Back in the ancestral hall, Jiuquan had thought Zhang Yuanchu was being entirely unreasonable — what was a misunderstanding, after all, that he had to beat someone half to death over it?

But now, staring at the key sitting on the table — a key that not even the senior members of the Zhang Family were allowed to touch — Jiuquan thought he was beginning to understand what Zhang Yuanchu had been worried about.

And it seemed his worry had perhaps not been without foundation.

The key to the vaults was essentially the master’s entire fortune. Was something like that really meant to be handed over so lightly?

Drawing a sharp breath, Jiuquan immediately went to find Ningsu, impressing upon him that he must take Chen Baoxiang discreetly, and that absolutely no one must find out.

If Zhang Yuanchu learned of this, he’d come chasing all the way to Mingzhu Tower to continue the beating.

Zhang Zhixu looked at his frantic reaction with mild disdain. After all this time, the man was still so excitable.

It was only money. She liked it — let her go take what she wanted. There was more than enough that she could never take it all.

Watching Chen Baoxiang spirit away the key and disappear, he called out only one question: “Will you be back?”

“I have a few things to attend to — I’ll return tomorrow.” Her voice drifted back, faint with distance.

He lowered his eyes partway and gave a quiet hum of acknowledgment, then flipped through a few more pages of the decorative book he’d been holding for appearances, before finally setting it aside and pulling out the case files from the Bureau of Punishment to continue reviewing them properly.

·

Li Rouyi’s impending visit to Mingzhu Tower had been arranged in advance — Zhang Zhixu had prepared a reception in the front courtyard to receive her, planning to go through the motions and be done with it.

But what he had not anticipated was that Li Rouyi, upon arriving, did not head toward the upper floor where he was staying — she went directly toward the rear courtyard instead.

Chen Baoxiang had borrowed the rear courtyard earlier that day, giving no explanation for what she intended to do with it. She had been inside and had not come back out.

“Your Highness.” Jiuquan kept up a running appeal as he followed alongside her. “This area is quite cluttered with things — please, there is no need to go further.”

Rouyi clutched her fine skirt and walked on, deaf to persuasion: “How convenient — I came today specifically to help him clear out certain clutter.”

“Father has already had the Ministry of Rites begin drafting the imperial decree. There are certain eyesores he cannot bring himself to remove himself — so I’ll give him a hand.”

So saying, she threw open the door to the rear courtyard.

She had known who was inside. She had already played through many versions of a face-to-face confrontation in her mind.

What she had not anticipated was that Chen Baoxiang was standing right behind the door. The force of it sent her entire body flying — she landed hard on the ground and immediately let out a mouthful of blood.

“Lord Chen?!” Jiuquan rushed forward in alarm to help her up.

Chen Baoxiang clutched her chest and coughed up blood in great heaving waves — one pouch of pig’s blood was not enough, so she bit through every single one of the five she had hidden in her mouth, determined to make it as dramatic and impactful as possible.

Li Rouyi was, indeed, impacted.

She looked at her own hand, then at the person on the ground, and quickly pieced it together. Furious, she snapped: “You wicked woman — are you trying to frame me?”

Chen Baoxiang continued to produce blood while smiling to herself. She privately acknowledged that the performance was a little over the top, but the effect was there — every pair of eyes in the vicinity had witnessed the full extent of her injuries.

If Li Rouyi barged in and tried to seize her, and she fought back, that would be counted as insubordination against a superior. But if Li Rouyi struck first and left her gravely wounded, then her own retaliation would be entirely lawful.

“Still smiling — you did this deliberately! Someone come and seize her for me!” Li Rouyi stomped her foot and gave the order.

In an instant, the more than one hundred imperial guards who had followed her in came surging into the rear courtyard.

“Jiuquan.” Chen Baoxiang wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and stood up.

“I understand.” Jiuquan said quietly, his expression grave. “I’ll go relay word to the master right away.”

“No.” She rolled her shoulder, then rotated her ankle. “I mean you should stand well back. Don’t get in my way. And lock the gate behind you — don’t let your master come ruin things for me.”

Jiuquan: “…”

In a daze, he stepped out of the rear courtyard. In a daze, he pulled the gate shut behind him.

Outside, Rouyi’s expression went blank for a moment: “What does she mean?”

“This servant isn’t entirely sure,” Jiuquan said, bewildered. “It seems as though she intends to… resist through lawful means?”

That was absurd — one woman against more than a hundred imperial guards?

Li Rouyi decided that Chen Baoxiang was purely looking to die. But since she had come today specifically to see her dead, she crossed her arms and simply waited to see how things inside would unfold.

The commanding records officer of the guard unit also thought Chen Baoxiang was making a very poor joke. They wore the finest cold-iron armor, and their bodies had been forged through daily, relentless training. How could they possibly allow a weak woman to walk out of there?

And yet this woman before them was setting herself into a genuine fighting stance.

“Let no one say we’re bullying her.” The records officer waved a hand. “Liang Wu — step up and put her down.”

The surrounding imperial guards raised their blades in unison and jeered. The soldier called Liang Wu answered and stepped forward — a powerfully built man who put his blade away with open contempt, intending to subdue Chen Baoxiang with his bare hands.

But the moment he raised his hand two inches, the figure opposite had already shifted to his right side. The movement was so swift that before he had even registered it, his right cheek had taken a full, solid punch.

The enormous force of it caused his eyes to bulge outward slightly, compressing and distorting the solid planes of his face against his will.

He was rather confused as to how any of this had happened — and before he could work it out, a bone-splitting pain tore through him, his vision went dark, the ground swam beneath his feet, and he lost his balance and crashed to the ground.

Chen Baoxiang followed up at tremendous speed, slamming another punch down onto his leg bones to ensure he wouldn’t be getting up again for some time.

The jeering around them cut off abruptly.

Several of Liang Wu’s closer companions surged forward to retaliate.

Chen Baoxiang had been prepared. She held her ground, trading over a dozen moves with two or three of them at once. When they discarded all sense of fair play and drew their blades, she was equally unapologetic — she turned back her sleeve and revealed a row of sleeve-mounted crossbow bolts strapped in place.

Zhang Zhixu’s vaults truly held everything, but the weapons in particular were something — all forged from refined iron, few in number but exceptionally effective. The iron needles they shot were not fatal, but they could rapidly strip a person of their ability to fight.

Beyond the sleeve bolts, there were also twin blue-edged swords and a bone-penetrating whip.

Armed with only these three, she fought with everything she had — holding her ground and pushing the swarming imperial guards back until they wavered and retreated. For all that she was fighting alone, not a single breath of her fighting spirit flagged; if anything, her opponents were the ones growing increasingly unsettled, their inner confidence beginning to erode.

The gate was clearly wide open on one side — but she had no intention of escaping. Instead, she turned with great enthusiasm toward a cluster of guards who had retreated to the southeastern corner, determined not to rest until she had put every one of them on the ground.

The records officer had seen enough to understand: this person had come specifically to fight.

“Are you all utterly useless — this many of you can’t pin down one woman?” He shouted furiously. “Every single one of you — charge together!”

“Sir, more than half our men are already down.” A subordinate hesitated. “She looks like an official herself — going through proper channels might actually be the better way to take her.”

“What proper channels — the princess has given her orders and you dare disobey?” The records officer frowned and peered outside, a trace of uncertainty crossing his face.

Chen Baoxiang swept him a sidelong glance, and with a clean motion, drove a palm strike into the side of a guard’s head. The man went white with terror and, without even being hit squarely, threw himself flat on the ground ahead of the impact.

She paused, decided not to pursue the point further, and moved on to the next person.

Inside the rear courtyard, the fallen lay scattered everywhere, the smell of blood was thick and heavy, and what remained of the standing men had little desire left to fight to the bitter end. Finding that a path to the ground had presented itself, they each found an inconspicuous way to join those already lying there.

Chen Baoxiang’s face was streaked with blood — she could not have said how much was hers and how much belonged to others. She exhaled heavily and swept her gaze around her, only to find there was no one left standing.

The gate was kicked open. Zhang Zhixu, his face drained of color, looked up with anxious eyes — and met the cold, fierce slant of hers.

Lofty and ruthless, like a wolf pausing to look back beneath a long blood-red moon.

He felt a slight jolt, and something moved in his chest in response.

Instinct pulled him forward — reason caught him just in time. Zhang Zhixu smoothed his expression and calmly pulled the gate shut again.

“Your Highness,” he turned back to address Li Rouyi, “my subordinates have always had little control over the weight of their hands. But according to the laws of Great Sheng — if someone provokes a conflict first, the one who retaliates bears no guilt. I wonder whether the palace tutors have covered this particular provision?”