A body of guards poured in and took control of the place.

The officials were frightened and uneasy, and still shaken.

The Xuan Emperor's face could not have been worse.

One dancing girl had thrown the whole birthday feast into confusion.

She had nearly turned the Xuan Emperor's birthday into the day of his death.

The dancing girl had driven her own throat onto the blade, the deep red blood ran across the floor, and the smell of blood hung in the air.

The Xuan Emperor was unhurt, but blood at a birthday feast — how that must turn the stomach.

"Father Emperor, are you hurt?"

The crown prince was chalk white, and there was pain all over his face.

The dancing girl's skill really had been something. That cloth staff of hers came down with great weight behind it and could smash a table without trouble.

The crown prince had taken one blow from it, and though the table had caught most of the force for him, the pain was more than he could bear.

"Quickly. Send for an imperial physician."

The Xuan Emperor's voice was low, and there was a storm inside it.

"Very well. Very well. Very well... Can't you bear to have this emperor alive at all? What has he done to anger heaven and make men hate him, that you come at him with assassins again and again?"

The Xuan Emperor was angry, and more than that he was hurt.

He knew he was not a perfect emperor. He knew he had caution to spare and too little enterprise.

But was that wrong?

All he had wanted was for the common people to have food in them and clothes on them, and to live settled and content.

He would not take up arms because it is the common people who suffer most in a war.

And had all of that turned, in these people's eyes, into weakness they could impose on?

"Your Majesty, calm your anger. Your subjects deserve to die. Your subjects are guilty."

Every one of them knelt and called it out.

The…