Zhou Yinzhi worked in the public courts.

There had always been a saying here: “Enter the yamen and shed a layer of skin.” Even when governance was clear and upright, such incidents were not uncommon; when the court was unstable, they naturally became commonplace. The Embroidered Uniform Guard had long earned widespread resentment throughout the court and countryside, and they were even more practiced at this sort of thing—truly “the cream of the crop” in this regard.

Those who had committed offenses were best if they had money but no power. Lock them in prison for seven days, scare them out of their wits, and their families would naturally worry themselves sick, clutching silver to grease palms up and down the chain, fearing only that the officials in the public courts wouldn’t accept it.

This was the more conscientious approach.

Those with darker hearts and crueler hands, regardless of whether you were the wronged party or the offender, once embroiled in a legal dispute that couldn’t be untangled, would arrest and detain everyone under the pretext of custody pending trial. Then the offenders would have to bribe the officials, and even the wronged parties would have to pay to avoid disaster.

If they didn’t give silver, that was simple too.

A muddleheaded official would judge a confused case—whether you were guilty or innocent, with one stroke of the brush, everyone would be sent off for punishment.

When Zhou Yinzhi left the yamen today, he had been wondering along the way what Jiang Xuening wanted to do. Upon arriving at the teahouse and observing, although her words everywhere distanced herself from that You Fangyin, and everywhere praised You Yue as if every sentence was for You Yue’s benefit, this “wronged party’s” expression didn’t seem to match that at all.

So after thinking it over briefly, he guessed she wanted to deal with You Yue.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard handled matters outside, and he was a newly appointed Commandant of a Thousand, so he didn’t dare to openly favor Jiang Xuening too blatantly, but his handling was unambiguous: regardless of anything else, first arrest the person, and how to deal with things next would only depend on what Jiang Xuening said.

But he hadn’t expected that Jiang Xuening had this kind of plan in mind.

The zither was too expensive…

So she was short on cash.

Zhou Yinzhi nodded. He showed not half a trace of surprise, nor any intention to interject, only saying: “I understand.”

Although Yan Lin had sent her many things in the past, selling off those items would also take some time. While Jiang Xuening did have some money on hand, encountering something like the calamity befalling the Marquis of Yongyi’s manor meant that even having mountains of silver might not be enough to use. Moreover, regarding the Ziliujing Salt Fields matter, she was determined to succeed, so she needed to have enough money on hand to guard against contingencies and ensure nothing went wrong.

Since You Yue had fallen into her hands, she could consider herself unlucky.

Today she had originally been putting on an act, but she hadn’t anticipated that You Fangyin would stake her life to protect You Yue, grabbing a long bench to deal with her. If she let things end there and allowed You Yue to take her back to the manor, a vicious beating would be unavoidable.

Jiang Xuening really didn’t want to imagine that scene.

And didn’t dare to.

So she would rather report it to the authorities first, have the person arrested and thrown in prison, have Zhou Yinzhi serve her well with good food and drink—that was better than going back to the manor to suffer torture. No matter what, first get through this period of time, then think later about whether there was any once-and-for-all solution.

Jiang Xuening lightly pinched the space between her brows and said: “You Yue is also a study companion to Grand Princess Leyang in the palace. Her two-day rest should have her return to the palace. Handle this matter with discretion and don’t make too big a fuss. After all, your position as Commandant of a Thousand hasn’t been held long. Even though you had merit in secretly investigating the case of the Marquis of Yongyi’s manor’s collusion with Prince Pingnan’s treasonous faction, you can’t withstand being too prominent. If you’re made into a thorn in someone’s eye, that would be bad.”

Zhou Yinzhi’s pupils suddenly contracted.

But Jiang Xuening acted as if she had said nothing unusual, maintaining her normal appearance. She only continued: “These days I’ve been in the palace, so I don’t know the details of the Marquis of Yongyi’s manor affairs. Tell me about them.”

This teahouse was empty and deserted. Once the Embroidered Uniform Guard people came to arrest someone, everyone had scattered, leaving it completely empty.

But just now there had been such a big commotion after all.

Zhou Yinzhi was a cautious and careful person in handling matters. He only said this place wasn’t convenient for talking and wanted to invite Jiang Xuening to his humble dwelling for a discussion.

Originally, Jiang Xuening had come today intending to meet with Ren Weizhi, but then she herself encountered the unexpected incident with You Yue. No matter how you looked at it, today wasn’t a good day for conducting business. Moreover, since she had already seen You Fangyin, there really wasn’t much necessity for her to appear in person again.

So she agreed.

After setting down that cup of tea, she left the teahouse together with Zhou Yinzhi.

Jiang Xuening’s carriage was right by the roadside.

Zhou Yinzhi had come on horseback.

Only now this white horse was no longer the beloved horse he had raised for two years.

Jiang Xuening glanced at it, recalling what she had heard not long ago from Yan Lin about that incident—Zhou Yinzhi killing his horse…

In her previous life, Zhou Yinzhi had married Yao Xi.

And later this person had even joined hands with Chen Ying to frame Zhang Zhe, making him sit in prison for several months on false charges. It wasn’t until Xie Wei rebelled that Xie Wei removed Zhou Yinzhi’s head, hanging it high at the palace gates.

Thinking of this, her mood grew somewhat gloomy.

The coachman had already placed a footstool beneath the carriage shaft.

Jiang Xuening walked over and, supporting herself on Tang’er and Lian’er’s hands, was about to board the carriage.

But she never expected that when she casually lifted her eyes, sweeping past the entrance of a medicine shop diagonally across the street, she would collide directly with a pair of silent, calm eyes—

Hair bound with a green hairpin, not a strand out of place; a plain blue robe, appearing exceptionally simple, yet fitting him incomparably well when worn.

He still carried a small package of medicine in his hand.

Zhang Zhe stood quietly at the entrance of that medicine shop, whether he had just come out or had been standing there watching for a long time, no one could tell.

In that instant, Jiang Xuening’s body went rigid. All her movements stopped. Her head buzzed, and her mind went completely blank.

But Zhang Zhe withdrew his gaze at this moment.

He withdrew his gaze from looking at her, and also withdrew his gaze from looking at Zhou Yinzhi beside her. With a slight nod as a gesture of courtesy, he turned and followed along the street with its coming and going of people, carrying the medicine he had just obtained, slowly walking into the distance.

Lian’er followed her gaze and only saw a lean figure, not knowing who it was. Somewhat puzzled, she asked: “Miss?”

Jiang Xuening raised her hand and pressed somewhat forcefully against her own heart.

She felt stifled in her chest.

It was clearly just such an ordinary glance. Perhaps the current Zhang Zhe didn’t yet recognize Zhou Yinzhi, this newly appointed Commandant of a Thousand of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, but she tasted extreme discomfort and guilt…

Zhou Yinzhi was undoubtedly no good person.

In her previous life, he had despised her for consorting with such people, yet in this life she still couldn’t extricate herself. She had to keep spinning in this Asura field and had no choice but to use such people for now.

Zhou Yinzhi noticed something unusual in her expression and secretly tried to deduce the identity of that person just now.

But Jiang Xuening slowly turned her head to look at him.

In that gaze was some distraction, as if looking through him at something else. Finally, it was tinged with a faint, hidden melancholy and wistfulness…

Zhou Yinzhi had never denied the beauty of the woman before him. Even back when they were still in the countryside, he had been given a taste of it.

But this was the first time…

The first time he was moved by this expression of hers that he couldn’t understand.

He said: “Does Second Miss have something on her mind?”

Jiang Xuening blinked, looking at this tall man wearing a flying fish robe. Still as if in a dream, she slowly said: “I truly hope that in the future, you won’t do anything too wicked; or if you do, conceal it better and don’t let me know…”

Zhou Yinzhi raised his eyes to look at her.

But Jiang Xuening had already lowered her gaze. Wordlessly tugging at the corners of her lips, she turned back, stepped on the footstool, and boarded the carriage.

In the early winter afternoon, the manor of Minister Yao located in the eastern part of the city had four courtyards that were quiet and elegant. Though the outer gates were tightly closed, inside among the corridor passages, there were from time to time figures of maids and servants walking about and chatting with laughter.

Yao Xi, upon hearing someone’s report, joyfully rushed to her father’s study.

She didn’t even have time to wait for someone to announce her and impatiently inquired: “Father, Zhang Zhe sent someone to deliver a letter, didn’t he? What did he write?”

Yao Qingyu was already over fifty years old this year. Yao Xi was his youngest daughter and also his only daughter. He had always treated her like a pearl in his palm, so even when her conduct sometimes had improper aspects, no one reproached her.

The young servant, seeing her enter, didn’t announce her either.

But Yao Qingyu sat behind his desk, looking at that already-opened letter, his aging face gradually showing a layer of dark clouds.

Yao Xi had always been doted upon. With her heart set on knowing news related to her own marriage prospects, after entering she didn’t notice Yao Qingyu’s expression. Instead, she immediately spotted the opened envelope to one side, and thus noticed the letter Yao Qingyu was reading.

She immediately went over: “Daughter wants to see it too!”

That letter was picked up by her.

On the simple plain white letter paper was the familiar handwriting she had secretly looked at many times while in the palace—each stroke clear and steady, the force penetrating through the paper, just like the person she had seen that day in Cining Palace.

The letter was written to Yao Qingyu, but somehow, upon seeing this handwriting, she was filled with shyness and felt her face burning.

She steadied herself before reading on.

In the letter, Zhang Zhe first asked after Yao Qingyu’s well-being, then recounted the events surrounding the two families’ marriage discussions. He lavishly praised the virtues of the Yao manor’s young lady. Yao Xi became more and more shy as she read, unable to resist muttering in her heart that this person appeared cold and rigid but knew how to please people in his letters. But this thought had barely passed when the next line of characters leaped into view, causing all her previously joyful expressions to freeze on her face!

“How could this be…”

She hurriedly read those lines twice more. Her originally beautiful face showed faint distortion, her body began to tremble, and she clutched that letter paper tightly, unwilling to believe.

“Why does he still want to break off the engagement? Father, why does he still want to break off the engagement!”

Tears swirled in Yao Xi’s eyes. She felt that all her previous shyness and joy had reversed and transformed into a huge slap that struck her face, stunning her completely.

She couldn’t even maintain face.

She couldn’t accept it and kept asking Yao Qingyu over and over.

But Yao Qingyu raised those eyes that had been steeped in years of life’s ups and downs, looking toward this daughter he had always doted on, recalling the details he had earlier sent servants to investigate.

He was the one who could scarcely believe it.

At this moment, he didn’t answer Yao Xi’s words, but instead asked her: “What you said in the palace, what you wanted to do—have you forgotten all of it now?”

Yao Xi didn’t understand: “What?”

The anger that Yao Qingyu had been suppressing since seeing this letter finally exploded at this moment. He slammed the desk, stood up abruptly, and demanded loudly: “When you initially wanted Zhang Zhe to break off the engagement, did you plot with someone in the palace to ruin his reputation and destroy his honor?!”

Yao Xi had never seen her father fly into such a rage.

In that instant, she didn’t react, only saying blankly: “How would Father know…”

Hearing this sentence from her, Yao Qingyu nearly couldn’t resist slapping her!

But this was after all his most beloved youngest daughter.

That hand was raised high but ultimately did not fall. Instead, he threw the paperweight from his desk, so angry his voice changed: “How did I raise such a daughter as you! That Zhang Zhe was someone I painstakingly selected for you—upright character, forbearing temperament. Though his reputation isn’t prominent now, given time he will certainly achieve great things! You were pig-headed enough to see his temporary destitution and want to break the engagement—I could accept that, as your father couldn’t bear to see you marry and suffer. But who would have thought that to break the engagement, you would even plot such harmful schemes! Zhang Zhe, considering your face as a young lady, didn’t feel it proper to state the reasons clearly in his letter to me and only attributed the broken engagement to himself. But everything you did, he knows all about it! You’ve thrown away all the face of my Yao manor!”

Truly like a bolt from the blue, striking down from above.

Yao Xi was completely stunned.

Only now did she know why Zhang Zhe broke off the engagement. For a moment, her whole heart turned ashen. She retreated two steps in dejection, as if unable to stand steady, only murmuring: “How could he know? How could he know…”

Yao Qingyu said coldly: “If you don’t want others to know, don’t do it yourself! Since you were capable of doing such things, it’s not strange that others found out!”

But Yao Xi felt her face had been injured. That sheet of letter paper was crumpled in her grip as she bit her teeth hard and said: “Impossible! That was just joking talk in the palace. How could Zhang Zhe possibly know! Our Yao manor has such a distinguished family standing—how could he, a poverty-stricken nobody who came up through the clerical examination, possibly break off the engagement? His family still has an old mother who was so delighted when she learned of this marriage arrangement. She couldn’t possibly let him break the engagement! Someone must have been secretly instigating this. Father, someone must have been secretly sowing discord to ruin this marriage arrangement of mine…”

Hearing these words, Yao Qingyu only felt his heart turn cold.

He looked at her, unable to speak.

But in Yao Xi’s mind, a face of dazzling beauty that made her jealous suddenly surfaced. Tears fell from her eyes as she bit her teeth and repeated: “Someone must have been secretly sowing discord…”

Zhang Zhe carried the medicine home.

An inconspicuous old door deep in an alley—pushing it open didn’t look like any official’s household, just a small, simple single courtyard. On the clean stone slabs stood a bamboo rack for drying clothes, with his official robes hanging on it.

Sounds of tables and chairs being moved came from the main room on the east side.

Someone was sweeping and cleaning.

The elderly woman wore plain cloth garments with an apron tied at her waist. She was arranging the furniture in the room neatly, then wiping everything clean with a cloth.

When Zhang Zhe walked in, she was rinsing the cloth in a basin of water.

Looking up and seeing his figure, Madam Jiang smiled at him: “You’re back. What would you like to eat tonight? Mother will make it for you.”

Her husband died early. Madam Jiang became a widow while still young and single-handedly raised her son. The marks left on her by the winds and frosts of time were exceptionally cruel—wrinkle upon wrinkle carved into the corners of her eyes and brows, completely different from those madams in the capital whose sons had achieved success.

In those years when their home was bare, she had spent great effort begging the schoolhouse teacher to accept Zhang Zhe.

But other expenses at the schoolhouse were also high.

Brushes, ink, paper, inkstones—everything required money.

So Madam Jiang scrimped on food and clothing to save money to buy them for him, only wanting him to pass the examinations, distinguish himself, and someday clear his father’s name from injustice.

She knew her son was intelligent and knew that if he studied, he would certainly be exceptionally capable.

But who would have thought that after studying for just a few years, he secretly went to take that year’s clerical examination at the yamen? After passing, he came back and told her he wouldn’t study anymore and wouldn’t take the imperial examinations.

She was so angry she beat him with a cane.

While beating him, she cried and scolded: “Think about how wrongly your father died, and what he taught you back then! Worthless! Without ambition! What can you become by passing the clerical exam? The government office only uses you in emergencies; when they don’t need you, they dismiss you! Your whole life you’ll just be working for others. You’re really going to anger me to death!”

Zhang Zhe at that time didn’t dodge or avoid, just knelt before his father’s memorial tablet and let her beat and scold him.

His back was beaten bloody.

Later, Madam Jiang threw away the cane and sat in the hall crying, only hating her own incompetence as a mere housewife with no ability to earn money. How could she not know that her son gave up on the examinations to take the clerical exam because he knew there was no money at home and didn’t want her to suffer so?

But the more she knew, the more distressed she felt.

Ever since Zhang Zhe took office at the yamen, receiving the salary from the court, although their family’s days remained frugal, they gradually improved compared to the previous hand-to-mouth existence.

What Madam Jiang hadn’t expected even more was—

After not even half a year, when Gu Chunfang, the Supervising Censor of Henan Circuit, inspected the prefectural yamen, Zhang Zhe filed a complaint of injustice, finally having the prefectural yamen retry his father’s old case. After more than ten years, his father’s wrongful conviction was finally overturned. Zhang Zhe was also noticed by Gu Chunfang because of this. Just over two years later, he was recommended to the court, appointed as Secretary of the Office of Scrutiny for Justice, exceptionally stripped of his clerical status, and became a “capital official.”

This small courtyard was what the mother and son had acquired when they first came to the capital.

Originally it was very dilapidated.

But Madam Jiang was diligent in keeping it tidy. Although it remained shabby and couldn’t add many furnishings, it looked lived-in and had the feeling of a home.

Zhang Zhe placed the medicine he had bought on the table. Frowning without speaking, he stepped forward, took the cloth from Madam Jiang’s hands and placed it in the wooden basin, then carried the basin aside before saying: “It was already wiped once yesterday. There’s not much dust in the house. Your health isn’t good—don’t overwork yourself.”

When he said this, his face was also cold.

Seeing this, Madam Jiang shook her head and only said: “With that face of yours always so sour, doing things so rigidly, not knowing how to care for people at all—how are you going to marry a wife in the future?”

Zhang Zhe had her sit down and said nothing.

But Madam Jiang started nagging: “However, it’s good that the Yao manor marriage is broken off. Originally it was indeed us reaching above our station, but they didn’t need to use such base schemes to harm people. Moreover, with your impenetrable temperament—water can’t splash in, needles can’t pierce in, refusing all persuasion—you’re exactly like your father. Even if a young lady from a great household married you, how many could endure?”

Zhang Zhe lowered his head to unwrap the medicine, not engaging.

Madam Jiang looked at his silent nature and said irritably: “In the future, your mother will help you keep an eye out more. If we can find a good girl from an ordinary household who knows how to be considerate and caring, it would be best if she’s gentle and virtuous, puts you in her heart, and can tolerate you. Otherwise, when your mother goes down to see your father someday, my heart will still worry.”

“…”

The string tying the medicine package had already been untied. The mixed medicinal ingredients scattered on the paper, and a bitter medicinal smell also spread. Zhang Zhe’s distinctly jointed fingers pressed on the paper’s corner without moving.

The torments of prison in his previous life seemed to surge up again.

After a very long time, he finally pressed them all down, and also pressed down those eyes that had looked at him with suppressed joy beneath the dim palace walls in his previous life. He pressed them down until his heart ached dully and heavily. Only then did he raise his head to look at Madam Jiang and slowly say: “Don’t speak such nonsense.”