir to the throne. Secretly, was the second prince not the very person the Jinyiwei called “that one”?
Yet compared to the person arriving in Taijing today, the second prince’s “legendary presence” seemed lacking, so much so that “that one” as a term of reference had shifted.
In fact, these Jinyiwei under the covert service were also perplexed. In other dynasties, there were hardly any princesses lost among the common folk, and if there were, it often involved the downfall of a state and a new dynasty, or the usual “swapping of imperial heirs” that showed up only in storybooks. But in the Qi Dynasty, not only had two princes gone “missing” among the people, one of them was even the legitimate prince—Emperor Yongchen’s full-blooded younger brother.
What really put them in a bind was the current relationship among the imperial family. The rebellious prince was now the hidden commander of the secret guards; the prince lost among the people had an unclear intention upon returning to the capital; and the third prince and sixth prince appeared to be vying for the heir presumptive’s right. It was practically a pot of muddled porridge!
Even the emperor currently seated on the Nine-Dragon Throne, Emperor Yongchen, was no pushover. He made no secret of the fact that he had killed his own father as part of his coup. Never before had there been an heir who ascended the throne without observing mourning for his father, but Emperor Yongchen did exactly that. The Grand Secretariat and the court officials hushed it up, while the remaining civil and military officials were left in shock.
If an emperor did not fear what posterity might say, nor care for the scholar-officials’ pens, who would dare risk their reputation to submit a bold remonstrance?
Perhaps such a thing might have happened in other dynasties, but after the Qi replaced the Chu, Emperor Lu Zhang exterminated all the stalwart loyalists, and in the current dynasty, that was absolutely impossible.
“Commander…”
The secret guard called softly, his heart deeply uneasy.
He was merely a minor official with a lowly position who simply wanted to leave this mess as soon as possible.
Seeing his expression, Lu Min almost laughed. It seemed as though the entire world believed these princes would turn on each other.
However—that brother who had drifted outside the palace, whom he had never met, still left some uncertainty.
Lu Min’s expression hardened. If the other party had ill intentions, he would give his all to prevent him from setting foot inside the imperial palace.
***
Yan Cen stepped onto the boat plank and, for some reason, stumbled.
Thankfully, he was skilled in lightness arts and promptly steadied himself, avoiding a plunge into the water.
“Young Master Yan?”
“It was nothing.”
Xiao Baihu hesitated, for Yan Cen had been like a stone carving throughout this journey, huddled in a corner without budging.
Martial experts did not typically lose circulation from sitting too long, so only one explanation remained—that Yan Cen’s mind was weighed down by complex emotions that he could not control, leaving him in a perpetual state of disorientation.
Xiao Baihu felt some sympathy, yet the messy affair of the Lu imperial clan was too outrageous. Holding to the principle that “speaking less means fewer mistakes, and fewer mistakes won’t get you killed,” Xiao Baihu decided to pretend he had not seen anything. After all, he was not the one truly making decisions on this boat.
“Commander Gong’s letter arrived in Taijing one day earlier than we did. They should have made the arrangements.”
Xiao Baihu put on a smile and called to the people stepping out of the cabin behind him, “Master Meng, Doctor Mo, this way, please.”
Meng Qi clasped his hands behind his back and spoke slowly, “Now that we have arrived in Taijing, forget that title. If others heard it, they would think I was some con man from a backwater mountain retreat that Lu Ni hired to put on a show of trickery.”
Xiao Baihu felt momentarily stifled.
Had it been before, he might have silently cursed a bit. But this trip to Jiangnan had let him see Meng Qi’s methods firsthand, and he was now filled with admiration.
Meng Qi noticed Xiao Baihu’s cautious awe, rolled his eyes, and sighed theatrically, “The younger generation was far inferior to those of our time. Over a trivial matter, they were already so constrained. And that was just seeing me—someone who has yet to be bestowed a marquisate or prime minister title. If they stood before the Marquis Jingyuan—the famed general who led hundreds of thousands of troops to sweep the land, eradicating sea bandits in the east and pacifying the grasslands in the west, that great power… with just one glance, you would probably faint!”
Xiao Baihu lowered his head even further, humbly leading the way in front, looking like a shop clerk.
Mo Li gazed at Meng Qi in silence. The latter slightly raised his eyebrows with an innocent look.
——Stop pretending. Lord Xue already told him that the one who really made a mere glance and scared the junior official into fainting was you! Yet you pushed the blame onto the Marquis Jingyuan. Is that how you treat a friend, letting him carry the blame? Even in his coffin, the Marquis Jingyuan must be sneezing!
Meng Qi blinked and boasted on his friend’s behalf. What was the problem?
Mo Li: “…”
Xiao Baihu sensed that something was amiss and turned around in confusion.
Meng Qi was admiring the river scenery, while Mo Li, carrying a medicine pouch, stepped onto the boat plank.
Strange. He felt as though something had just happened.
Yan Cen indeed felt muddled and dazed, though not because of his identity, but because he had inadvertently learned something.
“Your elder brother was critically ill with little time left. You could give your brother a slim chance of survival.”
Yan Cen recalled that day when Meng Qi had specifically sought him out and spoken solemnly.
“Commander Gong knows nothing about this, which shows your brother never revealed it,” Meng Qi said to Yan Cen in a low tone. “If nothing had gone awry, I could have remained silent, but your brother’s illness was beyond the help of medicine. The only way to take a risk was to borrow spiritual energy and then infuse inner power to renew his life force, possibly extending his life by three to five years. Doctor Mo said that only blood relations within three generations could perform this method, and the closer the bloodline, the better. Yet the cost was huge—if one’s inner power was not at the pinnacle, there was no way to sustain it. It was merely life for life.”
Yan Cen could not speak then. He instinctively thought of himself, but felt that hope was slim.
He was like a clumsy child cupping a handful of sand, neither daring to open his hand nor able to tighten his grip, only foreseeing he would be unable to keep hold of anything.
“But this inner power… wasn’t cultivated by me…”
The inner strength left by Grandmaster Yuanzhi before his death was profound and gentle, and Buddhism’s teachings were peaceful and upright. However, Yan Cen himself was consumed by hatred and had lost control multiple times. Coupled with the lingering poison of the mechanical trap, had Meng Qi and Gong Jun not watched him day and night from Yizhou to Jingzhou, he might have gone mad.
“You and Grandmaster Yuanzhi came from the same temple, so your martial arts were connected. As long as you entered seclusion and stabilized your mind, you could fuse that inner power with your own within thirty days,” Meng Qi paused, then spoke more forcefully. “I knew you were unwilling to do so because you refused to acknowledge Grandmaster Yuanzhi’s passing, but you had no time left.”
It was cruel, but it had to be said.
Meng Qi decided he would be the bad guy himself rather than letting Mo Li open his mouth.
——After all, he was the one who brought him back, whereas Mo Li had still been in Hua County at the time!
“You wanted to avenge the soldiers at Xuanchuan Pass, and you also wanted to avenge the Ning family and the monks of Baoxiang Temple. The Tianshou King and that Sect Leader Luo of the Holy Lotus Altar were right there in Jingzhou. Would you come with me to face the masterminds while carrying inner power not yet fully refined, or would you choose to save your brother, and in turn, save yourself?”
Yan Cen trembled all over. He thought of Grandmaster Yuanzhi’s gaze when he passed away.
All disasters in this world began with a single misstep—guard your heart.
Grandmaster Yuanzhi had hoped he would live on.
Hatred mattered, and even hacking the enemy into tiny pieces would not quell his grief and rage, but before that, those who were still alive mattered more. Once missed, it could never be regained.
Yan Cen wept as if in a downpour, striking the stone table with a single palm and shattering it, leaving his hand bloodied.
Thus, in the end, he never appeared in Nanping County, nor did he join the Qi army to quell the rebellion or aid Fengxing Pavilion in hunting down the remnants of the Holy Lotus Altar.
Thirty days, neither too long nor too short.
Yan Cen tried his best to forget everything during seclusion. By the time he stepped out the door and saw Meng Qi and Mo Li, who had returned from Jiangxia to wait for him, that layer of dread in his heart slowly surfaced again.
What if he failed? What if he did not reach Taijing in time, and his brother passed away?
He kept his head down on the road and said nothing.
The closer he got to Taijing, the deeper his fear grew. Yan Cen regretted not trying harder to learn martial arts in the past, regretted not staying at Baoxiang Temple. Although he knew it was futile, he could not help blaming everything on himself, especially whenever he saw or sensed that extra, misshapen arm.
From birth, he had “consumed” his twin brother, harming his mother.
Monster, demon, cursed spawn!
Who could such a person save? And whom could he save?
“Yan Cen.”
A gentle, calm voice pulled Yan Cen back to reality.
His face was pale, forehead beaded with cold sweat.
Mo Li handed him a volume on medicine. The man’s palm seemed to carry a strangely soothing power, and his words did too.
“I heard Grandmaster Yuanzhi had a rough knowledge of herbs, able to treat headaches and fevers. You should learn some of it as well, so that once you return to Shimo Stronghold, it could be put to use.”
Right, Shimo Stronghold. Yan Cen snapped back to his senses. He was not truly left with nothing.
Fingers clutched the medical book tightly, and although he forced a smile, it looked more like he was about to cry.
“There are excellent needle-makers in Taijing. You should buy a set. Acupuncture requires precise recognition of pressure points and exact control of force, skills that take at least three to five years to master. But for those of us who practice martial arts, we naturally have an advantage. As long as you are willing to learn seriously, you may not become a famous physician who travels the land helping the sick, but you could still do your best to save the people around you.”
Mo Li gently patted the hand with which Yan Cen gripped the medical book and said softly, “Anyone can kill if they pick up a weapon, but truly anyone can save a life too.”
“Thank you… Doctor Mo.”
Yan Cen took a deep breath. He had not yet calmed himself when he saw a galloping horse dash toward the pier.
The rider dismounted boldly and strode straight toward the official vessel.
Some dock officers tried to block him, but he raised his hand, seeming to show a black-gold token. Immediately, the officers and Jinyiwei turned pale and scrambled to clear a path.
He was tall and wore a leather mask that covered half his face. His eyes were bright, and his cloak billowed as he walked, every step seeming to tread on people’s hearts.
With a single glance, he spotted Yan Cen—wrapped up so tightly that his face was hidden—and looked visibly angry. He advanced with powerful strides, chin slightly raised as though about to speak, but then he caught sight of Mo Li and the smirking Meng Qi at Yan Cen’s side.
“…”
His imposing air suddenly dissipated, and there was no way to rein it back in.
“Ma-Master Meng, Doctor Mo?” Lu Min glared fiercely at Yan Cen, as if saying, “Must you keep your head covered? Are you ashamed to be seen?”
Yan Cen raised his head innocently and in confusion. Among this crowd, it was the man in the demon mask who looked most peculiar. What was this about?
“He is your younger brother, whom you have never met.” Meng Qi strolled over slowly and explained to Yan Cen.
Yan Cen nearly rolled his eyes. It sounded as though he had met any of Lu Zhang’s other sons before.
Though originally, that title “second prince” had belonged to Yan Cen.
Right then, a river breeze stirred and tugged at Yan Cen’s hood, partly revealing his face. He wore it more to avoid trouble. He was not that concerned about his face, since what he truly wished to conceal was his figure and that deformed arm, not his looks.
“…You!”
Lu Min’s eyes went wide with shock. That turned into anger, yet he did not lash out. He merely snorted and turned to leave.
“What happened?” Mo Li asked, mystified.
“No idea,” Meng Qi muttered under his breath.
Lu Min’s fists were clenched, his heart filled with frustration.
——He looked even more like the Crown Prince than Lu Min and the third and sixth princes combined!
——How could anyone start a fight when faced with that face?
Author’s note:
“The trees at the horizon were like watercress, and the islets by the river were like the moon.” — Meng Haoran
The next two lines were: “When might you come with wine in hand, to join in the revels of the Double Ninth Festival.”
————
Sibling rivalry? Impossible. Once they saw that face, there was no way to fight.
