Festival days full of lively crowds were also often the days when girls and children went missing the most.
Chu Linlang’s mother had once told her how, as a small child, she had been carried off by a stranger and sold through a series of hands.
Perhaps because of her mother’s own tragic experience, Chu Linlang’s mother had never allowed her to join crowds of this sort when she was young, always gripping her small hand in a tight vise wherever they went.
Because her mother had drilled it into her ears over and over again, Chu Linlang generally paid careful attention to such things.
But she had never imagined—this was no remote backwater, but the foot of the Son of Heaven! And she was not alone—yet scoundrels were this brazen, following a woman in broad daylight.
This place was already becoming somewhat secluded, and the men following behind were each with broad shoulders and a thick waist. If she cried out now and provoked them into rushing forward to abduct her, there were only two small maids and one young manservant at her side—they would surely be no match for those men.
Ahead there was another junction, and stopped there was a carriage with a willow-wood body. The dark-faced carriage driver sitting atop it seemed to be watching her with deliberate and studied carelessness…
Chu Linlang deliberately stopped, pausing to admire a branch of apricot blossom half-peeking over a wall, and in an instant it all clicked into place in her mind.
She now understood why the men behind her had been biding their time and not made their move yet—they must be waiting for her to walk right up to the alley junction where the carriage was stopped!
At that point, the men from behind would surge forward all at once, and shove the unprepared her straight into the waiting carriage. Her maids would not have time to react.
Once she was gagged in the carriage, her hands and feet bound, she would be a fish on the chopping block—to be dealt with as others pleased.
Chu Linlang drew a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down quickly. She surveyed the surroundings, then turned to the young manservant beside her and asked quietly: “Wang Wu—you usually tend to the stove and chop firewood. Do you have a fire-starter on you?”
Wang Wu, not understanding what she was getting at, nodded: “I do! Does the household manager need it?”
Seeing Chu Linlang nod, he handed over the fire-starter he always carried.
Chu Linlang snapped the fire-starter alight, then suddenly threw it toward a low fence, setting alight a pile of firewood that a household had stacked there.
The firewood was excellent—the pile on top was made of thin pine branches for starting fires, and caught flame at the first touch, sending up a column of thick smoke in no time at all.
Xia He and Dongxue didn’t understand and looked at their young mistress in some alarm.
Why had the young mistress set fire to something in broad daylight? Had she some grudge against the people of this household?
Just then, Chu Linlang had already opened her throat and called out: “Fire! The fire has spread! Someone come and put it out!”
Having shouted that, she turned quietly to the three beside her: “Quick—shout along with me!”
Dongxue, though she didn’t understand what was going on, watched the fire grow more and more fierce—another moment and the entire fence would be burnt through—and joined in shouting. The other two followed in a panic as well.
In an instant the quiet alley was filled with their cries.
The sudden change of events left the burly men following behind somewhat at a loss—they had not anticipated she would abruptly set a fire and start calling for people.
Chu Linlang stole a glance at the men who had been following them—they too looked bewildered, clearly never having expected her to pull such a move.
The leader among them snapped back to his senses!
This little woman—she was really sharp! She must have spotted them, and set this fire as her counter-move.
Thinking of Chen Yuanwai’s instructions, the man looked at the distance between them, and decided to rush over and knock down those tag-alongs, then drag the woman onto the carriage.
After all, this was the kind of thing they had done before—they were practiced at it! And they hadn’t particularly been trying to be inconspicuous either—the point was to ruin this woman’s reputation and teach her a lesson.
Thinking this, he waved his hand, and the several large men behind him surged forward all at once.
Chu Linlang had long been prepared. She had already grabbed a burning branch and held it out in front of her, while shouting even louder: “Oh heavens, the house is going to burn!”
But the burning branch in her hand struck at those men without a moment’s hesitation!
The first man to rush forward had his hand hit by the burning branch and yelped in pain.
And at this moment Xia He and Dongxue finally understood what was happening—though Xia He had been unprepared, and was seized by one of the large men, who grabbed her throat in a chokehold in an instant.
Dongxue also took her cue from Linlang, grabbed a branch and held it in front of herself as a shield, while shouting even more loudly!
Although most households, because of the Flower Festival, had gone out to stroll the streets and visit the Flower Goddess Temple, there were some elderly people or those who didn’t enjoy the crowds who had stayed home.
Hearing someone outside suddenly shouting that there was a fire, and looking out to find that, sure enough, thick smoke was rising in the air, three and four of the neighbors began opening their doors to look.
Looking out and finding that the neighboring household’s fence was truly on fire, neighbors on both sides—fearing it would spread to them—immediately also began shouting about the fire, and more and more people gathered in the alley that had been quiet.
Because people had also come out of the house that was on fire, and seeing their firewood ablaze, they immediately splashed water to put it out, and angrily asked which household’s child had been mischievous and lit their firewood pile.
Niangzi Chu immediately pointed at the large man who was choking Xia He around the neck: “It was these men! We saw them with our own eyes start the fire! My maidservant tried to stop them and was grabbed around the throat by them!”
The large men had not expected Chu Linlang to be this brazen—to look someone in the eye and tell such a blatant lie—and for a moment they were furious and refuted her: “Rubbish—it was clearly you who set the fire!”
But unfortunately these men all had the rough and wild look of outlaws, and moreover they were indeed grabbing a weak woman, and at a glance were clearly not decent people!
So the household, along with several curious neighbors who had come to look, surrounded the large men in a tight ring and argued that they must go before the magistrate.
The ringleader tried to claim that Chu Linlang and her party were runaway slaves of his household, and they were coming to take them back to their master.
But Chu Linlang had already climbed up onto a stone block in the alley and called out in a loud voice: “Neighbors all—these men are kidnappers! I heard them say, before they set the fire—that they were going to use the commotion to slip into your courtyards and steal your daughters! Grab them quickly—otherwise another daughter from a good family will suffer!”
These words caused an uproar in the alley. Several of the large men were surrounded so tightly they couldn’t move. An old woman went home and came back with a bucket of slop water, and doused it all over those men! Others cursed and took up their shoulder-carrying poles, beating them on the backs and heads of those few men.
Several of the men refused to give up and still tried to grab hold of Chu Linlang, but this only confirmed the charge of being kidnappers all the more.
This time it didn’t even require Chu Linlang to fight back herself—a crowd of warmhearted neighbors protected her and beat the living daylights out of these “kidnappers”!
With things at this pass, there was simply no way to push through the crowd and drag Chu Linlang onto the carriage.
Those men had been fugitive outlaws used to killing and pillaging—when had they ever suffered such an ignominious situation? In the end, the ringleader simply pulled out a short blade he had hidden inside his robe and slashed it at someone to draw blood, sending the surrounding neighbors scattering back in terror!
Just at this moment, someone suddenly shouted: “The constables have come!”
The large men who had been about to draw their blades too took one look at the situation and knew it had turned against them—they simply let Xia He go, then violently shoved the people who had been beating them aside, and sprinted to board the carriage at the alley junction, disappearing without a trace.
Chu Linlang watched those men climb into the carriage that had been parked at the alley junction from the start, and finally exhaled a long breath of relief.
It turned out that while calling for the neighbors earlier, Chu Linlang had also instructed the young manservant Wang Wu to slip away to the nearby streets to find the patrol constables and report the matter, which was why the constables had arrived so quickly.
Although the outlaws had fled without a trace, Linlang as a witness was obliged to go to the magistrate’s office to give testimony. Linlang was more than willing to go to the office!
She had no way of knowing whether those outlaws had gone far or not—if she were left alone to go back on her own, who was to say she wouldn’t run into them again?
But when she got to the magistrate’s office, she told the truth to the official in charge—that she had set the fire herself to escape danger—and was willing to pay silver to compensate the household for their losses, while also giving silver as a token of gratitude to the neighbors who had helped her get out of the predicament.
But just when she was negotiating the compensation amount with the aggrieved party, Situ Sheng came rushing in. It turned out that after Wang Wu had reported to the constables, he had also slipped back to the Vice Minister’s residence to notify Situ Sheng.
Chu Linlang followed behind Situ Sheng, saying quietly: “My lord, why have you come? I’ve already negotiated a price with the aggrieved party—once I pay the silver I can leave. Why make an extra trip? Why get yourself entangled in something like this?”
She hadn’t even told the magistrate’s office that she was the household manager of the Vice Minister of Revenue’s residence—precisely because she feared implicating his reputation, and stirring up some reputation for keeping troublesome servants.
With him showing up like this, wasn’t all her effort wasted?
Situ Sheng glanced at her and said nothing. He only draped his own cloak over her shoulders—there was a bit of a chill as evening fell.
He brought Chu Linlang to the carriage, and said as a matter of course: “You are my person—if I don’t come, who will? Did those people hit you? Were you made to suffer in there?”
With that, Situ Sheng was already checking Chu Linlang over, looking to see if she had sustained any injuries.
Chu Linlang was momentarily stunned. From the time she was small until now, not even her own mother had said such protective words on her behalf—her father would beat her, and her mother could only tell her to endure it, to back down.
After marrying into the Zhou household, she had grown even more accustomed to charging ahead of her husband to weather the wind and the rain.
If trouble had come her way through no fault of her own, as today, and it had been her former husband Zhou Sui’an who had come to protect her—he probably would not have asked about the circumstances at all, but would have scolded her right there in the magistrate’s office for being senseless and causing him trouble for no reason.
Situ Sheng did not ask whether she had stirred up trouble—he only cared whether she had been hit and bullied…
The shock of having been followed by a group of strange men, and the lingering terror after surviving the ordeal, began to slowly ferment in the quiet of the carriage. It seemed she could finally allow herself to be weak for a moment, and she had found someone she could throw herself into and weep her heart out to…
Chu Linlang looked at Situ Sheng, and her eyes began to gradually redden. She held it back and held it back, and in the end her lips crumpled—and she choked on a sob as she flung herself into Situ Sheng’s broad, solid embrace.
Situ Sheng could not bear this woman’s tears the least. In their youth, the little girl next door could make him lie awake the whole night with her crying, a dull ache throbbing quietly in his chest with every one of the little girl’s broken sobs…
Now it seemed his weakness had not changed—he could only endure the heartache, knit his brows, and hold her tighter, rocking her gently as one soothes an infant: “It’s all right now. Tell me—what exactly happened? Who made you suffer this?”
Chu Linlang didn’t care about any of that. When a rare wave of womanly fragility crested in her like this, she could not get a single word out until she had cried it all the way through.
It was only when Situ Sheng finally lifted her bodily into his lap, pressing kisses to her forehead and the corners of her mouth, that she gradually stemmed her grievance, and slowly described in detail what had happened that day when someone had followed her.
Situ Sheng’s expression grew grave by degrees, the whole of him turning solemn. The arms holding her also gradually tightened.
Chu Linlang sensed she had frightened the lord and hurried to ease his mind: “They were probably just some good-for-nothing kidnappers who spotted a woman traveling with only a small group and had ideas.”
But Situ Sheng shook his head and said with certainty: “They knew who you were, and they knew where you were going—which is why that carriage was able to circle around ahead of time and block the alley junction, waiting for you to walk right into the trap!”
Hearing him lay it out this way, Chu Linlang drew a sharp breath. Of course—she hadn’t even had time to think through this detail yet!
But if they knew she was the household manager of the Vice Minister’s residence and still dared to abduct her in broad daylight—what on earth was the purpose?
Situ Sheng already had the answer in his heart. After all, in the capital, the number of people who would dare to commit such an act in broad daylight was not many.
He held Linlang silently in his arms and finally said, blaming himself: “It’s my fault. I should have listened to you from the start and cleared out the inner and outer courtyards… I’m afraid these next days will be hard on you. Except for the residence and the women’s academy, don’t go anywhere else for the time being.”
Seeing he was unwilling to explain further, Chu Linlang was sensible enough not to ask.
After returning home that day, Situ Sheng settled Chu Linlang in, had her drink a calming tonic, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and told her to sleep well.
He then sat alone in the study and thought through in brief the account of the events Chu Linlang had just described to him in detail.
This matter was his fault—he had actually forgotten that he could no longer be considered entirely without attachments. His residence now kept someone he could not afford not to care about, and how could he allow others to act recklessly?
Thinking this, he rose and went to the side of the bookshelf, felt around in the hidden compartment behind it, and drew out a dagger, tucking it into his chest. Then he waved his hand and called Guanqi over: “What is the name of the carriage driver who took Niangzi Chu out today?”
Guanqi said: “His name is Ji Cang—he’s the cousin of the cook Nanny Wang, introduced into the residence by Nanny Wang.”
Situ Sheng nodded and said: “Bring the young manservant who went out with Niangzi Chu today as well, and have Ji Cang hitch up the carriage. Come with me—we’re going somewhere.”
Although it was nearly sunset, the lord going to his official post to work through the night was not unusual. Guanqi nodded and gave the order to ready the carriage.
But once the carriage left the alley, Situ Sheng directed the carriage driver to go through the city gates, and they traveled all the way out to a desolate wild gravemound on the outskirts of the city.
By now the sun had already dropped behind the hilltops. Crows perched thick on the branches, and when startled by the sound of carriage wheels, set up a round of hair-raising cries fit to call down the dead.
Ji Cang pulled the carriage to a stop by the roadside and asked somewhat timidly: “My… my lord, where exactly are you going? We’ve already reached the edge of the wild gravemound.”
Situ Sheng lifted the carriage curtain to look, then stepped down, clasped his hands behind his back, and paced two circles—and then walked alone toward the wild gravemound.
Ji Cang rubbed his arms as he looked at the surroundings and asked Guanqi: “Is the lord here to pay respects to some ancestor?”
Guanqi shot him a look and said coldly: “Your family’s ancestors are the ones buried in the wild gravemound.”
Before long, Situ Sheng came back. He had Ji Cang and Wang Wu take up two spades, found a level patch of ground, and told the two of them to dig.
Wang Wu didn’t understand and asked: “My lord, what is this for?”
Situ Sheng leaned against the carriage, raised an eyebrow, and said calmly: “Burying a disobedient dog… Get on with it, and we can still make it back for dinner at the residence.”
Wang Wu, taking him at his word, immediately picked up the spade and started digging, and even said to Guanqi with a grin: “I heard tonight there’s braised pork in Shaoxing wine that Niangzi Chu cooked herself—the smell is amazing! I wonder if I can beg some gravy to pour over my rice…”
As for Ji Cang, he hesitated for a moment, then also picked up a spade and started digging.
Once a deep pit had been dug and the two of them—exhausted and sweating from head to toe—leaned against the edges of the pit and began to climb out, their hands were suddenly stomped down hard. Situ Sheng and Guanqi each took a length of rope and bound their wrists.
Two wooden stakes had already been hammered into the ground at the edge of the pit—the kind used for nailing coffins. The ropes binding their hands were looped onto the stakes, so the two men still standing inside the deep pit were left dangling with their feet off the ground, howling and wailing as they hung against the pit walls.
Situ Sheng crouched down on his haunches and looked at the two who were crying out that their arms hurt, and said slowly: “Do you know where I used to serve as an official?”
The name of the Court of Judicial Review’s feared harsh official, renowned throughout the capital, versed in the dynasty’s ten great severe punishments—who did not know it?
Seeing both men nod in panic, Situ Sheng drew the dagger from his chest and patted their faces: “I ask whatever I please, and you answer whatever I ask. If you’re not straight with me, don’t blame me for the blade showing no mercy!”
With that, Situ Sheng paused and asked: “Today when Niangzi Chu was going out—who did you pass word to?”
Wang Wu was the first to answer: “I was eating breakfast when Dongxue told me to help carry the flower baskets—she said Niangzi Chu was going out. I didn’t say a single word to anyone else!”
Ji Cang also hurried to say: “Same here—Xia He said Niangzi Chu was going out, so I readied the carriage. I never spoke any extra words to anyone.”
Situ Sheng pressed further—what about when they arrived at the Sacrificial Libationer’s residence?
Wang Wu was again the first to answer: he had helped the two maids carry the flower baskets into the residence, and Niangzi Chu had slipped flower cakes and pastries to the two maids on the quiet, and given him some as well—so he and the two maids had sat under the covered walkway eating the cakes, and had not exchanged a word with anyone outside.
Ji Cang said that after dropping Niangzi Chu off at the Sacrificial Libationer’s residence, he had just been waiting in the carriage the whole time.
But neither man’s account satisfied Situ Sheng.
His expression turned icy as he said: “I know someone betrayed Niangzi Chu today, which is why people were able to ambush her halfway. If you two insist on keeping your mouths shut, that’s fine too—this blade of mine is made of refined steel and won’t have its edge blunted even after slicing along bone seams. I usually start with the fingers—if you don’t talk, I’ll cut your fingers first…”
With that, he planted a foot on Wang Wu’s wrist, and accompanied by Wang Wu’s one bloodcurdling shriek, several blood-dripping fingers were tossed in front of Ji Cang.
Wang Wu wept with tears streaming down his face, crying out his own innocence.
A sight as gory as this—how could an ordinary person like Ji Cang bear to look? He was so frightened he lost control of himself below, and wet his trousers right then and there.
When Situ Sheng planted a foot on his wrist as well, about to do the same and cut his fingers off, Ji Cang cracked like a door being forced open—he shrieked at the top of his lungs: “Don’t! I’ll talk, I’ll talk—it was me who passed word to my cousin about Niangzi Chu going out…”
It turned out Ji Cang had a cousin who worked at the Chen Family Tea House. Some time ago, this cousin had sought him out and said that as long as Ji Cang occasionally passed along information about the movements of the household manager and master of the residence, he would be given five taels of silver as a reward.
Ji Cang had at first found it suspicious and didn’t dare—but he couldn’t resist his cousin talking him into it, and with certain other benefits thrown in, the cousin promised that if Ji Cang was sensible about it, he could arrange for Ji Cang to go work as a minor steward in Chen Yuanwai’s household in the future.
Chen Yuanwai was a well-known figure in the capital—he even held the title of an imperial merchant.
Ji Cang’s heart had been moved, and when his cousin indicated he should notify him whenever Niangzi Chu went out, he had done exactly as instructed.
Today, after dropping Niangzi Chu off at the Sacrificial Libationer’s residence, he had taken a shortcut and run to notify his cousin. And what followed—per the cousin’s indications—was his deliberate misdirection of the carriage onto the crowded road, enticing Niangzi Chu to get down and walk. But what happened after that, he genuinely did not know.
Situ Sheng narrowed his eyes and asked: “Why did your cousin specifically ask to know about Niangzi Chu’s movements?”
Ji Cang wore a mournful expression: “My cousin wasn’t clear about it either—he only said she didn’t know how to play along, and on top of that, a noble person had taken a fancy to her looks and wanted to arrange a meeting with Niangzi Chu to see her privately…”
Before he had even finished, Situ Sheng had already brought his foot down with a fierce stomp—leaving Ji Cang rolling his eyes back in agony, moaning without stop.
Just at this moment, Guanqi had already pulled the dumbstruck Wang Wu up and out, dusted off his shoulder, and untied him.
Wang Wu looked at his own intact fingers, then looked at the fingers lying at the bottom of the pit, and stood frozen for a moment.
Guanqi kindly cleared things up: “Our lord is upright and incorruptible—how could he resort to private punishment? Those were fingers our lord cut from a nameless corpse that had been bundled in a reed mat in the gravemound just now. Brother, I’m sorry—you were used as the hen to frighten the monkey. You’ve suffered unfairly…”
Though Guanqi warmly put his arm around Wang Wu’s shoulders and walked him toward the carriage, repeatedly emphasizing how law-abiding his lord was and that the rumors about the harsh official were really quite wildly off the mark—
Wang Wu listened trembling, and had almost believed it. But unfortunately the sounds of Ji Cang getting beaten behind them were unrelenting—like an iron fist pounding a sandbag—the sounds suggesting he was on the verge of breathing his last.
That night, the carriage returned quite late, and Ji Cang—beaten until he looked like a pig’s head, with both eyes swollen shut—kept wilting over onto Wang Wu, frightening Wang Wu into pressing his face flat against the carriage wall and not daring to move.
Passing by the Court of Judicial Review, Guanqi kicked Ji Cang off the carriage with one foot, told a constable he was acquainted with to take him into custody, and had him charged with the crime of colluding with kidnappers to abduct a respectable woman.
Guanqi then took a letter Situ Sheng had written on the carriage and hurried off to the Fourth Prince’s residence.
Situ Sheng told the officials on duty at the Court of Judicial Review that several maids of his residence had nearly been seized by villains working with inside informants, and that he needed the matter interrogated.
The officials on duty had quite often shared Situ Sheng’s food parcels in the past. They were also well-acquainted with the beautiful and skilled-at-cooking Niangzi Chu, and hearing that she and several maids had nearly been abducted in the grand imperial capital, were genuinely furious.
After all, people couldn’t just enjoy someone’s food parcels and soup for nothing! The constables dispatched to arrest Ji Cang’s cousin set out immediately, and the interrogation was conducted in the punishment hall that very night.
Cases of kidnapping would ordinarily never be the Court of Judicial Review’s purview to handle—now there was something of an air of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The Presiding Judge Lord Cheng only found out that such a case had been tried the night before when someone came from the Crown Prince’s residence to inquire about it at noon the following day.
And at that point, the punishment hall of the Court of Judicial Review had already, based on Ji Cang’s cousin’s testimony, arrested Chen Yuanwai.
By the time Lord Cheng rushed to the scene in alarm, Chen Yuanwai—like a potato stripped of its skin—was hanging on the rack while a branding iron was being applied!
Lord Cheng roared in fury: “Who gave you permission to act so recklessly like this!”
Situ Sheng, who had been interrogating alongside his former Court of Judicial Review colleagues through the night, rose first and said blandly: “It was nothing more than a minor case of abducting a woman—I specifically asked them not to alarm you, my lord!”
Lord Cheng shot back with a cold voice: “Lord Situ—you are no longer serving at the Court of Judicial Review, and yet you come here to make use of my people. Overstepping your authority like this—what is the justification?”
Situ Sheng said coldly: “Lord Cheng, it was out of the collegial bond of past colleagues that I came here to manage this situation for you. Do you know how many women and children were abducted yesterday during the Flower Festival?”
This sort of thing happened every year. When the abducted women and children had no background, most such cases were never resolved, and no one ever reported them upward. What was remarkable about that?
Situ Sheng smiled faintly: “Several maids of my residence nearly got seized by kidnappers yesterday—it turned out the villains had colluded with my carriage driver on the inside, working hand in glove to lure and abduct respectable women. This sort of thing has probably not been happening for the first time. If left unchecked, not only ordinary people’s wives—even daughters from good noble households in the capital might come to grief. So last night, I already wrote a memorial and presented this matter to His Majesty, hoping to use this opportunity to root out the stubborn criminal element plaguing the city!”
Good heavens—Lord Cheng truly wanted to double over laughing.
No matter how favored this Situ Sheng was in His Majesty’s eyes, he absolutely should not have troubled His Majesty with such trivial domestic security cases.
Could these cases of missing children and women—local cases, all of them—possibly be compared with the lengthy and weighty affairs of state?