Zhang San had been on the throne for several years now.
The clematis planted in the shape of the letters SOS bloomed anew each year, and wave after wave of new palace women were brought in to serve him.
Zhang San knew he could not father an heir. Over these past years he had played the madman and the fool, clashing with the Empress Dowager openly and in secret so many times that her patience with him had all but run out. The moment a prince was born, his career as her puppet would be finished, and by the next day he would turn up dead at the bottom of a well, an unfortunate accident.
And yet he could not refuse the selection of new consorts either, because he had no way of knowing which one among them might be the other person like him.
He had to pick her out from among the beauties sent by the Empress Dowager to give him a child, by Prince Duan to poison him, and by every other faction hoping to use her to control him.
Where was she? When would she show herself? The question hung over him like a dying man's last breath, driving him forward step by stumbling step.
He had learned to watch every word and gesture without giving himself away, to probe and hint without being obvious, to dodge his consorts' beds however they came at him, and to block whatever assassin came next.
Spies had even slipped into his own palace guard once. After that he stopped trusting anyone else's protection. He spent months building it all himself, rigging his bedchamber with pulleys and levers so that certain bricks hidden in the walls, when pressed, would fire hidden arrows.
Sometimes he would stop and wonder: even if he found her, what then? He could not help her. He was not worth her help.
The heroine was meant to find the hero. He was only the villain.
When he had first crossed over into this body, he'd still clung to some naive dream of defying fate and rewriting his destiny. Now he could barely remember his own face or name. Was he Zhang San, or Xiahou Dan? Was that so-called modern life of his nothing more than a dream he'd once had as a child, dozing off in the imperial study?
If the heroine ever saw him as he was now, she would probably turn and run.
Shanyi had entered the palace around that time as well. That year, Yan had sent her along with crates of jewels and fox fur; her name had been written on the gift manifest, first to dance for him, and then to share his bed.
Unlike the legend of unmatched beauty that grew up around her name later, Shanyi had only been called a beauty at the time because that was the title given to her. She was very young, barely grown, and the only remarkable thing about her was a pair of very large eyes that, when she blinked, made her look lost and pitiable.
She resembled, a little, the first life Zhang San had ever taken: that young palace maid.
Shanyi barely spoke the common tongue and understood even less of it. Zhang San tried a few of his usual remarks on her out of habit; she didn't catch his modern references at all and assumed her own speech was at fault, tearing up and apologizing, begging him not to send her away, or the Yan officials would beat her for it.
Zhang San: "They can't touch you anymore."
Shanyi only kept pleading, gesturing as she spoke: "I must... sleep with you."
Zhang San: "..."
He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Then lie down and sleep."
Shanyi nodded, uncomprehending, and truly did lie down quietly.
The last person Zhang San had met with a mind this simple had been a classmate of his back in middle school.
He rolled over without giving it another thought.
Between the headaches and having someone beside him, he usually found it hard to sleep. But that night, the rouge on her skin smelled almost like fine incense for calming the spirit. For some reason he grew drowsy and slipped into a light sleep before he knew it.
It was only later that he learned the scent had in fact been specially prepared for him.
What happened after that, even in his own memory, is hazy.
Because before his mind had fully surfaced, his body had already moved on its own.
By the time he forced his eyes open, the smell of rouge had mixed with a heavy reek of blood. Shanyi lay slumped over him, eyes open in death, a dagger still clutched in her hand and a hidden arrow from the mechanism buried in her back.
Moonlight poured through the carved window and spilled across her. Her empty eyes still held a trace of confusion, as if she could not understand how a monster that killed men in their sleep could possibly be real.
Zhang San looked at her for a long time. Then he smiled.
He threw her body off the bed, and lying amid sheets full of moonlight and the smell of blood, closed his eyes again.
That had been the twenty-seventh person he had killed. He decided to stop counting after that.
It was nothing. They were all paper cutouts. All of them. All of them.
The morning after the birthday banquet, the streets of the capital were unusually lively.
Merchants and passersby kept moving, but their eyes kept darting toward a few unusually tall figures in the crowd, a wariness flickering beneath the surface.
Men of Yan.
Word was they had come to negotiate peace, but the shadow of years of war had not faded. Perhaps that was exactly why these envoys seemed, however you looked at them, like men not to be trifled with.
Haqina walked with his head down. The sound of singing drifted out from some building nearby, and he gave a short laugh, speaking in the Yan tongue: "Too soft. Nothing like the reach of our own songs..."
Beside him, his burly, bearded companion suddenly threw out an arm and stopped him in his tracks. "Wait."
Haqina looked up. A group of men was approaching from up ahead.
They were dressed like peddlers and laborers, with the look of street toughs, and carried scraps of rusted metal for weapons.
The one in front said, "My brother says something went missing from his stall. You lot took it, didn't you?"
The men of Yan, still smarting from the insults heaped on them the night before by that official, Lord Wang, flared up at once. "Where's your proof?"
"Proof? Stand still and let us search you." The man's face turned ugly, and he reached out to grab at their clothes.
The men of Yan were in no mood to swallow this. They shouted and threw the first punches.
But the moment the fight began, it was clear every one of these "toughs" was trained. This was nothing like an ordinary street brawl.
Haqina had been disarmed on entering the city, and he traded blows with them bare-handed. A blade caught his arm and blood poured out.
His face darkened.
This was planned. These men had come to kill.
Without thinking, Haqina turned and called out, "Your High-"
The bearded man cut him off with a sharp gesture.
Haqina: "Go, we'll hold them off!"
The bearded man: "We retreat together."
No man of Yan fled a fight without striking a blow first. Haqina thought he'd misheard. "What?"
The bearded man: "Run!"
He gave Haqina no chance to argue, hauling him backward. Several hidden projectiles flew at them from the other side; the bearded man stepped in front of Haqina and threw up his arm to block them one after another, a ring of metal on metal sounding from his sleeve. He was wearing armor beneath his robes.
Haqina turned and saw that another group had closed in behind them as well.
The bearded man dragged him into a narrow side alley. The rest of the Yan men followed, humiliated but with no other choice, while their pursuers kept coming, clearly meaning to finish the job.
Running, the bearded man said in a low voice, "We can't fight back. If we kill even one of them, they'll pin a charge on us and haul us off."
Haqina caught his meaning and cursed. "Treacherous Xia dogs!"
Unfamiliar with the terrain, the men of Yan were soon driven into a dead-end alley.
Haqina put his back to the wall and stared at the mass of pursuers closing in, his voice bitter with fury. "Then let's take them down with us. Kill every last one, we'll still come out ahead."
The bearded man only sighed. "We'd come out behind. The plan wouldn't be finished."
A clear, sharp whistle sounded behind them.
The bearded man spun around, eyes fixed on the wall at their backs. "There might be a path on the other side. Over the wall."
The Yan men held the alley's mouth against their pursuers while boosting each other over the high wall one by one. There was indeed a path on the other side. Haqina had no time to think it over; he shielded the bearded man and ran, and this time no one followed.
From the other side of the wall came the faint sound of shouting. "Take them all, march them to the magistrate!"
Haqina, still catching his breath, said, "Government soldiers."
The bearded man: "The ones who came to kill us were likely the Empress Dowager's men. The soldiers belong to the Emperor."
"And whoever whistled just now? Also the Emperor's men?"
The bearded man narrowed his eyes. "Perhaps not. If they were the Emperor's men, why not come forward and meet us openly?"
At Prince Duan's estate, a small council was underway.
The man who had given the whistle was on his knees, delivering his report. "That Haqina among the envoys doesn't seem to be the real leader. I understand a bit of the Yan tongue, and I heard him call that burly attendant 'Your Highness.'"
Xiahou Bo said, "Yan has many princes. Still, that beard of his looks strange, more like a disguise. An ordinary man of Yan would never have crossed paths with our people before, and would have no reason to hide his face. If he's gone to the trouble of a disguise, he must be someone we'd recognize."
The scout: "Your Highness means..."
Xiahou Bo, with something like a smile: "He's likely crossed swords with our men on the battlefield before. Given his skill, he might well be worthy of the title 'First Blade of Yan.'"
The scout started. "That would be Tu'er! But isn't Tu'er at odds with the Yan king? Why would he serve as an envoy for him? Unless... he changed his name and appearance to slip out without the king's knowledge?"
Xiahou Bo considered this. "More likely he switched places with the real envoys entirely. The Yan king does want this peace talk to succeed. As for Tu'er..."
His confidants pieced it together aloud. "They say he was childhood friends with that beauty Shanyi, the one who died a few years back in the palace. When she died, Yan refused to accept the charge of attempted assassination and instead accused Xia of murdering her, using that as their excuse to declare war."
"So Tu'er genuinely hates the Emperor and means to follow in the footsteps of Jing Ke?"
"That doesn't add up. Jing Ke knew he'd die the moment he struck at the First Emperor. Tu'er has a bright future ahead of him. Why gamble his life away?"
Xiahou Bo thought a moment. "What if something has gone wrong within Yan itself?"
"Your Highness means, Tu'er lost out to the Yan king somehow, found he had no place left in Yan, and has come to Xia to gamble everything on wrecking his uncle's plans?"
Xiahou Bo said slowly, "Whatever the truth of it, this peace talk is very likely finished either way. The Emperor is already weak, with the best fighter at his side already dead, and now Tu'er has brought a band of would-be assassins with him. If they strike suddenly, he won't escape."
A confidant hesitated. "Should we... let something slip to the Emperor?"
Xiahou Bo turned to him with a smile the moment the words left his mouth. "That kind-hearted of you?"
The confidant dropped to his knees at once, alarmed. "This one only has Your Highness's interests at heart! If Tu'er truly kills the Emperor, the two nations will go to war again..."
Xiahou Bo helped him up gently. "That's true enough, and it's what I thought too, at first. But it just occurred to me, given Tu'er's skill, if he happens to kill the Empress Dowager as well while playing Jing Ke, would that really be so difficult for him?"
The confidant went blank.
"With no ruler left, and enemies pressing from outside, and the crown prince still a child, someone will need to take the regency and steady things," Prince Duan said, blinking. "As for the war, since I'll know it's coming, I can prepare early and won't be caught off guard by any surprise attack from Yan."
The confidants fell silent.
A villain. A true villain.
The confidant said, "Your Highness sees far ahead, as always."
Xiahou Bo smiled. "So there's no need to warn the Emperor. When the time comes, we might even lend Tu'er a hand. All we need now is to make sure the Empress Dowager is present when he makes his move."
"Here, drink." Yang Duojie shook his wine jug.
Li Yunxi drained his cup in one go. "This is fine stock you're keeping, Brother Yang. Then I won't stand on ceremony."
Yang Duojie said nothing, but Cen Jintian, sitting nearby, laughed. "It's rare to see Brother Li enjoy himself so freely."
Li Yunxi: "..."
Though Li Yunxi now held an official post, he'd grown used to hard living, and had always been rather tight-fisted, never willing to buy wine for himself. Only at Yang Duojie's did he loosen up.
Teased by Cen Jintian, he didn't take offense, and instead urged, "The three of us haven't gathered in ages. Brother Cen, join us for a cup?"
Cen Jintian waved a pale hand. "No, no. I'd rather keep what life I have left and farm a few more days."
He never shied away from mentioning his own illness, but Li Yunxi was no good with pretty words, and with a little wine in him he grew even slower. He stumbled over his tongue for a while before finally managing, "You... you've looked better lately."
Cen Jintian knew his temperament well enough, and laughed at that. "Much appreciated, Brother Li."
Yang Duojie: "He really has."
Li Yunxi frowned and glared at him.
Yang Duojie: "What?"
Li Yunxi: "You haven't said ten words since we sat down. I'd think the smoothest talker among us would have plenty to say. Why so tight-lipped all of a sudden?"
Cen Jintian added, "Brother Yang, you do look thinner. Has something happened?"
Yang Duojie downed a full cup in one gulp and laughed bitterly. "Don't get me started. I don't want to say another word for the rest of my life."
Half a jug of wine later.
Yang Duojie said, "You two got exactly what you wanted at the Ministry of Revenue. Do you know what I do all day at the Astronomical Bureau? Divination. Reading the stars for fortune and misfortune, weaving stories about heaven's will, day in and day out. You think I can just make it up? No! The great and powerful want a reading to come out bad, so it has to come out bad, and it has to look properly done, all the right rituals, all the right omens. Bad, but eloquent and well composed. Is this what my talent is for?"
Li Yunxi: "..."
Cen Jintian: "..."
Yang Duojie let out a wine-soaked burp. "That's nothing, it gets worse! Sometimes the Empress Dowager wants it bad, and His Majesty wants it good, and the whole bureau splits into two camps, colleagues sparring back and forth like Buddhist monks trading riddles. I burn through drafts, wear my brush down to nothing, all to prove that a certain crack in a certain turtle shell splitting to the left is the more auspicious sign! Heavens, is there a more pathetic fate in this world? Ten years of hard study, all this talent I cultivated, and in the end I've become a fortune-teller?!"
Li Yunxi: "..."
Cen Jintian couldn't help but laugh. "I have to say, the resemblance is uncanny."
Yang Duojie was tall and fair, with two long wisps of a thin beard that drifted in the wind, giving him something of the bearing of an immortal sage.
Li Yunxi threw an arm over his shoulder. "Master, read my palm..."
Yang Duojie cursed him, without much energy behind it. "Get lost."
Once he'd had his laugh, Li Yunxi tried to console him. "Didn't His Majesty say so himself? Right now he needs you writing all that mystic nonsense to fool people. Give it some time, and he'll transfer you somewhere else."
Yang Duojie propped his head on his hand and lowered his voice. "Let me ask something treasonous. Do you two believe him?"
Cen Jintian had been the very first to pledge loyalty to Xiahou Dan, and at this he nodded without hesitation.
Li Yunxi was quiet for a moment. "He told me to keep organizing the land registers from every province, said the day would come when they'd be put to use. I suppose that counts as an emperor's promise."
Yang Duojie looked surprised. "That's not what you were saying when you first joined the Ministry. Er Lan is getting on fine for himself, working every angle to climb the ladder, and you're not bothered by that anymore?"
Li Yunxi looked faintly uncomfortable. "I don't see him the same way now."
Yang Duojie sat there a moment, then laughed bitterly and sank back, dejected. "So it seems I'm the only one still torn."
"Brother Yang..."
Yang Duojie lowered his voice further. "Ever since we first met him by the lake, we've all seen his true face a few times now, haven't we. Have you noticed, sometimes, the way he looks at people... he really does live up to the name of 'sage.'"
Like wind sweeping over grass and trees, indifferent to grief or joy, heaven and earth showing no mercy to anyone.
The other two had nothing to say to that.
Yang Duojie walked his guests to the door, and before parting, added one more thing. "You know Steward Zhang from the Ministry of Rites? He and I worked together on the birthday banquet preparations, got to know each other well. Yesterday he told me quietly that the Yan delegation was ambushed by bandits on the street, but got away."
Li Yunxi looked back at him. "The Empress Dowager, using bandits as cover to try to get rid of them?"
Yang Duojie: "Nine times out of ten, yes. And in the end, His Majesty ordered the Ministry of Rites to go apologize to them personally at their lodgings, made a whole show of it, spoke gently to soothe their cold faces for the longest time."
Cen Jintian sighed. "Well, that's giving them plenty of face. His Majesty really does want this peace talk to succeed."
Yang Duojie said, "That's exactly what puzzles me. I had my doubts from the start, when he sent Brother Wang alone into Yan. Now Brother Wang hasn't returned, and things don't look good for him. His Majesty himself suspects these Yan men mean trouble, and yet he still humbles himself to please them. What is he really thinking? Does he actually have a plan, or is he only using this as an excuse to wrest power from the Empress Dowager?"
The last thought, he kept to himself: Are we nothing more than pieces on Xiahou Dan's board, mouths for him to speak through in his fight for power?
That night, Tu'er woke with a start, gasping for breath.
The beds in the Xia lodgings were too soft. So soft that a man's limbs sank deep into them, making it hard to move at all. Perhaps that was exactly why he kept having nightmares.
Tu'er sat up and glanced at the guards seated on the floor beside his bed. "What hour is it?"
"The third watch." Haqina lit a lamp. "Your Highness, are you all right?"
Tu'er got up, washed his face with cold water, and glanced out the window on his way back.
Out in the darkness, a fair number of imperial guards still stood watch outside the lodgings' gate. Word was the Emperor of Xia, to protect them from any further trouble with bandits, had specially sent extra men.
Whether they were guards or watchers was another matter entirely.
Haqina frowned. "With this many extra men around, our plan..."
Tu'er, quite calm, said, "We wait and watch. This peace talk was arranged privately by Xiahou Dan himself. He'll come to meet us eventually. We move then."
But from the worry in Haqina's eyes, he could guess his own expression wasn't a pleasant sight at the moment.
It was the dream of Shanyi, no doubt.
Tu'er shook his head irritably, flinging water droplets from his face. In the dim candlelight, his face, without the false beard, showed sharp, handsome features.
Tu'er blew out the candle again and lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. "Do you think Zhaluowahan has noticed?"
When he'd left Yan, he had, nominally, still been confined to his home, forbidden to leave, with no visitors allowed. He had left behind a double who resembled him closely enough that as long as the Yan king, Zhaluowahan, did not summon him, nothing would seem amiss.
Haqina: "No word has come. His Majesty rarely calls for you as it is. He shouldn't notice a thing."
Tu'er gave a scornful laugh. "Right now he's probably sitting there eagerly waiting for word of how the peace talks are going."
His men let out a chorus of low, snickering laughter, like a pack of wheezing beasts.
Haqina laughed the loudest of all. "He's an old wolf with broken teeth. All he can do now is wait to die."
Tu'er knew that Haqina's father had died at the Yan king's hand. Of the men and women who had come with him to Xia, some had a blood debt with the people of Xia, others a deep grudge against the Yan king, and so all had willingly set out on this road with no return.
And what of himself?
Given the choice, he would never have wished to become a lowly assassin. All he had ever wanted, his whole life, was to ride into the Xia capital at the head of an army and take the Emperor's head with his own blade.
But the Yan king had grown old, weak, unable to fight anymore. Talked into it by envoys sent from Xia, he wanted to extinguish the fires of war with his own hands, even if it meant discarding, one by one, the very warriors who had risked their lives for him.
When the hounds have caught the hare, they are cooked for supper. That was a phrase Tu'er had learned from the Xia people themselves.
But at the time, he hadn't yet realized he too was one of those hounds.
Zhaluowahan had once been a different man. He had hated Xia bitterly, and taken pleasure in slaughtering its people.
Tu'er had heard it whispered that when the Xia soldiers took his eye all those years ago, they had wounded him elsewhere as well. That was why he had no sons of his own, only Tu'er, his nephew.
Zhaluowahan had never been especially warm toward Tu'er, but he had dutifully taught him to ride and to hunt.
As a young man, Tu'er would ride back through fields of girls' eager stares, and lay each trophy from the hunt at his uncle's feet one by one: countless birds, four rabbits, two deer, and once, an old wolf.
Someone had flattered him once, saying, "Your Highness's skill keeps growing. Soon you'll be the finest warrior in all of Yan!"
Tu'er had smiled and looked to his uncle, only to catch a flash of displeasure cross his face before it vanished.
At the time, Tu'er hadn't understood what that fleeting look meant. Even if he had, he wouldn't have known how to say the flattering words that might have soothed it.
So, oblivious, he had bowed and left, trotting to where Shanyi waited for him, and with a flourish, like a magic trick, produced a fresh, dew-wet flower and tucked it into her hair.
Unnoticed, that invisible rift had widened day by day. Until the Yan king announced that he would choose a sacred maiden from among the nobility to offer to Xia as a gift of peace.
Tu'er had burst through his uncle's door. "Why Shanyi? You know full well that she and I..."
The Yan king had answered only, "Her standing makes her the most suitable."
Tu'er rolled over in the dark and said quietly, "Hold on a few more days. Nothing must go wrong."
Haqina: "Yes."
Prince Duan's faction had held a council long into the night, tearing their hair out and discarding plan after plan, all to make certain Tu'er could not only carry out the assassination but also take the Empress Dowager with him.
Getting the Emperor, the Empress Dowager, and the Yan envoys together in one place, all at the same time, was in truth nearly impossible.
The Empress Dowager was already at war with the Emperor, and was still looking for a chance to kill the envoys herself. With relations that far broken, the Emperor, fool though he might otherwise be, would never let her near the delegation.
Prince Duan had bided his time carefully for years, wanting nothing but legitimacy, wanting to take the throne by right, in the proper order of succession. Using the men of Yan to remove both his greatest rivals at once, in a single stroke, mattered enormously to him.
His confidants tore out still more of their hair, and at last arrived at a truly audacious plan.
They laid it all out for Xiahou Bo, who raised an eyebrow. "Great rewards demand great risks."
A confidant said, "This plan is genuinely dangerous, with far too many variables. This one cannot guarantee success. Perhaps... Consort Xie could divine the outcome for us?"
Xie Yong'er was something of a celebrity within Prince Duan's faction. Not only for her tangled, much-discussed affair with the prince, but for the advice she gave, which often seemed a stroke of genius, absurd on its face and yet, time and again, uncannily accurate, as if she could see straight through to the workings of heaven.
Hearing the name, Xiahou Bo paused for a moment.
Consort Xie had miscarried on the night of the birthday banquet, and after the scene the Empress Dowager and the Emperor had made of it, there wasn't a soul who didn't know. His confidants had their own suspicions about the father of the child, and now they couldn't resist stealing a glance at Prince Duan, trying to gauge what he felt about it all.
Xiahou Bo summoned a scout. "How is Consort Xie faring in the palace?"
The scout: "Ever since the miscarriage she's been running a fever, unable to rise from bed. His Majesty flew into a rage, said he'd get to the bottom of it and put the harem in order, and even sent guards to protect her while she recovers."
They called it "putting the harem in order," but no child had been born in the harem in years, and everyone understood well enough whose fault that was.
The confidants' curious looks grew even more eager, as if hoping to catch some glimpse of whether the master they served truly felt anything at all, joy or anger or sorrow.
Xiahou Bo's pause ran a little longer than usual, and a faint shadow of worry crossed between his brows.
The confidants let out a quiet breath of relief, without quite knowing why, only to hear him say, "The child is already lost. No one should have reason to harm her further. Sending men to guard her now seems rather odd."
The confidants: "..."
That was his reaction?
Was this man even human?
Xiahou Bo said, "In any case, find a way to get a note in to her. Tell her I wish to see her."
At that very moment, Xie Yong'er had no idea she stood at the center of such a storm.
She slept fitfully, and when she jolted awake, still muddled with sleep, the tears pooling in her eyes spilled at once, soaking into the pillow.
"Who were you dreaming of?" someone asked from beside the bed.
Xie Yong'er turned her head groggily and found Xiahou Dan looking down at her.
"You kept apologizing," Xiahou Dan said, one corner of his mouth lifting, his tone laced with mockery. "Dreaming of Prince Duan? The baby's gone, and you feel you've wronged him?"
Xie Yong'er stared blankly at him. "No."
Xiahou Dan: "Then who? Surely not me?"
Xie Yong'er came back to herself and pressed her lips shut, refusing to answer.
Xiahou Dan clicked his tongue. "Go on, tell us. There's no point putting on an act anymore anyway, you're as good as dead-"
"All right, all right, I've got this." Yu Wanyin poked her head out from behind him, reaching out to feel Xie Yong'er's forehead, relieved. "Fever's finally down. This ancient medical care really is terrifying. How do you feel? Do you want some water?"
Xie Yong'er still said nothing.
Yu Wanyin turned and pushed at Xiahou Dan. "You go on outside, let me talk to her."
Xiahou Dan looked baffled. "Why are you kicking me out?"
Yu Wanyin gave him a series of pointed looks. "It's fine. Leave it to me."
She shut the door and came back to sit beside Xie Yong'er. "Still feeling bad?"
Xie Yong'er struggled to prop herself up against the headboard, forcing herself to focus. "You don't need to play good cop and bad cop with me. Just say it plainly. What do you want?"
Yu Wanyin smiled. "Fine, plainly then. Prince Duan sent a note in. He wants to meet you tonight, in secret, in that broken-down building in the cold palace."
Xie Yong'er closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "So you'll be letting me out tonight to see him."
"What, if we didn't let you go, would you expect him to storm the place to save you?"
"No. If he noticed anything was wrong, I'd lose his trust, and I'd be no use to you anymore, would I? You want to win me over just to squeeze information about him out of me, don't you?"
Yu Wanyin paused, muttering, "Clever of you, all of a sudden."
Xie Yong'er said angrily, "I was always clever! I only lost to you because you had more information than me. Don't get that confused."
"You lost to me? That's not it. There was never really anything for the two of us to fight over."
"Spare me the fine words, after everything that's happened-"
Yu Wanyin said seriously, "If you want to put it that way, didn't you lose to Prince Duan instead?"
Xie Yong'er: "..."
Yu Wanyin studied her pale face for a while, then suddenly got up and fetched the cosmetics case. "Turn around."
Xie Yong'er: "What for?"
"Isn't it a date tonight? Let's get you done up." Yu Wanyin held her by the shoulders and turned her so her back faced her, then picked up a comb and began working through her hair. "Girls' dorm gossip hour, you've never had this before?"
Xie Yong'er: "It won't work on me. Don't try playing that card."
Undeterred, Yu Wanyin went on gossiping regardless. "So you really were dreaming about Xiahou Bo just now?"
Xie Yong'er pressed her lips together tight, plainly committed to non-cooperation.
"That pathetic, really?" Yu Wanyin shook her head over and over. "Do you even remember you're a modern woman? He knew perfectly well the Empress Dowager would force you into an abortion, and let you get pregnant anyway, and you're apologizing to that heartless bastard..."
Xie Yong'er couldn't hold her tongue anymore. "I already told you it wasn't him."
"Then who? It's definitely not Xiahou Dan." Yu Wanyin frowned and thought it over, then gasped. "Don't tell me it was me? Has your conscience finally caught up with you, and you've realized how good I've been to you?"
Xie Yong'er: "..."
Yu Wanyin looked deeply moved. "Sister, congratulations, you've finally come around. No need to apologize though, I'm pretty big-hearted-"
Xie Yong'er, past her limit: "It was my mother."
"What?"
Xie Yong'er kept her head down, back still turned. "Maybe it's because I found out who you two really are. I dreamed a little about my life before I crossed over. I'd been fighting with her about something stupid right before it happened, and I never even got the chance to say sorry."
Yu Wanyin had come into this conversation treating it as a task to complete, but now she found herself going still.
Xie Yong'er had always kept up the mannered speech of this era before, and this sudden bluntness gave Yu Wanyin, for the first time, the real sense of talking to someone like herself.
Yu Wanyin thought a moment. "I actually got a call from my mom right before I crossed over. She asked when I was coming home, and I said I'd go on the weekend. She sounded all mysterious on the phone, probably learned some new snack recipe and wanted to make it for me."
Xie Yong'er lifted her head slightly.
Yu Wanyin fell silent, and the air around her grew heavy.
Xie Yong'er asked, "Where are you from?"
Something jolted in Yu Wanyin's chest. Did the city names in Demon's Pampered Consort match the real world?
She kept combing, and tested the waters with the most common answer she could think of. "Beijing. What about you?"
Xie Yong'er: "City A. Where's Beijing?"
Yu Wanyin: "...A small county town, it's fine if you haven't heard of it, it's quite far from where you're from."
Xie Yong'er: "Oh? Are the snacks good where you're from?"
Yu Wanyin wasn't actually from Beijing at all, but banking on the fact that Demon's Pampered Consort definitely never covered this, she made something up on the spot. "Not bad. Have you heard of douzhir? It's really good."
Xie Yong'er sighed, disappointed, just as she'd hoped. "Never had it."
"Then you've been missing out."
While Yu Wanyin styled Xie Yong'er's hair, an enormous scheme was slowly coming together, piece by piece.
Before the board is complete, every piece believes it stands outside the game.
Take the Empress Dowager, for instance.
She was trimming her beloved potted plants with a pair of shears when her chief maid announced quietly, "Lord Mu Yun requests an audience."
Mu Yun was a rather minor official in the Empress Dowager's faction, known for a slight stammer that made him seem honest and dull, and often the butt of his colleagues' jokes.
With the peace treaty due to be signed in three days, the Empress Dowager, frustrated that she still hadn't found a way to kill the Yan delegation, said irritably, "What could he possibly want?"
The chief maid: "He says he has a plan."
The Empress Dowager: "Oh?"
Mu Yun entered, trembling. "This humble official believes that His Majesty currently guards th-those men of Yan the way a hen guards her chicks. It would not be wise to confront them dir-directly..."
The Empress Dowager clipped off a stray branch with a sharp snip. "Say what you mean, Lord Mu. Don't hold back."
Mu Yun grew even more nervous. "Bei... Bei... Bei..."
He got stuck on "Bei" for so long that the Empress Dowager worked it out herself, and her eyes lit up.
Bei Mountain.
On Bei Mountain stood a tomb still under construction, built by Xiahou Dan for the Empress Dowager herself, due to be completed any day now.
This was a matter of great importance. As Emperor, he would naturally be obligated to accompany her to inspect it.
Bei Mountain lay far outside the capital, and Mu Yun had handed her exactly the sort of proper pretext she needed to draw Xiahou Dan out of the city. Once the Emperor was safely far away, they could move against the envoys without warning.
By the time he realized what had happened, it would already be too late. Once the envoys were dead, hostility between the two nations would be unavoidable, and Prince Duan would have his war whether he wanted it or not.
Mu Yun was still stammering. "Bei... Bei Mountain..."
The Empress Dowager: "Excellent."
Mu Yun: "?"
The Empress Dowager had watched the Emperor grow more defiant by the day, and whatever face they'd once bothered to save for each other had long since been torn away. Her patience for him had run out.
Her crimson fingernails plucked a flower and turned it idly between her fingers. "Let's do it, then. Tomorrow morning I'll go up the mountain with him."
Mu Yun said, forcing a smile, "With th-this pretext, His Majesty won't be able to refuse."
The Empress Dowager closed her fingers and crushed the flower, tossing the petals casually into the soil. "I wouldn't have guessed it from looking at you. You're rather sharp after all."
Mu Yun's smile stiffened for just a moment.
The Empress Dowager smiled. "Very well. Once we've left, the matters in the city will be in your hands. If this succeeds, I'll remember it in your favor."
Mu Yun said, overjoyed, "Th-thank you, Your Majesty!"
He bowed his way out, nodding and scraping, and just before he left, cast her one last glance, the kind reserved for a dead man.
The Empress Dowager was already instructing her attendants to notify Xiahou Dan, and didn't notice.
And so, a great storm began to gather from the smallest of beginnings.
By now Yu Wanyin had finished Xie Yong'er's hair and was cupping her chin to begin her makeup.
Yu Wanyin: "You've got nice eyebrow shape."
Xie Yong'er: "Too thick for this era, though. Needs thinning out. These ancient people have no taste."
Yu Wanyin: "..."
Yu Wanyin: "True enough."
By this point in their girls'-dorm gossip session, Xie Yong'er's speech had turned entirely modern, and the resentment and gloom that had shadowed her eyes had faded considerably.
Yu Wanyin kept her talking about food, entertainment, their school days, terrible bosses and impossible clients. These distant words wove themselves into the air between them, conjuring a kind of illusion, and for a moment Xie Yong'er, caught up in it, seemed to forget her circumstances entirely and became, once again, an ordinary office worker.
Xie Yong'er let out a sudden sigh. "Thinking about it now, life since I crossed over has felt so unreal."
Yu Wanyin had gotten what she wanted, but something tightened in her chest all the same.
Xie Yong'er had no idea that even as an office worker, she had never once been real.
Every piece believes it stands outside the game.
Take Tu'er, for instance.
A hidden arrow tore through the paper window of the lodgings and shot toward Tu'er on a gust of wind.
Tu'er's body shifted, barely perceptibly, too fast for anyone else to follow, and by the time anyone looked again the arrow was already caught in his hand.
A note was tied to the shaft.
Haqina frowned deeply. "Your Highness, let go, quickly. The arrow might be poisoned."
Tu'er did as he said and dropped it, then glanced at the hole torn in the window paper. "It came from across the street."
Haqina hurried over, wrapped his fingers in a cloth, picked up the note, and unfolded it. He looked startled. "It's written in Yan."
The note read, in the Yan tongue: "Tomorrow the Emperor goes up Bei Mountain. Someone means to kill you all. Be careful."
Instead of a signature, there was a small drawn flower.
Haqina said, "What is this person trying to tell us? Have we been found out? Do they know we mean to kill the Emperor?"
Tu'er fell into thought.
If their identities had truly been exposed, they wouldn't still be sitting comfortably in these lodgings; whoever this was clearly hadn't reported them.
Could it be that some of their own people were hiding in this city, quietly helping them through this final battle?
Haqina said, "Your Highness, these Xia people are each more treacherous than the last. Can we trust this?"
Tu'er was still staring at the small flower, sketched in ink, shaped like a bell.
It was Shanyi's favorite flower. He had once tucked one into her hair. They called it the camel bell flower. For some reason, it always seemed to bring back the faint sound of her ornaments as she danced, that fine, delicate chiming.
When she had married into Xia, the women of her clan had embroidered this flower onto her wedding robes.
Months later, word of her death reached Yan.
The people of Xia claimed she had tried to assassinate the Emperor; the Yan king denounced this as a false charge against an innocent woman, a sacred maiden murdered. The fragile peace held for only a few months before the fires of war rose again.
Shanyi had been the most beautiful thing in the world.
If she had lived on, she might in time have grown worldly, dulled, no longer deserving of a title like "most beautiful." But she never had that chance.
Yu Wanyin: "So tell me, what exactly do you like about Prince Duan? The fact that he's heartless, or that his heart's made of iron?"
Xie Yong'er didn't answer.
Yu Wanyin nudged her. "Come on, tell me."
"You already know he's heartless," Xie Yong'er said, after a long moment. "I'm not especially pretty, and I'm not clever enough for this either, and he even found out I was an outsider from another world. But he accepted me anyway."
Yu Wanyin: "..."
Xie Yong'er said, "I thought I was the special one. But the deeper I fell, the more distant he grew. And the more distant he grew, the less I could let go."
"Couldn't let go?"
Xie Yong'er bit her lip. "You crossed over too, so you should understand. In the original story, your character was tangled up with him, a whole tragic love affair." To Xie Yong'er, the original story in question was called A Thousand Blossoms in the Night Wind.
Yu Wanyin: "..."
Xie Yong'er: "Why can't it be the same, now that it's me?"
A chill ran through Yu Wanyin as she listened.
These small insecurities, this tangled longing of Xie Yong'er's, sounded like something born of her own free will, but in truth, nearly all of it had been written into Demon's Pampered Consort from the start.
Could it be... that her devotion to Prince Duan was nothing more than a piece of her character design?
Yu Wanyin didn't want to follow that thought any further. That kind of helpless, fated inevitability was too suffocating to bear.
And besides, if character design truly couldn't be changed, why hadn't Prince Duan, as the male lead, fallen in love with Xie Yong'er? Yu Wanyin preferred to believe that free will did exist, and that Xie Yong'er's simply wasn't strong enough.
"Actually, I think you might be misreading Xiahou Bo," she said, offering the words up gently, like a demon luring a monk into temptation. "How do I put this. I don't think he really has that kind of worldly desire in him at all."
Xie Yong'er paused, her tone turning cool. "He has it for you. Even with the story changed, I can still tell. The way he looks at you is different."
"He doesn't," Yu Wanyin said, wishing she could shake some sense into this hopeless romantic. "He doesn't look at anyone that way. He's the kind of excellent villain who's entirely devoted to his ambitions!"
Xie Yong'er: "?"
Every piece believes it stands outside the game.
Take Xiahou Dan, for instance.
With the Empress Dowager using the tomb inspection as her pretext, Xiahou Dan, sure enough, had no way to refuse. Even knowing full well it was a scheme to lure him away, he could not disobey her, could not appear unfilial by declining to accompany her.
When the news reached him, all he could do was instruct his hidden guards: "Tonight, go quietly and make contact with the envoys. Move them somewhere else to hide, take them through several different locations, and make absolutely certain you shake off the Empress Dowager's spies. Send extra guards to the lodgings as a decoy."
The hidden guard accepted the order and was about to leave when Xiahou Dan added, "While you're protecting them, keep a close watch on them too. Don't let them slip away and cause trouble on their own."
In theory, he had no particular reason to worry over the envoys' safety, since this time Prince Duan too should be eager to see the peace talks succeed. If the Empress Dowager made a move, Prince Duan would surely not stand by and let it happen.
And yet, some vague unease nagged at him.
Because there had still been no word from Wang Zhao. From the very beginning, he'd had his doubts about what this delegation was really here for.
Because Prince Duan had been unusually quiet for a long while now, watching the standoff between him and the Empress Dowager unfold from a safe distance, with a stillness that felt strange.
Or perhaps it was simply that, given how much the world seemed to hate him, there was no way these peace talks would go smoothly. When something looks too strange to be an accident, it usually isn't.
Xiahou Dan: "Where's Consort Yu?"
An attendant: "Still with Consort Xie."
Was this good-cop-bad-cop routine ever going to end? Did they mean to drag it out for eighty-one episodes?
His expression darkening, Xiahou Dan got up and headed for Xie Yong'er's quarters.
Meanwhile, at Prince Duan's estate, the man playing the long game sat calmly at the center of his web.
Xiahou Bo had his eyes closed, resting. The more dangerous the position on the board, the calmer he grew.
A scout was reporting to him. "Tu'er has received the note."
Another had come to report as well, the same Mu Yun who had just offered his scheme to the Empress Dowager. "The Empress Dowager says she'll go up the mountain tomorrow morning. I've been put in charge of killing the delegation."
Xiahou Bo opened his eyes and smiled. "Well done, all of you. Tomorrow, the net closes."
The sun was sinking, and the hour Prince Duan had set to meet Xie Yong'er was drawing near.
By the time Xiahou Dan walked into the room, the conversation between Yu Wanyin and Xie Yong'er had already run itself into a dead end.
Xiahou Dan ignored the two of them and walked straight up to Xie Yong'er. "The Empress Dowager wants me to accompany her to Bei Mountain tomorrow morning. Is Prince Duan behind this?"
Xie Yong'er: "...I don't know."
Xiahou Dan: "He asked to meet you tonight. What does he want to say?"
Xie Yong'er: "I don't know. I really don't know."
Xiahou Dan gave a scornful laugh and said to Yu Wanyin, "Told you. Waste of time."
Xie Yong'er felt as though she'd taken a blow to the head, and had no way to argue back. If their positions were reversed, she wouldn't have believed herself either.
Yu Wanyin took a deep breath.
"Yong'er, there's something I wasn't planning to show you."
She pulled a book from inside her robe.
Xiahou Dan's eyes flicked toward it, and his hand lifted slightly, as if some instinct wanted to stop her, but halfway through the motion he checked himself.
Yu Wanyin gave him a reassuring look. "Xu Yao, you remember him? This is what he recorded while he was alive. It's full of Prince Duan's most secret plans. You know full well we couldn't have forged something like this."
Xie Yong'er's face changed. "How did you two get hold of this?"
Yu Wanyin said, "Please. We're all people who crossed over here. Who are you underestimating?"
Xie Yong'er: "..."
Yu Wanyin had held off producing this trump card for a long while, hesitating, because the book still listed two final, crucial moves aimed at Xiahou Dan that hadn't yet been carried out, apparently meant to wait until the Empress Dowager had been brought down first.
And Yu Wanyin had been holding her tongue for exactly that reason, wanting to turn the situation to their advantage.
The moment Xie Yong'er learned they had this book, she could simply tell Prince Duan, and its last remaining value would be gone.
But the instant Yu Wanyin had heard that Xiahou Dan was going up Bei Mountain, something had made her flinch. She couldn't quite explain why, but she felt an almost instinctive urgency: tonight, they had to find out exactly what Prince Duan was up to. And to do that, she needed to convince Xie Yong'er right now.
Gritting her teeth, Yu Wanyin held out the book. "Read it yourself."
At Prince Duan's estate.
Mu Yun's back was straight now, and his stammer was gone entirely. "Your Highness, will Tu'er believe that note?"
Xiahou Bo said, "It doesn't matter if he believes it now or not. Tomorrow, when you go to capture them, make as much noise as possible, loud enough that he won't be able to doubt it. Then let them slip away. After that..."
Mu Yun said, "After that, Tu'er will realize Bei Mountain, with its open terrain, is their best chance."
Neither the Empress Dowager nor the Emperor had any idea, at this point, that the man coming for them was the finest warrior in all of Yan, and that his target was the Emperor's own head.
Which meant neither of them could possibly prepare adequate defenses in time.
Within the palace, layer upon layer of guards might have stood a chance. But out on Bei Mountain, in that wild, empty country, the guards could watch the spirit road well enough, but they couldn't cover a forest stretching out on every side.
Tu'er had faced down a hundred men alone on the battlefield before, and this time he came prepared. Xiahou Bo had no doubt of his ability.
Striking with full intent against men caught unprepared, the handful of guards on the mountain, he could wipe them all out.
And even if the men of Yan ran into trouble, they would have help. Along the entire route, Prince Duan's men would be there to see them safely through.
Mu Yun said, "I'll go make arrangements at the city gate first. And should we send some men ahead to lie in wait in the forest as well?"
Xiahou Bo nodded his approval. "That way, all four forces will be gathered in one place."
This was the plan that Prince Duan's faction had torn out so much of their hair to devise.
Inside the palace.
As she read further and further into the book, Xie Yong'er slowly went still.
Xu Yao's book contained a great many plans that looked strikingly familiar, all of them originally her own suggestions. In the earlier stretch of the story, before events had strayed from the original plot, she had been able to foresee much of what was to come, and the schemes she'd fed Prince Duan had been detailed down to the day, the location, even the chance encounter he was meant to have with a particular person.
But none of the plans recorded here by Xu Yao matched her suggestions exactly.
Whether it was the date, the hour, or the exact location, there was always some small detail, deliberately altered.
Living deep in the palace, with her only contact with Prince Duan through smuggled letters and secret meetings, there was no way she could have known everything he actually did.
There had been one time she'd suggested he turn the deputy commander of the imperial guard against himself by exposing his affair with the commander's concubine. Instead, she'd overheard Prince Duan discussing the matter with his advisors and changing the plan entirely, drugging the deputy commander's horse and pinning a crime on him, then using that to blackmail him.
At the time, she had felt a little wronged, but she had swallowed the question rather than ask Xiahou Bo about it, telling herself instead that the revised plan was simply the safer, more reliable one.
But looking at it now, most of these changes had nothing at all to do with being "safer."
"He never accepted you. Not once," Xiahou Dan said, delivering the final blow. "Not only did he never accept you, he's been guarding against you this whole time."
Xie Yong'er's face went white as paper.
Xiahou Dan said coldly, "Xiahou Bo is far more clinical than you give him credit for. From the very first prophecy you gave him, you became, in his eyes, a time bomb, one that might still prove useful. An outsider is an outsider. No one falls for an outsider."
He bit down hard on the word "outsider," his voice unusually cold and sharp. Yu Wanyin found it harsh to hear, and gave him a light jab.
Xiahou Dan finished anyway. "If he ever takes the throne, you'll be the first one he kills."
In the silence that followed, Yu Wanyin picked up the brush again and applied the last touch of color to Xie Yong'er's lips. "There. All done. Go see him."
When Xie Yong'er said nothing for a long while, Yu Wanyin held the mirror up in front of her. "Take a look. Happy with it?"
Xie Yong'er stared at her own reflection, dazed, and her pupils contracted.
The makeup made no concession at all to the aesthetics of this era, from the contouring to the eyeshadow, every line sharp and striking, modern enough that she could almost see her old self staring back.
It might as well have written the word "outsider" across her face.
Yu Wanyin smiled. "I've wanted to try this look on you for a while now, honestly. I just didn't want you catching on before. But now that we're all being honest with each other, there's nothing left to hide. Are you afraid of him seeing you like this?"
At Prince Duan's estate.
Xiahou Bo said to Mu Yun, "You've worked hard through all of this."
Mu Yun was Prince Duan's most capable strategist. Sent to burrow deep into the Empress Dowager's faction as a mole, he had kept himself low-key for years, playing the game even better than Grand Tutor Wei once had. But Prince Duan was a careful, suspicious man by nature, and seeing how smoothly Mu Yun moved between factions had left him with a certain wariness.
To prove his loyalty, Mu Yun had offered Prince Duan one clever scheme after another, quietly taking over the position Xu Yao had once held. This plan, too, had been his to lead.
Even so, put together in such haste, there were bound to be a few variables left uncontrolled.
Such as whether the men of Yan would act exactly as expected, or whether Xiahou Dan or the Empress Dowager might catch wind of it beforehand.
If this battle succeeded, the balance of power in the empire would fall into Prince Duan's hands, and he, Mu Yun, would be the man of the hour. But if anything went wrong...
The thought made his palms sweat. "To make absolutely certain nothing goes wrong, Your Highness might consider asking Consort Xie once more tonight."