Chapter 12

The carriages rattled all the way to Xianyang. Lu Buwei didn’t take them straight to Ying Zichu. Instead, he brought them to a quiet residence he had prepared in advance.

“Prince, Madam, you must be exhausted from the journey. Please wash up and change into suitable clothes before you meet the royal grandson,” Lu Buwei said with a bow. Behind him, servants held several sets of beautiful, brand-new clothes, all in the latest Xianyang styles, made from fine fabrics and embroidered with exquisite patterns.

The clothes they had bought in haste in Daliang were much better than what they had worn in Handan, but still not fit for the royal house.

Ying Zheng changed into the fine clothes prepared for him. His dark robe was embroidered at the collar and sleeves with understated cloud patterns in dark gold thread, lending a touch of nobility to his still-boyish face.

When he had finished dressing, Zhao Ji emerged from the inner room. She was wearing an old garment, its color faded, its cuffs visibly worn and finely mended. Ying Zheng recognized it as the one she had often worn in Handan.

He paused, puzzled. “Mother, we’ve only just arrived. We ought to make a good impression so no one looks down on us. Why wear your old clothes?”

He didn’t have to think hard to guess the storm their arrival would stir up.

Zhao Ji gave her hair one last smoothing in the mirror, then turned to him. She raised a hand and lightly brushed her cheek, which had begun to regain some fullness now that she was eating better. A faintly mocking smile curved her lips.

“You don’t understand. Your father is susceptible to this sort of thing.”

“He’s softhearted and sentimental. He values affection above all else,” she said in a quiet voice, each word clear. “If he sees how wretched I look after enduring so many hardships just to return to him, he’ll only feel more sorry for me.”

Ying Zheng lowered his gaze to the fine clothes fitted neatly to his body and considered this.

In the end, he slowly shook his head and abandoned the idea of changing into old clothes himself.

He was not like his mother. As the legitimate eldest son, he had returned after enduring hardship. What he needed was not pity, but for his father to understand that he was the eldest legitimate son, a royal grandson who had survived great adversity and returned.

“Come on,” Zhao Ji said, taking a deep breath to steady herself and taking her son’s hand. “Let’s go see your father.”

The three of them had barely reached the entrance to Ying Zichu’s residence when a figure hurried out from within. It was Ying Zichu himself. He stood on the steps, staring urgently toward the gate. When he saw the mother and son approaching side by side, it was as if he had been struck by lightning. He jolted and froze.

Eight years had passed.

When he had fled Handan in haste, Zheng’er had still been in swaddling clothes, and Zhao Ji had been in the prime of her youth. Now the child had grown into a tall boy, his features bearing traces of his father’s. Zhao Ji was much thinner than he remembered. She was still beautiful, but the hardships she had endured showed clearly on her face.

“Madam… Zheng’er…” Ying Zichu’s throat worked. He tried to speak, but tears choked him, and two streams ran down his cheeks without warning.

He rushed down the steps and reached for them, wanting to draw them both into his arms. They had spent all these years hiding in an enemy state. They must have suffered terribly.

“My lord!” Before he had quite reached her, Zhao Ji swayed forward, faint and fragile, and fell neatly into the arms he had stretched out to catch her.

She buried her face against his chest. Her shoulders shook violently as she wept, her sobs muffled and broken. “I… I’ve finally seen you again.”

Zhao Ji could barely catch her breath, but she still reached out and pulled Ying Zheng, who stood quietly a step away, close to them.

“Look, my lord. Look at our Zheng’er. I raised him all by myself, and he looks so much like you… I looked at his face day and night, and it was like looking at you.”

Ying Zichu held her trembling body tightly. His other hand instinctively stroked the back of hers in an attempt to comfort her. His fingertips touched a layer of rough calluses, and his heart ached even more.

He held Zhao Ji closer. “You and the boy have suffered so much. Back then, I truly had no choice… Qin and Zhao were at war. If I hadn’t left, I would have died. Leaving you alone in that den of wolves—I’ve been tormented by it every day and night…”

Zhao Ji raised her tear-streaked face, her eyes bright with tears. “That’s all in the past. If our family of three can stay together from now on, and never be parted again, I’ll be content.”

As she spoke, she turned to Ying Zheng and gently nudged him. “Zheng’er, come and greet your father.”

Ying Zheng stood to one side, watching Zhao Ji and Ying Zichu, so devoted to each other. He couldn’t shake the awkwardness he felt toward this stranger who shared his blood. But he quickly buried his discomfort and adjusted his expression.

Ying Zichu was a man with a throne to pass down to him.

He stepped forward. Under Ying Zichu’s hopeful, guilt-ridden gaze, he suddenly threw himself into his father’s arms.

“Father!” He buried his face in Ying Zichu’s robe, his voice muffled. “From now on, no one will call me a bastard again, will they?”

Ying Zichu’s eyes blazed. One arm held Zhao Ji close while the other rubbed Ying Zheng’s back hard. “Those Zhao brats! I’ll make them pay for what they did to you both!”

From the angle Ying Zichu couldn’t see, Ying Zheng curled his lip in disdain.

Revenge? You?

The only person I could ever rely on was myself.

Still leaning against Ying Zichu, Ying Zheng calmly considered how he could use his father’s guilt and affection to carve out a place for himself and his mother in the treacherous royal household.

With Lu Buwei’s arrangements, Ying Zheng and Zhao Ji settled into a quiet courtyard on the eastern side of Ying Zichu’s residence. The courtyard wasn’t large, but it was peaceful and private. The servants, chosen personally by Lu Buwei, seemed trustworthy.

Early the next morning, Ying Zheng rose and read beneath an old locust tree in the courtyard. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, dappling his dark robe with light. He wasn’t reading a children’s primer, but several bamboo slips containing Qin laws, which Lu Buwei had sent over the previous night.

He had learned most of these laws while traveling with Fan Ju. The rest were regulations revised over the past twenty years. Qin placed great importance on its laws. He needed to know them thoroughly.

Someone’s coming, No. 108 warned.

Ying Zheng slowly lifted his gaze toward the courtyard gate.

A child of about six or seven stood there, dressed in luxurious red silk. He had a fairly handsome face, but his expression carried the arrogance of a boy who had always been indulged. Two deferential servants stood behind him. He planted his hands on his hips, lifted his chin, and looked Ying Zheng over without a trace of courtesy.

Ying Zheng understood at once. Given the boy’s age and clothes, this had to be his half-brother, Ying Chengjiao.

“Hey!”

The shrill, hostile voice broke the quiet of the courtyard.

Ying Chengjiao stomped up to him, chin raised.

“You’re the bastard Father brought back from outside?” he asked, his voice deliberately loud and full of undisguised contempt.

Ying Zheng set down the bamboo slips and stood. He was more than half a head taller than Ying Chengjiao, and now he towered over him. He didn’t show any anger. He simply looked down at his half-brother, his gaze deep and unreadable.

“Bastard?” Ying Zheng repeated, his tone light. “You mean a royal grandson of Qin who endured every hardship to escape from Zhao and return to his homeland?”

Ying Chengjiao was taken aback by his calmness. Then he grew even angrier, convinced that Ying Zheng was putting on airs.

“Why shouldn’t I call you that? You and that mother of yours, who came from a dancing girl’s background, hid in Zhao for eight years. Who knows what you did there?”

“Oh?” Ying Zheng interrupted, taking a small step forward. The pressure in his gaze made Ying Chengjiao instinctively retreat half a step. “You look down on a hostage prince of Great Qin who returned from Zhao?”

He put special emphasis on the words hostage prince of Great Qin.

Ying Chengjiao was still young and had been spoiled by his mother and the people around him. He had no idea what Ying Zheng meant. Since Ying Zichu never told his younger son about his own wretched years as a hostage in Zhao, Ying Chengjiao naturally assumed that Ying Zheng was mocking him.

He stuck out his chest, trying to look more imposing. “So what if I do? You were left in Zhao because you were born low! My mother is of the Han Royal House, while your mother was only a dancing girl!”

Ying Zheng’s brow twitched almost imperceptibly. A flicker of mockery passed through his eyes.

He looked away from Ying Chengjiao as if the boy no longer deserved his attention. Turning to the servant standing some distance away, who was already pale with fear, he said evenly, “See him out.”

An idiot. He isn’t worth my time.

The servant hurried forward to escort Ying Chengjiao out. He had been sent by Lu Buwei and had no reason to defer to Ying Chengjiao’s status.

Ying Chengjiao hadn’t expected to be dismissed so casually. His face flushed red with anger, and he tried to say more, but the servant politely—and firmly—“saw” him through the gate.

Ying Zheng didn’t turn around right away. Standing beneath the locust tree with his hands behind his back, he watched Ying Chengjiao’s indignant figure disappear amid his attendants. A cold smile slowly lifted the corners of his mouth.

He’s no threat. And the person behind this attempt to intimidate me—Lady Han—can’t be much more capable.

That only leaves Lady Huayang to deal with…

He turned his gaze to the other young servant standing nearby. This one had been sent to him by Gong Mao and was more loyal than the men Lu Buwei had provided.

“Did you hear what was said?” Ying Zheng asked, still calm.

“I did, Prince,” the servant replied respectfully.

“Good.”

Ying Zheng said nothing more. He sat down again and picked up the bamboo slips, as if nothing more than a trivial interruption had occurred.

In a large household like this, news had its own ways of traveling.

Before half a day had passed, word of the morning clash between the newly returned Prince Zheng and the favored Prince Chengjiao had reached Ying Zichu. In particular, everyone had heard Ying Zheng’s words: You look down on a hostage prince of Great Qin who returned from Zhao?

That afternoon, the sound of porcelain shattering and a muffled scolding rang out from Ying Zichu’s study. Ying Chengjiao and his birth mother, Lady Han, were summoned inside. When they emerged, both were pale, their eyes red.

Ying Zichu’s cutting question—“Could it be that you look down on me too, a hostage prince who returned from Zhao?”—also reached Ying Zheng through one of the people Lu Buwei had placed at Ying Zichu’s side.

Ying Zheng merely nodded and continued reading the information Lu Buwei had sent him about the people he could rely on.

The next day, Ying Zichu took Ying Zheng and Zhao Ji to pay their respects at Lord Anguo’s Residence.

When they arrived, Lord Anguo had already gone to the palace for a meeting. A palace attendant led them to the residence of Lady Huayang. A maid dressed in the cross-collared robes of Chu came out and bowed. Her voice was respectful but distant.

“Lady Huayang is dressing. Please wait a while, royal grandson, Prince, Madam.”

That “while” lasted nearly half an hour. The early summer sun climbed higher, heating the white stone tiles in the courtyard.

Ying Zheng stood with his hands at his sides, slightly behind his father. He understood perfectly well. This was Lady Huayang’s way of putting his mother and him in their place.

His thoughts raced as he recalled the information Lu Buwei had given him. His grandfather, Ying Zhu, Lord Anguo, adored and trusted Lady Huayang, who came from the royal house of Chu. It was said that every matter in the residence, and even the direction of court affairs, required her approval. Years ago, his father had even changed his name from Yiren to Zichu to curry favor with her, showing that he had not forgotten his ties to Chu.

Ying Chengjiao’s birth mother, Lady Han, had been given to Ying Zichu by Lady Huayang. Even Lu Buwei had no way to deal with a woman as powerful as Lady Huayang.

What a headache.

Ying Zheng frowned in frustration. For the first time, he felt outmatched—and found himself missing Fan Ju again.

I really need an advisor as dependable as Fan Ju!