The Left Chancellor in Red - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

On the day I was appointed Left Chancellor, I had a few drinks with several colleagues I knew well.

By the time I returned to my estate, the sky had already grown dark. For some reason, unease prickled at me, and even my right eyelid twitched.

It felt as if something terrible was about to happen.

There had been no fire in the estate. The memorials in my study were still stacked neatly where they belonged. No thief had broken in.

I went back to my own courtyard and felt beneath my pillow for the little square box hidden there. Only then did I finally let out a breath of relief.

But I had barely gotten halfway through that breath when a young servant came in, not daring to raise his head, a letter held in both hands.

“What is this?”

“It’s a family letter from Lord Song in Lingzhou.”

The moment I saw the bold, sprawling characters on the envelope, my vision went dark.

I had almost forgotten. My greatest threat was not anyone else, but that older brother of mine who had held office for five years and been demoted seventeen times.

Song Qing’an and I were born of the same mother. When we were little, even our parents could not tell us apart.

He was an idle wastrel who hated studying and skipped class every day to watch cricket fights.

As it happened, I disliked needlework, so I changed into boys’ clothes and pretended to be him at the private academy.

Perhaps reading too many books had made my heart too wild.

I could not accept the thought that, a few years later, the words “by order of one’s parents and the matchmaker’s arrangement” would shackle me into marrying some man and becoming his wife.

Song Qing’an took the opportunity to give me a rotten idea.

“You’ve read so many books. Don’t you want to enter court as an official and put your ambitions to use?”

I had been thinking of trying the imperial examination anyway. Who would have thought that when the results were posted, I would pass as the top scholar-and my brother, by some freak stroke of luck, would also become a presented scholar.

When the crowd of well-wishers packed our doorway in a black mass, my father asked in bewilderment,

“Wife, why do I remember us having one son and one daughter back then?”

My mother pinched his arm.

“Husband, is it possible our daughter grew one of those after she was born?”

It was not possible.

When my parents learned that I had disguised myself as a man and passed the exam as the top scholar, they nearly fainted from fright.

If the truth came out now, it would be the crime of deceiving the sovereign. Our entire family would lose their heads.

They worried for several days, and in the end, with no other choice, they could only exhort us over and over,

“You siblings will both be entering court as officials. You must look after each other. You absolutely cannot let anyone discover your identities!”

My brother bit into a peach, grinning with a foolish look on his face.

“Little sister, Father and Mother want you to take good care of me.”

I darkened my expression.

“Serving as an official is not like being at home. Song Qing’an, if you cause a few fewer disasters, I’ll consider that you doing me a favor.”

As a result, in his very first year as an official, Song Qing’an got greedy and drank one extra cup of wine from the Right Chancellor, and was immediately branded as one of the Right Chancellor’s faction.

The Right Chancellor’s push for reforms failed, and my brother was dragged down with him and demoted out of the capital.

On the day he left the capital, he clutched my hand with tears in his eyes.

“Little sister, you have to work harder and get promoted. The capital’s steamed lamb, steamed bear paw, steamed deer tail, roast duck, roast spring chicken, roast goose, braised pork, braised duck, soy-sauce chicken, cured meat, preserved-egg pork belly, air-dried meat, sausages, assorted Su-style platters… I haven’t eaten enough of them yet.”

The corner of my mouth twitched. “May you choke on your own gluttony.”

From the Late Emperor’s passing to the New Emperor’s ascension, over these five years, Song Qing’an had been demoted seventeen times, and I had fished him out seventeen times.

I climbed rank after rank until I became Left Chancellor, while my brother was demoted again and again until he was banished to the remote, scarcely inhabited Lingzhou.

If he were banished any farther, he would have to go live as a savage.

My vision went dark again as I opened his letter.