“Grand Commander Shen, you’re a talented young man. Upon entering the capital, you became the renowned son of the Left Commander of the Imperial Guards. You shouldn’t fail to see that this matter might not be related to the Liang family. It’s quite possible that the Liang family’s second branch killed—”
“Sixth Young Lady,” Shen Du interrupted her loud questioning, “Be careful with your words.”
Shen Du’s hand, which had been resting on his sword hilt, now gripped it tightly, clearly warning Zhu Yan to either be a dead person who couldn’t speak or a living one who kept silent.
Zhu Yan clenched her jaw, her upper palate tightly constricting her breath.
“…If there’s another culprit, Grand Commander Shen, you’d be indulging evil,” Zhu Yan said. “He murdered an imperial family member, showing no fear of the Emperor’s authority. If you suppress this case, it will embolden the killer’s murderous heart. If his targets are specific and the next victim is also from the imperial family, the court will surely be in turmoil. What will you do then?”
Shen Du stared at her, slightly narrowing his eyes with their hard-edged contours.
His icy scrutiny quickly turned into a mockery of her sense of justice.
“No matter how clever and quick-witted you are, in the end, you’re just an inexperienced girl,” Shen Du said. “When the Internal Affairs Office was first established, its purpose was to solve problems for His Majesty. Beyond that, the Internal Affairs Office need not consider anything else. The culprit? What does that have to do with me? I only know that His Majesty has decreed that the Liang family’s second branch cannot be imprisoned. Do you wish to defy His Majesty?”
“Is this Zhang Xingwei’s intention?”
Reminded of the incident with her sedan chair that morning when Shen Du mentioned Minister Zhang, Zhu Yan felt her anger swell like an elephant in a narrow room. Already suffocating, she felt as if another elephant had been forced in, causing the room to explode into pieces.
Watching Shen Du turn his back, Zhu Yan rushed forward in three or five steps and grabbed his collar.
“I’m not Minister Zhang’s person,” she said fiercely amidst the clanging of drawn swords. “You suspect me and ignore the case’s doubts, only caring about power struggles. That’s your business, Grand Commander Shen. I and you… I won’t submit and become like you are now!”
Angrily shaking off Shen Du, Zhu Yan turned to leave. The tassels of her Bailing pearl headdress caught on her xia pei shawl. She reached up to remove it and threw it to the ground with a thud.
The headdress rolled to Shen Du’s feet, its pearls trembling and tassels in disarray.
Passing through the corridor, Zhu Yan continued without stopping until Lu Chuichui, who had been chasing her, couldn’t keep up with her pace and called out “Zhu Yan” from afar. Only then did Zhu Yan stop.
In the faint glow of sunset, Zhu Yan turned back, her arms folded in her sleeves, and said heavily, “Second Sister, I still want to investigate this case.”
Lu Chuichui raised her eyes, about to speak, but looked back at the source of approaching footsteps and was startled: “Director, why have you come out too?”
Wu Taiming looked at Zhu Yan: “You want to investigate, but have you considered the consequences? If there’s no other real culprit, even if the Minister of Justice intervenes, he won’t be able to save you from His Majesty’s hands.”
Zhu Yan nodded: “I understand. I know what you’re worried about… If the real culprit points to the Liang family’s second branch, I’ll stop.”
The winds of change in Chang’an were unpredictable. As a daughter of an official family, how could she not know the consequences of angering the Emperor? She had her mother, father, sisters, brothers, and family. She wouldn’t gamble with their lives.
Seeing that she understood, Wu Taiming looked at the sky, his eyes moving slightly. He sighed, reached into his sleeve, and took out a token.
About to hand it to Zhu Yan, he withdrew his hand, saying uneasily, “How certain are you that the culprit isn’t from the Liang family’s second branch?”