◎ In Prison ◎

Someone pulled the bright imperial-yellow scroll from her hand.

Song Shiyan released his grip and hurriedly took it, seeming to take several deep breaths before dismissing everyone nearby and slowly unrolling the scroll.

To his shock, the scroll was completely blank.

He turned it over and examined it again and again, confirming the writing hadn’t simply been washed away by water, before he finally understood. He seized Qu You by the collar and yanked her toward him. “You—”

“Ha ha ha ha,” Qu You let out a low, hoarse laugh from deep in her throat, her tone mocking. “My apologies, Your Highness.”

She still addressed him as “Your Highness”—with the dying edict unaccounted for, the imperial seal missing, the old officials of the previous reign refusing to bear witness, and the lords and nobles of the realm not yet having come to the capital, his claim to the throne remained too murky to warrant the title “Your Majesty.”

The day before, while retrieving the imperial seal, she had taken a blank scroll from the shelf in Xuande Hall on impulse, thinking it might come in handy someday. She hadn’t expected it would actually prove useful so soon.

It was also because she had fabricated the story about the edict earlier that Song Shiyan had been so easily fooled.

Song Shiyan discarded the scroll and reached out toward her. Qu You had braced herself for him to strangle her in fury, but instead, he simply pressed his palm to her damp, dripping cheek, brow furrowed, speaking as though genuinely wounded. “How is it you truly don’t fear death? I’ve rarely trusted a woman easily, all these years—only you…”

He narrowed his eyes halfway, a cold light glinting in the depths of his gaze. “I knew it. Someone like you would never kneel so easily. You’d rather die than bow to me—so I refuse to let you have your way.”

A guard hurried over obligingly. Song Shiyan accepted the handkerchief offered to him and wiped his hands, then glanced up lightly. “Send men to pursue along the river. Bring Zhou Tan back to me.”

The guard answered solemnly, “Yes.”

Song Shiyan turned his gaze back to her. His eyes were deep-set, the outer corners tilted upward, carrying an inexplicable coldness whenever he looked at anyone.

Qu You, breathing heavily, saw her own reflection in his dark pupils.

“What good did it do you, stealing the imperial seal?” Song Shiyan asked her softly, reaching out to brush the hair back from her temple. “Even if Zhou Tan gets his hands on the seal, could he actually rebel? If he had the will, the throne would certainly be his for the taking—but is a man like him truly capable of doing such a thing?”

He didn’t seem to care about her answer at all, continuing on to himself. “All of the Song descendants are here in the capital. If they wanted to rebel, where would they even find someone to put forward as a figurehead?”

Qu You clutched her wrist, nearly crushed by his grip, and let out a cold laugh.

He would find out soon enough.

“It seems you won’t tell me…” Song Shiyan said, frowning as he stroked her cheek, then gave a soft laugh. “You brought this on yourself, you know. But since you’ve fallen into my hands, I’ll be sure to treat you well.”

He studied her stiffening expression, seeming to find it quite amusing. “Someone, take Miss Qu to the Ministry of Justice prison. I’ll question her myself… I hear the Ministry has its ‘thirty-two implements’—capable of loosening any tongue. If I don’t get my answer, I’ll simply have to trouble them for assistance…”

“Let’s see, shall we, whether you kneel or not.”

Qu You opened her eyes to the chill dampness of the prison settling into her spine.

Song Shiyan had her dragged roughly from the crossing onto a carriage and taken to the Ministry of Justice—a place she once knew intimately. The imperial prison now held the surviving princes, and the Zanjin Pavilion had already been abolished; only the Ministry of Justice’s prison had space enough to spare for a private interrogation.

Along the way, Qu You thought hazily to herself that she had truly ended up in Song Shiyan’s hands after all.

History had already been rewritten. She couldn’t see through the mandate of heaven, nor could she glimpse her own murky, uncertain future—but she had done everything in her power to save the officials trapped that day in Xuande Hall, to save the capital’s people who might otherwise have perished at Xishao hands, to deliver the imperial seal to Song Shixuan… Zhou Tan and Ye Liuchun had gotten away safely. Everyone but her had come through unharmed.

Events had unfolded somewhat ahead of schedule, but still followed history’s original course.

Before long, with Ai Disheng’s help, Song Shixuan would successfully persuade the great clans and nobles of the Southland, formally declare himself Emperor, and march west under the banner of “restoring the rightful foundation of the state.”

Song Shiyan, having borrowed troops from Xishao, found himself unable to exert any real control over them; wherever the Xishao army passed, cities were left in ruins, and fewer and fewer were willing to submit to him.

In the winter of Yongning’s final year, Yan Fu led his troops all the way to the walls of the capital.

Isolated and without support, cornered and desperate, Song Shiyan refused to fall into Song Shixuan’s hands, and took his own life before the city walls.

Because his enthronement had never followed proper ritual, and none of his documents survived, he was recorded only vaguely in the historical annals, given the posthumous title “Shang”—meaning premature or tragic death.

The Emperor Shang, notorious throughout the history of the Yin dynasty—more often referred to simply as “the deposed Crown Prince”—thus vanished into the smoke and fire of war.

The first thing Emperor Ming did upon ascending the throne was to seize the opportunity to strike against Xishao, sending Grand General Zhuozhou to fight the legendary Battle of Shao Pass.

Great Yin then enjoyed years of peace and prosperity. As time passed, Su Chaoci’s reputation and standing grew ever greater, respected by all above and below; with him present, Emperor Ming’s reign saw factional strife nearly disappear entirely—a true golden age in the centuries of Great Yin’s history.

Qu You thought, only now did she truly understand what Zhou Tan must have felt back then.

She had known the outcome of history all along; though she too was but a mayfly against its vastness, she couldn’t simply stand by—she had done everything she could, in the cracks and margins of fate, to save the small, unwritten people history would otherwise have forgotten.

Failing to escape, falling into Song Shiyan’s hands—she felt no regret over it, only a strange sense of release.

If she had known she could save someone and failed to act, she would have carried the same guilt Zhou Tan once had—when Gu Xianghui fell from the tower, her fluttering sash had brushed his fingertips as she fell; when Yan Wuping died, his body was laid beneath a broken, crumbling shrine statue, and Zhou Tan had knelt there beside it, nearly consumed entirely by guilt and self-loathing.

Facing similar dilemmas, they had each, instinctively, made the very same choice.

Only, Zhou Tan hadn’t managed to save Yan Wuping that day—while she had managed to accomplish what she’d set out to do.

The people of the capital hadn’t lost their homes and families to the Xishao army; the upright officials hadn’t died within Xuande Hall; Song Shixuan had obtained the imperial seal without losing a single soldier… even Zhou Tan remained safe and unharmed.

To trade everything she cared about for their safety—even if it meant falling into a bottomless abyss herself—she felt it had been worth it.

This, then, was what it had felt like for Zhou Tan, willing to serve as the bridge others crossed.

The fate of the martyr.

But Zhou Tan had met her, and been pulled back from the depths of that black water, finding within himself the courage to rise and walk forward once more.

She simply didn’t know yet… whether she would be fortunate enough to have the same.

Qu You was bound to the interrogation frame. From the corner of her eye, she saw Song Shiyan approaching with a long whip in hand, using its tip to lift her chin. “Youyou, that day at Fanlou, you said you wanted to be remembered through the ages, wanted every man in the world to look up to you… was all of that a lie?”

The hair at her temples was damp with cold sweat. Hearing this, she could barely manage to flick her eyelids open. “What does Your Highness think?”

“If you die here, not a single person will remember you.” Song Shiyan said softly. “You stayed behind to steal the imperial seal, yet Zhou Tan and the others can’t even find an heir capable of standing against me. What good does having it do you now?”

“Do you know—in my younger years, I once helped my father handle several cases, assisting the officials of the Ministry of Justice in extracting confessions. For female prisoners, they begin with the finger-press. If that fails to break them, they strip away the woman’s outer robes and beat her with a courtyard rod. If even that fails, they take a wooden board the length of a forearm and strike her across the abdomen—enough blows, and she’ll never bear children again for the rest of her life.”

He spoke all of this in the gentlest possible tone, and by the end, he had begun to weep before she had.

Qu You felt wave after wave of cold creep through her body, and clenched her fingers tightly without meaning to.

“There are crueler methods still—I can’t bring myself to describe them. But… Zhou Tan, back when he was held in the imperial prison, must have endured no small share of them himself. I’ve seen it done before—they take a long, thick iron nail and drive it into the gap between bone and flesh. Hah—can you guess just how painful that is?”

“Even now, on damp, humid days, he probably still remembers that agony as though it were yesterday, doesn’t he?” Song Shiyan reached up and wiped the tears from his own cheeks, speaking with what sounded like genuine tenderness. “I truly don’t want to treat you this way. Please, say a little more to me.”

Qu You bit down hard on her lip, determined not to let him see her trembling.

She had studied the penal code and had certainly reviewed the laws governing punishment of women under the Yin dynasty—but she had never imagined that one day, what she’d read in textbooks would be inflicted on her own body.

She thought bitterly to herself that she had once been the sort of person who would carefully bandage and apply ointment to even the smallest cut on her finger. Now, hearing these horrifying punishments described aloud, though terrified beyond words, she still refused to let a single word of pleading pass her lips.

Just as Song Shiyan had once said of her—running a hand down the back of her neck, one would find nothing but sheer defiance.

Incongruously, she found herself thinking of Zhong Yi, imprisoned in the state of Jin, as recorded in the Zuo Zhuan—even in captivity, he had kept the cap of his southern homeland and played the music of the south. Punishment could not erode one’s moral integrity; that was the conduct befitting a true gentleman.

And standing behind her was not only Zhou Tan, but a thousand years of civilization’s accumulated understanding of right and wrong.

To defend everything worth defending. To hold fast to every principle worth upholding.

That was simply how it should be. Why, then, should she kneel?

Cast even into the darkest night, her heart still held its own bright, shining moon.

An eternal reunion, never once incomplete.

“Very well, very well…”

“Then let me start you off with the finger-press, and let you have a taste of it. Bring it here—”

Cold bamboo clamps closed around her fingers; pain from the fingertips shot straight to the heart, and even the slightest pressure brought searing, sharp agony.

Qu You’s face turned the color of pale gold, cold sweat streaming down.

She bit through her own lip, a metallic tang spreading between her teeth.

Song Shiyan flicked his robes and sat down at the desk, resting his chin in his hand as he watched her. “Such a pity. You truly made a fool of me. I even let your family leave the capital freely. No matter, though—since you’re clearly this bold, I’ll simply have them brought back.”

Qu You’s heart lurched for a moment, then settled again almost immediately.

The Qu household should already have reached Lin’an by now. Song Shixuan was there; before long he would raise his banner and declare rebellion, and Lin’an would be the very first city to break free of Song Shiyan’s control—he would have no way to touch anyone there.

She had thought of exactly this when she first sent her family away. That way, once they crossed into Lin’an’s territory, even if Song Shiyan sent men to trail them the entire way, there would be no possibility of dragging them back.

At the thought, the corner of Qu You’s mouth curved upward slightly.

But Song Shiyan continued on eagerly, undeterred. “Which of your family should I have killed first, I wonder? I hear your mother suffers frequent illness—wouldn’t want to frighten her too badly… Your younger brother just sat for the spring examinations, didn’t he? Named…”

Whatever he said after that, Qu You could barely make out anymore.

She had been born and raised in a civilized, orderly world; aside from once falling and breaking a bone, she had never in her life suffered any serious injury, let alone this kind of deliberate torment designed purely to extract a confession.

And there was still more to come… tortures meant to grind away one’s dignity, to shatter the spirit entirely.

If only her body were weaker, unable to endure much longer—Qu You thought hazily—perhaps once she died, she might find her way back to her original world.

The only regret was leaving Zhou Tan behind here—unable to bring him along to see her world, that future of order and function, governed by proper law.

He would surely never want to leave it, once he saw it.

Hearing her let out an involuntary groan of pain, Song Shiyan’s lips curved into a smile. “Really, what’s the point of holding out like this? I’ll admit, Zhou Tan is a capable man—if he weren’t so dead-set on playing the noble gentleman, he could have seized the throne himself with ease. Which is exactly why, all those years at the border, I never once forgot about either of you.”

He stepped closer. The guard administering the punishment poured a basin of ice water over Qu You’s head; water splashed onto his own robes, but he paid it no mind whatsoever.

“Now I sit here within the capital’s inner palace, with troops at my command, gold and silver in my coffers, and a decade’s worth of a crown prince’s authority behind me. What does it matter that Zhou Tan managed to steal the imperial seal? Can he even come back? Would he dare come back? He missed his best chance to move against me while Father was still alive. Chu Lin is already dead—it’s far too late for everything now! No matter how much he despises me, all he can do is watch helplessly as I destroy everything he holds dear—whether it’s that ridiculous memorial on penal reform he spent years petitioning Father over, or you—he can only stand by and watch as I crush the both of you with a mere flick of my finger, watch me reign for a thousand generations to come, utterly powerless to stop any of it!”

So Zhou Tan had submitted a memorial on penal reform to Emperor De even earlier than she had known.

But at the time, lacking Song Chang’s trust, even after uncovering numerous problems within the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Justice, he had had no way to act on his findings freely.

Song Shiyan rose, leaning against the desk, staring down at her and laughing loudly.

The torment on her fingers paused for a moment. Qu You looked up at the twisted, laughter-contorted muscles of Song Shiyan’s face, and suddenly recalled something Ye Liuchun had once said.

Something was indeed off about Song Shiyan’s current state.

He swung wildly between joy and sorrow, laughing and weeping in turns, sometimes shifting between two entirely opposite emotions within the span of a single breath.

By all rights, having served as Crown Prince for so many years, he should have long since learned to master his expressions—especially with guards standing right there beside him.

Was Song Shiyan truly so far gone now that he no longer bothered concealing it from anyone at all?

After a moment, Song Shiyan’s laughter cut off abruptly. He turned back to her as though he’d entirely forgotten his previous mood, and said coldly, “Miss Qu, what are you thinking about?”

Even his manner of speech and address had grown erratic and disjointed now—entirely unlike the composed Crown Prince she had first met.

The bamboo clamps suddenly tightened, far more forcefully than before. Qu You’s brow furrowed sharply, and she cried out in pain.

She was somewhat afraid of pain; tears streamed down her face involuntarily, her thoughts spiraling into disarray. Song Shiyan watched her bowed head with interest, and after a long moment, heard her force out a low, quiet laugh amid her pained groans.

Song Shiyan suddenly felt that her laughing at a moment like this was a deliberate insult to him. “What are you laughing at?”

Her voice, broken and choked with pain, came out halting and fragmented—but he caught every word clearly.

“Ha ha ha ha, I’m laughing at you… you’re nothing but an insect crawling through this era, base and lowly as an ant, yet you think so highly of yourself, imagining you possess some power that reaches the very heavens… A thousand generations? Keep dreaming! Keep dreaming!”

“A mantis trying to halt a chariot, a single leaf blinding your own eyes to the truth… You, who never once valued your own life, will be the first to throw it carelessly away; you, who never valued the lives of the common people, having already lost their hearts entirely—what good will all your troops and provisions do you then? In the end, you… will surely be crushed beneath the grinding wheel of history, your bones and blood scattered across the earth without a trace left behind! I… will be watching, waiting to see your downfall.”

“Madam, wake up…”

Someone shook her shoulder. She opened her eyes hazily, and a faint metallic taste of blood rose immediately in her throat.

Someone supported her back, carefully wiping the blood from her chin with a cloth.

Qu You lifted her eyes and saw a familiar face before her.

She was helped over to lean against the wall, and with a little strength finally returning to her, she managed to speak. “He… He San, the guard.”

He San immediately dropped to his knees and bowed his head respectfully before her. “Madam.”

“Cough…”

Qu You tried to say more, but a dull, aching pain seized her chest. Seeing this, He San struck her back skillfully, and she coughed again, dark, clotted blood trickling down from the corner of her mouth.

He San said urgently, “Madam, please bear with it a little longer. I’ve already gone in secret to ask a few of the women here in the prison to come tend to your wounds once night falls.”

“Are all of you… doing well?” Qu You finally managed to speak, holding her chest, asking with visible difficulty. “Has His Majesty given any of you trouble?”

“The official posted here during your husband’s time was never especially close to us. The one who replaced him died at Xuande Hall a few days back. The Ministry of Justice has never involved itself in factional disputes, so no one here was implicated by any of it. I’m currently overseeing matters here on behalf of my superiors,” He San answered quietly. “When I heard today that it was you His Majesty had brought in, I prepared medicine in advance, though I only dared come see you once night had fallen.”

Qu You nodded weakly. “Thank you.”

“Madam, there’s no need to thank me. Back when Vice Minister Zhou served here, he treated us…” He San paused for a moment, his face filled with shame and regret. “He treated us with the greatest generosity and kindness. My mother was gravely ill at the time, and Young Master Zhou found excuses again and again to reward me, out of pure compassion for those beneath him—and still, I misunderstood him for so long… It wasn’t until my lord was posted away from here that we learned the ‘Master White Snow’ who had comforted us from behind that screen was him all along.”

She thought back for a moment, then remembered stamping Zhou Tan’s personal seal onto the screen just before she’d left that place.

So they already knew.

Qu You smiled faintly. “He… has been doing well, these past years… when he enters the capital, be sure to go see him. Meeting an old friend again will make him happy.”

He San, not quite grasping her meaning, still bowed deeply and assented all the same. “Yes… His Majesty has ordered me to send men from the Ministry of Justice to interrogate you. I’ve already spoken with them in advance—they won’t subject you to any truly severe punishment. It’s only that, for the sake of appearances, you may occasionally need to bear some superficial wounds. Please endure it a while longer, Madam. I’ll send someone to tend your injuries each night.”

Qu You closed her eyes and nodded, then said slowly, “If there’s any risk of him noticing, don’t take the chance…”

He San said quickly, “Don’t worry, Madam. Please, take good care of yourself… there’s little enough I can do for my lord as it is—I will absolutely not let you come to serious harm here in this prison.”

With that, he hurried away. Not long after, several jailers who oversaw the female prisoners came to tend to her wounds.

Throughout, they spoke to her with the utmost respect—no doubt they too had once been among the unfortunate souls whom “Master White Snow” had quietly comforted from behind that very screen.

Though the Ministry of Justice had cycled through several vice ministers and ministers since then, the rank and file beneath Liang An had seen remarkably little turnover. Even without He San’s instruction, most of them had received some kindness from Zhou Tan in the past, and tacitly, collectively, took it upon themselves to look after her in secret.

At her request, they even extended that same quiet protection to the group of officials imprisoned there alongside her.

And so, the brutal punishments Song Shiyan spoke of so often were, for the most part, quietly avoided. Only when word came that he intended to visit would the staff deliberately create a few superficial wounds on her, just enough to appear suitably gruesome.

But after that, Song Shiyan seemed to grow extraordinarily busy, and came to see her in person only twice more.

He San hinted vaguely that rebel forces had risen up in Lin’an, keeping the Emperor fully occupied and leaving him no time to spare for the prisoners held at the Ministry of Justice.

It seemed that Song Shixuan and the others had already made Emperor Xuan’s dying edict public, and Song Shiyan, now understanding the true purpose behind her theft of the imperial seal that day, no longer saw any need to bother forcing a confession from her.

Qu You bit her lip, thinking with quiet satisfaction that this must be exactly why he’d been so furious the last time he came to see her.

Though she was spared any further torture, the prison cell remained dark and damp, poorly suited to recovering from her injuries, and she remained quite weak most days.

And so she began sleeping for long stretches each day, doing everything she could to conserve what strength remained to her.

In that cell, where she could glimpse only a single beam of sunlight each day, she fell into a long, long dream.