From the very start, Zhù Ying had known this case would be trouble. To put it plainly: the child was lost through the Luo family’s own negligence, but if the child was not found, the blame still fell on the one conducting the search.

That alone would have been manageable. A child going missing in the capital city was reason enough to question how the Jing Prefect was governing. But if anything went wrong in the search — if the child turned up dead, or some scandal came to light — that too would be held against the searchers.

She genuinely worried on Wang Yunhe’s behalf.

And the Luo family’s situation was more complicated than most. If the child had truly fallen into the hands of a trafficker, one could consider it a mercy. In most households, a missing child usually meant traffickers; in Luo Yuan’s household, there was an equal chance the child had been deliberately harmed. Even if the child were found alive, it might not end well.

But many things could not be said plainly to Yang Sanlang. Zhù Ying first asked, “What has happened these past few days? Sit down first, and let’s talk this through.”

Yang Sanlang was in a panic right now, grasping at anything. The child had gone missing on his aunt’s watch — his aunt bore responsibility. And an aunt who had been blamed by Luo Yuan had absolutely no leverage to negotiate anything. In another family, a wife might console herself that she could simply have another child with her husband; for his aunt, even buying another child would depend on whether Luo Yuan was willing to accept it.

Luo Yuan was now carrying on as though he had lost his own only son from nine generations of a single-child lineage!

Yang Sanlang was desperately anxious. A man who normally recounted gossip with bright eyes and perfect organization was now rambling incoherently: “If it wasn’t them, why would they be questioned? It has to be them who harmed my cousin! And now they’ll drag my aunt down with them!”

Zhù Ying said, “Hold your tongue.”

But he would not. “Everything I have, I owe to my aunt. I can’t abandon her!”

“Is Luo Yuan going to cast her out?”

“More or less…” Yang Sanlang muttered.

“If you keep on like this, we won’t be able to discuss this case at all. You didn’t even give me a clear account of what happened on the fifteenth.”

“How did I—”

Zhù Ying gestured for him to stop. “Listen: your aunt was out watching the lanterns with the child when she ran into an acquaintance she couldn’t avoid — the daughter-in-law of Lan Xing. That, you never mentioned. And then: three people were sent with the child, and at no point was the child set down. When they noticed the child was missing, a brief search turned up nothing, and they immediately returned to report. Correct?”

“Yes… yes, that’s right.”

“None of that did you tell me clearly.”

“Did I not? You didn’t ask either. Does… does it make a difference?”

“What I’ve just told you, I had to piece together by asking around at the Jing Prefecture. So much for being the well-informed one.”

“I — I was just in a state, all right?”

“If you truly want my opinion,” Zhù Ying said, “I’ll tell you plainly: it’s difficult. If the child isn’t found, that’s not the Jing Prefecture being negligent. And if the child is found, it may still have nothing to do with Luo the Second or Luo the Fifth.” From the detail of the circumstances, it was nearly impossible that Luo the Second or Luo the Fifth could have arranged for such a conveniently timed situation.

“But—”

“Don’t let your panic lead you to make wild accusations. If it turns out someone else is responsible and they find out you’d been pointing fingers at them, won’t they hold a grudge? They’re his own blood nephews — do you think your influence can outweigh that of his actual kin?”

“Oh — you’re right.”

“What does your uncle say in private? Does he suspect anyone?”

Yang Sanlang shook his head. “He’s been shouting abuse at everyone every day — he’s too busy for that. If he had someone specific in mind, he’d have gone straight to their door.”

Zhù Ying refused to offer any more opinions on the matter — not a single word. She told Yang Sanlang directly that this was outside what she could manage, that it wasn’t the kind of case she had handled before. And since they were on the Jing Prefecture’s territory, she advised them not to have a confrontation with Wang Yunhe for now — they still needed him to find the child.

Yang Sanlang arrived confused and left confused, having heard nothing of use.

But both Huajie and Zhang Xiangu expressed a great deal of concern for the abducted child, and asked Zhù Ying, “Can’t you find this child either?”

“Every year so many children go missing,” Zhù Ying said. “The ones who come back are few.” The two women sighed and could only leave it at that.

The next day, when she returned to the Court of Judicial Review, her colleagues were still talking about the matter, because Luo Yuan had doubled the reward — he was determined to find this child. The news that the Jing Prefecture had questioned Luo the Second and Luo the Fifth had already spread, and the suspicions many people had held in their hearts seemed confirmed. Everyone felt that if it was indeed those two, it was not beyond the realm of possibility.

The officers of the Court all agreed that the nephews had ample motive to harm the child. First: if Luo Yuan had a son of his own, how much would his nephews still stand to inherit from him? Second: the reward was enormous and the notice explicitly said no questions would be asked — and yet no one had come forward to surrender the child. Whoever this person was, they had not been after the child for profit!

Colleagues continued to discuss it until Zheng Xi and the others returned from court, at which point everyone fell quiet.

When Zhù Ying went to see Zheng Xi, he said, “Do you still go to the Jing Prefecture these days?”

“Not often. Is there something you need me to do there?”

“Luo Yuan and Wang Yunhe have come into conflict,” Zheng Xi said. “Don’t get pulled in.”

“Is this still over Luo Yuan’s son?”

“Leave it to Wang Yunhe.”

Zhù Ying was genuinely troubled. “Whether that child is alive or dead is still up in the air — let’s hope this doesn’t end badly.”

“That’s no concern of the Court of Judicial Review!” Zheng Xi said.

Zhù Ying could not very well quarrel with Zheng Xi on this point — as he said, it was no concern of the Court of Judicial Review. But knowing what she knew, she did find herself with some lingering worry. Would this truly become an unsolved case? Or perhaps…

She held herself back for several days, but the news from various sources grew increasingly grim. Even at home, Zhù Da, Zhang Xiangu, and even Du Dajie were saying: “A rootless eunuch, buying someone else’s son — that’s asking for it. And now he’s still slandering Prefect Wang? He truly deserves to die without an heir!”

Luo Yuan, having lost his son, had genuinely gone mad. This eunuch prized having a son far more than any ordinary man. He had no fear of Wang Yunhe anymore, and had reportedly said things like “Wang Yunhe’s governance isn’t so impressive either — he’s not fit to manage the Jing Prefecture.”

Whether he actually said that was impossible to verify — the rumor had traveled so many mouths before reaching this point. But the people of the capital didn’t trouble themselves over whether he had the standing to make such remarks; they worried for Wang Yunhe’s sake regardless, and many residents had spontaneously begun searching for the eunuch’s child.

Even while searching, they cursed: “You damned wretch — when we find the child again, keep him tied to your belt, and don’t lose him a second time!”

Wang Yunhe’s standing among the capital’s citizens was extremely high, and he was enormously well-liked. Gradually the residents stirred themselves to help — and still the child could not be found. Over those days, only a single useful piece of information surfaced. A street peddler recalled seeing a man who appeared to have bundled a child up completely in a cloak; she had helpfully called out, “Leave a gap, don’t suffocate the child.” The man thanked her and opened a small space, and she glimpsed the child wearing a rather expensive necklet, of a style somewhat resembling what the Luo family described. The child was also well-dressed — better than the man, who had the look of a servant. She had thought nothing of it at the time, as it was perfectly common for servants to take children out. The child, she recalled, was not crying. She was asked to identify the three servants who had accompanied the child that day, and she said none of them was the man she had seen. Then she was asked to describe his appearance — but it turned out the man was entirely unremarkable, with no distinguishing features whatsoever.

Useful or not, the wife of Luo Yuan gave the peddler twenty guan on the spot.

With citizens mobilizing of their own accord, spurred on by the reward, still not another reliable piece of news came in.

By the end of the first month, Luo Yuan and Lan Xing and others were saying that Wang Yunhe was nothing special after all. Zhù Ying found this deeply irritating — when an ordinary family’s child went missing, the search would never have been mounted on this scale. And yet they still faulted the man for lack of effort. There was no conscience in that.

In the midst of these swirling rumors, Wang Yunhe suddenly withdrew all the constables conducting the search. The citizens were universally delighted, feeling that Prefect Wang had been far too patient, and that a dead eunuch had been emboldened to spout off because of it!

Luo Yuan cursed at home every day. He even sent his wife back to her parents’ house. Yang Sanlang was frantic, asking around everywhere, and came to find Zhù Ying again. Zhù Ying spread her hands. “I haven’t been to the Jing Prefecture in days, and the Court of Judicial Review has been getting busy. From what I can see, Prefect Wang is not the type to nurse a grievance. There may be some other reason we don’t know about.”

This time Yang Sanlang truly wept. “My aunt has been sent back to her parents’ house — how will she ever show her face again?”

“Luo Yuan’s temper doesn’t seem quite as fierce as all that,” Zhù Ying said. “He’s still reporting for duty at the palace as usual, isn’t he?” Eunuchs, even when they had a residence outside, still had to attend to their duties inside the palace, passing in and out through the palace gates. From what Zhù Ying had gathered by asking around in the imperial guards, Luo Yuan’s comings and goings were perfectly normal.

“Would he dare make a scene in front of His Majesty?”

Luo Yuan did not dare throw tantrums before the Emperor, so he directed all his fury outward. First he sent his wife back to her parents, then he had the three servants who had taken the child beaten half to death and turned over to the Jing Prefecture’s jail. Wang Yunhe could only take them in as “suspects and witnesses” — sending them back might well mean Luo Yuan would beat them to death. Wang Yunhe found it rather pitiful. And he himself was being made miserable by Luo Yuan, who would come and make trouble at the Jing Prefecture whenever he was not on duty at the palace, and when on duty, sent his household’s subordinates, nephews, and servants to make trouble in his stead. Wang Yunhe was not gentle in return — he detained several of Luo Yuan’s nephews alongside Luo the Second and Luo the Fifth.

The twenty-seventh day of the first month was Zhù Ying’s nineteenth birthday. She ate her birthday noodles at home. The child had not been found.

By the beginning of the second month, when Fu Long brought the architectural plans and a wooden scale model to the Zhù household, the child was still not found.

——

Zhù Ying wanted to pay him, but Fu Long said, “Let Official look it over first. If there’s anything unsuitable, this old man will go back and revise. Better to pay when it’s finished and the house is built.”

He was an experienced man who knew how to work for officials and men of means: don’t think too hard about how much to earn from any given job. If something went wrong midway through, a patron who turned on you could make you give back every coin you’d been paid. On the other hand, if you served well and didn’t push too hard on money at the start, you often ended up with a finer reward in the end.

He reminded Zhù Ying again: “You’ll need to come to terms with your neighbors.”

“Understood,” Zhù Ying said. She called the family over to see the model.

Fu Long explained it to them. The model was a removable assembly of main courtyard and side courtyard joined together; Fu Long lifted the side-courtyard section and said, “Only awaiting the official’s preference — does this go on the left or the right?”

Huajie looked at the model of the main courtyard — two sections front and back. The front had three gatehouse rooms, similar in scale to their current home, but because the main courtyard would be somewhat wider, there were two low rooms on either side of the gatehouse. Fu Long said: “One is the outhouse, the other is for storage.”

The front-courtyard main hall was three rooms. Zhù Ying wanted a two-story building, but Fu Long suggested these three rooms would do better as tall and spacious on a single floor, perhaps a story and a half in height, rather than as a proper two-story structure. It was customary for the formal front hall in an official’s house not to be built as a two-story building.

On either side of the courtyard were three side rooms each — one side for a study or accounts room, the other for a guest room or reception space for ordinary visitors. These two could both be two-story buildings, which carried no formal architectural restrictions.

Between the front and back courtyards stood a dividing wall. Behind the main hall, a gate in the wall led through to the back courtyard.

The back courtyard had a layout similar to the front. The rear main rooms — three rooms — were designed as a two-story building, with two small ear-rooms added on either side of the ground floor. The side rooms, three on each side, were also two stories. All staircases were housed inside the buildings.

Du Dajie was most interested in the side courtyard. That was simpler — only two rooms in width, also divided front and back by a wall with a gate through it, but with no connecting gate to the main courtyard. Fu Long said, “The front section is for male servants, the rear section for female servants.”

The side courtyard’s front section had two gates: a front gate on the south wall, styled like a gatehouse despite the two-room width, divided into three parts with a narrow center passage and wider rooms on either side. One side of the center passage held a manger for horses and mules; the other held carts and carriages. There was also a side door connecting to the front courtyard of the main house.

There were no side rooms, just a small storage shed. Two north-facing rooms served as the male servants’ quarters.

The rear section was for female servants and the kitchen. It too had two doors — one connecting to the main courtyard’s rear section, and another opening in the opposite wall. Fu Long said, “If the side courtyard is placed on the side facing the road, this door would be convenient for going out to buy provisions without passing through the main gate, so as not to disturb distinguished guests.”

The kitchen was a genuine two rooms — reversed-facing, with one room as the cooking area and one as a storeroom for foodstuffs and rarely-used kitchen implements. There was also a small shed in the courtyard for firewood and charcoal. The female servants’ sleeping quarters were two north-facing rooms.

Fu Long said, “Of the two original properties, only one had a well, and it was not a sweet-water well — good enough for watering animals and washing clothes, but for drinking you’d need to have someone fetch water from a sweet-water well nearby. The nearest one isn’t far. If the official wishes to sink her own sweet-water well, it would need to go quite deep.”

“Fine,” Zhù Ying said.

Fu Long asked if there were any other requirements. Zhang Xiangu, Zhù Da, and Huajie had never supervised the construction of a house. Huajie, though she had seen grand residences, made no effort to measure Zhù Ying’s house against a standard like the Feng family’s. None of the three raised any further objections.

Zhù Ying herself was not particular either, requesting only that a rear gate be added behind the main rooms to make moving things in and out of the inner quarters more convenient. Fu Long said, “That’s easy,” and noted it down with his brush. He suggested planting some flowering trees in the front and rear courtyards.

“Leave the spaces for now, and we’ll plant whatever suits us when the time comes,” Zhù Ying said. What she was really thinking was: whatever is cheap and easy to tend, that’s what we’ll plant.

“Is the house settled, then?” Fu Long asked.

“It is,” Zhù Ying said. She also asked Fu Long about the costs. He said he would need to consult the craftsmen first — skilled, quick workers would cost more. And materials: brick, stone, and timber varied widely in price. After the spring planting, labor would also be cheaper.

“Let’s wait until after the spring planting, then,” Zhù Ying said. “Give me a rough estimate first, and we’ll review it together before work begins.”

“That can be done.” He left the model behind, saying the family could continue looking it over before construction began. If any changes were needed, they could let him know up to five days before work started; changes after construction began would be more complicated and more costly, so he urged an early decision.

Zhù Ying personally walked him to the gate.

——

Spring planting had not yet ended, and Zhù Ying had no desire to disturb Wang Yunhe. With the Luo family’s child still not found, the whole affair had strained relations between the eunuchs and the court scholars to a painful degree.

The two factions had never been of the same kind anyway.

When Wang Yunhe had first taken office, Chief Eunuch Lan Xing had been brought up short by Wang Yunhe after some impropriety and had quietly swallowed the humiliation. Now Lan Xing was stirring up trouble again — not by openly opposing Wang Yunhe, but by circulating insinuations and innuendo. Luo Yuan, for his part, was demanding his son openly.

The scholars were thoroughly indignant on Wang Yunhe’s behalf. They had a theory: eunuchs, having mutilated their own bodies, were inherently unfilial to their parents and ancestors. And yet such men dared to tear apart other people’s flesh and blood, seeking sons of their own? Was that not absurd? If you want an heir so badly, produce one yourself! You had yourself castrated in pursuit of wealth and status — now that you’ve obtained them, you want children too? All right — take your son, surrender your wealth and position, and go. Can you bear to part with them?

Those with truly cutting tongues, like Liu Songnian, said it outright: the reason eunuchs were employed was precisely because they were rootless men who could only depend on His Majesty — they would not form clans or build factions. But they had already accumulated fields stretching to the horizon. If they were also to have sons and grandsons populating the court, their branches spreading and their roots deepening — how would they differ from powerful families?

Liu Songnian had said this privately to the Emperor. This man, styled the foremost scholar of the age, was no bookish fool. The Emperor even suspected that certain remarks circulating among the scholars were simply variations on Liu Songnian’s thesis, just not as incisively formulated. But Liu Songnian was right.

Neither the eunuchs brought up Wang Yunhe’s other achievements nor did the scholars mention that Luo Yuan was a man wronged by a missing son. It was only now that everyone realized both sides were masters of argument — it was just that the scholars’ voices carried farther, and gradually drowned out the eunuchs’.

But Zhù Ying detected something different in the air. The person with the most say in all of this was the Emperor — and the Emperor had said nothing.

By any ordinary person’s honest reckoning, Wang Yunhe had the right of it. On the question of human trafficking — could any of these eunuchs with their retinues of servants truly claim their households contained no one bought by traffickers? Had they ever looked into it? Why was it only now, when it was their own concern, that they looked into it?

Zhù Ying was genuinely worried for Wang Yunhe. She had considered conducting her own search for the child’s whereabouts, but Luo the Second, Luo the Fifth, and the servants were all locked up — without Wang Yunhe’s permission, she couldn’t get near any of the suspects.

After considerable deliberation, she quietly went to the Jing Prefecture, wanting to ask Wang Yunhe what he had in mind. Surely a man with such a reputation for integrity and capability couldn’t simply hold out in stony silence?

But when she arrived, Wang Yunhe greeted her with a smile and said, “They say you’re lucky, and apparently it’s true.”

“How can you be smiling?” Zhù Ying said.

“Why shouldn’t I be? I was just about to notify Luo Yuan to come and collect his son with the ransom.”

“You found him? Are you certain it’s the right child?”

“He matches the description, and the servants being held in custody confirmed it’s him.”

“How was he found?”

He Jing, standing nearby, explained: “You called it correctly on the fifteenth. With quick feet, by the time the missing-person report was filed, someone could have been twenty li outside the city. The Prefect, knowing the child was missing, quietly sent men on fast horses riding day and night to notify the surrounding relay stations and local offices within a radius of two hundred li. While we searched inside the capital, the suspect had already fled and was in hiding out there.

“The Prefect had the reward posters put up out there as well, and the local people saw them and had somewhere to report and claim the reward. Then the search parties in the capital were recalled, so as not to drive them to desperation. Even a trafficker, seeing that, would have his wits about him — he’d come forward to trade the child for the money.”

“A shame it’s not possible to go back on the offer!” Wang Yunhe said.

Because the man who had come to claim his information reward was plainly suspicious. He claimed to be a traveling peddler who had passed by a certain household and thought the child looked like the one described, so he’d come to try his luck. In rural areas, when someone had bought a wife or child, fellow villagers would never turn informants — it was always outsiders who did. For an outsider to have seen a newly purchased child and reported the location with such precision was deeply peculiar.

Wang Yunhe had men follow him to the location, where they seized both the child and the adults. The peddler was interesting too — he seemed entirely unconcerned about the whole village potentially wanting to eat him alive, and had the leisure to haggle with the family: “I’ll take the reward and split twenty guan with you — then you can just buy another one.”

This too was why Wang Yunhe was suspicious. The peddler’s offered price was quite in line with the going rate. In the city, buying a rough-use servant ran only a few guan. But a healthy male child or infant, bought as an heir, actually commanded a higher price. In the open market, an ordinary male child might not reach twenty guan — but a supposedly “pure-blooded” boy after changing hands several times, raised as a continuation of one’s lineage, would indeed be reasonably priced at that figure.

Of course, the price of human beings fluctuated too, and perhaps the peddler was simply guilty and acting out of generosity. So Wang Yunhe merely harbored suspicion, and planned to have someone follow the peddler. If he turned out to be a genuine peddler, so be it — but if he was a trafficker’s accomplice, Wang Yunhe would not charge him in connection with the Luo Yuan case. He would simply wait to catch him red-handed in his next offense!

Zhù Ying thought of Yang Sanlang and said, “Your Excellency, wait just a moment — I know a relative of Luo Yuan’s wife. Let me ask him to bring the wife here to make the identification. What if the servants, eager to clear themselves, identified the first similar-looking child they saw, and when Luo Yuan himself comes later, he says it’s not the right child? That would make things awkward.”

“That’s sensible,” Wang Yunhe said.

Zhù Ying went in person to Yang Sanlang’s home and told him, “Bring your aunt, and come with me to the Jing Prefecture to identify the child — the boy may have been found.”

Yang Sanlang had just returned from his duties and found the household sunk in gloom as it had been for days; hearing this, he leapt to his feet. “Is it true?”

“Prefect Wang says it is, and I think there’s a good chance. Whether it’s truly him, your aunt will need to confirm.”

The aunt was at home, no longer wearing jewelry, no longer dressed in fine clothes — she looked considerably more agreeable for it. She too was anxious: “Has he really been found?”

“Please get yourself ready quickly,” Zhù Ying said, “and come with me to confirm before the curfew. If it’s him, wonderful — if not, at least we can keep looking.”

Yang Sanlang’s whole household wanted to come along — maids fetching clothes, others calling for her hair to be done, all noise and commotion. Zhù Ying said, “What is this, a troupe going to watch a show? Sanlang, just escort your aunt. That’s all.”

Right now her word was final. Yang Sanlang hurried his aunt out the door, still asking whether she needed to dress up. His aunt said, “Never mind, let’s go now!”

The group set out briskly for the Jing Prefecture. Along the way, Yang Sanlang heaped praise and gratitude on Zhù Ying without stopping, and his aunt too said from inside the carriage, “Thank you, young official.” “You have saved us.” Zhù Ying kept deflecting, saying, “I’ve done nothing — this is all the Prefect Wang’s doing.”

At the Jing Prefecture, the moment Yang Sanlang’s aunt saw the child, she rushed over and clutched him. “My darling, where did you disappear to?!”

The child was so startled he let out a wail of “Waaah!” Zhù Ying fished out a piece of sugar from her pocket and held it out to comfort him. “Here, for you.”

The child slowly calmed, and Luo Yuan’s wife declared, “This is my son!”

Wang Yunhe then sent word for Luo Yuan to come.

Very shortly, Luo Yuan came galloping to the Jing Prefecture on horseback. “Where is he? Where is he?”

Seeing Luo Yuan, Zhù Ying finally understood why he had said the child was the very image of himself. For though Luo Yuan’s face was composed and presentable now, those large protruding ears were the same as the child’s, as though cast from a single mold. Luo Yuan said not a word against Wang Yunhe now. This eunuch was adaptable — he dropped to his knees before Wang Yunhe on the spot, weeping and expressing his gratitude in a flood of tears and mucus.

Wang Yunhe helped him to his feet. “What parent isn’t heartbroken for their child? Just one thing — the household’s reward must be honored!”

Luo Yuan cradled his son and laughed. “Of course, of course.”

He looked at his wife, then at Yang Sanlang, then at Zhù Ying, and asked Zhù Ying first, “Who is this?”

“Deputy Chief of the Court of Judicial Review, Zhù Ying.”

“Ah, that’s you! Sanlang has spoken of you!” Luo Yuan remembered — Yang Sanlang mentioned Zhù Ying often, so he had kept the name in mind. More importantly, he had heard that Zhù Ying was someone both Zheng Xi and Wang Yunhe regarded highly. Seeing her here now, Luo Yuan naturally concluded that Zhù Ying had played some role in recovering his son.

He smiled and said, “Thank you.” Then to his wife: “Madam, go home and see that the reward money is paid out.”

Yang Sanlang’s aunt, hearing those words, her legs gave way and she slumped against her nephew’s arm. “Ah.” She was finally going home.

Luo Yuan exchanged further courtesies with Wang Yunhe, holding his son and refusing to let go. Servants from his household came hurrying up behind him, and upon seeing the “young master,” cried out with joy. Wang Yunhe said, “One moment — there are still several more people from your household here. I’ll return them to you as well.” And so he handed back Luo the Second, Luo the Fifth, and the servants to Luo Yuan all at once.

Luo Yuan placated them in a few words: “You’ve been put through a great deal. I arranged this with Prefect Wang to deceive the criminals — it wasn’t something I could let on about beforehand.”

Zhù Ying was deeply impressed by this. For this man to be counted among those the Emperor relied on, he must have some ability. Luo the Second and Luo the Fifth had been completely manipulated by him — how could they complain? Both said, “Finding our little brother is all that matters! We were heartsick over it.”

Zhù Ying thought to herself: you fools — say otherwise, and you’d carry the suspicion of having killed your own brother to your graves.

Luo Yuan first set his son on horseback, mounted up himself, and rode home with his child on display, parading through the streets to show the world his son had been recovered.

Zhù Ying did not follow to join the spectacle. Instead she stayed behind to speak with Wang Yunhe. She had been refining a few thoughts lately and wasn’t sure they were correct. Before asking about them, she turned to the patrol captain and others standing to one side and said, “Why are you just standing there? Take your gongs and go give him an escort — keep announcing as you go, ‘Prefect Wang has found Eunuch Luo’s son back for him!’ Go on!”

The patrol captain leapt up. “That’s right! I was thinking of waiting until tomorrow morning to spread the word…”

Wang Yunhe laughed helplessly. “You’re being mischievous again.”

“Not at all,” Zhù Ying said. “If I were being mischievous, it wouldn’t look like this.” She made no particular comment on Wang Yunhe’s handling of the case — Wang Yunhe’s method was not one she could have replicated. As Jing Prefect, he had far greater human resources at his disposal; she could not have managed it at her current station even if she’d wanted to.

“I wonder,” she said, “now that the child is found, whether the two sides — scholars and eunuchs — will go on quarreling, or manage to reconcile…” And she cast a quiet glance at Wang Yunhe.

But Wang Yunhe showed no concern at all. “Were they ever harmonious?”

“Then…”

“In the future,” Wang Yunhe said, “don’t scold them too harshly, and don’t strike them too hard.”

“Oh?”

Wang Yunhe sighed. “They are the Son of Heaven’s own household servants. Scholar-officials are admirable, noble men are admirable — but who attends to His Majesty’s meals and clothing? His Majesty must also live. Everyone calls them treacherous sycophants, and yet there are things the Son of Heaven needs done that gentlemen refuse to do — and it is the sycophants who are willing. The Son of Heaven is human, after all.”

“Yes,” Zhù Ying said. “Scold when scolding is warranted, strike when striking is warranted — just don’t make His Majesty uncomfortable.”

Wang Yunhe couldn’t quite say whether he was disappointed or pleased. “And you? How is the house coming along?”

“It’s strange,” Zhù Ying said. “Everyone else complains about officials who only think about acquiring property and land, saying it shows a lack of ambition — and yet you’re always asking about my house. Shouldn’t I have some aspiration?”

“When other men think only of acquiring property and land,” Wang Yunhe said, “it is for property and land’s sake — their official posts and scholarly pursuits are merely means to that end. For you, it’s finding a wu-tong tree to perch on and rest, before taking flight again.”

“No,” Zhù Ying said. “I just want a nest to curl up in.”

Wang Yunhe flicked her on the forehead. “Go home. I don’t feel like writing up commendations today.”

——

By the time Zhù Ying arrived home, half the city already knew that Luo Yuan’s son had been found by Wang Yunhe. The capital’s residents could at last breathe easy — cursing Luo Yuan roundly for the trouble he’d caused while feeling relieved that they could stop running themselves ragged.

Zhù Ying’s gate was standing open. Zhang Xiangu was at the door waiting for Zhù Ying, anxious to hear what had happened.

“The person was found, that’s all!” Zhù Ying said.

“Thank goodness he’s safe,” Huajie said.

“Indeed! It’s a good thing the child was alive. If he’d been killed, even as capable as Prefect Wang is, he would probably have…” Today at the Jing Prefecture, she had looked at that child — stripped of every ornament, every piece of finery, dressed in rough cloth. A child like that, buried in the ground somewhere, would in time become white bones, and who would ever know what storm he had once stirred up?

“That’s good fortune repaying Prefect Wang for being a good man,” Zhang Xiangu said. “For that little wretch to have been so rude about him all this time, and not fear divine retribution!”

“Just wait — he’ll certainly reward Prefect Wang handsomely,” Zhù Ying said.

Zhang Xiangu was skeptical. “Someone so heartless and ungrateful, after cursing Prefect Wang all these days — does he know what’s good for him?”

Zhù Ying held out her palm. “Two guan.”

“What?”

“A wager. Two guan. Luo Yuan is absolutely going to thank Prefect Wang. If he does — you owe me two guan. If he doesn’t — I pay the same. Elder Sister is our witness!”

“I’m not betting!” Zhang Xiangu said.

“Oh, come on…”

Conversations like this one were playing out in many corners of the capital, where people were not so much sorry the child had been found as genuinely glad that Wang Yunhe had managed to shake off Luo Yuan like a bad smell.

The next morning, Zhù Ying went to report for duty and encountered Adjutant Li at the palace gate.

Adjutant Li asked with a smile, “Sanlang — have you heard the latest?”

“Which latest?”

“About Luo—”

“I didn’t just hear about it,” Zhù Ying said, “I was there.”

“What a relief that’s over! Things were getting out of hand.”

“Watching the excitement is fine,” Adjutant Li said, “but once it goes too far, it stops being entertaining.”

“True enough,” Zhù Ying agreed. “Better that it’s settled.”

At the Court of Judicial Review, everyone was saying the same. Zhù Ying joined the conversation, adding the news that “Luo the Second and Luo the Fifth have both been returned” — something the street gossip had left out, which focused mostly on Luo Yuan bringing his son home. Hearing that the nephews were home too, everyone expressed mild disappointment: “So it wasn’t them after all.”

An internal family struggle among a eunuch’s household was, of course, a story everyone had enjoyed following.

One of the older, more measured officers said quietly, “I fear there’ll be a reckoning between them sooner or later.” Then he closed his mouth, because Yang Sanlang had arrived.

Yang Sanlang was enormously grateful to Zhù Ying and came over ready to bow. Zhù Ying was quick — before his hands could even press together, she had pulled him off to the side and asked, “How is your aunt’s household? No scenes last night?”

This question had to be answered first before the whole room of listeners. Once he had answered, Zhù Ying said, “The senior officials are almost back. You’ve been too distracted to report properly these days — go now, or you’ll give your superiors grounds to reproach you.”

Yang Sanlang said, “It’s fine now, nothing to worry about.”

Everyone listening laughed.

Yang Sanlang had missed the opening and now couldn’t find a natural way back into his thanks, and his skin wasn’t thick enough to push through it, so he gave up and went back to the Court of Imperial Sacrifices.

Luo Yuan, by contrast, was a man of real stature. He specifically took leave from his duties to go and thank Wang Yunhe, and to apologize. With a smiling face making its rounds, Wang Yunhe could not very well strike it. And since Luo Yuan had the grace to be humble, bearing thick gifts and wearing a broad smile, even the scholars could find no fault with his conduct — to continue criticizing him at this point would be unseemly.

A father who had lost a child could be forgiven any amount of desperation. After the child’s return, Luo Yuan expressed gratitude just as fervent as the anguish he had shown during the disappearance. For a time, those who had been criticizing him fell quiet, and while few people could bring themselves to praise him, those who had refrained from criticizing in the first place could now make an even-handed remark. The others who had already spoken harshly found it awkward and redirected their dissatisfaction toward Lan Xing. In the end, their disdain for eunuchs was not itself wrong.

And Luo Yuan in his current mood was playing the role of a generous dispenser of gifts — not only giving Wang Yunhe a lavish present, but making donations to various temples. Prompted by his wife Yang Shi, he also had Yang Sanlang deliver a gift of thanks to Zhù Ying. This gift Zhù Ying flatly refused.

Yang Sanlang said, “It’s not all that much — please do accept it. My uncle is in high spirits, and my aunt says you rendered a great service.”

Yang Shi and her nephew were genuinely grateful to Zhù Ying — first, because when they’d come to her in need, she had been willing to help and offer suggestions; and second, because when things were at their worst, she had been the one to bring Yang Shi first to the Jing Prefecture. Otherwise, who knew how long it would have been before Yang Shi was able to set foot in her own home again?

If it was for that reason, then Zhù Ying accepted it readily, adding, “Look after the child properly. Next time, you may not be so fortunate.”

Yang Sanlang said, “How could there ever be a next time? Oh — what’s this?”

They were speaking in the western side room, and Yang Sanlang had spotted the architectural model on the table. “The house?” Zhù Ying said.

Yang Sanlang said, “A house of yours? Very nice — though with these buildings blocking the neighbor’s light, won’t the neighbors have something to say?”

“If I speak to them properly, of course they’ll understand.”

“Where do you find neighbors that reasonable?”

“I’ve promised to raise their compound wall by one foot, with shards of ceramic along the top, matching my own height.”

“Just be sure you don’t make a nice promise and then go back on it — my old neighbor once…”

“I arranged it through the neighborhood head and drew up a written agreement,” Zhù Ying said.

Yang Sanlang gave a thumbs up. “You’re good.”

Zhù Ying smiled modestly. Whether she was good or not, she had made a habit of looking for leverage over others while leaving no handles for them to grab onto herself — it was second nature by now.

After seeing Yang Sanlang off, she counted through the gifts he had brought. Inside were pure gold and silk cloth — not a copper coin in sight. A box of silk bolts, a case of gold and silver pieces. Yang Shi’s gift-giving was admirably brisk and straightforward.

Zhù Ying let out a satisfied breath. Furniture and furnishings — sorted.