The lessons in the Imperial Study had become a grueling ritual of intellectual suffocation. Wo Ren and his two stony-faced colleagues had erected a formidable wall of Confucian dogma around the young Emperor, a structure built brick by brick with rote memorization and endless recitation. Their goal was clear: to purge his mind of any "unhealthy" curiosity and replace it with the pure, unthinking obedience of the classics.
Ying Zheng endured it all with the stoic patience of a mountain. He played the part of a diligent, if slightly slow, student. He chanted the passages, copied the characters, and accepted the stern corrections with a placid, childish docility. All the while, his new "friend," the boy assassin Lotus, was a constant presence in the room, sitting quietly on a stool near the wall. Lotus's role was to observe, to be a companion, but since the incident in the rockery, he was more like a terrified mouse forced to live in a tiger's cage. He watched the Emperor with wide, nervous eyes, flinching slightly every time the imposing figure of Meng Tian shifted his weight by the door.
Today's lesson was on the Doctrine of the Mean, a dense, philosophical text on the importance of moderation and sincerity. After two hours of chanting, Ying Zheng feigned a yawn, a subtle signal of his growing "childish" fatigue. He rubbed his eyes, a perfect picture of a small boy whose concentration was failing.
Wo Ren, seeing his student's energy flagging, brought the lesson to a conclusion with a final, stern admonition. "Sincerity is the way of Heaven. The attainment of sincerity is the way of men. You must etch these words upon your heart, Your Majesty. There is no truth beyond them."
As the three tutors began to pack up their scrolls and texts, bowing stiffly before they departed, Ying Zheng saw his opportunity. He knew that Lotus was a compromised agent, but a compromised agent was still a direct line to Cixi's ear. It was time to test that line. It was time to tell his first deliberate, weaponized lie.
He turned in his chair, not to the departing tutors, but to his silent, hulking bodyguard. He made sure Lotus, who was now rising from his own stool, was within easy earshot. His voice was a clear, innocent whisper, filled with the manufactured curiosity of a child.
"Meng Ao," he began, looking up at his general. "Your armor is made of steel when you are on formal duty, isn't it? It is very shiny."
Meng Tian, understanding a performance was underway, simply gave a slight, affirmative nod.
Ying Zheng continued, his voice full of wonder. "Grand Tutor Weng, before he left, once told me a story. He said the British barbarians make their big ships, the ones that spit fire, from steel too. Not from wood. He said that is why their ships are so strong and our wooden junks cannot fight them."
It was a perfectly crafted piece of misinformation. Weng Tonghe had never told him such a story. The tutor had been far too terrified to discuss anything related to foreign powers after the first few lessons. But the lie was constructed with multiple layers of intent. First, it was a topic a child would plausibly find interesting: shiny armor and big ships. Second, it attributed the source of the information to the disgraced Weng Tonghe, reinforcing Cixi's belief that the former tutor was the source of the boy's "unhealthy" obsessions. Third, and most importantly, it was a test of the new communication channel. Would Lotus report this seemingly trivial, overheard conversation? And if so, how would Cixi react?
Lotus, standing by the wall, heard every word. His mind, trained to gather intelligence, immediately cataloged the information. The Emperor, despite his new, rigid curriculum, was still thinking about Western military technology. This was a clear sign that the "purification" process was not working. It was his duty to report it. He gave no outward sign that he had been listening, simply bowing his head as the Emperor and his bodyguard prepared to leave the study for their afternoon walk.
Later that night, in a quiet antechamber near Cixi's apartments, Lotus knelt before Li Lianying to give his daily report. The head eunuch listened with an air of bored impatience.
"…and the lessons proceeded as scheduled, Excellency," Lotus recited dutifully. "His Majesty spent three hours on the Doctrine of the Mean. He was… attentive, but tired easily."
"And?" Li Lianying prompted, clearly uninterested in the boy's academic progress. "Were there any… outbursts? Any strange dreams or questions?"
"No, Excellency," Lotus said. He hesitated for a moment, then added, "However, after the tutors departed, His Majesty spoke with his bodyguard, Meng Ao." He recounted the conversation about steel armor and British warships, repeating the Emperor's words as accurately as his memory would allow. He made sure to include the detail that the boy had attributed the story to his former tutor, Weng Tonghe.
Li Lianying's bored expression sharpened with interest. He dismissed Lotus and immediately requested an audience with the Empress Dowager.
Cixi listened to the report, her fingers drumming softly on the arm of her throne. She was annoyed, but not alarmed.
"Steel ships," she mused, a flicker of contempt in her eyes. "So, even with Wo Ren's indoctrination boring him to tears, his mind still strays to the crude weapons of the barbarians. It seems Weng Tonghe's poison runs deeper than I thought."
She saw the incident exactly as Ying Zheng had intended her to see it. It was not a sign of strategic inquiry, but of a lingering, childish fixation instilled by a disgraced teacher. It reinforced her existing narrative perfectly. The boy was flighty, his mind polluted by dangerous Western ideas, and the new educational regime was a necessary, if slow-acting, antidote. The report didn't raise her suspicions; it confirmed her biases.
"It is of no consequence," she said to Li Lianying with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Let him prattle on about ships. As long as Wo Ren is filling his head with the virtues of obedience, any lingering poison will eventually be purged. The boy is a child. He is drawn to shiny things and loud noises. It is meaningless."
Ying Zheng, when he received his own report from his network confirming that Lotus had passed on the information, felt a cold sense of satisfaction. The test had been a complete success. The channel was secure. He now had a direct, if unwitting, line into Cixi's private chambers. He could plant ideas, reinforce her prejudices, and shape her perception of him, all through the mouth of her own spy. The whispering puppet was now fully operational. He had learned Cixi's greatest weakness: she was so certain of her own superior intelligence that she could not imagine she was being manipulated by a mere child.