Hearing this, the smile on Pei Lan’s face faded slightly. “I see. So that’s how it is.”

He stepped aside to let her in. “It’s just as well that you’ve come. I had also been meaning to bring this matter up with the marquis’s household.”

The office was not large. A blade hung on the western wall, and on the desk lay an unrolled scroll. The tea on the table seemed freshly brewed, its fragrance faint and pleasant.

Pei Lan said, “Your brother’s matter may prove somewhat troublesome.”

Yun Xi had already anticipated as much and nodded, waiting for him to continue.

“Back then, Zhaoyuan’s defection to the enemy was an established fact. Yun Luo had always stayed close by Zhaoyuan’s side, and whether he had also turned traitor along with him has remained uncertain, since no evidence was ever found either way.”

“Very few survived that battle at Tage Grassland. Over these past three years, I’ve put in some effort and managed to rescue several of our soldiers who had been captured by the barbarian enemy long ago. They all say that once the battle turned against us, Yun Luo, sensing the situation had gone wrong, immediately led his own troops fleeing toward the southeast.”

“That can’t be,” Yun Xi said. “My brother was brave and resolute—he never feared death. He would never be the kind of man to flee from battle.”

“I know. When I first heard them say this, I didn’t believe it either. Afterward, I had men continue the investigation, and finally managed to get some clue out of a barbarian prisoner.” Pei Lan said.

“What clue?”

“The prisoner said that Yun Luo had actually discovered Zhaoyuan’s betrayal early on. He gathered evidence and wrote an urgent letter to send back to the capital, but unfortunately, that letter was intercepted by the enemy and never reached the Emperor.”

Pei Lan looked at Yun Xi. “If we could find that letter, it would prove that Yun Luo neither betrayed us nor fled the battlefield. But…”

He hesitated. “I pressed that prisoner about where the letter was now, but no matter how I tortured him, he refused to say more, trying to preserve his life. Later on… he contracted a severe illness in prison and died.”

“Before he died, he told me that he himself was actually the barbarian soldier who had intercepted Yun Luo’s urgent letter that year. He had kept it privately and given it to his family for safekeeping, and told me to bring a hundred taels of silver to exchange for it.”

“And did the general manage to retrieve it?” Yun Xi asked.

Pei Lan shook his head. “By then I was already close to returning to the capital with my troops. I rushed day and night to the prisoner’s hometown, only to learn upon arrival that his family had moved away two years prior, and he himself, having been in my camp these past two years, hadn’t even known of it. I still have men stationed at the northern frontier searching for his family’s whereabouts. So far we only have a rough direction, and no good news has come through yet.”

Hearing this, Yun Xi clasped her hands and bowed sincerely. “This general has gone to great trouble on our behalf.”

“This is simply my duty. What trouble is there in that?” Pei Lan said.

He then added, with a worried look, “As for your brother’s title inheritance, I’m afraid it will have to wait until we find the evidence. Right now, with all the various testimonies about the Tage Grassland battle submitted, His Majesty still leans toward believing he fled the battlefield.”

Yun Xi thought for a moment. “Might I ask the name of the prisoner the general captured, where his home was, how many people were in his family, and roughly where they moved to?”

Pei Lan asked, “Why do you want to know these things?”

“The Yun family has guarded the northern frontier for many years. My father and brother have many old friends still living there. I’ll send letters asking them to help search for the family. And if truly they cannot be found—” Yun Xi pressed her lips together, “I’ll go myself.”

Pei Lan gazed steadily at her for a moment, then suddenly asked, “A’Ting, have you been well these past years?”

He hadn’t answered what she’d just said at all.

Yun Xi was startled, and couldn’t help glancing up at him.

The pale spring light slanted in through the doorway, and motes of dust drifting in the air were clearly visible, curling like mist. Pei Lan’s brows and eyes were shrouded in this thin haze—both like the youth he had been as a boy, and yet somehow no longer quite him.

He said gently, “Three years ago, when you came to the northern frontier to collect Yun Luo’s remains, I was buried in military duties. I had meant to see you off in person once things calmed down, but I never expected you’d leave alone just a day later.” He gave a helpless smile. “It’s been three years, and you never once sent me a letter.”

If one truly wished to see someone off, one would follow them for ten li, a hundred li.

It had been three years, and she had never written to him—but hadn’t he, too, never once sent a word of inquiry to the marquis’s household?

Yun Xi had no wish to dwell on these irrelevant matters and said, “Might I ask the general about that prisoner—”

Before she could finish, a guard outside the room came to announce, “Reporting, General, the Privy Council Commissioner has arrived.”

The door was ajar, and Yun Xi turned to look, only to see that along with Yao Hangshan, both Yao Susu and her maidservant had come as well.

She stepped aside and bowed to Yao Hangshan. “Privy Council Commissioner.”

Yao Hangshan seemed visibly startled upon seeing her. Before he could speak, Pei Lan explained, “Constable Yun has come today regarding the matter of General Yun’s title inheritance.”

Yao Hangshan frowned. “That matter is all but settled already, isn’t it? What is there left to ask about?”

Yun Xi was taken aback.

Settled already? Why? Hadn’t Pei Lan just said he was still searching for evidence for her brother?

Doubt rose in her heart, and she very much wanted to press Pei Lan for an explanation right then. But with the Privy Council Commissioner present, how could a mere lowly constable like herself possibly interject? She had no choice but to suppress her misgivings for the moment and wait to the side.

At this point, Yao Susu gave a soft exclamation, her gaze falling on the teapot on the desk with its wisps of fragrant steam, and asked sweetly, “Is what’s brewing in that pot the ‘Ten-Li Fragrance’ from the northern frontier that Second Brother mentioned to me the other day?”

Pei Lan’s grandmother had been Prince Cong’s wet nurse and also a relative of the current Imperial Noble Consort’s natal family. Yao Susu’s mother was a distant cousin of the Imperial Noble Consort. By relation, the two of them were, at best, distant cousins outside the five degrees of mourning kinship, but it was harmless enough to address each other as brother and sister.

Yao Hangshan laughed. “Susu loves tea. The other day when you visited the Yao residence and mentioned the northern frontier’s ‘Ten-Li Fragrance’ to her, she couldn’t stop thinking about it ever since. I forgot my official seal today, so she brought it over for me. I figured I’d pass by your office this morning and caught the scent of it, so I brought her along to have a taste, to spare her from craving it endlessly once she’s back home.”

Hearing this, Pei Lan said nothing, only a faint smile touching the corner of his lips. He took two teacups from the cabinet behind him and personally poured the tea, handing one cup to Yao Hangshan and the other to Yao Susu.

After Yao Hangshan finished his tea, he said to Yao Susu, “All right, your father still has real business to discuss with Jingyi. Go wait out in the courtyard first.”

As he spoke, his gaze swept over Yun Xi as well.

Yun Xi clasped her hands and answered, “Yes,” and withdrew from the room.

Once Yao Susu had also withdrawn to the courtyard with her maid, Pei Lan closed the door and asked Yao Hangshan, “Has the Commissioner come to speak to me about the matter of the Third Young Master?”

Yao Hangshan nodded, and, guided by Pei Lan, took the seat of honor. “He is, after all, the only heir of Prince Cong’s household. Once he’s eventually made heir apparent, he’ll be a legitimate Young Prince in his own right. Right now Prince Cong wants to find him a post, sending him here to the Privy Council. Look him over carefully for a suitable position—not too high, not too low, and definitely nothing dangerous. If there’s any way to do it, push him toward some other department instead. In any case, we can’t afford to offend Prince Cong’s household. You’ve only just returned to the capital, so proceed cautiously in everything—keeping the peace is what matters most.”

Pei Lan carefully considered Yao Hangshan’s words.

He understood most of the first half—too high a post risked the Third Young Master causing trouble, too low a post risked displeasing Prince Cong. But what did he mean by… keeping the peace is what matters most?

Everyone in all of Jinling knew that it was always the Young Prince causing trouble for others—surely no trouble would come looking for him?

Yao Hangshan noticed Pei Lan’s confusion and said slowly, “In mid-February, the Third Young Master fell into the water—did you know?”

“I heard about it after I returned.”

“He’s lucky to be alive—he escaped disaster by a hair,” Yao Hangshan added.

At first, Pei Lan didn’t think much of these words, but upon careful reflection, he said in astonishment, “Do you mean to say, Commissioner, that the Third Young Master was actually the target of an attempted murder?”

Yao Hangshan nodded. “I heard two gold bars were stuffed into his sleeve pouch.”

Pei Lan fell silent. Even someone of his own prominent standing hadn’t known—not even his father, the Minister of Works, nor his elder brother, the Vice Minister of the Court of State Ceremonial, knew of Cheng Chang’s attempted murder. This was clearly an enormous secret, one that hardly anyone in all of Jinling knew about.

He knew he shouldn’t press further.

Seeing his reaction, Yao Hangshan relaxed. “All right, old man that I am, I simply think highly of you and privately regard you as one of our own, which is why I’ve given you this extra word of caution. Just keep it in mind. It’s really not such a big deal—the Young Prince of Prince Cong’s household is a rather muddle-headed fellow. He probably doesn’t even know himself that someone tried to harm him.”

Pei Lan understood exactly what was meant by “one of our own” and replied, “Yes, this junior will keep it in mind.” Then he asked, “When is the Third Young Master coming to the Privy Council?”

“Supposedly today. He should be on his way by now—though who knows if he’ll change his mind at the last minute,” Yao Hangshan said.

Having made his point, he changed the subject. “So, how have you found things on your first day at the Review Bureau? Anything you’re not yet used to?”

Cheng Chang, indeed, was already on his way to the Privy Council.

The past month or so had left him utterly drained in body and spirit.

First, Prince Cong, who had rushed back from a thousand li away, had strung him up and beaten him thoroughly, then locked him in the ancestral hall and denied him food and water for three days, until he was on the verge of death before finally being carried out. Just as he had barely begun to recover, he learned that the dozens of servant boys in the household felt that the buns from Zuixiang Restaurant had insulted their Young Prince’s honor and had picked up their tools, ready to tear the place down.

He had no choice but to say the buns tasted good.

That would have been fine, except the fatal consequence was that from then on, the servant boys went to Zuixiang Restaurant every single day to bring back three steamer-baskets of buns for him.

In his past life, he’d had heart disease and eaten very blandly. Zuixiang’s buns were already on the salty side to begin with, and the cooks there, for whatever mad reason, upon hearing that it was the Young Prince who wanted to eat them, went all out piling on seasoning and oil. Eating three baskets a day for a full half a month nearly cost him half his life and very nearly ruined his sense of taste altogether.

Not to mention the servant boys, with no more restaurant to tear down, complained endlessly that their hands and feet were “growing mold” from inactivity, and spent every day scheming to sneak over the wall and stir up trouble.

At one point someone suggested a new porcelain shop had opened on the east street—why not go grab some pieces to smash for the Young Prince’s amusement? Another suggested a young woman selling tofu on the west street who looked as beautiful as Xi Shi—why not tie her up, strip her, and toss her onto the Young Prince’s bed? And of course there were also proposals to set off firecrackers in the neighboring alley, to dress up as ghosts and scare people at the academy in the front lane late at night, and to drug some patron at the brothel and stuff him into another patron’s bed. The topics ranged far and wide, but always circled back to arson, plunder, and debauchery, with everyone rolling up their sleeves, eager to get started.

Cheng Chang was tormented to exhaustion by all this, to the point that even in his dreams at night, his servant boys were carrying him through the streets searching for brothels.

Cheng Chang finally came to realize that man is a social animal, and sometimes one has no choice but to submit to one’s surroundings. For instance, having transmigrated here, it wasn’t enough for him alone to try to be a decent person—he also had to drag this entire household of servant boys along into becoming decent people too.

Looked at through a modern lens, this bunch of servant boys were all delinquent youths, fundamentally flawed in their thinking. By twenty-first century standards, they’d simply be sent off to labor reform camps and be done with it.

The Great Sui Dynasty had no such labor camps, so Cheng Chang had no choice but to reform them himself.

Unfortunately, he’d had heart disease in his past life and had never even attended military training, only a few gym classes.

He had no idea whether the gym-class approach would even work here.

The carriage from Prince Cong’s mansion pulled up outside the Privy Council. Cheng Chang got out and said to the several servant boys who had accompanied him that day, “I’ll go in alone. Wait for me here.”

One of them said, “Young Prince, why don’t we come in with you?”

“Yeah, we’ve never been to the Privy Council before,” another chimed in. “We’ll escort you in, and if anyone dares give you trouble, we’ll beat them up!”

Cheng Chang was speechless for a moment, then said, “Zhang Dahu, step forward.”

Among the servant boys, one with a broad, sturdy build immediately stepped out from the crowd—this was the “PE monitor” Cheng Chang had appointed. His strength was that he was single-minded and only listened to Cheng Chang’s orders; his weakness was… being too single-minded.

Zhang Dahu said, “Present!”

Cheng Chang pointed at the Privy Council behind him. “Take them running two laps around this place.”

“Yes, sir!” Zhang Dahu turned to the group of servant boys and barked, “Attention!”

Seeing that the Young Prince was still there, the servant boys didn’t dare disobey and immediately lined up into formation.

Zhang Dahu issued another command: “At ease.”

The servant boys stepped their right foot out.

“Right, dress!”

The servant boys turned to look right, adjusting their formation.

“Count off!”

“One, two, three, four…”

Watching Zhang Dahu lead the group of twelve servant boys off at a jog, Cheng Chang let out a breath of relief and turned to head into the Privy Council.