Lady Fu's demure façade belies such alluring contours... those lithe limbs, that willowy grace...
"Cease your vulgar ogling! Begone!"
"The Sixth Prince's demise is nigh!"
Lingering betwixt consciousness and oblivion, Ye Ling discerned the raucous whispers of matrons echoing through the chamber.
Transmigration had claimed him.
Once a chronicler of terrestrial wilderness plunged into a chthonic abyss, he now inhabited the reviled frame of Ye Ling—the Great Shang Dynasty's scorned "Princely Disgrace", an indolent voluptuary whose intellectual vacuity rendered governance scrolls hieroglyphic mysteries. Yet paradoxically, this scion remained the bane of crown contenders, his claim anchored solely in posthumous maternal glory—the late Empress's sole legitimate issue.
Per dynastic edict, primogenital enfeoffment heralded succession. As the firstborn of the principal consort, his investiture should have graced fourteenth vernal cycles past. Yet, sixteen summers found him titleless—an indignity paling before the immediate calamity: the dishevelled presence of Fu Yuanyuan, Crown Prince's betrothed, her alabaster form shimmering through dawn's argent glow upon his divan.
"Does not the nightingale's song warrant an encore?" Ye Ling murmured, fingertips grazing her clavicle's arc. "Shall we reconstruct last nocturne's symphony?"
"Audacious cur!" Tremors of wrath animated her rubescent lips.
"Fury ill becomes your countenance." His smouldering gaze traversed her form—this living paradox of chaste reputation and current disarray, the realm's fabled beauty whose erudition eclipsed even her betrothed's stature. A prize most delectable, illicitly plundered.
"Approach me not!" She recoiled, limbs entwined in protective serpentation.
"Was it not your own volition that graced my chambers?" His sardonic fingers toyed with silken sashes. "Excel in servitude, and consort's honours may yet adorn you."
"Consort? To an ineffectual leech?" Venom crystallised in her glare. "My destiny transcends mortal diadems—I shall be Empress Regnant! Your carcass shall feed carrion."
"Then why serpentine your way hither?" His derisive laughter echoed.
The portal thundered open.
"Brother..." The Crown Prince's visage contorted in counterfeit anguish, knuckles whitening. "Though custom compels fraternal tolerance, this transgression against my affianced—"
"Your Grace!" Minister Fu Hai's theatrical stagger preceded his lament. "My sole progeny's virtue despoiled! Either the grievance drum shall resound at dawn or my lifeblood stains these very tiles!" Guards advanced with manacle intent.
"Who dares lay profane hands upon imperial flesh sans mandate?" Ye Ling's baritone reverberated with ancestral authority, freezing the retinue.
"Preposterous slander!" Fu Hai's spittle flew. "This libidinous beast dares vilify—"
"Let truth emerge from the lotus mouth itself." Ye Ling's indolent gesture indicated the trembling maiden. "Her tender avowals compelled a response. As Heaven's designated heir, need I resort to coercion?"
The Crown Prince's countenance darkened at "designated heir"—three syllables etching ancestral privilege into his bastard veins.
"Father, I ne'er—" Fu Yuanyuan's protestations dissolved in pearl-strung tears.
"Chastity's paragon", Ye Ling interjected silkily, "would have sought honourable dissolution upon intrusion. Yet breath still animates this rose..."
"Does not elder brother extol fraternal munificence?" Ye Ling's lupine grin widened. "Surely you'll not begrudge shared... treasures?"
The Crown Prince swallowed gall, recognising with dawning horror that the familiar buffoon's mask had slipped, revealing the lupine eyes of a contender.
Foreign Provocation
"Father... I implore you to deliver justice for your daughter!" Fu Yuanyuan wept with pearly tears cascading down her cheeks, her gaze shifting imploringly toward the Crown Prince, silently beseeching his intervention.
"Fu Yuanyuan! How dare you cloak treachery in innocence after your brazen advances!" Ye Ling retorted, his voice trembling with feigned indignation and anguish.
"Father, I beg you to avenge this disgrace!" She wailed, collapsing to her knees in a swirl of silk.
"Eldest Brother", Ye Ling feigned sudden epiphany, his tone laced with venomous theatrics, "was this your stratagem? Deploying your betrothed to tarnish my honour and usurp the princely title? Had you but asked for the throne, I might have yielded it freely!" His laughter rang hollow. "Must you sacrifice even your fiancée to sate your ambition?"
"You dare spew such calumnies?" The Crown Prince's face flushed crimson as his fists clenched, a tempest of rage barely restrained.
"Can you swear it was not your design?" Ye Ling countered, his voice steady as a serpent's coil. His strategy crystallised: muddy truth with chaos. As a prince, execution required an imperial decree—but ambiguity between seduction and assault could reframe the scandal as political rivalry. Let the court drown in suspicion, and neither heir would claim victory.
"Guards! Seize him!" Minister Fu Hai's roar echoed through the hall. "I shall lay my corpse at the palace gates ere His Majesty remains ignorant of this outrage!"
"Take heart, Lady Fu," Ye Ling called over his shoulder as armoured hands gripped him, his smirk cutting like a blade. "When we stand before the throne, I shall petition the Emperor to grant you the honour of my concubine. Should my brother discard you, this prince shall gladly shelter you!"
*Is he deranged?* The attendants exchanged sidelong glances. The Sixth Prince—infamous for his debaucheries—now jested while facing charges of defiling his brother's bride? His fate seemed sealed.
"You vile cur! I will see you *gutted*!" Fu Yuanyuan's composure shattered, her shriek tearing through the hall's veneer of decorum.
"Peace, Yuanyuan," the Crown Prince murmured, guiding her away with a hand too tender to trust. Yet as she turned, Fu Yuanyuan glimpsed the flicker of triumph in his eyes—a viper's smile masked as solace.
---
The imperial edict descended like a guillotine:
"Sixth Prince Ye Ling, convicted of moral depravity and coveting his brother's betrothed, is hereby confined to the imperial dungeon to await judgment."
"Your servant bows to the Emperor's infinite wisdom!" Minister Fu Hai prostrated himself, his forehead striking marble with a resounding crack.
As shackles bit into his wrists, Ye Ling stifled a scoff. No trial. No defence. His father's disdain was more profound than mere blood. So much for the pampered life of a transmigrated prince—motherless, despised, and now caged. It appeared that survival would require more tenacity than ancestry.
---
The Crown Prince watched Ye Ling's retreating figure, then turned to Fu Yuanyuan. "Our nuptials shall proceed unaltered."
"Terminate the betrothal," she replied, her voice glacial. Ye Ling's vileness paled beside the Crown Prince's veiled triumph. She would not be their pawn.
---
**Imperial Dungeon**
"Any tidings today, Zhang?" Ye Ling accepted the jailer's meagre tray, his tone deceptively light.
"Your Highness," the guard whispered, "the Chu envoy has arrived..."
The Kingdom of Chu—Da Shang's rapacious neighbour—had long hungered for Yanhu Mountain, a land veined with iron ore yielding half the empire's steel. Recent innovations—cloud ladders scaling walls, stirrups transforming cavalry—had only sharpened their teeth.
---
**Throne Hall**
"Yanhu Mountain is our ancestral birthright," declared the Chu envoy, his obsequious bow belying steel. "We offer a paltry thousand gold for its return."
A collective gasp rippled through the court. Yanhu's mines gilded the treasury tenfold yearly—this was no bargain but extortion.
"These are Da Shang's sovereign lands!" Minister Fu Hai thundered. "Do you seek war?"
"Let us settle this with scholarly grace," interjected Princess Zhao Ling'er, Chu's famed "Jade Strategist". Her smile glinted like a dagger. "Should Da Shang prevail, we withdraw. Should Chu triumph... Yanhu is ours." The unspoken truth hung heavy: with Chu's military ascendant, refusal meant bloodshed.
---
**First Trial: The Poetic Gauntlet**
The envoy unfurled a scroll, his voice dripping honeyed malice:
"Waxing moon wanes, waning moon fills,
Eons fold, dusk yields to dawn,
Night's shroud parts only when darkness spills."
Da Shang's literati faltered. Grey-bearded academicians stammered disjointed ripostes; princes studied their sleeves.
"Useless! All my *learnt* sons and sages!" The Emperor's roar shook the hall. "Is there *none* in this empire to answer?"
Silence thickened—until every gaze slid toward the Crown Prince.
The Sixth Prince's Gambit
The Crown Prince, long hailed as the epitome of martial brilliance and scholarly refinement, found all eyes of the court fixed upon him in this hour of crisis. Emperor Shang gazed hopefully at his firstborn, the fate of the realm hanging in the balance.
The Crown Prince's heart collapsed. "Your Imperial Majesty," he ventured with calculated humility, "there exists one whose literary genius could unravel this couplet... though..."
"Speak plainly!" the Emperor thundered.
"Fu Yuanyuan, daughter of Minister Fu and our realm's foremost poetic virtuoso, possesses the acuity to craft the perfect riposte. Yet owing to Sixth Brother's... regrettable indiscretions," he paused, allowing the unspoken scandal to curdle the air, "she remains sequestered, her spirit too wounded to grace public assemblies."
The chamber erupted in pious outrage. "The Sixth Prince's depravities have defiled even the Crown Prince's betrothed!"
"Your Majesty, such transgressions demand draconian censure!"
Ministers swivelled like vultures toward Ye Ling, the disgraced Sixth Prince.
Chu envoy Zhao Ling'er observed the spectacle with veiled contempt. Petty squabbles and witless heirs—this crumbling dynasty shall soon be ours.
"The hourglass empties!" jeered a Chu diplomat. "Since Great Shang's intellect falters, Yanhu Mountains now rightfully belong to Chu!"
"That profligate half-wit has doomed us all!" the Crown Prince hissed through clenched teeth.
"The reprobate!" The Emperor's voice trembled with dynastic shame. Despite Ye Ling remaining his late empress's sole legacy—a child he had cradled through infancy—the prince's debaucheries had crossed all boundaries of tolerance.
"Your Majesty", Minister Fu Hai intoned, vengeance thinly veiled as duty, "the Sixth Prince's existence poisons the imperial dignity. Permanent exile alone can purify the throne's sanctity."
"Father, in mercy's name—" the Crown Prince interjected, his plea a masterstroke of feigned fraternal piety.
As the emperor raised his seal toward the damning edict, a guardsman stumbled breathlessly into the hall. "Your Majesty! The Sixth Prince declares he holds the couplet's solution!"
The courtiers' derisive whispers swelled. *That illiterate libertine? A last gasp to cheat the executioner!
"Absurdity!" The Emperor's fist struck the dragon-carved armrest. He knew better than anyone the depths of Ye Ling's incompetence—a prince who'd squandered tutors, disgraced rituals, and bedevilled censors with his escapades.
Yet Minister Fu pressed the blade deeper: "This buffoonish charade insults the ancestral altars! Strip the wretch of his titles!"
Amid the furor, Zhao Ling'er's crystalline laughter cut through the din. "Let history record Chu's magnanimity—grant the fool his farcical finale."
The Emperor's eyelids shuttered against the grotesque tableau. *Must the Mandate of Heaven perish through my blood?*
The Unmasked Revelation
Zhao Ling'er perceived Ye Ling's true nature with crystalline clarity. Her calculated provocation sought not merely to humble the Great Shang Empire but to shatter its metaphysical essence—a dual annihilation that would grind imperial dignity into perpetual oblivion.
"Father, might Sixth Brother demonstrate his purported capabilities?" proposed the Crown Prince, his veneer of concern barely concealing Machiavellian designs. Should Emperor Shang persist in shielding the disgraced prince despite Grand Tutor Fu Hai's admonitions, this diplomatic theatre would catalyse Ye Ling's ultimate downfall, redirecting the Yanhu Mountain debacle onto the scapegoated royal.
"Enough!" The Emperor's ocular daggers pierced through filial pretence.
"Since imperial timidity prevails," Zhao Ling'er's contralto laughter echoed like shattering porcelain, "let us seal your surrender. How tragic to forgo witnessing the Sixth Prince's... *distinctive* virtues."
The barbed words drew imperial vermilion to the monarch's cheeks, yet steel emerged beneath silk. "Present Prince Ye Ling," he commanded, the edict reverberating through marbled halls.
The Crown Prince's momentary paralysis vanished into a vulpine grin—this humiliation would establish him as the heir apparent.
---
**The Princely Epiphany**
Resplendent in regalia mirroring the celestial mandate—amethyst coronet and night-hued brocade—Ye Ling processed with solar precision, his obeisance calibrating deference and defiance.
"Can this be the pulling weakling of lore?" Zhao Ling'er breathed, ocular lenses dilating in reassessment.
"Child, dare you complete the couplet?" The emperor's baritone quivered with dynastic anxiety.
"Brother, temper your vainglory before sovereign eyes," the Crown Prince crooned, honeyed malice dripping from each syllable.
Grand Tutor Fu Hai's derisive snort sliced the air: "This cretin lacks the literacy to parse the characters, let alone craft poesy!"
Scholar Fang Yan's lamentation completed the tragic chorus: "Majesty, must we compound our national shame?"
Ye Ling's riposte defied the gravitational pull of expectations: "The verse already ripens in my palm."
A seismic silence gripped the court—the prelude to resurrection or ruination.
---
**Calligraphic Metamorphosis**
Under basilisk stares, the prince's brush became a dancing phoenix, birthing characters that swirled like autumnal tempests:
"Petals ascend/descend in a cosmic waltz.
Through solstitial fire and equinoctial sigh
Winter's crucible forges vernal epiphany."
Scholar Fang Yan's tear-stained visage illuminated the chamber: "A paean to cyclical transcendence! The late empress' genius reincarnate!"
The avalanche of encomiums drowned scepticism: "Prodigy! Alchemist of lexicons!"
Ye Ling's exhalation carried millennial burdens: *the chrysalis breaks.
---
**Throne's Shadowplay**
The Crown Prince's countenance darkened like eclipse totality—this larval sibling had pupated into a phoenix.
Emperor Shang's gaze contained multitudes—relief intertwined with dawning reverence.
Zhao Ling'er's smirk petrified mid-curve: the Shang phoenix's resurrection mocked her funerary preparations.
The Rhetoric of Deception
When the couplet unfurled its truth, Ambassador Zhao Ling'er of Great Chu stood petrified, her porcelain visage etched with glacial fury. Crimson crescents bloomed on her palms as clenched fists betrayed her turmoil—how had she miscalculated so egregiously, provoking the very "prodigal prince" whose incompetence was legend? Now her stratagem recoiled upon her, a serpent biting its tail. The princess's heaving bosom mirrored the collapse of imperial aspirations, her grand vision of geopolitical dominance reduced to petty terrestrial squabbles.
"Marvellous!" The Shang Emperor's baritone reverberated with vindictive triumph. "'Spring's rebirth follows winter's tyranny'—a sentiment as precise as a surgeon's blade!" Though perplexity gnawed at him regarding his sixth son's sudden erudition, imperial pride drowned suspicion. This was not the time for princely modesty but for crushing Chu's arrogance. "Does this resolution appease your court's appetite, Ambassador?"
Prince Ye Ling observed through hooded eyes, savouring the unravelling of Chu's so-called "Prodigy Princess". The diplomat who had entered as a prowling tigress now resembled a fox cornered by hounds. "Your unconventional erudition astounds us," Zhao managed through a smile sharp enough to draw blood, executing a bow that crackled with suppressed rage. Her collapsing gambit threatened more than territorial loss—it imperilled her very autonomy, condemning her to become a pawn in Chu's marital chessboard.
"Evolution spares neither monarch nor maidservant," Ye purred, deliberately mangling the honourific "foreign envoy" into "wayward lass". The verbal dagger flushed Zhao's neckline crimson, though protocol forbade direct retaliation.
"Yet permit this unworthy emissary to enquire," she parried, serpentine grace undiminished, "from which forgotten crypt did Your Highness exhume such verses? Their cadence bears haunting kinship to Chu's *Canon of Sage Poets*—a text older than Shang's claim to literacy."
The chamber erupted. Minister Fang Yan surged forward, a bristling mastiff. "You dare paint imperial blood with plagiarism's brush? Shall we engrave 'Thieves' upon Chu's royal crest?"
"Silence!" The Emperor's frost-laden command stilled the storm. "Elucidate this slander, Ambassador."
Zhao spread jewelled hands in counterfeit innocence. "Merely observing historical paradox—how Prince Ye's improvisation mirrors verses predating Chu's literary renaissance by three dynasties." Her implication hung like poisoned incense: either Shang's prince stole wisdom, or Shang tacitly acknowledged Chu's cultural primacy.
Ye Ling descended the dais, his smile a crescent moon slicing through thunderheads. "Count your nation's generations, Princess. Five decades past, Chu's 'literati' grunted in caves while Shang's scribes codified law. Your so-called 'anthology'—was it inscribed on wolf pelts? Or perhaps..." He leaned closer, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper audible across the marble expanse, "...pillaged from Shang's burning libraries during your grandfather's infamous northern raids?"
The verbal salvo delivered a devastating blow. Murmurs of approbation swept through Shang's ministers—this was no longer mere diplomatic sparring but an excavation of ancestral shame.
"You desecrate Chu's sovereign legacy!" Zhao's composure fractured, jade hair ornaments trembling like wind chimes in a typhoon.
"Legacy?" Ye's laughter rang as cold as temple bells. "Your 'sage poet'—that mythical bard—was likely some Shang scholar enslaved during Chu's barbaric conquests. To wield stolen quills against their rightful heirs..." He let the accusation crystallise in the charged air before delivering the coup de grâce: "...reveals the essence of sophistry—truth draped in a courtesan's silks."
The throne room erupted in cathartic laughter. Even the emperor's stern mien cracked, revealing grudging admiration. Minister Fang's guffaw shook the jade chandeliers: "Bravo! Chu's vaunted culture proves but a patchwork of pilfered rags!"
Zhao Ling'er stood motionless, her diplomatic persona crumbling like gilded lacquer. Around her, Shang's courtiers exchanged awed glances—this silver-tongued strategist bore no resemblance to the debauched wastrel of tavern ballads. The prince's metamorphosis suggested either divine possession or a decades-long masquerade, his newly revealed fangs glinting with political promise.
Returning Youzhou
"Sixth Prince, such aggressiveness is unbefitting of a royal heir," Zhao Ling'er said, suppressing her irritation with forced composure.
"Sixth Brother, why must you press so harshly?" The eldest prince, Ye Changfeng, interjected in a conciliatory tone.
Yet even as he spoke, Ye Changfeng felt a chilling gaze from the Emperor of Shang—a look so sharp it could kill. The emperor's disdain for his eldest son's naivety grew clearer by the moment.
"Press her? Elder Brother, are you suggesting we cede territory instead?" Ye Changfeng was struck deeply by Ye Ling's retort.
"I… I never said that," the eldest prince hastily denied.
"Enough," the Emperor cut in with a weary wave, then turned to Zhao Ling'er. "Your envoy chose this challenge. Since we have won, the matter of Yanhu Mountain shall never be raised again."
"The Shang Dynasty is indeed full of talent. I underestimated you," Zhao Ling'er replied politely, though her tone soon sharpened. "But do not celebrate yet, Sixth Prince. This was merely the first round of three. The next two will not be so easy."
*How shameless!* The courtiers seethed. When the Shang struggled to answer earlier, she said nothing of "three rounds". Now that she lost, she changed the rules? Truly, the barbarians of Chu knew no honour.
"A minor victory in calligraphy proves nothing," Zhao Ling'er added, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear with a dazzling smile.
"Who do you think you are?" Ye Ling sneered. "You demand contests and set the terms? Should the Shang Dynasty bow to your whims?"
"Hah! Could it be that the Sixth Prince fears defeat?" Zhao Ling'er stepped closer, eyeing the opulently dressed man before her. "Do not mistake a borrowed book of poetry for true brilliance. A silk pillow remains hollow, no matter its embroidery!"
Her anger simmered. Without Ye Ling's interference, she would have secured Yanhu Mountain and returned triumphant.
"Fear? Of a foreign girl like you?" Ye Ling grabbed her wrist unabashedly, his voice dripping with mockery. "But this wager is unfair. If we lose, we surrender land. If we win… what does Chu offer"?
"What do you want?" Zhao Ling'er struggled to free her hand. Their proximity sent her heart racing—a mix of panic and something she dared not name.
"What *should* Chu stake?" He leaned in, his breath grazing her ear.
*Is he mad?* The eldest prince glared. This fool will drag us all to ruin!
"Release me!" Zhao Ling'er snapped, cheeks flushed. "You dare covet this princess? A toad lusting after a swan's flesh!"
"Ling'er, cease this folly," the Emperor sighed, massaging his temples. His son's antics swung from triumph to scandal in moments.
"Father", Ye Ling said, suddenly solemn, "if we risk Yanhu Mountain, Chu must offer equal stakes. I propose—should we win—the return of Youzhou."
"Youzhou?" Zhao Ling'er froze. This was no marriage proposal.
The court erupted in gasps. *Youzhou*—the strategic northern territory lost to Chu thirty years ago during Shang's civil strife. Its fertile horse pastures had since fuelled Chu's military dominance, crippling Shang's cavalry.
"Youzhou has belonged to Shang for millennia," Ye Ling declared. "It is time to reclaim what was stolen."
"Return Youzhou!" Minister Fang Yan echoed, fists clenched.
"Return Youzhou!" The chorus swelled, igniting the court's fervour. Decades of humiliation burnt in their throats.
"As the beloved daughter of Chu's emperor", Ye Ling pressed, "Will you convey this demand?"
Zhao Ling'er trembled, torn between fury and dread. Youzhou's fate was beyond her authority—yet retreating now would shame her nation.
"You hesitate?" Ye Ling taunted. "Is Chu's courage as hollow as its promises?"
The officials, once cowed, now stood tall. Even the emperor felt a flicker of pride. His wayward son had united the court in purpose.
Zhao Ling'er's face reddened. *How dare this wastrel humiliate me!* She clenched her fists, vowing vengeance.
"You think I desire *you*?" Ye Ling whispered, low enough for her alone. "Compared to Youzhou, you are nothing. But if I rule the world… perhaps I'll keep you as a trinket."
"Very well!" she spat. "If Chu loses, Youzhou is yours. But if Shang loses, Yanhu Mountain is ours—and *you* will kowtow three times and bow nine times in apology!"
"And the next two rounds", she added, jabbing a finger at him, "*he* will compete!"
The Contest for Fu Yuanyuan's Intellectual Favor
"Shall Ye Ling contend?"
A glacial silence descended upon the hall.
Though the Sixth Prince had triumphed in the prior trial, his notorious reputation as a libertine devoid of genuine erudition lingered. The "anthology affair" had cemented the court's conviction that his victory stemmed from fortuitous plagiarism rather than scholarly merit. The Chu Kingdom's challenge, a brazen geopolitical gambit, hung like a scimitar over the assembly—yet none dared protest openly, for the scales of power tipped decisively toward the southern aggressor.
"Imperial Father," Crown Prince Ye Changfeng interposed with serpentine diplomacy, "since Sixth Brother prevailed last, perhaps he alone should..." His words cloaked a venomous calculus: Ye Ling's impending humiliation—kneeling before Princess Zhao Ling'er—would irrevocably tarnish his princely legitimacy.
"Enough!" Emperor Shang's rebuke thunderclapped across the vaulted chamber, silencing dissent with dynastic might.
Observing his half-brother's thinly veiled malice, Ye Ling's lips curled in a wolfish grin. Let the war drums sound.
"The challenge is accepted," he declared, bowing with mock deference toward the Crown Prince. "Yet my ignorance of metropolitan intricacies begs your august guidance, dear brother."
"Three dawns hence," Zhao Ling'er proclaimed, flinging her hair with regal disdain, "the Sixth Prince shall founder before our **Iron Cavalry Phalanx**!" The very syllables conjured spectral horrors—decades of Da Shang's banners trampled beneath Chu's hoofbeats, ministers' nightmares drenched in the iron scent of ancestral battlefields.
As Chu envoys swept from the hall like autumn tempests, unspoken tensions crackled like parchment aflame.
"Father!" Ye Changfeng's lament dripped honeyed concern. "The Phalanx is unconquerable! Sixth Brother's recklessness gambles Yanhu Mountain itself!"
Ye Ling's retort slithered forth, cold as winter steel: "Since Censor Su derides my stratagems, perhaps he might lead the vanguard? His niece's... *intimate service* in your chambers, Crown Prince, must have honed his martial genius."
The censor's face blanched to funeral ash. Ye Changfeng's composure frayed: "Our association is purely administrative!"
"Then you'll never elevate her to consort?" Ye Ling's thrust pierced the veil, exposing the illicit alliance between censorial power and the Crown Prince's faction—a violation as grave as autumn floods breaching ancestral dikes.
With a monarch's gimlet stare, Emperor Shang dissolved the court, leaving rivalries smouldering like subterranean fires.
"When did the pup grow dragon fangs?" Ye Changfeng hissed in shadowed corridors. "State your demands for the war preparations."
"Fu Yuanyuan's luminous counsel would prove invaluable," Ye Ling purred, invoking the Crown Prince's betrothed—the **"Capital's Azure Phoenix",** whose tactical treatises had routed northern barbarians at sixteen. "Her ink-stained wisdom might illuminate victory's path."
The Crown Prince's jade countenance fissured. "You grasp beyond your celestial mandate!"
"Yet you delivered your 'pearl' to my courtyard gate," Ye Ling riposted, savouring the metaphorical emerald-hued disgrace. The throne-room chessboard now bristled with poisoned blades, its stakes transcending verse and pageantry.
Reference to the Yuan Dynasty's military innovations and multicultural tensions mirrors the geopolitical dynamics between Da Shang and Chu.
Allusions to Confucian ethics and Wang Yangming's philosophy contextualise the censorial conflict and legitimacy debates.
The Oath of Unyielding Resolve
"Eldest Imperial Brother, weigh your tongue," Ye Ling retorted with a blade-sharp smile, his voice laced with venomous courtesy. "Should His Majesty catch wind of such imprudence, even whispers of ambition might stain your reputation."
*How exquisite to witness your fury rendered impotent.
A eunuch's bow fractured his triumph. "Sixth Highness, the Emperor summons you to the Phoenix Pavilion."
*So the celestial father finally beckons.
**Within the Vermilion Pavilion**
"Enter, you insolent whelp!" roared Emperor Shang as the jade doors parted.
"Imperial Father..." Ye Ling's tone feigned guileless deference.
"Have you grasped the tempest you've unleashed?" The sovereign's wrath simmered beneath glacial composure as courtiers melted from the hall.
"Your son remains unenlightened," he replied with calculated audacity, though his palms betrayed damp tremors.
A cough tore through the monarch's frame, crimson staining his silk sleeve. "The Chu Iron Cavalry consumes entire battlefields! "What delusion makes you court annihilation?"
"War's drumbeat was inevitable," Ye Ling countered, spine steel-straight. "Whether sparked by my tongue or another's blade matters little."
"Fool!" The emperor's cane struck marble, yet his next words emerged frayed. "To lose Yanhu Pass is fate... but to have history brand you its architect?"
Realisation dawned. "You seek to... shelter me?" Ye Ling's gaze traced the Emperor's silvered temples, childhood memories of rebuke now reframed by paternal desperation.
The monarch studied this metamorphosed son—where cringing once dwelled, now burnt unearthly resolve. "Three battles remain. Let defeat bear dignity," he rasped.
"Sixty percent odds favour our victory," the prince understated, suppressing a smirk.
Emperor Shang's jade seal halted mid-air. "Strategy? You?"
"Three dawns shall unveil truth." Ye Ling bowed, turning to depart.
"To your gilded cage, then?" The emperor's scoff carried strange relief. "And that Fu girl's scandal—dare you still covet crown matrimony?"
"When beauty kneels unbidden, shall a prince play eunuch?" His chuckle echoed through lacquered beams.
**Jade Moon Courtyard**
Fu Yuanyuan's needle pierced silk—and flesh. Crimson bloomed where vows once embroidered a bridal veil.
"Does my lady mistake silence for absolution?" Ye Ling's shadow engulfed her embroidery frame.
"Sixth Prince!" Her maid stepped forward, fists trembling. "You've shattered her betrothal! Must you now claim her corpse?"
"Since royal blood discarded this jade," he purred, lifting Fu Yuanyuan's chin, "I shall recarve its destiny."
Her laugh crystallised the autumn air. "Plagiarised verses and parlour tricks make princely merits now? I'd sooner wed a leprous monk than your tainted throne!"
"Stolen poetry?" His smile turned feral. "Ah, but history's quill favours victors." Leaning close enough to taste her rage, he whispered the oath that would echo through dynasties: "Mark this hour, my icy lotus... and *never* repent its thorns."
Defiance and Threats of Annihilation
"Four horses cannot retrieve a spoken word," proclaimed Fu Yuanyuan, her voice steel-clad with resolve.
To wed a libertine devoid of honour would be a fate more wretched than death itself.
"Should you disdain the honour of principal consort, content yourself with the station of concubine," Ye Ling countered, his sardonic smile slicing through the tension like a blade. "When I vanquish the Chu emissaries, I shall beseech the Imperial Majesty to grant you this *privilege*." With a flourish of his robes, he departed, leaving frostbite in his wake.
The woman had scorned celestial grace—she merited neither deference nor mercy.
"My lady…" murmured Hongluan, her gaze tethered to the retreating prince's silhouette.
"Let his hubris be his pyre," Fu Yuanyuan derided, her fingertips whitening against her jade hairpin. "When the Chu delegation humiliates him, even his princely seal may shatter like porcelain."
Her aspirations soared beyond mortal thrones—she sought a consortship with the celestial heir, the Crown Prince whose veins flowed with destiny's ink. Ye Ling's transient triumphs were but fireflies against the sun.
"Yet… the Sixth Prince's bearing defies the rumours," Hongluan ventured, hesitation threading her words.
Gossip's brush had painted him a slothful dilettante, yet here stood a man carved from mountain granite—eyes like unsheathed swords, posture defying the weight of dynastic storms.
"Defiant?" Fu Yuanyuan's laughter crystallised midair. "A cockatrice preening over devoured beetles. The throne rejects such brittle spines."
Were it not for Ye Ling's interference, she might still roam free—unshackled from paternal reproach and clan elders hissing about cloistered vows.
"The Crown Prince's wrath shall eclipse even Chu's vengeance," Hongluan offered.
"That thread has been severed by the Fu lineage," was the glacial reply. Fu Yuanyuan's knuckles pressed against lacquered wood, the unspoken truth lingering like poisoned incense—*had the Crown Prince's shadow orchestrated her entrapment?*
---
Beyond the Fu compound's vermilion gates, Imperial Guard Liu Ren stood sentinel, flanked by twelve warriors whose musculature rivalled temple guardians. Each bore the Emperor's seal—living weapons gifted to this enigma of a prince.
"To the Ministry of War," Ye Ling commanded, silk robes billowing like war banners.
Liu Ren's spine straightened. The Ministry—a labyrinth where the Crown Prince's spiders wove their webs. Yet the Emperor's favour was sunlight dissolving doubt; the guard barked orders, armour clanking in metallic unison.
---
"Audacious trespassers!" Guards crossed halberds, steel singing against steel.
"Kneel before the Sixth Imperial Son!" Liu Ren's roar scattered sparrows from courtyard pines.
The soldiers faltered. Before them stood no dissipated heir, but a sovereign-in-waiting—his gaze reducing their weapons to toy swords. Knee leather met stone in hurried obeisance.
"Summon your minister. *Now*." Ye Ling's whisper carried the edge of a headsman's axe.
Minister Shen Yuan materialised like an ink-stroke ghost, bowing with precision calculated to millimetres. "To what do we owe this celestial visitation?"
"Materials. A master smith. Forged in preparation to humble Chu."
The minister's eyelids fluttered—loyalty to the Crown Prince warring with survival instincts.
"Do you bar my path, Shen Yuan?" Ye Ling encircled the official, akin to a tiger evaluating its prey. "Or perhaps your true allegiance lies beyond our borders?"
"This humble servant breathes only for the Dragon Throne!" The minister's pallor rivalled funeral silks.
"Then lead," the prince purred, "lest your nine generations lament your hesitation."
---
Within the armoury's bronze-reinforced vaults, Ye Ling hefted a raw iron nodule, its weight promising transformation. "All of it," he decreed. Soldiers descended like ants on honey, crates vanishing under Imperial might.
His gaze alighted on an elderly smith—hands scarred by decades of elemental communion. "You craft weapons that sing?"
"Forgive this lowly one's distractions," Lu Yuan rasped, hammer never pausing. Descendant of Lu Ban's legendary lineage, his anvil had birthed blades that carved history.
"Bring him."
As guards manacled the struggling artisan, Ye Ling leaned close, breath frosting the old man's ear: "Resist, and I shall prune your family tree—root, branch, and ten generations of seedlings."
The smith's defiance disintegrated into ash. In the prince's obsidian eyes, he saw no hyperbole—only the void where mercy once dwelled.
Subduing Lu Yuan
Lu Yuan and Shen Yuan, both retainers of the First Prince, found themselves at odds with Ye Ling's unyielding demeanour. At his sharp rebuke, Lu Yuan's protests withered into silence—a prudent retreat from the infamous volatility of Ye Ling's predecessor, whose blade had claimed lives for far lesser provocations.
"Sixth Highness", Shen Yuan ventured cautiously, "Master Lu remains a craftsman under the Ministry of War. To remove him so abruptly"—
"The ministry answers to the Great Shang throne, not my brother's whims," Ye Ling interjected, his voice glacial as winter steel. "Persist in obstruction, Shen Yuan, and I shall ensure your lineage ends here, your blood nourishing these very stones."
The threat hung like a guillotine's shadow. Bystanders trembled beneath Ye Ling's smouldering gaze as he commandeered Lu Yuan and a cache of iron ore, parading them through the Ministry gates to Chaohua Palace.
No sooner had he arrived than Green Dance emerged—a vision in jade-green silk, her movements willow-graceful yet ripe with cultivated allure. "Your Highness returns," she sighed, melting into his embrace with the practised ease of a Yangzhou courtesan trained to ensnare nobility. Her fragrance—peach blossoms after spring rain—and the sinuous curves beneath diaphanous robes eroded Ye Ling's restraint. What mortal could resist such artistry?
As their laughter entwined behind closed doors, Lu Yuan seethed beneath courtyard pines. *Lecherous cur!* he inwardly spat, contrasting Ye Ling's decadence with the First Prince's martial austerity.
When summoned hours later to the study, the smith recoiled at the scene: Ye Ling lounged with Green Dance coiled about him like a contented serpent, her fingers tracing idle patterns on his chest. Before them lay schematics for a three-meter greatsword—the legendary *Mo Dao*, its dual-edged blade a ghost from forgotten treatises.
"Refuse," Ye Ling drawled, "and your clan perishes. Succeed..." A wolfish grin surfaced. "...and history will name you the artisan who resurrected steel that cleaves iron like parchment."
Lu Yuan's outrage crumbled as he studied the plans. "The hundred-fold refining technique—lost since the Han collapse! How—?"
"Steel mirrors gluten's essence," Ye Ling countered, disentangling from Green Dance to demonstrate with flour-sifted air. "Each forging purges dross until weight stabilises—true steel's birth. Now, transform those ores into ten blades. Three days."
"Two!" The smith's eyes kindled with a craftsman's fire, ambition overriding loyalty. As Lu Yuan departed, Ye Ling's smirk deepened. This was but the opening gambit—future blueprints for repeating crossbows and fire lances already simmered in his mind, awaiting steel's triumph to reshape war itself.
To be continuous…