Chapter 162

Rong Tang felt something was off, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Su Huaijing still clung to him every day, acting spoiled, insisting on a kiss after taking his medicine, else he’d complain it tasted bitter. And once kissed, he’d flash that sly, impish grin, like a mischievous child, the sort that made one grit their teeth in frustration.

The system still appeared before him on the fifteenth of every month, full of flustered chatter, its thoughts flitting about more wildly than the scattered specks of light it emitted.

A letter arrived from Jiangnan each month. Penned by Ke Hongxue, it rambled on about matters close to Rong Tang’s heart: Wang Xiuyu, Yuanyuan, the southern branch of Linyuan Academy, and of course, himself and Mu Jingxu. The world within those letters was mundane yet vivid, everyday yet full of life.

Everything seemed normal. But Rong Tang couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

Autumn in the capital brought a swift chill. With the Empress Dowager’s passing, Emperor Renshou had forgone the Longevity Festival this year, and envoys from the four corners would not be entering the country.

Friends and kin had left the city. No enemies threatened its gates.

The peace was too absolute. And one evening before sleep, Rong Tang finally realised what was wrong.

It was too quiet. Storms on the horizon should bring a flurry of wind, yet now, though the undercurrents were real, it didn’t resemble any lifetime he had known, nor any scene depicted in the original narrative.

Gone was the blood-soaked road where every step felt like a desperate slog through a mountain of corpses.

He couldn’t see any sign of Su Huaijing making a bid for power.

Rong Tang’s eyes flew open. He pushed Su Huaijing, a little too forcefully. The main villain gave a muffled grunt and grabbed his fingers, voice rough and low: “Can’t sleep?”

Three simple words, yet they carried a faint edge of danger, an unspoken, unashamed hunger in the still of night.

Rong Tang had no intention of indulging him this time. He asked directly, “What have you been up to lately?”

Su Huaijing, now properly awake, let the remnants of sleep fall away. One hand slipped inside Rong Tang’s inner robe, palm warm as it skimmed across taut skin. He moved closer, resting his face against the crook of Rong Tang’s neck.

His breath feathered across the skin. Then came the tip of his tongue, gliding lazily, teasing every sensitive curve of cartilage and nerve along the bones: “Loving Tangtang.”

“Not just lately,” he murmured. “Every day. A little more each day than the last.”

His hand had already begun its descent. He rolled over and pinned Rong Tang beneath him. Before any further protest could be made, he gave a gentle bite to his ear, voice hoarse and seductive: “Let’s do it.”

The heat of skin on skin and the swell of desire blurred his thoughts. Rong Tang nearly forgot what he’d meant to ask when he’d pushed Su Huaijing awake. Soul ensnared by lust, body loyal to instinct. It was all too easy to be bewitched by the person one loved.

Rong Tang looked up through the darkness, hazy and dense. He hesitated, then swallowed the question.

—Su Huaijing didn’t want to tell him.

Just before he fully succumbed, Rong Tang understood this.

He didn’t want to answer, yet he didn’t wish to lie. So instead, he found other ways to divert Rong Tang’s thoughts and attention.

Rong Tang fell silent, allowing himself to be swept away without another word.

…

Leaves rustled in the courtyard breeze. Rong Tang leaned against a beauty’s recliner, idly flipping through a storybook, distracted.

Su Huaijing rarely kept secrets from him. Or perhaps it was rare for Rong Tang to feel a strong urge to pry. When curiosity did arise, the main villain was often more eager than him.

He would spare no effort to satisfy Rong Tang’s every inquisitive urge, and would find ways to draw him deeper into his own world.

The treachery of court politics had little to do with Rong Tang, but Su Huaijing had always been unflinchingly honest.

Now, he was hiding something. And far too obviously.

It forced Rong Tang to consider that whatever Su Huaijing was planning… involved him.

It was personal. Potentially harmful. And so Su Huaijing kept it to himself.

But…

Rong Tang closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye, the once-inky black fog had faded to grey-black. It was slowly being engulfed and diluted by swathes of grey, the darkness no longer absolute—just another shade in a spectrum dulled by compromise.

In the capital today, the only thing Su Huaijing might be hiding from him, the only person it might involve, was Sheng Chengli.

Su Huaijing and Sheng Chengli…

Had they struck some kind of deal?

And if so—why?

Rong Tang opened his eyes, unease gnawing at the pit of his stomach.

—

The rumours that had once been crushed under the boots of imperial troops were now swirling once again, more rampant than before.

There was a theatre troupe in the capital called the Purple Jade Troupe: lewd in content, bold in innovation.

At the start of the seventh month, they debuted a new play. A single performance. Only thirty seats.

And yet those thirty seats were all it took. In just three days, the imperial family’s secrets had once again become the talk of the town.

The first time Rong Tang had gone to see a play by the Purple Jade Troupe, Su Huaijing had caught him reading erotic literature. The second time, he had crouched down in surrender, doing his utmost to appease the sulking villain.

Ever since then—no matter how Su Huaijing tempted him, no matter how Ke Hongxue tried to coax him—he had never agreed to go back.

So all his news came second-hand, relayed through Shuang Fu.

The story spread like wildfire, whispered among nobles and commoners alike. Officially, no one spoke of it; unofficially, it was on everyone’s lips.

The new play was a domestic tragedy, told in three acts, titled “Slayer”.

Act I: The elder brother was dignified, the family harmonious. He led the clan with pride and honour. But the younger brother, resentful of being confined to the shadows, wielded neither power nor wealth—barely a tenth of what his brother possessed. In secret, he allied himself with the family’s enemies. While his brother’s back was turned, he struck, killing him in one fell swoop and stealing his place as the new patriarch.

Act II: With the younger brother in power, the once-sombre household slid into decadence. Garish colours filled the manor; mistresses multiplied. He sired three children. Then one day, he discovered that his most cherished son… was not his own. Rage overtook him.

Act Three: The younger brother plotting to kill his youngest son’s real father… only to be found out by the matriarch, who uncovered the child’s true identity. That night, mother and son spoke in private. The old lady asked: “If the boy isn’t your own flesh and blood, why haven’t you cast him out of the household?”

The younger brother replied, “Fei’er refuses to follow Mother’s command because there are only three sons in this family. The eldest is deep and inscrutable, the second is dull-witted, and the youngest is naïve. The three balance one another, each keeping the others in check. If one falls, the other two will stir and vie for my position.”

The old matriarch was grief-stricken and scolded him bitterly: “You worry now for your own seat, and you’d willingly dress another in bridal robes for the ceremony meant for you! Have you already forgotten? Once upon a time, you too killed your elder brother for this very position?”

The younger brother, now the master of the household, turned ashen. From that day on, he was tormented by night terrors. His mother’s reprimands echoed endlessly in his dreams, as though she were determined to announce to the world the truth behind his ascent. One night, he awoke in terror, coughed up a mouthful of black blood, and wept tears of blood. Falling to his knees, he bowed three times into the void and cried out in remorse: “Mother, forgive your unfilial son!”

The scene shifted. Before long, the old lady fell gravely ill.

First she lost her speech, then her sight. In the end, she died a wretched death one winter’s day. At her burial, black crows accompanied the coffin all the way to the grave. At the very moment the coffin was lowered into the earth, a flock of crows descended in a frenzy, pried it open, and devoured her corpse bit by bit. Rotting flesh fell upon the snow, only to be snatched up at once by ravenous black beaks.

The dead were fed to crows. The living murdered their forebears. That once resplendent, sumptuously adorned household, in a single moment, became like a flower in full decay. Its scent drew carrion birds to circle overhead, blotting out sun and moon alike.

…

Blending traditional opera with shadow puppetry, the performance brought this grim family drama vividly to life.

There were only a handful of spectators in the garden, yet when the final scene concluded, no one dared to move. The place, once chaotic and bawdy, was so deathly still. A pin dropping would have rung like a bell.

The thirty tickets had been acquired in different ways. Some were bought for vast sums by the powerful; others were won in gambling dens; a few turned up at dining houses by chance; still others were gifted to scholars of rare talent.

Each of the thirty viewing boxes was a sealed space, scattered across the courtyard like isolated huts. Guests were blindfolded upon arrival and led inside. Only once seated could they remove their coverings.

No one knew who was sitting beside them. Everyone was terrified into silence.

Yet in just three days, this seditious, thinly veiled allegory had become the capital’s worst-kept secret.

No one dared speak of it, yet everyone seemed to know the gist. The three acts of Slayer were fleshed out by the public’s imagination. Each unspoken subtext supplemented with flesh, blood, and sinew. Scene by scene, word by word, the audience filled in what the play had left unsaid.

By the time the authorities finally caught wind and rushed to arrest the troupe at the Purple Jade Troupe, the most illustrious opera house in the city was already deserted. Only the pear garden remained, doomed to crumble with the passing of time.

As for those thirty spectators, they melted into the crowds, their identities forever obscured.

Such a magnificent household. Such a vast and storied realm.

Who could fail to grasp what the play had been about?

Even Sheng Chengxing’s final words on the golden steps of the throne room, uttered just before death, had made their way into the world after all.

The Emperor Renshou had spent a lifetime building his reputation, donning mask after mask of benevolence and virtue.

In the end, it took just three performances and thirty pairs of eyes to pierce the bubble of his sanctimonious charade. His rotting hypocrisy lay exposed beneath the sunlight, drawing crows to feast on the carrion.

…

Rong Tang stood in silence for a long time after hearing this.

This wasn’t a future he had ever witnessed or read about, not in any timeline he’d lived through, nor in the original plot the system had described to him. In that version, once the main villain ascended the throne, he hadn’t bothered to rehabilitate his parents or siblings.

Because there was no need.

He didn’t love this country, nor did he love its people. He thought them all ignorant, foolish, blind followers. Why seek validation from those one despises?

Everything Su Huaijing had done in the original narrative was for revenge.

And revenge did not require explanations. To tell your enemy why they must die, that was mercy. And the main villain had none.

All he wanted was for his enemies to perish, for the empire to burn. As for the land itself… it would go on. New lives would be born. Travellers would come. Old souls would linger. Time would roll forward regardless. As for Dayu…

It would simply disappear. Wiped out by his hand.

So his coronation had always been straightforward. Once he had amassed enough power, once the Imperial Seal was within easy reach, once he could sit back and watch Sheng Xuyan write out the edict of succession with his own hand…

Everything else—public sentiment, political capital—was just icing. Never essential.

But this time, Rong Tang saw something change.

Su Huaijing had begun to prepare the ground: framing his own ascension as legitimate, and branding Sheng Xuyan’s as heretical. Just like Emperor Renshou once had, forging false histories in the wake of rebellion and before seizing the throne.

With the debut of Slayer, the whole capital fell silent.

On Xuanwu Avenue, an autumn leaf fluttered to the ground. In the charred remains of a ruined courtyard, a morning glory trembled as it pushed through the ash.

At last, the officials had their chance. The ailing Emperor finally attended court.

Together, they submitted a memorial: “Your ministers humbly beseech His Majesty to appoint a crown prince without delay!”

Su Huaijing stood among the gathered officials, neither kneeling nor speaking. His eyes lifted ever so slightly to rest on the young prince the ministers had chosen.

What’s past was past.

Now, Sheng Xuyan and Sheng Chengli were just two rabid dogs in the same pit. Snarling. Tearing. No more than that.

Each driven by selfish ambition. Each destined to bleed the other dry.

And to die an unremarkable death.