He had initially assumed Gu Huaiyu had simply stepped on the Pure Stream’s toes again, and that they were making a scene to intimidate him. But as he moved forward, the situation felt increasingly wrong.
“Make way!” he barked, startling several scholars into scrambling aside.
Just then, a familiar figure darted out from an alleyway and grabbed his horse’s reins.
“General! Don’t go over there!”
Pei Jingyi looked down to see Zhao Cheng, his former lieutenant from the Imperial Guard. The man was drenched in sweat, his armor lopsided as if he had just survived a brutal skirmish.
“What is it?” Pei Jingyi arched an eyebrow. “Is there a war at Xuande Gate?”
“It’s scarier than a war!” Zhao Cheng lowered his voice, “Those scholars have gone mad. They see someone in military uniform and act like they’ve seen the man who killed their father! A few of the brothers on patrol were nearly torn apart!”
Pei Jingyi narrowed his eyes at a few passing scholars. They were holding signs that read Execute the Traitorous Chancellor. When they looked up and saw him, their expressions froze.
The young man on horseback was tall and imposing, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. His archer’s tunic was loose at the collar, revealing firm chest muscles. He didn’t look like a government official; he looked like a God of Slaughter fresh from the battlefield.
Their faces paled instantly. As if being stared down by a tiger, they turned and bolted so fast their hats fell off.
Pei Jingyi let out a cold snort. “They’re the ones who put you in this state?”
Zhao Cheng didn’t know how to explain. He stamped his feet in frustration and pulled a blood-stained cloth from his breast. “Look at this, and you’ll understand!”
Pei Jingyi took it and smoothed it out. It was a blood petition.
The traitor Gu Yu has maliciously altered the ancestral codes, destroyed the Founding Emperor’s calligraphy, and abolished the distinction between civil and martial.
Starting today, military officers of the fifth rank and above may enter the court to deliberate on state affairs, receiving the same stipends and honors as civil officials. This is the beginning of national ruin and political chaos! All scholars should protest unto death!
The bottom was stamped with the seal of the Imperial Academy, crowded with dozens of bloody fingerprints.
“The Lord Chancellor, yesterday…” Zhao Cheng used a respectful title he had never used before, his voice a hushed whisper. “He ordered the plaque at Xuande Gate to be taken down. He declared that from now on, military officers of the fifth rank and above can participate in court debates, earn the same salary as civil officials, and need not bow when meeting them…”
Zhao Cheng waited for a reaction, but none came. He looked up in confusion to see Pei Jingyi still holding the blood petition. His fingers gripped the edges of the cloth so hard his knuckles were white.
The morning breeze caught a corner of the petition, fluttering it before Pei Jingyi’s eyes. His dark, somber gaze was locked onto the script, as if he were carving every character into his very soul.
Zhao Cheng suddenly didn’t dare to speak. He realized then that Pei Jingyi was different from men like him, who had joined the army because they had no other choice.
For generations since the founding of Great Chen, the Pei family had been military men, spilling their blood to build the dynasty’s foundation. In the Northern Frontier Army, the name Pei was legendary. Pei Jingyi’s father had even reached the ceiling of a military career—a Provincial Governor commanding three hundred thousand border troops.
But what did that matter? When he went to the capital to report on his duties, he still had to bow to a civil official of the fifth rank.
Military officers could not deliberate on policy. They could not make decisions. They were forced to take orders from eunuch supervisors who couldn’t even hold a spear steady.
Two years ago, when Pei Jingyi entered the capital for his debriefing, a eunuch supervisor had insisted on taking a dangerous route out of sheer arrogance, resulting in the death of three hundred elite soldiers. That eunuch had simply dismissed it with a flick of his fingers, saying “the brutes don’t understand flexibility,” and shifted the blame entirely.
Even more ridiculous was the victory banquet. The civil officials sat in the seats of honor, claiming the credit for capturing generals and seizing flags for themselves. The men who had actually risked their lives were left outside to drink in the cold wind, and the silver they were eventually awarded wasn’t even enough to buy a pair of shoes for those scholars.
Their credit was stolen, and every failure was dropped on their heads.
It wasn’t that they hadn’t thought of arguing. It wasn’t that they didn’t feel the injustice.
But the Ancestral Law of Great Chen was carved right there above Xuande Gate—
Military officers were meant to fight, not to speak. They could not argue. They could not deliberate.
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