Chapter 40 - 3#

Repeat it enough times and it sticks, whether you want it to or not.

It worked well. Mingyu kept doing it.

After finishing with Mingyu, Zhu Erxi deigned to glance at Jingzhe — looked him over once, top to bottom — and then walked out with his hands still behind his back.

Once he was gone, Mingyu let out a breath.

He was still a little afraid of Zhu Erxi.

“I’m telling you, he cares about you,” Mingyu said in a lowered voice. “He probably came on purpose just to check.”

Jingzhe: “He said he was sleeping.”

Mingyu: “On that filthy floor? I wouldn’t sleep there if you paid me. I don’t believe a word of it.”

Jingzhe couldn’t quite work out what his relationship with Zhu Erxi actually was. At most, there was Chen An between them — and even if Zhu Erxi felt some affection toward Jingzhe on account of that, surely it didn’t extend this far. He couldn’t figure it out and decided it wasn’t worth the effort. What mattered was that the Head Supervisor meant him no harm.

The two of them looked around carefully to confirm they were alone before resuming the conversation.

“Don’t worry about Sanshun,” Mingyu said. After the favor Zhu Erxi had shown him, even having only been in the kitchens a few months, Mingyu was in a position to make this kind of promise. “Even with Grandpa De… I’ll make sure Sanshun is taken care of.”

Chen Mingde’s health had been declining for some time. It was always going to come to this — but the shock of the infestation seemed to have taken something out of him that didn’t come back. He had been mostly bedridden since, barely able to rise.

The North Wing had come through the event with minimal losses.

All except one.

Nanny Ming was dead.

She was the only person in the North Wing to die in the infestation — caught out because she had gone into the rain that day for reasons no one had worked out, on some errand apparently urgent enough to draw her out. She had encountered the gu insects and not come back.

For Chen Mingde, this was simultaneously a relief and a loss.

People needed something to keep fighting for. Having an adversary, even an exhausting one, could be a reason to stay alive.

His ongoing clash with Nanny Ming had been the kind of thing you’d go to your grave still unresolved — not restful, but sustaining in its own way. Now that she was gone, it seemed like there was nothing left to hold onto.

His energy ebbed away in the days that followed.

When Jingzhe heard, he went back to the North Wing with Mingyu as quickly as he could. He found the others gathered outside Chen Mingde’s room, and they stepped aside to let the two of them through.

Inside, only Sanshun was keeping watch.

He was kneeling on the floor beside the bed — a large, sturdy person made very small, curled in on himself.

It was a painful sight.

Chen Mingde’s hair had gone fully white. His breathing was barely there. He was clearly down to his last thread — but when he saw Jingzhe, something lit briefly in his eyes, and he raised one trembling hand.

That hand pointed toward Sanshun.

Jingzhe knelt down, genuinely, and bowed his head to the floor three times. Then he said: “Grandpa De. Don’t worry. I’ll look after Sanshun from now on. Nothing will happen to him.”

Chen Mingde had kept the things belonging to Chen An for all those years — and among those things were some of the most important Jingzhe had. Whether or not the old man had known what he was holding onto, that was a debt Jingzhe would not forget.

At his words, Chen Mingde’s face settled into something like a smile.

…And the hand lowered.

As if he had been waiting here all this time for nothing more than that.

Sanshun’s grief broke open then, and his crying carried through the whole of the North Wing. Others wept too — some more, some less — though more than a few faces showed a kind of dazed bewilderment. In the span of a short time, the North Wing had lost its authority figures one by one. For people who had spent their lives within that small world, it was disorienting in a way that was hard to put into words.

Jingzhe and Mingyu took over the arrangements for Chen Mingde, and with Zheng Hong’s connections, they managed to ensure the old man was not sent off with nothing but a rolled-up bedding bundle.

Afterward, Mingyu took Sanshun with him.

Jingzhe had initially thought to bring Sanshun to the Directorate — there were vacancies after the infestation. But Mingyu mentioned that the kitchens needed someone with strength, and suggested bringing Sanshun to Zhu Erxi to see if he’d fit. It would spare him the trouble of being relocated twice.

The kitchens were a better posting than the Directorate by most measures, and Jingzhe agreed.

When Zhu Erxi kept Sanshun on, Jingzhe and Mingyu spent a few days running back and forth to arrange the formal transfer. By the time everything was settled, the North Wing had a new person in charge.

Following the succession of incidents there, those in authority had apparently decided the place needed some fresh air — they sent in more people than before, and it grew livelier. Only it no longer resembled the North Wing Jingzhe remembered. The familiar faces were almost all gone. The years he had spent living there felt distant now, like something from a different life entirely.

*

When Zheng Hong came to deliver a package for Jingzhe, he found considerably more curious onlookers than usual waiting to see what he’d brought.

Huiping stepped outside and pulled the door shut, simultaneously blocking the crowd from following in.

Zheng Hong directed a suspicious look at Jingzhe.

“You keep coming to drop things off, and that never used to draw much attention,” Jingzhe explained. “But now that they know Rong Jiu exists, people have gotten curious.”

Zheng Hong let out a short, derisive sound. “Curious isn’t quite the word.” He set the large bundle on the bed and began untying it.

This had become something of a routine by now. On days when Rong Jiu was occupied and couldn’t come himself, Zheng Hong functioned as a delivery service, bringing Jingzhe whatever had been sent.

“They want to work you for an introduction. That’s all it is.”

Zheng Hong had no illusions. How well did Jingzhe and Rong Jiu get along? He had no idea exactly, but three months of regular deliveries suggested something that wasn’t casual. If Jingzhe had a connection there, people would want a piece of it.

Jingzhe wasn’t someone who liked showing off. If the infestation hadn’t accidentally let something slip, no one would have known he had this kind of access.

And Zheng Hong had wondered about it too, for that matter.

Jingzhe had this connection, and Rong Jiu clearly cared enough about their friendship to keep sending things — so why not use it? Why not climb a little?

Jingzhe paused in untying the bundle. “Think me principled or think me naive — it’s the same to me. I don’t make friends because of what they can do for me.”

Zheng Hong shook his head. “I genuinely don’t know how you’ve survived this long.”

A perfectly good opportunity sitting right in front of him, and he wouldn’t take a bite. If you truly considered someone a friend, you wouldn’t mind — and Jingzhe himself ran errands for his friends at the drop of a hat. He’d just pushed Mingyu into the kitchens. Now he’d just finished sorting out Sanshun.

He knew Jingzhe well enough to know that stubborn streak wasn’t shifting. He gave up, sat back, and watched Jingzhe work through the bundle.

This delivery was fairly ordinary — except for the substantial quantity of incense tucked at the bottom. Rong Jiu had apparently gathered that the previous supply had been confiscated by the imperial household investigators.

Zheng Hong’s voice dropped slightly. “Is that… the gu-repelling incense?”

Jingzhe: “It’s sleep-aid incense.”

Gu-repelling incense. Truly awful.

He picked out a few sticks without much ceremony and held them out. “Take some if you want.”

He wasn’t expecting another infestation, but there was no harm in being prepared.

Zheng Hong accepted without protest, tucking them away carefully.

“The Noble Consort is dead.”

Looking at the incense had jogged his memory — he’d heard the news during a recent supply run outside the palace.

Jingzhe’s hands stilled. “Dead?”

Huang Yijie hadn’t been formally stripped of her title yet, so the habit of calling her Noble Consort lingered.

“Dead. They’re saying the gu insects turned on her in prison and devoured her.”

The creatures swarming through the prison had been damning in their own right — visible, undeniable evidence of a connection between the Noble Consort and whatever had been controlling the insects.

The Huang family was now in a deeply precarious position.

Attempting to assassinate the Emperor was tantamount to treason, and a strict ruler could invoke the extermination of nine generations for it. If not for the Empress Dowager being a Huang herself, and for Prince Rui’s position, the family would already be lucky to have kept their heads, let alone their official titles.

Strictly speaking, Jingzhe’s quarrel was with Huang Qingtian alone.

But Cen Xuanyin had been imprisoned for a crime that consumed her entire family along with her. Now Huang Qingtian had brought disaster down on himself, and Huang Yijie had attempted regicide — the whole Huang family was going to answer for this. That was only fair.

*

In addition to the incense and other items, Zheng Hong had brought something else, slipped in quietly — a small, slim booklet.

For this booklet, Jingzhe had paid half a copper tael. A small portion of that was the actual cost of the item. The rest was what Zheng Hong called a hazard fee.

Jingzhe resented every coin.

But he paid anyway.

There were things he needed to understand, and this was how it had to be done. He couldn’t keep going on like this — if things came to a head and he had no idea what was happening, he might not have time to manage even his own survival.

After Zheng Hong left, Jingzhe waited until the room was empty, then opened the booklet in careful secrecy.

One glance, and he wrinkled his nose.

The illustrations were…

He suppressed the commentary and kept reading.

Some time passed.

First Jingzhe’s ears went red. Then his entire face followed.

He stared in shock at the two small figures overlapping on the page — heads and feet inverted relative to each other — and the embarrassment of simply imagining the position was enough to make him want to sink into the floor.

They had positions for that in here?

He snapped the booklet shut and dropped it in the chest, then vigorously fanned his own face with one hand.

Huiping came back, took one look at him, and asked with genuine curiosity: “Jingzhe, why is your face that color?”

Jingzhe fanned harder. “Just warm. Too stuffy in here.”

Huiping raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

Jingzhe kept fanning for some time before he calmed down.

Despite his complaints, he looked at it again. In secret.

It took a few days, but he eventually managed to suppress the burning mortification enough to reach the later sections.

By which point his brain felt like congee — hopelessly muddled from the accumulated shock.

He also had some thoughts about Zheng Hong’s selection criteria. The earlier sections had been relatively manageable. The further in you went, the less manageable it became, until the pages were dense with implements and arrangements that Jingzhe found genuinely alarming.

This here — and that — how could anyone possibly—

He was horrified. He was also unable to stop reading. It was like a door had been opened that could not be closed, leading somewhere he wasn’t sure he wanted to go.

Terrifying.

And he felt none of the satisfaction of having learned something useful. Only a persistent lightheadedness that lingered after the shock.

He was deeply troubled. He’d have been better off not knowing.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that having no desires at all would actually be quite peaceful. You wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.

Perhaps because this train of thought had been running long enough, when the fifteenth finally arrived and he was able to see Rong Jiu — which should have been a straightforwardly pleasant occasion — Jingzhe found his eyes drifting downward without his full permission.

The movement was subtle. Most people wouldn’t have caught it.

Unfortunately he was looking at Rong Jiu.

Two cool, pale fingers caught his face. A cold voice: “What are you looking at?”

Jingzhe: “…A mushroom.”

He said it honestly.

Even Rong Jiu’s expression went briefly blank — the reference apparently not surfacing immediately. When he worked out what Jingzhe meant, something peculiar entered his eyes.

Before, Jingzhe had been frightened of this. What he was doing now did not look like fear.

Jingzhe, unaware of Rong Jiu’s expression, reasoned that since he’d been caught anyway, he might as well be open about it, and shifted from covert observation to direct.

“…I’ve been thinking,” he said, looking and also stumbling over his words, “that maybe we shouldn’t… in the future… it might be better if we didn’t…”

“What have you been reading recently?” Rong Jiu asked, with precision. “Give it to me.”

He’d worked it out that fast?

Jingzhe dragged his feet considerably before producing the booklet with reluctant hands.

He didn’t make a habit of carrying it on him — that would have been inviting disaster. Today he’d picked it up by accident while tidying his things, noticed it too late once he was already out, and had no opportunity to go back and leave it behind.

Those fine, pale fingers opened the cover. Such elegant hands — and they were holding this. Jingzhe was struck by an absurd feeling that something had been desecrated.

“This isn’t something I enjoy.”

Zheng Hong had selected it. Who knew he had access to material this intense. What a waste of money.

Rong Jiu glanced at him with cool eyes, and something in those dark depths suggested a flame burning very quietly and very coldly. The corner of his mouth curved up slowly — not a reassuring smile.

“I think,” he said, turning a page with unhurried fingers, “Jingzhe quite likes it, actually.” His thumb pressed against the spine of a particular section, and he added, with a tone of mild observation: “You’ve been through this one several times.”

Jingzhe: “…”

STOP TALKING. Do NOT slander a person’s character—

*

Author’s note:

Rong Jiu: I’ll take this home and study it carefully.

Rong Jiu: This part, and this part — we could try these.

Jingzhe: I’d like to die first.

Jingzhe: But before I die, I’m taking Zheng Hong with me.

Zheng Hong: …Excuse me??