Wang Daxia held her tightly in return. Still growing and having endured harsh conditions while busily seeking revenge, he had become terribly thin, with a waist and legs even slimmer than Wei Caiwei's. His two rows of ribs protruded like a washboard, pressing against Wei Caiwei's chest until it ached.
Of course, at this moment, Wei Caiwei's heart ached even more. She stroked Wang Daxia's back, feeling his prominent shoulder blades like hidden wings—he must have suffered greatly this past year.
Eunuchs often grew stronger, taller, and lived longer without going bald after castration. Thus, in her previous life, Eunuch Wang had been much sturdier than the current Wang Daxia, always standing as her shelter from storms.
Now, Wang Daxia was frail and ill, evoking pity. He had intended to go to Jiangxi alone for revenge, ready to bear any consequences by himself. But when Wei Caiwei forbade him from leaving, insisting they face everything together, his desperate courage and resolve melted instantly in her tender embrace.
It was like a battered, exhausted traveler seeing a bright lamp ahead on a stormy night. Drawing closer, he found it was his own home, with the door wide open, welcoming his return.
"It's Yan Shifan again—he's behind this." Wang Daxia's voice was hoarse and trembling, his teeth chattering. "He used others to do his dirty work; the Japanese Pirates were his blades. If you don't kill the snake, it will cause endless trouble. I won't let him get away this time."
Wei Caiwei finally understood why Wang Daxia had appeared in Jiangxi. "You came to confront and take revenge on Yan Shifan, but you almost went to the wrong place. The Emperor has ordered Jing Wang to perform the sacrificial rites at Wudang Mountain on his behalf. The Yan father and son, invited by Jing Wang as accompanying sacrificers, have all gone to Wudang Mountain. Lu Ying and I are also heading there to investigate the case of the small imperial grandson being inoculated with smallpox."
Upon hearing this, Wang Daxia fumed, "Snakes and rats share the same hole! They only know how to play these despicable, underhanded tricks!"
Outside the door, Lu Ying and the inn attendant knocked repeatedly but received no response. Worried that something was wrong, Lu Ying forcefully kicked the door open.
With a loud crash, they saw Wei Caiwei and Wang Daxia locked in a tight embrace on the bed!
Averting her eyes from the improper scene, Lu Ying quickly turned her back. The attendant, witnessing two men disheveled and embracing, reacted like an innocent maiden deceived by a rogue, exclaiming, "You... I suspected last night that you had ill intentions toward my guest! You used acupuncture as a cover, and now I've caught you in the act! How do you explain this?"
The attendant was kind and responsible; if not for his insistence on calling a doctor, Wang Daxia might have died of illness in a foreign land before achieving his revenge. Weakly, Wang Daxia said, "It's not what you think... Actually, we—"
Wei Caiwei, unable to reveal her female identity, interrupted, "Actually, we are long-lost brothers. During the acupuncture treatment last night, I noticed that his moles and birthmarks resembled my younger brother's, but I couldn't be sure. Today, when he woke up, I asked him about his childhood, and we recognized each other as brothers, embracing and weeping."
Wang Daxia cooperated seamlessly: "That's right. I'll be following my elder brother back to our hometown to pay respects at the ancestral graves. I won't need the boat anymore."
In the end, the attendant received twenty taels of silver as a reward to return home for the New Year—a good deed repaid. And through her momentary act of kindness, Wei Caiwei unexpectedly reunited with her fiancé.Disguised as commoners, the Embroidered Uniform Guards carried the weakened Wang Daxia onto the boat. Reunited with his comrades, there was naturally a wave of sighs and lamentations. As they passed the Jiujiang section of the Yangtze River where Wang Commander had met his demise, Wang Daxia struggled to rise from his bed. On the deck, he burned incense, scattered paper money, and offered sacrifices of cattle, sheep, and pigs—all cast into the surging river.
Everyone wore white mourning garments, lit incense, and bowed three times to bid farewell to their senior.
Wudang Mountain.
Wudang Mountain is a sacred site of Taoism and also the ancestral temple of the Ming imperial family. Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan based in the northern region of Yan, launched the Jingnan Campaign. In the south, the Vermilion Bird; in the north, the Black Tortoise. Dao Yan, the chief strategist under Prince Yan, advised the prince to embody the Black Tortoise deity. Whenever he went into battle, he would let his hair down and wield a sword, imitating the appearance of the Black Tortoise statue, thus endowing the rebellious prince with divine authority and signifying that it was all the will of heaven.
Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan, became the first and only prince in history to successfully rebel and ascend the throne, seizing the imperial seat from his nephew Zhu Yunwen and proclaiming himself emperor, adopting the era name Yongle.
To consolidate his power, the Yongle Emperor used Taoism as a tool, officially designating the Black Tortoise as the guardian deity of the state. He sent his son-in-law Mu Xin to Wudang Mountain to extensively construct Taoist temples and imperial buildings, thereby asserting his legitimacy.
Mu Xin was a clever man. Understanding his father-in-law's intentions, he deliberately incorporated the Yongle Emperor's features into the statue of the Black Tortoise during its carving. The deity bore a slight resemblance to the emperor, blending the divine with the mortal to convey the idea of the divine right of kings.
Empress Wu Zetian of the Zhou Dynasty had done something similar, infusing her likeness into Buddhist statues. The Buddha images in the Longmen Grottoes bore a faint resemblance to her. Both were conventional methods of deifying "usurpation."
The lineage of the Yongle Emperor thus became the rulers of the Ming Dynasty. Thereafter, every emperor who ascended the throne would dispatch imperial envoys to Wudang Mountain to worship the True Warrior deity, symbolizing their heavenly mandate to inherit the ancestral legacy. Consequently, beyond its Taoist significance, Wudang Mountain acquired a political status unmatched by other Taoist sacred sites.
By the time of the Jiajing Emperor, who spent years in the Western Garden cultivating immortality and refining elixirs, he was a Taoist practitioner himself, even more devout in his worship of deities than his ancestor, the Yongle Emperor. He again dispatched officials to renovate the temples and palaces. Wudang Mountain spanned a hundred li, all dedicated as Taoist grounds, with a nunnery every five li and a palace every ten li, boasting over five hundred structures of various sizes and more than twenty thousand rooms!
To put this in perspective, the Forbidden City in Beijing had only a little over eight thousand rooms. Wudang Mountain was more than twice the size of the Forbidden City.
Today, Wudang Mountain is home to over five hundred Taoist priests, along with more than ten thousand craftsmen, soldiers, and followers. Pilgrims continuously stream to Wudang Mountain to pay homage, making it resemble a celestial city nestled within the mountains.
Wudang Mountain, Tianzhu Peak, Taihe Palace, Golden Hall—this is the highest peak of Wudang Mountain. At this moment, the mountain is blanketed in white snow, with clouds and mist swirling intermittently. Taihe Palace resembles the abode of immortals.
In the center of the Golden Hall stands a gilded bronze statue of the Black Tortoise deity, bearing a faint resemblance to the Yongle Emperor as depicted in the Fengxian Hall of the Forbidden City.
Prince Jing gazed intently at the Black Tortoise statue and asked Yan Shifan beside him, "Do I look like the Black Tortoise statue?"
Yan Shifan flattered, "Yes! Extremely alike! At least a fifty percent resemblance!"
Having been enfeoffed in Anlu, Hubei, for four years, Prince Jing no longer had to constantly watch his father's expression in the capital or exhaust himself scheming to please his father and outmaneuver his elder brother, Prince Yu. He spent his days in idleness, with little on his mind. At only twenty-eight years old, he had already begun to gain a slight paunch.With a plump face and eyes dulled by years of indulgence in women to secure an heir, Prince Jing's vitality and spirit were far inferior to his elder brother Prince Yu's. Where was the commanding aura of the Dark Warrior Deity?
Prince Jing humbly said, "I dare not claim fifty percent resemblance. Even our ancestor Emperor Shizong only bore thirty percent likeness. For me, twenty percent is sufficient!"
Yan Shifan remarked, "Emperor Shizong rose from a feudal prince to lead the Jingnan Campaign and establish the Great Ming dynasty. In my view, Your Highness resembles Emperor Shizong even more."
Prince Jing nearly wore the word "usurpation" on his forehead, his gaze instantly turning gloomy. "Unfortunately, despite all our efforts, that little bastard of Prince Yu remains alive and well, blocking my path."
Yan Shifan replied, "We were merely unlucky this time. However, Your Highness is about to welcome your own son. After you pay homage to the Dark Warrior Deity, the dragon grandson will be born—this child is a gift from the deity."
Indeed, after four years of diligent efforts, Prince Jing finally had a concubine successfully pregnant. However, since the Jiajing Emperor traditionally disliked such news, Prince Jing had never found the right moment to inform his father.
Yan Shifan devised a plan: secretly rallying court factions to use the emperor's illness as pretext for Prince Jing to represent his father in worshipping the Dark Warrior Deity at Wudang Mountain, praying for the emperor's swift recovery and longevity.
After the sacrificial rites, the concubine would be due to give birth. Prince Jing would then claim the Dark Warrior Deity had bestowed the child through a dream, using this to legitimize the offspring.
Originally, according to plan, Prince Yu's imperial grandson would have succumbed to smallpox while Prince Jing gained a son, securing the upper hand.
They would then find an opportunity to eliminate Prince Yu, fabricating his death as resulting from grief over losing his child. As the only surviving son with the only grandson, the throne would inevitably be Prince Jing's.
Yet heaven seldom fulfills human wishes—that little bastard had miraculously escaped death.
The concubine hadn't delivered yet, and the child's gender remained unknown, but physicians and midwives examining her belly all predicted a boy.
It must be a boy!
Prince Jing had secretly prepared several pregnant women. If the concubine bore a daughter, they would substitute a male child and claim twins, first securing an heir eligible for succession.
The deception mattered little—later, when Prince Jing fathered his own son, he had countless methods to eliminate the earlier "bastard."
Prince Jing had already planned to burn the bridge after crossing it.
If Emperor Shizong could rise from feudal prince to emperor, so could I.
Kneeling devoutly before the Dark Warrior Deity, Prince Jing prayed to replicate his ancestor's success. He even fantasized about remolding the deity's statue in his own image after ascending the throne—carve it exactly according to my likeness!
Prince Jing had forgotten to pray for his father's recovery; his heart now contained only himself.
After completing the prayers and offerings, seven days and nights of grand Taoist rites would follow before the ceremony concluded.
Rising from the prayer mat, Prince Jing told Yan Shifan, "Summon that death warrior who failed to spread the smallpox. I wish to reward him properly."
Most death warriors Prince Jing left in the capital were Taoists from White Deer Temple. These Taoists had used the White Lotus Sect and the Dark Spectre incidents in the palace to eliminate Prince Yu through proxy, until Wei Caiwei, Wang Daxia and Lu Ying exposed their schemes and neutralized the threat. To protect Prince Jing, all White Deer Temple Taoists had self-destructed to eliminate evidence, leaving no survivors.The man who posed as a merchant and deliberately lost the Jade Guanyin to Li Wei at Huaqingchi Gambling Den was one of Yan Shifan's Death Warriors.
After completing the mission, the Death Warrior immediately left the capital without leaving a trace. He had expected to hear the good news of the young imperial grandson of Prince Yu's household dying prematurely while on the road, so he could rush to Wudang Mountain to claim credit and reward. However, this meticulously concealed plan still went awry.
Yan Shifan said, "I will have him come up now."
Prince Jing looked down at the mist-shrouded cliff beneath his feet. Standing at the highest peak of Wudang Mountain, pushing someone down would surely shatter them to pieces, and then they would be devoured by wild beasts. What a perfect place to silence a witness—without even dirtying one's own hands!
When the subordinate went to deliver the message, all four guards in the meditation room were lying on the ground, foaming at the mouth. Half-eaten food and wine remained on the table. The Death Warrior who had been under the guards' watch had already disappeared. The window was open, with half a footprint imprinted on the windowsill.
The Death Warrior, disguised as a Taoist priest, hurried down Tianzhu Peak and vanished into a sea of clouds...
Author's Note: This time, we're going to round up the whole nest of snakes and rats. As for the part about Consort Mu Xin being commissioned by Emperor Yongle to repair Wudang Mountain, I previously wrote about it in detail in "Hu Shanwei," so I'll just mention it briefly here. "Hu Shanwei" was completed two years ago—time flies so fast, it feels like it just ended yesterday.
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