Let someone better take over? Haha, if Father heard that, I'm sure he'd be chewing your head off.
Don't joke with me, Brother. Of all us siblings, who could compare to you in either knowledge or strength?
Once you ascend the throne and move into the Forbidden City, I can leave for the Sky Mirror Pavilion with peace of mind. I'll set up shop as a scribe and look after all Yan's ancient records. In a way, I'll also take some weight off your shoulders.
......
Brother, no more hesitating! At this point, only you can... convince Father.
The Grand Preceptor... no, all three Grand Ministers support this move! Even in the face of the officers, of Yan's citizens, public opinion will still bear out.
Brother, this is the right thing to do! You can't pull out now!
...I'll stand with you.
......
Why me? Why did it have to be me?!
Our youngest brother died because of you! They all died because of you!
You shove it all on me, make me take the blame alone, deal with the whole warring mess alone, and you just leave like nothing happened?!
Look how idle you are. All the Mid-Autumn festivities of Lungmen, and you don't plan to attend a single one?
Wei Yenwu
Should I? Who wants to see my wrinkly mug on their TV, anyway?
Wei Yenwu
The Schwires' girl is a planner. She'll handle it. She can make anything lively.
Fumizuki
I've watched you grow lazier day after day since we came back from Yumen. You just coop up in your study at home eating snacks. If you don't go out for a walk any time soon, you might just start putting on a beer belly.
Wei Yenwu
Hah hah... I haven't seen Lin Kojui get out much since spring. I can't even find a partner for morning jogs now.
Wei Yenwu
Ah... he's old, I'm old, the young ones know how to do it all. If I keep sticking my head in, they won't think I'm cool.
Fumizuki
So now you understand, huh? If you'd realized any sooner, would little Ch'en have ever left?
Wei Yenwu
......
Fumizuki
How long ago was it?
Wei Yenwu
Sorry, what?
Fumizuki
Little Ch'en. How long has it been since she left?
Wei Yenwu
Five years.
Fumizuki
It's been five years.
Fumizuki
We don't even know what she's going through out there, or how her disease is.
Wei Yenwu
I know she was at Yumen, when I was there.
Wei Yenwu
She's doing fine. Her swordsmanship's progressed... so she's fine, I suppose.
Fumizuki
So you just watched her leave again?
Wei Yenwu
She doesn't want to see me, and she doesn't want to come back. I can't force her.
Wei Yenwu
Don't worry. Her path's longer than ours.
Shadow Guard
Lord Wei, a letter to you.
Wei Yenwu
...That they made you deliver personally...
Shadow Guard
It's from the capital.
Wei Yenwu
......
Fumizuki
The sender...?
Shadow Guard
His Majesty's Imperial Guard.
Fumizuki
Did he have any message aside from the letter?
Shadow Guard
The True Lung invites Lord Wei to the capital for the Feast of a Hundred Delicacies, and for a moon-viewing together.
Fumizuki
......
Wei Yenwu
Leave the letter on my desk. You're dismissed for now.
Shadow Guard
If we may ask what Lord Wei intends.
Wei Yenwu
I have my own plans. None of you need to worry.
Shadow Guard
Lord Wei, we volunteer to escort you to the capital!
Wei Yenwu
...I said you're dismissed!
Fumizuki
......
Fumizuki
Why don't we open up your invitation and see what they wrote exactly?
Wei Yenwu
No need. Just leave it there.
Wei Yenwu
This day was meant to come. I even thought it'd come a little sooner.
Fumizuki
...How many years has it been?
Wei Yenwu
Forty... it's been forty whole years since I left Baizao.
Wei Yenwu
Yumen should've reached the capital by now. I suppose my brother's settling all his old debts in one clean go.
Wei Yenwu
A clean slate in time for autumn... A fine autumn at that.
Fumizuki
You can choose not to go.
Fumizuki
It's been forty years already, what's he going to do? Send another unit of Imperial Guards, a whole army—
Wei Yenwu
...Enough nonsense!
Wei Yenwu
At this point, that's not what he intends...
Fumizuki
Then what does he intend?
Wei Yenwu
You know, I've never really brought up those days with him before...
Fumizuki
Enough. I don't want to hear it.
Wei Yenwu
Fumizuki, I've let down a lot of people throughout my life...
Wei Yenwu
Edward, my sister, my teacher...
Wei Yenwu
And I have to admit that my brother's turned out to be one more on the pile.
Fumizuki
You can also say that it was the position that killed so many people.
Wei Yenwu
...And who had a choice?
Fumizuki
Then it wasn't your fault.
Fumizuki
Even if you'd stayed, would things have turned out better? Would there be no blood?
Fumizuki
Nobody would have remembered a minister pleading the commoners' case. They would only remember a regicidal, fratricidal prince!
Mind your attitude. You're also a theoretical suspect in our crime scene. But seeing as you're a coworker, I'll spare you the interrogation room.
Lin Qingyan
I told you! I saw the culprit on the scene, I just miscalculated and failed to arrest him—
Chen Che
Calm down. Are you going to physically vent on me just because you didn't catch the one who did it?
Lin Qingyan
...I'd have to match your strength first.
Chen Che
Good. You're still somewhat sober.
Chen Che
In light of the years we've spent together in the Judicial, then, can you tell me—
Chen Che
This afternoon, why were you at Ding Feng Lou, at the scene of the crime?
Lin Qingyan
...An investigation.
Lin Qingyan
In the runup to the Feast of a Hundred Delicacies, we've had the scrollery be burned, then two fires at Ding Feng Lou. Don't you think this string of cases could be connected somehow?
Chen Che
So you're saying you knew beforehand that someone would set fire to Ding Feng Lou today, and thus you were lying in wait for them?
Lin Qingyan
I was just there following up a lead...
Chen Che
'Just' there following up a lead... Do you need me to list off every action you've taken the last few days?
Lin Qingyan
You've been tailing me?
Chen Che
I don't have that sort of free time... but I have ways of knowing these things, naturally.
Chen Che
Let me ask once more. Who were you meeting at Ding Feng Lou today?
Lin Qingyan
...I fear I'm not the only one working on the sly.
Chen Che
Explain?
Lin Qingyan
For your information, you never told me the Ministry of Rites' files on Gu Quan were forged, and that he was sent to death row before leaving Baizao... As a minister, you must have known these things.
Lin Qingyan
These are all clearly key points of evidence. Why were they nowhere to be found in the Judicial Review Office archives? And why would you cover up—
Chen Che
So this is the lead on the scrollery fire that you've been toiling over for the last few days...? How did you find any of this out?
Lin Qingyan
It's none of your concern how I found out...
Chen Che
There is a piece of advice I gave to Yu Cheng in the past, and I will give it to you now.
Chen Che
Some past affairs are learned of. Some are not learned of. In both cases, there are reasons why.
Chen Che
Some things are best left forgotten by all.
Lin Qingyan
I never imagined I'd hear those words come from a minister.
Chen Che
You may consider me a schemer all you like, a minister merely booted over from the Ministry of Justice.
Chen Che
But I know exactly what I'm saying.
Lin Qingyan
And I know that regardless of the thousands of reasons you might have, the truth is still and merely the truth, not anyone's tool to broaden the divide.
Lin Qingyan
There will always be someone who remembers the truth, and the meaning behind it.
Chen Che
For example, that girl shut in the next room—whom you took every pain to secretly bring back to Baizao all the way from Victoria?
Lin Qingyan
......
Lin Qingyan
Yes... I did uncover that Gu Quan had a daughter in Victoria. She too can provide vital testimony in the Gu Quan case—
Chen Che
Lin Qingyan, when will you stop playing dumb?
Chen Che
You've already found out that the Gu Quan files are fake. You know Yu Cheng is on the trail of that very case...
Chen Che
So I'm guessing you've also found out about the child who the Imperial Guard brought back forty years ago, who they recorded in the files as deceased... You have your suspicions as to the truth of this case, correct?
Chen Che
Was that girl you brought back here born in Victoria, or born in Baizao?
Lin Qingyan
—!
Chen Che
You know full well.
Chen Che
You clearly long suspected her identity, and still, you decided to bring her back. Were you that confident you could pull this off without a hitch...
Chen Che
Or was it that in pursuit of the 'truth', you didn't even care if she lived or died?
Lin Qingyan
You're threatening me...
Chen Che
You think I'm joking?
Lin Qingyan's gaze fixes tight on the minister's notes. She doesn't even notice how her own attire is soaked through in cold sweat.
But in the next instant, with a bizarre warping of light, the paper in her hands vanishes.
Chen Che
But back on topic, that's not what I care about. At least, right now, it's not what I care about most.
Chen Che
I've told you, past affairs are never as important as present.
Lin Qingyan
So what are these present affairs of yours?
Chen Che
You know that Yumen is less than a hundred li from Baizao right now. For three months, Baizao has been preparing to split up and move.
Lin Qingyan
...And how does this relate to the Gu Quan case?
Chen Che
Should you keep investigating this case, then there will only be one person in all of Yan who can give you your answers.
Lin Qingyan
......
Chen Che
Qingyan, take one step out of this door, and I can no longer protect you.
At the Ch'ens' old place, in the study, there's a secret closet. After I leave, go there, and take what's inside.
Wei Yenwu
Follow those instructions, and you can protect Lungmen's safety, and your own.
Fumizuki
So you're going?
Wei Yenwu
Now's the perfect time to. Kojui's girl is doing a great job handling the downtown, and the Schwires' future doesn't rest on the sick old tiger anymore.
Wei Yenwu
Lungmen doesn't need a Wei Yenwu anymore, or a Chief Executive...
Fumizuki
I think you're giving your last words a little too early.
Wei Yenwu
This is about Lungmen's future... Fumizuki, listen to me...
Wei Yenwu
I've made a lot of mistakes, done a lot of things I regret... but Lungmen, our city, built by us... a home to millions—
Wei Yenwu
Lungmen must stay.
Fumizuki
Then you stay too, and take care of it.
Fumizuki
Youngsters can handle it all, but it still needs some oldies to look after it.
Wei Yenwu
You see this letter too. How am I meant to ignore this?
Fumizuki
So once again you'll just roll over and die? Just like last time you'd pay with your life, is that how you're envisioning it? Does that make anything even?
Wei Yenwu
...It's different this time!
Wei Yenwu
There's no one standing on the other side, I'm just facing my own debts.
Wei Yenwu
I made a choice forty years ago... and ever since, with every action I take, I try to convince myself—that even knowing how many people I've failed, I was still right to make that choice.
Wei Yenwu
But I can't run forever.
Fumizuki
You know, your life's never been yours alone. Not then, and certainly not now.
Fumizuki
Forget about sacrificing yourself to make up for anything. You can't make up for a mistake with another mistake—it never ends that way. At our age, we should've already learned that lesson well.
All that Judicial lady asked was what I saw during the fire, and I just told the truth—I didn't see anything! So then she let me go.
Blaze
The heck did you do? How come you took so long?
Lin Qingyan
It's no matter now. Let's go.
Blaze
Wait, wait, wait! Go? Why?
Blaze
That Mo Bufu clearly still has tons of answers! Aren't we gonna follow up with him?!
Lin Qingyan
There's nothing to follow up on.
Blaze
Pardon?
Lin Qingyan
I'm not meddling with your father's case anymore.
Lin Qingyan
I'll get you out of Baizao in the next day or two.
Blaze
Lin Qingyan! That's one stupid joke to tell me now, you know that?!
Blaze
No, wait... you just found a new lead, didn't you? That's why you're just screwing with me?
Blaze
Okay now, for real, tell me what you found or—
Lin Qingyan
Blaze!
Blaze
You—
Lin Qingyan
I got the official debriefing from the Judicial case files.
Lin Qingyan
Gu Quan... an ethnic Yanese from Victoria, joined the Ministry of Rites in 1077 as a ceremonial officer.
Lin Qingyan
Reassigned as envoy of ceremonial rites in 1092, headed for Victoria as part of a diplomatic mission. On the way, encountered an unexpected snowstorm, and passed away after falling into a river.
Blaze
What...?
Blaze
Leizi... you're lying to me, aren't you...? Just trying to shove me out of the picture again?
Lin Qingyan
You've been asking me just what the deal was with your father's death, haven't you?
Lin Qingyan
Well, every lead's been thoroughly investigated. There's no doubt. That's it, it was just an accident...
In creeps the mid-autumn. The night sky is moonless.
Out in the streets, the energy poles churn away at max output, but the drop in temperature is still noticeable to some.
All falls still in the dead of night. The human sea recedes. The biting breeze blows through.
Jiang
Achoo—!
Young Chef
If you're that cold, just turn on the heater.
Jiang
Easy for you to say. If we're going to keep running this shabby little eatery, we have to pinch every penny we can on warmth...
Jiang
Dammit, look how late it is. When will Blaze and her friend show up?
Young Chef
You're wondering about that reward money, huh...
Jiang
A... Am not! Achoo—!
Jiang
Is this window letting air in? I need to fix it later—
Jiang
Wait, are they back...?
Jiang
—!
Jiang
You... You're—
Mo Bufu
What? Am I not allowed in?
Jiang
P-Please, come inside, I'll put on some tea for you now... Anything to eat?
Mo Bufu
Noodles. Longevity noodles.
Jiang
R... Right, I'll make you some now!
Mo Bufu
Ones made by your boss.
Jiang
W-Well...
Jiang glances back at the staircase where the Young Chef had been standing; by now he's vanished without a trace.
Jiang
Er... he's out on business.
Mo Bufu
Then I'll wait for him here.
Jiang
Far, far out... he won't be back for a fortnight.
Mo Bufu
And I'll still wait.
Mo Bufu
I've waited thirty years. So long that I'm shriveled up. What's a little longer?
Jiang
Chef Mo, please don't joke around now...
Jiang
You're the first under heaven when it comes to cooking. What could be worth wasting your time here?
Mo Bufu
Ma de... First under whose heaven?!
Mo Bufu downs his teacup in one go.
The hot tea spills from the corners of his mouth, and drips down his wizened white beard.
Mo Bufu
I remember clearly... that winter thirty years ago, a Catastrophe wrecked my home village. Those of us lucky enough to survive took off, me with nothing but my cooking skills. We thought, let's scrape by in Baizao.
Mo Bufu
We went through hell. We were almost there when we ran into another group of refugees—or maybe a bandit gang, I'm not sure.
Mo Bufu
They followed us for a long way across that icy waste, weapons in hand. We began to realize that they were after the remaining supplies and rations we had left.
Mo Bufu
By the time we'd been trekking for a month, plenty of us were sick or hurt. We had barely scraps left to eat, far from enough for both sides to cross that wasteland.
Mo Bufu
There was no escape, so we decided we may as well risk it all with them. However, when we were just about to go out fighting, we smelt something delicious. That's when we saw him...
There was an old temple not far away from where we were. Someone'd set up a stove by the gateway, boiling up a wok of noodles. We couldn't see his face properly, through all the steam.
Mo Bufu
We had no clue why someone would be making noodles there, but we were past the point of wondering, of asking, even of fighting.
Mo Bufu
That wonderful smell and those piping hot noodles drew all of us near the wok, and we waited around him quietly.
Mo Bufu
Never before had I eaten something so delicious...
Mo Bufu
The moment those noodles entered my mouth, I felt like my tongue had been numb for decades, only to spring back to life right then and there.
Mo Bufu
All along, I never knew that a meal could taste so arresting, so absorbing.
Mo Bufu
It felt like a flavor beyond us humans...
Mo Bufu
By the time I finished my noodles and looked up from my bowl, he was gone.
Who knew that in my lifetime studying as a cook, the most profound lesson I'd learn would be in a shack of a temple outside Baizao City.
Mo Bufu
From then on, I apprenticed all over, so that one day, I might make a bowl of noodles like those.
Mo Bufu
But I couldn't... In the end, I just can't.
Jiang
You know, what if you're misremembering... I mean, look, you were starving at the time, maybe that's why you found that bowl of noodles so tasty—
Mo Bufu
Do you not trust my tongue?
Mo Bufu
Thirty years a bowl of noodles has been burned into my mind. Thirty years I've been searching for it.
Mo Bufu
If whoever that was is still in Baizao, he must be over fifty by now...
Mo Bufu
I searched all over this city. The well-known tea maker in the north, nothing. The guy who made the best pastries in the south, still nothing...
Mo Bufu
I searched and searched, until my fellow oldies in cooking retired, and only I was left. I was on the verge of giving up...
Mo Bufu
But today, once more, I tasted it...
Mo Bufu
I don't know why... her cooking skills were immature, but the noodles she brought forth tasted exactly like it.
Mo Bufu
It was your chef here who taught her those noodles, am I right?
Jiang
How do you know...
Mo Bufu
We sent out a hundred written invitations for the Ding Feng Lou competition. I can recall every one. I've long been aware your Savors at Yu's had a reputation.
Mo Bufu
I don't know what kind of relation your chef and that savior of mine have, and I have no clue why he's willing to waste his talents away like this.
Mo Bufu
But I won't do the same... All the cooking skills I've inherited over the years, I can't let them end with me.
Mo Bufu stands, produces a letter from his pocket, and places it on the table.
Mo Bufu
...You tell him this. That untrained disciple of his? She passes.
Mo Bufu
Tell her to report to Ding Feng Lou two days later before noon.
Jiang
Huh...? She just—passes?
Mo Bufu
You get good enough business here. Did this doorstep sink again recently?
Jiang
We haven't replaced it in over ten years.
Mo Bufu
Low doorsteps can't keep the wind out. It's getting colder in the coming days.
Jiang
The boss won't let me. He says the lower, the better. Too high and all the diners will stop coming.
Mo Bufu
......
Mo Bufu steps over that low, low doorstep, and disappears into the thick of night.
Once again, the restaurant is empty save for squalls of wind through the hall. Their whistle grows louder, as if lamenting.
Young Chef
...Is he gone?
Jiang
*Sigh*... You really are—*Sigh*!
Young Chef
I heard Blaze passed the test? Does that mean the prize money—
Jiang
Forget about the prize money!
Jiang
What's wrong with you to torment a man like that... He's seventy, eighty years old, and you'll just watch him freak out like that?
Young Chef
He just can't find an apprentice to fit him, right? What's to worry about... Look at me, I never worry about things like that.
Jiang
Put yourself in his shoes, he's spent a lifetime honing his craft, just for it to be lost in a blink—
Young Chef
Well, if it's lost, it's lost.
Jiang
Ai—!
Young Chef
It's his future reputation he cares about right now, it's the title of 'first under heaven' he's carrying, it's others' cuisine he's obsessed with—there's no way he can focus on his own craft and improve it at this rate.
Young Chef
If he can't make it through this, nobody can help him.
Jiang
......
Jiang
Aiyo, Blaze's back.
Jiang
Look how late it is, I bet you haven't eaten? I'll go make you something now.
Blaze
Yeah...
Young Chef
Congrats! I've got good news for you, you passed the Ding Feng Lou exam.
Young Chef
We'll split the reward money thirty-seventy like we agreed—
Blaze
Yeah.
Young Chef
You don't care?
Young Chef
If you're that good for money, how about leaving your thirty percent of—
Jiang
Huh? Xingzhu didn't come back with you?
Blaze
—!
Blaze
Right, where's Xingzhu?
Young Chef
Oh, she dropped in this afternoon while Jiang was out buying ingredients. She left you a note too.
Blaze
Left me a note...?
Blaze
You have passed the Ding Feng Lou Chef Selection. Please fol—
Young Chef
Oh, whoops, whoops, wrong one. It's this one.
Blaze
......
Young Chef
What could be so secret she has to leave it in a note for you?
