When the news reached her, Chen Shi’ba-niang was having breakfast. She threw down her bowl and chopsticks and ran straight toward her grandfather’s residence.
“The old master is inside,” a maid in the courtyard quickly stopped her and whispered.
Chen Shi’ba-niang pushed past her and strode in. The door to the main room was open; inside, Old Master Chen was speaking with Chen Shao, and several stewards were seated as well.
“…These, and these too… sell them all off,” Old Master Chen said, pushing a few property deeds across the table.
“Father, these are your private holdings – how could they be sold because of my troubles?” Chen Shao said.
“Though they’re in my name, I did buy them below market price,” Old Master Chen replied. “It’s my own fault – wanting to have all you brothers move to the capital sooner, I rushed to make the purchases.”
“But at that time I hadn’t even entered the capital yet. This has nothing to do with you, Father – it’s my fault you’ve had to suffer such humiliation,” Chen Shao said, bowing to the floor.
“How could I blame you? The fault is mine,” said Old Master Chen. “I was careless about appearances. A Censor’s job is to memorialize whatever rumors he hears – true or false, it’s all just words for argument’s sake. Who among them cares about the truth?”
Inside the room, Chen Shao’s choked voice of self-reproach went on and on. Chen Shi’ba-niang could no longer bear to listen. She lifted her hand to wipe away her tears, turned, and hurried away.
How could Grandfather be to blame? It was his own money, not something Father had gained through greed.
How could Father be to blame? Grandfather had bought that house long before Father ever came to the capital.
Who was there to blame, then?
It was all because Father spoke up for that lady – that was why the Censor latched on and wouldn’t let go.
It was all her fault. All of this was her doing.
Hadn’t they already said it? As long as she agreed to leave the capital, the matter would be over.
So why wouldn’t she go? Why wouldn’t she leave?
“Shi’ba-niang, where are you going?”
Behind her, Chen Dan-niang called out, watching as Chen Shi’ba-niang swept past like the wind.
At that moment, the Vice Minister of the Grand Court of Revision was frowning as he read the notice sent over from the Censorate.
“She was a life-saving benefactor, after all – must they really be in such a hurry to take her life?” he couldn’t help but say.
“When the King of Hell demands someone dead at the third watch, who dares keep them alive till the fifth?” his subordinate replied. “My lord, please issue the warrant.”
That Ghost Judge – even toward the one who had saved his life, he could be this ruthless. None of them were foolish enough to get caught up in such bad luck.
Hadn’t even the illustrious Minister Chen been forced into a pitiful retreat and resignation after crossing paths with him?
The Vice Minister nodded.
“Bring the person in, then,” he said.
The subordinate acknowledged the order and turned to leave.
“Go slowly,” the Vice Minister added. “At least let her finish her meal in peace.”
The subordinate chuckled.
“Compared with that Ghost Judge, you’re practically a Bodhisattva, my lord,” he said with a bow before withdrawing.
“She’s a disciple of an immortal, after all,” the Vice Minister muttered to himself. “One should always leave a little leeway – so that one can meet again without shame. No need to make things so absolute.”
Though the Grand Court of Revision had meant to show some leniency, Cheng Jiao-niang’s meal was still interrupted.
The door burst open with a loud thudding knock. The doorkeeper had barely opened it, not even had time to ask who it was, when a lady wrapped in a cloak and hood rushed straight inside.
“What are you doing? Who are you?” the doorkeeper shouted.
Because it was a lady, he didn’t dare grab her outright, and in that moment of hesitation, Chen Shi’ba-niang had already forced her way in. But at his shout, the two guards sitting by the gatehouse rushed out at once.
They didn’t care whether the intruder was a man or a woman – each reached out unceremoniously to seize her.
Chen Shi’ba-niang’s scream rang through the courtyard.
The commotion brought everyone in the house running. Lady Huang came out holding her child, and even Cheng Jiao-niang herself stepped outside.
“Lady Chen, what is the meaning of this…” Ban Qin hurriedly asked.
The two guards glanced at Cheng Jiao-niang, then finally released their grip and stepped aside – though their eyes remained fixed warily on Chen Shi’ba-niang.
Fuming, Chen Shi’ba-niang yanked off her hood and glared at Cheng Jiao-niang.
“Why won’t you leave?” she demanded. “Don’t you know you should avoid the edge of the blade – hide your light and bide your time?”
Another one come to scold her lady…
The maid, often away tending to the three shops and thus rarely home, felt her eyes redden with helpless anger – furious at herself for not knowing how to defend her mistress with words.
“Do you have any idea how many people you’re dragging down like this?” Chen Shi’ba-niang went on, tears welling in her eyes. “Do you know my father has been impeached because of you, and my grandfather has been humiliated–”
She hadn’t finished before Cheng Jiao-niang shook her head, cutting her off.
“That’s not because of me. It has nothing to do with me,” she said.
Chen Shi’ba-niang bit her lip, trembling with anger and on the verge of tears.
“Cheng Jiao-niang, you truly are heartless,” she said.
“Miss…”
Lady Huang glanced around, handed her child to a maid, then gathered her courage and stepped forward, speaking in a trembling voice:
“If you’ve come as a guest, then please come in and sit down to talk. But if you’ve come to quarrel, then I must ask you to leave.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Chen Shi’ba-niang said, her eyes never leaving Cheng Jiao-niang.
“But you’re speaking in my house,” Lady Huang shot back, her own temper rising, her voice growing louder.
Only then did Chen Shi’ba-niang turn to look at her. She lifted a hand to wipe her tears, then gave a short, bitter laugh.
“Quarrel?” she said. “I wouldn’t dare quarrel with her. I just don’t understand – what exactly is it that you’re trying to do?”
“You don’t need to understand,” Cheng Jiao-niang replied, her gaze shifting toward the doorway. “It’s enough that I do.”
Ban Qin also looked toward the door, and her expression changed at once.
Chen Shi’ba-niang instinctively turned her head – and saw several officers standing at the gate.
“Is the lady here Lady Cheng?” one of them asked politely and respectfully. “We’re from the Grand Court of Revision.”
Chen Shi’ba-niang whipped her head back around to stare at Cheng Jiao-niang.
“Miss,” Ban Qin reached out and grabbed Cheng Jiao-niang’s arm, tears streaming down her face.
So – it had finally come to this.
“Is it just for questioning, or is she to be imprisoned?” Chen Shi’ba-niang stepped forward and asked.
“That… will depend on how the questioning goes,” the officer replied respectfully.
“Can a family member accompany her?” Lady Huang asked in a trembling voice.
“Of course,” the officer said with a polite smile. “As long as it’s not during the court hearing, it’s allowed.”
He quickly reined in his smile again – after all, though smiling was meant to show goodwill, coming from an officer of the Grand Court of Revision, it often made people even more uneasy.
“That won’t be necessary,” Cheng Jiao-niang said. “Ban Qin will come with me – that’s enough.”
Lady Huang looked at her, her hands trembling slightly as she held them before her.
“Just go tell my brother what’s happened,” Cheng Jiao-niang added.
Lady Huang nodded.
“…Don’t be afraid,” she said in a quavering voice.
In that moment, it was hard to tell who was more afraid…
The officer standing nearby muttered to himself, then looked again at Cheng Jiao-niang with a touch of respect.
Truly worthy of being called a disciple of an immortal – a student of the extraordinary. Even now, her expression was calm and unruffled, as light as drifting clouds.
“I’m not afraid,” Cheng Jiao-niang said with a faint smile, turning to take the first step forward.
“Cheng Jiao-niang!”
Chen Shi’ba-niang called out, running a few steps after her.
Cheng Jiao-niang turned her head and looked at her once, said nothing, and then turned away, stepping out through the door.
Amid the escorting officers, a carriage rolled down the street.
The snow-covered road was bleak and biting cold. Even wrapped in a thick cloak, Han Yuanchao – who had been standing at the gate since dawn – was already numb in his hands and feet.
When he saw the carriage passing by, he couldn’t help but take a step forward, but his legs faltered.
“Young Master!” his servant quickly caught him.
Han Yuanchao steadied himself with the boy’s help, watching as the carriage disappeared into the distance. In the bitter wind, his thick brows furrowed even tighter, and the hands tucked inside his sleeves clenched hard.
“I cannot change my heart to follow the ways of the world;
therefore I shall end my days in sorrow and distress.”
He recited softly, and then gave a wry smile.
Who would have thought that Qu Yuan’s words would one day rise unbidden to his lips – over a lady.
Meanwhile, bursts of laughter echoed through Prince Qing’s residence.
The snow in the rear courtyard had not been cleared, and at that moment Prince Qing was running and laughing joyfully across the open ground.
“Your Highness, Your Highness!” a palace attendant came hurrying over, calling out to Duke Jin’an, who wore only a cotton robe.
A fine sheen of sweat covered his forehead, his sleeves were rolled up, and in the midst of winter his bare forearms were taut and strong. Duke Jin’an turned around with a smile.
“Lady Cheng has been taken to the Grand Court of Revision,” the attendant reported.
The duke gave a soft laugh.
“Then there’ll be quite the spectacle to watch this time,” he said, and after speaking, turned back again to watch Prince Qing.
The attendant stepped back a few paces, seeing only the duke’s straight back – he could not see the frozen smile on his face.
Endless – truly endless. But what could one do? Such was life, after all.
…
The Vice Minister of the Grand Court of Revision sighed inwardly.
Truly unlucky.
He repeated the thought to himself once more.
The court clerk had already finished reading the statement in a slow, deliberate voice. Looking at the girl standing below the hall, the Vice Minister could only clear his throat, silently cursing both the presiding judge and the Censorate again and again.
This was the trouble with not being the chief official – whenever something thorny came up, it was always him who had to handle it.
“Lady Cheng,” he said, “regarding the charges brought just now by Master Feng, the Imperial Censorate Deputy – do you admit to them?”
Cheng Jiao-niang shook her head.
“I do not,” she said.
“But Master Feng stated that you yourself have admitted to these deeds,” the Vice Minister pressed.
“Yes, I did do those things,” Cheng Jiao-niang replied, “but the one who spoke meant no harm, the one who listened took it to heart; the one who acted was without intent, yet the one who watched saw with purpose.”
What does that mean – ‘the one who speaks has no intent, the one who listens takes it to heart; the one who acts is without motive, the one who observes finds meaning’?
The Vice Minister frowned.
“I act only for the sake of what I choose to do,” Cheng Jiao-niang continued calmly. “And only for the act itself. As for how others see me or what they think of me – that is beyond my control. What they imagine or believe has nothing to do with me. My lord, I admit to having done these things, but I do not acknowledge Master Feng’s accusations.”
So does she admit it or not?
That was exactly why this case was such a headache – so troublesome that it could only be handled slowly.
The thought flickered through the Vice Minister’s mind as he prepared to raise the wooden block to signal the next stage of questioning.
“My lord,” a court clerk coughed softly from behind him, “the people from the Censorate have arrived.”
In the back hall, the Vice Minister’s brow twitched violently as he looked at the censor who had just arrived.
“What did you say? You want it done today?” he shouted, his voice rising.
“Imperial Censorate Deputy wants a conclusion today,” the censor replied stiffly.
“Now? Today?” The Vice Minister paced back and forth a few steps. “Are you joking? Cases don’t get settled that easily!”
“He said this case is easy to settle,” the censor said expressionlessly. “Have her admit it, finalize the ruling, and send her home.”
Send her home?
The Vice Minister froze for a moment, then understood.
The cells of the Grand Court of Revision were no place for a gentlewoman – far less forgiving than those of the Censorate, which at least dealt with officials. For a woman, even being summoned here was ruin enough; to actually spend a night in its prison would mean total disgrace.
So this Ghost Judge still had some trace of sentiment after all – he hadn’t forgotten she was once his savior.
Still, this kind of mercy looked an awful lot like the cat weeping over the mouse.
“And you think she’ll just confess because he said so?” the Vice Minister snorted, flicking his sleeve as he turned toward the courtroom. “We’ll see about that.”
At that moment, in the Imperial Armory, Lady Huang was growing frantic with impatience when she finally saw Fan Jianglin hurrying out.
“What are you doing? Hurry up! Sister’s already been taken to the Grand Court of Revision!” Lady Huang urged anxiously.
Fan Jianglin nodded.
“They’ve already taken her?” he asked.
Lady Huang nodded again, pushing him to move.
“Just a moment – there was a major case arrested yesterday. I need to finish handling it first,” Fan Jianglin said.
Lady Huang froze for a second, then flared up in fury.
“You’ve gone mad with officialdom! You haven’t come home for days – what have you even been so busy with?”
The temper of a northwestern woman, long suppressed beneath her unease in the unfamiliar capital, finally erupted. She reached out and seized Fan Jianglin’s arm.
“Which is more important – Sister’s case, or your damn case here?”
The clerks outside the hall immediately burst into awkward grins and hastily turned their heads away.
“My sister’s case is important – very important,” Fan Jianglin said awkwardly, pulling his wife’s hand off him. “I’ll be done soon, I’ll be done soon.”
With that, he hurried away almost as if fleeing.
Lady Huang stamped her foot furiously in the hall.
“My lord, you’d better go,” one of the soldiers following behind said as they quickened their pace. “We can handle things here.”
Fan Jianglin’s face was dark.
“How could I do that? These are weapons – heavy armaments. This is no matter for carelessness,” he said.
As he spoke, the group had already reached the rear courtyard of the Imperial Armory.
A crowd had gathered there, surrounding two men who were bound and kneeling on the ground.
“Li Mao!”
Fan Jianglin strode forward in fury and, without hesitation, kicked one of the kneeling men to the ground.
“Speak! Now!” he roared.
The sudden outburst startled everyone around.
“What’s wrong with the master?” someone whispered. “He was calm just a moment ago – interrogating the prisoners like he was chatting over tea.”
“Madam Fan just came by – something’s happened at home,” another murmured.
The colleagues exchanged a knowing look, and comprehension dawned all around.
So it turned out – this Master Fan was afraid of his wife after all.
“Speak!” everyone shouted in unison.
The man who had been kicked down was hauled back to his knees. Though his face was gaunt and unshaven, it was still recognizable – he was once the city gate officer, Li Mao.
“I only borrowed the artillery wagon,” he said.
“Borrowed?” a military officer barked. “What are you, that you dare ‘borrow’ military weapons?”
“I’m nothing at all…” Li Mao lowered his head and gave a bitter, self-mocking laugh.
Back when he served as gate inspector, neither his superiors nor his subordinates had ever treated him as worth anything. Now, after being made the scapegoat for his household’s fire and stripped of his rank, he was worth even less than nothing.
He hadn’t finished speaking before Fan Jianglin cut him off with another kick.
“Borrowed? What kind of nonsense is that? Speak – are you a spy for the Western bandits or the Northern Liao?” he bellowed.
Li Mao lifted his head and shook it frantically.
“My lord, my lord, I’m not – I swear I’m not!” he cried.
“Not?” Fan Jianglin grabbed him by the collar and dragged him roughly to the side, stopping in front of a shattered catapult.
“Then why was the trebuchet dismantled?” he demanded. “Was it to smuggle the pieces out of the city? Or to study its inner mechanisms?”
Li Mao shook his head over and over.
“No, my lord – it wasn’t dismantled! It was destroyed when I was testing the projectiles,” he said.
Fan Jianglin gave a cold laugh, his gaze shifting to a nearby siege engine that still stood intact. It was half trebuchet, half something else, and in its firing tube was wedged a black, stone-like projectile.
“This one?” he asked. “You’re saying this stone shell destroyed the trebuchet?”
Li Mao nodded quickly.
“Yes, yes – that’s right!” he said.
But before the words had fully left his mouth, Fan Jianglin kicked him again.
“You think I’m a three-year-old? Or some green recruit who’s never seen a battlefield?” he shouted. “How could a stone projectile destroy its own launcher!”
“My lord, my lord – this stone projectile is different from the ones before!” Li Mao said hastily. Struggling to his feet, he stood before the catapult. “This one is ignited – it explodes! It releases a powerful burst of force. The trebuchet’s too flimsy to withstand it…”
Fan Jianglin frowned.
“Ignited? A stone projectile that can be ignited?” he asked, his gaze falling on the dark sphere. “How is it ignited?”
Li Mao hurried forward. With his hands bound behind him, he could only gesture with his shoulder.
“Here,” he said.
Fan Jianglin frowned again, took a slow match from nearby, and gave it a flick – its tip flared to life.
“What happens once it’s lit?” he asked, and as he spoke, he reached out and touched the flame to the fuse Li Mao had indicated.
His movement was so quick that Li Mao didn’t even have time to react. By the time he saw the burning match, the fuse was already hissing, spitting sparks, vanishing into the projectile’s casing.
“My lord, don’t!”
Li Mao shouted at the top of his lungs.
At the same instant, a deafening explosion erupted across the Imperial Armory courtyard.
In the Grand Court of Revision, the Vice Minister, already growing impatient, continued his interrogation of Cheng Jiao-niang.
“Lady Cheng, do you or do you not confess to your crimes?” he barked, raising his brows and slamming the wooden block on the desk with a sharp crack.
The block struck the table with a resounding bang – and at that very moment, the Vice Minister felt a ringing in his ears as the ground beneath his feet shook violently.
“My lord! The earth – it’s moving!”
The loyal clerk lunged forward, clutching the Vice Minister and dragging him toward the door. Everyone in the hall bolted out in panic, even the censors who had been hiding in the back hall rushed out with their heads covered.
Once outside, they stopped. The roaring in their ears faded, and the ground stilled again, as though nothing had happened. A crowd of terrified faces stared at one another in confusion.
What on earth had happened?
“Wait – where’s that Lady Cheng?” someone exclaimed.
Everyone looked around, and saw that the woman was still standing inside the hall. The young maid who had been waiting outside had already run in to stand beside her.
Inside and outside, light and shadow, one crowded, one sparse – the two groups faced each other.
“I do not confess,” Cheng Jiao-niang said earnestly, looking toward the Vice Minister standing at the doorway.
