At first, Qiqian’er hadn’t been sure why Chen Dasheng had sent her to the Ministry of Justice prison before her palace visit tonight.
But after wandering around for a while, she seemed to understand.
She saw many people — many men, many men who had once been wealthy and powerful, many wealthy men who had held authority over others, many wealthy men with the power to decide the life and death of others…
This group had all ended up in the Ministry of Justice prison, it seemed, with no one left to try them. Whatever office the emperor pointed to could pick out crimes at random from even the smallest corner and it would be more than enough to condemn these people to death — and as the hole kept growing bigger, the result was that no office wanted to investigate anymore, nor could they keep up with it all.
Even a superior-ranked old lord had said, just let it end here — not to shield anyone, but because the state simply couldn’t afford the manpower, resources, and effort it would take.
Behind every ghost lay an entire hell, and hell had eighteen levels, each one full of guests — even if you weren’t a ghost yourself, merely glimpsing those sins would leave you unsettled for the rest of your life.
An old lord at the Ministry of Justice had said something painfully true — he’d once thought that ever since rites and propriety came into being, ever since human sacrifice was abolished and replaced with substitute offerings, the cruelest things in the world were a thing of the past. Turned out, feelings had only gotten more sophisticated since.
So — no more trials. Too many people were implicated, and forcing through more investigations would only leave the helpless ones dragged into it with no way to live either. Those who deserved killing should be killed, those who deserved beheading should be beheaded, those who could be strangled should be strangled, and those who deserved exile should be sent far away, never to return.
It wasn’t only the old dynasty’s great clans and the old Shao merchant faction who could afford to bankroll His Majesty’s uprising — their family fortunes had always run deep, and to protect generations of wealth, they’d always played both sides. What the law-abiding, moral old lords didn’t realize was that the deeper the family fortune, the greater the sins behind it — and once they’d rendered service in support of the new ruler, the wicked among them became outright monsters.
In the past, these very people had stood in court urging the ruler toward benevolence and righteousness; now, the ruler had let them come see “benevolence and righteousness” for themselves — truly, a shame beyond words.
It could be counted as a lesson for Daliang’s officials too, perhaps.
Torches flickered against the dark stone walls, and Qiqian’er grew more irritated the further she walked, preparing to leave — when a prisoner called out to her. He didn’t recognize Old Blade, and Old Blade had certainly never crossed paths with someone like him.
But it was clear this man had been pent up for far too long, hadn’t spoken to anyone in who knew how many days, and desperately needed to vent.
So he called out to Qiqian’er, a blade of grass between his teeth, and began lounging back to boast to her.
“I’ve heard of you lot — Old Blade, wasn’t it? Used to follow that fool Tan’er around, then got lucky when that ungrateful dog took a liking to you and brought you home to watch the gate, didn’t you? Am I wrong?”
Qiqian’er said nothing, simply watching him quietly, unable to figure out what he was getting at.
The man spat out the chewed grass stem, pulled another one from the pile of dried grass, and put it in his mouth to keep talking. “Word was, back in the day, folks said your chief got lucky, became that eunuch bastard’s adopted heir, heh heh, and thought that meant a smooth rise to the top from then on? Ha, ha ha… a bunch of indentured slaves — what fine things have you ever seen? Forget She Qingling — even if Yang Zao’s own father showed up, what would that amount to? Give you a piece of meat, and would you even know how to eat it?”
That was strange — what was there to “knowing how” to eat a piece of meat?
Qiqian’er still said nothing, but she was listening now.
The man crawled forward a bit, pressed his face against the bars, and studied Qiqian’er with a pair of eyes that still looked reasonably clear. Qiqian’er studied him right back.
Looking at him this way, the man had clearly been well cared for — outside these walls, he’d have passed for a proper gentleman given his looks and bearing. He was just past thirty, features well-proportioned, carrying that distinctive air bred from generations of wealth. Even in prison, wherever his skin wasn’t soiled, it was as smooth and delicate as a baby’s, and even in the way he sat and reclined, his posture held a certain elegant grace.
The man clicked his tongue a few times looking at Qiqian’er, then lay back down again and said, “…Speaking of eating meat, now that’s a real field of study — one you surely wouldn’t understand. Ah well, I’ve nothing better to do, so let me teach you a thing or two. How about it?”
Qiqian’er said nothing. His mouth went slack, the grass stem fell, and he plucked out another to chew as he continued, “You see, once a man has enough money, enough power, this business of eating meat — you have to really think through how it ought to enter your mouth. First there’s the matter of atmosphere while eating — the ears, the eyes, the nose, all five senses need attending to. Understand?”
Qiqian’er shook her head. The man scoffed, looked up at the torchlight with disdain. “Hmph, just as I thought! My family’s garden was a mansion bestowed by the previous dynasty — this one owes our family a favor too, and gave us two more on top of it. I had them built specifically for the purpose of eating meat properly. Now, eating meat — first you look at the vessel. What vessels? Ivory, lacquer, porcelain, pottery, glazed ware, jade — it depends on your mood. Take ivory alone — you have to consider whether it’s bone-tusk, or deer, sheep, ox, or rhino horn. My family uses rhino. Tell me, dog — do you even know what rhino horn is?”
Qiqian’er shook her head.
The man sat cross-legged, swaying, and laughed. “In this world, there’s hairy rhinoceros, southern rhinoceros, foreign rhinoceros — of these, foreign rhino is best, the body large enough, the single horn long enough to be carved into a fine vessel. Tap it and it rings clear as jade, sniff it and it carries a fragrance. Even the imperial physicians prize it for reducing swelling and detecting poison and clearing heat — but my family just made it into a wine cup. When I’m in a bad mood, I can’t even be bothered to think of the thing…”
He looked at Qiqian’er, rather pleased with himself, and mocked, “Well? Ever heard of such a thing?”
Qiqian’er could only shake her head — she only knew gold, silver, and jade, and when it came to clothing, only silk brocade.
The man hummed a few phrases of some tune, then laughed. “So there’s the drinking vessel — but you also need a fine table to go with it. Back in the previous dynasty, my grandfather went to Zhang Qide’s house to watch cricket fights, and Zhang Qide lost so badly his eyes went red, and in the end he had no choice but to gift my grandfather a small table he’d made himself. That table was made of nanmu wood, two chi two cun long, one chi four cun five fen wide, five cun half tall — nothing especially rare about that. What was rare was that if you flipped the table over, there was an IOU carved by Zhang Qide’s own hand on the underside. Amusing, isn’t it? Hahahaha…”
The man laughed himself into a fit of madness, but Qiqian’er didn’t move a muscle.
She had no idea who this Zhang Qide was, or why it was supposed to be so funny.
In fact, if she went home and asked her father, he’d tell her that back in the previous dynasty, in the emperor’s hall of state affairs, wherever there was a plaque hanging, half of them were done by Zhang Qide’s own hand.
The man went on, “You think that once you have the fine vessel, the fine furnishings, that’s it, time to eat the meat? Not even close! Fried, sautéed, boiled, deep-fried, roasted, grilled, stewed, poached — braised, seared, steamed, boiled, tossed, soaked, blanched — this is my family’s four-hundred-year culinary tradition, one ingredient prepared a hundred different ways, so many methods of preparation, that a casual forty or fifty dishes wouldn’t even count as a proper meal — just something to get by on. Understand? Just getting by! Even Yang Zao only recognizes the country bumpkin ways of boiling and stir-frying, and he still wants people like us to submit to him? Him and his grandmother’s leg…”
Having cursed, the man scrambled up, gave himself two slaps across the face, and said, “Heh, generations’ worth of ancestral refinement, and I’ve gone and ruined it playing around with it. Blind as I was, raising a mad dog — six years in, and it’s already started biting people. Damn it, and it drew blood on me too — tsk, I said not to trust it, a pack of ungrateful things, and everyone kept saying it’d be fine!”
Clearly unwilling to dwell on his own failures, he crawled back to the bars and beamed at Qiqian’er. “Hey! My friend, let’s keep talking about meat — don’t you leave now, what a fine encounter this is… You really thought it was simply about eating meat, did you? Tch tch, quite the simple child, aren’t you. Let me tell you something interesting — this business of eating meat starts from the moment the fragrant meat’s mother is carrying it, you have to start preparing based on how the parents look. If the parents are good-looking, then when the fragrant meat comes into the world next year, it mustn’t turn out ugly…”
Was this man actually a cannibal? Qiqian’er’s fists clenched at once.
The man, sharp as ever, immediately pointed at Qiqian’er and burst out laughing. “Hahahaha, that’s hilarious, you actually thought I eat people? Haha… what a shallow, ignorant little slave. Eat people? With so many good things to eat, why would I eat people? Hahaha…”
Once he’d finished laughing, he rolled himself over toward Qiqian’er and said, “Think about it — what I mean by fragrant meat is little opera performers. That little bundle of flesh gets born, and my people go look at its features. If it turns out just passable, fine, leave it be. But if it truly inherits its parents’ good looks, well, that fragrant meat has to come to my estate to be carefully raised — they’re born, you see, already meant for me!”
In the dark cell, Qiqian’er’s voice, without any pretense, came out genuinely hoarse: “Raised?”
The man glanced at her sideways. “Not like some country bumpkin, no. Families like ours, who doesn’t have a few pieces of fragrant meat around? At three or five, you bind their waists, feed them goat’s milk for their skin, and by six or seven you start training them — teach them southern and northern string music, Kunshan opera melodies. That’s when the little bundles of flesh start growing according to their own inclinations, which won’t do at all…”
Another hoarse word: “Won’t do?”
The man looked at Qiqian’er, all innocent sincerity. “Of course not! If it ever came down to comparison, wouldn’t we lose out? Ruining one by raising it wrong just won’t do. Well, everyone has their reckless youth — I had my clumsy phase too, back when I was young and rash. Back then I’d just have them buried away when it happened — how foolish was that, really, when I could’ve just had those little bundles switch to learning acrobatics instead, at least that would’ve been some fun…”
Qiqian’er no longer wanted to listen, no longer willing to. She turned to leave, but the man suddenly shouted, “Hey, hey, where are you going, I haven’t even gotten to the eating part yet, almost there, almost there!”
Qiqian’er stood with her back to him, unmoving, and heard the man laugh wildly. “Heh, I knew you wanted to hear it. Fine, fine, I’ll tell you — my grandfather’s glory days were cut short, alas — so, of the thirty infants who entered the initial training, only a batch would make it to age seven. Don’t underestimate the cost that took — I treated them so well, carried in and out wherever they went, terrified that even a bit of sun would darken young master’s precious skin and ruin him. Hmph! Just for the tutors alone — the head tutor got a hundred twenty guan a month, the assistant sixty guan. Worth every coin when it paid off. By age eight or nine they’d already learned a few scripts, like ‘Three Origins, A Hundred Blessings’ and ‘Five Blessings, Five Generations’…
I like things that are festive and auspicious, heh — once they took the stage in costume, those eyes, that charm, that fragrance — truly something hard to find anywhere in this world. The first time they took the stage, having sung through an entire opera, fragrant sweat glistening, every pore of their body wide open…”
He suddenly stopped talking.
Qiqian’er finally turned her head, and saw the man’s face twisted as he grinned at her: “Hahaha! That’s the moment to eat — the taste is at its very best then! Hahahaha…”
The man laughed like a madman, slapping his thigh, pointing at Qiqian’er in a fit of hysteria. “You thought what I meant by eating meat was something else, hahaha…”
Once he finished laughing, he propped his chin in his hand and sighed, wistful. “That is a taste unmatched in this world — how many are lucky enough to ever taste it… heh~ heh heh…”
A hand reached in through the bars and seized the man’s jaw in a sudden grip.
The man’s mouth fell open, tears beginning to spill from his eyes, his face contorting — Qiqian’er pinched the hem of her sleeve into her mouth and, with brute force, tore his tongue clean out.
Thump…
The man began writhing on the ground, his mouth full of blood. Outside the cell, a woman’s voice said softly with a laugh, “Good. From this moment on, whatever kind of meat it is, you won’t be eating it anymore.”
It was indeed a woman — the man, in pain and terror, stared wide-eyed at the figure outside, only to see a xiezhi mask gleaming strangely in the torchlight. She gave another sudden stamp of her foot, a surge of earth-force rising up, and the man was sent flying backward, slamming straight into the solid stone wall, his eyes rolling back as he passed out.
This time, every bone in his hands was shattered. How wonderful — now not only could he not eat, he couldn’t even hold a bowl anymore.
Qiqian’er walked on outward, thinking to herself as she went — so this was the sort of person kept in here?
She went on from the men’s block to the women’s cells. Unlike the previous scene, this side was, if anything, more wretched — women who had once been as noble as a deposed empress were kept here too, conditions even worse than the horse-pasture prison at Qingfeng. Yet there was some trace of dignity left in them still; along the way, there were even some who had hanged themselves, their bodies not yet collected…
She looked around at it all for a while, then walked out, numb.
Outside the Ministry of Justice prison, that man called Pan Bozhuang had long since been carried off. It was quiet outside now, with only Yuwen Xiaoqiao devoutly clutching a bolt of cloth, waiting for the man she considered her future brother-in-law.
Gu Hongyun held out the register for Qiqian’er to mark with her thumbprint.
Once she’d finished, he finally couldn’t help but say, “You… I feel as though I know you somehow.”
That petite, delicate build, that way of stringing a man up, that way of driving someone’s head into a wall — it did all feel remarkably familiar.
Qiqian’er sniffed and nodded, then pointed back toward the prison. “That’s me. Seems I’ve caused a bit of trouble.”
Hearing this, Gu Hongyun sucked in a sharp breath of cold air, glanced around, and lowered his voice. “It’s really… really you?”
This woman had nerve, to be sure.
Qiqian’er had suffered a great blow to her heart today, and now everything about this world seemed twisted wrong in her eyes. Still feeling dejected, she nodded. “Mm.”
Who in their right mind would want to come to hell, given the choice?
Gu Hongyun glanced toward the prison, gritted his teeth, and asked, “What sort of trouble?”
Qiqian’er pursed her lips. “I… I tore out a man’s tongue.”
Gu Hongyun’s head tilted back, his own tongue instinctively retreating toward his throat, and he swallowed hard three times in a row.
Qiqian’er added, “I was worried he’d write it all down somewhere, so I shattered his arm too.”
Gu Hongyun froze for a moment, thought it over, and finally began to laugh, his tone rather contemptuous. “No matter — His Majesty has already given up on strict procedure in there. These days people are carried out day after day. Some, terrified of the law, knowing their own crimes are unforgivable and fearing death by a thousand cuts, hang themselves instead. Either way, the least anyone gets is the extermination of three generations of family — it can’t get any worse than that.”
Relieved to hear there’d be no consequences, Qiqian’er looked earnestly at Gu Hongyun. “He mustn’t die. Take extra good care of him — give him wine, give him meat, just let him watch and suffer!”
The worst cruelty this little woman was capable of ended right there.
Gu Hongyun nodded solemnly in agreement. “Understood. If someone as righteous and generous as you has come to hold such hatred for this man, then even death by a thousand cuts wouldn’t be enough to atone for his crimes.”
Qiqian’er nodded, then asked Gu Hongyun quite earnestly, “Is everyone in there like that?”
However capable she was, in one whole night she’d only managed to hear one person truly bare his heart — the rest were all scheming, arguing, feigning madness, cursing…
This time Gu Hongyun’s expression turned grave as he nodded. “All of them are maggots gnawing at Daliang’s very bones.”
Qiqian’er looked at him, somewhat startled. “I recall — weren’t you from the previous dynasty?”
Gu Hongyun answered earnestly, “My benefactor, my previous dynasty was eaten hollow by maggots just like these. If the former ruler had been willing to cut them down the same way back then, he’d never have become the Dark Emperor. Feeding on the people’s blood is nothing — rotting the very bones of the nation is what deserves death by a thousand cuts. The most laughable thing is, after swallowing the bones whole, these people turned right around and became officials of Daliang instead. Isn’t that funny?”
Qiqian’er nodded, looking at Gu Hongyun. “So that’s why you came here?”
Gu Hongyun cupped his hands and smiled. “Yes. I couldn’t escape your discerning eye. I came to see their fates for myself — and, by the emperor’s grace, I hope to personally send a few of them down to hell myself.”
Qiqian’er pursed her lips and murmured, “Well then, may everything go as you wish.”
With that, she walked on, straight up to Yuwen Xiaoqiao, and nodded seriously. “Mm!”
Yuwen Xiaoqiao, quite overcome, fumbled for a while before finally managing to ask Qiqian’er, who was waiting for her to go on, “So — so, how has your Old Fifth been lately?”
Qiqian’er thought of Hu Yougui’s carefree, well-fed, worry-free existence every day, and nodded solemnly. “Mm!”
He was doing just fine — simply had no interest whatsoever in taking a wife.
Yuwen Xiaoqiao asked further, “And — and where has he been lately, since he’s not been at the office?”
Qiqian’er thought about it, then pointed a finger in the direction of the Prince’s mansion.
And just like that, without a shred of hesitation, she’d sold Hu Yougui right out.
Just as they spoke, Gu Hongyun returned, leading Qiqian’er’s horse.
Qiqian’er mounted up, and he personally held the reins to see her off.
At the gate, Gu Hongyun asked once more, earnestly, “May I ask, benefactor, where will you be headed tonight?”
Qiqian’er thought it over and answered just as earnestly, “I plan to go into the palace, and see how the emperor is eating his meat tonight.”
With that, she gave her horse a nudge with her heel and rode off.
Gu Hongyun was left standing there, pondering for a long while, still utterly unable to make sense of what “the emperor eating meat” could possibly mean.
Inside the Dongming Hall of the Daliang palace, a great many thick beeswax candles burned, lighting the whole hall bright as day.
Govern the state, order the household, bring peace to the realm.
Emperor Wu, Yang Zao, had only managed to accomplish the first half of bringing peace to the realm; the other two, he had only just begun. Of the three, ordering his own household was what he’d done worst of all.
And so he’d taken it somewhat to heart of late, personally bringing several of the princes together each evening to sit in on lessons in moral cultivation.
These lessons in moral cultivation were the standard foundational education for any prince, but Yang Zao himself had never studied them. For his own children, to avoid any appearance of favoritism, the matter had been neglected these past few years and never properly begun.
Now, it seemed, they were all laying the foundation together.
The princes sat on cushions below the throne, each with his own small table.
Even Prince Xuan He, who was not in the best of health, knelt properly in his seat today without trying to slip away, his expression solemn as tears rolled down his face.
He truly did not want to be here, but dared not refuse to come either.
Today’s lecturer was a man familiar to everyone, young and old, in the escort quarters — Guan Si’er’s father, Gong Zhiyi, styled Ruian.
These moral cultivation lessons had only just begun a couple of days ago, and today’s topic happened to be “relieving the poor.” Hearing this, Qiqian’er felt a certain closeness to it — no wonder, since it seemed she’d heard something like it in her past life. Back then, given her position, she’d have had no way of understanding it, and had paid it no mind.
But now she understood. The lesson’s meaning was this: King Wen once asked Lü Wang how to govern the realm, and Lü Wang answered that a good ruler with a heart for his country would find his wealth reflected in his people, while a state that pursued hegemonic rule by recruiting wandering strategists would find its wealth reflected in those strategists instead…
Gong Ruian was a fine teacher, remarkably skilled, able to make even a lesson on moral cultivation genuinely engaging — as this very lesson put it, the wealth granted by Heaven was finite; if it did not rest in the hands of the common people, it would rest instead in the hands of the emperor’s powerful clans. And if it flowed into the hands of those powerful clans, then the nation would have no hope left…
Indeed — it had all ended up in the hands of those people in the Ministry of Justice prison.
The sound of reading aloud was pleasant to the ear. In the corner by the hall’s entrance, a row of food boxes sat warming. Having endured the ordeal of the Ministry of Justice prison, Qiqian’er found this moment rather wonderful — especially seeing Yang Zao notice that six or seven extra candles had been lit outside the hall, and order them extinguished as wasteful. That made her feel all the more reassured.
Well then, she wouldn’t beat him tonight after all.
She slipped quietly down, carrying a food box up onto the roof of the hall to eat.
Opening it, she found the four-color filled pastries, four-color crisp cakes, four-color steamed buns she recognized, along with a bowl of fruit soup.
This was the late-night snack for the young princes to fill their stomachs — not bad at all.
So she sat cross-legged, removed her mask, and began to eat.
She thought to herself, these princes really ought to take their lessons seriously, for the sake of the realm’s common people — that way, it wouldn’t all have been for nothing, her father and her husband taking that whipping, nor would the Chen family’s generations of blood and tears have been in vain…
She’d barely swallowed two bites of crisp cake when, from the north, three or five figures came drifting in like ghosts, silent, heading straight this way.
Hidden guards along the way kept trying to stop them; amid the clash of weapons, several fell from the rooftops.
Yang Zao learned of it quickly, yet remained as unmoved as a mountain, and would not even allow anyone to disturb the princes’ lessons.
Tonight was clearly the scene of an assassination attempt — not large, but not small either.
In truth, ever since certain people had been locked up in the Ministry of Justice prison, this sort of assassination attempt had been happening every single day. This was, in fact, part of why His Majesty kept the children by his side every night.
Qiqian’er, with her ears as they were, heard the sound and spotted the intruders, and thought irritably, to hell with the lot of you!
What nerve! Didn’t they know there was a lesson going on here? How many generations had it taken for the realm’s common people to finally see a proper royal family sitting down to study the bonds between ruler and subject, the way of governing a state, the principles of people’s livelihood, the way of statecraft, the method of self-cultivation!
What exactly did you people think you were doing? Not a chance.
Tonight, this woman of the inner household would guard Daliang’s spirit of moral cultivation herself — and may the ones down there take these fine lessons to heart. May this world never again know such a thing as fragrant meat.
She slowly lifted her mask and placed it back over her face, then leapt out like a gust of wind, gone in an instant.