Under the new statutes, Pingqing Marquis Chen Baoxiang had been formally accused, and was required at all times to cooperate with the Court of Judicial Review’s investigation without any excuse for refusal.

And so Chen Baoxiang would be summoned to the Court of Judicial Review in the middle of her city patrol, would be brought there halfway through an imperial audience, and even when she was watching the moon with Zhang Zhixu, she would have to leave for the Court of Judicial Review at the halfway point.

She laughed despite herself: “Lord Xie, do you have to be this inconsiderate of timing?”

Xie Lanting held up a candle stand and looked at her: “The case has had a development. There’s no time to be considerate of timing.”

“Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?” She swept a glance over the bailiffs standing around them. “If you’re not tired, others still are.”

Being made to work past midnight with no extra compensation.

“Stop trying to drive a wedge between me and my people,” Xie Lanting said. “I’m here to ask you — is the person named in this corpse purchase contract your mother?”

Chen Baoxiang yawned: “Yes.”

“Then what is there left for you to dispute?” Xie Lanting leaned back in his seat. “Chen Yuan’er is your mother, and she was Cheng Huaili’s wife.”

“Hold on.” Chen Baoxiang raised her hand. “Who did you just say was whose wife?”

“Chen Yuan’er was Cheng Huaili’s wife.”

Chen Baoxiang gave a short, contemptuous laugh: “Has my lord forgotten? Cheng Huaili’s original lawful wife was Princess Shouan. That is something known to the entire world.”

“The village headman Yang from the original Guiliang Village has testified that Chen Yuan’er was with your father all along, and bore him two sons.”

“Ah, but there’s a problem with that as well,” Chen Baoxiang said. “Where did Cheng Huaili ever get sons? Weren’t the two people who died in that great fire in the border region his nephews?”

“That was a lie he told.”

“How can one be certain that it was Cheng Huaili who lied, and not Headman Yang?” She couldn’t help but be sardonic. “Just because Cheng Huaili is dead and cannot speak for himself?”

“Do not play word games with me.”

“And who exactly is playing word games?” Chen Baoxiang raised an eyebrow. “My lord, after all your years at the Court of Judicial Review, surely you know that a single person’s testimony cannot serve as concrete proof?”

Xie Lanting knew that perfectly well.

But after that great flood, the people of Guiliang Village had either drowned or died in battle, and there were precious few left who knew anything at all.

The best approach for now was to get Chen Baoxiang to confess herself.

He said: “What makes you so certain I have only Headman Yang as a witness?”

Chen Baoxiang was unmoved: “You can have as many witnesses as you like. If sheer numbers were enough to turn falsehood into truth, then I have over two hundred witnesses of my own who can testify that you and Lu Qingrong colluded together to frame a loyal official.”

“Chen Baoxiang!” Xie Lanting struck the table and rose to his feet. “You killed Lu Shouhuai, and then you killed your own father — these are established facts. Even if the evidence is still insufficient, you and I both know it to be true.”

“Fortunately, ‘both knowing it to be true’ cannot be used to decide a case — otherwise our great Dasheng would truly be finished.”

“You—”

“Lord Xie, Lu Qingrong and I have had a grudge since childhood,” Chen Baoxiang said, narrowing her eyes. “Do you know how her family once oppressed the people of Guiliang Village, and later how they massacred refugees?”

“Those matters are irrelevant to this case.”

“Then what does it matter whether I killed Lu Shouhuai or not, in relation to this case?”

“…”

“You have no direct evidence that can prove I am Cheng Huaili’s daughter, and not a single piece of evidence that can establish that I killed Cheng Huaili.” She looked at him with wry amusement. “Xie Lanting, the celebrated Chief Justice of the Court of Judicial Review — and yet you are nothing more than a man who disregards evidence and allows personal feelings to sway your judgment.”

Xie Lanting was struck speechless.

He had already assembled a rough chain of evidence, had already pieced together a general picture of what had transpired between Chen Baoxiang and Cheng Huaili.

And yet somehow, after just a few words from her, he found himself completely unable to refute her.

Her presence was overpowering as well. Even here in the Court of Judicial Review, on his own ground, he could not gain the upper hand.

The candle stand crackled once, then dimmed slightly.

Chen Baoxiang rose to her feet and said with indolent ease: “Since you have nothing more to say, I’ll be going. One more thing, Lord Xie — calling this many bailiffs in past midnight is frankly unkind. Remember to give everyone a little extra compensation.”

After coming into money, the thing Chen Baoxiang most enjoyed doing was handing out extra compensation to the people under her command.

If the work shift ran long today — extra compensation.

If there was additional work that needed to be sent down to subordinates — extra compensation.

If someone had to deal with officials from another government office and came away feeling aggrieved — that called for a particularly generous sum of extra compensation.

One person having money brought happiness to one person. A whole group having money brought happiness to a whole group. Chen Baoxiang very much wanted the people of the Court of Judicial Review to learn how to be happy too.

But Xie Lanting clearly had no interest in listening to her. His expression was deeply unpleasant, and paired with the weary, long-suffering faces of the other bailiffs around him, the entire Court of Judicial Review seemed suffused with a deadened, spiritless air.

She gave a short laugh, said nothing more, rose and saw herself out, and went back to watching the moon.

As ill luck would have it, heavy rain fell in the second half of the night, and Zhang Zhixu’s moon-watching was ruined.

He stood at the doorway watching Chen Baoxiang walk back from the Court of Judicial Review in the rain, and found his patience nearly exhausted.

The following day, Zhang Zhixu of the Ministry of Justice filed a formal complaint against Xie Lanting of the Court of Judicial Review, charging him with unauthorized release of a suspect and dereliction of duty.

With this complaint in place, Xie Lanting was forced to run back and forth to the Ministry of Justice every few days to cooperate with the investigation, keeping him overwhelmingly busy — yet the case made little progress.

He stormed furiously into Xun Yuan.

“She is without question the killer of Lu Shouhuai, and you know that perfectly well,” Xie Lanting said, his brow creased, as he confronted Zhang Zhixu. “For the sake of a killer like her, you would make things difficult for me?”

Zhang Zhixu replied evenly: “You did without question release Lu Qingrong without authorization. Did you not?”

Xie Lanting choked, his brow furrowing slightly. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Lord Xie solves cases with godlike clarity and never shows partiality — that is why he is so greatly praised by the common people.” Zhang Zhixu repeated this reputation at an unhurried pace, then raised his eyes to look at him. “And what do you look like now?”

Ever since Lu Qingrong had returned to Shangjing, this man had been slowly changing. Where he used to have seven or eight cases running in parallel, he now spent his days fixated entirely on Chen Baoxiang alone — listening to one side, prejudging before the evidence was in, as though he intended to convict Chen Baoxiang through sheer personal determination.

“I’m rather curious,” Zhang Zhixu said, his eyes narrowing slightly. “How did she manage to convince you?”

Xie Lanting was no naive young man who had never seen the world. The charms of women should have been nothing new to him — and yet he had been brought to this state by someone he had once looked down on entirely?

“She had no intention of convincing me,” Xie Lanting said, frowning. “I chose to investigate on my own. This is also my duty.”

Zhang Zhixu looked at him in silence.

Held under that gaze for quite some time, Xie Lanting finally dropped his eyes: “A person is not made of wood or stone. Who can be entirely without personal feeling? After all, I once deceived her and caused her family to be ruined.”

“If I heard correctly, you are saying—” Zhang Zhixu gave a cold laugh, “—that the ruin of Lu Shouhuai’s entire household, which came about because of his corruption and murders, was caused by you?”

Xie Lanting froze.

Zhang Zhixu looked at this old friend who had once been the most celebrated rake in all of Shangjing, and gave a slight shake of his head: “Knowing how it would end, why did you begin?”

Chen Baoxiang had even warned him at the time — there were plenty of methods for handling cases; why get entangled with Lu Qingrong? It had been his own arrogance, his conviction that manipulating a woman was the easiest and most straightforward shortcut. Now that he’d capsized in a ditch of his own making, he was feeling remorse.

“It’s not entirely how you’re imagining it,” Xie Lanting said. “She’s already forgiven me. We’re something like friends now.”

It was just that the more magnanimous she was, the more he felt unable to leave it alone, and he found himself instinctively wanting to fulfil her wishes for her.

“Friends.” Zhang Zhixu savored those two words, the mockery at the corners of his eyes already on the verge of spilling over. “So the years of close friendship between you and me don’t count as friendship — but someone who is using you like this, that qualifies as your friend.”

Xie Lanting was displeased: “You can say what you like about me, but she and you haven’t even met again, and yet you can pronounce judgment on her character just like that.”

Zhang Zhixu: “…”

He pressed a hand to his temple with a headache: “Ningsu. Come here.”

“Master?”

“Throw this fool out for me — and throw him as far as possible.”

“Yes.”

Xie Lanting was hoisted up, his face darkening considerably: “The ancients said that brothers are like limbs, and women are like garments — I never imagined that you and I would one day sever our own limbs for the sake of garments. Very well, very well indeed. From this day forward, I, Xie Lanting, am done with you, Zhang Fengqing — our bond is severed, and we shall have nothing more to do with each other!”

Zhang Zhixu covered his ears.

It would have been nice if someone could have shown this version of Xie Lanting to his sixteen-year-old self. The sixteen-year-old Xie Lanting would certainly have given him a thorough slap across the face, saying that he had set his will on solving every remarkable case in the world — how could he possibly be brought low by sentiment like this?

But now, the twenty-year-old Zhang Zhixu could not talk sense into the twenty-one-year-old Xie Lanting, just as back then he’d had no idea how to resist being dragged along to play at holding court.

The sun sank westward. The light in the room faded little by little. Zhang Zhixu sat where he was and did not move.

After a long while, he let out a long, quiet sigh.