In the weeks following Meng Tian's departure, a new and strange quiet settled over the Emperor's corner of the Forbidden City. The general's absence was a palpable void. He had been more than a guard; he was a silent, monolithic presence, a mountain of superhuman potential whose very existence had seemed to warp the reality around him. Now, that mountain was gone, traveling east under the official guise of a "coastal inspection tour," a mission legitimized by a formal edict bearing the seal of the Empress Dowager Ci'an.
Ying Zheng felt the absence keenly. Without his general, his invincible shield, he felt a sliver of the vulnerability that was natural to the four-year-old body he inhabited. It forced him to be more cautious, to rely more heavily on the other, more subtle assets he was cultivating. His court had changed. In place of the single, terrifying tiger, he was now constantly flanked by two watchful shadows.
Lotus and Ying had become his new protectors. Their loyalty, forged in fear and awe, had solidified into a quiet, unwavering devotion. Lotus, the boy assassin, had resumed his official role as the Emperor's "playmate." It was a constant, draining performance for the benefit of Cixi's remaining spies. He had to be charming, cheerful, and slightly simple, all while his mind, trained in the arts of deception, was constantly cataloging every glance, every whispered conversation around him.
Ying, the captured female assassin, was now known as a senior palace maid named An. Her official duties involved overseeing the Emperor's personal chambers, his meals, his robes. In reality, her knowledge of the School of the Silent Orchid made her Ying Zheng's chief counter-intelligence advisor. Her eyes, once deadened by a lifetime of brutal training, were now sharp and analytical. She saw the palace not as a home, but as a battlefield of whispers and shadows. She could spot the subtle mannerisms, the almost imperceptible tics, that marked another graduate of her former school. A certain way a serving girl held a tea tray to mask her calloused hands, the way a junior eunuch's gaze lingered a second too long on a locked door—these were the signs she was trained to see, and she now used that training in service of her new master.
Together, they formed a new kind of imperial guard. They were not a wall of muscle and steel like Meng Tian, but a web of heightened senses and covert knowledge.
This new arrangement did not go unnoticed. Li Lianying, the head eunuch, watched the new dynamic with a deep and growing suspicion. His own networks were in disarray, his best agents either turned, neutralized, or chasing ghosts in the archives. He felt his control slipping, and his paranoia now focused on the Emperor's strange new household.
He stood before Cixi in her private chambers, his voice a low, worried hiss.
"Majesty, the situation with the boy is… unnatural," he reported. "Since the departure of the brute Meng Ao, he has taken the two young assassins into his confidence. They are with him constantly. The girl, the one they now call An, never leaves his inner chambers. She tastes his food, she inspects his bedding. She is more a warden than a maid. And the boy, Lotus… he is the Emperor's only companion. They play their games in the garden, but their laughter is… hollow. There is a watchfulness to them all."
Cixi sat, stroking the head of a small, pug-nosed dog that lay in her lap. She considered her eunuch's report. She, too, had noticed the change. But her interpretation was different.
"Let the boy play with his broken toys," she said, her voice filled with a weary contempt. "What harm can they do? They are children. He is a sickly child who clings to the only familiar faces he knows. Lotus has failed as a spy because he is weak. The girl is likely terrified into submission after Meng Ao captured her. They are not a threat."
She waved a dismissive hand. "The real threat was the brute, the man who could shatter stone. And he is gone, hundreds of li away on the coast. This is our opportunity. While the tiger is away, we will not attack the boy's body. We will attack his mind."
Ying Zheng, through his own network, was aware of their dismissal. It was exactly the reaction he had hoped for. Cixi's arrogance, her inability to see children as anything more than pawns or pets, was a critical weakness. While she believed he was simply playing with his new companions, he was, in fact, conducting his own counter-intelligence operations.
In the quiet hours of the afternoon, when his tutors believed he was napping, he would meet with Ying and Lotus in his inner chambers.
"There is another one," Ying reported one afternoon, her voice a barely audible whisper. "A young eunuch who serves in the kitchens of the Empress Dowager Ci'an. His name is Wei. I saw him yesterday. He moves too silently. And he has the scar." She pointed to a tiny, faint white line on her own wrist. "It is from the final loyalty trial at the school. An oath sworn with a poisoned blade. All graduates have it, if you know where to look."
Ying Zheng filed the name away. Another of Cixi's serpents, placed near the gentle Ci'an to monitor her. He was mapping her network, one agent at a time, using the knowledge of the very assassins she had sent to control him.
He was physically more vulnerable than he had been since arriving in this era. The absence of Meng Tian was a constant, low-level thrum of risk. But his human intelligence shield, his web of knowledge and control within the palace walls, was stronger than ever. Cixi thought she was leaving a helpless cub vulnerable by sending the tiger away. She had no idea she had left him alone with two tamed vipers, and that he was teaching them how to hunt for him. He was a spider, patiently building a new web in the center of her old one.