The low-key prince summons trainees from the Imperial Household Department at the start of the game.

In the twenty-second year of Yonghe, there was a Grain Rain.

After that conversation in the Sutra Repository of the Great Bao'en Temple, the Second Prince Zhou Xun's mind seemed to be gently stirred by something.

He didn't pay much attention at first.

A few Zen sayings from a monk are just something to listen to, nothing to do with anything else.

But after returning home, he tossed and turned for several nights in a row, unable to sleep soundly.

Dao Yan's words, "No matter how sharp a general's sword is, it cannot cut through the words on paper," kept swirling in his mind, no matter how hard he tried to get rid of them.

A few days later, he sent someone to the Great Bao'en Temple with a basket of seasonal fruits, saying it was for Zen Master Xie's tea and snacks that day.

Dao Yan accepted the melons and fruits, and in return presented them with a handwritten copy of a fragment of the "Essentials of Military Strategy," with eight characters inscribed on the title page.

"Warfare is based on deception, while governance is based on righteousness."

After Zhou Xun received those eight characters, he pondered them for half the night. From then on, he would find an excuse to visit the Great Bao'en Temple every ten days or half a month.

Sometimes he would bring a military treatise for Daoyan to annotate, and sometimes he would bring nothing but tea and chat.

They sat there for almost half an hour.

He kept this matter extremely low-key, always going in plain clothes and never taking the main road to the mountain gate.

Instead, they entered the Sutra Repository directly through the side gate of the temple, and most of the monks in the temple did not know that the Second Hall had been there.

The Empress was well aware of the situation, but she was happy to see it happen and never pointed it out.

Meanwhile, some unknown undercurrents were quietly surging within the inner court of the imperial city.

Zhao Gao had been working as a court eunuch in the Directorate of Ceremonial for almost a year.

The sixteen-year-old boy served before the emperor, handling more memorials and imperial edicts every day than the Grand Secretaries of the Cabinet. The weight of this position was known to everyone in the inner court.

Whenever Chen Ju mentioned his adopted son in public, he would say "he still needs to be trained," but he couldn't hide the pride in his eyes.

But the bigger the tree, the more the wind will blow against it. Zhao Gao rose too fast and naturally got in the way of some people.

Of the twelve directorates in the inner court, the Directorate of Imperial Works and the Imperial Household Department have always been at odds.

The Imperial Household Department was in charge of all the utensils, clothing, spices and other items used by the emperor in his daily life. Although its rank was not as prestigious as that of the Directorate of Ceremonial, it was closer to the emperor and therefore very lucrative.

Qian Bao, the chief eunuch of the Imperial Household Department, had been in and out of the palace for over forty years and was one of the most senior eunuchs in the inner court.

This man has an honest face and smiles like a Maitreya Buddha, but in reality he is ruthless and has been secretly competing with Chen Ju for twenty years.

The two have disliked each other since they were young.

Chen Ju rose through the ranks by working hard and steadily climbed the ladder to become the chief steward of the Imperial Household Department.

Qian Bao rose to power by currying favor with noblewomen in the imperial harem, and his career progressed smoothly.

Chen Ju despised Qian Bao's obsequious face, while Qian Bao was most jealous of Chen Ju's real power over personnel and finances.

The two were polite to each other on the surface, but their grudges behind the scenes had long since become an intractable knot.

After Chen Ju adopted Zhao Gao as his godson, Qian Bao remained indifferent and watched from the sidelines.

How dare a brat of unknown origin make such a name for himself in the inner court?

The incident was sparked by the Empress's birthday banquet.

As is customary, the arrangements for the Empress's birthday banquet are jointly handled by the Imperial Household Department and the Imperial Workshop.

The Imperial Household Department was in charge of procurement and allocation, and supervised the use of imperial objects and furnishings.

As a eunuch serving in the Directorate of Ceremonial, Zhao Gao was not directly involved in this matter, but Chen Ju wanted to give his adopted son more experience, so he had him act as the assistant to the chief steward to coordinate the matter.

The day before the birthday banquet, Zhao Gao discovered while checking the list of items that a pair of white jade dragon-shaped vases sent by the Imperial Household Department did not match the list.

The order form said it was Hetian mutton fat white jade, but the actual item was a second-grade Yutian greenish-white jade.

He immediately stopped the eunuch from the Imperial Workshop who was delivering the goods, speaking in a tone as casual as if he were asking about the weather: "The jade material for these vases seems to be slightly different from what's written on the order."

The eunuch delivering the goods was a seasoned veteran; he wouldn't take a sixteen-year-old boy seriously. With a quick glance around his eyes, he began to laugh it off: "Eunuch Zhao, you may not know this, but Hetian jade is in short supply this year. Mutton fat white jade is really hard to find. This pair of bluish-white jade is also top-quality. Her Majesty the Empress certainly won't be able to tell the difference."

Zhao Gao glanced at him, said nothing more, but kept the question in mind.

After the eunuch left, he did not complain to Chen Ju, but instead did three things.

The first thing was to have the Imperial Household Department's Procurement Division retrieve all records of substandard goods submitted by the Imperial Supply Bureau over the past three years.

The second thing was to have Wei Zhongxian retrieve a complete personnel relationship chart of Qian Bao and his confidants from the personnel files.

Thirdly, Gao Lishi was instructed to pay attention to the private discussions among the ladies of the palace regarding the utensils during the Empress's birthday banquet, as well as the interactions between the Imperial Kitchen and the Imperial Household Department in the procurement of banquet supplies.

He wrote a detailed artifact verification process overnight and presented it to Chen Ju the next morning.

On the day of the birthday banquet, everything was as usual.

The Empress was quite satisfied with the banquet arrangements, and the ladies of the palace were all beaming with joy. No one pointed out anything amiss in public.

However, after the birthday banquet, a minor incident occurred at the Imperial Household Department.

When Wang Zheng, the Grand Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, was routinely reviewing the accounts of various inner court bureaus, he discovered discrepancies between the purchase accounts of the Imperial Household Department and the acceptance records of the Imperial Household Department.

The differences were minor and insufficient to warrant filing a case, but Wang Zheng wrote four words in vermilion ink at the end of the account book: "Strictly verify."

When the vermilion remittance was delivered to Qian Bao, the smile on his face froze for the first time.

Qian Bao certainly knew who was behind this.

He sat in the duty room, flipping through the account book marked with vermilion ink several times, the smile on his face gradually fading, revealing his gloomy expression.

Having spent forty years in the palace, he had only a handful of people who could get the Directorate of Ceremonial to scrutinize his accounts, and the newly arrived eunuch Zhao Gao happened to be one of them.

A few days later, he met Zhao Gao face to face in the inner palace corridor.

Qian Bao stopped and bowed with a beaming smile, saying, "Eunuch Zhao is so accomplished at such a young age; I greatly admire him. I heard that you were a servant before entering the palace? No wonder you are so efficient."

"They've done all sorts of dirty and tiring work, so naturally they're more capable than us old folks."

Several eunuchs were passing by in the corridor. Upon hearing this, they all lowered their heads and quickened their pace, pretending they hadn't heard anything.

Qian Bao's words appeared to be a compliment, but in reality, every word he uttered was a stab in the back at Zhao Gao's background.

The term "handyman" refers to dirty and tiring work, which is essentially an insult implying that he is a peasant who climbed up from the very bottom.

In the palace, a place that values ​​seniority and birth, this kind of humiliation is harder to swallow than being directly insulted.

Zhao Gao stopped and turned around, his face showing no anger whatsoever.

He straightened his cuffs, gave Qian Bao a respectful half-bow, then raised his head, his voice neither too loud nor too soft, his tone as gentle as if he were inquiring about an elder's daily life: "Eunuch Qian, you flatter me."

"Whether it's a menial servant or a steward, they all serve His Majesty. However, speaking of menial servants, I came across an old story while sorting through the archives of the Imperial Household Department..."

"Twenty years ago, a batch of imperial porcelain from the previous dynasty was damaged due to improper storage at the Imperial Workshop. The person in charge at the time also seemed to be surnamed Qian. I wonder if he has any connection with you, sir?"

Qian Bao's smile froze instantly.

That batch of porcelain from twenty years ago was the biggest worry of his life.

Back then, he was just a minor steward in the Imperial Workshop. Due to his dereliction of duty, a batch of precious official kiln porcelain was damaged by rain in the warehouse.

He should have been severely punished, but his godfather, the then chief eunuch of the Imperial Household Department, suppressed the blame for him.

The people who knew about this were no longer in the palace. Where did this sixteen-year-old brat come from?

He stared into Zhao Gao's eyes for several breaths, trying to find a trace of bluffing.

But Zhao Gao's eyes were calm as water, and there was even a faint smile on his lips.

That smile didn't resemble the restraint of a sixteen-year-old boy facing humiliation, but rather the final step of an experienced hunter watching his prey walk into the trap.