Zhù Ying read the official document through, verified the seal on it, set it to one side, and asked Tong Bo, “Where is Tong Li?”
Tong Bo said, “Just outside.”
Tong Li had not handled the assignment well and felt too ashamed to come in; he was lurking outside the door.
Zhù Ying said, “It’s already come to this — what’s he embarrassed about? Go drag him in. I have questions.”
Tong Bo could not tell from Zhù Ying’s face whether she was pleased or displeased, and with a measure of worry for his brother answered, “Yes.”
He went out. Tong Li was shrunk behind a pillar, beckoning at him. Tong Bo walked over, gripped him by the shoulder and said, “Hurry in and give your report.”
“Is the magistrate angry?”
Tong Bo said, “If I could tell what the magistrate is thinking I’d be the magistrate myself. Quit babbling — move!”
Knowing there was no escape, Tong Li steeled himself and went into the room, dropping to his knees on the spot: “My lord.”
Zhù Ying lowered her gaze to look at him and said, “Don’t waste time — get up and give your report, then go cry later.”
Tong Li scrambled up: “This subordinate has disgraced my lord. The assignment wasn’t accomplished — I was driven back.”
“From the beginning.”
Tong Li said, “This subordinate took the assignment and didn’t dare delay — two days and I was there. Bad timing, though: when I arrived they had already left their posts for the day! Just mentioning this makes me furious — they stop doing proper work in the afternoon! When I arrived, I thought I’d first deliver the document and come back the next day for an answer; but when I got to the Sicheng County yamen, they had already closed up! Truly unbelievable! What hours do we keep, and what hours do they keep?”
Zhù Ying said, “Get to the point.”
Tong Li said, “I had to find lodgings. The next morning I went over without even breakfast — and when I got there, the doors weren’t open yet! Good thing it was midday before they finally opened. It wasn’t until they saw I was delivering an official document that they let me in. I delivered the letter; they received it, didn’t let me see County Magistrate Qiu — didn’t even let me see their county chief official — someone came out and told me to go back and wait for a response. I thought, the other task my lord had given me was to bring the Li family’s people back as well, and finding people takes some effort, so I waited. But five days went by without the document being located or a single soul appearing!”
Tong Li was seething with anger. He had gotten used to working in Fulu County; by Zhù Ying’s standards, Fulu County’s working hours were already far more relaxed than those in the Court of Judicial Review, yet they were worlds apart from the laxity of a place like Sicheng County. At the time, many yamens didn’t even require every official to report to duty every day. Fulu County had been even worse than Sicheng County before — in the time of former County Magistrate Wang, the county magistrate himself wasn’t even in the county, so what rules could there be?
Fulu County had only gradually become orderly since Zhù Ying arrived. She herself felt she was being lenient, but in the eyes of the people and the officials, she was absolutely a model of diligent governance. The officials worked hard day after day, and though it was also tiring, she paid them well in grain and money, and their work earned them a decent reputation, so they gradually grew accustomed to it.
Suddenly dealing with a neighboring county like this — Tong Li was simply not used to it. Sending documents to the prefecture and the state capitals had never involved this kind of delay; Sicheng County was apparently trying to reach the heavens!
The more Tong Li spoke, the angrier he got, and the more aggrieved: “I waited and waited and waited, and went to ask — they said they were seeking instructions from above and told me to wait. I waited another three days, went again, and was told County Magistrate Qiu had matters to attend to — keep waiting. I didn’t dare go out, so I sat in the guesthouse counting mosquitoes…”
He had originally looked forward to being sent on official business to Sicheng County; the travel expenses could be reimbursed, and while waiting for a response he could wander around Sicheng County and see if there was anything novel to buy and bring back. But then the matter didn’t get handled, and he lost all desire to go sightseeing; watching his travel funds dwindle day by day — even though it wasn’t his own money, it was still troubling to watch. Never mind thinking of buying souvenirs for anyone.
“It was only three days ago that they finally sent someone to call me over. I thought all the evidence and witnesses must have finally been gathered, which was why it had taken so long. Who knew that County Magistrate Qiu would say: ‘I know what this is about. Go back and tell your magistrate that the Li family members are Sicheng County people, and the documents are all Sicheng County records — there are no grounds for releasing them. Seeing as you have made the effort, and Magistrate Zhù did send an official document, I will write a letter back to explain the situation clearly.’ And then I was just sent away!”
“So that’s how it was.”
“That’s exactly how it was. What difficulty is there in this matter? They simply refused to give face. This subordinate losing face is one thing, but what’s hateful is that they don’t even show respect to you, my lord. That pack of scoundrels — they deserve a beating! They don’t protect the people, and they don’t do their work diligently for the court — truly infuriating.”
Zhù Ying asked, “Did you also ask around about Huang Shi’erlang’s reputation and Li Da’s reputation?”
Tong Li quickly said, “I did ask, my lord. Li Da — people say his family is stubborn. After all, with a sister who has borne a son, he would become a relative of the Huang family in the future — wouldn’t that be an advantage? But they just won’t accept it. Huang Shi’erlang — well… people say he’s a formidable character.”
“Formidable in what way?”
Tong Li coughed twice. “Just — that kind of formidable, where nobody dares cross him.”
Zhù Ying gave a light laugh. “All right, I’ve heard. Go to the accounts and settle your expenses, then you have three days off. Rest up properly.”
“Yes.” Tong Li breathed a sigh of relief. Once again the magistrate turned out to be a good person — stern, but not one to take out frustrations on others without cause.
Zhù Ying said, “Three days from now, make another trip to Sicheng County.”
Tong Li’s face collapsed. “What?”
Zhù Ying looked at him calmly. Tong Li felt a tightening across his back: “Yes.” He dared say nothing more. He made a deep bow and backed out. His heel caught the doorframe and he spun around and ran.
Gu Tong had been listening quietly all this time. He now stepped forward and tentatively said, “Teacher?”
He found himself feeling some dislike for County Magistrate Qiu as well. He had seen the man once before — appeared to be a reasonably normal middle-aged official, not the type of muddleheaded official who had never read his books all the way through, couldn’t reason through an argument, yet ended up in office through hereditary privilege, bribery, or being someone’s subordinate or relative.
And then this was how he handled affairs!
Gu Tong pushed his classmate Lin Ba-lang’s brother-in-law’s matter to the back of his mind. He had only one thought: “They all handle things this way, yet you’ve been entrusted with the assignment of spreading the cultivation of winter wheat — how can that be done well?”
Zhù Ying said, “That’s a different matter.”
“Then it really was deliberate?” Gu Tong speculated uncertainly. “Because Huang Shi’erlang transferred to our county, and he feels he lost face before you, he’s making things difficult on purpose?”
Zhù Ying said, “In any matter where there is room to wrangle and pass the blame around, the wrangling has its own logic. If it were a cut-and-dried matter, there’d be nothing to argue about. Hmm? Haven’t you transferred to the applied law track? Can’t you see it? In this case, if I loosen my grip slightly, it could slip over to Sicheng County. If he loosens his grip slightly, it comes to me. That’s why there’s something to argue about in the first place.”
Gu Tong said, “The person isn’t even in his hands anymore — so what is he arguing for? He’s been here all these years and clearly couldn’t handle Huang Shi’erlang either. Why not just hand it over to you — then he wouldn’t have to lift a finger? Oh! He accepted bribes!”
Zhù Ying said, “Don’t reduce people to something so simple.”
“Then what is it?”
Zhù Ying said, “In the future, when you come across something you can’t figure out, don’t try to figure it out first. Just go ahead and do your own work, follow your own intentions. As you work through it, you’ll come to understand. He does what he does; we do what we do.”
“And right now?”
Zhù Ying said, “If anyone asks, say you don’t know. Wait for news from Sicheng County.”
“Yes. But can County Magistrate Qiu actually do a good job with the winter wheat? Will he manage it?”
Zhù Ying said, “His rent and tax payments to the court haven’t been seriously delayed. If he can grow rice well, he can grow winter wheat just as well. It’s not as though he has to do the farming himself.”
Under Prefect Lu, neither mere obedience nor mere ability alone would suffice; County Magistrate Qiu at the very least needed to be able to carry out the policies Prefect Lu issued. Even the previous County Magistrate Wang, who spent all his time hiding out in the prefecture capital to avoid responsibility, had reached some sort of balance with the “gentry” of his county, and Guan Cheng had been able to keep things running for the county. Though it was something of a “rule of non-interference,” it had managed to hold together.
Gu Tong felt a little anxious, and muttered to himself: why can’t I make anything out this time?
The key was his teacher — he didn’t yet have the ability to read anything from her.
He left the county yamen and went home. When family members asked, he said, “I don’t know either.” The family paid it little mind — the rainy season was picking up, and at home they needed to check the granaries and repair whatever was leaking in the roof before more rain came. They didn’t press the matter further.
Three days later, before Gu Tong had even woken up, he felt a sudden pain and jolted upright on his sleeping mat — his grandfather, Gu Weng, was standing there swatting him with a walking stick. The knob at the top of the staff was carved in the shape of a dove; now that Gu Weng had turned seventy, he had received a dove-topped staff of honor, which he was currently using to beat his grandson with.
Gu Tong tried to jump off the mat and dodge, but was unfortunately tangled in the thin summer blanket. Gu Weng showed no mercy, and Gu Tong rolled and scrambled on the mat: “Ow! What is this? What did I do? I didn’t do anything!”
“Nonsense! I know everything. Tong Li came back — everyone’s saying Sicheng County was being obstructive to us. You were there when he reported, and you came home and said you didn’t know anything!”
Zhù Ying had told Gu Tong not to spread word of it. She hadn’t given Tong Li the same instruction. Tong Li, smarting from his grievances, had managed to restrain himself from setting up a table in the marketplace to tell the story like a storyteller, but had only cursed Sicheng County’s rudeness to his colleagues and decried to his neighbors what absolute wretches the Sicheng County people were.
Gu Tong had kept his lips sealed for nothing.
Gu Tong said, “What progress is there in that? My teacher hasn’t said anything.”
“Is that true?”
Gu Tong rubbed his freshly beaten sore: “Of course!”
Gu Weng struck his staff heavily on the ground again and said, “You must tell the truth to your own family! If my lord said you couldn’t say so, then say that directly — of course we wouldn’t ask further. Pretending you don’t know when you simply said nothing — is that any way to treat your elders?”
Gu Tong sat back on the mat, almost ready to throw a fit: “Why are you beating me over some outsider? You believe whatever people say?”
Gu Weng said, “Stop playing the fool! You have to keep your family in your heart!”
Gu Tong said, “I know, I know.”
Only then did Gu Weng let him be.
Gu Tong thought to himself: surely my teacher didn’t forget to give the same instruction to Tong Li. Was it actually Tong Li?
He hurried into his clothes and went to the county yamen to report this new discovery to Zhù Ying. The moment they met, Zhù Ying asked, “What happened to your face?”
Gu Tong touched his cheekbone: “Nothing — accidentally scratched it. Teacher, Tong Li has been outside saying that Sicheng County is no good, this and that — did you know?”
Zhù Ying said, “Ah — let him say it this one time.”
“Oh?”
Zhù Ying smiled: “You can’t expect everyone you deal with to be straightforward and prompt. You have to know how to handle the sticky ones.”
She pointed to the edge of the table and told him to sit down and help with some document work.
Gu Tong settled himself behind the table, grinding the ink as he asked, “What does teacher want me to write?”
“An official letter to Sicheng County.”
Wrangling — who can’t do that?
Sicheng County said the witnesses and evidence could not be handed over and wanted the case transferred to them. Zhù Ying bypassed the first point entirely, and only had Gu Tong draft a letter asserting that the case belonged under Fulu County’s jurisdiction.
Gu Tong didn’t understand, but began drafting. When the draft was done, he handed it to Zhù Ying, who revised it here and there and said, “Stick to the matter at hand — don’t drag in other things. Just this one point.”
In truth, if she didn’t want to wrangle, she had a trump card: “I try the case and I bear responsibility for the outcome — if you say you’ll bear responsibility, I’ll hand it to you.”
In general, one sentence like that would significantly reduce the other side’s wrangling. But she chose not to use it yet, and instead set about teaching her student how to draft official correspondence. She let Gu Tong go on wrangling back and forth with County Magistrate Qiu while she herself began making preparations for various county matters.
She chose a site on the riverbank and had people lay foundations and construct a compound. The foundations were solid and deep; above them rose a bamboo building. The main building had three stories, with wooden beams and columns, and everything else made of bamboo — even the furniture. Once the foundation was complete, construction went very quickly. On either side extended two more two-story bamboo buildings, with additional bamboo cottages nearby.
The cost was far less than the kind of brick-and-stone-and-timber construction, and nobody knew what she intended. If it were for leisure, a tall mansion with solid materials and beautiful decoration would be the thing — this didn’t fit that purpose. And if not for leisure, then what was it for?
This development somewhat diluted the talk about Huang Shi’erlang. Those with more years would say to the younger ones: “You don’t remember — this is how the authorities always handle things. Ours used to be about the same, and before his lordship came, even more so. Now wrangling with Sicheng County — watch and see. Don’t expect to wake up one morning and find it resolved.”
The Huang Shi’erlang matter was indeed easy to wrangle about. Under the principle of jurisdiction, County Magistrate Qiu had a point. But Zhù Ying was not without a point either — the complaint had been filed with her. Gu Tong had transferred into the applied law track; County Magistrate Qiu had no background in that field, and the two of them traded document after document.
This time Sicheng County’s reply came a little faster, but still wouldn’t budge — and now demanded the case even more insistently. Gu Tong retrieved the document from Tong Li and handed it to Zhù Ying: “They’re still being stubborn?”
Zhù Ying pointed at Tong Li: “Look at his face and you’ll know.”
Tong Li’s face drooped. “My lord, I can’t even bring myself to go settle my expenses.”
Zhù Ying said, “You’ve already cursed them out — don’t do it anymore.”
“Yes.”
Zhù Ying said, “Rest a couple of days and then go again.”
Tong Li let out a long breath: “Yes.”
Zhù Ying wrote out a note and had the accounts office issue three bolts of cloth, one per person for Tong Li and his two companions. Poor fellows — running back and forth, their cloth shoes had been worn through at the toes.
Gu Tong had drafted two documents and still there was no resolution. Time had moved precisely into the last ten days of the sixth month. Xiang Le returned.
Xiang Le had been gone for a day or two without anyone noticing, then three or five days without anyone caring. As time stretched on, there was murmuring behind his back. The Xiang family had his word on it and hadn’t searched; Xiang Le’s mother asked her daughter, “What case at the yamen would have him on duty this long? He hasn’t even brought his clothes home to be washed?”
Xiang An said, “Yamen matters — don’t ask.” She actually didn’t know either, but didn’t want her mother to worry.
Nobody dared ask Zhù Ying directly. Xiang An therefore, like Lin Shi and her mother, went through the back quarters approach — she asked Du Dajie, who knew nothing, but told Huajie. Huajie went to ask Zhù Ying, who said, “What he’s doing can’t be known by anyone.”
Huajie didn’t ask again.
Now Xiang Le had finally returned — dusty and travel-worn, the youthful stubble having sprouted on his still somewhat boyish face, his fine outfit now torn in several places and patched with conspicuous patches. He drove a donkey cart with a few shabbily dressed men walking behind. The group entered the county seat without anyone paying them much attention. He pulled the cart up to the side gate of the county yamen and said, “Here we are.”
The cart curtain lifted, and an old woman said, “Er-lang, is this the county yamen? My eldest son and Fu Jie…”
“They’re inside. Wait a moment — I’ll have them announce us.”
The gatekeeper had noticed the commotion and came over as well: “Hey, don’t stop here — if you have business, go to the main gate… oh? Xiang Er?”
“It’s me. Please inform my lord — I’ve brought people.”
Tong Li had been grinding away in Sicheng County; Xiang Le had run his shoes nearly down to the sole. He had thoroughly investigated Huang Shi’erlang’s various misdeeds. In the process, he caught wind of a rumor — that the Huang family steward had personally gone to the county seat to deliver gifts and win over the yamen top to bottom. He thought: this could go badly.
So he moved ahead of them and persuaded the Li family to come to Fulu County. Persuading the Li family was not too difficult: “Either trust our magistrate and fight for one last chance, or just go on suffering like this until you die.”
The Li family couldn’t understand “one last chance,” so he had to explain further: “This is the only road ahead for you now. Either accept your fate — consider your son and daughter dead — or refuse to accept it, come with me and fight for it. How much land do you have? What’s your yearly harvest? I’ll give you the money for one year’s harvest.”
His family was doing reasonably well, and he had some spending money on him. With no wife or children so far, one poor farming family’s annual yield was an amount he could produce and that didn’t hurt too much. The promise was thus quite generous. He still had money left from the pouch Zhù Ying had given him, and right then and there produced a piece of silver as a deposit.
He then hired a donkey cart, loaded the entire family inside, and had the able-bodied men walk alongside. The Li family’s dependents were not many; the cart just barely fit them all.
To guard against anyone intercepting them, he took a detour that added a few days to the journey before finally bringing the Li family back. Along the way he hadn’t been idle; in his casual chats with the Li family, he heard of more of Huang Shi’erlang’s wrongs that others hadn’t been willing to tell him directly.
They waited at the side gate for a short time before Hou Wu came out: “Come — follow me.”
He led them to a side compound. This was where the county yamen’s coroner worked, and people generally didn’t come this way. Spotting it as a place to meet the Li family was a stroke of genius.
Xiang Le had grown friendly with the Li family along the way, and lowered his voice to advise them: “Huang Shi’erlang has already moved to the county seat. We need to keep out of sight. This is already the county yamen — in a moment, don’t be afraid. Answer whatever you’re asked.”
The Li family pressed close together and followed behind them as they walked into the courtyard. Hou Wu led them into a room. There had been no recent deaths, so no bodies were inside, only a lean, handsome young figure. Zhù Ying received them in plain clothes. The Li family members all looked much alike — a glance was enough to tell.
Xiang Le first made a cupped-fist salute: “My lord.”
Zhù Ying nodded. “You’ve had a hard journey. Your own report can wait a moment. These are Li Da’s family, then?”
The family knew nothing of etiquette; all they knew was to kowtow to officials. After kowtowing they burst into weeping lamentations. Xiang Le quickly stopped them: “Softly!” He was the covert thread in this — as long as Zhù Ying hadn’t made things open, everyone on this line had to stay silent.
Zhù Ying said, “Your children are both here. You may stay here for now too.”
She first had Li Da and Li Fu Jie brought out. At the sight of each other, the whole family experienced a mixture of grief and joy. Li Da’s mother saw that her son had filled out a bit and looked a touch fairer than when he’d left home, and was all the more convinced that Fulu County was better than Sicheng County. Then she looked at her daughter and saw there was something of her home smile on the girl’s face again; she wiped her tears and said, “There’s finally hope.”
She prostrated herself before Zhù Ying, begging her to stand up for their family — they only wanted their daughter back and for the family to live their lives. Zhù Ying said, “This matter is not easy to resolve — you will have to be patient for a while.”
The old father said, “We’ll do whatever my lord says.”
They had filed complaints so many times, and none had ever been like this. What Xiang Le had said was right — right now, this was the only road. Their minds were made up, and they would walk it.
Zhù Ying said, “In that case — you’ll all be staying in the jail for a few days.”
“What?!”
Li Fu Jie understood the situation better than the rest. She said, “Don’t worry — the jail here is better to live in than home! Out there, you’d still have to put up with being bullied. Come along — I’ll explain.”
With the family moved into the jail, Zhù Ying said to Xiang Le, “You’ve had a hard time.”
Xiang Le said, “No harder than running a trading trip, really. My lord — my lord’s foresight is extraordinary — Huang Shi’erlang really did hold informal courts. In addition, there were also forced buying and selling, seizure of women and farmland…”
He went on at length, also describing what the Huang family’s “imitation of officialdom” looked like, and cursing: “Our proper yamen doesn’t even have a water pit — he has one!”
Hou Wu momentarily couldn’t contain himself: “Only the improper ones do.” He immediately took half a step back.
Xiang Le, who had come back more recently, already knew about Hou Wu’s mouth. He smiled at him and began again: “My lord, how did you know he would…”
Zhù Ying said, “A guess.”
There was nothing particularly difficult to guess. Looking at the way Huang Shi’erlang behaved — playing the obsequious subordinate before her while in fact showing very little real respect — a man like that would inevitably, the moment he stepped outside, try to recoup whatever face he had lost in her presence, recovering it the same way he had lost it. Combined with the things Xiao Jiang and her woman had gathered from Li Fu Jie, one could reasonably infer that Huang Shi’erlang very likely maintained some fixed place or fixed procedure through which he sustained his violent authority.
It was like the strip of wasteland between two houses. At first, one person or two might cross it; once enough people walked the same path, a road was worn into being. The Huang family’s method of maintaining authority worked the same way. Over time, with more people to bully, a habit would form and a fixed place would be established for that kind of business. That Huang Shi’erlang was also ostentatious and fond of putting on airs in his speech and his lifestyle only increased the likelihood.
“Does Fulu County have anything like that?” Zhù Ying asked.
Xiang Le said, “This subordinate has not heard of anything of the sort.”
“How unusually well-behaved — how is it that not a single household here managed to become locally dominant in the way Huang Shi’erlang did in Sicheng County?”
Xiang Le too had a look of puzzlement on his face: “This subordinate doesn’t know the answer to that either.” He hadn’t thought about it before. He made a mental note to ask around when he got home.
Zhù Ying said, “Above all else — maintain secrecy. The accounts can’t be settled yet. Add up the figures first. Go home and rest a few days, then come back.”
“Yes.” Xiang Le passed a notebook with slightly curling edges to Zhù Ying. On it were records he had kept of Huang Shi’erlang’s misdeeds, written far more clearly than Jiang Zhou’s notebook.
He had not brought back any of those witnesses — but with so many instances recorded, as long as the Li family case was conclusively resolved, or as long as the charge of holding an informal court could be established, once Huang Shi’erlang fell, an uncountable number of witnesses would emerge on their own. There was no need to go to the trouble of bringing them now.
Zhù Ying said, “Rest a few days, and then we’ll go to the prefecture capital together.”
Before Xiang Le had returned, the reason Huang Shi’erlang had stopped sending gifts to the county yamen had also been found — he had simply stopped sending them to Fulu County; Sicheng County had not been neglected at all. Presumably he was now regretting having transferred his household registration so rashly.
Zhù Ying had endured patiently for a long while, and finally Xiang Le had returned with the assignment completed and things wrapped up. The timing was right — it was time to go and see Leng Yun.
Before going to the prefecture capital, she first went to Nan Prefecture, not committing the back-and-forth wrangling to paper. Once wrangling involved the superiors in black and white, no matter which level of superior it was, if they decided “give it to Sicheng County” — written in black and white, it would be finished.
So long as Sicheng County didn’t report this upward, she wouldn’t either.
When she and County Magistrate Qiu met in the prefectural capital, the two of them were perfectly cordial. County Magistrate Qiu was still saying, “Do reserve me a few more seeds of winter wheat.” The Wang county magistrate nearby cut in: “I said it first — surely I should get more.”
Hmm — wait.
It was only in private that she raised a word with County Magistrate Qiu: “Some matters are more convenient to discuss face to face — that case.”
“Which case? Oh! Huang Shi’erlang’s? That should be my case, shouldn’t it?”
“It’s already in my hands.”
The two of them wrangled face to face in the same way they had been wrangling in their official documents, neither trying too hard, and without arriving at any resolution — in the end the two agreed: “We’ll discuss further when we return.”
When it came to judging cases, those who had to decide were never in a hurry; when the blade wasn’t at your own throat, you didn’t feel the pain. In general, so long as it wasn’t a matter of treason or some major crime, cases of lesser severity were handled without urgency. Even major cases could drag on for a very long time. The Gong Jie case back then had the Court of Judicial Review leading the investigation, and even that had taken a very long time.
The party then set out for the prefecture capital.
On the road, no one was asking Zhù Ying anymore about Leng Yun. By now, most people had some sense of the new prefectural governor’s capabilities — he was one of those officials who was easy to reach but whose subordinates were the real trouble. He himself didn’t appear to have much ability, but he knew how to deploy advisors to handle everyone. These advisors were tiresome and persistent, but they were no more frightening than Prefect Lu.
This was an un-foolish nobleman’s privileged son: “un-foolish” in that he didn’t recklessly make decisions himself, and knew how to use people.
And that was the end of it. Prefect Leng liked beautiful and exquisite things, music performances, delicate and refined food. Not excessively greedy, not excessively harsh — in general, the farther you were from him, the easier you got along with him, because he was too lazy to manage much. Those who were near him, so they heard, had a harder time. Magistrate Miao — a sharp and capable official — had been described by Prefect Leng as someone whose “brain was a strainer — always leaking something, never quite thorough enough.”
He was calling others stupid!
Unbelievable. One wondered who had served him in the capital — it was hard to imagine anyone could be good enough for him!
Fortunately they didn’t need to have much to do with him.
Arriving at the prefecture capital, they settled in at the post relay lodge, sent in their visiting cards, and officials from all the prefectures and counties lined up one by one to send gifts to the prefectural governor’s office.
Zhù Ying was no exception. Where she had an advantage over others was that the prefectural governor’s office sent people to welcome her personally.
Xiao Wu came to the post relay lodge with an expression of longing on his face, found his way to Zhù Ying’s lodgings without needing directions, and the moment they met he dropped to his knees ready to wrap his arms around her legs: “My lord! I’ve missed you so much!”
Zhù Ying kicked his shoulder, saying quietly, “What kind of way is that to behave? Get up!”
Xiao Wu stood up awkwardly, hastily rubbing his face with his sleeve, and said, “My lord — Prefect Leng has invited you over. These past few months, he has…”
Xiao Wu’s time in the prefectural governor’s office these past few months had been neither good nor bad, but it had been witness to a stretch of chaos settling into calm. Mainly it had been Leng Yun’s five advisors fighting with the prefectural office’s regular officials; at times the two sides were kicking each other under the table without anyone above noticing.
“Now it’s finally settled down,” Xiao Wu said.
“And you? Did they use you to say one thing and mean another?”
Xiao Wu looked ready to cry again: “No — I stayed out of it. When they got really fierce, I’d keep Prefect Leng company and talk to him. I was not going to let myself be used as their blade and end up the one suffering!”
“Prefect Leng has picked up a fair bit of the local dialect now, though he only knows a few simple phrases. Generally he doesn’t socialize with people who don’t speak official Mandarin. When the rain first came, he would stand watching the rain and say something about feeling melancholy. But when it kept raining, he got tired of it, and he complained that it was too humid here.
“Yesterday, because you were coming, Prefect Leng started thinking about the winter wheat again. My lord — I should come back to your side now, right? When you plant winter wheat, don’t you need someone to run errands?”
Zhù Ying lived simply and without personal pretensions, and was very understanding of others; Leng Yun had something of the noble young master about him and would sometimes strike people, but Xiao Wu found navigating Leng Yun easier in some ways. With Zhù Ying, he didn’t dare be careless. Yet Xiao Wu found himself missing the time at Zhù Ying’s side more and more. How to put it — breathing in, the air on either side had a different quality.
He wanted to go back.
Zhù Ying said, “Very well.”
Xiao Wu jumped up: “Then let’s go to the prefectural governor’s office right now.”
He deftly began preparing Zhù Ying’s going-out outfit, and while preparing continued to say a great deal about Leng Yun’s details — even which concubine Leng Yun favored most, and that Magistrate Miao had sent over two young and beautiful singing girls.
By the time Zhù Ying was standing at the gate of the prefectural governor’s office, she was already very well informed about the past several months of Leng Yun’s life.
She had enjoyed her freedom long enough. Now it was time to pull Leng Yun up and put him to work!