Prince Duan's death left the capital suddenly still.

A prince of the blood was not an emperor, but the common people still had to mourn him half a month... For that half month all entertainment was forbidden, the mist-and-willow quarters shut their doors, and men wore no caps and women no ornaments.

That is to say, men were not allowed to wear hats and women were not allowed to wear jewelry, as a way of honoring and remembering the dead.

None of it touched Ning Chen, though.

Prince Duan was a prince of the blood. He would be buried in the imperial tombs, and the Ministry of Rites would see to it.

Ning Chen had his whole mind on the spring examination.

That did not mean he had stopped caring about the Prince Duan business.

Right now he was weighing whether to give Geng Jing the proof that Prince Duan was the man behind the immortal powder case, for Geng Jing to lay before His Majesty.

There was a lot to be gained by handing it over.

For one thing, Prince Duan would be given an evil posthumous name... There were three kinds for a prince of the blood after death: an honorable name, a neutral name, or an evil one. (TL Note: 諡號 — the name granted to a great man after his death, by which later ages know him. An evil one is a verdict on his life.)

Once an evil name was granted, he could not be laid in the imperial tombs, his name would stink for ten thousand years, and his house would be seized.

Building Xuanwu City would take an enormous amount of silver.

Half of that silver was to come from the Great Xuan and half from the Wu Kingdom.

The Wu Kingdom was nowhere near as rich as the Great Xuan.

So he had promised the woman emperor that the Wu Kingdom's half would come out of his own pocket.

Prince Duan had raked in money without end. Seize his house, and the silver would cover half the cost of Xuanwu City, or…