The outer accounting offices of the Imperial Household Department were a world away from the serene, perfumed corridors of the inner court. Here, there was no pretense of effortless grace. This was the grimy, beating heart of the palace's vast logistical machine, and it was a place of organized chaos. The hall was a vast, dusty chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling from which hung a few grimy lanterns that did little to dispel the gloom. The air smelled of old paper, stale ink, and the faint, sour tang of human sweat. Dozens of clerks, hunched over dark wood desks, worked with frantic energy. The dominant sound was a constant, insect-like clicking and clattering of countless beads on hundreds of abacuses, a sound that set Ying Zheng's teeth on edge.
He was here on another of Cixi's new, "educational" tours, a strategy clearly designed by Li Lianying to keep him occupied with the mundane, trivial aspects of the palace while keeping him far from the true levers of power. It was meant to be a boring, overwhelming lesson in a subject no child could possibly find interesting.
Li Lianying, ever the grandiloquent tour guide, gestured with a theatrical sweep of his arm at the rows of scribbling, calculating clerks.
"Behold, Your Majesty," he announced, his voice smooth and projecting easily over the din. "This is the financial heart of the Imperial Household. Every tael of silver, every bolt of silk, every single grain of rice that enters or leaves the Forbidden City is meticulously recorded and accounted for right here. It is a perfect testament to the flawless order and boundless prosperity of the Great Qing."
Ying Zheng looked past the eunuch's grand words and saw the reality. He, the man who had standardized the currency, weights, and measures of an entire subcontinent, saw not order, but a system under extreme duress. He saw stacks of bamboo-slip ledgers piled haphazardly in corners, their ties broken. He saw clerks with ink-stained fingers and frayed cuffs, their faces etched with anxiety, not diligent concentration. He saw two men in a corner engaged in a heated, whispered argument, their gestures sharp and angry. This was not a picture of prosperity. This was a portrait of desperation.
The tour was led by the department's supervisor, a middle-aged Manchu official named Prince Su. He was a portly man, his fine silk robes strained at the seams, and his face glistened with a perpetual sheen of nervous sweat. He bowed low, his round hat with its ruby knob bobbing ridiculously.
"It is the highest honor to welcome Your Majesty to our humble offices," he puffed, his eyes avoiding direct contact with the boy. "Your divine presence illuminates our work."
Ying Zheng began his own line of inquiry, masking his targeted probes as simple, childish questions. He pointed a small finger towards a row of large, iron-bound chests stacked against a wall.
"Are all those boxes full of silver?" he asked, his voice full of innocent wonder.
Prince Su's face twitched. The sweat on his brow seemed to double. "Ah, no, Your Majesty. Not… not full, precisely. Those are… awaiting a new shipment of tax silver from the southern provinces. The south is always very generous. They will be full again soon. Very soon."
It was a clumsy lie. Awaiting a shipment? A treasury does not store empty chests in its main office. Empty chests are kept in a storehouse. These chests had recently been emptied.
He then pointed towards the two clerks who were still arguing in the corner, their voices a low, angry buzz. "Why are they arguing?"
Li Lianying stepped in smoothly before the flustered Prince could answer. "They are merely having a spirited scholarly debate on advanced accounting methods, Your Majesty. It is how they ensure the utmost accuracy in their ledgers. Their passion is a sign of their dedication to the throne."
Another lie. Ying Zheng had overseen enough arguments between his own quartermasters to recognize the sound of two men trying to make numbers fit where they refuse to go. He decided to test the limits of his new, internal power. He had used it to project heat. He had used it to move water. Could he use it to refine his own senses?
He focused his will, not with rage, but with a calm, intense concentration. He imagined his hearing sharpening, the chaotic noise of the room fading away, the voices of the two clerks amplifying. The effort was minimal, a tiny mental push, and the result was instantaneous. The clatter of the abacuses receded into a dull background roar, and the clerks' whispered argument became as clear as if they were standing next to him.
"…it cannot be done! The quarterly indemnity payment to the British is due next week. The Imperial Treasury is empty. There is not enough!" one clerk hissed.
"Then use the funds from the Summer Palace reconstruction budget!" the other whispered back, his voice strained. "Her Majesty has approved it! The order came down this morning. The foreign devils must have their silver. The rebuilding can wait."
"The rebuilding has been waiting for fifteen years! It is a national disgrace! We are using money meant to restore our own sacred gardens to pay the very barbarians who burned them!"
The conversation confirmed everything. It was worse than he had imagined. They were actively cannibalizing their own imperial projects—symbols of their own sovereignty—to pay off the foreign invaders. The cold, familiar rage began to build inside him, a welcome feeling of strength that pushed back against the cloying atmosphere of the room. This was the fuel. But he smothered it immediately. He could not afford another incident, not here, not now, under the watchful eyes of Li Lianying. He locked the fury away in a mental vault.
His enhanced hearing had proven to be a stunning success. He had found a new source of information. He let his gaze drift around the room, no longer looking at the whole, but searching for individuals. His eyes settled on a young, junior clerk working alone in a dim corner, far from the central hub of activity. The man was thin, his scholar's robes clean but worn. He was not arguing. He was methodically, almost silently, copying figures from a large, official ledger into a smaller, private book. His face was a mask of quiet, burning contempt. As he wrote, and then had to cross out a figure and replace it with a smaller one, he made a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of his head. It was a gesture of profound disgust.
Ying Zheng committed the man's face to memory. He saw no fear in him, no frantic anxiety. He saw dissatisfaction. He saw disillusionment. That was fertile ground. A man disgusted with lies might just be a man loyal to the truth. That man was a potential tool.
As the tour concluded, Prince Su was bowing and scraping, relieved that the ordeal was almost over. "We hope Your Majesty was not too bored by our mundane work."
"No," Ying Zheng said, looking directly at the sweating official. "It was very loud."
The simple, childish observation made both Prince Su and Li Lianying pause. They had expected him to complain about the dust or the smell. The noise was an unusual focus. For a moment, a flicker of suspicion crossed Li Lianying's face. Why would the boy focus on the sound? But it was gone as quickly as it came. He was, after all, just a child.
"Indeed, Majesty," Li Lianying said with a smile. "It is the sound of a prosperous empire at work."
"It sounds like silver crying," Ying Zheng replied, his voice a soft murmur. He turned and walked away before either of them could process the strange, poetic, and deeply unsettling remark. He had planted a seed of doubt, a tiny splinter of unease in their minds. And more importantly, he had found his next target. He now had the face, and soon he would have the name, of the disillusioned young clerk in the corner.