Chapter 53: The Chess Game on a Snowy Night

The tung-oil lamps in the Imperial Academy's Library cast elongated shadows across the blue-brick floor. Liu Xun’s fingertips hovered above the bamboo slips of the *Discourses on Salt and Iron*, hesitating to descend. Outside the window, the patter of snow granules against the lattice window frames reminded him of the hail at the riverside on the day he left Shu. Sun Ru leaned against the sandalwood bookshelf, a Jingyuan Tongbao coin dancing like a butterfly between her fingers. The crisp sound of the copper coin colliding with her fingers wove an invisible net together with the dripping of the clepsydra.

"Is the young master afraid?" she spoke suddenly, startling Liu Xun so that his elbow knocked over the inkstone. Ink spilled across the eight characters meaning "The mountains, seas, salt, and iron all belong to the people," twisting like a black python.

The youth hurriedly tried to wipe it with his sleeve, instantly smearing the cloud patterns of the Shu brocade into a muddy mess: "This student merely fails to understand: if salt and iron belong to the people, how can the imperial court keep the powerful clans in check?"

The copper coin suddenly pinned itself into the desk, a mere half-inch from his fingertips. "Last month, the Wei clan of Hedong illicitly opened a salt well, and His Majesty rewarded them with thirty new-style waterwheels." A blood-stained wooden plaque slipped from Sun Ru's sleeve. "The head of the Wei clan is currently pounding rice at the Directorate for Palace Buildings, ostensibly to experience the hardships of the common folk." The vermilion paint on the character "Wei" on the plaque was already mottled, with salt crystals still clinging to its edges.

Liu Xun stared at the faint glow of the salt crystals under the candlelight, suddenly recalling the white-haired elder he had seen three days ago stepping barefoot on a pestle. At the time, he had been surprised that the Directorate for Palace Buildings would employ such an aged prisoner, never dreaming it was the head of the renowned Hedong Wei clan.

The underfloor heating in the warm pavilion of the Southern Palace burned too intensely, and Jia Xu’s stirring of the medicine pot blurred his brows and eyes. Liu Xi half-leaned against the mink-fur cushions, the missing notch of the gilded tiger tally reflecting the candlelight like a ferocious wound. "Yuan Benchu is certainly generous; he even managed to forge the Bingzhou military tally with such precision."

"Pity the gilded layer is half a fraction too thin." Jia Xu scooped up the medicinal broth and blew on it. Amidst the swirling steam, the dark iron mask of the Chief of the Da Shui appeared. "Gongsun Zan’s envoy has entered Yang’s residence carrying a Wuhuan wolf-bone saber, the hilt inlaid with eastern pearls."

The crisp sound of medicinal bowls clinking together startled the cold crows beneath the eaves. Liu Xi suddenly began to cough, the specks of blood on his handkerchief falling among the patterns of the tiger tally. "Yang Dezhu grasps Yizhou with his left hand and embraces Youzhou with his right; he is certainly busy." He flicked the tiger tally with his finger, the copper artifact striking the doorframe with a sound like the opening roll of a battle drum. "Tell Cao Mengde that those five thousand sets of iron armor in Henei should see the light of day."

The cloth sign of the tangyuan and noodle shop in the southern part of the city had frozen into a rigid board in the snowy night. Yang Xiu rubbed his stiffening fingers, watching his breath condense into ice crystals on his beard. The wooden door creaked, and a figure wrapped in a grey-rat-fur cloak brought a chill mixed with sandalwood fragrance.

"Were the *Discourses on Salt and Iron* in the Imperial Academy to your liking?" Yang Xiu used iron tongs to poke the charcoal brazier, sending sparks flying onto the visitor's deerskin boots. Liu Xun paused while untying his fur cloak, staring at the mushy noodle soup congealing beside the brazier. "For Vice-Minister Yang to invite me to a midnight meeting, it surely cannot be for discussing the classics."

The simplified map traced with noodle broth on the desk wound like a snake, and Yang Xiu’s fingernails tapped an indentation into the characters for "Mount Wen." "Does the young master know what this mineral vein resembles?" The traces of noodle broth were suddenly dried by the charcoal fire, casting a dragon-shaped shadow. "If the dragon vein is severed, the imperial destiny is extinguished."

When the watchman’s wooden clapper pierced through the curtain of snow, Liu Xun noticed an illicitly minted Yizhou coin added to the corner of the desk. The green patina cast a ghastly greenish hue in the firelight, as different from the golden brilliance of Sun Ru's Jingyuan Tongbao coin as clouds are to mud. He clenched the edge of the coin tightly, the smiling faces of the common folk holding new millet at yesterday's disaster-relief tent suddenly surfacing in his mind. Those chapped palms overlapped with the hands of the famine victims by the riverside in his memory.

The smelting furnaces of the Directorate for Palace Buildings turned half the night sky crimson, and the glowing liquid iron pouring into the clay molds bore an eight-tenths resemblance to the traces of noodle soup from that night. Sun Ru’s treasured sword suddenly crossed in front of Liu Xun’s neck. "Does the young master know that the Mo Dao quenched in the cinnabar of Mount Wen broke through Gongsun Zan’s dark-iron heavy armor just last month?"

The sword blade reflected the flowing molten iron, its dark patterns resembling vascular pathways. Craftsmen were scattering cinnabar powder into the smelting furnace, and a bloody halo floated within the rising cyan smoke. Cold sweat seeped down Liu Xun’s back. Last night, Yang Xiu’s whispered words about "protecting the Liu ancestral temple" exploded in his ears, only to be shattered by the sound of a bell.

"A dragon vein?" A clear male voice came from the shadows. Liu Xi stepped into the workshop draped in a snow-fox cloak, cinnabar powder falling softly from his fingertips. "Has the young master read the *Tribute of Yu*?" He grabbed a handful of iron sand and let it stream through his fingers. "When Yu divided the Nine Provinces, he didn't carve out a separate dragon vein specifically for the House of Liu."

When the second green-calyx plum blossom bloomed in the night snow, Jia Xu was sealing a secret letter with red wax stamped with the character "Cao." Deep within the warm pavilion came the crisp sound of a Go stone falling onto the board. Liu Xi sat alone facing the endgame on the *Map of Mountains and Rivers*, his black stone hovering over the Youzhou region.

"What is Your Majesty waiting for?" Sun Ru stood behind the folding screen holding the medicine bowl, watching the candlelight cast the emperor’s silhouette across the mountains of Bingzhou.

The moment the black stone cut off the grand dragon, the bronze bell at the eaves of the Southern Palace was startled by the wind and snow. "Waiting for Yang Xiu to pass on the theory of the dragon vein to Yuan Benchu." When Liu Xi turned his head, the reflection of the Go board danced in his eyes. "Do you think Yuan Shao will protect the Henei iron armor, or will he protect the illusory imperial destiny?"

Ripples spread across the medicine bowl. Sun Ru gazed at the Go game, suddenly realizing that the trajectory of the white stones was identical to the mineral vein map of Yizhou. She unconsciously stroked the plum hairpin in her hair; the amber crystal in the eye socket of the mechanical beast in the karst cave the day before yesterday now felt, upon reflection, remarkably similar to the cold gleam of the newly forged Mo Dao.

Wheel tracks suddenly appeared on the snow leading toward the Yang residence, soon to be covered by fresh snow. When the watchman’s clapper mixed with the cries of night owls, the white stone at Liu Xi's fingertips landed precisely on Mount Wen. A crimson firework suddenly rose into the night sky from the direction of the smelting furnaces—the signal that Gan Ning's naval forces had arrived at Lake Pengli.

"It is time to close the net." The emperor gathered his cloak, and a golden pellet slipped from his sleeve, rolling to Sun Ru's feet. When she bent down to pick it up, she found the words "Jingyuan" engraved on the surface, and inside the hollow core was a piece of silk as thin as a cicada's wing—densely recording all of Yang Xiu's secret meeting locations over the past half month.

The clepsydra in the library dripped its final drop of midnight, and Liu Xun finally dropped the illicitly minted coin into the charcoal brazier. The green patina peeled away in the fierce flames, revealing the ghastly white lead core within. He suddenly understood why his father insisted on using the perilous roads of Shu as an excuse—the more widely the lead-cored coins circulated, the more the people of Shu became dependent on the House of Liu's "relief."

The new smoke rising from the warm pavilion's medicine stove was wrapped in bitterness as Jia Xu poured the melted donkey-hide gelatin into a jade bowl. "This morning, Yang Xiu sent a pigeon message to Yuan Shao, using precisely the theory of the dragon vein." The veteran strategist's cough carried a hint of a smile. "Benchu has already dispatched Yan Liang toward Henei."

Liu Xi scooped up a spoonful of the medicinal broth and poured it over the Go game, the black stones revealing cinnabar patterns upon contact with the liquid. "Tell Xiahou Dun that the garrison troops at Hulao Pass need to change their equipment." He suddenly coughed violently, blood foam splashing onto the two characters "Henei," dyeing the silk map even more vividly.

As Sun Ru gripped the golden pellet in her sleeve, the sound of urgent hoofbeats suddenly came from the outer wall of the Southern Palace. Torches raised by the guards illuminated the courier attire of the rider, three pheasant feathers stuck in his back standing out sharply in the snowy night—the mark of an urgent eight-hundred-li dispatch.

"Your Majesty! Urgent report from Hanzhong!" A blood-stained official document was held high above the head. "Zhang Lu has united with the Qiang people to break through Yangping Pass, and the Five Pecks of Rice rebels are gathering along the Baoxie Road!"

Liu Xi stroked the cloud patterns on the Zhanlu sword at his waist and suddenly chuckled softly. "They have come at just the right time." He turned his gaze toward the firelight in the direction of the Directorate for Palace Buildings. "The three thousand newly forged divine-arm crossbows must taste blood before they can be sharpened."

It was at this exact moment that the third bud of the green-calyx plum blossom burst open, its subtle fragrance mingling with the scent of saltpeter drifting into the warm pavilion. Sun Ru gazed at the emperor's silhouette projected onto the window paper, suddenly realizing that the posture of the plum tree was an exact match for the winding course of the Han River on the sand table.