Ye Zhao returned from the palace.
"Jiang Ziqi?"
Just as he reached his front door, he spotted a familiar figure crouching by the entrance.
Jiang Ziqi, who had been waiting so long that he felt as if grass were growing on his head, saw Ye Zhao and his eyes instantly lit up. Like a hungry wolf pouncing on its prey, he lunged forward. "Ye Zhao-zhao! You’re finally back!"
"Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for you?! I came to your house first thing this morning, but your mother said you’d gone to the teahouse in the south of the city to manage the business. I ran all the way there and waited the entire morning without seeing a hair of you! Then I ran back here and waited until now! Where on earth did you go?!"
Out of that massive wall of text, Ye Zhao only registered the last sentence, understanding that Jiang Ziqi had likely been waiting for a very long time.
He rubbed his nose. "Uh... I went into the palace with Commander Wei."
Jiang Ziqi’s exaggerated expression froze. "The palace?!"
Ye Zhao nodded. "Yes. The Emperor wanted to see me."
*Whoa!*
Jiang Ziqi immediately looked astonished. He circled Ye Zhao twice, sizing him up from head to toe, before finally staring at Ye Zhao’s face with a meaningful look. "I knew it. My guess back then wasn't wrong—you really aren't your parents' biological son!"
That smug, "I-told-you-so" look made Ye Zhao feel like punching him.
"What are you thinking? Your head is filled with nothing but nonsense all day. Can't you think of something normal for once?"
Jiang Ziqi scoffed. "I think your brain is the one that can't keep up. Plenty of people are guessing this now. Look at that face of yours; you don't look a bit like Uncle Ye. Instead, you're a ten-out-of-ten match for Lord Tianshu! And..."
Jiang Ziqi glanced at the folding fan tucked into Ye Zhao’s waist and mused, "I suspect the origin of that fan isn't simple either. You know, legends say Lord Tianshu also carried a black-and-white folding fan. Don't you think it's possible that..."
"Possible my foot! It’s not! Even if it really was his, so what? Can't it be that he lost it and it ended up in my hands?" Ye Zhao knew exactly what he was implying and cut him off directly.
Jiang Ziqi choked on his words. "Fine, sure, why not. But don't you think this is all too coincidental?"
Ye Zhao replied candidly, "What if it really is just that coincidental?"
Two pairs of large eyes stared straight at each other—one pair filled with absolute certainty, the other with utter suspicion.
Suddenly, Jiang Ziqi muttered, "...Ye Zhao, why are you so certain about your own origins?"
Having been doubted since childhood, Ye Zhao had long since adapted. He didn't feel anything was amiss and couldn't even muster a shred of doubt. "They are my own parents. Why would I doubt them???"
He looked at Jiang Ziqi as if looking at a fool and countered, "Why don't you doubt that you were picked up by Lord Jiang?"
A fair point. Jiang Ziqi was silenced. "..."
Though he had often harbored such doubts while growing up, the belief that his father was his biological father had never truly wavered in his heart.
However, perhaps inspired by Ye Zhao’s last few words, Jiang Ziqi suddenly remembered something. His face filled with shock. "Ye Zhao, I think you really might have been picked up by Uncle and Auntie!"
Ye Zhao: "I think you're an idiot."
Talking to an idiot would only make one an idiot as well, so Ye Zhao turned to leave.
Jiang Ziqi grabbed Ye Zhao’s sleeve and shouted urgently, "Did you forget?! Every year on your birthday, Uncle and Auntie make you go to Mt. Bushe at night to offer incense!!"
In the shadows, certain hidden watchers were startled: *It feels like a major secret is about to be revealed!*
The Yulin Guards' scribe already had his brush poised and ready.
Ye Zhao turned back, looking a bit bewildered. "Uh, yeah. So?"
"Have you never wondered why it has to be at night?"
"Because my parents went to Mt. Bushe in the middle of the night to pray for a child back then, so they go back in the middle of the night to fulfill their vow. It shows great sincerity." As Ye Zhao said it, he truly believed it.
But Jiang Ziqi didn't!
In an instant, his mind reconstructed a series of events that must have happened at the foot of Mt. Bushe on a dark and windy night years ago.
He swallowed hard, part nervous and part excited. "Prayers are ethereal things; how can they be taken literally?!"
Ye Zhao agreed. "True."
But he still didn't understand what Jiang Ziqi was trying to say.
Then, Jiang Ziqi said solemnly, "Ye Zhao, have you never considered that something unexpected might have happened when Uncle and Auntie were praying? For example..."
"...For example, they just happened to find an infant at the foot of the mountain. They might have thought it was a child bestowed upon them by Lord Tianshu, so they took him home. From then on, the Ye family had an only son—you!"
*Whoosh—*
In the shadows, waves of shock crashed through the hearts of the observers, their eyes shining with terrifying intensity.
Ye Zhao stood frozen on the spot, seemingly stunned by Jiang Ziqi’s words.
The more Jiang Ziqi spoke, the more he felt he was right. That had to be it!
"Think about it! It was a dark and windy night. They quickly took the child home and raised him in secret. To the outside world, Madam Ye pretended to be pregnant, and ten months later, the child was 'born'!" Jiang Ziqi reached a fever pitch and then suddenly lowered his voice, exhaling slowly. He said in a deep tone, "Everything follows logically. There are no holes in the story."
After a long silence, Ye Zhao spoke. "Finished?"
"Finished," Jiang Ziqi nodded calmly.
Then he saw Ye Zhao take a deep breath and look back at him with a serious expression. "Do you know what I want to do most right now?"
"What?"
A stiff, menacing grin suddenly appeared on Ye Zhao’s face. "I want to beat the living daylights out of you, you mush-brained fool!"
With that, Ye Zhao swung his fan to strike. Jiang Ziqi jumped in fright, his "wise" persona vanishing instantly as he reacted quickly and bolted.
"Why are you hitting me?!"
Ye Zhao: "Who else would I hit?! You have the most overactive imagination; you could run a horse race in that head of yours!!!"
And so, the two began a game of cat and mouse.
The Yulin Guards watched from the shadows as the two ran back and forth in that small area like two clumsy chicks pecking at each other. They watched quietly and boredly, like parents looking after toddlers. At the same time, they couldn't stop thinking about Jiang Ziqi’s words.
The more they chewed on it, the more they felt... that this really might be the truth of what happened back then!!!
Consequently, they naturally missed the moment Ye Zhao caught Jiang Ziqi and whispered in a low, menacing voice into his ear: "Tell me, what kind of strange storybooks have you been reading lately? To be able to weave a tale like that... I really underestimated your imagination."
As soon as Ye Zhao heard his friend’s rhythmic cadence and that pretentious, profound posture, he knew the guy was having another "episode."
Question: *What do you do when your best friend is extremely dramatic and loves to invent massive backstories to move himself to tears?*
Ye Zhao, usually such a calm and self-cultivating person, couldn't help but want to hit him. He felt that if this continued, Jiang Ziqi would eventually reignite his youthful, hot-blooded passion through sheer annoyance.
After they had messed around for a while, Ye Zhao said to Jiang Ziqi with righteous conviction, "I cannot be Lord Tianshu’s son!"
"What if you are?" Jiang Ziqi, having been disciplined, was now behaving himself.
Ye Zhao put on a serious face. "There is no 'what if.' It's a one-in-a-million impossibility. I am certain I am not."
"How can you be so sure?" Jiang Ziqi wanted to ask, but seeing his friend’s iron-clad resolve, he swallowed the question, remaining half-convinced. "Oh, fine. If you say so."
Hearing his tone, Ye Zhao realized he still didn't believe him.
He spat out, "They say dragons beget dragons and phoenixes beget phoenixes, and the son of a rat knows how to dig holes. If I were his son, would I still be muddling through life like this? I would have brought you along to ascend to the heavens long ago!"
It was true. If Ye Zhao had inherited even half of Lord Tianshu’s intelligence, the "chicken" Jiang Ziqi wouldn't be getting scolded by his father every day for being useless.
Jiang Ziqi sighed sorrowfully, slowly coming to believe Ye Zhao’s words, yet he couldn't help but feel regret. Why wasn't he?
Jiang Ziqi, who very much wanted to be "brought along to ascend," thought so.
He suddenly remembered a piece of actual business. "Oh, right! I almost forgot. The academy said they’ve cleared up that incident where you were expelled. They want you to go back to school."
Ye Zhao’s first reaction wasn't joy. He frowned, sensing something was wrong. It had been so long; for them to suddenly clear his name felt suspicious.
"Did they find the person who framed me?"
Jiang Ziqi thought for a moment. "Not exactly. They just said someone came forward to testify for you, saying you had fallen asleep as soon as you entered the classroom and never woke up, so the book incident obviously had nothing to do with you."
*Oh, so that’s the excuse. Take it with a grain of salt.*
Ye Zhao didn't look particularly happy. Seeing this, Jiang Ziqi patted his shoulder. "Sigh... anyway, even if you go, there's only one year left. You’ll graduate from Zhiyuan Academy at the end of next year. Just endure it and it'll be over. Auntie Ye probably still hopes you can go back and finish your studies..."
When he said "endure," he didn't mean that Ye Zhao found the academic work difficult. In fact, Ye Zhao studied on his own. But for some reason, it was as if he were cursed at Zhiyuan Academy; his grades were never ideal, which over time became a stain he couldn't wash away.
Rather, the issue was *why* Ye Zhao was allowed back. Previously, no matter how hard Madam Ye tried, it was useless. Suddenly, after those rumors came out, they claimed he was innocent and asked him to return.
Jiang Ziqi wasn't a fool. Anyone with a normal brain could tell there was something fishy behind this.
This kind of behavior truly disgusted both of them.
Ye Zhao understood this perfectly well. He lowered his eyes and didn't answer Jiang Ziqi directly.
After a moment, he said, "Fine. It’s only a year. Compared to the dozen or so years I've lived, it's hardly worth mentioning."
A year of what? A dozen years of what? Ye Zhao didn't specify, but with their decade of friendship, how could Jiang Ziqi fail to understand the underlying meaning?
His sunny face went quiet. "...Ye Zhao, you are a good man."
He said it with a rare seriousness—not faked this time, but with genuine emotion.
Ye Zhao had only been feeling a momentary lapse into sentimentality. Seeing this, his heart warmed slightly.
"Thanks for the compliment. I think so too," he smiled.
Jiang Ziqi laughed again. "You thick-skinned brat."
***
The next day, Xie Yusong found out about Ye Zhao’s recent movements and went to the teahouse, but he still missed him.
"Pei Yunting?" Xie Yusong murmured as he passed the entrance of a restaurant and caught sight of someone standing by an upstairs window.
He noticed Pei Yunting seemed to be staring intently in one direction and felt a flicker of curiosity. When he went upstairs and stood beside him, he finally saw what Pei Yunting was looking at.
At a small noodle stall on the corner sat two customers. One was the person he was looking for—Ye Zhao. The other was Pei Shian.
The two were eating noodles while chatting, occasionally making each other laugh. The atmosphere was warm and harmonious, like two ordinary, close friends. No one on the street recognized that the relaxed, happy old man was the world-renowned former Chancellor, Old Master Pei.
"I didn't expect to see the Duke here. What a coincidence."
Hearing Xie Yusong’s voice, Pei Yunting snapped back to reality and lowered his gaze, no longer looking at the stall.
Xie Yusong spoke up. "Shall we go over?"
Pei Yunting’s face remained cold. After a moment of silence, he refused. "No."
His father would not want to see him...
Xie Yusong glanced in that direction and sighed softly. "Clearly, you are the one who resembles Lord Tianshu the most in spirit, yet you still can't compete with someone who simply has the face..."
Noticing Pei Yunting’s hand unconsciously clenching into a fist, Xie Yusong lightly shifted his gaze back to the old man and the youth in the distance. A faint, imperceptible smile touched his lips—one perhaps only he understood.
As Xie Yusong’s gaze drifted, he suddenly spotted a familiar figure on a nearby street corner. His eyes paused. "Su Jinzhou..."
Almost instantly, he understood why the other man was there. No doubt, he was also out gathering intelligence.
Pei Yunting followed his gaze, and his eyes met Su Jinzhou’s.
Su Jinzhou paused, clearly having just noticed Pei Yunting as well. He gave a reserved nod as a greeting.
However, when Su Jinzhou saw Xie Yusong beside him, he turned his head away almost immediately, acting extremely cold.
Pei Yunting had been away from the capital for five years and didn't quite understand what had happened between the two. "What is going on between you and Jinzhou?"
The three of them were known as the Three Young Lords of the Capital, with Pei Yunting at the head. He remembered they used to be on good terms, hence his confusion.
Xie Yusong gave a faint smile. "I suppose you could say our paths have diverged. Did you know he is now secretly working under Prince Rong?"
Pei Yunting truly hadn't known, but he knew the Xie family stood with the Crown Prince. "I see," he said.
Xie Yusong then asked, "Now that you've returned to the capital, do you intend to enter the court?"
Pei Yunting considered it. "I have no such plans for the time being."
Xie Yusong caught the implication—meaning he might in the future. He used his folding fan to partially hide the lower half of his face, his eyelids drooping to conceal the flash of contemplation in his eyes.
After a moment of silence, Xie Yusong suddenly asked, "Between the Crown Prince and Prince Rong, who do you favor?"
Pei Yunting’s expression stiffened. He turned to look at his friend. He knew Xie Yusong was testing his stance. He was well aware that the struggle between Prince Rong and the Crown Prince was reaching a fever pitch in the court.
But...
He replied coldly, "Both are His Majesty’s sons. Whomever His Majesty favors, I favor."
Their gazes met briefly before Xie Yusong suddenly broke into a smile, instantly dispelling the awkward silence. "Why so serious? It’s just private idle talk."
Pei Yunting didn't speak, but his expression softened slightly. He and Xie Yusong were, after all, friends of many years.
Furthermore, the Pei and Wei families were the two most trusted by the Emperor. One could see it from the titles of the Duke of An and the Duke of Zhen—one to bring peace to the nation, the other to suppress chaos.
The relationship between these subjects and the sovereign was intimate; they had followed the Emperor since he was young, a bond spanning decades.
Their families would not touch the disputes of the court with a ten-foot pole. If one had to label them, they were steadfast Royalists.
As for the Xie family... they should have been the same, but unfortunately...
***
**Glossary**
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
--- | --- | ---
不世山 | Mt. Bushe | The mountain where Ye Zhao's parents supposedly prayed for him.
致远学院 | Zhiyuan Academy | The prestigious school Ye Zhao was expelled from.
安国公 | Duke of An | Title held by the Pei family.
镇国公 | Duke of Zhen | Title held by the Wei family.
天上京三大公子 | Three Young Lords of the Capital | Refers to Pei Yunting, Xie Yusong, and Su Jinzhou.
裴云庭 | Pei Yunting | Son of the Duke of An, one of the Three Young Lords.
苏瑾舟 | Su Jinzhou | One of the Three Young Lords, working for Prince Rong.
荣王 | Prince Rong | A rival prince competing with the Crown Prince.
保皇党 | Royalist / Emperor's Party | Faction loyal strictly to the reigning Emperor rather than a specific prince.
