Chương 130: Book 2 Chapter 44: Counterattack

It started to go wrong with Wei Chensu, one of Prince Xiang Chengxuan's many supporters. In his rooms, Mo Jian planted several stolen items from the lesser treasury Xiang Muxue had shown him, along with a jade slip outlining a plan to sell them to the highest bidder. The jade slip was one he had made himself. By itself, it was barely evidence at all, being vague, nonspecific, and containing nothing that tied it to Wei Chensu beyond the fact that it had been found in his room.

Still, if Wei Chensu truly had been dealing in stolen treasures behind closed doors, this was exactly the sort of evidence he would hide. After all, no one kept a clear, detailed record of their misdeeds in an easily discoverable format. It was weak evidence, but it should have been enough. It turned out to be anything but.

Mo Jian had not been present at court when Muxue presented the evidence or when Chengxuan offered his rebuttal, but he saw the outcome plainly on her face when she returned to her rooms an hour later. She was fuming, angrier than he had ever seen her.

"It was like he knew everything I would say or do and prepared for it in advance," she complained furiously before lapsing into a sullen silence. That mood lasted for approximately half an hour before she rallied and told him and Bai Ning, "There is no time to waste. This is only one setback. Let's continue." So they had.

Except- The following night, the Netherworld Scorpion slipped into the residence of Cai Juekong, Chengxuan's man in the Ministry of Revenue, infamous for crushing several of the prince's enemies beneath the weight of imaginary "unpaid taxes" – only to find the residence completely deserted. Mo Jian had the scorpion scour the estate inch by inch, but Cai Juekong was not hiding: he was simply gone. Worse still, the residence showed no signs of having been abandoned.

Everything appeared as it should, as though Cai Juekong had merely stepped out for the night and would return before dawn. Frustrated, Mo Jian had been forced to retreat empty-handed. This was not the first such failure, of course, but it was the first time their target had vanished in this manner. The others had evaded them by constantly changing where they spent the night or avoiding their official residences whenever possible. This was different.

They had already confirmed that Cai Juekong slept exclusively in his own residence, so for him not to be there-"Chengxuan must have seen us coming and warned him specifically," Muxue said.

"But how?" Mo Jian asked, frustration bleeding into his voice.

"If he can detect the method-" Muxue shook her head, cutting him off.

"No. It is his foresight. His instinct for politics. I told you before: if it ever comes to a straightforward contest against him, we will lose." Her lips twisted into something that was not quite a smile.

"It seems that even though we have done everything possible to avoid it, he is coming after us now." She looked away.

"It will only get harder from here." The words proved prophetic. Two days later, Bai Ning was attacked in a corridor while returning from a conversation with one of the paintings that loved gossiping with her. The corridor was mysteriously deserted despite being part of a busy route through the twenty first floor. More troubling still, the loud and destructive battle that followed failed to attract a single patrolling Tiger Army soldier. Tang Huwei was furious.

"There's a mole," he said as Bai Ning recounted her experience.

"I am certain of it." She had a long gash running down one arm, and dried blood clung to her face, sealing one eye shut, but otherwise she appeared unharmed. Mo Jian was even angrier than the Tiger General. If he ever found the two cultivators who had ambushed her...

"They seemed to know all my techniques," Bai Ning explained.

"They countered Miantiao by unleashing some frost bird I've never heard of, and they sealed my sword with a prepared artifact that acted like a sheath. I couldn't even cut a piece of paper while it was active. Thankfully, they knew nothing about the Blood Lotus. I managed to protect myself and escape, but if not for that, things might have gone badly." That only made Mo Jian more indignant. The worst part, apart from the danger she had been in, was that he had not even known about it. If not for her bloodline...

With Chao Qinzi, the blood-red lotus projection had manifested only once, shielding him and carrying him away at tremendous speed. Mo Jian still did not know whether he had gained any other benefits from it. For Bai Ning, however, things were different. Though she was still learning to sustain it for extended periods, the Blood Lotus provided both extraordinary protection and remarkable speed when it carried her aloft.

"And there were no distinguishing features on either of them?" Muxue pressed, her brow furrowed.

"Nothing that might help us find them?" Bai Ning shook her head.

"They were very careful. They wore qi-masking robes, and they relied on treasures and prepared traps instead of their bonded artifacts. I could have stayed and fought longer, but I wasn't sure whether this attack was aimed only at me or part of something larger. I decided escaping was the safer choice." She sounded faintly ashamed as she said it, which Mo Jian found utterly bewildering. Retreating had been the correct decision. The fact that she had escaped at all was already more than he could have asked for.

"You can't travel alone from now on," the Tiger General told Bai Ning.

"Or Shen Jinglan either, for that matter. No assassin would dare go after Muxue, and if they try to come after me, well-" He bared his teeth in a grin that looked more threatening than reassuring.

"Let them try. But for the rest of you, start moving in pairs from now on." Which, admittedly, they should have been doing from the beginning. The fiction of Mo Jian being Xiang Muxue's consort was just that: a polite fiction. In practice, he functioned more as her guard than anything else. Yet despite that, they often went about their business separately. After Bai Ning's ambush, that could no longer continue.

Tang Huwei left the meeting promising to hunt down the "spineless maggot" leaking information to Chengxuan from within his army, and nobody tried to stop him. This was not the usually jovial Tiger General. Beneath the jokes and easy smiles was a man who had fought his way to the peak of the Empire's military hierarchy, and someone had just attacked people under his protection. That was not something he was inclined to forgive.

Which was how Mo Jian found himself accompanying Muxue to a meeting with her cousin, Guxin, with Bai Ning accompanying them as well. Muxue had originally been scheduled to meet with a minister from the Ministry of Personnel, but the meeting had been abruptly cancelled. Her contact had been reassigned to a provincial branch in the eastern provinces, ostensibly to gain another century of administrative experience. None of them believed that explanation for a moment. Chengxuan was countering them.

He had not only weathered their attacks, but had begun dismantling their own plans in turn. Since her schedule had unexpectedly opened up, Muxue had decided to visit her cousin instead. As Mo Jian knew Princess Xiang Guxin only peripherally, he decided to ask about her as they made their way through the palace.

"In some ways, Guxin's situation is even worse than mine was," Muxue explained. Bai Ning only half-listened. She already knew most of this, having accompanied Muxue to visit Guxin once before. For Mo Jian, however, it was all new.

"She is the only direct descendant of my uncle, the current emperor. Under normal circumstances, she should have been the crown heir, and neither my father nor Chengxuan would have come close to challenging her claim. However, nearly two centuries ago, she became involved in a major scandal. Ever since then, she has lost all of her power and prestige and has been forbidden from leaving the palace. Uncle also stripped her of her status within the Imperial Family entirely. You could call it a form of banishment."

Mo Jian blinked in surprise.

"What did she do to deserve that? Try to murder her father so she could become empress early?" Muxue snorted, though there was no amusement in her eyes.

"I think Uncle might have preferred that to what she actually did. No, Guxin was... spoiled, for lack of a better word. Uncle had only one child and no sons, so he indulged her from the very beginning. She grew up willful and stubborn. She rarely heard the word 'no,' and as time passed, the idea that it might ever apply to her became increasingly distant." She paused, choosing her next words carefully.

"I don't mean to imply that she was cruel or unreasonable. She was simply accustomed to getting her way. But before I explain further, you know the marriage policies that govern members of the Imperial Family, don't you?" Mo Jian nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Bai Ning doing the same. So she had been paying attention after all.

"Yes. Members of the Imperial Family may only marry with the express approval of the reigning emperor, usually to someone he personally selects. Refusal is not permitted, nor is any attempt to circumvent the arrangement. However, imperial family members are free to take consorts or concubines as they wish, provided the relationship never becomes official and does not reach the status of a formal dao partnership. Marriage alone is forbidden; everything short of that is permitted."

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. After all, it was the reason he could publicly pose as Muxue's consort without attracting any suspicion. Even Chengxuan maintained a harem of concubines, despite being officially married to a woman from a prominent noble cultivation clan.

"There is one more exception to that," Muxue added once he had finished speaking.

"Having children. It is completely forbidden for members of the Imperial Family to bear children with anyone other than their official dao companion." Her expression darkened.

"Guxin broke that rule two centuries ago. She became involved in a torrid romance with a wandering vagrant cultivator who somehow managed to enter the palace. Then, to make matters worse, she bore his child. When they were discovered, the man fled with the infant, and instead of accepting her punishment, Guxin helped them escape." Muxue shook her head.

"Even now, there is a substantial bounty on that man's head, though he has been a ghost ever since. Uncle was so enraged by Guxin's actions that he stripped her of every remaining shred of power and status and named my father crown prince in her place."

"Huh." Mo Jian was genuinely astonished by the story. It served as a reminder that there were countless details about this world that the book had never touched upon. Xiang Guxin had never appeared in its pages, making both her name and her history entirely unfamiliar to him.

"What would the punishment have been?" Bai Ning asked, sounding unexpectedly curious.

"If your cousin hadn't helped her lover and child escape, I mean." Muxue's answering smile was bitter.

"Nothing pleasant. The child would most likely have been executed, harsh as that sounds. The bloodline of the Immortal Emperor cannot be allowed to spread beyond the control of the Imperial Family." Her voice grew colder.

"As for the man, he would have been thrown into the imperial dungeons, tortured for information, and eventually executed in whatever manner the emperor deemed appropriate. And Guxin herself would still have faced severe punishment. But if she had publicly accepted the other sentences, pretended remorse, and played the obedient daughter, I believe she would have retained her position." A dry pause.

"Of course, if she had been the sort of person capable of doing that, she never would have had the affair in the first place." Bai Ning looked quietly disturbed by the barbarity of what was being described, and Mo Jian found himself agreeing. It all sounded extraordinarily cruel and unnecessarily shortsighted. Then again, he wasn't royalty – and thank the Heavens for that – so perhaps there were considerations he simply didn't understand. A thought suddenly occurred to him.

"Wait. You said Guxin also hates Chengxuan. But he would have been a child when all of this happened. Surely he wasn't involved. What's her grievance with him?"

"You'd think so," Muxue replied, in a tone that suggested she found his assumption hopelessly naïve.

"But Chengxuan was involved, even if indirectly. He might have been young when it happened, but I know for a fact that it was his mother who informed the emperor about Guxin's child." Mo Jian raised an eyebrow.

"They were close back then?"

"Very," Muxue said.

"At least, Guxin believed they were. It was that service to the emperor that elevated Chengxuan's branch of the family. Before then, they were far too distant from the main line to reside within the Inner Court. The emperor rewarded her loyalty, and Chengxuan benefited from it." Her lips thinned.

"Guxin has hated his mother, and, by extension, him, for the last two centuries. I never approved of that. Children shouldn't inherit the sins of their parents." For a brief moment, genuine regret flickered across her face before hardening into something colder.

"But after what he did fifty years ago, any sympathy I might have had for him disappeared." Or was replaced by seething hatred, Mo Jian thought, though he wisely kept that observation to himself. He possessed at least that much tact. The conversation had to end there, because they had arrived. Princess Xiang Guxin resided – or, based on everything he had just heard, was imprisoned – on the twenty-third floor, directly beneath the level occupied by the emperor himself.

The three of them had made the journey under the concealment of the Truth Tolling Bell, speaking freely as they walked. They had encountered remarkably few people in the corridors along the way. Guxin's residence was tucked into a narrow corner of the floor, where the walls were plain and unadorned. The wooden door was slim and unremarkable. Muxue stepped forward and rapped softly against it. A voice immediately answered from the other side.

"Come in, Muxue." They opened the door and entered. Beyond it lay a surprisingly simple room. In truth, it would not have looked out of place in an ordinary house beyond the palace walls. Four wooden walls. A wooden floor. A low ceiling. A simple bed and desk occupied one side of the chamber, while several purple velvet cushions were scattered across the floor. Near the far wall stood a narrow wooden cylinder resembling a pillar, its surface carved with dozens of notches. Each notch held a single jade slip.

It was not an unpleasant room. Perhaps a little smaller than Mo Jian would have preferred, but compared to the vast spatial domains contained within most palace chambers, this place might as well have been a storage closet. Its occupant gave something of the same impression. The first thing Mo Jian noticed about her was not her smoldering golden eyes or her close-cropped dark hair, but the shadows beneath those eyes.

The bags were pronounced enough to give her a perpetually exhausted appearance, something rarely seen among cultivators. Her hair was shorter than that of almost any man or woman he had encountered in the capital. It reminded him vaguely of a trip he had once taken to Seafoam Island back home, where everything from the fashions to the customs had been different. The men there often wore their hair cropped similarly short. The resemblance only deepened when he took in her clothing.

A simple wrap covered her chest, while a loose sarong hung around her waist. It was easily the boldest outfit he had seen since arriving in the capital. Well, unless one counted Madam Jinjing's... birthday attire. Muxue was already smiling.

"How did you know it was me, Guxin?" Guxin snorted.

"You're the only one who bothers to knock. The others just barge in." Her gaze then shifted to Bai Ning, and her smile widened fractionally.

"And little Bai Ning too. Still wearing that qipao? I told you, you should try the sarong. It's much more stylish." Bai Ning cupped her hands, smiling brightly.

"Many thanks, big sister-" Big sister? Mo Jian wondered. Since when had that happened?

"-but I prefer this style. Though I have taken your comments about matching green and gold to heart." What comments? And when had this entire discussion about fashion even happened? Hadn't Muxue come here to recruit Guxin as an ally against Chengxuan? Before he could pursue that thought further, Guxin spoke again.

"Fair enough. And I can't deny I have a fondness for the old style too. My mother introduced it to court, you know. It went out of fashion after her passing, but there was a time when every other woman wore one." Then, suddenly, her attention shifted. Her gaze landed on him.

"And who is this? Wait-" she straightened, suddenly delighted.

"Is this Mo Jian? Your consort?" She turned to Muxue and laughed.

"Your first, isn't he? I'm quite glad to hear you've taken one. It seems you're growing up after all, Muxue." She nodded approvingly, entirely ignoring how Muxue's face was turning steadily redder.

"But… what is this choice?" She waved a hand.

"He's just… so boring." Mo Jian froze halfway between embarrassment and indignation.

"I mean," Guxin continued, gesturing at him, "look at him. That classically handsome face, that long hair, that toned body… it's like he stepped out of a jade drama and decided to model himself after it. He's so conventionally handsome it loops all the way around to being uninteresting. Ugh."

"That's… um… Mo Jian has other skills," Muxue tried loyally, but it only felt like another arrow straight to his pride.

"He used to be pudgy before," Bai Ning added 'helpfully.' That was another arrow entirely. Mo Jian could not have answered even if he had wanted to; speech required a level of emotional stability he no longer possessed.

"I suppose," Guxin said grudgingly, eyeing him again, "he must be exceptional in bed to make up for it. Or is that the sort of thing you prefer, Muxu-""Cousin," Xiang Muxue interrupted sharply, now fully red in the face.

"I've come to talk about Chengxuan." Whatever hint of levity had lingered in the room vanished at once. Guxin's expression hardened so abruptly it was almost disorienting. She lowered herself onto the bed, and when she spoke again, her voice had gone cold.

"You do know how to ruin the mood, cousin. Very well. What do you want to know about that bastard?" Muxue stepped forward carefully, picking her way through the scattered cushions before sitting beside her on the bed.

"He's countering me too effectively. It would be one thing to lose in direct competition, but that isn't what this feels like. It feels as though he already knows every move before I make it. Even the best diviners in the world shouldn't be able to predict things with that level of precision. Do you have any idea how he's doing it, or at least how to counter him?" Guxin didn't answer for several heartbeats. When she finally spoke, her face was still carved from ice.

"Then stop trying to match him move for move. The longer you play his game, the worse it will become for you. Cut the knot and take him out. I know you have a method, so stop dithering and use it." Muxue shook her head immediately.

"That isn't an option available to me. And anyone not of the Imperial Family who acts against a member of the family answers to Grandfather. You know that." Guxin's answering glare was sharp and scathing.

"So what? Either way, he dies. Even if you lose your assassin, Chengxuan's entire faction falls apart without him. If you are afraid of dirtying your hands after that, I'll happily kill that bitch wife and that sickly son of his with my bare hands. I've dreamed of doing it often enough." There was deep relish in her voice when she spoke of killing her cousin's family, one that disturbed Mo Jian greatly.

"It's not a path open to me," Muxue insisted stubbornly, not even turning to look at him or Bai Ning as she spoke. Mo Jian couldn't help wondering if she was tempted. Not that he would ever follow such an idiotic order if she gave it, but still.

"Then you'll only lose." Guxin's tone carried a cold certainty, though the earlier relish had faded entirely.

"If he's openly coming after you, it means he already sees a path to victory. He's likely already figured out how to get you killed and is putting it in motion quietly. That's the kind of man he is."

"How do I get out of it?" Muxue asked quietly. Guxin smiled, but there was no warmth in it.

"I already told you. You can't. Either you lose so completely that he stops bothering you, or you die. That's it. Or you take him out. There's no third option. Anything else is just wasting time."

"I see," Muxue said softly. Mo Jian exchanged a glance with Bai Ning. Her expression was troubled, perhaps even more so than his. Privately, Mo Jian thought Guxin was being far too pessimistic. After all, they had advantages the princess couldn't possibly know about. But this was not the moment to say so. Muxue stood.

"I know what I need to do now, cousin. Thank you for your guidance." Guxin did not respond. She stared down at her bed, glaring at the sheets as though they had personally offended her. The exhaustion around her felt almost tangible now. Quietly, Muxue gestured for the others to follow. They turned to leave. A jade slip suddenly whipped through the air. Muxue, being nearest, caught it one-handed. All three of them turned in surprise. Princess Xiang Guxin was looking up at them now.

A wry smile tugged at her lips, though there was nothing in it that suggested genuine happiness.

"Take that with you," she said. Muxue blinked.

"What is it?" Guxin's expression remained the same wry and tired one, but this time there was something faintly amused about it too.

"A dual cultivation technique. One I approve of. It has an… intensive physical component. Since you're still so inexperienced in that regard, as your elder, I should gift you-" That was as far as she got. Muxue dropped the slip like it had burned her fingers. Her face turned a deep maroon all the way to her neck. Bai Ning calmly flicked her hand, and the jade slip floated into her grasp instead.

"I'll keep it safe for her," she said, announcing it out loud and to no one in particular. Mo Jian would have protested, but she was no longer a child, nor officially his student. Besides, the memory of a certain jade slip from Madam Jinjing was still burning a hole in his metaphorical pocket, and he wisely chose silence. The three of them turned to leave.

Muxue paused just long enough at the door to offer her cousin a rude gesture in farewell, which earned a final, faintly amused smile from the princess watching them go. The door clicked softly shut behind them.