Chang Zhao tilted his head back to look at the fading evening light. The sunlight spread a layer of golden radiance across the surface of the Bianhe, people came and went in a dense flow, the river glittered with rippling light, and shards of gold danced upon the water.

He was silent for a good while before he stepped back up onto the execution platform, took a flask of wine from the attendant at his side, poured a cup himself, and brought it to Su Shiyu’s lips.

Song Lan had no intention of taking Su Shiyu’s life — he had determined that Su Shiyu was acting under Luowei’s direction, and subjected him to severe torture to force him to speak.

Perhaps the scent of the wine reached him. Su Shiyu parted his lips in a confused motion and drank down the cup Chang Zhao held.

The harsh liquor burned down his throat. He struggled to open eyes crusted shut with dried blood and looked at the impeccably dressed Chang Zhao. “Brother Ping Nian…”

Chang Zhao said, “If the sky today had been overcast with rain, and execution impermissible, perhaps you could have lived two more days, giving them enough time to think of a way to save you. Since you turned against me, they have exhausted every means to rescue you — but the Zhuque Bureau is heavily guarded and deep within the forbidden city. Today His Majesty reversed his own order. Tell me — do you think they will still come to save you?”

Su Shiyu gave a quiet laugh and did not answer.

Chang Zhao could not tell whether that laugh held more mockery or more amusement. But he had no mind to dwell on it now — he only let out a long sigh. “The spring rain fell without stopping all these days, yet today the sky is like this. You have been brought all this way down the Imperial Avenue — what did you see?”

Su Shiyu replied in fragments, “Streets… people… pleasure boats… no different from any other day.”

Chang Zhao said, “Look at the people gathered around watching you. Among them are those who say you were dashing and full of life in your youth, who lament how you came to such an end. But more of them know nothing at all — they simply say that anyone beheaded in the Eastern Market must have committed some terrible crime, and speculate about whether you were pretending all along. Is this what you were protecting? These are the people you sought to protect?”

Su Shiyu made a laborious effort to lift his head and look at him. “You… you…”

Chang Zhao met his gaze, and suddenly noticed that at some point, a trace of compassion had appeared in Su Shiyu’s eyes.

“Those words… you never used to say them before… Why have you grown so disillusioned with them?”

Chang Zhao frowned and looked away, and did not answer.

Su Shiyu swept his gaze around and let it come to rest on the distant Bianhe. “You look, too… Today the evening sun is so beautiful, and the Bianhe is full of people, the streets and lanes are alive with noise… Is such a realm, such a land — is it not worth protecting?”

Chang Zhao gripped the now-empty wine cup, seemingly not wanting to hear any more of what he had to say. He turned and walked down from the high platform.

An attendant, watching the sky with a glance, offered a reminder. “My Lord, I believe sundown is nearly upon us.”

Chang Zhao looked to his left and right. The upper stories of the wine towers were full of noise and activity; far off, people on the balconies were pointing and gesturing in this direction. Pleasure craft plied the Bianhe back and forth, peaceful and serene to the very extreme. The common people crowded before the execution ground, watching the spectacle, and every now and then someone leaned over to whisper to a neighbor.

Only he knew that a multitude of Imperial Guards and the Emperor’s personal escorts were woven among them, dressed in inconspicuous clothing. They were scrutinizing the expression on every face around them, searching for any suspicious figure.

“They will not come.”

The attendant heard Chang Zhao murmur to himself, and then he dropped the execution authorization tablet in his hand and gave the order: “Carry out the execution.”

The executioner, watching from a distance and seeing his gesture, quickly took a large mouthful of wine and spat it over the long blade to be used for the execution. The blade was extremely sharp, polished to a brightness that could mirror the face of the one who held it.

Su Shiyu glimpsed his own disheveled hair in the reflection, and hurriedly dragged the heavy chains beside him to tidy himself up.

The attendant had drawn a breath and was just about to cry out the order to proceed, when the sound of a horse’s desperate whinny suddenly reached his ears. Someone came galloping through the crowded market at full speed and flung himself down at Chang Zhao’s feet.

“My Lord — the Ministry of Justice prison is on fire!”

Chang Zhao replied without urgency, “If there is a fire, send for the patrol wardens. Why come to find me?”

Then he said it and immediately sensed something wrong. “A prisoner has escaped from the jail?”

The reporting attendant said, “Precisely, My Lord. The Deputy Minister says an important prisoner has gone missing. They are all occupied with fighting the fire now, and there may be negligence. Chang Zhao is asked to please take utmost care.”

When Chang Zhao heard “an important prisoner,” he immediately grasped part of the picture. In recent days, both he and Song Lan had had their eyes fixed on Su Shiyu, and had nearly forgotten that the Ministry of Justice prison still held a person who might be connected to Luowei.

Today Su Shiyu was being executed, and Song Lan had dispatched all the Zhuque guards and Imperial Guards to keep watch over the Eastern Market — yet it had given them the opening they needed. Somehow, they had found a way to rescue Qiu Xueyu from the prison!

For reasons he could not quite explain, his first reaction upon realizing this was a cold, derisive laugh — a lifetime’s bond was right there before him. Su Shiyu had thrown everything to the wind, utterly heedless of himself — and yet at a moment like this, Luowei had gone to rescue someone else.

For a moment, Chang Zhao looked toward Su Shiyu on the execution rack. He had just thought of something mocking to say, but the smile froze on his face.

Today’s handling of Su Shiyu had been Song Lan’s impromptu decision — after all, Song Lan’s original intention had been to lure Luowei into the open, but he was so consumed by anxiety about those close to him being untrustworthy that he had simply moved up the execution date as a test. He had no time to concern himself with whether Luowei had had time to make arrangements — he only wanted to know whether Ye Tingyan or Chang Zhao would leak the news from the imperial presence.

Luowei’s rescue of Qiu Xueyu today had almost certainly been a previously laid plan. They had intended to create some confusion while Song Lan was still mentally unsettled and use it to slip out of the city.

But the Ministry of Justice fire had coincided precisely with Su Shiyu’s execution. The only people who knew fully about the connection between Su Shiyu and Su Luowei were himself and Ye Tingyan. The timing was so perfect that in Song Lan’s mind, he had almost certainly already decided that one of the two of them had colluded with Luowei.

Chang Zhao immediately pulled a jade tablet from his waist, gave a sharp whistle, and a Zhuque guard appeared at the sound, receiving the tablet with a respectful bow.

“Take this at once into the palace, present it to the Son of Heaven, and say…”

Chang Zhao lowered his voice and whispered something in the guard’s ear. Only after watching the man depart did he turn around.

The onlookers seemed to have all noticed the smoke rising in the distance. But the smoke was at the far end of the Imperial Avenue, and its origin was unclear. Someone bellowed out, “Fire brigade ladder cart coming through — clear the way, clear the way!”

A company of Imperial Guards escorting a tall ladder cart appeared suddenly at the far end of the street. Before the crowd could even scatter, people were pushing and shoving each other, and in an instant it was a scene of complete chaos. Chang Zhao glanced toward the front of the road, and suddenly felt something was wrong. “Why would the fire brigade’s ladder cart be passing through the Eastern Market? They have always taken a route clear of the Eastern Market on their way to the Imperial Avenue.”

The person at his side answered, “Because today, after the spring rains cleared up, a theater troupe started performances on the Western Street this afternoon, and it’s several times more crowded than usual. The fire brigade must have heard about this and changed their route.”

“This afternoon?” Chang Zhao repeated it once, and his expression changed at once. “Something is wrong—”

He turned his head, and with a shock of astonishment discovered that the executioner with the raised blade had been soundlessly knocked unconscious — no one knew when — and that the blood-soaked Su Shiyu on the execution rack had, in just that brief span of time, disappeared without a trace.

Then it struck him all at once — the fire had only just started at the Ministry of Justice, and no one knew how far it had spread. How could a fire brigade have brought out its ladder cart so quickly?

Luowei’s people must have been hidden within that tall ladder cart, and had taken advantage of the moment when the crowd was thrown into confusion to knock out the executioner — and then spirited the person away in broad daylight, right under everyone’s eyes.

By the time the Imperial Guards stationed in the surrounding towers and among the crowd collected their wits, it was already too late. Chang Zhao gripped the sword at his hip, just about to order everyone to stop the advancing ladder cart — when the words rose to his lips and he swallowed them back.

The fire brigade’s ladder cart was exempted in its passage by everyone from the highest imperial nobility down to civil officials and commoners alike. If he managed to search the cart and find the suspects, all well and good — but if they had had the presence of mind to hide the person elsewhere at the first opportunity, he would only end up, before the eyes of the entire crowd, earning the charge of obstructing the fire brigade!

In an instant, Chang Zhao had thought the whole thing through from beginning to end. He realized he had already fallen into the scheme these two had laid, with no way to block it. Rather than anger, he found himself almost amused. He descended the steps, swung himself onto his horse, instructed those around him to hold their positions for the time being and not provoke a disturbance among the people — and then galloped away.

*

Luowei had changed out of her Imperial Guard clothing. She was wiping clean a wound on Su Shiyu’s forearm with a handkerchief, which was soaked through with blood in an instant. She paid it no mind, and only said with urgency, “Elder Brother, you must hold on.”

Su Shiyu’s consciousness was hazy. He could only gently pat the back of her hand in comfort.

Someone stooped to enter from outside the pleasure boat. “Young Lady Su, should we go by the city gate or the ferry crossing?”

He glanced at Su Shiyu with a worried look. “If we go by the city gate, we can pretend to be a foreign merchant convoy. At the ferry crossing, we can claim to be a noble family from Jiangnan, visiting the capital for leisure. All the relevant registration documents this one has prepared in advance — but now, with Young Master Su appearing so suddenly, and no time to prepare anything for him, the checkpoints are strict, and they are certain to come aboard and search. How are we to manage?”

Luowei gripped Su Shiyu’s hand tightly and, eyes lowered, ran through it rapidly in her mind.

While hiding in the black-canopied boat, the moment she saw Chang Zhao step up onto the platform to speak with Su Shiyu, it suddenly occurred to her that Yuanming had mentioned just now — the person who had taken Qiu Xueyu’s place had brought fire oil and tinder.

Qiu Xueyu’s disappearance from prison was a major incident, and could not simply be glossed over carelessly. Ye Tingyan had already planned to set fire to the Ministry of Justice to let them slip out of the city under cover of the confusion.

The fire had been planned for two days hence — but circumstances had changed, and she needed to leave the city now. So she had deduced that shortly after the two of them moved, the arsonist would act.

In a flash of inspiration, Luowei suddenly had an idea.

Rescuing someone in broad daylight before a great crowd was extraordinarily difficult. The only thing worth gambling on was to create something that drew even more attention.

The moment the thought arose, she made her decision without hesitation. She immediately ordered the boatman to proceed downstream and make straight for the largest fire brigade station in the city.

If she remembered correctly, the ladder cart closest to the inner palace was stationed right there.

Luowei had expected it would take some effort to make arrangements — but when she arrived at the fire brigade’s gate, she saw the ladder cart was already being brought out through the main entrance, accompanied by a company of Imperial Guards.

She and Qiu Xueyu blended in among the Imperial Guards, and were immediately recognized by the leader of the group. The leader moved over discreetly and informed her that after Ye Tingyan and Yan Ping had come out of the palace gates, upon hearing that the Ministry of Justice was on fire, he had immediately dispatched this unit to come and fetch the ladder cart.

“Young Master said — if by chance the timing was right, he was certain to meet the two of you here.”

Thinking back on it now, the theater troupe that had appeared out of nowhere on the Western Street and the crowd it had gathered — those had surely also been arrangements he had been turning over in his mind on the way out of the palace.

Luowei came back to herself, and felt her heart hammering wildly — with Imperial Guards and common people all mixed together in the crowded market, even one small slip would mean none of them could come away unscathed.

Someone had another pleasure boat waiting to receive them. She wrapped Su Shiyu in a cloak and managed to get him onto the boat without incident.

The problem now was how to take him out of the city with them.

Ye Tingyan was always cautious, but today could be counted as his most reckless move yet. Would it bring trouble down on him?

Luowei turned it over carefully before she made up her mind. “Let us take the ferry crossing.”

Su Shiyu was gravely wounded — a carriage would be too cramped, and the smell of blood would certainly be impossible to conceal. On a boat, at least it could be masked to some degree — but in his current state, he could not be moved. Where on earth could he be hidden to avoid a search?