◎ A Game of Go ◎

Sure enough, by the very next day, Boss Ai had tracked down Zhen’er, Madam Liu’s maid who’d been hiding on North Street, and secretly delivered her to the Ministry of Justice. After Qu You signed in, she went straight to the study, where Zhou Tan had already finished questioning her and sat gazing gravely at the written confession in his hand. Seeing her push open the door, he handed it over.

Qu You took it and read carefully. Zhen’er was Liu Lianxi’s dowry maid, who had followed her from a young age and shared a deep bond with her. The confession detailed, step by step, everything from the moment Liu Lianxi had first met Du Gaojun to the day of her death, and reading it made her tremble inwardly.

As it happened, Liu Lianxi had first met Du Gaojun at the very same golf-ball gathering where she and Gao Yunyue had formed their friendship with her. Du Gaojun was a master of romance, and had won Liu Lianxi’s secret affection with only a few sweet words.

It was only after returning home that she learned this man was in fact a notorious philanderer, known throughout the capital, forever haunting the pleasure quarters, with a reputation so poor that arranging a proper marriage for him was nearly impossible. She’d resolved to cut off all contact—but not long after, while visiting Xiuqing Temple with her mother to burn incense, they’d encountered bandits on the road, and it was only through Du Gaojun’s sudden arrival with over a dozen armed retainers that the two had been rescued.

Zhen’er’s account carried the same bitter resentment Qu You now felt reading the confession—her first thought had been to suspect the bandit attack had been staged by Du Gaojun himself. But there had been no proof, and, as ill fortune would have it, another noblewoman traveling the same road had happened to witness Du Gaojun’s “rescue.”

Rumors spread quickly, and the Liu family, with no way to fight it, had finally relented and agreed to the match, despite Liu Lianxi’s own reluctance, and she was married off in the end. The marriage had seemed peaceful enough, all the way through her ceremonial visit home after the wedding—but Du Gaojun’s true nature couldn’t stay hidden for long. Using the pretext of taking her personal maid into his bed, he’d caused a scene, and from then on, life at the Du residence grew impossible for Liu Lianxi, who had truly fallen into an abyss.

Zhen’er, determined to protect her mistress, had disfigured herself to remain steadily by her side. Du Gaojun’s fleeting moment of genuine affection for Liu Lianxi had quickly faded—soon he’d taken in over a dozen concubines and taken to beating and cursing her regularly.

Unwilling to accept this fate, Liu Lianxi secretly uncovered the truth behind it all—Du Gaojun’s father, Du Hui, as Left Grand Master of Remonstrance, cared deeply about his public reputation, and, displeased with his son’s scandalous behavior, had insisted he marry a wife of impeccable background and good character—someone weak enough to be easily controlled. Du Gaojun had met her at the golf-ball gathering and immediately marked her as the perfect candidate.

Once Liu Lianxi learned this, she began to feign compliance while secretly gathering evidence of the father and son’s crimes, intending to bring them both down together. Zhen’er wasn’t entirely clear on exactly what she’d found, only that half a year ago, the Du father and son had discovered what she was doing, and she’d nearly lost her life over it—driven to such extremity, she’d finally, hesitantly, turned to her mother for help.

But Madam Liu hadn’t understood the depths of her daughter’s suffering, and could only urge her to keep enduring in silence.

According to Zhen’er, once Liu Lianxi realized she couldn’t rely on her own family, she’d made up her mind—she would drag the Du family down into ruin with her, even at the cost of her own reputation and future.

She’d resolved to kill her husband, then take her own life.

This plan had been kept an absolute secret, known only to Zhen’er, who had even prepared the poison herself. She’d originally planned to take the blame for her mistress after Du Gaojun’s death—but on the very night they’d chosen to act, Du Gaojun, drunk, had knocked over the poisoned sobering broth by accident, spilling it across the floor.

Zhen’er had gone to prepare another batch, but by the time she returned to the room, the two of them were no longer there.

It had been raining that night. Amid flashes of lightning, she’d only glimpsed Du Gaojun striding down the corridor with a club raised, and Liu Lianxi stumbling and fleeing into the curtain of rain. Terrified out of her wits, Zhen’er had hidden in the back garden’s lotus pond. Not long after, she heard heavy footsteps pass overhead across the wooden bridge, and an hour or two later came the guard’s cry of alarm—that the lady of the house had fallen into the well.

She’d escaped the residence through the pond’s underground water channel, and later heard, in bits and pieces, that both the guard who’d discovered the body and the maid who’d been on night watch in the corridor had died unnatural deaths. Du Gaojun had sent people looking for her; she’d smeared dirt across her face and hidden among the beggars of North Street, until Boss Ai found her.

Qu You finished reading the statement and looked up at Zhou Tan, who was turning over a small wooden box in his hands. Seeing her gaze shift to him, he opened the box—inside lay a slightly worn key.

“What’s this?” Qu You asked.

“The coroner overturned his earlier conclusion after the autopsy,” Zhou Tan answered. “Liu Lianxi did have strangulation marks on her neck, but she actually died by drowning. This… was removed from her body. Before she drowned, she swallowed this key.”

Whatever she’d tried to protect, even in her final moments, must have been of the greatest importance—though what secret it was that she’d been guarding remained unknown.

Zhou Tan set down the box, his fingers running over the confession. “This maid’s testimony implies Du Gaojun tortured and killed Liu Lianxi. But I cannot submit this confession as it stands.”

Qu You thought it over for a moment and immediately grasped his meaning. She felt a faint bitterness rise at the back of her tongue, and found it suddenly difficult to speak. “Under the Great Yin Code’s fourth volume—a man who kills his wife is imprisoned and exiled; a wife who plots against her husband is executed by slow slicing and beheading. If this confession is submitted, Du Gaojun would receive, at most, a fate like Peng Yue’s—while Liu Lianxi’s death would bring disaster down upon her own family.”

“I still remember what you said to Liang An before he died. You told him it wasn’t that he was innocent—it was that the law itself was unjust.” Zhou Tan pressed his fingers to his brow, sounding weary as he spoke to her. “Now that you work at the Ministry of Justice, if it were up to you to reform the law, what would you do?”

Qu You answered without hesitation, “These men already have far greater advantages in this world than ordinary people, a thousand times over. Wuping only sought justice, and it cost her her life. Lianxi, though a mere weak woman, never once submitted—she tried every means to save herself, and in the end, was still swept away by wind and rain regardless… The law should protect the weak.”

Zhou Tan’s fingers went still. “The law, by nature, has no feelings. I thought all you wanted was fairness—how can you speak of protection alongside that?”

Qu You said, “Fairness that ignores real differences is a second wound inflicted upon the weak.”

The moment she said it, she felt she’d gone too far—but the words were already out, and there was no taking them back, so she could only steel herself and stay silent. Even after generations of feminist development in her own world, true equity accounting for real differences had never fully taken root—arguing about all this with someone from a thousand years in the past struck her, in that moment, as faintly, absurdly funny.

As she was thinking this, she looked back down at the confession, and a flicker of doubt suddenly rose in her mind. Zhou Tan gave a soft, noncommittal sound of acknowledgment, and just then a knock sounded at the study door. Qu You went to answer it and found He San standing respectfully outside; seeing her there, he couldn’t help but glance at her again. “My lord…”

Zhou Tan said, “Speak.”

He San said, “Chancellor Fu invites you to his residence for a chat—and a game of go.”

He finished with a slight bow and withdrew. This was the second time now that this guard had run into Qu You dressed as a man in one of Zhou Tan’s private spaces, once at the residence and now here at the study—who knew what he must be thinking.

But she had no time to dwell on that at the moment. Zhou Tan brushed off his sleeves and offered her a smile—one that never quite reached his eyes, thin and cool.

He reached over and pressed the small box holding the key into her hands, lowering his voice. “Keep this safe. Treat it as though it never existed. No matter who asks, don’t mention it. Go back to the residence now, and don’t come to the Ministry again for the next few days. If… the thing I gave you before is still with you, you should still have it.”

With that, he left the study at an unhurried pace, leaving Qu You sitting alone. She looked down at the plain wooden box in her hands, and suddenly, struck by some impulse, tucked it inside her robe before pushing open the door and walking out.

The autumn air held a faint chill, and fallen leaves had gathered in a thin layer across the courtyard. Walking across them in her men’s official boots, she left behind a soft, rustling trail of sound.

By the time a maid, head bowed, led Zhou Tan into the inner chamber, Fu Qingnian was already seated by the window, playing go.

Dusk was settling in, the window paper beside him dyed pale gold by the setting sun, incense curling gently through the air. The maid withdrew, and the room fell into stillness.

Fu Qingnian, past his fiftieth year, remained sharp and vigorous. Turning to see Zhou Tan standing at the door, he smiled faintly and gestured for him to sit across from him. “Xiaobai, you’ve come.”

Zhou Tan bowed to him with detached courtesy. “Chancellor Fu, good health to you.”

“Whether my health is good these days, you should already know, shouldn’t you,” Fu Qingnian said, taking no offense, his tone cheerful. “I still remember, years ago, right after your palace examination, you broke a stalemate game between me and your teacher at the Lotus Fragrance Pavilion—that was a truly masterful move, unforgettable even now. We’ve never played a game since then, have we?”

Zhou Tan lifted the hem of his robe and sat down across from him, taking a white stone and placing it without looking at his opponent. “Chancellor Fu is far too busy with weighty affairs to spare time for this. Besides, I merely got lucky that day. You flatter me.”

Within three moves, he’d already devoured a cluster of the opponent’s stones. Fu Qingnian reached out and calmly removed the black stones one by one, still showing no sign of anger. “They’re just stones. No matter—these three moves alone shouldn’t make you overconfident, Xiaobai.”

Zhou Tan said, “Of course not.”

The two of them played on in calm silence, Fu Qingnian’s moves measured and controlled, advancing and retreating with skill, while Zhou Tan’s play grew somewhat impatient, aggressive and voracious, devouring territory with reckless abandon.

Fu Qingnian shook his head repeatedly. “Your style of play has changed a great deal from before. It’s good for young men to have fire in their blood, but don’t rely on passion alone—it wounds both others and yourself.”

With just two simple moves, he shifted the tense standoff decisively in his own favor. Zhou Tan’s hand moved quickly, still without hesitation. “Chancellor Fu, Chancellor Gao, and my teacher all passed the imperial examinations in the same year. Now that the man himself is gone, the living fight on, locked in mutual destruction—what’s the use of talking about wounding others and oneself? It’s nothing but mutual annihilation.”

The board formed an elegant symmetry. Fu Qingnian raised an eyebrow at him, his smile warm on the surface, though his words carried a deeper meaning. “I heard you and the Crown Prince both attended the Chancellor’s autumn banquet. The Gao residence had a hundred pots of rare chrysanthemums on display—did you enjoy yourself?”

To his surprise, Zhou Tan only shook his head and said nothing. Fu Qingnian, somewhat taken aback, continued, “Since you already know the Crown Prince isn’t cut out to be an enlightened ruler, why work so hard to oppose me?”

Zhou Tan held a stone in his hand, his gaze drifting toward the faint glow of sunset visible behind the window, a bitter smile crossing his face. “The tower-fall case has stirred the entire court and countryside. The petition read out beneath the registration drum—how much of it did you hear, old Master Fu?”

Fu Qingnian said gently, “Naturally, I heard all of it.”

Zhou Tan turned to look at him directly. “Peng Yue—the moment he was promoted from Ruo Prefecture into an official post in the capital, there were already those who impeached his character. When I first entered the Court of Judicial Review, I worked closely with him and knew well that the man had talent but no virtue. Old Master Fu, you once styled yourself a leader of the incorruptible faction—why promote a man like that?”

Fu Qingnian held a black stone between his fingers and sighed. “You’re still too young.”

“Politics has always been a filthy business of maneuvering. For every man who holds to a name of purity and honor, there must be another willing to serve as the dirty stepping stone—the two balance each other, each taking what he needs. You want a clear and righteous world, a world where people ask for nothing more than they’re owed—” He set down his stone. “That’s a fool’s dream.”

“With respect, Chancellor Fu, you’re mistaken there. I know full well that all men have desires—I’ve never once believed an entire court could be made of sages. My teacher… understood this too.” Zhou Tan said, cold and clear. “But even knowing this, that doesn’t mean one should drink the blood of the common people to sharpen one’s own sword in this fight. Even Chancellor Gao understands that much, at least.”

“You think his hands are clean?” Fu Qingnian scoffed. “Your teacher was clean enough, wasn’t he—and did being clean let him live long? You fancy yourself above it all, coming out of the imperial prison and diving straight into the Ministry of Justice—but who has ever pitied you for it? You champion the cause of those poor, lowborn women, giving up so much, drawing scorn from all sides, even nearly losing your life over it—but a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, will a single soul step forward to clear your name?”

Zhou Tan sat upright across from him, his lashes trembling faintly, though the hand placing his stones never wavered.

“I have no need for my name to be cleared. I hold to what is right until death—that alone is enough, so long as I’ve stayed true to my own conscience.”

Fu Qingnian shook his head, mocking—but when he lowered his gaze, he found he could no longer quite manage a laugh. Without his noticing, the moves he’d taken for reckless, passion-driven blunders had woven together into a vast net, closing in around him, trapping him in a dead end. It was only after Zhou Tan placed his final stone that Fu Qingnian, with sudden dawning horror, realized the truth—there was nowhere left to turn. The outcome on the board was already sealed.

Zhou Tan rose to take his leave, his expression carrying neither pride nor any trace of deference. Sitting here, he could see clearly the cold, hard ice beneath the other man’s gaze.

“Chancellor Fu, this junior yields the game to you. I’ll take my leave now.”

He walked toward the door. Behind him, Fu Qingnian suddenly swept his arm across the board, sending the stones clattering to the floor in a bright, scattered clamor. “It was only one game…”

“Not so,” Zhou Tan said without turning back, bending to pick up a black stone that had rolled to his feet, a note of pride creeping into his voice. “You already lost to me once before, back at that first game at Lotus Fragrance Pavilion. The outcome was decided then. There’s no need for a second game.”