The hooves of Pei Mingyuan's gelding struck the cobblestones in a frantic rhythm, each impact jarring his spine and rattling the letter still pressed against his chest. He did not look back. He did not need to—the shouts from the Crown Prince's guards were enough to tell him that pursuit had begun. He bent low over the horse's neck, his fingers tangled in its mane, and let the animal choose its path through the narrow, twisting alleys of Chang'an's eastern ward.
His two guards flanked him for the first few hundred yards, but at a crossroads, a spear flew out of the darkness and took the nearer man in the shoulder. He fell with a choked cry, his horse veering wildly. The second guard reined in to help, but Pei Mingyuan shouted, "Keep going—split up—meet at the Bell of Eternal Mercy!" It was a desperate improvisation, a lie to scatter the pursuit, and he knew it. But the guard nodded and turned down a side lane, his horse disappearing into the gloom.
Pei Mingyuan rode on alone, his breath ragged, his eyes straining to see the shapes of the city in the faint moonlight. He knew Chang'an's eastern ward from his days as a junior scribe—the winding lanes behind the market, the hidden courtyards where merchants stored their wares, the forgotten gates that led to the old city wall. He guided his horse through a gap in a collapsed wall, into a yard overgrown with weeds, and dismounted behind a stack of rotting timber.
He stood there, panting, listening. The pursuit had faded. He heard distant shouts, but they were moving away, toward the main thoroughfare. He had bought himself a few minutes, perhaps longer.
But he could not stay. The horse would be recognized, and the yard was too exposed. He stripped the saddle and bridle, slapped the animal's rump to send it wandering, and slipped into the deeper darkness of a narrow passage between two deserted warehouses. He moved on foot now, his soft-soled shoes making little sound on the packed earth.
His mind raced through his options. He could not return to the eastern barracks—the Crown Prince's men held it. He could not go to Wei Zheng's Censorate—it was surely watched. He could not flee the city—the gates would be sealed by dawn. He needed shelter, a place where he could think, where he could send word to the Prince of Qin and coordinate a response.
Then he remembered a name—a minor official in the Ministry of Rites, a man named Chen Hong, who had once shared a jug of wine with Pei Mingyuan after a long day of copying ritual texts. Chen Hong was a scholar, a man of quiet convictions, and he had spoken bitterly of the Chancellor's growing power. He was not a powerful ally, but he was a friend—and in a city where every door was closing, a friend was worth more than an army.
Pei Mingyuan navigated the dark streets by memory, avoiding the patrols, ducking into doorways whenever he heard the tramp of boots. The curfew was strict, and the Crown Prince's men were everywhere, their torches casting long, dancing shadows on the walls. He counted his breaths, measured his steps, and after an hour of dodging and hiding, he reached the modest lane where Chen Hong lived.
The house was a small two-story structure with a tiled roof and a wooden gate painted a faded red. Pei Mingyuan knocked softly—three taps, then a pause, then two more. He waited, his heart pounding. No answer. He knocked again, harder this time.
A window above creaked open, and a sleepy voice called down, "Who is it at this hour?"
"Chen Hong, it is Pei Mingyuan. I need your help."
A long pause. Then the window closed, and a few moments later, the gate opened a crack. Chen Hong's face appeared, pale and startled in the dim light. "Pei? What are you—get inside, quickly."
Pei Mingyuan slipped through the gate, and Chen Hong bolted it behind him. They climbed the narrow stairs to Chen Hong's study, a cramped room filled with scrolls and inkstones and the faint smell of old paper. Chen Hong lit a candle and turned to face his visitor, his expression a mixture of fear and curiosity.
"You are a wanted man," Chen Hong said. "I heard the patrols shouting your name. They said you had conspired to assassinate the Chancellor."
Pei Mingyuan laughed—a bitter, hollow sound. "I have conspired to do nothing of the sort. I have evidence that the Minister of Works is betraying the empire to Liu Wuzhou, and that the Prince of Qi is involved. The Chancellor is protecting them. He is the one who should be arrested, not I."
Chen Hong's eyes widened. He sat down heavily on a low stool, his hands trembling. "You are speaking of treason against the imperial family itself. If even half of what you say is true, then the Chancellor will not rest until you are dead. And I—if I am found sheltering you, I will be dead as well."
Pei Mingyuan knelt before him, his voice low and urgent. "I know the risk I am asking you to take. But I have no one else. The Prince of Qin is trapped in the eastern barracks. Wei Zheng is under surveillance. The only proof of the conspiracy is a letter that I have already given to Wei Zheng—but without someone to act on it, it is just paper. I need to reach the Crown Prince directly, to explain the truth before the Chancellor twists it into a lie."
Chen Hong stared at him for a long moment. Then he rose, walked to a shelf, and took down a small jade seal. "This is a token of the Ministry of Rites," he said. "It grants entry to the Imperial Library. The Crown Prince often studies there late at night. He is a man of books, of learning—he may be more receptive to reasoned argument than to political pressure. If you can get to the library, you may be able to speak with him before the Chancellor's guards find you."
Pei Mingyuan took the seal, his fingers closing around its cool surface. "Thank you, Chen Hong. I will not forget this."
"Take the back way," Chen Hong said. "Through the garden, over the wall, into the lane behind the temple of Confucius. From there, the library is a quarter-mile north. But Pei—be careful. The Crown Prince is not the Emperor. He is proud, and he is easily offended. If you approach him with accusations against his brother and his father-in-law, he may have you arrested on the spot."
"I will take that risk," Pei Mingyuan said.
He left through the garden, scaling the wall with a grunt, dropping into a narrow lane that smelled of damp earth and night-blooming jasmine. He walked quickly, his hand clenched around the jade seal, his eyes scanning the rooftops for the silhouettes of spies.
The Temple of Confucius loomed on his left, its curved eaves dark against the starry sky. He skirted its walls, crossed a small bridge over a dry moat, and found himself in front of the Imperial Library—a vast, two-story building of gray stone, its windows shuttered, its main door guarded by a single sleepy sentry.
Pei Mingyuan approached the sentry and held out the jade seal. "I am an official of the Ministry of Rites, sent to retrieve a scroll for the Crown Prince's morning study. I am expected."
The sentry examined the seal, his brow furrowed. "I was not informed of any late-night visitors."
"The Crown Prince is in residence, is he not?" Pei Mingyuan asked, keeping his voice calm. "I have urgent business with him. A matter of ritual protocol—the accession of a new prefect in the southern province. It cannot wait until morning."
It was a thin lie, but the sentry was young and seemed eager to avoid conflict. He shrugged and opened the door. "The Crown Prince is in the eastern reading chamber, with his private secretary. Do not disturb him if he is asleep."
Pei Mingyuan nodded and stepped inside. The library was dimly lit by a few oil lamps, their flames casting long shadows among the towering shelves of bamboo scrolls. He walked through the main hall, past rows of codices and maps, until he reached the eastern reading chamber—a small, intimate room lined with cushions and low tables, where a single man sat alone, bent over a text.
The man was younger than Pei Mingyuan had expected—perhaps thirty, with a long, narrow face and the thin, careful hands of a scholar. He wore a simple robe, unadorned by jewelry or rank, and his eyes were fixed on the scroll before him with an intensity that suggested he had not noticed Pei Mingyuan's approach.
"Your Highness," Pei Mingyuan said, bowing deeply.
The Crown Prince looked up, his expression shifting from annoyance to curiosity. "Who are you? How did you get past the guards?"
"I am Pei Mingyuan, a former scribe of the Ministry of Works. I am here to warn you that your throne is in danger—not from me, not from the Prince of Qin, but from your father-in-law, the Chancellor, and from your brother, the Prince of Qi."
The Crown Prince's face went pale. "You dare—"
"I dare because I have seen the evidence," Pei Mingyuan said, pressing forward before the Crown Prince could summon guards. "I held the letter in my own hands. I saw the blood of a murdered scribe on its edges. I watched the Prince of Qin act in good faith to expose the conspiracy. And I watched the Chancellor suspend the Emperor's orders and trap the Prince of Qin in the barracks. If you do not act now, the conspiracy will succeed, and your father's empire will be torn apart."
The Crown Prince rose from his seat, his hands gripping the edge of the table. "This is a grave accusation. Do you have proof?"
"The proof is in the hands of Censor Wei Zheng," Pei Mingyuan said. "He authenticated the letter. He issued a warrant for Dugu Huai'en's arrest. But the Chancellor has blocked its execution. If you send your own men to Wei Zheng's office, you will find the letter and the warrant. And you will see that I am telling the truth."
The Crown Prince was silent for a long moment, his eyes searching Pei Mingyuan's face. Then he spoke, his voice low and measured. "If what you say is true, then the Chancellor has deceived me. He told me that the Prince of Qin was plotting to seize the throne, that you and others were part of a military coup. He asked me to surround the barracks to prevent bloodshed."
"He lied to you," Pei Mingyuan said. "He lied to you because your brother, Li Yuanji, is part of the conspiracy with Dugu Huai'en. They are planning to hand the granaries to Liu Wuzhou and let the rebels enter the capital. Your father's stroke was not an accident—it was the stress of discovering that his own son had betrayed him."
The Crown Prince staggered back, his face white with shock. "My brother—Li Yuanji—a traitor? No. That is impossible. He is young, reckless, but he is loyal to the family."
"He is ambitious," Pei Mingyuan said, "and ambition has no loyalty. I have seen the names. I have spoken to Tang Jian, who was tortured for the knowledge. The Prince of Qi is in this to his neck. And the Chancellor is protecting him because the Chancellor's daughter is Li Yuanji's wife."
The Crown Prince turned away, his shoulders hunched. He stood like that for a full minute, his breath coming in shallow gasps. When he turned back, his face had hardened into a mask of resolve.
"Stay here," the Crown Prince said. "Do not leave this room. I am going to Wei Zheng's office myself. I will see the letter with my own eyes. If it is genuine, I will have the Chancellor arrested before dawn. If it is a forgery, I will have you executed."
Pei Mingyuan bowed. "I accept that condition."
The Crown Prince strode to the door, called for his personal guards, and departed with a clatter of boots and a shouted order. Pei Mingyuan was left alone in the reading chamber, surrounded by the silent wisdom of a thousand scrolls, his heart pounding so loudly that he could hear it in his ears.
He waited. The minutes stretched into an hour. The oil lamps flickered, and he watched the shadows dance across the walls, wondering if he had just signed his own death warrant.
Then the door opened, and the Crown Prince entered—alone. His face was grim, but his eyes held a new certainty.
"The letter is genuine," the Crown Prince said. "I have seen it. I have also seen the warrant. Wei Zheng is a man of integrity—I have known him for years. He would not perjure himself for anyone. The Chancellor has been lying to me. And my brother—" He stopped, his voice catching. "My brother is a traitor."
Pei Mingyuan rose to his feet. "What will you do, Your Highness?"
The Crown Prince walked to the table and sat down, suddenly looking older than his years. "I will order the release of the Prince of Qin from the barracks. I will order the arrest of Dugu Huai'en, and I will place my brother under guard pending a full investigation. The Chancellor—I will confront him personally. He will answer for his actions."
He looked up at Pei Mingyuan, and for the first time, there was a flicker of respect in his eyes. "You risked your life to bring me this truth. You have my gratitude—and my protection. From this moment, you are under my authority. No one will harm you without answering to me."
Pei Mingyuan felt a wave of relief so profound that his knees nearly buckled. He had done it. He had reached the Crown Prince, and the Crown Prince had believed him.
But even as the relief washed over him, a cold doubt crept into his mind. The Chancellor was a survivor—a man who had navigated the treacherous currents of the Sui collapse and the Tang ascendancy. Would he simply accept arrest? Or would he have prepared a counter-stroke?
"Your Highness," Pei Mingyuan said carefully, "the Chancellor knows that he is exposed. He will not surrender quietly. He may have already dispatched messengers to Dugu Huai'en or to Liu Wuzhou. He may be planning to flee the city, or to raise an armed rebellion."
The Crown Prince nodded. "I have already sent riders to seal all gates. No one leaves Chang'an without my personal pass. And I have ordered the eastern barracks to be reinforced with my own guards—the Prince of Qin will be freed within the hour."
Pei Mingyuan allowed himself a small breath of hope. The wheel was turning, and it was turning in his favor.
But the Crown Prince held up a hand. "There is one more thing. Wei Zheng told me that the letter you gave him was incomplete—that a second page had been torn away. That second page supposedly contains a list of names, including my brother's. But Wei Zheng also said that he has not been able to locate that page. If it falls into the wrong hands, it could be used to cast doubt on the entire investigation."
Pei Mingyuan's mind raced. The missing page—the one Tang Jian had seen, the one that held the full list of conspirators. If the Chancellor had it, he could alter it, forge it, or destroy it.
"Your Highness," Pei Mingyuan said, "I know where the missing page might be. Tang Jian saw it in the Ministry of Works, before it was torn away. If the Minister of Works still has it, it will be in his private safe—a compartment behind his desk, hidden by a false panel. I saw that compartment the night I found the letter."
The Crown Prince's eyes sharpened. "Then we must retrieve it before the Chancellor sends word to Dugu Huai'en to destroy it. I will send a detachment of my own guards to the Ministry of Works immediately. You will accompany them—you know the location."
Pei Mingyuan nodded, his heart racing again. The night was far from over. He had escaped one trap only to walk into another, and the missing page was the key to everything.
The Crown Prince summoned a captain of his guard—a solid, seasoned man named Zhang Yun—and issued swift orders. Within minutes, a dozen horsemen were assembled in the library courtyard, their torches blazing. Pei Mingyuan mounted a fresh horse, and the party thundered through the dark streets of Chang'an toward the Ministry of Works.
They reached the Ministry's outer gate and found it unguarded—a bad sign. Zhang Yun ordered his men to dismount and enter on foot, weapons drawn. They moved through the silent corridors, past the empty offices, until they reached the Minister's private study.
The door was open. The room was a wreck—scrolls scattered, inkpots overturned, the rosewood desk splintered. The false panel behind the desk had been ripped open, and the safe compartment was empty.
"He was here," Pei Mingyuan said, his voice hollow. "He came back for the missing page. He took it."
Zhang Yun knelt and examined the floor. "The dust is disturbed—fresh footprints. They lead toward the rear exit. And there are horse droppings in the courtyard. He fled, perhaps an hour ago."
Pei Mingyuan felt the hope he had built crumble to ash. Dugu Huai'en had escaped, and he had taken the second page with him—the page that contained the names of every conspirator, the page that could prove or disprove the Prince of Qi's involvement.
"The Chancellor," Pei Mingyuan said suddenly. "If Dugu Huai'en had warning, it came from the Chancellor. The Chancellor sent a messenger ahead. He is trying to protect himself by letting the Minister flee."
Zhang Yun nodded grimly. "Then the Chancellor must have known that the Crown Prince was coming to confront him. He is covering his tracks—and Dugu Huai'en is his scapegoat, running to Liu Wuzhou with the names."
Pei Mingyuan stared at the empty compartment, the torn panel, the chaos of a man who had abandoned his life's work in a panic. The missing page was gone, and with it, the full truth.
But then he noticed something—a small scrap of paper, wedged in a crack in the floorboards, almost invisible. He knelt and picked it up. It was a corner of the missing page, torn off in the haste of removal. On it, in Li Mo's handwriting, were two characters: Bei and Jian.
North. And Jian.
What did that mean? A place? A person? A direction?
Pei Mingyuan tucked the scrap into his sleeve, his mind churning. North could mean the northern barbarians, Liu Wuzhou's territory. Jian could be a surname, a fortress, a mountain pass.
He turned to Zhang Yun. "We need to find the Minister before he crosses the border. And we need to warn the Prince of Qin that the Chancellor may have been the mastermind all along—not just a protector, but the architect."
Zhang Yun's face grew grave. "If the Chancellor is the architect, then the Crown Prince is in grave danger. The Chancellor will stop at nothing to silence him."
Pei Mingyuan's blood ran cold. The Crown Prince was alone in the library, with only a handful of guards. If the Chancellor had prepared a counter-attack, the Crown Prince was vulnerable.
"We must return to the library immediately," Pei Mingyuan said. "The Crown Prince—"
He was interrupted by a distant clatter of weapons, followed by a shouted command. From the direction of the Imperial City, the sound of fighting rose into the night—the clash of steel, the screams of men, the frantic neighing of horses.
The Chancellor had made his move.
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