Chapter 115 Part 1

 

It was a clear autumn night. Wisps of thin clouds draped over the bright moon like gauze, and the vast river of stars above Chang’an lay veiled in shadow.

At the depth of night, as the palace clock struck three quarter passed the third watch, Wei Juren received a signal from the watchtower. He quickly climbed up to check.

Sure enough, a faint jumping red light appeared in the direction of Xuanwu Gate of the Imperial Palace in the north of the city.

Descending swiftly from the tower, he cast a glance at the crown prince, who stood clad in full armor, then strode forward to issue the command. But after taking a few steps, he turned around.

The crown prince did not follow immediately, but stood still with a heavy look in his eyes.

Wei Juren glanced at the soldiers holding fire sticks outside the gate, ready to go, and hurried back: “Your Highness, why haven’t you left yet?”

The crown prince’s face showed an unconcealed fear and hesitation. He looked at the direction where the troops were going to be sent tonight, and his voice trembled slightly: “His Majesty did not send anyone to arrest me today… He may also know that I did not kill Prince Kang… Do we really have to do this…”

Wei Juren froze for a moment before snapping in a low, urgent voice, “Your Highness! Do you still hesitate at a time like this? The bow is drawn—there is no turning back! Wake up! If Minister Liu falls, even if the emperor spares your life, do you truly think you’ll ever sit securely on the throne?”

The crown prince flinched as if pricked by a needle, his eyelids twitching. He fixed his gaze on the imperial palace, his face gradually stiffening, and a trace of desperate hatred like that of a trapped animal flashed across his eyes.

Gritting his teeth, he yanked his sword from its sheath. Then, without another word, he sprang forward, jumped on his horse, and led his men towards the palace.

Liu Ceye had been operating in the court for many years in the name of the crown prince. Nearly every gate and guard in Chang’an had men loyal to him. Once they set out, secret signals passed through the ranks, and they encountered little meaningful resistance. Moving swiftly according to plan, they cut their way straight to the imperial palace.

The heavy palace gate was pushed open by the combined efforts of dozens of people. The heavy hinges twisted, and the gate scraped against the stone floor with a deep, grating roar—an unfamiliar, jarring sound that echoed through the night. The fully armored cavalry took the lead, riding their horses and brandishing their swords, rushing into the palace. Behind them, infantry advanced with fire sticks held high, their flickering light pushing back the vast darkness of the deep palace. Flames danced across the steel of their weapons and armor, casting an eerie, murderous gleam. Palace eunuchs and maids on night duty caught sight of the invasion and let out piercing screams. Palace lamps and scattered objects clattered to the ground as they abandoned everything and fled in terror.

The crown prince swung his sword and killed a eunuch who rushed towards him in a panic. Red-hot blood splattered. He stepped over fallen corpses, his eyes—either bloodshot or stained crimson by the splashed blood—blazing with fury as he led the charge straight toward Ziyun Palace. They stormed past the Hall of Supreme Harmony, passed the ball court and the Bureau of Literary Works, and made their way through the Xuanzheng Hall, where the emperor usually held court meetings, as well as the imperial treasury. Their advance remained unhindered, and soon, they closed in on Ziyun Palace.

The lights within this palace were never extinguished through the night, and the shadows of lights could be seen through the magnificent palace gates and green lattice windows. They were particularly conspicuous under the deep blue night sky.

However, the closer they got to Ziyun Palace, the more desolate the area around the palace became. Even the guards that they had seen at first were nowhere to be seen.

Wei Juren gradually slowed down his pace. An inexplicable feeling of uneasiness suddenly made his hair stand on end. He looked around, hesitated, and walked forward to catch up with the crown prince. Just as he was about to speak, he met the crown prince’s eyes and was startled.

The Crown Prince’s blood-red eyes burned with a fanatical light, his expression teetering on the edge of madness. He pushed Wei Juren aside and strode forward, leading the swarm of personal guards behind him—men feverish with the promise of tomorrow’s glory, swarming like locusts and leeches—as they ascended the palace path toward the main gates of Ziyun Palace.

Here, the shadows of the palace gate and guards could be vaguely seen.

Wei Juren’s steps became more solemn.

He stopped.

The crown prince led his men and rushed to the palace steps.

The guards guarding the palace gate disappeared, and several of the crown prince’s henchmen pushed the gate open with their shoulders.

Amid the trembling creaking sound of the palace gate opening, they surrounded the crown prince and poured in like a tide, pushed by the people behind them.

In an instant, the grand hall—thick with swirling incense—was flooded with the clamor of clashing armor, the relentless thunder of booted steps crashing down like a storm. Yellow ceremonial banners were torn down, crumpling to the floor, trampled under a chaos of hurried footprints. The statues of the Three Pure Ones toppled from their pedestals, their heads and arms shattering, revealing the clay beneath the gilded exteriors. A bronze censer overturned, spilling glowing red embers across the ground.

Like a swarm of locusts, the soldiers surged through the outer hall until they arrived at the inner chamber—the very place where the elusive emperor resided. Yet, perhaps intimidated by the power of the supreme man who was called the emperor, the frenzied heat in their veins seemed to wane.

Several commanders of the Luben Guard halted their troops. With weapons clenched tightly in their hands, they hesitated. Then, alongside the crown prince, blades gleaming, they stepped forward—cautious, probing—as they made their way into the vihara.

There were huge candles burning in the hall, illuminating the sky, but there was no sign of a human being.

The crown prince came just outside the vihara.

His eyes were fixed on the door in front of him. The tip of his sword trembled in the air for a while, and with a ding, it was suddenly pushed open.

Behind the door, the candlelight was still bright. However, just like the previous scene, there was still no one in the room.

Not to mention the emperor, there wasn’t even a single eunuch to be seen.

The crown prince stood outside the open door of the vihara for a moment, his face gradually distorted and his face became as pale as a dead person.

Suddenly, he rushed in with his sword in hand, hacking at anything he came across while shouting, “Come out! Come out! Come out! Don’t hide! I’m done with it all! Either you die or I die tonight!”

The memorial flew off the table, the lampstand overturned, the candles were cut in two, and the wooden frame of the screen was split…

The crown prince hacked his way into the vihara and hacked his way out again, his face ferocious and looked like a madman.

The Luben Guard of the East Palace and the rebel generals of various guards who followed him in were stunned.

Someone finally reacted and turned around to run outside. When they reached the hall entrance, they found that the sky outside had changed.

Fire sticks were lit everywhere, and countless blazing fires illuminated the originally dark palace roads and gardens around the Ziyun Palace as bright as day. In addition, countless heavy troops descended from the sky and surrounded them from all directions.

Amid the howling cries of killing that came from far and near, the rebels who had not yet followed the crown prince inside the Ziyun Palace were already surrounded. Some threw away their armor and knelt on the ground to surrender, while others fought back, but the next moment, they were slashed with swords and their heads separated from their body.

Amid the orderly clanging sounds of the armor and weapons of the soldiers as they moved, Jinwu General Han Kerang, holding a human head still dripping with blood, walked into the hall with the blazing fire outside the hall behind him.

In an instant, the dozen or so rebel commanders from the East Palace who were about to flee were killed by the elite imperial guards who followed behind him.

Seeing this, the remaining people were horrified and retreated one after another.

The crown prince rushed out at this time and met him head on. When he saw Han Kerang, he suddenly stopped, his eyes like burning red blood emitting a light of hatred.

“Where is Pei Xiaoyuan? I wasn’t the one who assassinated him! I certainly wasn’t the one who killed Prince Kang! No one knows better than him! It was clearly him who framed me! I’m going to kill him—”

The crown prince roared and rushed forward with his sword in hand.

Han Kerang frowned and threw the object in his hand at him. The head rolled to the crown prince’s feet.

“It’s Minister Liu!”

The rebel commanders around the crown prince recognized him and cried out in surprise.

The crown prince’s eyelids twitched, and he suddenly stopped and looked down.

“Liu Ceye is dead! Xue Mian, the Military Commissioner of Xue, is loyal and steadfast, helping the court to eliminate the rebels.”

“As for what you were going to do on the ancestral worship day, His Majesty already knew about it.”

“Crown Prince, please confess your crime!”

Han Kerang said coldly.

The crown prince’s eyes were fixed on the head, and slowly, his body began to tremble.

With a bang, after a moment, he could no longer hold the sword in his hand and it fell to the ground.

“Heaven treats me like this!”

With a heart-wrenching cry to the sky, he fell to his knees and cried bitterly.

The remaining rebel commanders in the hall looked at each other, dropped their swords and knives, begging for mercy.

Han Kerang’s cold eyes ruthlessly swept across the faces opposite him. Many of them were familiar to him, and they had even fought against the enemy together in the past.

“Anyone who participates in forcing the palace coup tonight will be executed without mercy!”

As soon as he finished speaking, hundreds of archers rushed in from outside the hall, quickly formed a formation, and then shot arrows at the rebel commanders who changed color after hearing his words and were about to stand up and fight again.

Arrows rained down, blood flew everywhere, and amid wrenching screams, people fell to the ground one after another.

The blazing fire in the courtyard illuminated the blood that was slowly spreading on the palace path and the jade steps. The red light was so diffuse that even the row of stone beasts standing on the roof ridge of a nearby palace seemed to be covered with a thin layer of blood mist.

That night, all the rebels who followed the crown prince into the palace, from top to bottom, were killed without a single one being spared.

And this was far from the end.

At the fourth watch, the gates of the lanes where the Liu and Wei families lived were opened wide, and fully armed soldiers rushed in with fire sticks held high. The bright light illuminated half of the street and houses red.

The two grand vermilion gates, which long regarded as symbols of supreme wealth and status in Chang’an, had lost all their former splendor. The surrounding neighbors had shut their doors and windows tight, hiding within, too afraid to show their faces. From behind the towering walls of both households came the harrowing cries of women and children, their wails piercing the night. Hundreds of male members from the two families were killed on the spot. The blood that flowed from their corpses seeped into the street, staining half the road and filling the gutters with red. Later, the mutilated remains of Liu Ceye, his body cleaved in two, were discarded in the West Market, left to rot in the open for three days as a grim warning to all.

Before dawn, all the officials in the court knew about the failed coup last night. In addition to the Liu and Wei families, every official and soldier who had participated in the uprising—spanning the various government ministries and military garrisons of Chang’an—faced swift and merciless retribution. Altogether, two to three thousand individuals were either executed or imprisoned, awaiting judgment. Not a single one was spared.

The subsequent reckoning could be described as a bloodbath. The old power in the central of the country, as well as the many powerful families that had long been dependent on these two families, collapsed overnight and ceased to exist.

After the emperor left Qixing Hall, he never showed his face in front of his ministers again. It was only rumored that the crown prince was later imprisoned in an abandoned palace near Guanghua Gate in the north of the city wall, which was said to be a forbidden garden dating back to the Han Dynasty. Unlike a traditional prison, the palace was enclosed by towering walls but left open to the sun and rain. The emperor had even allowed the Crown Princess and several concubines to join him in confinement, offering some company to ease the solitude of his remaining days.

However, the guards reported that after the crown prince entered the abandoned palace, he refused to eat or drink, as if intent on seeking death. He cried and laughed in turns, lingering behind the palace gate, begging to see the emperor.

The sky was dark again.

The sound of a sedan chair approaching from the direction of city wall was heard on the deserted road leading to the abandoned palace.

The sound of footsteps and the sedan chair landing steadily on the ground entered the gate, startling the man who was lying exhausted behind it.

The crown prince was so weak that he could not even open his eyes, but at this moment, it was unknown where he got the strength from. He quickly got up from the ground, rushed to the gate on his hands and feet, and then, with all his strength, he banged on the gate, begging it to be opened so that he could see the person.

There was silence outside the gate and no one came forward to open it.

Slowly, the hand slid weakly down the cold hard gate. He curled up and knelt behind it, as if he was already dead. However, while he was motionless, his shoulders and back suddenly tensed up again.

The crown prince lifted his head, caught between laughter and sobs, and let out a piercing, mournful cry.

“Your Majesty! Father! I know you’re outside! Why won’t you say anything? I deserve to die for what I have done—for being deceived, for straying so terribly, for committing such treasonous acts. And I know, too, that you gave me chances, time and time again. But Father! Ask yourself honestly—are you truly without fault? You were never satisfied with me. After you ascended the throne, in order to secure Liu Ceye’s loyalty and those people you still need to rely on, you still made me the Crown Prince without hesitation! But from the very day you gave me that title, you have already planned for my eventual downfall, haven’t you? To appoint and then to depose—what place do you ever intend to leave me? What’s the difference between this and forcing me to die? Compared to your empire, I was nothing more than a tool in your hands…”

Outside the gate, there was still silence.

“But she is different! You doted on that woman, and even the daughter she gave birth to was better than anything else in your eyes. You favored her! No matter what she did, it was all good in your eyes! Even when she made a fuss and deliberately broke your favorite jade cup, you didn’t blame her. You even asked someone to find another piece of jade, just because she liked to hear the sound of it breaking! I remember it clearly!”

Perhaps touched by the memories, the crown prince choked up and a low cry was heard from behind the gate.

“The biggest regret in your life should be that that woman never gave you a son, right? If you had a son born by her, I would be even more worthless… No, no!”

His tone suddenly became excited and incoherent.

“Ever since she returned, all you’ve thought about is how to get rid of me—how to erase this Crown Prince once and for all. You want to avenge her mother, to make her happy, to pave the way for her to take my place! A female Crown Prince! You want to give the world to her, don’t you?!

“For years, I tried—I really tried—to be the Crown Prince that could satisfy you, Father, and let you change your mind about me. But no matter what I did, I was always a threat. I carry a sin that can never be erased! Because of that dead woman, I am guilty in your eyes as well! My crime can never be washed away. In the past, you merely tolerated me. But now that you’ve used me, now that my uncle and his men have outlived their purpose, we are all meant to die, aren’t we? One by one, we are to be buried with that woman…”

The crown prince burst into tears.

Amid the crying, there was a series of thumping sounds of flesh hitting the ground from behind the gate. It was him knocking his head hard.

“Father, even if you don’t kill me, I know I won’t survive. The only reason I did not follow my uncle and the others to death immediately is because I have one final wish. I beg you to let my aunt die with dignity. She may have sinned greatly, but she is the only one who has been kind to me since I was a child. She is like my own mother. All these years, you ignored her, cast her aside. In name, she was the empress, but in truth, she had not a shred of respect. Day after day, she lived in fear, in constant terror. She has long been living a life worse than death! Before, she merely survived under the shadow of the Liu family. Now that things have come to this, I know that you will never allow her to live. But I beg you, Father—if you have even a shred of mercy left for me—at least let her die with dignity! She is the only one who ever cared for me! I am willing to fall into the Avici Hell, to suffer eternal damnation, to be reborn as a beast for all lifetimes to come. I am willing to do so, in order to atone for my aunt’s sins. And, there is also Yinniang from the Wei family… I don’t even know whether she’s still alive or dead. If she still lives, please, I beg you—spare her as well…

“Father, please show some mercy to your son one last time so that I can feel at ease when I passes away—”

The crown prince’s voice suddenly stopped, and then there was a loud bang from behind the gate, it seemed a flesh-and-blood object like a human head crashed straight onto it. The force was so great that the two rusty door knockers outside the gate shook slightly, and clusters of mud and sand fell from the gaps in the roof tiles above.

There was silence behind the gate.

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