Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Humiliation (Part 2)

Once Shen Tang heard the soldiers had nothing to do with her, the tightness in her chest eased. She lowered the brim of her bamboo hat and sat in the corner, pretending to drink tea while trying to fade into the background.

“Geng State soldiers…” she murmured. “Why are they here?”

Qi Shan nearly choked on his tea. “Where else would Geng State soldiers be, if not here?”

Shen Tang opened her mouth—then stopped, embarrassment crawling up her neck. She still tried to salvage it. “But shouldn’t this be Chong Tai—no, Xin State? So why would Geng State soldiers…”

Her voice trailed off. She covered one eye with her hand, refusing to look at Qi Shan’s expression.

Right. Xin State had been destroyed.

And she’d been so fixated on the state seal and Madam Gong that she’d never even thought about who did the destroying.

Now she could guess.

Qi Shan didn’t press. He only said, “It’s not too late to learn.”

He tapped the tabletop three times and murmured, “No secrets beyond six ears.”

A faint ripple of literary qi rose and vanished. The air around them seemed to tighten, swallowing their voices.

“You look like someone raised on silk,” Qi Shan said, tone edged but controlled. “A noble scholar. I understand.”

He leaned back. “You’re still better than most pampered descendants. Those types know nothing and fear nothing. All they do is parade through the pleasure district, lean into rouge and perfume, and drift through life. How would they understand national hatred, family grief, or the suffering of the people?”

Shen Tang kept her face straight. “Sir Qi is right.”

Qi Shan looked at her, found no satisfaction, and let the topic shift.

“Still,” he said, voice low, “Xin State and Geng State are the same kind of filth. To commoners, it’s just the mountain over their heads changing from a foolish ruler to a tyrant.”

Shen Tang’s eyes widened. She glanced outside at the soldiers and only relaxed when she saw they weren’t paying attention. “From the way you speak, you despise the destroyed Xin State… but earlier you—”

Qi Shan lifted his eyelids lazily. “There’s no contradiction.”

So Shen Tang changed tack. She wanted information. She pointed subtly toward the soldiers. “About Geng State’s… ruler. You think so poorly of him?”

Xin State’s king being called a foolish ruler made sense. But Geng State was powerful—its ruler had expanded territory. Yet Qi Shan called him a tyrant.

Qi Shan snorted. “If he doesn’t count as a tyrant, then which feudal lord can’t be called ‘benevolent’?”

He took another sip of tea, voice flat as stone. “Watch. If tyrant Zheng Qiao doesn’t die within five years, Geng State will court its own destruction.”

Shen Tang’s curiosity flared. “What, exactly, makes him a tyrant?”

Qi Shan was about to answer when harsh cursing erupted from outside. It turned into whip cracks and shrill screams. Through a gap in the bamboo curtain, Shen Tang saw blood dripping from the corner of a prison wagon.

A prisoner bellowed, voice booming like thunder. “Even if you beat this old man to death, I’ll still say it! Zheng Qiao, you cheap lackey, you filthy bastard! You want this old man to wear mourning and haul a coffin-cart in surrender, to mourn your ancestors? Dream on! I’ll beat drums and gongs to send your coward ass to its funeral!”

White hair. A body like iron. A voice that shook the air.

The soldiers didn’t let him keep going. Whips snapped down. Each strike opened another bloody welt, but the old man clenched his teeth and refused to cry out. The harder they hit, the harder he cursed.

Only when he was beaten to the edge of death did a soldier spit and mutter, “Unlucky old thing.”

Qi Shan gestured toward the scene. “You asked where the tyrant shows his tyranny. There.”

Then, as if he were forced to teach a lesson to a stubborn student, he started from the beginning.

“Zheng Qiao is the current Geng State ruler. When he was five, he entered Xin State’s inner palace as a hostage with his birth mother.”

Qi Shan’s tone turned almost sardonic. “They say he was clever and studious from childhood. And he had a face that could ruin nations. At fifteen, he became famous in the royal capital. The ruler of Xin was delighted and bestowed a name on him: Nu Jiao.”

Shen Tang blurted, “Was the ruler of Xin sick in the head?”

Qi Shan’s lips twitched. “Yes. Sick. Incompetent, lecherous, and greedy. He took a woman from another state’s palace—Zheng Qiao’s birth mother—by force, and got a bonus gift along with her: the hostage prince Zheng Qiao.”

Shen Tang’s first instinct was pity. “That sounds—”

“Don’t.” Qi Shan cut her off. “Do you think Zheng Qiao was some helpless victim forced by power?”

“Wasn’t he?”

“If he were, he’d be pitiful,” Qi Shan said, cold. “But he wasn’t.”

He set his cup down. “He was extremely good at killing with borrowed knives. He got loyal ministers killed, purged rivals, and anyone who offended him or called him a favored lackey found themselves in prison.”

His eyes sharpened. “And then came the danfu-shattering ultimate penalty.”

Shen Tang went still.

“It destroys the Dan Palace stage,” Qi Shan said. “Once Dan Palace stage, literary heart, or martial gall is ruined, it cannot be restored. Even if your case is overturned later, you never recover.”

Zheng Qiao, Qi Shan explained, bullied the weak and feared the strong. He targeted those with little background, ruined countless promising scholars and warriors, and turned court into a place of terror.

Xin State had once been stable enough that even with a king who never attended court and spent his days chasing women in the inner palace, commoners could still scrape by.

After Zheng Qiao appeared, everything rotted faster.

Then Geng State’s royal house fell into internal chaos. They remembered they still had a hostage prince in Xin State.

Zheng Qiao had ambition. He bribed Xin State ministers with money and future prospects until the ruler of Xin finally allowed him to return.

“In only five years,” Qi Shan said, “Geng State seized Xin State’s drought and weakness and struck. They marched like a blade straight to the royal city.”

Wherever they conquered, soldiers burned, looted, and dragged women away. Zheng Qiao humiliated Xin State’s old officials as if it were sport.

Qi Shan’s smile was thin. “And Zheng Qiao has ties with Madam Gong.”

Shen Tang’s scalp went numb.

Qi Shan didn’t spare her. “Back then, Madam Gong was one of the main forces supporting Zheng Qiao’s return to Geng State.”

His eyes were dark. “And after Zheng Qiao broke Xin State’s royal city, his first order was this: wipe out Madam Gong. The men were exiled to the frontier as forced-labor soldiers. The women were sent to Xiao City’s music bureau.”