Yun Xi’s steps grew lighter and lighter as she walked, and by the time she reached the marquis’s mansion, she was practically running.
Zhao Wu, standing guard at the gate, spotted her and called out, “Eldest Young Lady.”
She answered with a quick “Hey,” and hurried straight toward the main hall, calling out, “Sister-in-law, Sister-in-law!”
Fang Fulan had been waiting in the main hall since morning, and hearing Yun Xi’s voice, she hurried out to meet her.
Yun Xi could barely contain herself as she delivered the good news. “Sister-in-law, it’s done! His Majesty read Brother’s urgent letter and issued a decree ordering the Court of Judicial Review to reopen the investigation. The evidence is ironclad—it won’t be long now before Brother’s name is cleared!”
Fang Fulan froze on the spot, motionless for a long moment.
Yun Xi, cradling the ancestral tablet and the imperial edict in one arm, waved her other hand in front of Fang Fulan’s face. “Sister-in-law, what’s wrong? Aren’t you happy?”
Only then did Fang Fulan come back to herself. “Of course I’m happy, I just… didn’t expect it,” she said, looking at Yun Xi in disbelief. “It’s really done, just like that?”
“I didn’t expect it either.” Yun Xi smiled. “This morning, when I knelt outside the palace gate, no one paid me any mind at first. Then the Third Young Master happened to pass by, and after hearing what had happened, he offered to present the evidence to the throne on my behalf. As a censor, he can petition His Majesty directly. His Majesty read the letter, believed in Brother’s innocence, and that’s when he issued the decree to reopen the case.”
She handed the edict to Fang Fulan. “Sister-in-law, look.”
Fang Fulan examined it carefully, and seeing it was in the Emperor’s own hand, sealed with the imperial jade seal, she finally let out a breath of relief.
She handed the edict back to Yun Xi, then, as though remembering something, asked hesitantly, “You said just now… it was the Third Young Master of Prince Cong’s household who helped us?”
Yun Xi nodded, giving a light, cheerful “Mm-hm.”
Fang Fulan said, “Why do you keep…”
She stopped herself midway, swallowing the rest of the sentence.
Keep what? Keep interacting with him? Keep getting closer to him?
The Young Prince of Prince Cong’s household had recently reined in his temperament, but no one could say the old, unruly young master wasn’t still somewhere inside him, nor could anyone guarantee how long this good behavior would last. What if, one day, he reverted to his old ways?
In the end, he wasn’t someone one could afford to grow too close to.
Fang Fulan had meant to caution Yun Xi, but then thought of how downcast Yun Xi had been lately, and how long it had been since she’d seen her this happy.
Never mind, she thought—their household did owe the Third Young Master a debt of gratitude after all, so she held back the words that would dampen the mood.
Fang Fulan took Yun Xi’s hand and used her sleeve to wipe at her forehead, saying gently, “Look at the state you’re in. Go wash up. Someone from the Jingzhao Prefecture came by earlier and said you’ve been specially granted a day off. You haven’t slept all night—get cleaned up and rest properly.”
Yun Xi agreed, then added with a smile, “Let me put Father’s and Brother’s tablets back in the ancestral hall first. Oh, and I need to enshrine His Majesty’s edict there too!”
With that, she hurried out of the main room.
Yun Xi burned incense in the ancestral hall, kowtowed, and then returned to her own room.
Remembering that Cheng Chang had reminded her to change her bandage, she took out the wound medicine and gauze from the cabinet and sat down to undo the knot on her palm.
The wound had originally been bandaged by the Third Young Master himself, the knot tied neatly at the side of her wrist. She wasn’t sure when it had come undone, but at some point she’d noticed it loosening and had simply wrapped it back around and tied a knot herself.
Yun Xi rebandaged the wound, put the scissors and wound medicine back where they belonged, and was about to toss the old bandage sitting on the table. Her hand reached out, then suddenly paused, and slowly withdrew.
Bandages were worthless—she got plenty of them for free at the yamen.
And yet, somehow, this particular used one had come to mean something entirely out of proportion.
After a moment, she fetched some water, carefully washed the bandage clean, and hung it to dry in the courtyard.
The sun was bright, and a breeze picked up after noon. The bandage dried quickly.
Yun Xi brought it back inside. The coarse fabric, worn from use, had grown soft. She set it on the table, letting it lie there loosely coiled, staring blankly at it, at a loss, unsure what to do with it.
Finally, she remembered the dagger Yun Luo had given her before his last campaign, its handle a bit slippery, which was why she’d never used it.
Yun Xi retrieved the dagger from under her pillow and wound the bandage around the handle, coil by coil, then tested the grip.
Mm, that felt much better.
A few days after the plum rains passed, Jiangnan sank fully into the height of summer, and all of Jinling seemed trapped inside a great furnace, hot enough to peel a layer of skin right off.
In mid-May, Yun Luo’s case was finally settled.
The Court of Judicial Review carefully examined Yun Luo’s official seal on the urgent letter and gathered testimony from several of his former subordinates, and formally declared Yun Luo innocent, restoring to him the title of General Who Spreads Might.
Seeing that His Majesty seemed inclined to treat the Marquis of Loyalty and Valor’s household favorably, the Chief Justice of the Court of Judicial Review, when submitting the case files, took the opportunity to ask whether Yun Luo should be granted the title inheritance to the marquisate.
But His Majesty seemed not to hear the question at all. He let the Chief Justice stand in the hall for the better part of the day before finally recalling his presence and saying dismissively, “We’ll see.”
Such was the unfathomable will of the sovereign.
For a time, no one could quite grasp what the supreme ruler was truly thinking.
And so, in everyone’s minds, the Marquis of Loyalty and Valor’s household remained exactly as it had always been—not much on His Majesty’s mind, perhaps, but not forgotten either.
The only visible difference was that, at the end of May, when Yun Xi went to collect the marquis’s stipend, the officials at the Ministry of Finance treated her with noticeably more courtesy.
The news of Yun Xi’s broken engagement with Pei Lan spread through Jinling in a flurry of gossip that lasted several days, most of it framing it as the Pei household doing the marquis’s household a favor by calling it off.
After all, the Pei household came out ahead in the arrangement, which meant the marquis’s household wasn’t left too humiliated by it.
Yun Xi paid little mind to the rumors. Her engagement to Pei Lan had hung over her heart like a heavy fog, and now that the fog had finally cleared, she felt nothing but relief, light and unburdened.
One day, while on night duty, having not yet eaten at noon, Tian Si suddenly came to find her, saying, “Y-Yun—Constable Yun, the Third Young Master’s household servant boy said there’s, there’s something going on at the yamen woodshed.”
The person locked in the woodshed was, of course, Zhang Dahu, disguised as the dead boatman.
Yun Xi hurriedly asked, “What kind of something?”
“D-don’t know. The Third Young Master already, already rushed over there this morning. He, he had me come tell you.”
Hearing that Cheng Chang had already gone over there, Yun Xi grew anxious. This was, after all, her case—the Third Young Master was the victim in it. How could she let him bear the burden of worrying over it on her behalf?
She went back to her room, changed into her constable’s uniform, and grabbed her sword. “Then I’ll go too.”
Just as lunch had been set out on the table, Fang Fulan, seeing Yun Xi about to leave, hurried after her and asked, “Won’t you eat something before you go?”
“No time.” Yun Xi’s steps quickened as she walked, and in the blink of an eye she was out the door, calling back, “It’s urgent!”
The marquis’s mansion was in the eastern part of the city, close to the palace but far from the Jingzhao Prefecture. Yun Xi hurried as fast as she could, but it still took her the better part of an hour to arrive.
The guards outside the woodshed had already changed shifts. Yun Xi asked Ke Yong, “Where’s the Third Young Master?”
“The Third Young Master came by this morning, asked about the situation here, and stayed until noon, when a household servant came to fetch him—said the princess consort was praying for blessings at a nearby Guanyin temple and wanted him to come over. The Third Young Master left word that once he’d finished accompanying the consort at her prayers, if it wasn’t too late, he’d come back over.”
Yun Xi asked further, “The Third Young Master’s household servant said something was going on here at the woodshed—do you know what it was?”
Ke Yong shook his head. “The Third Young Master left in a hurry, and that servant boy went with him. Before leaving, he only said to watch closely, that it probably wasn’t anything major. Constable Yun, you might as well wait—if the Third Young Master manages to make it back, he’ll tell you himself.”
Yun Xi thought it over and figured Ke Yong had a point.
If it were something urgent, Cheng Chang wouldn’t have left so easily, and even if he had, he would surely have left instructions.
But still…
What exactly was worth him coming back again for?
Yun Xi glanced at the sky—it was already past the hour of Wei. Even if Cheng Chang managed to make it over, dusk would have fallen by then.
He was the Young Prince, a censor—there was no reason for him to lower himself to run around like this.
Yun Xi thought that, since she wasn’t due on duty until the hour of You anyway, she might as well go wait outside the Guanyin temple. That way, if something urgent came up, the Third Young Master could tell her the moment he came out.
With that thought, she called Tian Si over, and they hurried off toward the Guanyin temple.
In the height of summer, few people came to the temple to burn incense, and this particular temple, tucked among the common neighborhoods, lacked the tranquility of one deep in the mountains—its incense trade was hardly thriving either.
The old banyan tree at the temple gate hung listlessly in the heat. As Yun Xi waited beneath it, she found herself wondering—surely a proper princess consort of Prince Cong’s household, wanting to burn incense and worship, could have gone to Baiyun Temple in the capital’s outskirts instead? It was cool and pleasant there, and no more than half a day’s carriage ride away.
But once Prince Cong’s consort emerged from the Guanyin temple, Yun Xi understood.
Three others came out alongside the consort—besides Cheng Chang, there was also Madam Zhang, wife of Lord Lin of the Ministry of Rites, and Madam Zhang’s daughter, Miss Lin, Lin Ruonan.
The Guanyin temple—for seeking children, seeking blessings, seeking marriage bonds.
The consort’s visit here was, evidently, not about the incense at all.
Knowing Cheng Chang had to be on duty and couldn’t travel far during the day, she must have arranged to meet Madam Zhang and her daughter at the Guanyin temple, then had him come over to join them.
There, after Cheng Chang had spoken with the consort and Madam Zhang for a while, his gaze happened to sweep across the area and land on Yun Xi waiting under the banyan tree. He was taken aback for a moment, said a few words to the consort, and walked over toward her.
Yun Xi, too, was startled, and only then did it occur to her how improper it was to have the Third Young Master lower himself to come over to her. She hurried forward to greet him, bowing. “This humble officer greets the Third Young Master, greets the Princess Consort.”
Cheng Chang gave a “Mm,” roughly guessing why she’d come, and said nothing more.
Prince Cong’s consort, however, looked her over and asked coolly, “Miss Yun Xi, what brings you to the temple as well?” After a pause, she added, “Here to find Chang’er?”
Yun Xi bowed her head and clasped her hands. “Reporting to the Princess Consort, a servant from the princely household passed on a message to this humble officer—”
She stopped midway through the sentence, feeling suddenly, inexplicably uneasy.
Looking up, she found Lin Ruonan gazing steadily at her.
Her expression was placid, but her eyes held a wistful sorrow.
Yun Xi had meant to say that a household servant had told her the Third Young Master had urgent business to discuss with her, which was why she’d come. But the words changed on her lips at the last moment: “This humble officer has urgent yamen business to report to the Third Young Master.”
Prince Cong’s consort gave a “Mm” and said to Cheng Chang, “Since it’s official business, hurry up and finish so you can head back to the mansion.” She added with a smile, “Your aunt and cousin have finally come to the mansion to dine with us today—don’t dawdle.”
Cheng Chang agreed, and stood with Yun Xi as they watched the mansion’s servants harness the carriage and see off the consort’s entourage. Only then did he turn to Yun Xi. “My mother called me away unexpectedly. I’m sorry to have troubled you to come all this way.”