Chapter 7: The Vermilion Decree
Ye Xu's wrath smouldered like banked coals beneath ceremonial silks. For weeks, he had dismissed Ye Ling's "labour reforms" as the flailings of a dilettante—refugees pawing at salt-crusted earth like dogs gnawing bones. Yet imperial couriers now bore scrolls detailing thirty thousand *catties* of crystalline treason, each grain a mockery of his assumptions.
"That gutter-born pretender outmanoeuvred me?" His fist cratered a sandalwood table inlaid with jade phoenixes. "I'll string his entrails across the Vermilion Gate!"
---
In Tianqu's tribunal hall, iron shackles sang their mournful dirge as Liu Ren hauled Chen Wang from his cell. The disgraced magistrate's sneer curdled the air.
"Your princeling cowers before the Xu faction's shadow, yes?" Chen jeered, flicking prison straw from his sleeves like discarded honour. "Bring my rank robes! I'll promenade through these flyblown streets to educate peasants on true power—"
His bravado shattered at the eunuch's shriek:
**"By Celestial Mandate—Chen Wang, Magistrate of Tianqu, stands attainted of embezzling heavenly succour, conspiring with grain sharks to desiccate subjects, and befouling the Vermilion Edict's sanctity. Condemned: immediate beheading."
The scroll unfurled, its golden dragon seals glinting like honed steel.
---
**"Treacherous fabrication!"** Chen's chins trembled as Dragon Guards shredded his embroidered sashes—each rending thread a death knell for hubris. **"Prince Xu's arm stretches—"**
Ye Ling's mirth crystallized in the stagnant air. **"My brother's patronage dissolves like mist before the Divine Throne's gaze."** A nod to the axeman. **"Let his carcass fertilize the salt flats he blighted."
The blade's descent painted vermilion calligraphy across sun-baked earth—a brutal coda to corruption. From the throng rose an ululation equal parts ecstasy and awe: *the Salt Prince's justice cuts cleaner than scholars' brushes.*
The Vermilion Stain
"Unhand me! I am the magistrate!" Chen Wang's shrieks pierced the sulphur-laden air as imperial sentinels hauled him through Tianqu's ashen thoroughfares. His convulsions—a speared carp's final spasms—deepened the hemp cords' teeth upon his flesh.
The eunuch's waxen countenance betrayed no ripple. "By Heaven's Mandate, betrayers meet dawn's blade."
Chen's jowls trembled like trapped prey. "I am Prince Xu's favoured hound! Strike me down, and his vengeance shall salt your lands crimson!" His bellows dissolved into bestial howls as overripe quinces burst against his temple—the wretched's retribution, foetid yet sweet.
---
Upon the scorched execution grounds, the condemned's knees kissed blistered earth. Dragon Guards stood as obsidian sentinels while Chen writhed like a scarab beneath scholars' pens. "The Xu banner shades empires! My prince will skin your—"
The headsman's steel severed defiance mid-breath.
A carmine crescent adorned parched soil—nature's ledger balanced. The throng's roar dislodged cicadas from withering elms:
_"May hell's flames cleanse your thieving soul!"
_"Xu's leashed cur!"_
_"Let the Yellow River claim his rancid guts!"
---
Murmurs seeped through the multitude like venom through reed beds.
"They say Xu's lineage suckles at babes' throats!"
"Three generations devouring stillborns, so swears my aunt!"
"His grandsire coupled with drought demons during the Great Withering..."
By lunar zenith, these malignant seeds flowered into peasant gospel. Wandering minstrels chanted ballads of Prince Xu as a jade-fanged rakshasa craving unchristened neonates—a grotesque effigy of noble decadence.
---
Meanwhile, in the capital's incense-choked pavilions, Prince Xu sipped osmanthus wine while critiquing lotus-blossom verse. Shanyang's starving hordes existed merely as ink-stained tallies—columns of grain deficits and silver haemorrhages.
"The rabble are plough-beasts," he mused to his concubine, gilding her toes with crushed rubies. "Stuff their maws with chaff, they till. Lash their hides raw, they obey. What deeper governance could such cattle demand?"
Beyond vermilion walls, his effigies crackled in village pyres. The people's loathing, like unstable saltpetre in imperial cannons, thirsted for ignition's kiss.
Alabaster Betrayals
"Dear Uncle, observe how my famine governance shall earn Father's golden approbation!" Ye Xu's voice dripped cloying honey as he preened before Chen Huai. "As for that dreg-born sixth prince—imagine the theatrics when he defaults! Fraud charges will strip him bare—not merely princely titles, but the very air he breathes!"
Chen Huai's sycophantic murmur died mid-sentence as merchant Chen San stumbled into the chamber, sweat beading on his jowls like dew on rotting fruit.
"Your Highness! Minister!" The grain baron prostrated himself, forehead kissing cold marble. "Prince Qian... fulfilled the contract. Thirty thousand catties—salt purer than temple snow."
The conspirators' gazes locked—twin scorpions sensing prey.
"The Vermilion Reserves..." Chen Huai rasped, amber prayer beads slipping through sausage fingers. "Your mother's spies will confirm the theft. We'll have that brine-thief's head spiked on the Meridian Gate!"
---
Dawn's third crowing brought bitter truth.
"Not a crystal absent from the imperial larders," Empress Chen's eunuch reported, his castrato voice echoing tomb-cold.
Ye Xu's fist reduced a Song-dynasty urn to porcelain shrapnel. "Then by what sorcery...?"
"Salt fields," he snarled, an epiphany striking like summer lightning. "Dispatch shadows to Tianqu! Dissect every granule of that 'charitable works' masquerade!"
---
Meanwhile, Ye Ling's lacquered carriage traversed the capital's vermilion ramparts, leaving Tianqu's alkali dust for perfumed boulevards.
"Home at last," Lü Wu sighed, her spine protesting each cobblestone's jostle. The prince's nocturnal "dedications" had left her weaker than three consecutive harvest moons.
"Permit your servant, moonbeam," Ye Ling murmured, gathering her into arms that had felled magistrates. Her token resistance dissolved like mist before noon sun.
Beyond embroidered curtains, eunuchs scurried with dowry inventories—Empress Chen's "marriage selections" being naught but gilded snares. The true contest commenced now: where salt met silk, and daggers hid beneath betrothal silks.
Court of Thorns and Silk
Lü Wu's cheeks blossomed peony-red, her gaze anchored to the carriage floor as Ye Ling's laughter vibrated against her temple.
"Unless my nightingale prefers a graceless descent onto cobblestones?"
A breathless whimper escaped her—surrender swathed in silk.
"Your Highness, the consort—"
Matron Rong scurried forward as the prince descended, Lü Wu cradled like some battle-won treasure.
"A trifling mishap en route," Ye Ling declared, solemn as a monk reciting sutras. "These arms suffice as her palanquin."
*A mishap?* Servants exchanged glances thick with implication. The concubine burrowed deeper into his chest, her pulse syncing with the warlord rhythm of his heart.
From shadowed colonnades, Fu Yuanyuan observed—jade nails etching bloodless crescents into her palms. Prince Xu's perfumed letter crumpled in her grasp like a strangled dove.
"Retire we shall, Hongluan," she whispered, voice frayed as moth-eaten brocade.
---
In the Hall of Supreme Harmony, incense smoke coiled like duelling serpents.
"Let our sons' governance be weighed before heaven's gaze," Emperor Shang intoned, his voice echoing through lacquered beams.
Prince Xu's smile oozed cloying venom. "Shall the junior prince enlighten us first?"
Fu Hai, Minister of Rites, slithered forth. "Primogeniture honours tradition—unless Prince Qian dreads comparison?"
Fang Yan, Ye Ling's silver-bearded mentor, countered like a gavel strike: "Does the minister mistake court hierarchy for peasant birth order?"
Ye Ling's chuckle dispersed tension like spring thaw. "Let my revered brother edify us. Fraternal accord gladdens celestial ancestors."
Prince Xu's jawline sharpened—a dagger unsheathed.
"Through this unworthy one's governance", Xu proclaimed, unveiling a vermilion-lacquered chest, "Shanyang's paupers sup on millet stew and ginseng tonics. Not one life lost—testament to heaven's benevolence!"
The chest gaped, disgorging ledgers inked with artful falsehoods.
Ye Ling's fingers brushed his sleeve's hidden compartment—where Tianqu's salt-crusted truth nestled. The true tribunal now commenced.
Vermilion Truths
"Your Majesty, witness the 'Canopy of Ten Thousand Souls'—tribute from Shanyang's purportedly grateful wretches!" A fawning minister unveiled an embroidered parasol sagging with counterfeit names. "Prince Xu's munificence vanquished famine! His reign rivals the Golden Age!"
Oiled murmurs of assent rippled through the gilded chamber. Ye Xu's lips quivered with suppressed triumph.
"Merely discharging princely obligations," he simpered, sleeves fluttering like cowed doves. "We exist to cradle the realm's humble children."
Ye Ling's voice cleaved the pretence like a ceremonial *jian* blade: "Enlighten us, brother—what weight of gold purchased this... *service?"
Silence crystallized the air.
Ye Xu's spine stiffened. "A true sovereign embraces sacrificial—"
"—while breeding indolent parasites," Ye Ling interposed, advancing like a hunting tiger. "Shanyang's 'victims' multiply daily, engorged on your silver. Pray tell—when your coffers haemorrhage dry, who feeds these indolent hordes?"
A serpent of sweat slid beneath Ye Xu's collar. How had this gutter-born pretender unmasked his stratagem?
"The famine abates! Alms naturally cease!"
"Precisely." Ye Ling turned to the throne, crystalline salt spilling through his fingers like liquid moonlight. "My path demanded no eternal charity. Tianqu's people now quarry salt, sustaining ten provinces. Their sweat forges self-reliance—not servitude."
Fu Hai's sneer cut from the ministerial ranks: "Pompous theatrics! Where is *your* Canopy of Gratitude hiding?"
A seismic roar erupted beyond vermilion portals—the thunder of ten thousand feet.
Through gates lacquered with celestial dragons surged Tianqu's masses, bearing not embroidered falsehoods but salt sacks branded with the Imperial Seal. Their chant ruptured the hall's jade beams:
_"Salt sustains! Labour unchains!"
Ye Ling's bow concealed a predator's grin. Let the court feast upon this brined truth—a banquet seasoned with Xu's disgrace.
Veils of Vice
"Yet Tianqu's wretches grind from cockcrow to curfew for pitiful grains!" Chen Huai's sneer slithered through the hall. "Hollow-cheeked spectres clutching chaff—how dare Prince Qian fault Xu's benevolence?"
Ye Ling's retort cracked like a magistrate's gavel: "In Tianqu, sweat redeems honour. Every palm roughened by shovel and pick *earns* sustenance—no beggar's bowl required. We sift idlers from the worthy, kindle purpose in despair's ashes, and forge self-reliance that outlives dynasties!"
A hush gripped the court. Even the emperor's jade sceptre stilled.
"True relief isn't stuffing mouths with temporary gruel," Ye Ling continued, gaze volcanic. "It's teaching men to net fish in drought-cracked rivers—to rise phoenix-like with blistered hands, not wallow as silk-coddled parasites!"
Whispers of approval rustled through unaligned ministers. "Visionary! Prudent stewardship!"
"*Stewardship*?" Fu Hai spat like a venomous toad. "You quarry flesh for profit! What mercy exists in starving souls breaking spines for crumbs?"
Chen Huai clutched his jade girdle, theatre of anguish perfected. "To exploit heaven's stricken children – is this imperial virtue?"
"Then nourish Shanyang's gluttons from your private coffers, Minister Chen," Ye Ling riposted. "Or does your 'compassion' dissolve when silver's demanded?"
Fu Hai's brow struck marble with ceremonial force. "Your Majesty! Strip this tyrant's honours! Tianqu's salt pits reek of mortal exploitation—"
"—while Shanyang's granaries burst with indolent rot," Fang Yan countered. "Prince Qian sows orchards; Xu cultivates bloodsuckers."
As rhetoric crescendoed, Xu's eyelid flickered—a serpent's signal.
The Vermilion Gates bellowed open.
"Who trespasses upon celestial deliberation?" the Emperor thundered.
Silk-clad merchants prostrated themselves, trembling like autumn leaves. "We denounce Ye Ling's heresy!" their spokesman quavered. "He revived accursed salt quarries—alchemises *white gold* from poisoned soil!"
Xu's smile bloomed like a nightshade flower. The snare sprang.
The Alchemist's Gambit
"The Chen Clan, self-anointed custodians of the realm's coffers, lust not for crumbs—they crave to devour the feast entire!" Ye Ling's silent derision sliced through orchestrated fury. These asps sought to claim the salt pans as their venomous fiefdom.
Chen San's voice quivered with rehearsed umbrage: "Prince Qian wields calamity to hoard salt—a poniard at the empire's throat!"
"His 'mercy' throttles the common man's survival!" keened a silk-swaddled puppet.
"Salt engulfs the markets! Value disintegrates! Your Majesty, such folly erodes Heaven's Mandate!"
Emperor Shang's jade-weighted grip whitened on the throne's dragon-clawed arms. *Serpents all—yet one shares our imperial blood.
"Address these... grievances, our Son," the Emperor's arctic tone stilled the marionette chorus.
Ye Ling's bow was a choreography of deference. "Should salt pans affront ministerial sensibilities, let the crown's crucible reclaim them in perpetuity."
A sepulchral hush descended.
The Chen coterie's pupils dilated—usurers witnessing bullion transmute to ash.
"Blighted earth birthed Tianqu's industry," Ye Ling proclaimed, palms upturned in feigned concession. "Let imperial smithies now forge its destiny."
Emperor Shang's mirth rumbled like subterranean thunder. "A princely libation fit for ancestral tablets. Does this slake your thirst, merchants?"
Chen San knelt in a pool of gelid sweat. Their machinations inverted—salt pans slithering from private talons to sovereign dominion.
Through veiled lashes, Ye Ling watched revelation blaze. *You schemed to syphon a rill—now drown in the deluge.* Let Chen fang gnash impotently at vermilion gates.
The Salt Rebellion
"Your Majesty," Chen Huai's voice dripped with brazen sophistry, "these saltpans produce *refined* crystals beyond imperial consumption. Commoners cannot afford such luxuries—let Chen San manage distribution through noble households..." The minister of revenue's silver-tongued logic coiled through the hall, its deceit veiled in pragmatism.
Emperor Shang's hesitation lingered—a monarch weighing vipers' counsel against his son's unorthodox vision.
Ye Ling's declaration shattered the stalemate: "Exorbitant pricing? Let us *shatter* its chains!"
A collective inhalation swept the throne room.
"Brother," Prince Xu interposed with poisoned concern, "must you bankrupt the realm for vanity? Selling at a loss—"
"—bleeds the treasury white!" Chen San wailed, silk sleeves fluttering like surrender flags.
Unmoved, Ye Ling addressed the throne: "Tianqu yields 3,100 *dan* monthly after costs. Sold at *one copper per sheng*—ten coppers per *dou*—all proceeds flow to the crown. Wherein lies transgression?"
"*One copper?!*" Chen San crumpled on jade tiles, the clatter echoing his crumbling empire.
Emperor Shang's mirth rumbled like summer thunder. "Salt cheaper than millet! You've unchained heaven's bounty for our people!"
"Ancient texts revealed purification methods," Ye Ling pressed. "Disseminate this knowledge, and every hearth—"
"Blasphemy!" Fu Hai's shriek pierced the hall. "Salt is *celestial alchemy*! To counterfeit it courts heavenly retribution!"
Chen Huai rallied weakly: "To vulgarize imperial privilege—"
"The people are the root," the emperor's voice invoked Mencius' wisdom, "the state the trunk, the sovereign but leaves. Let salt flow as the Yellow River!"
As the Chen faction faced blanched to ash-grey, Ye Ling's gaze swept the court—a falcon surveying scorched fields. *You hoarded celestial gold—now sup on mortal dust.*
Thrones of Salt and Blood
"Insolence!" Fang Yan's voice thundered like a bronze bell. "The Son of Heaven's will flows through Prince Qian's deeds! Dare you name Heaven's wrath upon celestial decree?"
*Masterful strike.* Ye Ling concealed his grim amusement. His mentor's blade-sharp rhetoric sheared through pretence.
Fu Hai, Minister of Rites, curled his lip. "Naturally, you champion your protégé—"
"As his preceptor, I vouch for Prince Qian's untainted virtue!" Fang Yan's jade tablet quivered like a drawn bowstring. "Unlike those supine at their maternal clan's corruption!"
The barb pierced true. Crown Prince Xu's symbiosis with the Chen Clan had long fattened both houses on imperial carrion.
Emperor Shang stilled the brewing storm with raised fingers. "Prince Ling's labour relief quelled catastrophe; his salt alchemy sustains the realm. Let Heaven's favour be marked: twin sovereign jades adorn his regalia, and henceforth, a seat at dawn councils."
The edict hung suspended—a guillotine of favour.
Ye Ling bowed, veiling triumph. *Two imperial orbs—phoenix talons closer to the throne.* "This unworthy son prostrates before Your Celestial Majesty's magnanimity."
Across the hall, Prince Xu's knuckles blanched around his ivory sceptre. The once-dismissed "mud prince" now casts shadows across his ascendancy.
Minister Chen flung himself forward, brow cracking marble. "Yet Crown Prince Xu exhausted solar and lunar cycles in Shan Yang's blighted fields! To deny recognition chills the empire's beating heart!"
*Chen's coffers grow icy, you mean,* Ye Ling observed silently.
The Emperor's smile frosted the hall. "Let Prince Xu likewise attend dawn councils. Our sons' contention shall forge dynastic steel."
"This lowly son...humbly obeys." Prince Xu's prostration masked venom—daggers aimed at Ye Ling's receding shadow.
Alone in the Vermillion Study, the Emperor caressed salt crystals adorning Ye Ling's memorial. "These 'Purity Pearls' gifted to the throne...quarried from defiant mines, I presume?"
Ye Ling's answering silence confessed volumes.
"Cunning asp." The Emperor's chuckle resonated with ancestral phantoms. "You drain Chen's veins to nourish the imperial dragon. But tread warily—even carnelian shatters beneath rival tempests."
Beyond lattice screens, thunderheads gathered—brooding shadows mirroring the court's gathering maelstrom. The Brine Rebellion's drums began their thunderous roll.
Celestial Calculations
The vermilion portals of the Hall of Supreme Harmony sealed with finality, enclosing the emperor and prince in sandalwood-scented solitude.
"You cunning cub," the Emperor admonished, imperial detachment dissolving into paternal asperity. "Your memorial whispered of 'pruning Chen's talons'—not severing their sinews!"
Ye Ling arranged chrysanthemum petals in their teacups with ceremonial precision. "This humble son sought only the people's welfare. Any... ancillary consequences for the Chen Clan were merely fortuitous."
The Emperor's booming laughter startled nesting phoenix birds in the rafters. "Fortuitous? You've reduced their salt dominion to ashes! Now their reprisal will scorch heaven itself."
"Let their flames refine our steel," Ye Ling countered, offering the steaming cup. "With salt revenues fueling foundries and armored cavalry, Father's vision of reclaiming the Lost Chu Territories—"
"—becomes tangible." The Emperor's gaze kindled with renewed vigour. He appraised his son—the martial posture replacing dissipated slouch, the strategist's glint supplanting hazy indolence. When did the whelp become a war dragon?
Ye Ling pressed the advantage. "Export our white gold to neighbouring realms at a tenfold markup—let barbarian silver swell our vaults while our people prosper."
"And Chen's inevitable counterstroke?"
"Already parried." Ye Ling unfurled a silk scroll bearing Chen's vermilion seal—detailed plots to ambush salt caravans. "Thus my petition for the Heaven-Sent Blade."
The Emperor's jade signet rang against porcelain. "That steel has tasted three princes' blood. Wield it with celestial wisdom."
"Wisdom walks with caution's crutches. I'll dance with destiny's dagger."
As twilight gilded the hall in dragon-scale hues, the Emperor's parting words carried unexpected softness: "Your aunt's faction clamours for marital alliances. The Chen maiden they've selected boasts viper's venom cloaked in nightingale's song—ideal for keeping your wits whetted."
Ye Ling's ceremonial bow masked a battle-hardened grimace. Another warfront.
Beyond crimson walls, salt merchants already murmured of the "Alchemy Sovereign"—unaware their fates now balanced on a blade's keen edge above the whetstone of empire.
Silk Scar Secrets
"Rest assured, Father—every venomous candidate Consort Chen selects shall be rejected," Ye Ling vowed, massaging the lingering sting from the Emperor's disciplinary tap.
The Emperor's snort dispersed incense smoke. "Simpleton! These maidens hail from the Five Surnames and Seven Noble Houses. Their dowries bear armies cloaked in silk. Choose strategically!"
Ye Ling's reverence deepened. "This frail son's constitution falters beneath... *colourful* distractions."
"Wise." The Emperor's approval carried glacial pride. "A prince's vitality belongs to governance, not debauchery's theatre."
---
Beneath a gibbous moon, treason blossomed in Fu Manor's peony gardens.
"Your Highness trespasses." Fu Yuanyuan retreated, jade-inlaid slippers crushing fallen osmanthus. Her silver-threaded sleeves became armour against Xu's advance.
"Must you champion that plundering jackal?" Xu's whisper held shattered porcelain's edge. "The ironclad schematics—the salt alchemy—were forged with *Chen* gold! Ling merely pilfered another's genius!"
Yuanyuan's moon-pale fan stilled mid-arc. "Evidenced how?"
"Shall I exhume Chen ledgers?" Xu's sandalwood scent turned cloying. "That wine-soaked wastrel couldn't refine brine from a courtesan's tears! His 'triumph' bleeds my maternal clan to husks!"
Cicadas silenced as Yuanyuan pivoted. "Why unveil this nocturne?"
"Because—" Xu seized her sash, lips grazing torn silk "—only *your* access to his bedchamber can extract the formula. Let love's mask become betrayal's blade."
Yuanyuan twisted free, midnight hair unfurling like battle standards. "You mistake feminine artifice for fragility, Highness."
"Do I?" Xu's smile mirrored eclipsed moonlight. "Chen and Fu ancestors share crypts. When salt tides devour us, will your chastity ransom starving kin?"
As temple bells mourned the hour, Yuanyuan studied the severed sash—silk rebellion marker. Distant vermilion lanterns outlined Ye Ling's silhouette debating tariffs, oblivious to adders in his rose garden.
The chessboard tilted. Now even night-blooming jasmine concealed venomous thorns.
Whispers in the Dark
Were it not for *that* accursed hour, Fu Yuanyuan's existence might never have shattered into this jagged tapestry of remorse.
Tears cascaded unrelenting down her pallid cheeks as she retreated to the prince's demesne, a grief so cavernous it etched tributaries into the marrow of her spirit. Her mind orbited Ye Changfeng's final entreaties—words engraved upon her heart as indelibly as sigils upon ancient stone.
*If only*—the refrain clawed at her conscience—*had she anchored her trust in him, had she not rent their betrothal asunder, might fate have spun a kinder skein?
When she attained the manor's threshold, twilight had yielded to a stygian void, the night's maw so ravenous it consumed even the spectre of her quivering fingers.
Swathed in tenebrous silks, her tresses denuded of adornment, Fu Yuanyuan drifted like a penitent phantom into Ye Ling's inner sanctum. If Rumour's breath held verity—if he indeed hoarded the arcana to transmute brine into argent—then the cypher lay interred within these vaulted walls.
"My lady, do we dare?" Hongluan breathed, her voice a frayed thread as she appraised Fu Yuanyuan's sepulchral guise. A serpent of foreboding writhed within her breast.
"What alternative persists?" Fu Yuanyuan's whisper trembled, her tears refracting dim light into fractured constellations. "His constancy exacts requital… This paltry gambit is all I proffer."
*Absolve me, Ye Ling*, her soul keened, *yet this web is of your own weaving. Had you not plundered the Chen lineage's legacy, draping larceny in laurels, Ye Changfeng's entreaties would have perished unborn.
Piloted by intimate mastery of the estate—hard-won through solitudinous stewardship—she traversed the serpentine corridors. Her quarry: breach the study ere Ye Ling's return and exhume the coveted alchemical formulae.
As sentinels slackened their vigil, she flowed through their ranks, a wisp absorbed by the study's umbral embrace. Fu Yuanyuan's mnemic precision resurrected the chamber's pristine order; now, her digits brushed perturbations—disquieted scrolls, displaced lacquerware—hunting the secreted trove.
"Yuanyuan… Does *this* slake your thirst for truth?"
Ye Ling's baritone cleaved the stillness. He materialized behind her, vellum clenched in a taloned fist—diagrams sprawling across the surface like venomous vines.
"You—how—?" She stiffened, air congealing in her lungs.
"This dominion answers to *my* will," he pronounced, capturing her jaw with permafrost poise. "Yet you… how exquisitely you lacerate what remains."
Time and again, she had cleaved his trust for Ye Changfeng's spectre. Once, his retribution would have descended as a falchion's kiss. Now, only arctic void persisted—trust's pyre reduced to bitter ash.
*No matter. Even fractured vessels may be remoulded.
"I…" Contrition withered her tongue, yet rebellion flowered in its stead. "This craft was wrought by Master Lu beneath Prince Xu's aegis! By what celestial mandate do you enshroud it? The Chen house trembles at oblivion's brink by your machinations—what breed of despot dares such infamy?"
Scarlet Bargains
"Indeed, my mercilessness knows no bounds!" Ye Ling's laughter dripped with frost as his gaze dissected Fu Yuanyuan's trembling form. "Were I truly the monster you paint me, your treacherous breaths would have been extinguished a thousandfold."
"Prince Ling", she entreated, dignity unravelling like frayed silk, "restore the salt alchemy to its progenitors." When stealth had failed, she now bartered with humiliation.
"Granted," he purred, circling her like a wolf scenting vulnerability. "Divest yourself of every thread. Prove your... devotion... here, now." His command slithered through the chamber, a serpent testing how deeply shame could root.
"Must you drape tyranny in regal robes?" she countered, embers smouldering beneath her lashes.
"*My* tyranny?" His chuckle was the rasp of a whetstone. "My own bride conspires with vipers to loot my coffers, yet *I* am the oppressor?" His voice hardened to obsidian. "Hypocrisy becomes your second skin."
With a violent shudder, Fu Yuanyuan surrendered her garments—a storm of silk pooling at her feet. Ebony hair cascaded over marble flesh as she knelt, a fractured moon goddess veiled in night's embrace. "By all you once cherished... spare the Chen lineage."
Her supplication hung, suspended in amber air. Carmine-tipped fingers gripped his boot, her throat blooming peony hues of degradation—each detail a sonnet of fallen grace.
"May the Chen halls crumble to ash," Ye Ling spat, recoiling as though her nakedness seared. "For that whimpering alone, the formula remains eternally beyond your grasp." Disgust contorted his regal features.
"You vowed—!" Her cry splintered like frosted glass.
"And you trusted the oath of a 'wastrel'? A 'feckless worm'?" He weaponised her past contempt. "How swiftly virtue bends when desperation beckons."
"*Ye Ling!*" The syllables tore from her, a dagger plunged into her own breast.
"Your loathing wearies me," he dismissed, turning toward shadows. "Was I ever more than your father's bargaining chip? Ye Changfeng's marionette? Yet *I* alone offered genuine regard."
As she lunged, the scene petrified—a fallen deity prostrate at his feet, tear-stained visage lifted in martyred splendour. Her calculated allure trembled against raw despair's undercurrent.
"Demand any toll," she breathed, lips grazing his boot's gilt embroidery. "All is yours."
For a suspended moment, Ye Ling faltered—this tableau of abjection awakened primal shadows. Then ice reclaimed his veins. "Your fatal vanity", he murmured, "lies in believing yourself the gilded stake in this game of thrones."
Alchemy of Betrayal
The woman knelt in studied disarray, her dishevelment a masterclass in orchestrated vulnerability—a courtesan's artifice masquerading as desperation.
"What mortal could resist such choreographed ruin?" Ye Ling mused, his gaze lingering on the crescent of pallid skin revealed beneath Fu Yuanyuan's artfully tangled tresses. Untutored yet instinctive, she had transmuted his sanctum into a theatre of abasement. For a suspended breath, the sacrilege of defiling this hallowed space with her penitence ignited forbidden curiosity.
"Your Grace", she entreated, voice quivering like a zither string plucked to breaking, "grant mercy to the Chens. Yield the salt-alchemy formulae to Prince Xu."
"Perish in oblivion's maw!" Ye Ling's mirth cleaved the air, edged with guillotine precision. "Clothe your farce ere guards mistake you for a dockside strumpet. What tawdry theatrics these are!"
Her unveiled flesh, once a blade of seduction, now lay discarded as a soiled stratagem. As Ye Ling swept toward Concubine Lüwu's pavilion, Fu Yuanyuan's fingers convulsed against abandoned silks, her psyche adrift on memory's treacherous tides. Ghosts surfaced—Ye Ling's boyish oath beneath plum blossoms, his trembling vow to claim her hand after some forgotten tournament. *Had she traded sapphire for pyrite?
---
**Veins of Empire**
While Fu Yuanyuan languished in gilded isolation, Ye Ling marshalled silent wars. The salt veins threading Shang's realm—arteries feeding the imperial coffers—lay throttled by Chancellor Chen Huai, Ye Changfeng's uncle and puppet master of the Ministry of Revenue. A hydra thus coiled: half the realm's riches pulsed through Chen capillaries.
"Worthless hounds!" Ye Changfeng's roar set inkstones trembling, scrolls fleeing their shelves like startled quail. The Disaster Relief gambit had eroded his influence, while Fu Yuanyuan's silence festered like canker. "That bedchamber turncoat breathes still? We expected loyalty from a concubine's perfumed sheets?"
Chen Huai's chuckle dripped arsenic wisdom. "Salt flows in our blood. Let the pretender dabble in alchemy—we hold the mountain's heartbeat. No ore, no sorcery."
---
**Gilded Subterfuge**
Yet within Ye Ling's compound, darker transmutations brewed. Nightly, Concubine Lüwu's chambers hummed with conspiratorial whispers—salt routes charted across unfurled silk, jade fingers tracing tributaries of power.
"The Chens clutch dying loads," Lüwu murmured, lips grazing Ye Ling's ear as maps whispered secrets, "but dormant veins... *hunger."
A slow flame kindled in Ye Ling's gaze. Let earthbound fools hoard depleted stone. True dominion lay not in what mountains yielded but in crafting new alchemies—and reducing dynasties to ash.
Crystallized Malice
The Chen treasury, already drained pale by disaster-relief coffers, now endured a wound more visceral than surgical dissection—the severance of salt's golden lifelines.
"Uncle's composure masks… distilled scheming?" Ye Changfeng's gaze sharpened to a blade's edge as officials scurried like roaches beneath cinnabar-lacquered arches.
"The Sixth Prince's alchemical theatrics with brine grant fleeting dominance," Chen Huai's jade-adorned finger traced serpentine paths across parchment. "Yet if his crystalline 'trophies' harbour basilisk's breath…?"
Silence congealed like quicksilver before shattering into obsidian laughter. Ye Changfeng's scowl melted into a jackal's grin as the plot unfurled—a silk-sheathed dagger finding its mark.
**The Nectar of Belladonna**
Chen Huai's sibilant murmur perfumed the incense-cloyed air: "We shall lace relief stores with arsenic's silver kiss. When the masses convulse at vermilion gates…" His fingers danced like a shadow puppeteer's. "…even imperial healers will prostrate before our forged truth."
"Brilliant!" Ye Changfeng's sandalwood fan cracked like a judge's gavel. "Let salt become his jade shroud."
Their silhouettes fused beneath a leprous moon—regent and chancellor executing the age-old minuet of treachery. For generations, the Chens had transmuted salt's innocent lattice into gilded poison. Now they would alchemize Ye Ling's triumph into an urn of ashes.
**Requiem at Dawn**
Three moons later, the capital awoke to staged bedlam. A hundred peasants lurched like poisoned marionettes before scarlet portals, their wails underscored by corpse-strewn pallets:
"The Humble Prince's salt devours children's souls!"
"Poisoned salt drowned my grandson in blood-froth!"
A bent crone brandished onyx-glutinous cakes—crafted props exhaling arsenic's metallic sigh. The mob's murmur swelled to a tempest: merchants' crocodile tears, Chen agents' velvet lies, true victims clutching toxin-swollen bellies.
**Dynastic Crucible**
Shang Huang's phoenix sceptre quivered as he surveyed the spectacle. "This very salt graced our jade table!" Yet wormwood doubt took root—salt's dual role as lifeblood and death knell now etched into imperial bone.
From the Celestial Observatory's pinnacle, Ye Ling observed the choreographed tragedy. His fingertips brushed salt-encoded ledgers—each granule a mute chronicler of Chen's fiscal haemorrhage. Tonight's gibbous moon would illuminate not just this farce but the alchemical truth slumbering in forgotten mines.
The Masquerade of Vermilion Tears
The vermilion gates stood barricaded—ministers bound for dawn court now prisoners beyond the mob's undulating sea. Yet amidst the absence, Chen Huai emerged like a scorpion from shadowed crevices, his nocturnal "diligence" at the palace's outer pavilion proving serendipitously convenient.
"Majesty," Chen Huai murmured with serpentine concern, "this orchestrated mob threatens not merely Prince Ling's reputation but the empire's beating heart. Yet forcible dispersal might..."
"Legitimise their lies?" Shang Huang's obsidian gaze swept over the writhing throng. Below, peasants howled of salt-slain kin; above, Chen Huai's lips curved in spectral triumph.
"Fetch Prince Ling through the Moon Gate—swiftly!" The emperor's command cleaved the pretence-laden air.
---
**Chamber of Carnal Diplomacy**
In Ye Ling's bedchamber, limbs lay entwined in silken decadence—a sanctuary shattered by staccato pounding.
"Must Dawn's impertinence intrude?" Ye Ling growled, palm lingering on Lüwu's peach-blossom contours.
"My lord—cataclysm!" Steward Liu's voice pierced the lacquered screens. "An engineered mob decries your salt as venom!"
Ye Ling's mirth dissolved. "Venom? Our own chalices overflow with it nightly!" Robes whispered as he dressed, mind whirring. "Authentic refugees or Chen's puppets?"
"Tianqu dialects ring true, yet authenticity drowns in theatrics," Liu conceded.
A wolfish grin bloomed as Ye Ling caressed Lüwu's waist. "Fret not, my peony—this charade finds me forearmed." His thumb traced her collarbone's alabaster arc. "Anticipate... *blossoming* upon my return."
---
**Labyrinth of Lies**
Approaching the besieged palace, Ye Ling dissected the grotesque pageantry:
- **Stage North**: Wailing crones clutching "corpses" daubed in oxblood theatrics.
- **Stage South**: Physicians-for-hire brandishing bogus arsenic scrolls
- **Epicenter**: Chen Huai weaving poisoned counsel into the emperor's ear
Yet amidst the cacophony, Ye Ling's gaze snared on a girl-child—her palms stained not with counterfeit gore, but indigo from Chen dye vats.
*Ah,* he exhaled inwardly; *even puppeteers shed scales.*
To be continuous…