HCT – Chapter 257 A Coffin of Catalpa Wood, Abalone as Funeral Fees

Ying Zheng rarely allowed himself a day off, so he naturally returned to stay at his original manor.

No servants were permitted to enter the courtyard—inside the room were only Zhu Xiang and Ying Zheng, uncle and nephew.

Ying Zheng lay on a soft couch, a large, plush cotton pillow propped against his chest, with a book set before it.

Zhu Xiang sat in a chair beside the soft couch, also with a cushion at his waist.

A small brazier sat before him, and on the brazier rested a copper mesh that was slightly larger than its opening.

A kettle sat in the center of the glowing-hot mesh, and around the kettle were tangerines—tribute fruits brought from southern Qin.

The scent of roasting tangerines filled the room.

Zhu Xiang picked up one, peeled a segment, and held it to Ying Zheng’s lips. Ying Zheng opened his mouth to receive it.

“Do you want to hear it?” Zhu Xiang asked with a gentle smile.

Ying Zheng swallowed the tangerine segment and replied irritably, “Uncle, you must be joking.”

“Do you want to hear it?” Zhu Xiang asked again.

Ying Zheng ground his teeth. “Fine! I’ll listen!”

Zhu Xiang offered him another segment.

Ying Zheng chewed the soft, warm tangerine with great force, gritting his teeth.

Zhu Xiang chuckled. “You must have heard the legend—that after death, a person can reincarnate, and someone reborn may recall their past life. And that past life might not have been in this world.”

Ying Zheng muttered, “Nor necessarily this world’s past.”

Zhu Xiang nodded and offered another tangerine segment.

Ying Zheng refused and pointed at the walnuts on the side.

Zhu Xiang popped the tangerine into his own mouth, picked up the nutcracker, and cracked the walnuts for Ying Zheng.

“My past life was unusual—I came from more than two thousand years in the future,” Zhu Xiang said. “In the world I’m from, Qin Shihuang’s uncle probably died very early.”

A sharp pain surged in Ying Zheng’s chest. He pushed himself upright and turned to face Zhu Xiang. “Uncle…”

Zhu Xiang handed him the peeled walnut kernels.

Ying Zheng took them but didn’t eat them.

“Not eating?” Zhu Xiang asked.

Ying Zheng’s voice was muffled. “How can I eat? Uncle, you…”

Zhu Xiang said, “Should I continue the story?”

Ying Zheng squeezed the walnut kernels hard, nearly crushing them. “…Mm.”

“Records from two thousand years ago are scarce. Later generations know very little about the pre-Qin era.”

Ying Zheng repeated heavily, “The pre-Qin era…”

“After all,” Zhu Xiang continued, “Qin Shihuang burned books and buried scholars. The only surviving copies of the classics were kept in Xianyang Palace, and then the Qin dynasty fell with the Second Emperor. Xianyang Palace was burned down by Xiang Yu.”

Ying Zheng’s brow jumped violently. “Burning books and burying scholars? I didn’t… Ah. So I still end up doing it.”

Zhu Xiang didn’t pursue his slip. “But some important events were still passed down—like the King circling the pillar, the King dragging his sword…”

“Uncle!” Ying Zheng leapt off the couch, eyes wide. “Who recorded that?!”

Infuriating! Weren’t the Qin books all burned? Why wasn’t that burned? Who dared let that incident spread outside the palace?!

Zhu Xiang laughed. “Is the reason you insisted on fighting three assassins alone this time because you still held a grudge over ‘the King circling the pillar and dragging his sword’?”

Ying Zheng’s face twitched. He sat back down on the couch, dangling his legs, and silently ate the crushed walnut kernels from his palm.

Crunch, crunch. Crunch, crunch.

He regretted it now—he should’ve listened to Uncle Cai and let the guards capture the assassins. He shouldn’t have insisted on doing it himself. It made him look like he cared too much about that stupid affair.

After finishing the walnuts, Ying Zheng asked, “Weren’t you going to talk about the fall of the Second Emperor? Why sidetrack?”

Zhu Xiang said, “I was easing your mood. Preparing you.”

Ying Zheng dusted off his hands, pretending to be casual. “I’m ready. I won’t demote Fusu to commoner.”

Zhu Xiang shook his head. “Fusu wasn’t the one who succeeded. It was Huhai.”

Ying Zheng shot up again, disbelief written all over his face. “Impossible!”

“You never named a crown prince even when you were nearly fifty,” Zhu Xiang said. “And you died while on an inspection tour in the south. What do you expect?”

Ying Zheng shut his eyes and took several deep breaths, chest heaving.

Only after a long while did he open his bloodshot eyes and rasp, “A forged edict.”

Zhu Xiang looked up and saw the deep grief and pain on Ying Zheng’s face.

He suspected that in truth, Ying Zheng must have deeply cherished his youngest son Huhai.

Before Zhu Xiang even continued, Ying Zheng could guess much of the story from the title alone.

As though seeking confirmation—and also murmuring to himself—he said:

“Zhao Gao is one of my most trusted close aides. I bring him with me on eastern and southern tours. From your hatred of him, he must be the mastermind.”

“Huhai is young, and if he ascends by forged edict, he would definitely kill Fusu. Destroying his own kin… destroying his whole clan… Perhaps the other princes oppose him, they fight among themselves, and that allows the one called Xiang Yu to take Xianyang? Xiang Yu… must be the descendant of Xiang Yan of Chu. So a scion of old Chu destroys Qin?”

“Pointing at a deer and calling it a horse… Zhao Gao must be seizing power at court.”

The “blackened” Zhu Xiang felt his annoyance vanish at the sight of Ying Zheng’s suffering, replaced by a wave of pity.

He sighed. “You’ve guessed most of it. But the Qin princes didn’t oppose Huhai—your imperial authority was too absolute. Using your name, Huhai ordered Fusu to commit suicide, and then killed over thirty of your children. I don’t remember the details—I wasn’t a history major. It’s said your children died miserably—some dismembered, some crushed under carts. The ones forced to kill themselves were considered the lucky ones.”

Ying Zheng’s eyes widened, blank and hollow.

After a long time, he blinked. “…Why so far?”

He had already expected Huhai to kill many of his brothers.

But why kill sisters who posed no threat? Why use such cruel methods to torture his siblings?

This was no longer political struggle. Nor something Zhao Gao could take the blame for.

For Huhai to issue such orders… he must have enjoyed watching his siblings die in agony.

“That,” Zhu Xiang said, “is what it means to destroy one’s own clan.”

Ying Zheng slumped on the edge of the bed, struggling to speak. “If that is self-destruction of the household… then what about destroying the Great Wall?”

“You died less than a year before Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rebelled…”

“Rebel?!” Ying Zheng interrupted sharply.

“Yes,” Zhu Xiang said calmly. “A rebellion. The people were starving, they rose up. That is a rebellion. Most later dynasties were destroyed by peasant uprisings.”

Ying Zheng’s lips moved soundlessly before he whispered, “…Uncle, continue.”

“When you were alive, Zhao Gao once committed a crime punishable by death. The one presiding was Meng Yi, who handled the case impartially. But you favored Zhao Gao and spared him.”

Ying Zheng inhaled deeply, fists tightening, eyes shutting painfully.

“When you burned books and buried scholars, Fusu remonstrated with you. Angered, you sent him to General Meng Tian to oversee construction at the Great Wall. So later generations say that by then, he had already been stripped of succession rights, and that you intended Huhai to inherit…”

Ying Zheng opened his eyes.

He shouted angrily, “The Great Wall is close to Xianyang! There are fast roads—returning takes only a few days! What exile?! I sent Fusu to Meng Tian to see firsthand that the six former states had never truly submitted! Severe measures were necessary! And he has always been brave—under Meng Tian’s protection, if he could command troops and earn merit, it would benefit him!”

“I am dissatisfied with Fusu. His mother betrayed me. He is too naïve… Benevolence, benevolence—do you think I don’t know the need to nurture the people? I restrained myself with the six states for so long—I even suppressed the rewards due to Qin soldiers just to avoid taking more land from the six states! I gave scholars of the East supervisory power over governance!”

“And how did they repay me?!”

“Empty righteousness! No capability to govern! If Fusu believed benevolence alone could pacify rioters from the six states, he needed to go to the Great Wall and see if criminals would obey him because he’s kind!”

Ying Zheng’s chest heaved with pent-up frustration.

“Huhai… Huhai is the son of a concubine of Hu ethnicity. After the six states were destroyed, future kings had to come from noblewomen of the former states to dissolve their power. Huhai was never eligible for the throne.”

“So I pitied him. Loved him.”

“I appointed Zhao Gao to teach him, but expected nothing academically. I only hoped that no matter which brother inherited, he could live wealthy and safe.”

“He reciprocated. He treated me as an ordinary father. I was only a father before him—not an emperor. He was only a son, not a prince. I thought that between us there were no chains of power, so we were closer than I was with my other children…”

Ying Zheng raised a single hand to cover his eyes.

“I never taught him how to rule. Never gave him any faction in court. He understood nothing… could do nothing…”

Zhu Xiang’s voice turned cold. “Nothing? Could do nothing? He massacred his siblings—that wasn’t just Zhao Gao’s idea. Zhao Gao didn’t have absolute power yet. Are you sure that the dismembering and crushing of innocent siblings was something he ‘didn’t understand’ or ‘couldn’t do’?”

Ying Zheng’s grief faltered.

Zhu Xiang continued, “Even if the earlier cruelties could be excused as political necessity… and even if killing Meng Tian and Meng Yi could be excused as eliminating supporters of Fusu… after the Chen Sheng and Wu Guang uprising, the Second Emperor not only failed to suppress the rebellion but indulged in greater decadence, killing ministers and refusing reinforcements for the frontlines. Can you still blame that on ignorance?”

Ying Zheng had no answer.

Zhu Xiang concluded, “Even if he truly didn’t understand—an incompetent emperor is still guilty.”

His irritation at Ying Zheng’s defensiveness surged again—Ying Zheng really did dote on Huhai. Even when he believed Zhu Xiang’s “future,” he couldn’t stop defending him.

Yet Zhu Xiang also felt helpless about that anger.

Ying Zheng was not only Qin Shihuang, but also a father.

He was dissatisfied with his originally intended heir, Fusu, so all the princes of Qin were his backup candidates for crown prince.

As he himself said, he disciplined all his other sons strictly and demanded that they cultivate their own factions.

Only Huhai’s birth status was too low and didn’t meet the requirements for future political marriage alliances of the Qin royal family, so Ying Zheng always treated Huhai simply as a son to be spoiled.

Fatherly affection mingled with power was different from pure fatherly affection—at least, Ying Zheng believed it was different.

So when he discovered that this son’s true nature was not as he had thought, that this son had committed a tremendous crime and even ruined the ancestral foundation, Ying Zheng still couldn’t bring himself to blame Huhai immediately.

Throughout history, even when emperors faced sons who rebelled, they would first blame others for having corrupted the child.

Humans are not plants—who can be without emotion, even if Huhai was worse than a beast.

“Li Si betrayed you as well,” Zhu Xiang did not hide anything. “At the time, you entrusted your posthumous affairs to Zhao Gao and Li Si. Fusu disliked Li Si, and Zhao Gao persuaded Li Si to join him in falsifying the edict to make Huhai succeed the throne.”

“They concealed your death and rushed day and night to return to Xianyang. Your corpse began to rot, so they piled salted fish in your carriage… This later became a common saying: ‘Ying Zheng’s coffin consumed much salted fish.’” Zhu Xiang said. “In this era, baoyu means rotten, salted fish.”

The sorrow on Ying Zheng’s face disappeared.

Ying Zheng blinked, stunned and incredulous. “Ha?! What salted fish?”

Zhu Xiang replied, “Ying Zheng, coffin, much salted fish!”

Ying Zheng: “…I will immediately order Li Si to be dismembered by five horses!”

Damn Li Si!!!!!

Zhu Xiang shrugged. “When Qin Ershi was committing atrocities, Li Si fulfilled his duty as chancellor. He refused to join Qin Ershi and Zhao Gao in their misdeeds and repeatedly admonished him. So Qin Ershi and Zhao Gao executed his entire family, and before he died he suffered brutal torture.”

Ying Zheng gnashed his teeth. “That’s too easy for him!”

Zhu Xiang asked, “So you’ve detached yourself from the feelings of your past life?”

Ying Zheng: “…”

He drew up his legs and sat back down on the bed, silent.

Zhu Xiang said, “Originally I didn’t want to tell you these things. This life and my previous one are completely different now. But you—have things been going too smoothly for you? Have you become complacent?”

Ying Zheng glared at him.

Zhu Xiang continued, “To rule a vast empire—if an emperor doesn’t tread carefully as though walking on thin ice, flames of war will rise everywhere. Even if Chen Sheng and Wu Guang haven’t shouted ‘Are kings and lords born superior?’ yet, there were already bandits like Dao Zhi and Zhuang Qiao. When Qin met years of famine or excessive corvée, several uprisings occurred.”

Ying Zheng muttered, “Water can carry a boat and overturn it. Both you and Master Xun have taught me.”

“Yes,” Zhu Xiang said, “and we also taught you not to take reckless risks.”

Ying Zheng sighed helplessly. “Uncle… I was wrong. I won’t take risks again.”

Zhu Xiang said, “Master Xun and I also taught you to employ the worthy, not rely on your own likes and dislikes. Zhao Gao should have been a dead man already. If you didn’t want to punish him, why let Meng Yi interrogate him? Interrogating him without punishing him—did you think he’d be moved? No. This weakened the majesty of the Qin Emperor and Qin law. It made him fear power, not you. Even if you punished him first and later found a reason to pardon him for merits, his courage wouldn’t have grown so wild!”

Ying Zheng covered his ears. “What’s it got to do with me? I didn’t do any of that.”

Zhu Xiang was helpless. Here it comes again—Ying Zheng’s master-level blame-shifting technique.

All the good things Great Ying Zheng did were done by him, Ying Zheng; all the glory belonged to him. Anything Great Ying Zheng did poorly had nothing to do with him. Why was his uncle nagging him like this?

Ying Zheng added, “Besides, he’s already incredibly bold now. It’s not like I raised him that way. Have you ever seen an ordinary eunuch dare to falsely accuse both the Chancellor and Prime Minister of treason? I’m still alive!”

Zhu Xiang’s expression turned strange. “Yes, he really is far too bold. Probably because Lin Li and Cai Ze treat you differently than normal ministers do. He must have misunderstood.”

Zhao Gao, born a palace slave, had grown up immersed in the strict hierarchy of status and rank. Expecting him to understand that outside of ruler and minister, genuine familial affection could exist—it really was too difficult.

He truly believed that the Prime Minister and Chancellor had no respect for their ruler, and that the king was already furious to the extreme.

Ying Zheng reached out for an orange.

Zhu Xiang put down a handful of walnut kernels and peeled an orange for him. “After hearing all this, what are your thoughts?”

Ying Zheng said, “It’s all Father’s fault. If he hadn’t died so early, if he had taught me for another ten years, waited until I came of age to ascend the throne—how would I have ended up fumbling around by myself?”

“…That actually makes sense,” Zhu Xiang said, stuffing the orange into his mouth, nearly choking him.

“Don’t grow arrogant because you’re too gifted, and don’t grow complacent just because you retain the memories of a great emperor,” Zhu Xiang said. “Every step you take now must be taken carefully after your own thoughtful consideration.”

“Mm.” Ying Zheng pretended to be calm, but his heart was anything but.

Yet he was proud—he refused to show any fatigue in front of his uncle.

He had endured betrayal from his beloved youngest son and trusted ministers, watched his children die, and saw his empire destroyed—how could he accept all that so quickly?

But his uncle revealed such horrifying secrets to admonish him, hiding nothing from him. Ying Zheng felt a knot in his heart loosen.

Even if he misjudged people and trusted the wrong men, his uncle and aunt would always be trustworthy.

After eating a roasted orange, he finally felt a bit better.

“Uncle… Are later generations’ evaluations of me very low?” Ying Zheng asked gloomily. “The dynasty ended with the second emperor…”

Zhu Xiang replied, “Future emperors use you and Emperor Wu of Han as negative examples. Oh—after Qin came the Han dynasty. The Han inherited Qin institutions, crossing the river by feeling for the stones of Qin. So Emperor Gaozu of Han was jokingly called the real Second Emperor of Qin.”

“…Alright then. Since this Second Emperor is better than Huhai, I’ll accept him as my adopted son.”

Zhu Xiang laughed, finally relieved.

“Future generations treat Qin Shihuang and Emperor Wu of Han as extravagant tyrants. But after the age of emperors ended, your popularity became the highest. They call you the Emperor of Ten Thousand Ages,” Zhu Xiang said. “Without your unification, without standardized script, roads, and measures, the Huaxia civilization would have fractured long ago. Huaxia is the only ancient civilization that still survives today—you deserve immense credit.”

Ying Zheng: “…”

He wiped his nose. “Emperor of Ten Thousand Ages… not bad.”

After a long silence, he asked, “No wonder Uncle always seemed out of place in this era. You really had no emperors in your previous life?”

Zhu Xiang nodded.

Ying Zheng asked, “Then what did emperors become?”

“In my time, although inequality existed in reality, legally and in dignity people were equal. Heads of state were not hereditary—they were like high officials, similar to a prime minister. Even the head of state couldn’t tell the poorest commoner, ‘Kneel before me.’”

“…” No wonder Uncle lived so conflicted. In that era, wasn’t everyone basically a saint?

Ying Zheng asked again, “Am I very popular in later generations?”

Zhu Xiang considered this. “Yes. But… you probably wouldn’t like how. Most people don’t admire you as an emperor—they treat you as a… fictional idol. What they like is their imagined you, not the real you.”

“What’s the difference?” Ying Zheng asked.

Zhu Xiang joked, “For example, if you travelled to my era and proved your identity, maybe many people would scream that they love you and offer you money. But if you then said, ‘I am Qin Shihuang. I will now restore the Qin dynasty and reclaim my throne…’”

He paused, then said slowly, “They would only reply: ‘Whoever tries to restore imperial rule—we will walk over his corpse.’”

‘Qin, Han, Tang, Song—let the emperors revive, they must all be dealt with the same way!’”

Ying Zheng froze, then clapped his hands and laughed. “Commoners dare to speak like this? Interesting, interesting! The people of that era are truly amusing!”

Since the dynasty that perished was not Qin, and Huaxia endured, and its people were so bold—Ying Zheng wasn’t angry. In fact, he felt a strange pride.

This must be the mindset of an old ancestor. Hahahahaha.

“Uncle, is Huaxia strong in later times?” Ying Zheng’s eyes shone. “Did they embarrass me, the Emperor of Ten Thousand Ages?”

Zhu Xiang replied, “Not the strongest, but I love my country. If you want to hear more, I’ll tell you slowly in the future.”

He peeled the last orange, giving half to Ying Zheng and eating half himself.

“These two thousand years hold many stories. If you want to hear them, I can tell you for years.”

“Good!”

Ying Zheng stretched lazily. “As for Zhao Gao, I want him to return to being a palace slave. I’ll observe him a bit longer. I need to understand why I was deceived. After that, I’ll execute him by the Five Punishments.”

Zhu Xiang wiped his hands with a cloth. “That’s up to you.”

Even a cockroach killed slowly with poison was still dead. He didn’t care.

Afterward, the King of Qin kept Zhao Gao for three months, then executed him for private collusion with external ministers—exterminating three generations. His face was tattooed, his tongue cut out, nose gouged, ears severed, feet chopped off, beaten to death, his head displayed, and his corpse minced to feed dogs.

This was the Qin Empire’s punishment even harsher than dismemberment by five horses—the Five Punishments.

Li Si had also died this way in the previous life.

Moreover, King Zheng did not wrongly accuse Zhao Gao. Zhao Gao had colluded privately with outsiders and formed private factions.

King Zheng indulged him once, and his courage only grew.

Though the sentence was severe, the court saw it as intimidation of the masses and didn’t react much. At most, a few Confucian scholars petitioned to reduce the cruelty—kill him, but avoid excessive bloodshed.

But harsh laws for a chaotic age—they knew persuasion would be useless. They merely expressed their stance, planning to continue the effort after Qin unified the realm.

By the time King Zheng executed Zhao Gao, Zhu Xiang had long left Xianyang to supervise the fortification of the Yellow River embankments.

The stories he promised his nephew would wait until their next New Year reunion.

Cai Ze and Lin Zhi did not know what happened between Zhu Xiang and King Zheng regarding Zhao Gao. They cared nothing about Zhao Gao’s death.

To them, Zhao Gao was just an ordinary palace slave. No noble would spare him a thought.

He deserved what he got; his death was like dust.

Only Zhao Gao himself was devastated, unable to believe it.

He had falsified an imperial edict before, and the King only flogged him. Now he merely accepted some bribes and passed on a few messages—how had this led to such a fate?!

A moment earlier he had still been thrilled at his rising status; the next, he fell into endless hell. The contrast shattered him—his mind nearly collapsed.

He shouted, “It was Chancellor Lin! Minister Cai! They framed me!” But no one believed him.

How could such exalted men concern themselves with an ant in the dirt?

In the final moments when pain jolted his mind clear, he realized: in this life he was merely an ant.

Until his death, Zhao Gao never repented—he only lamented why he wasn’t the one above all others.

He died in the very form he despised most—an ant—and no one cared.

…

King Zheng, too, showed no concern, as though he had casually crushed a bug. After spring plowing, he immediately launched a campaign against Yan.

Lian Po voluntarily laid down his armor, no longer leading troops, and stayed in Zhao territory to help the people.

For the invasion of Yan, King Zheng appointed Wang Jian as the commander, with his son Wang Ben as deputy. Lian Po’s son, Lian Fu, was also appointed deputy under Wang Jian, his first campaign without his father.

The Qin army also brought many young Qin officers, including Li Xin.

King Zheng looked down on Yan—this campaign was partly to train Qin’s young generals.

The world’s eyes turned to Qin’s conquest of Yan. Who cared about Zhao Gao? No one had even heard of him.

But Ying Zheng himself felt uneasy for quite a while.

Ever since he heard his uncle’s “story,” every time he dreamt, he would nag at Great Ying Zheng:

“Did you know Zhao Gao and Li Si falsified an edict to make Huhai emperor?”

“Did you know your beloved Huhai butchered your children?”

“Did you know that while rebellion approached Xianyang, Huhai and Zhao Gao were still slaughtering Qin officials?”

“Did you know that to hide your corpse’s stench they stuffed your carriage with salted fish? Later generations even mocked you in poems: ‘Ying Zheng’s coffin consumed much salted fish’!”

“Three years after your death, the Qin dynasty fell! It fell! It fell!”

Ying Zheng leaned on his cheek, ranting at the sleeping Great Ying Zheng.

Great Ying Zheng kept his eyes closed, unmoving.

After venting, Ying Zheng left the dream content.

Great Ying Zheng opened his eyes—bloodshot, murderous.

Then the dream world trembled and began to crack apart.

“I’ll kill you!”

Great Ying Zheng growled through clenched teeth. No one knew who he meant.

It couldn’t possibly be “I will kill the younger version of myself.”

Surely not.

The already decaying dream collapsed again. When the next dream chamber formed, Ying Zheng noticed it had grown more faint.

Perhaps once he unified the world again, this dream would disappear.

He felt a little wistful.

Until the end, Great Ying Zheng had only been a shadow. He still wanted to share his thoughts about “Ying Zheng’s coffin consumed much salted fish.”