Hot flashes

Xiao Jue had planned everything.

Zhou Heng lowered his head and looked at their clasped hands.

Xiao Jue's hands were large, with distinct knuckles. His fingertips were covered with calluses from holding knives and guns, rough and hot, like a piece of iron that had been burned for a long time, with a layer of grayish-white embers on the surface.

"You knew they would make a move all along," Zhou Heng said.

Xiao Jue did not deny it. He reached out and pulled Zhou Heng up, letting him sit on his lap, his chin resting on Zhou Heng's shoulder. This position made his voice sound muffled, as if it resonated from deep within his chest.

"I have waited three years," he said. "From the day I ascended the throne, I have been waiting for them to make their move. The powerful families have been entrenched in Jiangnan for hundreds of years, deeply rooted and influential. I cannot move against them without a reason, or the world will think I am a tyrannical ruler who cannot tolerate meritorious officials. I need a reason, a reason that will leave everyone speechless."

His voice grew softer and softer until it was almost as if he were talking to himself.

"Treason is the best excuse."

Zhou Heng leaned against him, listening to his heartbeat.

The pace was unhurried and deliberate, completely out of place in this morning that had just witnessed a bloody storm.

He suddenly remembered many years ago—the bright-eyed boy who squatted in front of him in the abandoned Taoist temple behind Fuyun Mountain Villa.

At that time, he could never have imagined that one day he would sit on the dragon throne, using the entire world as a chessboard and the centuries-old foundation of his family as chess pieces, to play a game that no one could understand.

"What's next?" Zhou Heng asked. His voice was so soft, as if he were afraid of disturbing something.

Xiao Jue's hand landed on his back, stroking it gently. The rhythm was slow, like coaxing a child who wouldn't go to sleep.

"The three judicial departments will jointly conduct a trial and uphold the law. Those who deserve to be killed will be killed, those who deserve to be exiled will be exiled, and those whose property should be confiscated will have their property confiscated. The mansions of aristocratic families in the capital, their properties in Jiangnan, and their farms, shops, and banks in various places will all be confiscated."

Those land deeds they had hidden were unearthed one by one; those that should have been returned to the people were returned to them, and those that should have been put into the government granary were put into the government granary.

He paused for a moment.

"As for the Shen family—"

Zhou Heng felt the hand that was stroking his back pause for a moment.

"The Shen family is different," Xiao Jue said. "Shen Yu has followed me for so many years, from the northern border to the southern capital. He was once the person I trusted most."

Zhou Heng lifted his head from his embrace and looked at his face.

The morning light grew brighter, turning from grayish-white to pale gold, falling on Xiao Jue's profile and making the scabbed wound at the corner of his eye exceptionally clear.

"What are you planning to do?" Zhou Heng asked.

Xiao Jue remained silent for a long time. So long that the pale golden morning light outside the window moved from one end of the window to the other, so long that the last bit of steam from the bowl of ginger soup on the small table dissipated, before he finally spoke.

"I will meet with Shen Yu in person."

The Imperial Guards surrounded the Shen residence all night.

They guarded every alley, every wall, and every possible escape route around the Shen residence with impenetrable security.

At that time, the sky was just before dawn, and the entire alley was shrouded in a thin layer of iron-gray mist. Even the snow that had accumulated at the base of the walls all night shone with a cold blue light.

Shen Ji stood by the study window, looking at the bare branches of the old locust tree in the yard reaching towards the gray sky.

He was dressed in a plain, everyday robe, his hair simply tied up. The lamp on his desk had been burning all night, the oil was almost gone, and the flame flickered in the draft, casting his long, pale shadow on the pink wall behind him.

As early as mid-December, the night the news of Han Zhang's seizure of the Cui family's money shop in Jiangnan reached the capital, Shen Ji already knew that the aristocratic families had lost this game.

The defeat wasn't due to a lack of troops or a lack of strategy, but rather because Xiao Jue never intended to play this game of chess with them from the very beginning.