Zhou Sui’an had truly run out of ideas for his assignment this time, forced into a dead end with no way out, and could no longer afford to worry about such trivial matters of gentlemanly principles.

He had been grinding away at the memorial for days, chewing his brush handle down to a nub, never expecting that his saving grace had been sitting right there at his bedside. In that instant, Miss Yin’s tearful farewell was cast completely out of Zhou Sui’an’s mind.

He couldn’t help but puff out his cheeks and scold her reproachfully: “Why did you only give this to me now!”

Chu Linlang wound her thread with an air of complete indifference, her tone light: “My husband’s poetic inspiration has been running quite deep lately, with fine works emerging from time to time. I was afraid of stifling a great poet of the age, so I was a little slow about it!”

Zhou Sui’an knew that this wife of his, though she appeared soft and delicate in temperament, was actually a sharp, pungent chili pepper.

A chili pepper soaked through with vinegar oil — not only spicy, but capable of breathing fire. He said helplessly: “It wasn’t something I wanted to write. It was that Miss Yin who insisted she wanted a farewell verse, and asked me to oblige. It’s not as if she was asking for gold or silver — she is an old acquaintance, after all. How could I refuse and embarrass her? In a couple of days, I’ll write you an entire poetry collection — how does that sound!”

Chu Linlang was finally coaxed into letting a faint smile show, and simply pushed him off to the study to make up for his neglected homework.

Speaking of Magistrate Zhang’s return to the capital, the date had already been set, and before his departure there would certainly be a farewell banquet.

The position of the Reporting Inspector was not a high-ranking office, yet its power was considerable. After all, who wouldn’t be wary of this kind of official who could report directly to the throne, like a Kitchen God who filed complaints to Heaven?

What the Lianzhou officials hadn’t anticipated, however, was that even the Sixth Prince — who had been cutting his way through affairs with swift decisiveness — had come to see Zhang Xian off. This came as a great surprise to Zhang Xian himself, who hurried down from his carriage to bow in greeting to the Sixth Prince.

Chu Linlang had also come to see him off. Zhang Xian’s wife, Lin Niangzi, was among those in the farewell party. When she spotted Chu Linlang, she immediately and without any visible trace of it pulled her aside, and quietly asked about the matter of her younger brother’s missing account books.

Chu Linlang whispered close to Lin Niangzi’s ear, telling her that the item was no longer on her husband’s desk, and that as for something delivered anonymously like that — verifying its origins would take considerable effort — but with her handling things, there would certainly be no slip-ups.

Lin Niangzi was still uneasy, and asked Chu Linlang how she had disposed of it.

Chu Linlang could hardly say she had swallowed it down with a cup of tea, so she brushed it off by saying she had burned it.

Only then did Lin Niangzi’s mind settle. In return for the favor, she also offered Chu Linlang a word of warning: “Your husband is certainly diligent and dutiful, but unfortunately he is an outsider here — a monk who has come from elsewhere — and his relations with his subordinates have not been smooth, making official handovers difficult. When the Sixth Prince conducts his inspection this time, if any faults are found and reported directly, it will be somewhat difficult for my husband to put in a good word for yours before the Prince. When that time comes… Lady Chu, please do not misunderstand my husband!”

Chu Linlang understood the meaning behind her words — the distancing, the disclaimer — that even if Zhang Xian caused no deliberate harm, based on Zhou Sui’an’s performance before the Sixth Prince, it would be difficult to satisfy those above.

Fortunately, she had already worked out a plan, and after Zhou Sui’an had stood there like a wooden rooster before the Sixth Prince, he had finally come to his senses and started to listen.

Zhou Sui’an was now full of vigor and spirit, though with a thread of anxiety beneath it all, coiling up his energy and waiting for the Sixth Prince to question him again.

Chu Linlang, however, had her own kind of anxiety — a deep, ungrounded unease.

Because the banknote she had sent had been returned to her by Situ Sheng’s manservant!

Thinking of this, she lifted her gaze toward the figure of Master Situ who stood behind the Sixth Prince. As Junior Preceptor, he held no official post among the Sixth Prince’s working staff, and so he stood slightly further back than the others.

A handsome man, even standing with his hands clasped behind him in a corner, would instinctively draw people’s eyes.

Chu Linlang was idling away the time, in the midst of sizing him up from top to bottom, when she happened to meet the glance he cast carelessly in her direction.

This man’s gaze held far more penetrating force than his harmless, refined appearance would suggest — especially when he fixed that concentrated stare upon someone, it struck straight through to the very soul.

By normal propriety, Chu Linlang, out of a sense of proper distance, should have avoided the gaze of a man who was not her husband. But thinking of how he had refused to accept her payment, with no telling what scheme he was harboring, she didn’t dare look away. She simply offered him a polite, ingratiating smile, and prepared to find an opportunity later to probe his intentions.

This time, Situ Sheng was the first to lower his gaze and look away, no longer regarding the fawningly smiling young wife. He turned back and calmly watched the Sixth Prince exchanging pleasantries with the assembled officials.

The Sixth Prince, being an imperial son conducting official business away from the capital, also had to be mindful of officials like the Reporting Inspector — those who could file direct petitions to the throne. So he had made a point of giving Zhang Xian face by coming personally to see him off, and also entrusted him with delivering a letter written in his own hand to the Emperor, as a demonstration of filial devotion.

After the round of officialdom’s formal pleasantries and farewells, the Kitchen God was at last seen on his way.

Yet the officials still did not disperse, for what followed next was a fine spectacle of making an example out of one to warn a hundred.

The criminals who had attempted to assassinate the Sixth Prince that day had all been apprehended, and there was no need to wait until autumn for their execution. Once their handprints had been taken, they were dragged to the long street at the city gate to be beheaded on the spot.

In this borderland, watching an execution was as festive and lively as watching a village opera. The crowds of onlookers packed the city gate so tightly that not even water could have passed through.

Zhou Sui’an was afraid Chu Linlang might be frightened, and urged her to go home first and not watch. But Chu Linlang was still thinking of finding a chance to exchange a word with Situ Sheng, and naturally refused to leave.

At the moment of the killing, Chu Linlang had no desire to look. But as the crowd pressed from behind, she was involuntarily pushed forward. Just as the executioner’s blade was being raised, a tall figure happened to be standing directly before her, blocking her line of sight completely.

Chu Linlang glanced up — it was Master Situ who had come to stand in front of her.

Though the two of them were pressed quite close together — close enough that Chu Linlang could catch the clean scent of soapberry from his robes — the space around them was crammed with spectators, so there was no opportunity to ask him then and there why he had refused to accept the hush money.

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When had Chu Linlang ever been pressed this close to a man other than her husband? She immediately began to struggle, pushing against the man’s back, managing to retreat and put a little distance between them.

From beginning to end, Situ Sheng never once turned around. He simply stood there in the crowd, steady as a mountain, spine straight, not moving a single inch…

—

Back when she had followed Sui’an to this remote and impoverished place called Lianzhou, Chu Linlang had finally breathed a long sigh of relief, feeling that she was at least far away from her father. Never in her wildest imaginings had she expected that Chu Huaisheng would suddenly appear in the city for a visit.

She understood: now that she had become the wife of an official, her mother at least had something to lean on and need not fear being treated poorly. If she went home too frequently, her father would take advantage of it, creating difficulties for Sui’an.

But later, when Zhou Sui’an had triumphed brilliantly in the special imperial examinations, Chu Huaisheng’s attitude had shifted dramatically — like heaven and earth turning over — and he suddenly remembered that he had a third daughter born of a concubine.

As their carriage was blocked by the crowd, a middle-aged man inside it thrust his head out and bellowed curses.

Chu Linlang was slight and small in stature, and when the people behind her gave a shove, she lurched forward squarely into Situ Sheng’s back.

When Chu Linlang had married into the Zhou family, she had thought it meant escaping her birth family. Never could she have imagined that her father, Chu Huaisheng, would at this particular juncture bring her own birth mother, Sun Shi, all the way to this small frontier town of Lianzhou.

Chu Linlang narrowed her eyes and looked closely, and her expression shifted at once — for the face poking out, she recognized all too well…

Though it looked aged and haggard, with the cheeks gaunt and sunken deep, Chu Linlang’s eyes and brows resembled her birth mother’s, and one could well imagine that Sun Shi in her youth had been a beautiful woman like a lotus in bloom.

Hearing him say that her mother had fallen ill on the road, Chu Linlang was worried it might be true, and even though she was reluctant, she eventually dragged herself to the door of the post station.

She had defied her father and married Zhou Sui’an, that impoverished scholar, and in doing so had made Chu Huaisheng lose face before the old official — he had failed to deliver a beautiful concubine as promised, enraging the old man into a furious tirade, and Chu Huaisheng had not only suffered a thorough tongue-lashing but had also lost a whole boatload of salt.

She was the sort of person who dealt with things as they came — resolute and undelayed — and rarely hesitated. But every time she went back to her birth family, she always had to dither back and forth several times before she could make herself go.

Just then, a deliberate cough drifted down from the second floor of the post station, followed by a middle-aged man’s voice, carrying a note of irritation: “Foolish, ignorant woman! Dawdling at the door of the post station chattering endlessly — why haven’t you told this unfilial wretch to come upstairs and pay respects to her father!”

Though his hold over her was so remote and tenuous, her father still managed every few days to put on the air of a father-in-law, summoning Sui’an to drink with him, claiming he could arrange for him a position as a salt official, and incidentally asking him to grease the wheels, smooth his shipments through the checkpoints.

What a pity that those looks, which were her only trump card, had withered and faded with the passage of years, leaving behind nothing but deep lines scored into her brows that no amount of smoothing could ever erase.

Chu Linlang realized that today she would likely have no chance to speak with him, and besides — she had just accidentally bumped into Master Situ’s back, which was mortifying enough. Since he hadn’t turned around and they hadn’t yet had to face each other awkwardly, it was better to slip away now. So she took her maid and forced her way out of the crowd, making her way down from the city gate tower first.

He had originally planned to go to the yamen and file a complaint, willing even to ruin his daughter’s reputation, just to charge Zhou Sui’an with the crime of enticing a woman of good family into elopement.

Looking at the invitation her father had sent, Chu Linlang felt that this gathering was a banquet laid out in the style of the Feast at Hongmen — a trap dressed as a welcome.

Situ Sheng appeared tall, lean, and bookishly frail, but when you actually bumped into his back — even through layers of clothing — you could feel it was hard as an iron plate, all knotted muscle, and the impact left her nose and chest quite sore.

From that point on, Chu Huaisheng treated Chu Linlang as though he had no such daughter, let alone allowing her to come home. Yet Chu Linlang carried a worry in her heart — she missed her own birth mother — and even if it meant enduring cold looks and silent treatment, she still had to go back from time to time to look in on her mother.

When her mother saw her daughter’s face, radiant as a lotus in first bloom, Sun Shi’s expression broke into a rare, relaxed smile. She hurried forward and took her daughter’s hand, not knowing what to say.

On such occasions, it was not fitting for women to be present, so Chu Linlang took her leave first and returned home. But no sooner had she arrived than she received a calling card.

Fortunately, by custom, a father-in-law was not permitted to enter his son-in-law’s bedchamber. Otherwise, knowing Chu Huaisheng’s temperament, he would likely not have settled for the post station — he would have come straight to the Zhou household!

It was fortunate that Chu Linlang had planned ahead for a rainy day, having long ago secured evidence of her elder brother’s smuggling of salt taxes. It was only with that leverage that she had brought her father to heel, forcing him — however grudgingly — to prepare a modest dowry for her and go through the motions of a simple wedding.

And in that moment when Chu Linlang finally saw her mother again, all her previous hesitation dissolved completely. She simply held her mother’s hands, voice catching in her throat: “Mother, how have you grown even thinner?”

This calling card was in her father Chu Huaisheng’s name, summoning her to come immediately to the post station in the city.

The moment she stepped down from the carriage, she saw a sallow, yellowish face peering out from the doorway of the post station. This slight woman with graying temples at either side, who looked to be in her mid-forties, was none other than her birth mother, Sun Fu.

Just as she was descending the steps from the city gate tower, she happened to glance toward the city entrance and caught sight of two carriages that had just arrived in the city.

She had previously arranged through others to send medicine and tonics to her mother several times — where had all of those ended up? It appeared that her father’s claim that her mother was ill was not entirely fabricated.

After the execution was completed, the Prefect invited the Sixth Prince, along with Zhou Sui’an and the other Lianzhou officials, to dine together at a restaurant.

Chu Linlang had already spotted her father’s carriage at the city gate, so she had at least had a little time to prepare herself inwardly.

Sun Shi quickly explained: “It’s nothing serious. People eat the five grains — how can anyone avoid falling ill? I caught a slight chill, drank a few doses of medicinal broth, and I’m better now.”

Just then, it seemed that some commotion had broken out ahead. The crowd gave a collective cry of astonishment and began surging forward.

—