Chapter Ninety-One: Battle of Wits, Part Two

The Wise Prince’s hand, just as he set down his teacup, paused for a fleeting instant. His gaze at Yang Yaozong sharpened at once, a flash of severity cutting across his face, but in the next breath his expression had smoothed over again, serene and unreadable. With a faint smile he said, “Oh? Such a grave matter has occurred, and yet I have never heard of it. May I ask where the Crown Prince’s tutor learned of this?”

That brief change in expression had not escaped Yang Yaozong’s eye. A slight smile touched the corners of his mouth; inwardly he gave a cold laugh, though his face remained pleasant as he looked steadily at the Wise Prince.

“Does Your Highness not feel the least bit curious?”

The Wise Prince replied carelessly, “Curious? Why should I be?”

Yang Yaozong frowned slightly. “So Your Highness is not curious why the eldest heir, Jing Min, would run away, but instead curious as to how I learned of it?”

The Wise Prince fixed him with a cold look. “Compared with Jing Min, I am indeed more curious about the Crown Prince’s tutor—and increasingly so. It seems the Crown Prince’s tutor is hardly merely the Crown Prince’s tutor.”

Yang Yaozong met his gaze without the slightest fear. “I’m afraid Your Highness is not quite so leisurely, so noble, as your title suggests.”

The two of them answered none of each other’s questions, yet each response hinted at an answer to the other. Behind the folding screen, however, Prince Jing Yu and the Crown Prince only grew more bewildered, unable to understand what these back-and-forth questions were meant to uncover.

A trace of anger showed in the Wise Prince’s eyes.

Yang Yaozong picked up the teapot and refilled the prince’s cup. “I have long heard that in his youth Your Highness fought upon the battlefield, and that your mere renown was enough to make the tribes beyond the frontier tremble in fear. Though Your Highness has long since withdrawn from the field and the court, your name and merits are still praised throughout the realm, and the soldiers and generals of Great Zhou continue to admire and revere you. Now our armies are at war with the northern horsemen, and this time the eastern and western Turks have joined forces to attack our Great Zhou together. How does Your Highness view this war?”

By then night had already fallen outside, and at some point a fine, drizzling rain had begun. The Wise Prince closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he did not look at Yang Yaozong, but kept his lids lowered, gazing out toward the door. In a slow voice he said, “This old man is old. I no longer have the ambition of my youth, nor the energy to fret over so many things.”

Yang Yaozong continued to press him. “Oh? When the country rises and falls, every common man bears responsibility. Even the ordinary people of Great Zhou know to care about affairs of state and the fighting beyond the frontier, yet Your Highness, who stands so high, says you have no energy to worry?”

The Wise Prince turned his head and half-narrowed his eyes at Yang Yaozong. He was a man of great pride. In his youth he had campaigned across the battlefields, won countless military honors, and received abundant rewards and acclaim. Though he had long ago laid down command and withdrawn from politics, that innate bearing had never left him. In all these years, who had ever dared speak to him with such disrespect and press him so relentlessly? And from a young man not yet twenty at that. He could not help but feel a surge of anger as he looked at Yang Yaozong, his voice low and cold.

“Do you know to whom you are speaking?”

Yang Yaozong smiled. “Who would Your Highness prefer I were speaking to? To the Wise Prince, who once rode through war and blood with iron and horse, magnificent and righteous? Or to the Idle Prince, who idles away his days, aimless and dissolute, utterly without resolve?”

The Wise Prince slammed his hand on the table and rose with a shout. “Yang Yaozong, you have a great deal of nerve!”

Yang Yaozong gave two low laughs, took a sip of tea, and said with unhurried composure, “Why should Your Highness be so angered? Because I have said something wrong, or because I have said something true? Your Highness, if you wish others to respect you, you must first learn to respect yourself.”

Behind the screen, when the Wise Prince rose and struck the table, Prince Jing Yu’s slender hands clenched into fists, and she nearly could not restrain herself from rushing out. She could not let anyone hurt Yang Yaozong again. Even the Crown Prince, who had been listening intently, gave a startled jolt and almost cried out. Only when he saw that the Wise Prince made no further move did his heart finally ease.

Yang Yaozong went on, “Please, Your Highness, sit. There is no need to be agitated. I have a question that has long troubled me. I wonder whether Your Highness still misses the dashing grace of your youth on the battlefield, and the feeling of being upheld and admired by the people and the soldiers. Do you sometimes grieve at your own present lack of strength?”

Yet the Wise Prince merely looked at him with cold indifference, showing no ripple of emotion at all.

Hearing Yang Yaozong’s string of questions, the anger in the Wise Prince seemed to ebb. He sat down cross-legged like an old monk entering meditation, closed his eyes, and rested in stillness. It was as though he had not heard a single word, and he gave no answer.

Yang Yaozong frowned inwardly. Could it be that the Wise Prince truly had become dispirited and despondent? If he were truly downcast and resigned, then why would he join forces with the second heir of the Prince of Loyalty? Even threats and inducements would hardly work on a man already without ambition. Besides, the Wise Prince had clearly been angered just now, especially when he had mentioned the Idle Prince. That meant there was still something he cared about. He did not like being called the Idle Prince.

The room fell silent. Only the patter of the fine rain against the roof tiles and the soft tapping as it struck the ground could be heard clearly.

Yang Yaozong turned his teacup slowly with his fingers, watching the Wise Prince’s expression as he recited in a low voice:

“Drunk, I lift a lamp to view my sword;
In dreams I hear the bugles of the camps.
Eight hundred miles, my men share the roast;
Fifty strings play sounds beyond the frontier.
On the autumn field, I review the troops.
My horse runs swift as Dilu’s;
My bow startles like thunder.
I have fulfilled my lord’s affairs in the realm,
And won fame both before and after death.
Alas, these white hairs!”

When Yang Yaozong reached the line about reviewing the troops on the autumn field, the Wise Prince’s closed eyelids trembled, and his eyes moved faintly beneath them. When the poem was finished, he sprang up again, seized the teacup before him, and hurled it down hard onto the low table. With a sharp crack, the cup shattered into pieces, tea splashing everywhere. Yang Yaozong’s clothes and face were all splattered, though fortunately the tea had already grown warm rather than scalding hot.

Prince Jing Yu and the Crown Prince were drawn into the mood of the lines Yang Yaozong had recited, lost in their resonance. The sound of the cup smashing startled them both badly. This time it was not only Jing Yu who clenched her fists; even the Crown Prince did so. Had Yang Yaozong not warned them in advance not to make a sound and, no matter what happened, not to come out, they would already be standing beyond the screen. Though they could not reveal themselves lightly, both of them frowned and strained to look toward the screen, as though they might see through it to the scene beyond.

The Wise Prince glared at Yang Yaozong and roared, “Enough! Stop chattering in my ear! Do you believe I would dare to kill you right now?”

Seeing that the Wise Prince was truly enraged this time, Yang Yaozong was inwardly pleased. He lifted his eyelids slightly, glanced at him, wiped the tea from his face, flicked the droplets from his clothes, and said without the slightest fear, “I believe Your Highness would indeed dare to kill me right now, and I also believe that even if you did, you would suffer no punishment. After all, you are a prince, and I am merely your subject. But the doubt in my heart remains unresolved. If I were killed by Your Highness, would I not die with regrets? Why not first clear up my confusion, and only then deal with me?”

He looked up at the Wise Prince. “Why is Your Highness helping the second heir of the Prince of Loyalty? As for power and wealth, Your Highness already has them all as a prince. Is it because of family reasons? From what I know, Your Highness has had no children all these years, and your only companion has been the princess consort. It must be that Your Highness loves the princess consort deeply, so much that the lack of children does not matter to you. If it is for family reasons, and Your Highness does not wish to take another wife or concubine yet desires an heir, then you should not be helping the second heir of the Prince of Loyalty. By comparison, I think your concern for the Crown Prince should be far greater. After all, he is the emperor’s own grandson, while you are the emperor’s own younger brother. If it is neither power, nor wealth, nor family, then it can only be for your own personal reasons. But what personal reason could make you help the second heir of the Prince of Loyalty and stand against the emperor? Do you not care what the emperor thinks? Do you not care what the people, soldiers, and generals of Great Zhou think? Do you not care what the Crown Prince thinks? Do you not care what Princess Jing Yu thinks?”

Yang Yaozong remembered that Jing Yu had once told him the Wise Prince treated her very well, as though she were his own daughter. So he deliberately spoke her name.

When the Wise Prince heard Yang Yaozong mention Jing Yu, he stared at him in a daze. “You actually know Jing Yu?”

Since Jing Yu had left the palace at the age of three, many high officials knew that such a princess existed, yet after she disappeared for so many years she had gradually been forgotten. And the people of Great Zhou, even if they knew their dynasty had a princess, would not know her name. Even he himself had long wondered whether Jing Yu was still alive. So when such a young man as Yang Yaozong directly named Jing Yu, the Wise Prince was somewhat stunned, and somewhat curious. Jing Yu was the only person he had worried over since he had withdrawn into seclusion. Yet after her disappearance and until now, this was the first time he had heard her name from another’s lips.

Yang Yaozong looked at him and said slowly, “Of course I know her, and moreover--”

“And what?” the Wise Prince asked urgently.

Seeing how anxious the prince was over Jing Yu, Yang Yaozong thought to himself that Jing Yu was indeed his weakness. Why did he care for her so deeply? Could he be her biological father? At the thought of his own rich imagination, Yang Yaozong could not help but shiver. Surely it could not be that melodramatic.

When Jing Yu heard him say “moreover” and then fall silent, she had thought he was about to reveal the relationship between the two of them to the Wise Prince. Her heart tightened at once, and her fair cheeks grew faintly warm.

“And moreover, I know her quite well,” Yang Yaozong said.

Hearing this, Jing Yu’s heart relaxed, yet a faint disappointment followed.

The Wise Prince’s eyes widened as he stared at Yang Yaozong and asked, somewhat excitedly, “Has Jing Yu returned? When did she come back?”

Yang Yaozong frowned, then deliberately asked, “Your Highness, surely we are not discussing the princess now. Why are you so concerned about her?”

The Wise Prince countered, “How do you know that what I have done has nothing to do with Jing Yu? Jing Yu is my niece. If I do not care for her, then who should I care for? You?”

Yang Yaozong gave a cold snort and sneer. “I have people who care for me; Your Highness need not trouble yourself. If you care because the princess is your niece, then the emperor is your own elder brother. The emperor is in poor health now, yet why have I never seen you show him the least concern? The Crown Prince is your own grand-nephew, and at only thirteen years of age he must shoulder the heavy burden of the state, yet why do you not care for him either? Hmph. And yet Your Highness still dares to say that what you have done has to do with the princess!”

He paused, took a deep breath, and asked with full confidence, “Does the princess somehow allow you to join hands with the second heir, Jing Yu, and plot the prison riot in the capital’s prefectural jail? Does she allow you to help the eldest heir, Jing Min, escape from Capital Heaven City indirectly? Does she allow you to aid the Prince of Loyalty in rebellion? Does she allow you to become the emperor’s enemy? Have you truly considered the princess in anything you have done? Where do you place the princess in all this? What you have done is entirely selfish conduct of your own. Do not take a reason that is no reason at all and use it as a grand, righteous excuse for the way you have acted!”