Even after spring became summer, the emperor’s condition did not improve; rather, it gradually worsened. The imperial physicians were all helpless against the emperor’s migraines, even Head Imperial Physician Lin, who had recently returned to his post.
“Over the past decades, only the superficial symptoms of His Majesty’s chronic headaches have been treated; the treatments haven’t gotten to the root of his ailment,” Lin Rushan explained. “But common prescriptions no longer work on His Majesty, and the lack of an effective treatment has worsened his condition.”
The empress’s heart flared with anxiety as she watched over the emperor at his bedside. “Are we really out of solutions?”
Lin Rushan hesitated. “About that…”
“Spit it out,” Xiao Cheng ordered.
“A miracle physician from the South was invited to teach a class at the academy today. During that class, he describes how headaches can be cured by releasing gu—poisonous insects—into the patient’s brain…”
“Absolutely not!” the empress said immediately. “Poisoning His Majesty with insects—such an impudent suggestion! Do you wish for death?”
All the imperial physicians present prostrated themselves in front of the empress, imploring her, “Calm down, please, Your Majesty!”
Xiao Cheng looked down at Lin Rushan on the floor. “Your son really does take after you, Head Imperial Physician Lin, in your fearlessness,” he remarked contemptuously. “You were stationed with Gu Fuzhou for months, and took him as your godson during that time—have you now become one of those ignorant military morons who defer only to Great General Gu, not the emperor?”
Lin Rushan broke out in a cold sweat. “This humble official would never dare.”
“Never bring that up again,” the empress snapped. “You may leave.”
“Stay there,” Xiao Cheng ordered. “I haven’t said all that I wanted to say yet, so why the rush, Mother?” The crown prince’s lips turned up in a mocking smile. “Pass along my command: From today onward, Lin Rushan—who uttered horrendous nonsense and proposed poisoning His Majesty with insects—is demoted to the position of standard sixth-rank medical secretary.”
Medical secretaries at the Department of Imperial Physicians were in charge of administrative tasks such as managing the department’s inventory of medical texts and herbs. They were neither granted real power nor allowed to treat any patients.
The empress objected to Xiao Cheng’s command. Lin Rushan was Great Yu’s most skillful physician, and forbidding him to treat any patients would be a waste of his prowess. Before she could say anything, however, Xiao Cheng raised a hand to stop her. “He’s merely an imperial physician. There’s no need to say more, Mother.”
Lin Rushan kowtowed to him. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
The empress shut her eyes, left with no choice but to swallow her disapproval. While the emperor was delirious from sickness, the crown prince was naturally free to abuse his power however he liked.
“Your Highness.” Xue Ying walked in. “The leader of the Tianji Guard has asked for an audience with you.”
“Have him wait in Qinzheng Hall,” Xiao Cheng replied.
Melancholy rose within the empress’s heart. Xue Ying, who’d served the emperor for decades, and the Tianji Guard, a shadow guard legion in the emperor’s employ, were now both at the crown prince’s beck and call… Xiao Cheng was truly only one step from the throne.
“This afternoon, Great General Gu left his residence for the first time since he returned to the capital,” the leader of the Tianji Guard reported to Xiao Cheng in Qinzheng Hall. “He went to the Imperial Academy of Medicine first, saying that he wanted to escort Imperial Physician Lin home after his class. They headed to the residence of the marquess of Nan’an to pay respects to Young Marquess Lu. The marquess exchanged only a few sentences with the general before leaving hurriedly. Finally, he visited the residence of the fourth prince.”
Xiao Cheng narrowed his eyes. “Xiao Jie?”
Aside from Xiao Cheng, the undisputed victor, only two princes had survived the brutal competition for the throne. One was the empress’s idiot of a son, and the other was the fourth prince, Xiao Jie.
Xiao Jie wasn’t an idiot, but he might as well be—he was as dumb as rocks, with nothing to his advantage but his looks. Not only had his birth mother come from a lowly background, he wasn’t favored by the emperor either. He hadn’t even been seen as truly in the running for the throne.
“What did they talk about?” Xiao Cheng asked.
“They started off with the usual formalities. Then Great General Gu told the fourth prince many amusing stories from the battlefield. The prince enjoyed listening, so he invited the general to come back to his residence for roast mutton and wine.”
Was Xiao Jie the reason Gu Fuzhou had stopped at nothing just to return to the capital? No—he knew he was being surveilled, so they saw merely what he wanted them to. In that case, was Gu Fuzhou stirring the waters on purpose to hide his real intentions?
“Continue monitoring him,” Xiao Cheng commanded. “Report to me anytime should anything out of the ordinary occur.”
✦ ✦ ✦
When news of Lin Rushan’s demotion reached Lin Qingyu’s workplace, he immediately took the day off and returned to his family’s residence. He thought that his father would be in low spirits, but Lin Rushan seemed unruffled, even telling his wife with a smile, “Now I can finally return home on time every day.”
“I didn’t expect you to be so cheerful even now, Father,” Lin Qingyu remarked.
“I was demoted to a sixth-rank position without many duties, which isn’t that significant,” Lin Rushan said, looking for a silver lining. “You know, before I returned to the capital, the great general reminded me to be wary of the crown prince. But in my hurry to treat the emperor, I was careless.”
That surprised Lin Qingyu somewhat. “The great general told you to be wary of the crown prince?”
“Yes. He said that, in his desperation to return to the capital, he’d been forced to act very suspiciously, which meant that the crown prince would have his guard up against anyone close to him. I didn’t expect to be demoted as a result, though,” Lin Rushan said regretfully. “You and I have seen for ourselves the medicinal benefits of gu from the South. How terribly tragic that we can use it to treat commoners, but not the emperor!”
Lin Qingyu wasn’t in the mood to think about the medicinal benefits of gu. Recalling Gu Fuzhou’s words repeatedly, he felt he’d vaguely touched upon something. Still, he couldn’t reach a clear revelation, however hard he tried. It felt as if he were trying to see flowers shrouded in fog.
There were two possible reasons “Jiang” couldn’t come to meet him. Either he was somewhere far away, or he was being forced to conceal his identity. But could there be another possibility?
“Well, this isn’t a good time.”
“I don’t want to involve you in this.”
Lin Qingyu pondered the matter for a long time before asking, “Father, you told me that Great General Gu intercepted a secret missive from Western Xia from which he extracted the secret code ‘If odd, change; if even, remain the same.’ But who else aside from him has read that missive?”
Lin Rushan had no idea why Lin Qingyu would ask that question. “The general wouldn’t let anyone else read it, naturally.”
“Not even Deputy General Zhao?”
“That, I have no idea about,” Lin Rushan replied.
Something flashed in Lin Qingyu’s eyes. Perhaps he’d gotten the wrong idea from the beginning. The missive might have originated, not in Western Xia, but in…Yongliang.