Autumn of the second year of the Zhaowu era.

A great victory was won at the frontier, and the Crown Prince passed away. 

General Huo Jintuo returned to the capital to mourn. The entire Eastern Palace was already draped in mourning white; everything had been changed to white.

His younger sister had recently remarked that Maomao was already sixteen in lunar age, and that marriage preparations would take at least three years—one year for the engagement, and at least half a year for the young couple to get to know each other. Counting back from there, the optimal time to begin seeking a bride for the Crown Prince was actually the year before last.

Huo Hanguang had rambled on at length in her letter; it seemed she was truly distressed by her son’s lack of insight. She felt that, compared to her own marriage prospects, Crown Prince Wen Mao was clearly more concerned with the political struggles in the imperial court against the faction led by Prince of Wu, Wen Mengzheng. 

A 【glossary_tooltip content=”我家子涵 (wo jia zi han) is a viral internet satirical persona used to mock entitled, unreasonable, and hyper-overprotective parents”】 Zihan Mom 【/glossary_tooltip】 of course, didn’t think there was anything wrong with her own child; she simply believed that the Prince of Wu’s faction was completely out of their minds. 

At that time, they not only had 200,000 cavalry from the Northern Frontier at their disposal, but also enjoyed immense public support—thanks to the Huo family’s near-single-handed effort to save the Great Qi Empire from the brink of collapse following the Jiade Incident.

Most importantly, they were still fighting the nomadic tribes up north! The remnants of the barbarian forces and the twenty-four tribes of the Northern Di were no pushovers—did they really think the sixteen prefectures of the Northern Frontier could be defended without the Huo clan?

As for the aristocratic clans—led by the Xian and Pei families—who were the strongest supporters of the Prince of Wu’s faction, they had already been wiped out by the rebels who caused chaos in the capital during the Jiade incident.

What does the Prince of Wu have to stand up to them with?

Of course, looking back now, there is an answer to this seemingly unsolvable riddle—the Crown Prince of the Huo clan is dead. 

Heavy rain had been falling continuously in the capital for a full seven days.

Deep puddles had formed on the bluestone cobblestone streets and alleys of Yongji, and as horse hooves trampled through them, they sent up countless spatters of muddy slush.

The Northern Frontier Army, clad in black armor and robes, their bodies wrapped in horsehide, led their forces from the north, slicing through the torrential rain in the gloomy sky like a sharp blade. The fine steeds ridden by the soldiers were jet-black all over, with only their hooves whiter than snow; the one leading the pack was particularly broad-hipped and possessed an extraordinary, otherworldly presence—it was meant to be this year’s birthday gift for Crown Prince Huo Wen Mao. 

General Huo’s angular face had grown much gaunter since he left the capital years ago; his eye sockets were sunken, and his cheeks were covered in stubble, yet his back remained straight—just like the backbone of the Great Qi Dynasty, which, since the reign of the Taizu, had always refused to bend in the face of external pressures.

He took the side street from Desheng Gate straight to Wansui Hill, then entered the palace directly through Xuanwu Gate behind the Imperial City, passing through the entire route as if no one were there.

The Hu Xiao Guards who had been close on his heels were left far behind.

Oh, wait—there were no longer any Hu Xiao Guards. More than half of the Huo Clan’s Iron Cavalry had fought to the last drop of blood in the bloodiest battle of that autumn, fighting until the very last man. The good news was that they had won—a hard-fought victory against overwhelming odds, a classic battle that would be celebrated in history for at least a few hundred years. The bad news was that they were no more. 

On this journey from the Northern Frontier to the capital—riding nonstop day and night for over two thousand li, changing horses but not riders—even the toughest men were nearing their limits. Only General Huo Jintuo, whose courage surpassed that of the entire army, still looked as if nothing had happened; he was even still wearing the armor he’d taken off after the last battle, armor that had been soaked in blood countless times. 

Only when Huo Jintuo swung himself off his horse in front of the palace did his knees give way momentarily. He quickly reached out to grab the saddle to steady himself, but not a single person stepped forward to help him—just as they now avoided the Eastern Palace like the plague. 

General Huo paid no heed to such coldness and indifference, striding purposefully toward the Eastern Palace. The palace attendants grew fewer and fewer along the way, until there were almost none left.

He did not know exactly what had happened, just as he had not known in the final years of the Jiade era why rebel factions had risen up so suddenly, conquering the Three Jin states and Yan and Zhao in quick succession, and advancing to the very gates of the capital; nor did he know why, two years after the Emperor had forcibly reassigned the Hu family’s garrison, the nomadic tribes of the grasslands were able to bypass the thousand-li-long iron wall of defenses that Great Qi had built along its northern frontier without alerting a single garrison…

He knew only that, at this critical moment for the Great Qi Dynasty, he must step forward to lead the Huo clan’s 200,000 elite cavalry in a direct confrontation against the remnants of the barbarian tribes, who were mounting a counterattack, as well as their combined forces with the twenty-four tribes of the Northern Di—a massive army said to number as many as 500,000. 

He cut a path straight through the barbarians’ main camp and swept aside the various Northern Di tribes.

All so that his remaining relatives and the people back home could live in peace, with no further upheavals in their future. And he indeed succeeded. 

However, following this great victory at the border, the first news Huo Jintuo received was not commendation from the capital, but rather the news of the death of the Crown Prince’s nephew and the fact that his older brother had been imprisoned in the Imperial Prison, and that his younger sister had nearly lost her mind.

Inside and outside the Eastern Palace Hall, white banners fluttered like snow, and lotus lamps burned perpetually.

The Crown Prince’s memorial hall was set up in the center; smoke swirled around the massive coffin made of golden-threaded nanmu wood. Court attendants keeping vigil knelt all along the corridor outside the hall, their soft, dense sobs mingling with anxious dread to weave a vast web that enveloped the entire Eastern Palace in a suffocating grief.

No one dared to step forward into the hall, except for Huo Jintuo, whose gaze pierced through the layers of mourning curtains to rest upon the emaciated figure before the coffin. His sister was slumped there.

Once so devoted to her appearance, she was now clad only in a hastily sewn mourning robe of coarse hemp, devoid of even the slightest embroidery. Her hair, turned white overnight, fell in disarray over her shoulders, without a single pearl or jewel to adorn it. She sat there in utter silence, motionless, like a faded silhouette that had long since lost its vitality. 

Only upon closer inspection could one see that Consort Huo was not entirely motionless: one hand braced against the cold, gilded bricks of the hall, while the other still clutched the edge of the coffin with all her might, her knuckles long since turned white, as if she feared someone might suddenly leap out of the shadows to separate her from her child. 

Huo Jintuo’s eyes immediately welled up with tears.

He strode forward quickly; the clanging of his armor echoed harshly through the vast hall, yet the sound failed to change anyone’s expression. It wasn’t until he came to a stop behind his younger sister that his throat felt as if something were blocking it. He opened his mouth several times, only to close it again, and in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to say a single word.

Because no matter what he said, it would seem too feeble and hollow.

Huo Jintuo didn’t know what to say, but his sister suddenly seemed to have an endless stream of words.

Standing before the brazier, she spoke slowly: “I’ve planned out his entire future for him. At sixteen, he’ll deliver imperial lectures at the Wenhua Hall during the imperial lecture sessions, making his debut at court; at eighteen, he’ll meet a young woman he loves dearly—and who loves him just as dearly in return—and they’ll arrange their marriage with a procession of red bridal gifts stretching ten li; at twenty, he’ll rush over to me in a panic, asking, ‘What should I do, Mother? Why is being a first-time father so hard…’” 

She had planned so much for him, yet she never once imagined that one day her child would pass away before her, leaving her to personally arrange his tomb and memorial hall. 

Amber communicates with spirits, riding a goat to attain an immortal state.

Those were the burial offerings she had carved for her child herself, stroke by stroke, chisel by chisel.

It was placed right next to the cloth tiger he had loved most as a child. The once-vibrant red and yellow colors had long since faded to a pale white, and the patterns on its body were no longer clear—they were faint and broken, severely worn. But the little tiger still looked proud, sitting there upright and alone, as if its owner might pick it up again at any moment.

For a while, Wen Maomao took his little tiger with him wherever he went, until he discovered that his second uncle, Huo Jintuo, was losing sleep over a family emergency—his nephew’s disappearance.

Huo Jintuo remembered forcing a smile that he hoped looked somewhat relaxed. He patted the child’s worried shoulder and, trying his best to act as if nothing were wrong, said, “It’s okay. Uncle just had a nightmare.”

“Don’t be afraid; Uncle isn’t afraid. I’ll give you my little tiger—it’ll protect you in your dreams!” Children really do believe every word adults say. He comforted him earnestly and eagerly, “My grandma said that nightmares are a way for blessed people to ward off misfortune in their sleep.”

Was he blessed?

Huo Jintuo wasn’t sure, but he probably had been at one time. His father held the rank of Grand Marshal, his older brother was a Cabinet Minister, his younger sister was a Consort, and his nephew later became the Crown Prince—half the imperial court was made up of supporters of the Huo family. 

He also had a little tiger given to him by his nephew to protect him from nightmares. Only then did Huo Jintuo realize in astonishment, “Why is my cloth tiger here?”

Before General Huo could ponder this further, his attention was drawn to an extremely faint, high-pitched sound coming from beside him—as if something had shattered.

Only then did he realize it was his sister’s sobs.

His younger sister was a real crybaby, and she always knew exactly how to use her tears to get what she wanted. This time, it was to get out of studying; that time, it was to go horseback riding with her sisters in the suburbs of the capital the day before entering the palace. As the youngest in the family, no one could just stand by and watch when Huo Hanguang cried her heart out—no one had the heart to let her keep crying like that.

This was the first time she had cried so quietly—without a sound, just tears. 

It was a broken sob, tightly suppressed deep in her throat—as a female beast caught in a trap, too afraid to let out a loud cry for fear of attracting the hunter’s blades and arrows, and thus forced to swallow that heart-wrenching pain, bit by bit, mixed with blood, back into her belly. 

“Guangniang!” Huo Jintuo finally found his voice again, though it was so dry and hoarse it was barely recognizable. 

Imperial Consort Huo finally turned her head.

Yet he could barely recognize his sister’s face.

Though it had been only a year since they’d last seen each other, her face was now withered and haggard. Her once-exquisite lips, which she had always accentuated with rouge, were now a ghastly pallor—nothing but dry, cracked skin and two deep furrows, marks left by days of suppressing her grief and clenching her thin lips tightly.

Only her naturally almond-shaped eyes retained some of her former charm; miraculously, they bore a slight resemblance to Wen Maomao’s. Whenever she smiled, the corners of her eyes and brows would curve upward, like a crescent moon. 

But now those beautiful eyes were bloodshot, her eyelids so swollen they seemed on the verge of bleeding, and deep within her pupils lay only an impenetrable mass of pitch-black darkness—as if all her light had been forever sealed away in the darkness the moment those two golden nanmu coffins were closed before her.

Two? How could there be two? Huo Jintuo’s confusion deepened. 

But what mattered even more was his younger sister. Guangniang had never felt so helpless—it was as if there was no one left to help her, no one left to support her, and not even a single person she could trust or confide in by her side.

Yet she didn’t even dare to break down, because her eldest brother was still imprisoned, and she needed to lobby the court on his behalf.

Huo Jintuo wanted to step forward and reach out to his sister, to tell her, “Don’t be afraid, Guangniang. I’m back. You still have me.”

Then, he looked at his rough, scarred, and calloused hands—and just like a beam of light, they passed right through his sister’s shoulder without a hint of resistance. It was in that very instant that it suddenly dawned on him: he was already dead. 

He had died on the battlefield, in the Northern Frontier, on the day Great Qi secured its hard-won victory. Just as he had said: to shed the very last drop of blood and fight until the very last man. 

His personal guards had raced a thousand li to bring back not only news of the great victory at the frontier, but also his remains. 

At the end of that day, Huo Jintuo tumbled from his horse. Dragging his lame leg and stepping over the corpses of enemies, he made his way to the side of his cousin, whose body was not yet cold. He drew the spear that his cousin had once vowed never to lend to anyone in his lifetime unless he himself died, turned around, and continued to face the surging waves of Northern Di soldiers. 

“Great Qi—Victory is certain—!” 

His voice echoed through the valley. Behind him, the remnants of his army—now numbering fewer than seven thousand—let out a united roar and, following their general, launched one final charge.

No one knows the exact moment when Huo Jintuo finally fell; all that is known is that during the post-battle body count, someone recognized him among the corpses—kneeling on one knee, his hair disheveled, his body riddled with dozens of severe wounds, and his younger cousin’s spear snapped in two, its tip deeply embedded in the chest of the Left Prince of the Northern Di.

Yet a smile played on his face, for he knew the war was over, that Great Qi had won, and that his family was now safe.

At least, he thought they were safe. 

Who, exactly, had killed his nephew?

For the first time, Huo Jintuo’s usually sluggish mind was thinking with such clarity.

The Prince of Wu, Wen Mengzheng? No, that’s not right. Just as his sister had told him back when he suspected Empress Pei of colluding with foreign enemies in her struggle to seize the throne, Pei Mingda was a woman who put on a brave face, was headstrong, and had ambitions as high as the sky—but she wouldn’t stoop so low. 

Facts have proven that the Jiade Rebellion claimed the most casualties among the aristocratic clans—the very clans Empress Pei valued most. That rebellion nearly wiped out, in a physical sense, every aristocratic faction still capable of challenging the current emperor.

Did Prince of Jin Wen Guan? No, that’s not quite right either. If he had had his sights set on the throne, he should have followed the Emperor’s wishes back then and, like Prince of Wu, inherited his grandfather’s title to help the Emperor reclaim the fiefdoms he had long sought to recover. Wen Guan’s strong advocacy for collecting the outstanding debts and going to Qin to demand payment seemed to stem purely from a personal grudge against his father.

And that’s exactly what happened: after driving his father to his death, Wen Guan even went so far as to choose the title “Prince of Jin”—the very title his father had loathed most during his lifetime.

Who else could it be? The civil officials? The “Pure Stream” faction? Back then, his cousin’s family of four set out with his eldest brother, but when they returned, only his eldest brother remained—his cousin and her husband were dead, and the two children were missing.

Everyone assumed that the Huo and Bai families would split over this, leading to a rift between the civil and military factions, but Old Master Bai did not act that way. Although relations between the two families inevitably began to grow distant, as Minister of Revenue, he never once delayed the delivery of provisions and supplies to the Northern Frontier during wartime.

Public affairs are public affairs; private matters are private matters. With the Crown Prince dead, the court was bound to descend into chaos, and Old Master Bai would never want the nation’s resources wasted on such meaningless turmoil.

As for his nephew, Wen Mao, he was broad-minded and kind-hearted, rarely harboring personal grudges against anyone. The Crown Prince’s achievements over the years were plain for all to see. While it was hard to say what the court officials thought, at least in the hearts of the common people, he was the empire’s most suitable heir—sharp-witted, intelligent, benevolent, and wise. After the Jiade Rebellion, he had become the figure around whom public sentiment coalesced, both inside and outside the palace. There should be no one who hates him so much that they would feel satisfied only by killing him. 

Then who else could it be? Who else could it possibly be?

He adopted three children from different backgrounds, which triggered reforms within the imperial clan, drove relatives to their deaths, yet reduced the financial burden of supporting them; he designated a crown prince, supported two princes, manipulated factional strife among the ministers, and squandered the nation’s strength—yet he centralized and consolidated imperial power, enabling him to act arbitrarily even when he was unable to attend court for several years due to illness; rebel factions threw the capital into chaos, burning, killing, and plundering along their path—every family was in mourning, every household wearing mourning garments—yet from that point on, no aristocratic clan could ever again check the emperor’s power; once the Northern Barbarians and the Huo clan had exhausted each other, and the northern frontier was free of threats, the emperor successfully reclaimed military authority…

In the very moment Huo Jintuo was reflecting on these past events, Huo Hanguang also came to a realization.

When the cunning hare is dead, the hunting dog is cooked. Now that the Huo clan was useless, there could naturally be no Crown Prince Huo whose popularity among the people surpassed even that of the emperor.

When they were children, their father had taught them to recite, syllable by syllable, “To repay the emperor’s kindness on the Golden Terrace, I shall wield the jade dragon and die for you”; yet as they grew up, their father never told them what to do if the emperor was the one skilled in political maneuvering, the one who acted with petty greed and base motives, the one who had caused the deaths of their entire family and cared nothing for the safety of the people. 

The rain outside the hall grew heavier and heavier. The white cloth covering the entire hall fluttered in the north wind, fluttering in the flickering light of the eternal lamps. Rainwater streamed down the eaves, forming one water curtain after another. A bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating Huo Hanguang’s desperate and harrowing face.

Before he could make sense of it all, his younger sister had already found the answer. Facing the coffin, she cried out, “I’m going to kill him, Brother. I’m going to kill him.”

He wanted to urge her to calm down, to tell her not to act on impulse, but he realized he was nothing more than a wraith—powerless to stop anything.

In the fall of the second year of the Zhaowu era, General Huo gripped his long spear tightly, cursing himself for his own helplessness as he reluctantly closed his eyes on that rainy night when his younger sister had rushed out. 

In the spring of the third year of the Jiade era, Young General Huo brushed the coconut shavings off his body and opened his eyes on the bed in his room. Looking at the image of his younger sister in his memory, he said softly, “All right.”

Big brother will kill him for you.

Tonight. Right now. 

Because Huo Jintuo’s temperament wouldn’t allow him to wait a single moment, and because this day was truly an opportune moment in history.

On the twenty-ninth day of the fourth month in the third year of the Jiade era, Emperor Yingzong suffered another relapse. Years of unceasing illness had made this emperor—whose temperament was never particularly good to begin with—even more erratic in his moods. And whether they served in the emperor’s presence or not, the palace attendants all knew that His Majesty was prone to taking his anger out on others; at best, he would beat or kill them; at worst…a fate worse than death.

The quarters of the palace maids in Changle Hall were not far from the main hall, and the lingering stench of blood was always in the air.

On this day, the stream of clean water used for sweeping and mopping never ceased to flow down the white marble steps in front of the hall. The palace maid Xi’er felt as though she had become numb to it all. After His Majesty finally retired for the night, she stood her final watch outside the hall. She should have breathed a sigh of relief at having survived another ordeal, but in reality, she could not stop trembling with fear; her nerves were stretched to the absolute limit. 

Thud.

A soft sound came from inside the lattice window, which was shaped like a coin.

Xi’er jolted and spun around—that was the signal for the palace coup they’d agreed upon with Consort Shun. Consort Shun’s family had long since perished, and the only palace maid she regarded as a sister had also died by the sword of His Majesty, who had suddenly fallen ill that day. The blade went in white and came out red—a tragedy that still haunts Consort Shun to this day, leaving her wondering why she’d ever sent her to deliver the soup that day. 

But she no longer needed to dwell on that, because that very soup delivery had earned her the opportunity to attend to the Emperor’s illness even now, when he was in the grip of his paranoia. 

Consort Shun’s plan was simple: she would find a way to distract the emperor’s most trusted eunuchs for half an incense stick’s worth of time. As for the palace maids on night duty, all they had to do was use the hemp rope in their hands to respectfully escort His Majesty to the afterlife.

Xi’er had never killed anyone before, but she was exceptionally skilled with a needle and thread. She had specially selected this knot—the one most suited to His Majesty’s imperial frame—and the color of the hemp cloth perfectly complemented his waxy, sallow complexion.

Outside the pitch-black main hall of Changle Palace, Imperial Consort Huo Hanguang, draped in a plain-colored cloak, unexpectedly ran into her second older brother—who was supposedly recuperating at home—in the depths of the palace after curfew.

Yet neither of them—theoretically—should have been here at this hour.                                                  

Please wait a moment

— Author’s Note —

P.S.: The term “Prince Huo”: This refers to a custom from the Han Dynasty. It does not mean that the crown prince’s surname was Huo, but rather that his mother’s surname was Huo. This is similar to the case of Emperor Wu of Han’s deposed crown prince.

Crown Prince Liu Ju, who was historically known as the “Crown Prince of Wei” because his mother was Empress Wei Zifu of the Wei clan. In the story, Wen Maomao is later adopted by Imperial Consort Huo Hanguang, which is why he is called the “Crown Prince of Huo.”

Another PS: The plot involving palace maids conspiring to kill the emperor was inspired by the Ming Dynasty’s palace maid uprising. That one ultimately failed, but in this story, let’s have it succeed for once—let’s give that good-for-nothing emperor a taste of acute nicotine poisoning (just kidding)