Jun Wu Yi had been listening the whole time, and with each passing word his unease had grown like an ink stain spreading through silk. What at first had been a harmless attempt to console a child had wandered, step by careful step, into dangerous terrain.
Jun Mo Xie's coaxing was casual, sharp, and always two fingers away from a blade. He was not grooming a boy to endure life; it was planting an idea, a poisonous seed.
The adviser's warning flashed in Jun Wu Yi's mind: keep this child placated until the coffers are full and no more.
Let no one fan the embers of ambition. Let no one set the throne's infant heir thinking he might someday light a fire under it.
The old strategist's voice trembled now with the knowledge that a single loose word could become a lamp to watch a house burn.
'What is this kid thinking?' He wondered, helpless and tightly wound.
Jun Mo Xie, however, was smiling as if he had not a care in the world. He read the room the way a swordsman measures distance, accurately, dangerously. He leaned forward a little and spoke with a casual cruelty perfected by practice.
"I am unable to answer this question of yours. Ask your dad when you go back home. I'm sure of what he's going to say: 'Good that they bully! Good that someone else is taking up my role. People bully the true and honest,'" Jun Mo Xie mimicked in an airy, contemptuous voice.
"How do you know that? My father says that every time I'm bullied. He tells me I should be bullied more severely," Yang Mo confessed with a child's naive reverence, and, in those words, Jun Mo Xie found further fuel for his little experiment.
The boy's belief in his father's resigned cruelty was a brittle thing.
Jun Mo Xie meant to test how brittle.
"I obviously know," He Xie said, his tone half-smile and half-knife. "You'll go back and tell your father whatever people tell you. Isn't that so?"
Yang Mo flared red and proud. "I will not betray my friend! My dad told me that people who betray their friends are bad. But I am a good person; I won't betray my friend!"
The boy swung between loyalty and confusion as effortlessly as a swallow.
Jun Mo Xie waved a hand and said, "Why are you worried? How about I tell you a story first?"
The boy's shoulders drooped with the sort of weary hope that only children carry; stories were a salve, a way to make sense of the world.
Jun Wu Yi let out the smallest, almost imperceptible relief and wiped his brow.
'At least they have started telling tales,' He thought.
Yet as Jun Mo Xie's voice folded into the room, the old man's calm evaporated.
"This story," Jun Mo Xie began, "is called the Xuanwu Gate Coup."
He spoke slowly, the cadence of a man who knows how to wound with words. "Li Shimin was the son of a prince in the Tang. He had two elder cousins — Li Jiancheng, the heir, and Li Yuanji. They bullied him at every turn. At first he endured it. But when it became too much, he killed them at Xuanwu Gate. Then he ascended the throne. After that, no one ever bullied him again."
The very air seemed to condense around that sentence.
Jun Wu Yi, who had been trying to soothe the rising tension, felt his skin prickle.
A story, a mere story, and yet how dangerously placed, told here, to this boy, by this man whose instincts were never gentle.
The young master's tale had the effect of pouring oil on embers.
Yang Mo's eyes flashed a spark took hold.
"Good, kill them! Kill them at once! Show them no mercy!" He cried, the childish cadence replaced by something feverish, a glint of fanatical resolve lighting his face. He flung his small arms like a commander calling troops to charge.
Jun Mo Xie's own eyes mirrored the spark. For a breath, he saw the dangerous fruit ripen in the boy's mind: outrage, vengeance, destiny. He'd said too much perhaps, but not without calculation.
"How many words can a small child remember?" He thought. "This is a seed. Water it now and not with fire; coax it into a sapling, don't drown it at once in a flood."
In the privacy of the room, the danger was not abstract.
Jun Wu Yi felt it close enough to taste a revolting, electric tang of possibility. He imagined how this child, kept word by whispered tales and clever nudges, might remember tonight. He imagined the Prince Equivalent's house, the private talks, the broodings, the humiliation, and a boy one day grown who could not bear the memory. He imagined consequences that would claw at the foundations of order.
Jun Mo Xie watched the boy's chest heave, measured the fever, then, as if to soothe the fever he himself had stoked, changed his tone. He pulled back from the precipice and smiled, an easy, careless smile that suggested nothing of strategy. He would not push the boy over, only let him think he had discovered the cliff himself.
Around them the hall hummed: a distant applause from Tang Yuan's ridiculous speech, the delicate clink of porcelain, a world unaware that one sentence, uttered like a pebble dropped into still water, might send a ripple to the very edge of the empire.
The room smelled faintly of tea and incense; the ordinary comforts of living seemed suddenly obscene beside the seed now planted in the prince's son's chest.
Jun Wu Yi's face remained composed, but his fingers tightened on the arm of his chair. He had been spared panic by the boy's immediate excitement, yet a chill ran down his spine.
Jun Mo Xie had a talent for making stories live, he had a dangerous genius for sculpting a boy's mind with tales.
Just then, the true auction began.
Song Shang stepped forward with a respectful bow, his hands carefully cradling a jade tray. Upon it rested a simple-looking wine jar, yet the instant its seal was lifted, an intoxicating fragrance burst forth like a living storm.
A sudden wave of exotic aroma swept through the hall. It was as if a celestial garden had bloomed into existence, sweet, crisp, and rich with layers of fragrance that tugged at every soul present.
The gasps escaped from the crowd and conversations halted mid-sentence. Even those seated on the upper floors, who had been lazily chatting or sipping tea, found their eyes instinctively drawn toward the stage.
"What… what kind of wine is that?" Someone whispered, voice trembling with disbelief.
The air seemed to shimmer. The fragrance didn't just drift but it danced, coiling and twisting like invisible silk ribbons. It filled the hall, teasing nostrils, slipping into the lungs, and making hearts race.
Men and women alike closed their eyes, breathing in deeply as though they could drink the wine through scent alone.
"This aroma… this is no ordinary brew," An elder from a major family muttered, his usually calm demeanor replaced by open admiration. "This… this is worthy of being called Heavenly Grade Wine!"
A murmur of agreement rippled through the audience. For a brief moment, all the arrogance, all the pretenses of nobility were forgotten.
In this hall, there was only awe and hunger.
Even the people sitting behind the pearl curtains leaned forward unconsciously.
The faintest smile appeared on Song Shang's face. He lifted the jar slightly, letting the light catch the jade sheen of its body.
"This, ladies and gentlemen," He announced smoothly, "is not just wine. It is a liquid poem. The first and only bottle of Heavenly Spirit Dew in existence."
A collective shudder of excitement ran through the hall.
Meanwhile, behind Princess Ling Meng, a pair of eyes flashed with an unusual glint. The black-robed man sitting in silent authority was the Emperor himself and he had finally stirred.
He inhaled deeply, allowing the scent to fill his lungs. For a moment, his normally sharp, commanding aura softened into quiet astonishment.
"…Exquisite," He murmured, his voice low, deep, and resonant. "Such purity… even the royal cellar has nothing to compare."
The fragrance continued to linger, each breath fanning the fire of longing in their hearts.
Song Shang bowed again and announced, "The bidding will begin shortly. But before we start, I must warn everyone... such wine is not just a luxury. It is said that even a single drop can cleanse the mind and invigorate the spirit. To drink it is to touch the essence of heaven itself."
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