With that thought, Chu Linlang was not overly worried.

She had already made up her mind: if the bond document truly could not be obtained, she would still take her mother back to the capital.

As for Chu Huaisheng wanting to make trouble for her — she was not afraid. In the capital, she could drag it out with him at her leisure.

For now, the most pressing matter was to first see to her mother’s health. Sun Shi’s illness was nothing as serious as consumption, but the chill she had caught had irritated her airways, and she was coughing badly at night.

The previous day, Chu Linlang had additionally commissioned a few more valuable restorative medicines from the physician. Now that she had some free time, she planned to go to the pharmacy on the neighboring street to collect them.

She brought her maidservant along and, on the way, also purchased pork ribs and a pig trotter for the soup she intended to make for her mother that evening.

This street and these alleys were very familiar to her. Before the Chu Family had moved into their larger residence, they had lived here.

And Situ Sheng and his mother had lived on this same street.

While she was out shopping, Chu Linlang happened to glance up and noticed a middle-aged woman standing in front of the old house where the Wen mother and son had once lived, talking to an elderly neighbor woman next to it.

Chu Linlang squinted for a closer look. The woman seemed extremely familiar, yet she could not place her. She quietly asked Dongxue at her side.

Dongxue took one look at the middle-aged woman and immediately recognized her. During the voyage, when they could not always stop at a port and would eat on board the ship, the servants of each noble lady would gather around several tables, chatting and growing acquainted with one another quite readily.

Was this woman not Shen Niangzi, the personal household steward of the fourth aunt of the Tao Family?

At that, Chu Linlang’s eyelid gave a sharp twitch.

She quickly stood to the side, found a nearby shop’s door panel to conceal herself behind, and watched Shen Niangzi from there.

Shen Niangzi had not noticed Linlang and her maid. After asking a few more questions, she turned and got into a carriage and left.

Once the carriage had turned the corner, Chu Linlang stepped out and walked over to strike up a conversation with the elderly neighbor woman as well.

The old woman was sitting idly in her doorway enjoying the sunshine. When she saw Chu Linlang approach, she first felt a sense of recognition, and then, looking more carefully — was this not the third daughter of the Chu Family, her old neighbor from the street?

Old neighbors who had watched her grow up since childhood spoke quite freely when questioned.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Chu Linlang asked what the woman from out of town had been inquiring about just now.

The old woman grinned: “She was asking whether the people who used to live next door were a madwoman with the family name Wen, and whether there was anyone else living with her.”

Hearing this, Chu Linlang felt something sink in her chest. She asked: “And how did you answer her, Grandmother?”

The old woman said with a smile: “That madwoman — who on this street doesn’t know her? Didn’t she have a son who stayed with her all the time to look after her?”

Chu Linlang managed a thin smile: “And do you know where the madwoman’s son went?”

The old woman replied: “After the madwoman died and was laid to rest, wasn’t he taken in by her family? Where he went, I couldn’t say. Come to think of it — why are you asking the same thing as that woman from out of town just now?”

Chu Linlang smiled, and seeing she would get no more useful information, rose and left.

That evening, the women’s academy students were gathering for a night banquet on the lake. Chu Linlang had originally had no intention of attending. But now she changed her mind.

So that evening, she made her way to the lotus lake and joined the female students in releasing flower lanterns, drinking wine, and enjoying the sight of the lanterns drifting all across the lake.

The instructors had also come today. Taking advantage of the lantern-releasing occasion, they formed a poetry circle, composing verses as they admired the night scenery, enjoying themselves immensely.

Of them all, Instructor Liao’s literary talent shone brightest — several poems he composed on the spot earned the other instructors’ repeated admiration, and they kept remarking that it was no wonder he had made it into the palace examination in his day, for such talent, even if it had not won him third place in the final ranking, was true ability of the highest order.

Such flashing brilliance naturally earned praise from the female students as well, and even Tao Yashu could not help but steal a glance at Instructor Liao.

Perhaps because they were to spend the evening in the company of the female students, the usually disheveled Instructor Liao had, in a rare moment, tidied himself up. That wild beard of his had been oiled and combed into order. Combined with his substantial height, dressed now in a handsomely fitting white robe, he carried about him a distinct refined elegance of a man in his middle years.

The young women were all busy composing and critiquing verses, enjoying one another’s company. Chu Linlang had no desire to expose her limitations and so did not join in.

But the fourth aunt of the Tao Family came drifting over and settled herself beside Chu Linlang, greeting her with a mild smile: “Chu Niangzi has returned to Jiangkou, and must be in good spirits — only you’ve been so busy these past few days that no one could find you.”

Chu Linlang turned with a smile: “I am a businesswoman, and I have my livelihood to attend to. I’m afraid I haven’t been able to properly host you all as a local should. Please forgive me.”

Tao Huiru studied Chu Linlang and smiled slightly: “I heard you resigned from the deputy minister’s household before leaving the capital. Was it not agreeable to you there?”

Chu Linlang smiled lightly: “When I had my separation and had nowhere to stay, I had no choice but to take on a short-term position. But even if the work was agreeable, I couldn’t be a household manager and servant forever.”

Tao Huiru lowered her eyes and nodded: “Deputy Minister Situ was so sincerely helpful to Chu Niangzi — might that be because you two share some prior acquaintance?”

Chu Linlang responded naturally: “There was indeed some prior acquaintance. When the Deputy Minister and the Sixth Prince were in Lianzhou investigating a case, he became acquainted with my former husband. Later, in Jizhou, Deputy Minister Situ and the Sixth Prince came to dine at our residence and complimented my cooking, even saying they wished to engage a cook of equal skill. Ha — little did I imagine that by some twist of fate, I would end up working in his household as a manager and cook. If I had known earlier that I would one day need to make my living by cooking, I should have practiced more in my own family’s restaurant.”

The “prior acquaintance” Tao Huiru had been hoping to hear about was not this at all.

Unwilling to give up, she pressed on with a probe: “Earlier still, Niangzi, here in Jiangkou — I have heard you and Deputy Minister Situ were actually old neighbors?”

As she said this, Tao Huiru kept her gaze fixed on Chu Linlang’s face, as though searching for the slightest trace of unease.

Had Chu Linlang been caught off guard, she might well have been startled into betraying something.

But what Tao Huiru did not know was that Chu Linlang had witnessed the scene that afternoon in which she had sent Shen Niangzi to make inquiries — and had long since put up her guard.

Hearing the question now, Chu Linlang furrowed her brow with a look of genuine puzzlement: “Surely Deputy Minister Situ never held an official post in Jiangkou? My goodness — I’ve never heard the Deputy Minister mention it. Didn’t he live in Yao County, near the capital, with his mother?”

Her performance was so completely natural that even as Tao Huiru studied her closely, she could detect not the slightest hint of guilt or agitation.

In truth, Tao Huiru had nothing more than her own suspicions to go on — no concrete evidence whatsoever.

It was only that Situ Sheng’s eyes bore such a striking resemblance to Wen Jiangxue’s. And the look this young man gave people was identical to the eerie, unhinged stare Wen Jiangxue had had after going mad.

Furthermore, the broad back and certain subtle features of this tall young man bore a degree of resemblance to Yang Yi — a resemblance not obvious enough to describe, and only someone who had known him intimately could have noticed it at all.

This had shaken Tao Huiru deeply from the very first time she laid eyes on him.

Her own son Tao Zan took more after her in appearance, and in build as well — he had inherited the lean frame of the Tao Family’s male line, with none of the commanding martial presence of the Yang Family military tradition.

Yet this Situ Sheng, a man with no apparent connection to them at all, resembled Yang Yi more than her own son did. Why?

After meeting Situ Sheng, Tao Huiru had found the likeness haunting her — the more she thought about it, the more the resemblance seemed to grow. Something was lodged in her throat that would not go down, and she could not sleep at night.

When she heard that her niece Tao Yashu wanted to join the women’s academy trip to Jiangkou, she went along with it, helping to persuade her brother, and used the opportunity to come to Jiangkou herself.

That Wen Jiangxue had been sent to Jiangkou to recover was a secret kept quietly within a small circle of the Yang Family — even Tao Huiru had learned of it only later.

Before the defeat at Beishui, she and Yang Yi had married, and for the first two years things had been tolerable. But after that, every so often he would leave for a period to go and visit Wen Jiangxue.

This had lodged in Tao Huiru’s throat like a fishbone, impossible to address openly.

For Wen Jiangxue’s madness, she herself bore a responsibility she could not escape. Under those circumstances, she could only pretend to be magnanimous and virtuous, even personally preparing nourishing remedies for Wen Jiangxue and sending them along with Yang Yi on his visits.

Every time he went to Jiangkou, she was consumed by jealousy nearly to the point of madness — and yet she had to endure it in silence. After all, that woman had gone mad, and could no longer vie with her for the man — letting Yang Yi see his former love reduced to lunacy was, she had told herself, the surest way to sever his attachment.

As for the madwoman’s son, he had been taken away by Yang Yi’s father, Yang Xun, to raise before Tao Huiru had even married into the family. Later the boy had died on the battlefield along with his grandfather, and his body was never recovered.

Now Tao Huiru was beginning to suspect: in the years that followed, had Yang Yi fathered another child with this madwoman?

So when Shen Niangzi discovered that the madwoman who had lived in Jiangkou had indeed had a young boy living with her, Tao Huiru had felt as though she had swallowed a fly.

What was it about that Wen Jiangxue that was so captivating? Even in her madness, Yang Yi had never been able to let her go?

The greatest wound Tao Huiru had carried through her whole life was that Yang Yi had abandoned her and gone on to marry an obscure common woman from Lingnan. No one knew that when she had waited and longed day and night and Yang Yi finally returned from Lingnan, only to find him arm-in-arm with that woman as husband and wife — the pain had been enough to tear her apart.

From childhood, both families had always said Yang Yi would be her husband. How could she stand by and watch him marry someone else?

But a daughter of the Tao Family was never the kind of pitiful creature who drowned in her own tears. After weeping bitterly for several days, she seemed to transform into a different person. She stopped speaking of her infatuation with Yang Yi entirely — continued attending banquets normally, chatted and laughed with others as usual — and then went on to become acquainted with that woman and cultivate a close friendship with her, as intimate as sisters.

Yet all that bitter effort had won her only a husband who went through the motions with her, giving her not a single true measure of his heart.

Through all these years, she had not flinched from the stigma of his name, had understood his situation as a prisoner of war as leaving him no choice, had endured faithfully, raised their children, and preserved a line of blood for the Yang Family.

And he had gone and married again in the Jing Kingdom and fathered more children.

And now she had discovered that he seemed to have fathered yet another illegitimate child with that cast-aside madwoman.

At that thought, the fingers working Tao Huiru’s prayer beads trembled faintly with rage.

But watching Chu Linlang’s flawless response now, she dared not be certain that Situ Sheng was necessarily Wen Jiangxue’s child.

After all, Situ Sheng appeared more mature and composed than his documented age of twenty-five would suggest.

This was a man who navigated with ease among the various imperial princes, and who had directly remonstrated with the Emperor himself to push through the tenure farmland reforms — a capable official of the highest caliber. No matter how one looked at him, he did not seem very young.

Even if he were Wen Jiangxue’s firstborn son, he would only be twenty-two this year. But if Wen Jiangxue had conceived a child with Yang Yi after their separation, the child would be even younger — perhaps only seventeen or eighteen.

A youth of that age would find it very difficult to pass himself off as older. No matter how mature his features might be, his eyes and bearing would still betray a certain rawness.

It seemed Situ Sheng could not be that woman’s son after all. Coincidental resemblances in appearance were not unheard of — and for that matter, he did not look so very much like Yang Yi.

But even after reaching this conclusion, Tao Huiru was still uneasy. She continued with another probe: “I have an old acquaintance who once lived in Jiangkou for a long while. Unfortunately she fell ill, and her mind became somewhat unclear. Does Chu Niangzi happen to remember a mad neighbor who once lived next door to your family?”

Chu Linlang thought for a moment, then clapped her hands as though it had just come to her: “Now that you mention it, I do believe there was someone like that. But I was so young at the time — my family worried I might get hurt and wouldn’t let me go near her. Is she a relation of yours? What became of her afterward? I seem to remember someone saying she died of her illness?”

Tao Huiru smiled faintly and said no more. For Chu Niangzi was right — she had been a small child at the time. How could she possibly have had any real acquaintance with a madwoman?

Wen Jiangxue was dead. She ought not to keep drifting into her dreams.

Was all of this truly coincidence? But then — where had the boy who had lived with that madwoman gone? At the thought, Tao Huiru bit down on her lip in silence, and the prayer beads in her hand began to spin faster.

Seeing that she could draw nothing more out of Chu Linlang’s lips, she stopped speaking to her and drifted back to the edge of the pond filled with lotus lanterns, gazing at the scattered lights on the water, her brow darkened, lost in silent thought.

Linlang had come here tonight precisely to await Tao Huiru’s questions. Now that they had been asked, it seemed Tao Huiru had no solid evidence to prove that Situ Sheng was of Yang Family blood.

The following morning, Chu Linlang had Dongxue keep an eye on Shen Niangzi’s movements.

Dongxue returned to report that during the day, Shen Niangzi had bought a great deal of paper offerings, and that evening she had accompanied the fourth aunt of the Tao Family to the doorstep of the madwoman’s former house to burn the paper.

Chu Linlang did not know the full story of the old entanglements, but watching Tao Huiru’s behavior, she guessed she must carry some measure of guilt in her heart.

People in this world were mostly like this — while a bitter enemy lived, they could devise every manner of underhanded scheme to use against them. But once the person died, it was as though they became a ghost or a demon, all the more terrifying to those who had harmed them.

Whether the paper offerings Tao Huiru burned were in genuine remembrance of an old friend from her maiden days, or whether she was buying off some unspeakable sin she carried — that was not something Linlang could know.

But in the days that followed, Tao Huiru continued making inquiries across the surrounding countryside — only the people she was asking about were now young men in their late teens, which clearly had nothing to do with Situ Sheng.

Chu Linlang was entirely bewildered by Tao Huiru’s approach.

After that night’s banquet on the lake, Linlang also quietly pulled Liao Jingxuan aside for a brief word.

Because Situ Sheng had been candid with her, she knew that Instructor Liao Jingxuan was an old friend of Situ Sheng’s and understood the full details of his background.

So seizing a moment when no one was watching, she quietly conveyed Tao Huiru’s probing questions to him.

Liao Jingxuan took in the gist of it and understood the implication immediately.

He furrowed his brow and said briefly: “I understand. Chu Niangzi may set her mind at ease and attend to her own affairs — there is no need to concern yourself further with this.”

Chu Linlang knew this Instructor Liao was far less free-spirited than he appeared on the surface.

The man had once traveled with the Ministry of Works to the border to supervise the building of fortress walls, and had managed to cultivate and position a great many covert contacts in the border region between the Jing Kingdom and Great Jin. He surely had his own strategies for handling matters of this kind.

Linlang let out a quiet sigh and resolved to stop worrying about the fourth aunt of the Tao Family, who was still out searching for young men. It was better to go back and tend to her mother first.

The fleet of ships from Ronlin Women’s Academy would not linger in Jiangkou for long. After a few more days, once the noble ladies had taken their leisure, they would turn back toward the capital.

Tao Huiru, even if she wished to keep investigating, would not stay in Jiangkou much beyond that.

For now, what mattered most was first to resolve the matter of her mother’s bond document, and then to bring her mother back to the capital as soon as possible to inform Situ Sheng about the danger posed by the fourth aunt of the Tao Family — that was the real priority.

News came quickly from her second sister.

Once Chu Jinyu returned home, she set about earnestly persuading the main wife — pointing out that keeping Sun Shi around served no purpose, and that if she died of consumption inside the house, it would bring very bad luck. It would be far better to do Chu Linlang a favor and let her take the woman away — consider it a gesture of goodwill to mend the sisters’ relationship.

After all, her husband Zheng Biao was in the naval forces. If this Chu Linlang could one day use her connections to help advance his career, wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing?

More importantly, Chu Jinyu told the main wife that Chu Linlang was willing to pay silver to buy out the bond — and the price she was offering was not low.

The main wife found herself swayed by her second daughter’s arguments. After weighing the pros and cons, she finally made up her mind: behind Chu Huaisheng’s back, she produced the bond document and handed it to Chu Jinyu.

The way Sun Shi had spat blood that day — she clearly had not long to live. The main wife had despised Sun Shi for years. If the woman could die outside the household, sparing them the cost of a coffin and burial cloth — wasn’t that rather convenient?

Moreover, this would serve as a lesson to the remaining concubines in the household: their lives and deaths were in her hands as the main wife. If they remained as compliant as Sun Shi, she, the mistress of the house, would treat them reasonably. But if they kept seducing the master and draining him dry, they could expect to be sold off at her command.

When Chu Jinyu brought the bond document to Chu Linlang, Linlang kept her word and gave both Chu Jinyu and Sun Shi a sum of money each.

But Chu Linlang left herself some insurance: she had Chu Jinyu write out a receipt acknowledging the payment, and had Sun Shi press her thumbprint to it. With that receipt in hand, even if Chu Huaisheng accused her of having stolen the document, it would hold no ground.

When Chu Huaisheng came back from his salt business and heard that the main wife and his second daughter had given Sun Shi’s bond document to Chu Linlang without consulting him, he was so furious he nearly levitated on the spot.

“Two useless fools! Sun Shi was perfectly fine just the other day — how does one scalding and she turns up with an incurable illness? Come on — I’m going to get that bond document back!”

With that, Chu Huaisheng hurried off with his son Chu Renfeng to the inn where Chu Linlang was staying.

By that point, Chu Linlang had long since packed her belongings and was preparing to take her mother back to the capital.

Seeing her father come to make a scene, claiming the second daughter had stolen the bond document without authorization and that it was invalid, and that he was going to take Sun Shi back himself — Chu Linlang stood unhurried at the foot of the stairs, blocking Chu Huaisheng from going up: “This bond document was acquired by me in exchange for silver, and there is a receipt with the main wife’s own payment confirmation. The main wife is the lawful mistress of the Chu household — selling off a concubine without your consent is entirely within her rights as the mistress. Since it was a completed transaction and not theft, on what grounds is it invalid? My mother has been displeased with you for a very long time. Without the bond document tying her, she is a free person. Having been abused by you for so long, she has long wished to sever all ties with you — and she doesn’t even need a letter of repudiation from you. I have already burned the bond document. You cannot take it back.”

Hearing this, Chu Huaisheng felt his dignity as a father thoroughly stamped into the dirt by this unfilial, disobedient daughter.

He erupted in fury: “You wretched girl! Have you forgotten who your father is?! Just because you’ve gotten to know a few noble ladies, you think you’ve become imperial family yourself, and others should be afraid of your borrowed prestige?! My own household affairs — even the Jade Emperor himself has no say over them!”

So saying, he shoved his way up the stairs trying to barge into the room and drag Sun Shi back himself.

He was, after all, a well-known wealthy merchant in Jiangkou. A concubine who had borne him children, trying to walk out — was he supposed to let her? His face would be in tatters.

Sun Shi could die inside the Chu household walls if she had to. And this wretched Chu Linlang had challenged his paternal authority — she deserved a lesson.

Unfortunately, he forgot: though Chu Linlang might be borrowing a tiger’s authority, the aged retainer beneath her command was a real and genuine agent of death.

As he surged forward, Sui Qiye caught him by the back of his collar with one hand and flung. Chu Huaisheng went crashing down onto the stone steps, landing hard on his backside and yelping in pain, the cry coming out in trembling waves as though his tailbone had snapped.

Chu Renfeng had been warned by his father that third sister had brought a formidable old man as a bodyguard, so this time he had come prepared to help reclaim his concubine-mother, bringing along five or six street toughs to serve as muscle.

None of them had witnessed Sui Qiye’s throwing daggers. They figured that however capable an old scrawny man might be, could he really handle this many young, strapping men all at once?

Chu Renfeng rushed forward to help Chu Huaisheng up and cried out “assault!” — and the street toughs at his back drew the iron clubs from their coats and charged in a mass.

Chu Linlang had always known Chu Renfeng was a thug, but had not expected him to dare round up street toughs in broad daylight like this.

Watching those men produce iron clubs, she felt a flash of worry: with only Sui Qiye there, could one old man fend off this many young, able-bodied ruffians?

But she quickly learned why Situ Sheng had assigned specifically this one old man as her escort.

When Sui Qiye saw the group rushing him, he did not even bother drawing his daggers. With one hand he caught the arm of the man leading the charge, applied a small joint lock, and with a wrenching pull dislocated the man’s shoulder, then grabbed the iron club out of his hand.

Swinging the iron club, Sui Qiye stepped back two paces and took a commanding position at the top of the stairs, elevated above the rest — and from that height, like hammering iron, began bringing the club down in heavy blows on the shoulders and heads of those below.

Though Chu Renfeng’s toughs were numerous, the staircase was narrow, and they could only come at him one or two at a time — rather like dim-witted deer walking into a hunter. Each one who charged was cracked on the head by Sui Qiye before they could even grunt, their eyes rolling back as they toppled backward, and then two more would shuffle forward to fill the gap.

In no time at all, the staircase was draped with fallen bodies.

One man alone remained standing — he had been last in line, but by the time he stepped up, the entire floor was a pile of bodies with nowhere to place a foot.

Watching Sui Qiye raise both clubs and bear down on him with the face of a demon, this last man displayed very little loyalty to his comrades — he flung down his club and ran for his life.

But Sui Qiye had rarely had such a satisfying bout and was not quite finished. His eye fell on Chu Renfeng — this was the one who had been shouting the most, and who had called Chu Niangzi a vile name.

So he turned toward Chu Renfeng and, without bothering to sort out the specifics, brought the iron club swinging down on him.

Chu Renfeng had never suffered anything like this in his life. He curled up on the spot, head in his arms, begging desperately for mercy.

By this time, the innkeeper had already sent someone to report to the authorities, and county runners arrived shortly to take charge.

The county assistant knew Chu Linlang, and once the situation was explained, he understood at a glance exactly what had happened.

Since the bond had been sold in exchange for silver, with the main wife’s own signed receipt as proof, the Chu father and son had no standing to take anyone.

Moreover, there were witnesses at the inn who confirmed that it was the Chu father and son who had started the violence.

In the end, the county assistant cited them for causing a public disturbance and had the Chu father and son, along with the injured street toughs, hauled off to jail — where they would remain until a fine was paid.

As the Chu father and son were escorted away, Sun Shi stood at the window, barely able to believe what she was seeing.

In her eyes, what had seemed like a problem of insurmountable scale had been resolved just like that, with almost no effort at all.

Chu Linlang came up beside her and put an arm around her shoulders, saying softly in her ear: “Mother — you are free.”