Chapter 8
Chapter 8: The Deposed Crown Prince
Grandpa Ling and Ling Jin Sui were stunned.
All along the way, they’d avoided prefectural and county cities, too wary to pass through city gates.
They only bought supplies in small towns.
And yet they’d somehow missed news this huge.
Grandpa Ling hurriedly asked what was going on.
An itinerant merchant lifted a finger and pointed at the sky, lowering his voice as if the heavens themselves might be listening.
“They say the crown prince angered Heaven and drew down divine punishment. Just wait. The emperor has already deposed the crown prince. This flooding will pass soon enough.”
Grandpa Ling immediately poured the itinerant merchant tea, leaning in with the eager look of a small-town man hungry for Chang An gossip.
The itinerant merchant laughed.
“Aren’t you Daoists supposed to calculate these things?”
Grandpa Ling smiled along.
“I can calculate little mortal matters. Who’d dare calculate the imperial family’s affairs? Tell us more, Sir. What happened with the deposed crown prince?”
Other patrons craned their necks, curiosity sparking.
With an audience gathered, the itinerant merchant warmed to his story and spilled what he’d heard in the city.
The crown prince, he said, had been born to the late former empress.
He’d been named heir while still a child.
When he came of age, he trained in the military camps, learned with the brush, and proved himself with the blade.
Among common folk, his name carried weight.
But the crown prince had grown up while the emperor was still in his prime.
And the current empress’s two sons had also reached adulthood.
In the imperial family, no one cared about blood ties or affection.
They cared about power.
Fathers turned on sons.
Brothers tore at brothers.
It was ordinary as breathing.
Commoners didn’t know the truth of the palace.
All they heard was that the crown prince had tried to rebel, marched troops to force the palace, and was seized by the emperor.
The emperor couldn’t bear to kill his own child.
He stripped the crown prince of his position, reduced him to Prince Li, and exiled him to the Frontier Pass.
Someone in the shop blurted, “I heard the current empress is the former empress’s sister. That makes her the crown prince’s own aunt. Even with family that close, they still fought each other?”
Another asked, “Then what about Duke Gu’s household? The crown prince’s maternal uncle and maternal grandfather—whose side did they stand on?”
The itinerant merchant lowered his voice again.
“Of course they stood with the living daughter. How much feeling can anyone spare for the dead?”
Someone else leaned in.
“Wasn’t the crown prince’s consort promised—General Lin’s daughter? Didn’t the Lin family help the crown prince?”
The itinerant merchant shook his head.
“Miss Lin was reassigned to Prince Yu. Back in the first lunar month, she broke off the engagement with the deposed crown prince.”
Grandpa Ling lowered his voice to Ling Jin Sui.
“Even the imperial family has its own hard scriptures to recite. Still… the deposed crown prince is pitiful.”
“He’s got his own father, his own aunt, his own maternal grandfather, his own brothers, even his fiancée. All of them want him ruined.”
Ling Jin Sui frowned.
“Grandpa, why do you assume someone set him up? Didn’t they say he rebelled and forced the palace?”
Grandpa Ling snorted.
“If he truly forced the palace, would they let him live? They’re feeding the world a story. The truth—only the royals know.”
Ling Jin Sui’s mind turned, cold and sharp.
She leaned closer.
“Grandpa… do you think my father got dragged into this?”
Grandpa Ling jolted as if struck, then his eyes widened.
“Very possible!”
He grabbed the itinerant merchant’s sleeve.
“You said even seventh-rank officials were implicated. Do you know any of their names?”
The itinerant merchant spread his hands.
“How would I know? The list of executed officials is longer than my goods ledger. Who can read all of it?”
Grandpa Ling could tell the man was only repeating hearsay—people saying what they’d heard, over and over.
He didn’t truly know the inside.
But the itinerant merchant’s next words made both Grandpa Ling and Ling Jin Sui go still.
“It’s not just the list of the dead. The list of those sent away is even longer. Plenty of officials’ daughters were shipped off to music houses. And many were exiled to the Yan Lands.”
He glanced around and lowered his voice further.
“I heard Luo City’s flooded. If those exiles bound for the Yan Lands walk too slow, they’ll get trapped right at Luo City.”
The shopkeeper sighed, shaking his head.
“If they make it to the Yan Lands, maybe they’ll still have a way to live. But if they get trapped in Luo City…”
He sucked air through his teeth.
“No way out.”
Ling Jin Sui asked quickly, “Why?”
The shopkeeper looked at her—at the clean lines of her face under a young Daoist’s robe—and gave a grim little smile.
“Flooding needs bodies to fight it. The local convict laborers can’t fill the ditches with their lives fast enough. This new batch of convict laborers—wouldn’t they be perfect?”
A chill crawled up Ling Jin Sui’s spine.
Grandpa Ling’s fingers tightened around his cup until the wood creaked.
The chance might be small, but even a small chance was too much.
Grandpa Ling confirmed it again and again—no boats had gone down to Jiang Nan lately.
He dragged Ling Jin Sui to the nearest town and asked everywhere he could about the Luo City flooding and Chang An’s situation.
The news was still muddled.
Anything tied to the imperial family was being smothered on purpose.
Only merchants who traveled to and from Chang An knew fragments.
Two things, though, were certain.
First: Chang An was in chaos because of the deposed crown prince’s case.
Second: the Luo City flood had killed many, and no one could take a boat to Jiang Nan anytime soon.
The only way south was the official road.
Grandpa Ling measured time and distance and made a decision fast.
“Sui Sui. Grandfather will find a temple to settle you in. Don’t run around. Wait for me.”
Ling Jin Sui understood at once.
“Grandpa wants to go to Luo City alone?”
“I have to know,” Grandpa Ling said. “I won’t be at ease otherwise.”
Ling Jin Sui’s gaze didn’t waver.
“Grandpa handed me to the Jiang family, and I nearly got sold. Do you think a temple is more reliable than the Jiang family?”
Grandpa Ling hurried to explain.
“I’m not abandoning you. But if Luo City starts seizing able-bodied people to fight the flood, I’m an old bag of bones. I can endure it. What about you?”
In the end, he sighed.
“Fine. We go together. But you listen to Grandfather.”
Ling Jin Sui’s face broke into a grin.
“When have I ever not listened? Grandpa, don’t worry. Whatever you say, I’ll do.”
His injuries still hadn’t healed.
How could she let him travel alone?
Besides, she had her pocket space—her last card.
And even if she wanted to avoid danger and hide in a temple, the body’s lingering will wouldn’t allow it.
When the town heard two Daoists planned to go toward Luo City, no one would rent them a cart.
People were fleeing south from Luo City’s vicinity—who went toward the flood?
That was asking to die.
Ling Jin Sui wanted to buy a donkey.
Grandpa Ling refused.
“Two of us on a donkey on these roads? We’d be delivering rations to bandits and water bandits.”
Time pressed hard.
In the end, Grandpa Ling did something he’d never done before—spent a brutal amount of money.
Five taels of silver bought them a cart to Xu Chang.
Beyond that, no amount of silver could persuade the cart owner to go farther.
From Xu Chang onward, they’d have to walk.
Ling Jin Sui had always thought walking was the worst of it.
When she finally sat in a carriage, she learned the truth.
The horse needed rest.
The driver complained the whole way, made worse because on the road his food and lodging were the customer’s responsibility.
Grandpa Ling refused to stay at inns.
They slept out in the open and ate the plainest coarse grain cakes, the kind that scratched the throat going down.