Chapter 74: Perhaps, She Is the Dawn He Has Been Waiting For
Seeing Xiao Li downing cup after cup of liquor with such effortless flair, the Young Master watched for a good while before suddenly asking, "How should I address you, miss?"
Xiao Li glanced over, and he quickly added, "I am Song Junzhan. Please forgive me if I’m being too forward."
"Xiao Li. The ’Li’ is for dawn."
Song Junzhan’s expression shifted slightly. "Miss Xiao."
Xiao Li set down her cup, tilting her head slightly to look at him. "The wind I was waiting for has arrived. What about you?"
"You don’t seem like an ordinary person, Young Master. Minding this teahouse that gets almost no business... what are you waiting for?"
Song Junzhan gave her a long look before his gaze drifted to the window. "Have you heard of the imperial examinations?"
Xiao Li raised an eyebrow. ’I thought this world ran on a recommendation system by the aristocratic families. How can there be imperial examinations?’
Song Junzhan could tell she didn’t know and explained, "The imperial examinations were a system from the previous dynasty, designed to select talented men to govern the country. Regardless of birth, any scholar from a respectable family could participate."
"But after our dynasty was founded, the Grand Ancestor Emperor granted titles and lands to a great number of Marquises and aristocratic families. Since then, all court officials have come from these great families, and no one from a poor family has ever been able to climb to a high position. The aristocratic families control the court, undermine Imperial Power, and oppress those from poor families. Not only have they choked off any chance for a poor family’s children to realize their ambitions, they even enslave them at will. And if someone is tortured to death, there’s no place to seek justice."
"Ten years ago, the late Emperor intended to revive the imperial examinations. He united with several ministers to push for reform, but the aristocratic families saw through their plan. All the ministers involved were framed for various crimes, then imprisoned or exiled. A few years later, the late Emperor also passed away from illness. Since then, no one has dared to speak of the examinations again."
"I am just an ordinary man from a poor family. I am full of learning, but I have no place to put it to use. All I can do is hole up in this little teahouse and wait for an opportunity."
Xiao Li was silent for a long while. ’This is a difficult conversation to get into.’
’How did that saying go again? If you ask me for something I don’t have, I can say, "Sure, if I had it, it’d be yours." But if I *actually* have it, and you ask if I’m willing to give it to you, then I have to hesitate... because I might really have to follow through.’
’She knew how beneficial the imperial examinations Song Junzhan spoke of were for this kind of ancient society, and she also had the power to help him make it a reality.’
’That meant she couldn’t respond carelessly.’
’All she wanted to do right now was kill people. Just keep killing. And while her targets were the aristocratic families, reviving the imperial examinations would change the entire political landscape of the court. She wasn’t here to help the Emperor run the country. She didn’t want to get involved in this.’
’This was all just a script, a cage trapping her. What she wanted was to fight her way through this script and return to her own world, not to get bogged down in political reforms and nation-building.’
"And you believe your moment will eventually come?"
The question was clearly just a casual platitude, but Song Junzhan didn’t seem to mind. "Success depends on human effort. The tides will eventually turn."
After Xiao Li left, Ziyue scurried in, looking nervously at Song Junzhan, who was still sipping his tea. "Young Master, why did you tell that beautiful lady everything about the imperial examinations? Do you have a death wish?"
Song Junzhan retorted, "I thought you liked her so much?"
Ziyue sat down, his face etched with worry. "Liking her is one thing, but this is completely different! That beautiful lady is clearly the pampered daughter of an aristocratic family. If you tell her, and what if she goes back and tells her family? The consequences would be unthinkable!"
Song Junzhan reached out and patted his head. "Rest assured. Even if she won’t help us, she will never become our enemy."
Ziyue had great faith in the Young Master’s words. "But why?"
Song Junzhan didn’t answer, thinking only to himself: ’Because her surname is Xiao.’
’Xiao is the imperial surname.’
’Her name, Li, means dawn. He thought he might know who she was now.’
’Perhaps she was the very dawn he had been waiting for.’
With that thought, Song Junzhan tapped the table once, as if he had made a decision. "Ziyue, go ask Uncle Jiang to come up."
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Xiao Li went to the palace again, because that cowardly, incompetent Emperor was trapped in the Imperial Study Room by the aristocratic families, unable to even return to his own chambers.
The Emperor had decreed that Prince Wei and Lou Yan were to thoroughly investigate the matter of the Chang Chun Building, but that investigation could not be allowed to continue.
Judging by the speed with which the Emperor had executed the Gao Family, if this investigation were to proceed, many more aristocratic families would be wiped out.
The Gao Family had already been exterminated; the matter should end here.
They blocked his way, claiming they were there to "advise and discuss," but in reality, they were just stopping the Emperor from issuing any more edicts they couldn’t control. They were strong-arming their Emperor.
And this time, even the Wang family and other aristocratic families, who on the surface seemed to be vying with the Lu family, were in fact standing on a united front.
They were all mired in the same filth. Who could claim to be any cleaner than the rest?
The people who died in the Chang Chun Building weren’t just connected to the Lu family. And that was only what was known on the surface; there were still others who had participated in secret and were still alive.
The madam of the Chang Chun Building had claimed their client list was lost. That list absolutely, under no circumstances, could be made public, otherwise the fallout would be irreversible.
Their position was simple: they would stop pursuing the courtesans who had escaped from the Chang Chun Building, and in exchange, the investigation into the brothel must also be dropped.
The Minister of the Ministry of Justice had been beheaded, and the entire Gao Family was wiped out. That could serve as an accounting to the common folk. The matter should end there.
「In the Imperial Study Room」
Xiao Jingyun had gone a full day without food or water.
Perhaps he hadn’t been this resolute to begin with, but seeing the aristocratic families push him at every turn had forced some fight out of him.
’He was the Emperor, yet these aristocratic families showed him no respect whatsoever.’
’He would not bow his head. He would fight them to the bitter end. He wanted them all to die.’
Dong Changrui stood nearby holding a duster, patiently trying to persuade him. "This old servant knows Your Majesty has a heart for the people, but the empire is not a child’s game. Your Majesty must prioritize the greater good."
"If Your Majesty insists on this investigation, the realm will surely fall into chaos, and the throne will be destabilized, Your Majesty..."
Dong Changrui’s counsel wasn’t without reason, but after what Xiao Li had told him, the Emperor was now deeply suspicious that the eunuch was siding with the men outside.
’They all see a young Emperor and think they can lecture him.’
’As if he didn’t know how to be an Emperor! Did he really need a crowd of people telling him what to do?’
’The crowd outside were the ones in the wrong, yet they were the ones pressuring him. This damned eunuch was supposed to be his own Chief, yet he was taking the side of outsiders.’
’None of these people had any respect for him as the Emperor.’
The Emperor was at the end of his rope. Just as he was about to erupt, Xiao Li’s voice drifted in from outside.
"Well, well, look at this. Everyone’s here."
To the Emperor, that maddeningly flippant voice was like the music of the heavens.
Completely ignoring the stares of everyone else, he rushed to the door. He didn’t open it, but instead peeked eagerly through the crack.
The men who had come today were all heads of the great aristocratic families, the highest-ranking officials at court. Most were from the late Emperor’s generation. Some, like Lu Cang and Wang Changwen, were even from the generation of the emperor before him. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but old men.
Ambition doesn’t fade with age. This pack of white-haired old men had one foot in the grave, yet they still clung desperately to power. Their murky eyes were filled with shrewd calculation, their ambition undiminished.
"Princess Xuanyang."
However unwillingly, the group of old men had to acknowledge her. Their greeting was merely symbolic, a single utterance of her title. A bow was out of the question; it was already a mercy they weren’t making her bow to them.