After Cracking Three Madmen’s Skulls - Chapter 2

Back at the estate, I held a cup of tea and watched Xiaohe dress Ling Zhao’s wounds.

He had taken off his clothes. Purple welts striped his white-jade back.

He sat with his head bowed, saying nothing.

I understood. The illustrious Young Master Ling had probably never suffered humiliation like this.

The Ling clan stood foremost among the great aristocratic houses. The old Marquis of Ling had helped the founding emperor win the realm, and the family had produced three empresses.

As the legitimate son of the marquis and the grand princess, Ling Zhao was naturally of exalted birth, renowned throughout the capital.

But the Ling family had become too powerful. The tallest tree caught the wind; too much could be as dangerous as too little.

When the crown prince made his bid for power, he targeted the Lings, beginning with Ling Zhao. He exposed Ling Zhao as the product of a night between the emperor and Lady Ling. Such a birth violated heavenly and worldly morality, he claimed; Ling Zhao should therefore be reduced to servitude, at anyone’s mercy.

The emperor suffered a stroke in his rage. Lady Ling hanged herself. The marquis fainted several times from distress.

With the great tree fallen, everyone scattered. All Yanjing trembled in the storm.

And Ling Zhao was a sheep surrounded by wolves.

The door banged open, shattering the silence.

“Shen Ye! How could you make a scene with General Pei in the street?”

Thick eyebrows, big eyes, a powerful build.

My brother, Shen Yan.

He was shaking with anger.

“Shen Ye, do you have any idea what you’re doing? He… he…”

Xiaohe withdrew. Ling Zhao pulled his clothes on and started to kneel.

He knew that by bringing him home, Shen Ye had made the Shen family a target too. But in his desperation, all he’d been able to think about was staying alive.

I caught him before he could kneel, then turned to Shen Yan.

“Brother, His Majesty personally ordered that he be given to our family as a servant.”

Shen Yan was too furious to think.

“All the more reason to throw him out!”

My head ached. My brother was a soldier. He only ever looked at what was directly in front of him.

“Brother, have you considered what would happen to me if I really did give him a vicious whipping?”

Patiently, I explained.

I would die.

I could never forget my ending.

The very night Pei Yi rescued Ling Zhao, he sent men to pull a sack over my head and throw me to a pack of wild dogs to fight over and devour.

But Shen Yan remained agitated, pacing back and forth and tugging at his hair.

I understood what worried him.

“Brother, I know you’ve been avoiding Pei Yi. He wants to recruit you, and you don’t want to join him.”

“But hiding won’t work. Pei Yi is a mad dog. If you keep him waiting for an answer, he’ll have you killed in secret.”

Shen Yan’s ending was to have both legs broken and his body left in the wilderness.

Old General Shen coughed blood at court, his hair turning white overnight. Pei Yi seized the Shen family’s military command, and the whole ducal household became a sacrifice in the struggle for the throne.

Avoiding trouble was useless. The moment the emperor bestowed Ling Zhao on our family, we became a thorn in every faction’s side.

By making today’s confrontation with Pei Yi public, I’d made it harder for him to strike immediately.

With the male lead in my hands, I still had room to maneuver.

Only then did Shen Yan realize how serious things were.

“Then… what do we do?”

I pulled up a stool for him.

“Counter each move as it comes.”

Someone was bound to lose patience.

The crown prince had gone to enormous trouble. With Ling Zhao almost in his grasp, he wouldn’t simply let go.

I tipped my chin toward Ling Zhao.

“Do you remember being abducted after placing third in the examinations?”

The color drained from his face. His body began to tremble.

Of course he remembered.

The criminal had bound him, covered his eyes with black cloth, stripped him naked, and humiliated him with filthy words. He had even summoned a crowd to watch.

His hoarse pleas for mercy only heightened the man’s pleasure. His tears as he broke down became the man’s trophies of victory.

“So the third-place scholar is even more wanton in bed than a whore.”

In panic and terror, he had been brutally torn open. Everything he knew of propriety and shame had collapsed in one night. Darkness enfolded him in profound despair, leaving him lost within it.

…

I held him still, trying to stop his shaking.

“Look carefully. That man has a red mole on the inside of his wrist.”

Ling Zhao seemed to consider it. Then stark disbelief flashed in his eyes.

A commotion broke out beyond the door. A eunuch’s shrill voice rang out.

“The Shen household is harboring the son of a disgraced minister. By order of His Highness the Crown Prince, arrest them all!”

Dozens of black-armored imperial guards burst in, bristling with menace. Their heavy armor had sharp edges; their polished blades gleamed coldly.

Chains clamped mercilessly around my wrists and pulled tight. In an instant, all three of us were prisoners.

Shen Yan dared not resist, but he planted himself squarely in front of me.

“Eunuch, we accepted Ling Zhao as a servant on His Majesty’s orders! How can that be harboring a criminal’s son?”

The air froze.

A chilling voice cut in.

“You think you’re worthy of taking Ling Zhao as your servant?”

The crown prince approached slowly. His face was handsome, his bearing noble, but an inescapable shadow always lingered around his eyes.

I nudged Shen Yan and gave a small shake of my head.

Ling Zhao was the apparent target; the real aim lay elsewhere.

The crown prince had gained much from his schemes. Without his father’s pressure or the great clans’ restraints, he seemed to hold all the cards.

But seizing the throne would not be so easy.

The remaining aristocratic houses in the capital were led by the Shens. Pei Yi’s army was stationed around the capital. And the prince regent watched hungrily from his fief.

Who would win was still uncertain.

So, like Pei Yi, the crown prince needed our family.

Ling Zhao was merely the prize thrown into their contest for the throne.