Chapter 10: The Alchemy of Humiliation
"Piracy, you claim?" A scholar long suffering under Chen Tong's insolence stepped forth, his voice a scalpel slicing through pretence. "Young Master Chen, we who breathe the ink of classics recognize genius—His Highness's verse is a celestial tapestry, impervious to your moth-eaten barbs!"
Chen Tong's complexion mottled like spoiled milk, the heat of a thousand gazes branding his shame. This, his maiden voyage into public ignominy—all charted by that *wretched princeling's* hand!
"Why gawk like carrion birds?" Chen Tong's chalice clattered, wine bleeding across sandalwood as his tremor betrayed him.
"Because," Ye Ling's eyes glinted like obsidian arrowheads, "royalty polishes vows to lethal edges."
A gesture—subtle as a spider's leg twitch—summoned Liu Ren. From shadowed alcoves emerged twelve Dragon Guards, one bearing a sloshing nightsoil pail whose stench declared its purpose.
"You—this farce of justice—!" Chen Tong's collar darkened with sweat, his bluster dissolving like sugar in monsoon rains.
Liu Ren moved—a falcon's strike. The courtesan clinging to Chen Tong's lap tumbled away, her painted wails smearing the air as he dangled the nobleman like a gutted pheasant.
"Madam Wu!" Chen Tong's shriek pierced the hall. "You sanction this *imperial banditry* in your establishment?!"
The madam's silk kerchief shredded between clawed fingers, torn between the Dragon Guards' naked steel and the Chen clan's retribution. "Your Celestial Highness... perhaps... a sliver of clemency—"
"Clemency?" Ye Ling's chuckle frost-burned the air. "What visage merits preservation for a Chen-bred cur?"
The barb struck deep. Memories resurged—this very bawd had peddled his drunken escapades to censors, her whispers sharpening their admonishing scrolls.
"His August Personage", Ye Ling pronounced, "chisels justice from unyielding jade."
As Liu Ren forced Chen Tong's face toward the reeking vessel, Silk whispered salvation. The familiar maid descended, her announcement a silver bell amidst cacophony:
"Miss Miaor acknowledges your couplet's perfection. The second conundrum awaits your wisdom upstairs."
All breath stilled—even Chen Tong's whimpers crystallized midair.
Ye Ling's smile unfurled—a snow leopard sparing prey. "It appears the muses crave continued duels over scatological theatre... for the nonce."
Alchemy of Verse and Vengeance
Miaor's tacit endorsement ignited the Chunfeng Ruyi Lou—gazes molten with envy, awe, and venom tracked Ye Ling's ascent as the maid's glacial gesture beckoned upward.
"His Celestial Highness may now grace the upper chambers," the attendant intoned, her voice frosted with disdainful protocol.
"Unfinished alchemies demand completion." Ye Ling's sidelong glance at Liu Ren became a dagger drawn.
The nightsoil vessel yawned open, its putrid breath defiling incense-laden air. Delicacies curdled to ash on noble palates as silk-clad guests retched into brocade napkins.
"You—insane—! The Chen patriarch's blood flows in me! The imperial concubine's nephew—!" Chen Tong's threats disintegrated into feral howls as Liu Ren plunged his skull into the reeking abyss.
A cacophony of gagging erupted. Patrons crumpled like discarded puppets, their finery stained with humiliation's bile, while Chen Tong—swathed in excremental grotesquerie—thrashed like a speared carp. Not even his cowering retinue dared approach until Madam Wu's hissed decree sent pinch-nosed lackeys hauling him off, his curses trailing like a plague miasma.
"Rotting—*carrion spawn*—I'll feed your entrails to hounds—!" Chen Tong's haemorrhage-red eyes vowed carnage between vomitous convulsions.
Madam Wu turned to Ye Ling, her face a theatre mask of counterfeit anguish. "Your Augustness, the ramifications—"
"Oaths carved in ancestral bone." Ye Ling's smile chilled wine. "Silence, madam, is the accomplice's signature."
Leaving devastation in his wake, the prince ascended toward Miaor's crimson sanctum—where she materialized like a blood-born phoenix, décolletage a snowfield defying modesty's frost. Her voice, colder than moonlight on burial jade, unveiled the riddle:
*"Celestial orbs share dawn's blindness; peak-born zephyrs midwife their own haze. Granite flesh fissures yet defy decay; arboreal ancients desiccate but refuse death."
Ye Ling's riposte flew, unblinking:
*"When shall the destined alight? Ten thousand li cradle twin yearnings. Timeless odes hymn the golden crane; the scholar's resolve outlives erosion."
Miaor's glacial veneer fractured—a tremor in vermillion lips, a falter in lotus-step poise. For the first time, the prince's effortless virtuosity had thawed her permafrost composure.
The brothel's breath suspended. Below, a shattered porcelain cup wept wine—Chen Tong's muffled imprecations swirling like a curse-laden mist.
Zither's Scorn and the Princely Gambit
"*Five hundred enlightened cross the torrent; on moon-kissed shores, a thousand Buddha-hearts bloom,*" Miaor intoned her third challenge, her bearing as unyielding as carved jade.
"*A solitary nymph beneath the lunar orb—twin celestials mirrored across mortal and divine realms,*" Ye Ling riposted without hesitation, his gaze tracing the sinuous lines of her figure. *A living sculpture of allure,* he mused, *where even the Muses would abandon Olympus.
"Such—such brazen disrespect toward our lady!" Cuiwei interjected shrilly, her indignation outracing Miaor's glacial composure.
"Disrespect?" Ye Ling's chuckle dripped with derision. "Do painted peonies in a pleasure garden resent being admired? Or perhaps your establishment peddles virtue alongside vice?"
*Harlots posturing as priestesses—what exquisite farce!
"Three trials vanquished," Ye Ling's voice hardened. "Where lies my recompense?"
"Cuiwei", Miaor's command sliced through tension like frozen silk, "conduct His Augustness to the upper chamber." Her sidelong glance simmered with icy disdain. *Let this upstart prince drown in the labyrinth of my zither's wrath.
"*Your Celestial Highness*," Cuiwei spat the honorific like poison, "deign to ascend."
Above, the air thrummed with plucked constellations—Miaor's zither wove tempests and whispers behind closed doors, each note a blade sheathed in silk.
"Hundred-tael tribute for auditory privilege," Cuiwei barred the threshold, palm upturned like a beggar queen's. "House canon".
Ye Ling flicked a silver-inscribed note against her palm. "How charming—a brothel masquerading as the Hall of Harmonious Virtue."
Within the perfumed sanctum, jasmine tea steamed beside rosewater-infused delicacies. Ye Ling reclined, devouring honey-glazed pastries as Miaor's fingertips danced—a composition so intricate it had once silenced the Imperial Music Bureau's maestros.
Only when silence reclaimed the chamber did Miaor note his sacrilege. Rage crystallized her porcelain demeanour.
"What verdict does Your Grace pronounce upon this humble performance?" Her query trembled with contained fury.
"Adequate diversion." Ye Ling licked sugared residue from his thumb.
"Further critique?"
"Tolerably adequate." His grin widened. "You shall provide frequent recitals in my private quarters, I think."
*Bedwarmer and court musician—two services for one conquest!
Miaor's countenance darkened to stormcloud hues. "Cuiwei! The prince's audience concludes!"
"Concludes?!" Ye Ling surged upright, goblet clattering. "Riddles unravelled, couplets perfected—for this paltry *tea-house amusement?!"
Cuiwei interposed herself like a sparrow defending a phoenix nest. "This is the Pavilion of Blossoming Refinement! Our lady traffics in artistry, not fleshly commerce!"
"Artistry?" Ye Ling's yawn echoed like a death knell. "Bury your hypocrisy with yesterday's chamber pots. Guards!"
Beyond latticed windows, the dragon-scaled vanguard ascended—their armoured footfalls composing a dirge of impending reckoning.
The Venomous Waltz and the Prince's Paradox
"A denizen of pleasure quarters dares wield such hauteur?" Ye Ling's mirth carried the edge of a whetted blade. "What fool nourished this weed of insolence?"
"If Your Grace's soul remains deaf to harmony," Miaor countered, her cadence mirroring the maid's glacial scorn, "why shower indignity upon those bound to serve?"
"Harmony?" His gaze traced the sinuous architecture of her form. "I collect *living symphonies*. Your composition merits display in my private gallery—not squandered in this theatre of pretence."
He moved—python swift—encircling Miaor's wasp-waisted grace, her dancer's musculature taut yet yielding as tempered steel. A deliberate thumb-stroke along her iliac crest drew twin responses: her gasp, his smirk.
"Unhand me!" Her struggle mimicked caged songbird fury, fists drumming futile crescendos against his chest. "Ye Ling! My mercy wears thinner than dawn mist!"
Laughter trailing like smoke, he advanced toward the velvet-draped sanctum, her resistance but zephyrs against monsoon resolve.
"You dance with the executioner's axe!" Miaor's coiffure birthed a stiletto—onyx-sheathed, its tip glistening with wolfsbane nectar. The lethal kiss hovered at his pulsing life cord. "Final curtain falls *now."
"Amateur theatrics." Steel shrieked as Ye Ling's heel ground the venomous needle into splinters. His embrace became vice-like, aligning their vertebrae until dual heartbeats composed a discordant fugue—hers staccato panic, his adagio control. "Did your informants omit my disarming of the Imperial Blade Masters at twelve summers?"
The disclosure petrified her mid-struggle. Thermals of contact seeped through gossamer layers, his scent—aged sandalwood layered over cold-forged iron—dissolving fury into treacherous fascination.
"Summon your chorus if courage allows." His lips brushed the helix of her ear, words dulcet yet lethal. "But mark—assault on imperial blood demands nine generations' extermination. Though I conjecture…" His chuckle resonated against her cervical vertebrae. "…your ancestral tree stands long barren."
Miaor's diaphragm faltered. The chessboard had flipped—queen ensnared by pawn, her glacial stratagems liquefying beneath dragonfire audacity.
Masquerade of Loyalty and Lust
"Not of Shang's sacred bloodline, are you? 'Little exotic songbird' seems a fitting epithet." Ye Ling's gaze dissected Miaor's guise. Those cerulean-flecked irises—legacy of Chu's northern tribes, distinct from Shang's honeyed gazes—proclaimed her foreign roots.
"Regicide? Absurd theatrics!" Miaor's protest fluttered like moth wings, kohl-rimmed eyes wide with counterfeit innocence. "Merely preserving honour against princely predation!"
"Honour's guardians don't nest in brothels," he retorted, blade-words severing pretence. "Those Chu merchants reek of ill-gotten wealth. Why not beg their patronage for emancipation?"
Miaor's carotid pulsed—a hummingbird beneath jade skin. *He's unearthed the web.* "Those blubbering sea-swine?" Her laughter tinkled false as windchimes, fingertips sketching cryptic sigils along his radial artery. "None rival Your Grace's... *refined palate."
Her caress—a venomous orchid's brush—betrayed years honed in Chu's spycraft crucible. Scion of a dynasty bred to seduce and slaughter, now balanced on betrayal's precipice.
"Curious... this intimacy with foreign factors." Ye Ling's smile mirrored a fox before a henhouse. "Shall we plumb the depths of your... *acquaintances?"
His palm trespassed beneath brocade barriers, discovering alabaster topography—warm, quivering, and slick with perilous dew. Osmanthus and nightshade perfumed the air, intoxicant and warning entwined.
"Desist—!" Miaor's objection crumbled mid-syllable. Her traitorous spine arched, muscles memorizing treason.
"Reluctant songbird?" Ye Ling withdrew—swift as unsheathed steel—abandoning her to a sudden arctic void. "Then barter for liberty. What coin purchases reprieve tonight?"
Miaor's diaphragm spasmed—dread and forbidden yearning duelling beneath ribs. "What currency?"
"Secrets". He orbited her like vultures circle moribund prey. "Your Chu operatives' aliases. Their harbour-drop signals. Their—"
"Never!" The courtesan's mask shattered, revealing wolf-bared fangs.
"Then inscribe your requiem." Ye Ling gestured to the night—flame-lit shadows beyond latticework revealing Dragon Guards encircling the pavilion. "Your spies neglected my tripled sentries after our... *illuminating* musical interlude."
Miaor's patellae liquefied. The chessboard lay upturned, queen toppled by pawn. From below, a zither's gut string snapped—twanging a death knell through opium-thick air.
The Silk Road Conspiracy and the Concubine's Calculus
"Chu's machinations intrigue me profoundly," Ye Ling declared, his gaze dissecting Miaor's azure-flecked irises—windows to a heritage far nobler than any brothel could birth. "Those so-called merchants reek of Chu's aristocracy. What state secrets have they bartered for your favours?"
He knew—with the certainty of a swordsman sensing weakness—this woman's lineage dripped royal ichor. Her tongue guarded treasures beyond gold.
"What… specifics do you seek?" Miaor retreated, vermilion-lacquered nails scoring crescent moons into her palms. His scrutiny peeled layers like an onion's skin.
"The tapestry entire." His smile glinted like a dagger left in moonlight.
"*Entirety*?" The syllable cracked like overstrained lute strings. *Betray my blood? I, Zhao Miaor, seventh star of Chu's celestial court?
"Let us dance gently first." Ye Ling lounged against a sandalwood screen, the epitome of lethal nonchalance. "How many moons will your Chu 'traders' hawk those brined crustaceans? Do they thirst for… sustained partnership?"
He recognized her influence—princess or pawn, she'd bridge Shang's goods to Chu's coffers.
"Commercial endeavours?" Miaor's mind whirled—alchemical calculations beneath lowered lashes. Shang's salt! Their fermented grape ambrosia! Rivers of wealth awaited whoever controlled these trade arteries. Let the court fools posture; *she* would channel this gold into her maternal clan's vaults.
"I shall… investigate," she demurred, eyes veiled by jade-painted lids. "Should they prove reticent, other merchants might court such ventures."
"Delightful." Ye Ling's knuckle traced her jawline—a predator's mock caress. "For such cooperation, a consort's chambers await in my western pavilion."
"This sparrow knows her place lies not in phoenix nests." Miaor's bow dripped saccharine deceit. *Consort? When I'll command shadows as Chu's spider queen?
"Regret's vintage ages poorly." His laughter slithered through incense smoke. "The last noblewoman who scorned me now combs pearls through my bathwaters."
"My palate prefers regret's absence." Her smile could preserve glaciers.
As Ye Ling turned to depart, he scattered strategic breadcrumbs—hints of Zhao Ling'er's resurgence through stolen schematics, veiled confirmations of Chu's salt famine. Miaor's guarded responses sketched a map: dormant war engines, markets ripe for plunder.
"Pine for me, little minstrel?" He paused at the moonlit threshold, fingers memorizing the dip of her waist. "The Golden Crustacean's doors groan for your melancholy ballads."
Silk curtains billowed in his wake. Miaor collapsed onto brocade cushions, tremors of fury vibrating through her frame. Beneath embroidered sleeves, nails drew sanguine hieroglyphs on palms—silent vows to transmute this humiliation into dominion. Somewhere, a nightingale's lament threaded through the darkness—a dirge for empires dancing on knife-edges.
Festung of Lies and Royal Ambitions
Upon sealing the trade accord, Ye Ling urgently dispatched Liu Ren to Golden Crab Pavilion, demanding expedited preparation of crab preserves. "Execute this flawlessly," he commanded, "and foreign treasuries shall haemorrhage silver into our dominion!"
*Why siphon copper from peasants when foreign gold flows like monsoon rivers?
**Chen Ancestral Hall**
Chen Tong convulsed over a celadon basin, his flesh scoured pink yet reeking of indelible shame. Five sunsets had bled since Liu Ren's Dragon Guard subjected him to nightsoil's baptism, yet his delirium echoed through ancestral corridors: "Flay that princeling's bones to dust!"
"Begone!" He shattered a servant's porridge bowl, gruel splattering across Prince Ye Changfeng's python-embroidered boots.
"Insolent maggot!" Patriarch Chen Huai thundered. "Prostrate before His Highness of Xu!"
"Gr-Grace..." Chen Tong's attempt at obeisance dissolved into heaving, spewing putrid ooze that drowned the hall's frantic sandalwood fumigation.
"What… misfortune… incurred this?" Ye Changfeng queried through jasmine-soaked silk, with counterfeit concern frosting his tone.
"Annihilate him! That gutter-born Ye Ling deserves sinews peeled!" Chen Tong wailed between acidic belches, weaving fact with venomous fiction.
*Human detritus,* Ye Changfeng mused, observing the quivering disgrace. *If Ye Ling's the court's cesspit, this creature is the filth swirling beneath.
As Chen Huai sought to shepherd the prince from this odorous farce, his spawn croaked revelation: "Wait! The rot prince consorted with Chu spies at Blossom Breeze Pavilion!"
Ye Changfeng's courtly façade fissured, revealing viperine delight. "Treasonous congress with our eternal foe? Are you sworn?"
"Madam Wu's tongue will testify!" Chen Tong hawked bile. "And that Zhao sorceress reeks of Chu's sulphurous schemes!"
The Xu Prince's pupils dilated—carrion birds spotting battlefield spoils. *Even worm-riddled timber fuels the pyre when burning rivals.*
Labyrinth of Betrayal and the Throne's Silent Judgment
Chen Tong's creed had ever been annihilation of the unattainable. Since Miaor had granted Ye Ling entry to her sanctum, he'd immolate their shared ground with cleansing fire.
"Your Augustness," Chen Huai whispered through venom-laced teeth to Prince Ye Changfeng, "the lunar cycle of grace concludes. Let us weave treason's tapestry first—craft evidence of Ye Ling's Chu collusion. Once branded a traitor, divine intervention itself could not redeem him!"
This transcended mere succession rivalry; Ye Ling's machinations had severed the Chen clan's spiritual meridians. Survival now demanded scorched-earth retribution.
"But evidentiary alchemy..." Ye Changfeng demurred, hesitation born not of fraternal piety but tactical trepidation.
"The Dali Temple's scales tip to our favour now," Chen Huai's grin resembled curdled yak butter. "Fabrications morph into gospel with sufficient silver and blade-kisses. Fu Xianxian's nuptial chains bind her clan's judicial influence to our cause."
As they brewed poisonous stratagems, Ye Ling inked fresh crab-trade accords through Miaor's mediation—transforming carapaced vermin into gilded commerce while others blinked.
**Jade Throne Hall**
"Celestial Majesty!" Chen Huai prostrated before the dragon dais, smearing the marble with performative devotion. "Prince Ye Ling traffics with Chu's shadow-walkers! His crimes blaspheme against heaven's mandate!"
The Imperial Astrologer intoned, "The courtesan's lineage reeks of northern miasma!"
The Dali Minister unrolled parchment forged in deceit: "Inquisitions confirm Ye Ling's treasonous dalliance with Chu's blue-blooded vipers!"
The chamber erupted—mandarins howling for bloodied scaffolds, others pleading for gilded cages. Emperor Shang observed from his celestial perch, coldly charting allegiance's cartography.
"Ye Ling." The imperial voice stilled the tempest. "What countermand do you tender?"
The prince stood unruffled amidst the maelstrom. Weekly court rituals bored him—today's theatrics at least promised diversion. Between distilling wines and managing crustacean exports, somnolence had become his faithful shadow.
"Countermand?" Ye Ling's yawn drew scandalized gasps. "When carrion crows caw, must the sun account for its brilliance?"
A tomb's hush descended. Somewhere, a censored scroll whispered—its secrets far more incendiary than the Chen clan's paltry forgeries.
The Irony of Thorns and the Throne's Awakening
"Hmmm?" Ye Ling massaged his eyelids with exaggerated torpor, surveying the ministerial flock through a sleep-smudged gaze. "What tempest disturbs the hive?"
"Cease these thespian antics, Your Grace!" The Dali minister unfurled scrolls like battle standards. "Two condemnations bind you: Madam Wu's testament to your Chu trysts and captured spies chronicling your Tuoba clan collusion. What rebuttal lingers?"
His smirk unfurled like a venomous banner, certain of imminent conquest.
"Imperial Father," Prince Ye Changfeng interposed with crocodilian lamentations, "my sibling stumbled through callow nescience. Surely clemency—"
"Nescience?" Fu Hai hissed. "Consorting with wartime foes? This is high treason, not a juvenile blunder!"
Chen Huai's tone oozed saccharine sanctimony: "Even Your Highness's fraternal devotion cannot shroud such felonies!"
Ye Ling observed the pantomime, laughter bubbling beneath a stoic veneer. *How tediously transparent these carrion crows are.
"When did I profess obliviousness to their stations?" His query cleaved the cacophony.
The chamber petrified.
"You… confess culpability?" Chen Huai's pupils dilated with lupine hunger.
"Culpability?" Ye Ling's smile dazzled like midsummer sunrays. "I merely bartered crab preserves with Chu traders. Since when did mercantile exchange equate to lèse-majesté?"
"Prevarications!" Fu Hai's spittle-flecked jade tiles. "Nations at daggers drawn! No licit commerce breathes here!"
"Ah, but golden threads mend sundered realms." Ye Ling produced a vermilion-sealed accord. "Five thousand chests of Shang's alabaster salt traded for ten thousand Chu destriers. Countersigned by Chu's Minister of Mercantile Sovereignty."
The emperor inclined forward, jade scepter quivering like a divining rod sensing seismic truth. "Elucidate."
"While addlepates conspired," Ye Ling ascended dais steps, "I transmuted Chu's salt famine into bridles for their cavalry. Their war steeds now graze on our briny yields, their martial might leashed by our exports. What becomes of conflict when economies conjugate?"
A susurrus swept the hall—awe and trepidation entwined.
Ye Changfeng's facade fissured. "This… this transgresses all protocol!"
"Protocol?" The Emperor rose, dragon-robed shoulders ablaze with approval. "My scion forges manacles from mollusks! Let Chu's armies wax corpulent on our salt—their rebellions shall starve sans our largesse!"
The Dali Minister's scrolls slithered from his palsied grasp. Somewhere beyond lacquered beams, a lone cicada rasped—nature's jeer at mortal machinations.
Gilded Fetters and the Sovereign's Decree
"Why should commerce not thrive?" Ye Ling extended his palms like a jeweller revealing precious stones. "Our rivers teem with crustacean plagues. Why let them fester when Chu's gold can alchemize vermin into fortune? Wine and salt shall follow—torrents through newly opened mercantile veins."
He pivoted toward the throne, eyes ablaze. "Dynasties swell upon trade's bosom, Imperial Father. Past defeats sprouted from barren treasuries. Now, let our foes' coffers underwrite our ascendancy!"
Prince Ye Changfeng's smile soured like milk under monsoon heat. "How virtuous—if one disregards treason's miasma perfuming your 'enterprise'."
"Shall I mourn indolent palms?" Ye Ling riposted. "Toil begets worth. Must the crown eternally nourish slothful parasites?"
The gibe pierced Ye Changfeng's concealed scar—visions of squandered silver and humiliating routs resurged.
"Silence." Emperor Shang's utterance petrified the chamber. "The crustacean blight—your resolution approaches its celestial deadline."
"My brother's establishments purchase river demons at princely sums," Ye Changfeng interposed, venom sugared like courtesan's whispers. "Dire straits birth peculiar allegiances, do they not?"
The Emperor's gaze honed to razor keenness. "You suggest my scion's Chu affairs abet calamity's redress?"
A synchronized gasp leached air from the hall.
Ye Changfeng wavered, ensnared betwixt feigned fraternal devotion and venomous revelation. "Clemency seasons jurisprudence, Imperial Father. Let juvenile fervor attenuate—"
"Clemency?" The Emperor ascended, dragon-embroidered robes hissing like stormwinds. "When did my days become marionette strings pulled by guildmasters and conspiring uncles?"
His regard swept the Chen faction—a naked blade. "You bemoan oppression while clutching tax rolls dripping with peasant gore. You condemn foreign trade whilst monopolizing silk routes."
Ye Ling inclined his head, veiling triumphant mirth. The Emperor's subsequent pronouncements resonated with glacial wrath:
"Let Chu's steeds charge upon our salt. Let their aristocrats quaff our wines. When their legions advance, they'll find blades corroded by reliance, resolve eroded by opulence. This is warfare waged not with steel—but through prosperity's insidious venom."
The Dali minister's knees kissed marble. Ye Changfeng's porcelain demeanour fissured.
"Regarding you", the Emperor turned to Ye Ling, "crabs and vintages are mere overtures. Fashion aureate manacles to fetter empires. Let commerce be our dynasty's mute phalanx."
Beyond vermilion pillars, thunder's timpani rolled—nature's ovation for alchemy transmuting treachery into coronation.
The Labyrinth of Allegations
A strategic retreat to secure advancement—Ye Changfeng's manoeuvre irrevocably cast Ye Ling's purported crimes into stone. If no grave offence existed, why whisper of clemency?
"Ling'er," Emperor Shang drawled, venom lacing his mockery, "Prince Xu intercedes on your behalf!"
"Imperial Father," Ye Ling countered, his tone laced with performative confusion as he turned to Ye Changfeng, "my elder brother's relentless appeals for mercy puzzle me. What crime have I committed that warrants such fervour? Your 'fraternal devotion' seems premature, given no judgement has yet been rendered."
Ye Ling remained standing, his posture defiant, while Ye Changfeng knelt before the throne, still awaiting the emperor's permission to rise. The juxtaposition—a prince unbowed beside a supplicant brother—twisted the scene, casting the latter as the accused.
"Prince Qian oversteps!" hissed the Chief Astrologer, robes trembling with indignation. "Prince Xu extends grace, yet you scorn it with a serpent's tongue!"
"Overstep?" Ye Ling pivoted toward the Minister of Justice, eyes sharp as daggers. "Minister Fu, do these parchments detail how I betrayed my blood? As the Crown's legitimate heir, what gain lies in treason? A throne I already inherit? Or perhaps a death wish?"
Silence gripped the court. His logic was flawless—no prince bathed in imperial favour would court ruin. Even the High Tribunal's charges withered to vaporous insinuations of "undue familiarity with Chu envoys".
"I traded with Chu—this I concede. But where is the evidence of treason?" Ye Ling's smile frosted over. "That pleasure house I patronized? Chen-family gold lined its walls. Now that my taverns outpace theirs, my wines drain their coffers—is this not motive enough for their machinations?"
By dragging shadowed schemes into light, Ye Ling transformed the Chens' accusations into a petty vendetta. Every subsequent charge would reek of theatre.
"Does Prince Qian now fault our house for his failure to tame the river's curse?" spat Chen Huai, jade guan quivering.
At the mention of taverns, the Chen faction stirred like scorpions poised to strike. Their laborious plots had crescendoed to this moment.
"Prince Qian", the Chief Astrologer intoned with venomous precision, "the moon cycle's end nears. When will the waterways be purged of their scourge?"
Rumours swirling through the court whispered of fading patrons at Ye Ling's establishments, of diminishing returns from his river-beast purchases. The astrologers' cabal hungered for his fall—the stripping of titles, the severing of royal favour.
"Purge them?" Ye Ling's laughter cut like winter wind. "The river's children are endless."
"Then by your own admission—" The Chief Astrologer's voice clanged like a funeral bell. "I demand His Majesty revoke Prince Qian's honours! Let him kneel before Heaven's altars to repent for summoning these abominations! For the empire's salvation, let justice blaze!"
"Blaze it shall!" chanted the astrologers, their bowed heads masking triumph.
The Tide of Ten Thousand Claws
Toppling Prince Qian would crown them all architects of triumph! When Prince Xu ascended as heir presumptive, their coffers would brim with imperial favour—such was their fevered delusion.
"Does the Chief Astrologer fancy our rivers now teem with enough crustaceans to sate the realm?" Ye Ling's gaze swept over the cabal of fools like a scythe. "Imperial Father, honourable ministers—these 'aquatic scourges' now grace every household in Great Shang as delicacies. They sustain our people and command princely sums traded to Chu and vassal states. Systematized, they shall swell the treasury's veins with tax gold and weave prosperity through riverside hamlets."
Annihilation? Madness incarnate. Why slaughter fortune's fount?
"These vermin choked our lifeblood canals!" roared the Minister of Works, a lickspittle of Ye Changfeng who viewed Ye Ling as a blundering dilettante. "Would His Majesty sacrifice vital trade arteries for fleeting coin?"
"Our waterways", Ye Ling countered, voice silk over steel, "run clear after prudent harvests. Has the Ministry of Works forsaken its mandate, spewing falsehoods without a survey?"
"The infestation endures!" the Chief Astrologer shrilled. "Prince Qian contorts truth to his fancy!"
"A burlap sack of crabs now trades for *silver ingots*," Ye Ling intoned, eyes unflinching before the throne. "Markets hunger for more. Soon, we may nurture these creatures in pens to feed demand. What was decried as Heaven's wrath now stands revealed as its mercy—a boon during recent scarcities."
Emperor Shang's fingers traced his jade sceptre. "The crabs, when skilfully wrought, are ambrosia. Our son has transmuted blight into divine favour."
The edict stilled dissent. With crabs sanctified as celestial bounty, what fool would name them an ill omen?
"Credit rests with my august brother and the Chen clan," Ye Ling crooned, poison sugared as piety. "Without Golden Crab Tavern's pioneering zeal, how would the realm have embraced this feast? Minister Chen—were we to purge these creatures, your establishments would lose their crowning dish, would they not?"
His words rang through marble pillars, a scalpel flaying pretence. Chen Huai stood statue-still, pallor betraying the epiphany: his plot to bankrupt Ye Ling's ventures had instead forged his rival's legend.
"His Highness' wisdom illuminates all." Minister Fang Yan advanced, voice whetted as a headsman's axe. "I've walked the waterways. Though crabs linger, they no longer menace trade or fisherfolk. Riverside folk now bless both Heaven's munificence and Prince Qian's foresight. Yet certain officials—" his glare pinned the astrologers, "—branded divine gifts as calamity. While such visionless worms posture in office, I'll not share their raiment!"
The court crackled with electricity. The crabs had triumphed—and upon their armoured backs, Ye Ling's star ascended inexorably.
The Scales of Heavenly Judgment
In the art of rhetorical annihilation, Fang Yan stood peerless.
Ye Ling glanced at his mentor with reverence before delivering the fatal blow. "Imperial Father," he pronounced, each syllable a blade of jurisprudence, "the Chief Astrologer's false decree branding crustaceans as celestial punishment sought to divest me of rank. Now proven these creatures are Heaven's benediction—nourishing our multitudes—he must fulfil our covenant: expulsion from office!" With a fluid strike, Ye Ling sent the official's rank cap clattering across marble—a funerary bell tolling disgrace.
The Chief Astrologer collapsed trembling, his moment of reckoning freezing him between guarding his post or preserving his neck—a field mouse paralyzed before the striking hawk.
"Must Sixth Brother's severity chill the court's loyalty?" Ye Changfeng interposed, concern dripping poisoned honey. "Decades the Chief Astrologer served the Observatory. Let mercy temper justice—"
"Decades of celestial malpractice!" Ye Ling's voice cleaved through sophistry. "How many portents misread? How many disasters were misforetold? By your measure, Brother, dismissal becomes charity!" His mirthless chuckle frosted the air. "Shall we crown incompetence with laurels?"
"Must you hound faithful servants thus?" Ye Changfeng appealed to the throne. "Imperial Father, I pledge my honour for his reformation. Grant reprieve!"
"Reprieve?" Ye Ling's retort cracked like ice splitting stone. "Who reprieves the thousands his falsehoods condemned?" His gaze scourged the assembled lords. "Our edicts hold power to bless or blight entire provinces. To spare this charlatan isn't compassion—'tis treason against the realm itself!"
Silence gripped the hall like a suffocating mist.
"Prince Qian's words ring with Heaven's own truth!" Censor Mi Fei advanced, his ink-stained sleeves billowing like war banners. "The Observatory mediates divine will. Tolerating this impostor invites cosmic retribution!" Whispers of assent rustled through ministers long silenced by astrological tyranny.
Emperor Shang's verdict fell like a jade seal crushing wax. "The Chief Astrologer acted in haste, perverted celestial signs, and stands unfit for office. By imperial mandate—"
The unspoken sentence hung—a sword already plunged.
The Celestial Gambit
"Imperial Father," Ye Changfeng interposed with calculated desperation as the Emperor's vermilion brush hovered above the decree scroll, "the Observatory's mantle bridges mortal and divine realms. To depose its hierarch without immediate succession courts celestial discord. This demands measured contemplation—" A velvet-gloved challenge, brandishing the Chen clan's centuries-forged influence like ancestral armour.
Ye Ling's smile glinted like a whetted duelling dagger. "Providence provides—Lu Yuan, whom Your Majesty witnessed crafting war automatons and whom Prince Xu himself once fêted as a luminary, stands ready."
The Emperor's nod carried the gravity of preordained theatre. "Lu Yuan's mechanical genius serves as testament to his mastery over earthly and heavenly mysteries. By imperial mandate, Lu Yuan ascends as Celestial Archivist. The former hierarch—profaner of sacred signs—is stripped of rank, reduced to dust beneath the palace gates."
The edict fell like a jade guillotine. Ye Changfeng's faction wore the ashen pallor of men swallowing hemlock.
"While Prince Qian's crustacean commerce shows... modest ingenuity," Chen Huai simpered, venom veiled as praise, "such trifles scarcely dent the treasury's gaping maw. Three dynasties have honed the Chen mercantile fleet to bear imperial trade burdens."
"Indeed," Ye Changfeng crooned, paternal concern dripping like poisoned honey, "foreign negotiations demand seasoned tact. Let greenhorns remain ashore while masters navigate treacherous currents."
Their ploy lay naked: to commandeer the trade arteries Ye Ling's blood and wit had carved.
"What treasures would the Chen caravans bear?" Ye Ling enquired, the spider welcoming the fly.
"Yunling's millennium ginseng roots!" Chen Huai's jade belt creaked with pompous inflation. "Tierong's black iron veins! Tongzhou's subterranean fire-stones! Rarities to gild the imperial coffers!"
"Rarities?" Ye Ling's laughter rang like icicles shattering on marble. "Flaying the realm's flesh to stuff your money-chests—how refreshingly archaic."
Silence pooled thick as blood. The Emperor's obsidian gaze bored through Chen Huai's bravado—how many sleepless nights had he envisioned purging this viper brood? Yet roots sunk deep through dynasties cannot be exhumed with bare hands.
"Enough!" The imperial growl trembled with caged thunder. "The southern magistrates hunger for their due. Bring sustenance—not scavengers' schemes."
His eyes locked with Ye Ling's—a sovereign's silent scream within the gilded prison of statecraft.
The Sowing of Steel and Sovereignty
"Sixth Brother's nascent trade pact with Chu would flourish under tutelage," Ye Changfeng intoned, his voice oiled with counterfeit benevolence. "The Chen dynasty's mercantile sagacity might... illuminate his untutored endeavours."
*Illuminating pilferage from crown coffers,* Ye Ling mused, the blade behind his smile unsheathed.
"Mining rights?" His derisive laughter echoed through gilded beams. "Does Prince Xu envision beggaring our heirs? Flaying the earth's flesh for transient lucre?"
Coal and iron—the sinews of empire. Only profligates would barter such birthrights.
"Beggar?" Chen Huai's jowls trembled with theatrical umbrage. "Great Shang's depths teem with eternal bounty! Prince Qian traffics in phantoms! Mines thrive on convict sinews—swift, lucrative, efficient! Your pastoral naiveté reeks of the nursery!"
"If not minerals," the Minister of Justice jeered, "shall we mint coin from crab husks and wine lees?"
Ye Ling turned his blade-edge gaze throneward. "Imperial Father, true wealth springs not from r*p*d mountains but nurtured minds. To despoil the land is to sip hemlock from famine's cup."
"Nurtured minds?" The minister of revenue's lip curled. "Fresh sophistry to flay our peasants bare?"
"Through trade", Ye Ling pressed, "we barter grain and cloth for Chu's silver-hooved destriers. Their winter-starved hordes raid not from malice, but necessity. Let commerce transmute wolf-pack into livestock—buying peace to forge swords."
Zhao Miao'er's whispers had painted Chu's riders as blizzards given flesh—yet even blizzards starve.
"Puerile fabulism!" Chen Huai crowed. "Our granaries gasp emptily! Export grain? Mooncalf delirium!"
"Today's famine births tomorrow's feast." Ye Ling's voice kindled with prophecy's fire. "In Tianqu's wasteland, I found life—drought-defying vines bearing three thousand *jin* per acre ere three moons wane."
The chamber stilled as death.
"Three thousand? Blasphemy against Demeter's laws!"
"Prince Qian scorns husbandry's sacred truths!"
Even the Emperor's jade sceptre quivered. "Linger—by our ancestors' bones, attest this!"
Three thousand *jin*. Tenfold the wheat-golden standard. A harvest to shatter dynasties, birth empires.
To be continuous…