Chapter 6

Fan Ju and Ying Zheng evaded Lord Rang’s search and met Wang Ji in the next city. From there, they traveled without incident to Xianyang.

As soon as they entered the city, Wang Ji hurried off to the palace to report, without even taking time to settle them in.

He returned two hours later, but his manner toward Fan Ju had cooled.

“The King’s affairs are too pressing to summon you just now,” Wang Ji said, leaving himself room to maneuver. “I expect he’ll see you in a few days.”

He then told a servant to show Fan Ju and Ying Zheng to their lodgings.

The two were led to a small, cramped courtyard. The gate looked old, and the lacquer had peeled from the threshold, exposing wood riddled with insect holes.

When they opened the door, the smell of dust swept over them.

Ying Zheng looked around at the shabby house, little different from the place where he had temporarily stayed in Handan, and frowned slightly.

Fan Ju, however, remained unruffled. He rolled up his sleeves and began cleaning, stopping Ying Zheng from helping.

“We’ve been on the road a long time. You must be tired too. Take this money and go have some fun. Just don’t wander too far.” Fan Ju untied his purse and tossed it to Ying Zheng.

Qin’s laws were strict, and patrol constables roamed the streets of Xianyang. This was the inner city, too, so it was quite safe.

Ying Zheng hesitated. In the end, his longing to see Xianyang won out.

He could ask Fan Ju about their plans when he got back that evening.

He tried to school his face into the solemn expression of an adult weighing the pros and cons, but the light in his eyes gave him away.

“Remember to bring the wooden identity tally Senior Official Wang gave you,” Fan Ju called after him with a smile.

The tally proved a person’s identity in Qin. Without one, he could be treated as a criminal.

Ying Zheng ran happily out of the courtyard. At Fan Ju’s gesture, the servant who had brought them there followed after him.

When the servant caught up at the mouth of the alley, he saw Ying Zheng standing beneath a willow tree by the street, quietly watching a few children playing nearby.

One boy had his hair tied in two buns with red silk ribbons. He wore a fine ramie robe and carried a wooden sword. His cheeks were rosy, and he stood a head taller than the other children, who had gathered around him to play.

“That’s the son of General Meng. His name is Meng Wu. The children around here all like playing with him. You could go join them, young master,” the servant said in stiff Wei speech.

Wang Ji had lent them this servant from the guest house. Knowing that the dialects of Wei and Qin were very different, Wang Ji had specifically found someone who spoke Wei to help Ying Zheng and Fan Ju adapt to Qin.

Ying Zheng stood where he was, alone in the street.

He couldn’t understand a word the children were saying.

Every few miles brought a different accent. Handan and Xianyang were hundreds of miles apart.

He couldn’t understand the dialect of his own homeland.

The servant finally remembered that the young nobleman had only recently arrived from Wei. “This servant was thoughtless. You’re from Wei, so of course you’re not used to the way people speak in Xianyang.”

“I’m not from Wei,” Ying Zheng said coldly, then turned back the way he had come.

Fan Ju had just finished laying out the bedding and was rubbing his aching back when he opened the door and saw Ying Zheng sweeping the courtyard with a broom.

“You’re back already?”

Ying Zheng said nothing. He kept his head down and swept, as if he wanted to dig a hole straight through the ground.

Fan Ju glanced at the servant. Once he had heard what happened, he laughed helplessly and waved the man away.

When they were alone in the courtyard, Fan Ju tried to comfort him. “You’re from Zhao. It’s only natural that you can’t understand Qin speech. Even at my age, I’d need time to adjust if I’d just arrived.”

All along the way, he and Wang Ji had spoken in the common tongue. Now that they were in Xianyang, the streets rang with Qin speech, and the common tongue was rarely heard.

Ying Zheng dropped the broom and looked up.

“I’m not from Zhao.”

He was Qin. Qin royal blood ran through his veins. He was the King’s great-grandson.

And yet he couldn’t understand Qin speech. He hadn’t been born on Qin soil, and he had never set foot in the Qin Lands.

Fan Ju watched Ying Zheng sweeping with furious determination and shook his head. Sometimes a child’s mind was harder to read than a king’s.

They swept and scrubbed until, just before curfew, they had made the little courtyard presentable. Only the water scattered across the ground remained, catching the deepening dusk.

Exhausted enough to forget all about a scholar’s dignity, Fan Ju sat on the table and pounded his legs, breathing hard.

“My body really isn’t what it used to be,” he said, his voice sinking.

The brush with death at Wei Qi’s residence had left its mark, deep in both his mind and body.

Ying Zheng came over and looked up at him. “The King didn’t take to you. What should we do now?”

Fan Ju’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “How do you know the King didn’t take to me?”

“If I thought a man was worthy, I’d give him a grand house, piles of gold and silver, and servants without number.” Ying Zheng looked around the cramped courtyard and sighed. “This is nothing like I imagined.”

He had thought that as soon as they reached Xianyang, Fan Ju would meet his great-grandfather Ying Ji. The two would understand each other at first sight, and a tale of loyal ruler and worthy minister would begin at once, shaking the world.

Fan Ju laughed at the sight of Ying Zheng looking so old-fashioned at such a young age.

“You were so gloomy this afternoon. How come you have time to worry about me now?”

Ying Zheng kept a straight face. “Being gloomy doesn’t help.”

Whether or not he had been born in Qin, whether or not he could return to Qin in the real world, at least he stood on Qin soil now.

If he couldn’t understand Qin speech, then he would start learning now. Better to embarrass himself in the instance as Zhang Zheng, the merchant’s nephew, than to return to Qin in the real world and disgrace himself as Ying Zheng, the King of Qin’s great-grandson.

“Don’t rush. We need to understand the situation at court first,” Fan Ju said, a flicker of concern crossing his brow.

“We have to learn what troubles the King before we can anticipate his needs and help him solve them.”

They settled into the quiet little courtyard. It was secluded, but not too far from the center of things. Wang Ji knew Fan Ju’s abilities and hadn’t placed him in a rough, crowded quarter. Most of the neighbors were mid-ranking officers who had risen through military service in recent years, which made them a useful source of information.

A month passed in a flash.

Ying Zheng had already picked up a thoroughly authentic Qin accent. His progress was so quick that even Fan Ju was amazed.

One day, Ying Zheng watched Meng Wu from a distance as the boy waved his wooden sword and shouted happily with the others. Ying Zheng narrowed his eyes.

Meng Wu’s father, Meng Ao, had originally been a man of Qi. He later entered Qin as a general, where his courage in battle won him the trust of Lord Wu’an, Bai Qi.

That brat was so loud and boisterous. He looked easy to fool.

Ying Zheng strode over to Meng Wu and stopped beside him, letting out a pointed snort.

The scorn in the sound was impossible to miss.

Meng Wu sniffed, sprang in front of Ying Zheng, and shouted, “You! Are you looking down on me?”

The children with wooden swords swarmed over too, glaring angrily at Ying Zheng.

Ying Zheng clasped his hands behind his back and surveyed the crowd. “A pack of little fools, playing with wooden swords.”

“Hey! If you’re so great, come fight me! Let’s see who’s useless!” Meng Wu bared his teeth and waved his wooden sword threateningly.

Ying Zheng slowly drew the dagger from his sleeve and let its gleaming blade catch the light.

“I don’t play pretend.”

“Whoa!” Meng Wu’s eyes fixed on the blade. Even as the son of a general, he was too young for his father to let him handle a real sword.

“Still, I don’t need this to deal with you.” As Meng Wu stared at the dagger, Ying Zheng slowly slid it back into its sheath. Then he turned to another child. “Lend me your wooden sword.”

The child jumped in fright and, cowed by Ying Zheng’s manner, handed it over without thinking.

Ying Zheng made a simple flourish with the sword and beckoned Meng Wu over with a finger.

“Come on.”

He had been watching Meng Wu for days and knew the boy hadn’t had any proper martial training yet. The few amateur tricks Ying Zheng had learned from street fighters in Zhao and from Zheng Anping would be more than enough to deal with him.

Several hours later, dusk began to fall.

Fan Ju hurried back to the courtyard and handed Ying Zheng the food he’d brought.

“Eat.”

Ying Zheng set a millet cake down in front of him and cleared his throat primly. Only after he’d drawn Fan Ju’s attention did he drop his news.

“Bai Qi isn’t on Wei Ran’s side.”

Fan Ju paused. He struggled to swallow the dry cake in his mouth, then looked at Ying Zheng in surprise.

“What?”

Ying Zheng lifted his chin proudly and repeated what he had coaxed out of Meng Wu and the other officers’ children that afternoon.

“So, although Bai Qi was once promoted by Wei Ran, he isn’t one of Wei Ran’s followers. His only loyalty is to Qin. It makes no difference to him who holds power at court.”

Fan Ju shot to his feet. He paced across the room several times, then clapped his hands.

“Excellent! Now we have a clearer picture of how things might unfold.”

He stopped abruptly and turned to Ying Zheng, his expression serious again.

“How did you know this was what I was worried about?”

“I heard you talking.”

“Eavesdropping?” Fan Ju raised an eyebrow.

“Listening openly.” Ying Zheng straightened his back, looking a little pleased with himself. “I thought that if those children heard their fathers talking at home, they’d know things too. They’re simple-minded, so they’re easy to question.”

Who would be on guard against their own children listening in?

Fan Ju laughed and pointed at Ying Zheng. “And aren’t you a child too?”

“Does that make my teacher no different from ordinary fools?”

They looked at each other and laughed.

Before Fan Ju had made his way into Qin’s circle of powerful men, Ying Zheng had already conquered the children of the military families in the neighborhood.

Even Meng Wu, who had once been the ringleader, now followed Ying Zheng around all day calling him “Big Brother.”

Ying Zheng seemed to have been born with an instinct for command. In no time at all, even the children several years older than him had come to respect him and quietly looked to him as their leader.

Ying Zheng played the leader of the pack while listening to the children’s seemingly innocent chatter. He picked out and pieced together anything useful, then passed it on to Fan Ju.

Most of the children were simple-hearted, but they knew their fathers and older brothers well: their temperaments, their relationships, and even the likes and dislikes they let slip by accident.

In less than half a year, Fan Ju had quietly pieced together a map of Qin’s tangled court relationships, with its threads growing clearer by the day.

“It’s time to submit a memorial to the King,” Fan Ju said, setting down his carving knife.

“The Queen Dowager’s two brothers, Lord Rang and Lord Huayang, and the King’s two maternal brothers, Lord Jingyang and Lord Gaoling, have amassed private fortunes greater than the royal treasury.” His voice was certain, and a cold glint passed through his eyes.

“The King has wanted to reclaim his power for a long time. Who would willingly remain a puppet king for thirty years?”

Fan Ju stood and carefully tucked the bamboo slips he had written into his robes.

Ying Zheng watched him hurry away. A screen only he could see appeared in midair.

[Underage Playtime Restriction Mode active. Instance Time Remaining: one month.]

“Master,” Ying Zheng suddenly said. His voice rang especially clearly through the quiet courtyard.

Fan Ju paused and turned back.

Ying Zheng stared at his back and asked, each word deliberate, “If danger means death, why walk into it?”

He knew the road ahead was perilous, that death was all but certain. Why step onto it anyway?

Looking back from the future, Ying Zheng knew Fan Ju would eventually win and become the most trusted minister of his great-grandfather, Ying Ji. But in this moment, no one knew what might happen to a man who meddled in the King’s family affairs.

Fan Ju laughed.

“If you want to accomplish extraordinary things, you must take extraordinary risks. If I feared death, I would have spent my life tilling the fields of Wei. Death is nothing I would avoid; a life of mediocrity is nothing I would choose.”

Then Fan Ju hurried away, leaving Ying Zheng where he stood, repeating one line to himself.

“…A life of mediocrity is nothing I would choose.”

Ying Zheng slowly clenched his fist.