Song Chuyi opened the bamboo tube and took a quick glance. “Many thanks.”
After putting away the bamboo tube, Ji Huan had already finished writing the receipt. Song Chuyi stood up and said, “In that case, I shall take my leave.”
Du Heng also rose and smoothed his clothing. “Go ahead.”
Song Chuyi knew that, given how sought-after she currently was in the gaming house -a place that collected information – there would surely be portraits or descriptions of her appearance. An ordinary portrait capturing even ten or twenty percent of someone’s likeness was considered good. Though she did not need to worry too much, it was still best to leave immediately after obtaining what she came for.
After leaving the gaming house, the two spent the entire day wandering through streets and alleys, stopping at a tavern in between to gather information. Only as dusk was falling did they head toward that remote little courtyard.
“Sir, how are things?” Ji Huan asked.
Song Chuyi lowered her voice. “No need to worry. From what the intelligence shows, the King of Wei has every intention of putting me to important use. Even if he truly pressures the State of Wey to hand me over to atone for my crimes, it would not necessarily spell disaster. While I have this time, I need to find a way to strangle that fellow Min Chi.”
The King of Wei’s attitude did not surprise Song Chuyi much. Wei’s hegemony was gradually weakening, suffering repeated defeats and losing territory – how could the King of Wei be content with that? So he was now desperate for talent, hoping for a “Shang Yang” of Wei to appear and rapidly strengthen the state, so that hegemony could be seized back.
As long as the King of Wei had no intention of killing her for the time being, there was still a great chance to turn things around. The worst-case plan was to wait until she reached Wei and then think of a way to escape.
“Do you intend to enter Wei while the situation favors it?” Ji Huan asked in surprise.
Song Chuyi shook her head. She had spent over a decade observing and analyzing the national conditions of the seven states. The ones she most wanted to go to were Qi and Qin. But by comparison, Qin, after a century of decline, was rising again – its legal system sound, its employment of talent unconventional, and the old clans’ power on the verge of collapse. It was like a fierce tiger emerging from its cage.
Qi, on the other hand, had a solid foundation and was stronger than the current Qin in every respect. Yet its internal factions were deeply intertwined and complex, and Song Chuyi did not understand them very well. In her previous life, however, she had lived on Qin’s border for many years, so while she could not claim to know Qin’s internal affairs like the back of her hand, she certainly knew them in considerable detail.
Even though various upheavals had occurred in the present situation, Song Chuyi had made a point of learning about it – the overall framework of each state remained intact.
As dusk was falling, the two arrived at the little courtyard where they had stayed the previous night. The courtyard was surrounded by earthen walls and fences, and the gate could barely keep anything out. Before they even entered, they heard whimpering and groaning from inside.
Ji Huan’s face immediately darkened. “Sir, today I must intervene in this matter.”
“Do not stir up trouble.” Song Chuyi peered inside and instructed, “Drive him away. If any dispute arises, just kill him.”
“Thank you, sir.” Ji Huan’s expression relaxed slightly, and he called out loudly, “Hey, woman, open the door!”
The woman came running out of the main house, opened the courtyard gate, and bent over like a shrimp, saying in a trembling voice, “I… I already told them there were guests, but they insisted on coming.”
“How much do they pay to sleep with your girl?” Ji Huan asked.
The woman’s shoulders trembled slightly. Song Chuyi glanced at Ji Huan and said, “Just looking at you, one can tell you have no idea what it means to struggle in life. Pay? If they give two steamed buns, that’s already good.”
Song Chuyi lifted her foot and walked toward the room where they had stayed the previous night.
Ji Huan fished out about twenty cloth coins from his sleeve pouch and handed them to the woman. Seeing that she dared not take them, he grabbed her hand and pressed them into it, saying, “I’ll go drive that man away. For these two nights, don’t take in any clients.”
With that, he gripped his sword and headed toward the room from which the groaning was coming. The woman’s legs trembled with fear, and the cloth coins fell from her hand and scattered across the ground. She snapped back to her senses and hurriedly threw herself down to pick them up.
She had just finished gathering them and stuffing them into her bosom when she heard the furious roar of the man who had come before them from inside the room. She rushed over.
The last thing she heard was: “You just wait, old man…”
Then the room suddenly fell silent.
A moment later, Ji Huan dragged out a corpse. The ground was covered in blood. The woman was so terrified that her voice caught in her throat, and a warm stream of urine ran down beneath her.
“Don’t scream. Fetch water and clean up the room,” Ji Huan said. Then he pulled a piece of gold from his bosom, placed it on the corridor, and dragged the corpse out of the courtyard.
As Song Chuyi had guessed, the people who came to this place were mostly local toughs – the most troublesome sort. Ji Huan was dressed in plain cloth and wore no armor, so the man had probably taken him for a mere swordsman. The man had been in high spirits when he was interrupted, and had been about to run out and fetch help, but ruined himself with that final parting threat.
He could have said nothing, but it was probably male pride – an instinctive reluctance to appear weak in front of a woman.
Wey’s laws stipulated that public killing was not permitted within the city. That sentence left much room for interpretation.
When the Zhou dynasty was founded, the territory of Wey was the most advanced place in terms of legal development. With such a historical background, it had nurtured many Legalist figures. Yet since the Western Zhou, it had not undergone any major reforms – only minor adjustments – and largely still followed the old laws. And the people of Wey had never been fond of aggressive conflict, so this law had never been changed.
Killing could not be prevented at all, so the law could only restrain a portion of it. Thus this statute was not really a loophole. With behavior like Ji Huan’s – killing someone and abandoning the corpse – as long as no one specifically reported it to the authorities, generally no one would inquire into it.
Song Chuyi lay thinking about these things, and was nearly asleep by the time Ji Huan returned.
At last, she slept soundly.
The next morning, Song Chuyi and Ji Huan drank a bowl of noodle soup and prepared to leave.
The blood in that room had already been cleaned up. Though the terror of the previous day still lingered in the woman’s heart, it had been more than half diluted by the immense joy of receiving a piece of gold. The two girls looked at Ji Huan with both admiration and fear.
During the times those men had repeatedly violated them, the thought of killing those beasts had crossed their minds. Because at first those men had given them some flatbread, but later they gave nothing at all.
At one point, one of the sisters had even become pregnant, but lost the child when a man forced himself on her. With no man in the family, and the mother and three daughters not having been sold into slavery, it was already no small feat that they had survived until now.
“Will you come again tonight?” one of the girls, huddled on the corridor, asked Ji Huan timidly.
Ji Huan looked at Song Chuyi.
“Why are you looking at me? If I don’t come at night, does that mean you can’t come?” Song Chuyi said.
So Ji Huan said to the girl, “Not necessarily. I’ve already dealt with that matter. If anyone comes asking, just say that person was taken away by me – my name is Ji Huan.”
Ji Huan did not want to implicate the mother and daughters. If someone reported it to the authorities, they need only reveal where that man had gone, and they would not be charged.
“Brave sir…” The woman threw herself at Ji Huan’s feet with a thud, kowtowing repeatedly. “Please, take my daughters with you, I beg you – they can do anything, rough work, heavy work, needlework, they can do it all – and they’re twins, there’s not another pair in the whole city…”
