These words left Zong Jinnian genuinely taken aback. He thought to himself: his sister had never been the easiest of tempers herself — how had she let a newly-arrived young wife get such a hold over her?

Just then, the Princely Consort continued with a few more barbed words directed at Su Luoyun: “If your uncle has said anything offensive, please be generous and forgive him. But can you bear to see the prince make another scene with me over this?”

Su Luoyun said in a steady, low voice: “If Father-in-law were to vent his anger at Mother over matters arising from your maternal family, I as a junior member of this household would most certainly step in to stop it — even if it meant letting Father-in-law scold and beat me instead. I would not allow you to bear it alone. Moreover, he is not an unreasonable man. If the Zong family has erred, what does that have to do with you? Right now, in wartime, even small matters can grow into catastrophes. Please, Mother, keep the larger picture in mind. And this affair concerns Han Yao’s lifelong future — and may very well have implications for the Han family’s heirs to come. Our young brother-in-law is still so young; you must think of him as well…”

That last sentence struck the Princely Consort at precisely her most vulnerable point. Her youngest son, Han Xiao, was the very flesh of her heart — how could she permit the slightest mishap to touch him?

Hearing Su Luoyun speak these words so softly and carefully, the Princely Consort’s heart, which had been tilted entirely toward the Zong family’s side, began at last to settle into better alignment.

Indeed — the Zong family was her own maternal household, but if their troubles implicated her own children, that would be a very different matter.

Not long ago, when the inspectors had come to the residence, they had not only interrogated the prince but had also audited the household’s private storerooms — those officials had been so domineering and overbearing that no one could block them, and the whole thing had carried something of the air of a full estate seizure.

The Princely Consort had been frightened out of her wits at the time, assuming that Han Linfeng had embezzled military grain and supplies, and that the matter had been exposed — that people had come to seize the household.

Now, given Su Luoyun’s prompt, her mind cleared somewhat: this affair touched on laws and statutes, and she genuinely could not handle it alone.

In the end, after weighing everything, the Princely Consort took Su Luoyun’s counsel and summoned the prince.

No one knows a husband better than his wife, and the Princely Consort had anticipated his reaction without a single error. Upon hearing the full account of the matter from beginning to end, Lord Beizhen furrowed his brows tight, and the mountain erupted: he slammed his palm on the table in a fury, rage pouring forth without restraint: “Is your father shaped like a pixiu? He tries to swallow everything he sees! Is he not afraid of eating himself to death!”

The Princely Consort, feeling rather humiliated in front of her daughter-in-law and her brother, sprang up from her chair. She was just about to glare back and retort when Su Luoyun, standing behind her, pinched her arm sharply, pulling her back down into her seat, and spoke up at precisely the right moment: “Mother, you are feeling lightheaded — please sit down while we talk.”

The Princely Consort very nearly cried out in pain. She turned to glare at Su Luoyun, only to find the girl fixing her with those bright, luminous eyes narrowed ever so slightly — a wordless signal to hold her tongue.

Now that this girl’s eyes had recovered, she had certainly learned to communicate with her gaze. When she narrowed those eyes, she looked exactly like a cat about to pounce on a mouse — quite formidably so…

The Princely Consort recalled that they had already settled beforehand that Su Luoyun would do the talking, and so she finally closed her mouth.

Su Luoyun spoke at the opportune moment: “Now that an error has already occurred, to keep laying blame serves no purpose. Mother had no course of action in mind, and that is why she invited Father-in-law to decide the matter. You are the pillar of this household — surely that is better than the rest of us blundering about like headless flies.”

With this deflection, Lord Beizhen found it rather difficult to continue his tirade. He knitted his brows and thought for a moment, then said: “Since the Duke of Jun’s residence has drawn this line, if we do not comply, I am afraid they will not let the matter rest… What is your thinking?”

Lord Beizhen had suddenly turned and posed the question directly to Su Luoyun.

Su Luoyun had in fact worked this through in her mind long before, but the proposal needed Lord Beizhen’s sanction — and so she spoke without haste: “I am only a woman, and my understanding is confined to the inner household. My first concern is for my younger sister-in-law’s reputation. If we were to proceed exactly as the Duke of Jun’s residence wishes, then it would be Maternal Grandfather Zong who falls to a charge, and who thereby drags the young lady’s betrothal into ruin — and it would appear that we had no choice but to dissolve the engagement. Once word spread, younger sister-in-law’s reputation would be thoroughly ruined. In my view, the engagement must be dissolved — but not by stepping on the Duke of Jun’s residence’s goodwill to do so.”

Lord Beizhen appeared thoughtful: “Then how should we proceed?”

Su Luoyun considered for a moment and said: “Grandfather’s bookkeeping ‘error’ at the time was also discovered in timely fashion by the people of the Duke of Jun’s residence, and no serious harm was done. Rather than waiting, it would be better to take the initiative and submit a plea for punishment ourselves. I once heard Princess Yuyang mention that His Majesty recently issued a ‘Gold and Silver Pardon.’ Officials who have transgressed the law through corruption — depending on the severity of the circumstances, if no grave consequences have resulted, those who are willing to pay a fine of five times the embezzled amount may have their crime pardoned. Since that is so, we might as well accept the terms of the Gold and Silver Pardon and voluntarily pay the fine and accept the penalty.”

Lord Beizhen’s eyes went wide: “What manner of law is this? It sounds rather like…”

Lord Beizhen had been about to say it sounded like something utterly farcical — if corruption could be rectified by paying money, would that not be indirectly encouraging a flood of corrupt officials? It amounted to another form of selling offices and titles!

But since Su Luoyun had said this was an imperial edict issued by His Majesty, the criticism that had nearly escaped Lord Beizhen’s lips was swallowed back down.

Princess Yuyang had only recently left the capital — she would not be so reckless as to fabricate imperial edicts. If it was genuine, it seemed the Great Wei treasury was truly in dire straits, to the point that even His Majesty was having to rack his mind for ways to generate revenue…

“A fine of five times the amount? Where are the Zong family supposed to find that? Are you expecting us to sell our ancestral home and take to the streets begging?”

The moment Zong Jinnian heard about the money, he began to ache over the silver. The Duke of Jun’s residence had laid out quite generous bait to solidify the case against the Zong family. His father had embezzled no small sum this time — if the fine was five times that amount, the family inheritance he stood to receive in the future would be nothing but an empty shell.

Lord Beizhen, however, said in an unhurried tone: “The silver expenditure is indeed considerable, but it is not without merit as an approach… Your father-in-law is advancing in years — perhaps this would be an opportune moment for him to retire from office and return to his hometown…”

Upon hearing this, Zong Jinnian was the first to object — paying out the silver was bad enough, but now his father was expected to resign his office as well?

Growing increasingly anxious, and not daring to shout at his brother-in-law, he rounded on Su Luoyun instead: “What kind of plan is this? At least the Duke of Jun’s residence is still covering for Father — and you would expose everything! You even want him to voluntarily accept punishment? And my father’s official position is perfectly secure — why should he retire early?”

Su Luoyun sat beside her mother-in-law and said composedly: “That shipment of military supplies was never meant to pass through Taizhou — why did it take such a roundabout route? I do not believe the Duke of Jun’s residence had no hand in that. They went to such lengths to set the trap — how could they let you walk away unscathed? The Duke of Jun’s residence is covering for us now because they do not wish to bear the reputation of ingratitude — they are forcing our prince’s residence to voluntarily dissolve the engagement of our own accord. Very well — even supposing we comply and proactively withdraw the engagement as they wish. But the Duchess of Jun has never been a magnanimous woman. If she has long resented our prince’s residence for having once held a handle over the Duke of Jun’s household — can you truly be certain she would simply let it go so easily? The moment the engagement is dissolved, how can you guarantee they would not expose the whole underlying affair? And at that point, what would we have to hold over them? Only whatever remnant of a handle the late Duke left behind?”

Once she had finished, Lord Beizhen understood as well: Su Luoyun’s meaning was that dissolving the engagement itself was not difficult — the difficulty lay in what came after, when the Duke of Jun’s residence would perpetually hold a handle over them.

The Duchess of Jun had once been coerced into agreeing to this unwanted match between their children. Now that the situation had turned entirely, she would in all likelihood have further moves prepared — to take revenge on the Princely Consort who had once pressed her so aggressively.

And what could be more satisfying than seeing Zong Qing imprisoned, so that the face-conscious Princely Consort would never again be able to hold her head high?

And so when Zong Jinnian was about to open his mouth to glare and berate Su Luoyun again, Lord Beizhen said in a measured voice: “If you speak another word, get out of my prince’s residence.”

Zong Jinnian harbored some fear of his brother-in-law — after all, in younger years, when he had once tried to stand up for his sister, he had instead received a thorough beating from his brother-in-law.

It was only then that he had learned that this brother-in-law of his, who seemed perfectly useless in every respect, was actually a formidable figure with real ability in a fight.

Seeing Zong Jinnian finally hold his tongue, Su Luoyun continued: “If Grandfather voluntarily comes forward to accept punishment, half the culpability can be avoided. Once the fine has been submitted, no one else will have any grounds for impeachment. After that, we can thoroughly investigate the reason why those military supplies took that detour through Taizhou. Once everything has been fully clarified and laid out, we can then send someone to the Duke of Jun’s residence to dissolve the engagement… on the grounds that: ‘where there is no common purpose, there can be no common path.'”

Lord Beizhen, who had been feeling stifled with anger over his father-in-law, found the tightness in his chest easing as he listened to the end. He could not help but allow a slight smile to tug at the corner of his mouth, as he turned the phrase over in his mind: “‘Where there is no common purpose, there can be no common path?'”

He had by this point fully grasped Su Luoyun’s meaning. Since the father-in-law had committed an error, he must come forward to seek punishment and accept the penalty. But the young lady’s betrothal must be dissolved with dignity.

The Beizhen Prince’s residence had indeed leveraged a favor to secure the engagement all those years ago — that was true. But they had never gone to the trouble of scheming and framing the Duke of Jun’s residence.

Now it was the Duke of Jun’s residence that wished to break the engagement, yet had resorted to this contemptible underhanded method of laying a trap — the sordid inner workings of it would have to be aired in the open before the engagement could be dissolved on clean terms.

Hearing all of this, Lord Beizhen looked at his common-born daughter-in-law with new and careful attention.

When those inspection officials had come to Huicheng causing trouble, he had already noticed that this young woman of tender years remained composed in a crisis and handled matters with quiet steadiness. Now it seemed this young woman had even greater depths of hidden quality.

How had his son managed, amid all the capital’s bustle, to unearth such a gem — lovely in appearance, brilliant within?

At that thought, he spoke: “My father-in-law is advancing in age — yielding his official post to younger and more capable men is not inappropriate. As for the fine, the Zong family must contribute their share, but the Beizhen Prince’s residence will not stand by with folded sleeves either — we will cover half to help ease the burden. Su Luoyun is young, yet her sense of right and wrong is clear. Let us follow her plan.”

The moment he finished speaking, the Princely Consort gave his leg a firm kick beneath the table. Lord Beizhen assumed she was also reluctant to see her father resign his post, and simply paid her no attention.

In other circumstances, the Princely Consort would certainly not have agreed to the prince’s proposal — but this affair also touched on her daughter’s reputation and good name!

Su Luoyun had spoken sense: the matter of the elder generation and the matter of the younger generation were two separate concerns and had to be handled separately.

As things stood, she could either protect the younger — or protect the elder. She could not do both.

As for the half share of the fine the prince had offered — once he had said it aloud in front of her brother, the Princely Consort could hardly block it anymore.

It was just that her head… had begun to ache again.

And so even as Zong Jinnian called out urgently to his sister, she simply acted as though she could not sway her husband, sighed with helpless resignation, and announced that her head was paining her and she needed to go back to her room to lie down.

After all, if her father ever blamed her in the future for the loss of his official position, she could simply push all responsibility onto the prince and onto Su Luoyun.

Zong Jinnian, however, was truly incensed by the outcome.

If his father resigned his post and also forfeited all that silver, would not the Zong family be heading toward a decline? He himself had never been blessed with particular talent and had been idle at home for years — he had no desire whatsoever to see his aged father’s official career come to such an abrupt end.

Yet this time even his sister had taken her own silent calculation into account, and claimed she could not override her husband’s decision.

With no recourse available to him, Zong Jinnian could only go behind closed doors and make spiteful remarks to his sister: “Sister, have you not noticed that your husband actually listens to this new wife of his in everything? Now she, a daughter-in-law, can already have this much say in household matters — in the future, she will have even less regard for you… You really ought to be more careful.”

These words touched the Princely Consort in a small but unsettled way. That husband of hers, who usually seemed so placid and obdurate — there were things she could talk herself hoarse about and still not persuade him.

Yet today, that Su Luoyun, speaking in those soft, gentle tones, had made Lord Beizhen set aside his anger and stop his scolding — and had truly spoken to him with results…

A quiet discomfort began to stir again in the Princely Consort’s heart…

Now, as for Han Yao — while her father, her mother, her uncle, and her sister-in-law were deliberating in the hall, she had been sitting with her maidservant near a railing not far from the window, pretending she had dropped her handkerchief, squatting down to pick it up while covertly straining to listen.

Unlike other young women who faced a broken engagement with dread, this young county princess wore an expression of barely-contained delight on her face — like a lamb who had narrowly escaped the tiger’s jaws, and was only just refraining from setting off firecrackers to celebrate.

But just as she was listening most intently, another person sidled up beside her and mimicked her posture exactly, craning their neck to eavesdrop as well.

Han Yao was so startled she nearly sat down hard on the ground. When she looked up clearly, she found that Zhao Guibei had arrived at the prince’s residence at some point — apparently catching her eavesdropping, he had come over out of curiosity to listen alongside her.

Seeing he was about to speak, Han Yao hastily pressed a finger to her lips and gestured for silence.

Only when she had pulled Zhao Guibei by the sleeve into the garden to one side did he finally ask: “Why are you sneaking around in your own household?”

Han Yao’s face was full of happiness as she shook his sleeve, stamped her embroidered slippers on the ground, and laughed on and on without stopping.

Only when she had finished laughing did she notice that the young General Zhao was also grinning with a face full of bright good cheer.

She asked curiously: “What are you laughing about?”

Zhao Guibei said honestly: “I am not sure — I just saw you laughing, and my heart felt glad too…”

Han Yao found it inconvenient to share with young General Zhao the news she had overheard, and simply reached into her own embroidered pouch and produced some milky toffee candies: “Did you not say you were coming to collect these? What happened to keeping your word?”

The afternoon light fell at that moment on the young woman’s smooth, clear forehead and cheeks, casting the luminous sheen particular to young girls — like the soft glow of fresh cream — and the flash of her white teeth as she smiled sent a warm, stinging heat into Zhao Guibei’s eyes.

He was momentarily flustered and looked away — at the sky, at the ground — not knowing where to direct his gaze. He hesitated for a moment and then said: “Your brother forbade me from coming… he said you had a betrothal now and that I ought to keep a proper distance.”

At the mere mention of the betrothal, Han Yao felt the urge to shake her sleeves and stamp her embroidered slippers in glee all over again. She glanced around to make sure no one was near, then leaned a little closer to Zhao Guibei and said: “You may come whenever you like from now on — I can give them to whomever I please!”

Zhao Guibei did not fully understand her meaning, but gave a vigorous nod all the same, then popped the candy Han Yao gave him into his mouth, and the two walked about chatting and laughing for a while before he went to pay his respects to his mother, Princess Yuyang.

Although the matter regarding the Zong family had been settled upon a course of resolution, Han Yao had also overheard her uncle cursing and railing at Su Luoyun behind her back. Knowing that her sister-in-law had likely caught some of that, Han Yao came sincerely on her behalf to offer an apology.

She knew, after all, that it was on account of her own affairs that her sister-in-law had been unfairly berated.

Su Luoyun only laughed and, continuing to sew at the military quilts she was rushing to complete, said: “I only wanted this matter properly resolved, so that it would not come back to trouble your brother. It has nothing to do with you. Your brother is occupied at the front lines right now with no way to return and no attention to spare for these things. It is good that Father-in-law was willing to listen to reason and handle this cleanly — that benefits both you and your brother. I have been scolded plenty in my life. One more tongue-lashing from an uncle hardly matters.”

Han Yao, feeling somewhat embarrassed, reached over and took the quilt from her sister-in-law’s hands: “I know you care for me, Sister-in-law. This truly has nothing to do with you. If you had not stepped in, Mother might very well have dug in her heels and kept fighting with the Duke of Jun’s residence — and then my face would have been utterly ruined. It would have seemed as though I were desperately clinging to that household. Sister-in-law, your eyes have only just recovered — please leave this to me!”

With that, she slipped on her thimble and began to sew, stitch by careful stitch.

Su Luoyun smiled at her young sister-in-law and reached out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Now that she could see again, Su Luoyun had noticed that Han Yao was quite beautiful.

Her features followed those of her mother, the Princely Consort — which suggested the Princess Consort must have been a beauty in her younger years as well.

It was a pity that though the Princely Consort kept up a careful regimen of self-preservation, she was after all now in middle age, and the long years of a not-entirely-harmonious marriage had added a few shadowy notes of sorrow to the set of her brow.

In truth, Lord Beizhen was simply a donkey that responded to gentle strokes. If the Princely Consort said a few less cutting words, this middle-aged couple might quarrel considerably less.

The fact that he was willing on his own initiative to contribute silver toward his father-in-law’s fine showed plainly enough that he was a man of substance and responsibility.

Unfortunately, from the very day the Princely Consort had entered the prince’s residence as a bride, she had felt the prince had never given her a good life, and her accumulated grievances had grown over the years. And then, precisely at such a juncture, Han Linfeng’s birth mother had appeared.

She was said to have been a gentle-spoken, understanding beauty — who had offered the prince a comfort that quite instantly soothed his heart. And this beloved concubine became a thorn in the Princely Consort’s heart that could never be removed.

Later, though the concubine died of illness, the scar left by that thorn proved impossible to excise. The Princely Consort seemed to find it impossible to open her mouth without getting in a few barbs at her husband.

Su Luoyun had actually thought of offering her mother-in-law a word of counsel — but with so many years of accumulated grievances, there was no easy dissolving them. This husband and wife would most likely muddle through together in this manner for the rest of their lives.

Now, as for the Zong family’s legal affair: in the end, Lord Beizhen accompanied Zong Jinnian personally on a trip to Taizhou. There they persuaded the elderly father-in-law to see clearly the reality of his situation, and to write a petition for punishment in his own hand — together with five times the value of the military supplies he had embezzled — and submit all of it to the Emperor.

In his younger days, Han Linfeng’s various gambling circles had meant he had paid generous amounts of silver to the palace eunuchs over the years. And so now, when Lord Beizhen submitted silver to smooth the path, he was treading a road his son had already worn familiar — with reliable and trustworthy connections.

The eunuchs around the Emperor received a handsome share, and were accordingly willing to facilitate things at the opportune moment.

Additionally, the grounds stated in Zong Qing’s petition were that subordinates had engaged in embezzlement and that he had been remiss in his supervision — which provided adequate justification for his self-petitioned punishment.

His Majesty was currently in urgent need of silver, and an official who would voluntarily come forward and ruin himself financially to accept punishment was truly a fine thing indeed.

If a few more like him appeared, the treasury would be replenished. His Majesty, feeling that the Gold and Silver Pardon was showing its first signs of effectiveness, could not afford to dampen the enthusiasm of officials willing to come forward and confess.

And so Emperor Wei Hui issued an edict of formal reprimand, and in passing collected Zong Qing’s official seal. What should rightfully have been a capital offense resulting in execution was handled with such lightness of touch that the case was briskly concluded.

As for the Duke of Jun’s residence — the reason they had resorted to this underhanded scheme was also connected to the Sixth Prince’s recent thorough investigation into the alleged collusion between the Beizhen Prince’s residence and the rebels.

At the time, upon hearing that Han Linfeng was likely to face serious trouble, the Duchess of Jun had been in constant agitation, resenting the Duke for his obsession with reputation and face, and his unwillingness to proactively dissolve the engagement his deceased father had arranged.

During those several days, the corners of the Duchess’s mouth had broken out in sores twice over from the stress.

Afterward, although the collusion case was proven to be a misunderstanding and went no further, the Duchess of Jun felt only more regret about her third son’s engagement. She quietly sought out the Second Master of the household for a private discussion, and together they laid the trap — using Zong Qing’s alleged crime as leverage to press the Princely Consort, expecting that the Beizhen Prince’s residence, properly sensible of the situation, would promptly deliver the dissolution papers of their own accord.

With the Beizhen Prince’s residence now coming to them cap-in-hand, they would naturally know better than to be difficult. The grounds for dissolution would most likely be something along the lines of Han Yao being in poor health and thus inauspicious for a marriage union.

That way, the Duke of Jun’s face would be preserved, and this troublesome engagement could finally be ended.

Yet what they had never anticipated was that instead of the dissolution papers arriving, what came was Zong Qing himself going before the Emperor to confess and accept punishment — while also petitioning His Majesty to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter of certain persons having unauthorized altered the shipping route of the military supply convoy.

In the end, all the commotion very nearly implicated the Second Master of the Duke of Jun’s residence. It was only by throwing forward two of his subordinate protégés to take the blame that he barely managed to extricate himself.

Because Zong Qing had already gone through official channels, there was nothing concealed about the investigation — the entire Ministry of War was set abuzz with the affair, causing the Second Master considerable additional trouble and expense in pressing relationships into service before it could finally be suppressed.

And it was at precisely this awkward juncture that the Beizhen Prince’s residence produced the petition for dissolution of the engagement.

What was more, when delivering the dissolution petition, Han Linfeng had entrusted the eminent Confucian scholar of the capital, the Honorable Li Guitian, to serve as witness and personally deliver it in person.

When Lord Beizhen wrote the dissolution letter, he showed not the slightest deference to the Duke of Jun’s residence, but stated flatly and without ceremony that the Third Young Master of the Duke of Jun’s household had a distinguished future ahead of him; that the young lady of the Han family was self-aware of her own unsuitability for a man of such ability; and that where there is no common purpose there can be no common path — wishing the Third Young Master an early union with a truly worthy partner, a match of gold and jade.

In light of the concurrent official proceedings, this was tantamount to laying the Duke of Jun’s residence’s private calculations out in full public view for all to see — neither party need maintain any pretense of civility toward the other.

The Duke of Jun himself had not known the full story from the beginning. It was only later, when the affair had grown large enough, that his second brother explained the whole sequence to him — and only then did the Duke learn that it was his own wife who had arranged all of this behind his back.

Upon hearing it, the Duke of Jun was so enraged his eyes nearly rolled back in his head. He felt the entire business had been handled in the most contemptible manner — it reeked of a woman’s shortsightedness.

Had he not known full well that this match was ill-suited? But since his late father had given his word, for them to go back on it would be unfilial conduct.

And so he had only been able to delay the wedding date again and again, waiting for the Beizhen Prince’s residence to take pity on their daughter’s wasted years and voluntarily bring the dissolution themselves.

But to use such a contemptible method as framing innocent people to force a dissolution — the spotless reputation he had guarded like white paper throughout his entire life had been thoroughly ruined by that woman in a single stroke.

Regardless of all that, at least the vexatious engagement had finally been untied. It was plain to see that the Ninth Prince was growing more powerful by the day, which meant Fang Jinshu was destined to become the empress of the realm.

Given Fang Jinshu’s entanglement with the Beizhen Shizi — a matter too delicate to put into plain words — being able to sever all connection with the Beizhen Prince’s residence was itself something to be grateful for.

The Duke of Jun’s residence had assumed that the affair of the unauthorized rerouting of the military supply convoy had been suppressed, and that it would pass like water over stone, leaving no trace.

Yet somehow — no one knew quite how — the hidden particulars behind the dissolved engagement began to spread from household to household throughout the capital, traveling without feet.

At many a ladies’ tea gathering, the hostesses were whispering among themselves about the Duchess of Jun — saying her scheming was truly too deep and too ruthless.

Broken engagements happened all the time. If you were dissatisfied, you simply found any convenient excuse and dissolved it outright. Who had ever gone to such lengths to deliberately ruin someone?

To scheme so elaborately as to fabricate charges against a princess consort’s own father, driving him from his post and ruining him financially in the process — to form a marriage alliance with people of this sort would be bearable enough while relations were good, but if one were ever to accidentally offend the Duke of Jun’s household on some future day, one might die without ever understanding the reason why.

The Duchess of Jun initially paid no attention to the whispered conversations behind her back at these gatherings. It was only when a version of the rumors, having already grown considerably distorted, reached her ears through a close friend, that she finally understood the full extent of what was being said.