Only Fang Linyuan was so worried that he ate half a bowl less.

 

On the day she received the imperial edict, Dou Qingyi knew clearly that in this world there were no gods or buddhas.

What was called “the order of the world” was nothing more than the piled-up results of countless people’s choices. And what was called “fate” was nothing more than the choices made in the space of each passing thought.

This time, the door of the boudoir was locked fast from inside by her own hand.

In the final moment, trembling, with the lamp and flame in her grasp, what she set alight was not the hem of her own skirt, but the walls piled high with pedantic Confucian tomes.

In the blaze of the fire, she began to laugh, and from that very instant, her fate began to change.

She still entered the Eastern Palace, and within a few years, became Empress.

But the mediocre, weak Emperor gradually turned into nothing more than a puppet that could only rage, while that beautiful and cold Empress actually let fall a beaded curtain behind the dragon throne.

Later, Emperor Hongyou died suddenly.

Amid the uproar of the court and realm, that Empress reached out her hand and tore away the final screen that separated her from the court.

The beaded curtain crashed to the ground, and the Empress donned the imperial crown.

All of Daxuan was thrown into near-upheaval.

But at that time, Fang Linyuan was only seven years old, and even if the heavens above his head were flipped inside out, for him, it would still come after the catastrophe of his father confiscating his ball.

“Why did you take my ball!”

Seven-year-old Fang Linyuan was taller than other children, yet still only reached Fang Duo’s waist. He craned his neck stubbornly, stretching out his hands to snatch back his ball, yet his father smacked him squarely on the crown of his head without mercy.

“Your courage has grown fat, has it? Kicking the ball into your teacher’s waist, and you still want it back?” Fang Duo glared, eyes wide with fury.

“I told Mister Zhou to dodge, but he insisted on running right in front of me!” Fang Linyuan talked back.

Fang Duo jabbed a finger at his nose: “Don’t think of getting this back for the rest of your life!”

Fang Linyuan was about to faint from anger.

What kind of reasoning was this? Just the other day his father had been practicing with a spear, and the shaft had accidentally jabbed into him—yet why hadn’t he confiscated his father’s spear?

As expected, adults never reason things out!

Fang Linyuan’s cheeks puffed up with fury.

But just then, a man in battle armor rushed in, voice raised: “My Lord, it’s bad, My Lord, something has happened in the palace!”

The words that followed, Fang Linyuan did not understand—usurpation, something about the Empress.

But his father’s expression changed, and tossing aside the ball, without even a backward glance, he strode away.

Lost and then regained—heaven-sent ball! Who knew the world had such blessings!

Fang Linyuan pounced and caught his ball in his arms.

This was sewn from deerskin, unique in the whole capital, its bounce unmatched beneath heaven. To take it out to play meant that even the young lord of the Duke’s household had to call him “big brother.”

“Where did my father go?” Fang Linyuan asked casually as he dusted off his ball, glancing at the maid beside him.

“Second Young Master didn’t hear? They said the world has changed within the palace!” the maid whispered. “They said the Emperor is gone, and the Empress is going to ascend the throne!”

“Oh.” Fang Linyuan lifted his head and looked up.

The sky was bright and blue—the heavens hadn’t changed.

He did not yet understand what “ascend the throne” meant, but for the moment it seemed that the Empress had summoned his father away.

Rounded off, that meant the Empress had helped him get his beloved ball back.

*

Before Fang Linyuan could mark down this debt of gratitude to the Empress in his heart, his household began to cry.

The servants wept, his mother wept, and his elder brother Fang Linze sighed as he packed up his things.

Fang Linyuan lay there watching. “Where are you going, and how long before you come back?” he asked his brother.

Fang Linze looked at him, sighed, and reached out to rub the crown of his head.

“Father and I are going to Yumen Pass,” he said. “There has been drastic change in the capital. Yumen Pass has the weakest defenses, and lately there have been military reports of Turkic raids. We are going to guard the pass.”

Fang Linyuan nodded at these words.

That much he did know. His father had long believed that Yumen Pass was too weakly guarded, and since the wolfish ambitions of the Turks had never died, if they were not crushed early, they would surely become a great calamity.

He had informed the court several times over it through memorials, but the Emperor never seemed to agree, rejecting one memorial after another.

So why had the Emperor suddenly changed his mind?

Fang Linyuan was just about to ask, when suddenly it occurred to him—oh, the Emperor was dead.

“Was it the Empress who sent you there?” Fang Linyuan asked.

Fang Linze did not answer this question. He only fell silent for a moment, then crouched down to look at him.

“I, together with Father, am taking one hundred thousand troops this time. With ample money and provisions, we will certainly be able to hold Yumen Pass,” he said. “So, we need not worry—but you, Yuan’er, with only you and Mother left at home, you must protect her well, do you understand?”

Fang Linyuan nodded firmly.

*

Later, when Fang Linyuan grew a year older, he gradually came to understand why they had all been crying that day.

The Empress ascending the throne—that was a disruption of the Great Order of the world, something the entire civil and military court could not accept, and even more so, the common people of the realm refused to acknowledge it.

At such a critical juncture, for the Empress to entrust heavy troops and a strategic pass to Fang Duo—that was to draw the powerful general Fang Duo into her own camp. And the soldiers under Fang Duo’s command now seemed to have become her support.

This was a task where one wrong move could turn one into a sinner condemned through the ages.

But Fang Linyuan did not see it that way.

Even his father’s own retainers said that the Empress had not forced him. When his father returned, he himself had said that the Empress persuaded him, and that he had gone to guard the pass of his own accord.

With his father’s stubborn temper, to say such words—how could it possibly have been by coercion?

And so, Fang Linyuan remained in the capital, diligently studying and practicing martial arts, abiding by the promise to protect his mother in place of his father and elder brother.

That Empress who had overturned heaven indeed ascended the throne, becoming the Emperor. So many opposed her, yet no one could pull her down; at most, they whispered slanders behind her back, calling her a sorceress—but such things were only done by those most lacking in ability.

And that Fifth Princess, who was so skilled at reciting poetry, had her gender changed in the imperial genealogy, becoming a dignified and proper Fifth Prince.

This truly startled Fang Linyuan a little.

He had not seen it at all!

Thinking back to the banquet they had attended together, that delicately carved little jade-like girl he had seen—Fang Linyuan simply could not imagine that she was actually a boy!

A boy… That exquisitely pretty little girl—if he were to put on men’s clothing, what kind of sight would that be…

Later still, good news came back from the frontier.

His father and elder brother had defeated the Turks across a hundred li, driving them all the way back to the wastelands north of the grasslands. The Female Emperor rejoiced, ennobling his father as Duke of An’guo, and graciously permitting her minister’s younger son, Fang Linyuan—now of age—to enter the Wenhua Hall as study companion to His Highness the Fifth Prince.

The Fifth Prince! That was the Female Emperor’s one and only, personally borne, legitimate son!

But Fang Linyuan’s face scrunched with worry.

The tutors in his own family already made the ruler strike on the palms hurt enough. In the Wenhua Hall, where the greatest tutors in all under heaven taught, the ruler strikes would surely hurt a hundred times worse, would they not?

This time, while the entire household laughed, it was only Fang Linyuan who was so wprried that he ate half a bowl less of rice.

 

Translator : DarNan