Chapter 16

Fugui had always been a steady soul, yet even he choked up telling it. The man had died the night before, only fished out the next morning. And for some reason, his hand was still clenched around the ornament he always wore.

Even Wei Tong went blank with shock. Three days ago the man had been alive, coming to see him, and now, in the blink of an eye, gone? That petty, careless, utterly sincere soul who had never once been false to Wei Tong, just… gone?

Wei Tong’s hand curled into a fist without his willing it, round nails biting deep into his palm until five round marks welled with blood, and he hardly noticed. Watching the look on Wei Tong’s face, Fugui felt a quiet grief of his own. A slip and a fall, they said. What it really was, no one would ever know.

After seeing Fugui off, Wei Tong sat down, drained. Palace servants who died by accident never got decent ends; they were simply dragged out and buried. Eunuchs least of all, rootless men.

But one careless sentence of Fugui’s kept circling Wei Tong’s mind. Zhang Jiu had still been clutching his own ornament when he died… And then Wei Tong thought of what Zhang Jiu had overheard.

Think. Think carefully. That day Zhang Jiu came, was there anything hanging at his waist? Was there? Wei Tong shut his eyes tight and replayed the scene from three days ago, over and over. And when one moment finally surfaced, his blood ran cold. While talking to Wei Tong, Zhang Jiu’s hand had drifted toward his waist again and again, as if groping for something; finding nothing, it had drawn back.

…

Wei Tong’s fist slammed into the table. Blood surged up his throat, and he squeezed his eyes shut hard, as if only that could hold back the sting of tears.

Zhang Jiu. Zhang Jiu.

Zhang Jiu had been such a fool. He had thought that saying nothing would leave no trace. But nothing done could go without a trace. Let anyone with an intent eye start digging, and nothing stayed buried.

Wei Tong had known from the start that Liu Cheng belonged to Oboi, because Wei Tong himself was a planted agent. Though no one would bother telling low-level grunts like them exactly how many agents the palace held, Wei Tong had met Liu Cheng before, and so he had known.

But for everyone else, they might know the palace harbored ears and eyes for various masters, yet who could say whose were whose? Liu Cheng’s business was a secret. Liu Yu’s business was another. Kangxi’s suspicions were Kangxi’s own affair. For now, Liu Cheng had left no visible trail, and on the surface, Qingning Palace looked serene.

Zhang Jiu had witnessed what he shouldn’t have, then lost something and been found out. Zhang Jiu was Liu Jinzhong’s man, and Liu Jinzhong was Kangxi’s man. Wrongful killing or not, Zhang Jiu had had no path to survival. The pity was that when Zhang Jiu came to him, Wei Tong hadn’t seen it. If he had, he would never have let the man walk away.

That night, when he entered the dreamscape, Wei Tong was so silent that Xuan nearly wondered whether Wei hadn’t fallen asleep at all. Xuan had once suspected that little eunuch was Wei, since Wei had let slip he could never father children. But then he had recalled that the learning Wei displayed simply didn’t square with a eunuch, and he had let the suspicion drop.

Just as he was about to speak up, the tiny figure of Little Ke appeared before Xuan, straining to haul itself up by the hem of his robe, all four little hooves scrambling for purchase. But the fabric of Xuan’s clothes was too slippery for the small hooves to grip; it could only dangle by the edge, swaying.

Xuan bent down and lifted the little thing onto the table. Little Ke gave its small head a shake, looking as diminutive as ever. It glanced toward the folding screen, then turned its round eyes up to Xuan and said in the smallest voice, “Tongtong, happy. No, not happy.” It slumped down dejectedly, rubbing its eyes with two little front hooves, and added, “Not say. Not say. Eyes red-red. Little Ke no, not happy either.”

Little Ke’s body hadn’t fully recovered; it rarely appeared. And whenever it did, Wei Tong would always keep it company. But this time, though Wei Tong still spoke with Little Ke, the little creature keenly sensed that its Tongtong wasn’t happy. Mid-conversation, his attention would drift away.

The little thing was a bit heartbroken, and remembering Xuan on the other side, it had pattered over with all its might, pinning its hopes on him.

Xuan stroked the tiny horn on Little Ke’s head, and a calculation took shape in his mind. Wei was usually so open and warm, yet steady and composed all the while. A sudden change like this meant something had gone wrong, without question.

“Wei, has something happened to you?” The two couldn’t see each other’s faces; Xuan had no way to read Wei Tong’s mood from expression. But trouble there surely was. Little Ke’s worry, and that earlier silence, were proof enough. Better to just ask.

Xuan’s voice startled Wei Tong out of his daze. Coming back to himself, he found Little Ke gone and assumed it had gone off to rest. A twinge of guilt. He truly had been off today, and he had neglected Little Ke.

“Xuan, it’s nothing. I’m just a little unwell, that’s all.” Wei Tong didn’t want to say much. He and Xuan were, in the end, different in some ways. A person did need an outlet, true, but Wei Tong always guarded that line fiercely. Relying too much on another person was a fatal flaw for him. Having told Xuan about Wei Ning before had already put him on his guard.

A eunuch’s life was too small, too lowly. Anyone could vanish into some deserted corner without a ripple. Aside from the few who knew him, who would ever care?

Xuan let Wei Tong’s evasiveness pass and began speaking of his own affairs instead. “As a child I was wild; the last thing I wanted was to be a good boy. But I craved my father’s love so badly that I forced myself to be the best, and so I caught my grandmother’s eye. Grandmother shielded me, and that is how I grew up safe. But before I turned ten, my father died. Even with Grandmother’s protection, I never again felt that sense of someone holding up the sky above you. Grandmother taught me, but she could never understand my terror.”

Lose a father, and the wolves and tigers close in from every side. Wings not yet fully grown, and already forced to the cliff’s edge, flying headlong into a fierce headwind. Struggling until you bleed, and left to lick your wounds alone.

Wei Tong would never know how much his arrival meant to Xuan. Not quite a light of hope, but very nearly it. For the first time, for the first time ever, someone spoke to him as an equal. No groveling before his station, no hidden dagger behind his circumstances. How rare that was.

“Wei, if you’d rather not say, that’s fine. But at least talk with me.” Xuan softened his voice. He had never shown even his own son such patience. But whatever else was true, he could not bear to watch Wei collapse in on himself. Whoever Wei really was, Xuan knew one thing: he did not want this Wei of the dreamscape to disappear.

Wei Tong was struck dumb. He didn’t know who Xuan was, but Xuan’s guard was every bit as heavy as his own. He had never imagined Xuan would share something like this just to talk him out of his pit.

The weight in his chest hadn’t lifted, but Wei Tong couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from curling. The great stone pressing on his heart loosened, just a little.

In the end, Wei Tong still didn’t tell him everything, only the broad shape of what had happened. When Wei finished, Xuan’s brow creased, and after a moment he said, “Why not get hold of that man’s evidence, gather it up, and send it straight to his enemy’s door?”

Wei Tong shook his head with a wry smile. “Xuan, you’re thinking from your own standing. Gathering evidence is one thing, fine. But once I have it, how do I deliver it? I’m like a fish in a pond. How am I supposed to dodge every fisherman’s hook and leap into another pond entirely?”

Xuan froze, suddenly realizing Wei had indirectly pricked his own sore spot. Some problems simply yielded nothing unless you stood on the other man’s ground.

“In that case, then use this affair as your springboard. Find someone who can handle it. He doesn’t need great connections; he only needs to be a fish in your own pond, someone who can get a word to the other pond.” Xuan’s words set off a cascade in Wei Tong’s mind. True. He didn’t have to act himself. All he needed was the evidence, and someone with ties to the other pond.

“Xuan, your mind does turn quickly, doesn’t it?” Under Wei Tong’s prompting, the man had pivoted in an instant and seen the crux. Listening to him, Wei Tong’s mood lifted. The idea had flickered in him before, but never this clear. With Xuan pointing at the pivot, Wei Tong knew exactly where to start.

Xuan stroked Little Ke, who perked up as Wei Tong’s spirits rose, and laughed under his breath. “It’s only because it’s your own affair. You’re standing inside it; of course you can’t see the shape of it.” It wasn’t that Wei Tong lacked understanding. But when a matter concerned himself, the problem never showed itself plainly.

A smile crept onto Wei Tong’s face. “All right, all right. No need for that between us. Either way, Xuan, thank you. For today.”

As for what came next, Wei Tong’s black eyes were bright, a small flame burning in them, stubborn and unquenched. That account book of Liu Cheng’s. He would have it. No matter what.

For Wei Ning. And for Zhang Jiu.