Lingyun Pavilion. Wang Daxia and Lu Ying dragged Wei Caiwei to the entrance, where two guards blocked their path with spears. "This is a restricted area! No entry without summons!"
Wang Daxia said, "We've caught the thief who stole something. We're taking her to Lord Yan for punishment."
A guard glanced at the "thief" whose face was smeared with blood and mud. "Wait here. I'll go announce you. Without Prince Jing's order, no one may enter."
Wang Daxia replied, "There's no time for announcements. This person is skilled in using poison. Tonight, the dancing guards were all affected by some kind of mushroom that makes people dance. She was trying to escape during the chaos, but we caught her. Those who use poison know how to antidote it. Time is urgent—whether our comrades can regain their senses depends entirely on this thief. Just bring us in first; you can announce us at the door."
The guard saw the logic in this and said, "Follow me."
Lingyun Pavilion was heavily guarded, with sentries almost every ten steps. The three followed the guiding guard to the top floor of the pavilion.
Two guards were stationed at the entrance to the top floor. While the guiding guard went inside to report, Lu Ying and Wang Daxia took advantage of the moment to press handkerchiefs soaked in knockout drug over the guards' noses and mouths, knocking them out. They dragged the unconscious guards to a corner.
Inside Lingyun Pavilion, Prince Jing and Yan Shifan heard that Poison Master Zhui Ming had been captured and that the night's chaos was caused by poisonous mushrooms she had deployed. Prince Jing furiously rebuked Yan Shifan:
"These are the Death Warriors you meticulously trained! Others' dogs bite whoever they're pointed at, but your dogs can't even kill a nursing baby—they only bite their own people! And you've ruined my sacrificial ceremony! If Father Emperor blames anyone, will you take responsibility?"
In the four years since Prince Jing had been enfeoffed, he had made no progress except in gaining weight. He was impulsive, panicked easily, and always shifted blame.
Yan Shifan immediately knelt on the ground. "It is entirely this old minister's fault. I beg Your Highness to grant me a chance to atone for my failure."
In the pavilion, Prince Jing's chief eunuch, Eunuch Wei, had always attended closely to the prince. Wherever Prince Jing went, Eunuch Wei followed. Eunuch Wei's mind was relatively clear; he understood that for Prince Jing to smoothly ascend the throne, he must rely on Yan Shifan's power. Now was not the time to break relations. He hurriedly advised:
"Your Highness, even tigers nap sometimes. Moreover, Lord Yan is advanced in years—some oversights are understandable. Besides, the poison master has been found. Force her to prepare the antidote, administer it to the guards, and everything will be resolved. It's not like the Taoist priests were poisoned anyway. Tomorrow we can still open the altar and perform the rituals completely. Issue a gag order about tonight's disturbance, suppress it, and His Majesty will never know. We can act as if nothing happened, and all will be peaceful."
Yan Shifan knew Eunuch Wei was giving him a way out and quickly said, "Exactly so. This old minister's life matters little—what's important is that Your Highness fulfills the imperial decree to conduct the sacrifices."
Prince Jing, hearing this, calmed slightly and waved a hand. "Drag her in!"
The guard went out to relay the order and was similarly subdued by Wang Daxia and Lu Ying at the door. The two entered the room, supporting Wei Caiwei by the arms.
Once inside, they threw Wei Caiwei onto a meditation cushion on the floor. She fell face down.Hearing the dull thud of his fiancée hitting the ground, Wang Daxia’s heart ached. Seizing the moment when Prince Jing, Yan Shifan, and Eunuch Wei were all focused on the fallen "poison master," Wang Daxia and Lu Ying swiftly jabbed two needles into the napes of Prince Jing and Yan Shifan. The two men instantly lost all strength and collapsed to the floor.
Eunuch Wei, who had been turning the fallen Wei Caiwei over and wiping the blood from her face with a handkerchief to verify her identity, heard the commotion and turned around. Before he could react, Wang Daxia lunged at him, pinned him to the ground, forced mushroom powder into his mouth, and clamped a hand over his lips.
Eunuch Wei struggled like a stranded fish at first, but soon his limbs went limp, and his gaze turned vacant. Wang Daxia released him and even removed his shoes. Eunuch Wei scrambled to his feet and began dancing bizarrely in his socks.
While Wang Daxia subdued Eunuch Wei, Lu Ying hurried over to help the fallen Wei Caiwei to her feet. Only then did the weakened Yan Shifan and Prince Jing, sprawled on the ground, recognize that these two seemingly insignificant figures and the fake poison master were all familiar faces!
They were the very adversaries who had repeatedly thwarted their schemes and stood in their way. From Prince Jing’s fall from a favored imperial prince to his demotion to a provincial lord in Anlu, Hubei, and Yan Shifan’s descent from a powerful official to a stripped commoner retiring in disgrace—all of it was tied to these three nemeses.
They were truly sworn enemies.
Prince Jing glared furiously, wanting to cry out for help, but he lacked the strength. His voice was as faint as a mosquito’s buzz as he hissed, "How dare you three harm a prince of the realm! This is treason! I will report this to the Emperor and have your nine clans exterminated!"
The original plan had been to kill only Yan Shifan, leaving Prince Jing for the future successor, Prince Yu, to deal with. But Yan Shifan and Prince Jing were inseparable, colluding in their misdeeds, forcing a last-minute change to eliminate them both.
"Exterminate whose nine clans? It wasn’t us who did this." Wang Daxia picked up a large ceremonial brush used for Taoist rites, dipped it in golden ink, and wrote twelve characters on the chamber wall, each as large as a winnowing basket: "From the mud of chaos, the White Lotus rises; where the Lotus blooms, an era of prosperity dawns!"
This was the most iconic slogan of the White Lotus Sect.
Prince Jing and Yan Shifan were stunned: they were framing the White Lotus Sect for tonight’s rebellion!
Why did this feel so familiar?
Lu Ying placed several paper white lotuses on the incense altar, fabricating the scene. "Prince Jing, Minister Yan, four years ago, you used the White Lotus Sect as a cover to fabricate the Dark Spectre in Prince Yu’s residence and assassinate him. Afterward, you pinned everything on the White Lotus Sect. Did either of you ever imagine this day would come?"
Wei Caiwei rubbed her sore shoulder. To play her part in this act and exact revenge for herself and Wang Daxia, she had held nothing back. She declared:
"Everything that has happened today is the backlash of the evils you have accumulated over the years. You are merely reaping what you have sown. The methods you once used to scheme against others are now being turned against you. Only today have I finally come to believe that evil begets evil retribution—it is not a matter of if, but when. Tonight is the day to settle all debts."Wei Caiwei slowly approached the two, like an avenging goddess. "Since I was seven years old, I've been waiting for tonight. For this, I've waited fourteen long years. My surname is He. My father was Lord He of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Four years ago, I was the one who killed Thousand Household Chen and his son. I wanted to kill you too at the time, but I was alone and powerless then—a humble traveling doctor. You were the lofty Vice Minister Yan, so far beyond my reach I couldn't even touch the hem of your garment. Now, at last, I can have my revenge."
Wang Daxia knew Wei Caiwei's background, and Lu Ying had guessed she was the missing Miss He Er. To protect her, Lu Ying had always pretended not to know, playing deaf and dumb. This was the first time she heard Wei Caiwei openly admit her identity and confess to killing Thousand Household Chen and his son.
If this were the aloof, rigid, inflexible Lu Ying of the past, she would have struggled to accept Wei Caiwei taking justice into her own hands to settle a vendetta. But Lu Ying had changed. She could lie now; she had friends she would die for; she understood that some matters could not be resolved by laws or courts.
Because in this world, people were born unequal. High officials and royalty enjoyed privileges of pardon. The lives of low-ranking officers and commoners were treated as worthless, to be taken or spared at whim.
If the law applied to everyone equally—if all were equal before the law—then Lu Ying would undoubtedly have stopped Wang Daxia and Wei Caiwei from seeking private vengeance. She would have insisted on using the legal system to try Yan Shifan and Prince Jing for their crimes, delivering proper judgment under the law.
But her years in the Embroidered Uniform Guard had shown her, through countless upheavals, that the law only bound ordinary people. High officials and royalty could trample the law, even wield it as a weapon to harm others. In their eyes, the law was nothing but a foot-wiping cloth, imposing no restraint upon them.
Since the law was unjust, unequal, and failed to protect the innocent, why uphold such a corrupt system?
So Lu Ying "betrayed" her original purpose in joining the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Some people simply could not be dealt with through the law.
When Yan Shifan heard Wei Caiwei claim the surname "He" and mention the deaths of Thousand Household Chen and his son, his eyes showed only confusion. He didn't remember these people Wei Caiwei spoke of at all. He had taken too many bribes and ruined too many lives. The tragedy of the He family meant nothing to him—he wouldn't have cared even if he had known.
Now, a tiger fallen on hard times bullied by dogs, Yan Shifan knew he couldn't confront them head-on. His only thought was to beg for mercy. "Doctor Wei," he said, "I've wronged you in the past. Whatever you want, just name it. All I ask is to spare my life."
Wei Caiwei opened Poison Master Zhui Ming's bundle of "treasures." "I only want your life."
Wang Daxia finished writing with the golden dou brush, framing the White Lotus Sect. "I feel the same. Yan Shifan, you're a master at killing with a borrowed knife. You tried to use the White Lotus Sect against Prince Yu but failed, then used Japanese Pirates to kill my father—all because his close surveillance of your Yan family blocked your path to treason. You left his body to sink in the Yangtze, lost without a trace. You're too cunning to naively think I'd let you go, are you?"
Seeing that pleas for mercy were useless, Yan Shifan immediately switched targets, his gaze falling on Lu Ying. "Dear niece, our Yan and Lu families are kin. Your second elder sister is my eldest son's wife. The child she bears is my own grandchild. I watched you grow up, and I was close with your father. My courtesy name is Donglou, his is Donghu—we were like brothers. You can't stand by and watch me die!"Lu Ying said, "Our Lu family will protect our own daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. We even took in your two grandsons who were expelled from the Kong Mansion by Duke Yansheng, raising them at home where no one dares to bully them. Our Lu family has fulfilled our familial duties. Lord Yan, there's no need to use kinship to threaten me."
She continued, "Good and evil will eventually be repaid. If you had listened to my father's advice back then—to leave room for others and not push things to extremes, to keep a way out for yourself—you wouldn't have ended up like this today. Your current fate is the consequence of your own actions, a retribution you brought upon yourself. Not to mention a mere mortal like me, even if a deity tried to save you, they would face divine punishment and be struck by lightning for defying the natural order."
Upon hearing this, Yan Shifan was enveloped by a sensation he had never felt before—this was despair. Even when the Jiajing Emperor ordered the confiscation of his family's property and his demotion back to his hometown in Jiangxi, he had never experienced such despair. Yet now, he was driven into a corner by three juniors barely in their twenties!
The younger generation is to be feared! Yan Shifan was unwilling to accept this, but Jing Wang, who stood beside him, had his own plans. He said, "Since both of you are here to seek revenge on Yan Shifan, it has nothing to do with me. Let me go, and I won't expose you. I'll pin everything on the White Lotus Sect."
"Is that so?" Wang Daxia pointed at the dancing Eunuch Wei. "You ordered the vile Taoists from White Deer Temple to lure my fiancée into a carriage, drag her to the outskirts, and try to kill her, then frame the White Lotus Sect. Have you forgotten that?"
Wang Daxia kicked a prince of the realm. "My fiancée was forced to cut her arm, shedding much blood to signal for help before she was rescued. You ask us to let you go, but when you harmed others, did you ever think of leaving them a way out?"
Author's note: Wei Caiwei eliminated all the direct perpetrators of her sister's death in the first episode. When Banxia makes a move, it's always fatal.
OpenNovel