Scent is a strange thing.
It leaves an impression even deeper than images.
The place where the pearl seller had been staying was not good — a foul smell hung in the air.
Zhù Ying had not been in a place with an unpleasant smell for a long time. The smell of this inn was somewhat different from other unpleasant smells she had encountered before — more mold, and overlaid with a faint salty, fishy odor. Compared to the places she had lived in during her childhood, where the smells had been worse, this was simply a different variety of unpleasant.
Most of the people staying here were much like the dead pearl seller — many had come carrying their pearls themselves rather than sell them to first- or second-hand buyers at the source and get cheated out of their earnings.
Zhù Ying and Huajie were not dressed lavishly, but were still considerably better turned out than these struggling people. She looked around, found the innkeeper, and asked, “Are there other pearl sellers here?”
The innkeeper looked the two of them up and down and asked, “You are…?”
Zhù Ying said, “Buying pearls.”
She spoke in perfectly proper official speech; the innkeeper’s own had a noticeable accent. She studied his face, lined with worry, and said, “Life has to go on, doesn’t it? Act as my broker.”
The innkeeper said, “Little official, this humble person is only running an inn. And the quality of these pearls…”
Zhù Ying said, “Do you take me for a fool?”
The innkeeper studied her warily. Zhù Ying said, “I don’t want top-quality pearls. I want them for making pearl powder.”
Huajie didn’t look at the innkeeper but tilted her face upward to look at Zhù Ying, adding, “For medicinal use.”
The innkeeper’s expression changed. “Little official — you know your business.”
If the requirement were top-quality perfectly round large pearls, there would be endless discussion about luster, size, place of origin, and the like — all of which could also be faked. But for making pearl powder, perfectly round large pearls would be wasteful. The usual choice was small pearls — that way the raw material was also much cheaper. Rather than buying ready-made pearl powder, which could itself be adulterated, one bought the pearls and made the powder oneself. Small pearls with flaws, once ground into powder, yielded a medicinal product with little practical difference from ground perfect large pearls.
Zhù Ying said, “Exactly. I had originally intended to buy large pearls, but having heard about things here…”
The innkeeper heard the unmistakable capital accent in her speech and smiled. “You’re a knowledgeable one, official.”
Zhù Ying said, “If you’d be so kind as to arrange some introductions. No matter how hard times are, life must go on — those of us scraping by can’t afford the luxury of lamenting spring and mourning autumn. How much do you need?”
“Can’t say just yet — have to see the goods first.”
The innkeeper said, “That’s hard to say offhand. If you were at the source, large quantities sell by the barrel. Here it’s considerably more expensive than at the source. That’s why they’d rather bring the pearls here to sell themselves. But if you take them to the capital, you’d make a good profit. Only the road isn’t easy.”
“At market rate,” Zhù Ying said.
“Good.”
Zhù Ying leaned against the counter, lifted her chin slightly, and asked, “I hear something sizable happened here recently. I hope it won’t interfere with our business?”
“Ptui!” The innkeeper quietly spat. “May they lose their descendants! They’ll get what’s coming to them!”
Then he leaned in close and told her: “They’ve sealed off four of my rooms, ruining half my inn’s trade, all to search for some pearls. They searched the man’s body from top to bottom and still nothing. The best outcome would be if they never found them! At least I could reopen for business!”
“After a violent death in your establishment, you’d need another ceremony to cleanse it before reopening, surely?”
The innkeeper looked aggrieved. “Exactly. And look at the people staying here — what kind of income do I make? “
Zhù Ying said, “Room fees are low, but the broker’s cut is not small, surely?”
The innkeeper laughed. “Little official — young in age, but you talk like an old hand.”
Zhù Ying said, “Don’t forget about my matter. I’ll come back tomorrow for an answer.” She said this, tucked her arm around Huajie’s, took the parasol, and the two of them walked back out.
The innkeeper didn’t suspect anything — by her clothing, she clearly wasn’t the type who would be staying at an inn like this.
Outside the inn, Huajie asked, “You’re not going to look at that room? Why are you also buying pearls now?”
Zhù Ying said, “Get some money ready — I need to buy some cheap pearls.” She wasn’t exactly an expert on pearls, but having confiscated so many wealthy households, she had seen enough fine things to make basic distinctions. She had been in Fulu County for quite a while now, and sending nothing to the capital felt wrong.
And her funds were limited. “A gift that speaks for itself with modest means” — that sort of move only worked with other forms of emotional currency backing it up. You couldn’t keep trading on “sincere feeling” indefinitely. She wanted to send something truly fine to places like Zheng Xi’s household, and the best angle was to play up the fact that “what comes from far away is rare and precious.”
Pick up a few cheap flawed pearls, grind them into powder — and let Zheng Xi track the price however he liked! Right, and she had to send a small bottle for Lady Jin as well! Here at the source region, even lower-grade pearls were sold by weight. If she came across suitable large pearls at a good price, she would buy a few — nothing forced.
Huajie wanted to go back to the post station. Zhù Ying, however, tucked her arm and led her through more bends and turns, then folded the parasol. Huajie asked, “What is it?”
Zhù Ying swung the parasol and said, “Someone was following us. It’s fine — already lost them.”
The two returned to the post station. Huajie, as Zhù Ying had instructed, gathered some gold and silver. Pearls here without several layers of middlemen were naturally much cheaper — yet they were still pearls, and couldn’t be had for next to nothing. Huajie pieced together the gold and silver for some time before having enough.
The next day Zhù Ying went alone to inspect the goods and returned to the inn. The innkeeper had arranged a pearl seller for her. She examined the goods, and the two sides exchanged goods for payment on the spot. The seller asked, “Will the official buy anything else?”
Zhù Ying said, “I wouldn’t dare. Being newly arrived, how could I hope to find a bargain among the experts? The real advantage lies not in a keen eye or good luck.” She pointed at the room of the deceased pearl seller.
Both the innkeeper and the pearl seller said, “You’re a knowledgeable one.”
Being called knowledgeable didn’t stop them from collecting payment and offering inferior goods. In the end, Zhù Ying picked out only a few large pearls herself — chosen personally from the pile.
They said again, “Good eye.”
Zhù Ying didn’t make a scene. She picked up the box of pearls and said, “That’s the deal.” The innkeeper, seeing the transaction complete, teased: “And where’s the little young mistress today?”
Zhù Ying gave him a cold look. The innkeeper sensibly shut his mouth. Zhù Ying took the pearls and affected a curious expression, asking, “The seal still hasn’t been lifted?”
The innkeeper said, “No, and it doesn’t matter — they’ve turned everything over with nothing to show for it. They even split open my cabinets and still nothing. And now I have to buy new furniture.”
Zhù Ying asked, “The seller’s family — aren’t they coming to claim things?”
“They could come and it wouldn’t help! They never came with him. How would they know where he might have hidden anything?” The innkeeper lowered his voice. “And this man… when the person is alive, the money is alive. Once he’s gone, where is the money?”
Zhù Ying said, “Then… could I take a look at that room?”
She had played her part a little too convincingly — wearing that cold young lord expression, the innkeeper said, “What does the little official want to look at it for?”
“What’s wrong with looking?”
The innkeeper thought to himself: You want to go home and brag to people, don’t you?
Zhù Ying passed him a small piece of broken silver and, satisfied, the innkeeper let her go look as she pleased. The door was sealed with official tags. Since the death had been a suicide, the two adjacent rooms and the room across the hall were also empty. Zhù Ying circled around outside, then pressed her eye to a gap in the window and peered in. The inside had been turned completely upside down — floorboards ripped up, bed planks lifted. The innkeeper hadn’t been wrong: the people doing the search had nearly dismantled this room entirely.
Zhù Ying also circled once more around the outside of the room, then asked the innkeeper, “He came alone? Any friends? Did any friends say anything?”
“He came alone. Anyone connected to him — the authorities already took them away.”
Zhù Ying asked no more and said her farewells to the innkeeper.
She had gone only a short distance before she turned back. At the window of the room, she reached down outside the window frame and lifted up a section of bamboo. She pried it open to look inside, then put it back as it was, and fed it through the window gap back into the room.
Then she sat in a simple tea room not far from the inn, watching the people coming and going at the inn. After a while, her brow furrowed faintly — she caught sight of a familiar face. Lan Xing’s household servants she might not recognize, but she was someone who had circulated in the capital for years and she recognized this member of the Lan household’s staff. This person had several thugs in tow.
Another moment passed, and she suddenly rose to her feet. She said to a small girl who was peering around the entrance of the inn, “What are you doing here?”
The little dark-haired girl heard the familiar voice, and her face broke into delight. “Zhù—”
Zhù Ying raised a single index finger to her lips. The little dark-haired girl closed her mouth and nodded. Zhù Ying said, “Come over here and talk.”
The little dark-haired girl said, “My young mistress is waiting over that way — let’s go talk there.”
Zhù Ying frowned. “What are the two of you doing here?”
The little dark-haired girl lowered her head, her two feet rubbing together. “It’s… interesting…”
Shortly after, all three were seated together. Xiao Jiang glanced at the little dark-haired girl and said, “I knew you wouldn’t be able to leave something like this alone.”
Zhù Ying said, “What have I done?”
Xiao Jiang said, “I’ve been watching the inn since the incident.”
Zhù Ying looked at her. Xiao Jiang met her gaze, her eyes a little bright. “You’ll handle it, won’t you?”
“No,” Zhù Ying said.
What was there to handle? Was she going to kill Lan Xing or something? Folk tales always used “the magistrate rids the people of a menace” as a happy ending, but anyone who had worked in the Court of Judicial Review long enough would know that most of the time, magistrates couldn’t even topple a single lackey — and more often than not, “justice” was a consolation prize dispensed to ordinary people in the aftermath of powerful figures losing their power struggles. Take Gan Ze’s cousin Cao Shi — her husband’s crimes could have been prosecuted at the time, but Gong Jie’s misdeeds had to wait until after Gong Jie himself fell before they could be settled.
Say his household servants had driven someone to death — he’d claim he’d paid fair value, wouldn’t he?
If you went strictly by the law, she herself — who had helped Zheng Xi quietly pocket considerable quantities of assets during those confiscations years ago — should have been exiled three thousand li and been taking root in Fulu County well before now.
Xiao Jiang said, “You’re not like that! You — come!”
Zhù Ying didn’t want to talk to her anymore. Xiao Jiang grew anxious, hurriedly opened the door to the inner room, and said, “They’re here!”
Zhù Ying looked over to see several women and children in mourning white, their eyes red-rimmed, staring at her. Their clothes were covered in patches; their faces were full of grief and hardship.
Xiao Jiang said under her breath, “Don’t worry — I’ve already told them. They can’t be seen weeping like this out in the open. If those people over there spotted their faces and identified them, they’d pin the pearls on them, wouldn’t they? Then they’d be squeezed to death. You always have a way — you do, don’t you?”
Zhù Ying looked at these women for a moment. Xiao Jiang said softly in the local dialect to them a few words, then said to Zhù Ying, “The price offered at the coast for the pearls was already low, and they had accepted that, but then someone in the family fell ill and they wanted to get a bit more money — so the husband brought the pearls here to find a buyer himself. But those people pressured them too hard, offering far too little, driving the man to despair. Now…”
Zhù Ying said, “Have them go and claim the body for burial. Nothing else.”
“Oh?”
Zhù Ying looked at this young woman who had known more than her share of misfortune and said very calmly, “Not even my own mother can make promises on my behalf.”
She slowly walked back to the post station. Huajie was waiting for her. Zhù Ying could see from Huajie’s face that there was some anxiety there. She asked, “What happened?”
Huajie said quietly, “The household servants of the capital’s Grand Monitor Lan came by. They asked about the pearls. When they couldn’t find you, they left in a temper.”
Zhù Ying gave a cold laugh.
Huajie said, “What are you going to do?”
Zhù Ying said, “Can’t deal with Lan Xing, but can I not deal with his people? Those lackeys are no good characters either. Those two thugs they brought — you know what they are? When Lord Wang was running the capital prefecture, certain idlers and street thugs fled. Those were the ones. Now that Lord Wang no longer manages the capital prefecture, they’ve come crawling back. What decent thing could they ever get up to?”
“Then…”
Zhù Ying said, “It’s fine — I have my way.”
She didn’t bother going back to the Prefect or dealing with Lan Xing’s people. She handed the pearls over to Huajie and had her find someone to grind them into powder. She herself wrote another letter to Zheng Xi, describing the Prefect’s half-yearly meeting and the business about being summoned to help Lan Xing’s people find the pearls.
The end of the letter asked in a very mild tone: had Lan Xing gone mad, or had Lan Xing’s servants gone mad? Or were they all perfectly sane, and was she herself simply “not knowing her place” — was she supposed to treat the Prefect as Lan Xing’s spokesman? Anything Lan Xing wanted, the Prefect could simply order her directly?
Were these pearls — or the deer that Zhao Gao once pointed to and called a horse?
She made not a single comment about the coerced purchase or the pearl seller’s death in despair. She lightly and matter-of-factly wrote the price Lan Xing’s household servants had offered the pearl seller, and the fact that the pearl seller had died in bitter rage, and that the entire pearl market already knew about it. Not a word about eunuchs running amok or national law and order.
Attached to the letter she sent some pearl powder and the large pearls she had personally selected.
If Zheng Xi wrote back telling her to show consideration for Lan Xing’s face, and that anything involving “Lan” — even the Prefect’s words — she should swallow and comply with, she would comply. She would at most remind Wang Yunhe: Lan Xing’s household had picked up several street thugs who should have been beaten to death in the streets ten years ago. And incidentally compile the case records under the Prefect’s jurisdiction and send a letter to the Left Chancellor.
The next morning she rose early and had Xiao Wu deliver a letter to Xiao Jiang. The letter told her to have the pearl seller’s family not make too big a scene with the authorities — just go weeping to claim the body, and while at the inn collecting the luggage, incidentally retrieve a section of bamboo from inside the room. Split the bamboo open and the pearls would be inside. Take the pearls to the post station and find a northern-accented guest — the further north the better; a northern merchant just arrived in the prefectural seat was ideal. Sell quickly. Then take the pearl seller’s body home for burial, use the money to treat the family’s illness, and nothing more.
If Lan Xing’s people came demanding the deposit back, give it to them. The deposit they had paid in the first place had been a pitiably small sum.
Having arranged all this, Zhù Ying sat at the post station and waited. Sure enough, Xiao Jiang arrived accompanying the pearl seller’s family. Huajie, who had not known why Zhù Ying said they needed to wait one more day before leaving, spotted Xiao Jiang and gave a soft cry of surprise, asking Zhù Ying, “Her?”
Zhù Ying said, “Leave her be.”
……
But Xiao Jiang could not leave Zhù Ying be.
After Zhù Ying left, Xiao Jiang’s feelings were hard to name — something between regret and resentment, or perhaps a few measures of incomprehension. Her decision to stay in the prefectural seat and not follow to Fulu County had carried a tiny private motivation of its own. Zhang Xiangu had no malice toward her, but the unwelcome sentiment was plain to see. Xiao Jiang had no wish to go and make herself a nuisance. Hearing the occasional story about Zhù Ying from a distance was enough.
She had spent some days in the prefectural seat without hearing any news of Zhù Ying doing anything remarkable. Until the incident with the pearl seller became something of a commotion.
By the time the Prefect Lu was suppressing the story, she already knew. She wasn’t fond of people like Lan Xing either, and she wanted to help the pearl catcher’s family. At the time she also thought: She should come, shouldn’t she?
Zhù Ying had come indeed. But the outcome was not what she had expected.
She pushed her feelings down, helped the pearl seller’s family read the letter, helped them claim the body, went to the inn, and finally the whole group came to the post station. She helped the family pretend to be looking for a northern merchant to accompany them on the return journey to the coast. Standing in for them, she handled all of it. When the pearl seller’s family was sent on their way, Xiao Jiang no longer stayed with them, saw them off, and sat down on the steps outside the post station in a daze.
Suddenly — she stood up!
Zhù Ying’s horse was distinctly recognizable. Gather every horse in the world together and this horse would still rank among the finest.
Xiao Jiang said to the little dark-haired girl, “Little Ya — pack the bags. We’re going with her.”
The little dark-haired girl was still grieving on Xiao Jiang’s behalf, and asked in surprise, “Her? Going? Going where?”
“Fulu County.”
“Are — are we really going?”
Xiao Jiang said, “Of course.”
When Zhù Ying set out, a cart fell in behind her — neither too close nor too far, trailing along.
Xiao Jiang and the little dark-haired girl still sat up on the cart’s footboard and thought: If you ask me, I have my own answers to give you.
Little did she know, Zhù Ying wouldn’t ask at all.
That evening, they all stopped for the night at a post station. Xiao Jiang and the little dark-haired girl were again lodging in a room at the same station. Only at this point did Huajie notice them. Huajie was startled — she knew Zhang Xiangu’s feelings about this. That evening after dinner, Huajie found Zhù Ying and asked, “What’s going on with them?”
Zhù Ying said, “Being stubborn, I suppose.”
“Speak plainly.”
Zhù Ying saw that Huajie wasn’t in the mood for jokes, and had to explain the pearl seller situation, saying: “Helping was something I was willing to do, but this absolutely cannot be made known — if it spread, it would be impossible to contain. I dismissed her in a way that cost her face, so this is probably her stubbornness talking.”
Huajie said, “You look after yourself. But how did you know the pearls were inside the bamboo?”
Zhù Ying said, “I read people. Someone truly simple and docile would just die under this kind of pressure without saying a word. But this man had a sick family member to worry about, and it was that which drove him to come all this way to sell the pearls himself. When they tried to coerce him, he didn’t meekly hand the pearls over — he declared they’d never find them, which shows he had a head on his shoulders. So he wouldn’t have destroyed the pearls lightly. He had a sick family member at home; he had things worth living for.
He’d never been to this place before. He came alone and had no friends here, no one to take the pearls for him. The room had been searched from top to bottom. Nothing inside, nothing carried out — then it had to be outside the room. Being pressured to act fast, he couldn’t hide them far. A quick look around and you’d find it roughly.
Unless a thief got to it first — in which case he’d have no reason to hide things from a thief anyway.”
Huajie said, “Then…”
“Yes?”
Huajie said, “Nothing. I only think she’s become rather single-minded about something.”
“Let’s think about our own situation. We’re going to be busy when we get back.”
Huajie asked, “Busy with what?”
“I want to go out and tour the villages. Come along.”
“What about Adoptive Father and Adoptive Mother?”
“Bring them too. I’m not easy in my mind leaving them alone at the county office. They can’t speak the language and have no one to talk to.” Zhù Ying said.
If she was going into the villages, she’d need Xiao Wu, Hou Wu, Cao Chang, and the others to come along. Given Zhang Xiangu’s temperament about such things, Huajie would have to come too. Leaving behind just a few of their own people in the county office — it was better for everyone to go together.
Huajie said, “My goodness — then there’s a great deal to prepare. I’d better start making a list.”
Once she was busy, Huajie had no more time to think about Xiao Jiang. Xiao Jiang and the little dark-haired girl were still following along. This kind of thing — a traveler attaching themselves to an official’s convoy — was nothing unusual, and bystanders paid little attention.
Another day later, Zhù Ying stopped for the night at the next post station along the way, and there she ran into a few familiar faces — the Fulu County deputy magistrate and registrar, traveling with their party.
……
The deputy magistrate and registrar had not expected to run into their direct superior at the post station. Both showed expressions of awkwardness and stepped forward to bow. “We pay our respects to my lord.”
Zhù Ying said, “Please rise quickly. What are the two of you doing out here? Has something happened at the county office? I’m heading back now.”
“This…”
The deputy magistrate and registrar inwardly cursed their luck. The Prefect summoning them was something they didn’t dare refuse, but being caught in the act by their direct superior left them in an uncomfortable spot. “Going over the head of one’s direct superior” was something most officials did with some misgiving.
Both men gave awkward smiles. “Are you heading back now, my lord?”
“Yes. And you?”
“This… the Prefect — the Prefect has summoned us.”
“Ah, you can hardly refuse that, can you?”
“Yes… yes.”
Zhù Ying didn’t make things hard for them. What was the point? The Prefect had every right to do this. There was nothing to be gained from making the deputy and registrar suffer under this pressure.
“Go ahead,” Zhù Ying said. “Answer his questions properly. I would never stand in your way. A superior official can’t be this unreasonable — you’d agree, wouldn’t you?”
The last sentence landed in the hearts of both the deputy magistrate and the registrar like a jolt, and they said hastily, “Never, never. How could one say such things about a superior?”
Zhù Ying said, “Since you’re in a hurry, get some rest early.”
A layer of fine cold sweat broke out on the backs of both the deputy magistrate and the registrar.
In the past, once a year the deputy magistrate or registrar would bring the accounts and meet with County Magistrate Wang at the prefect’s residence. They would report the accounts to the Prefect, and Wang would handle receiving the dressing-down, while for the rest of the year he would stay in the circuit prefecture city and not come to manage anything. After Zhù Ying arrived and completed the handover, she never left — she even appeared to be settling in permanently.
The two had privately muttered: the new County Magistrate Zhù, for all her apparent cleverness, and whatever other reputation she had — she was dragging her whole family here to set up house! This was beyond unreasonable! Why refuse to leave the county and go elsewhere?
Neither of these two was a native of the locality, but they were from the same prefecture. Looking at Zhù Ying’s whole entourage, none of them understood the local dialect at all. When Zhù Ying suddenly said “unreasonable,” a thief’s sense of guilt surged up in them.
The two watched Zhù Ying leave, and then the registrar came to the deputy magistrate’s room. The two spoke in dialect.
The registrar said, “You don’t think she knows something? Has someone informed on us?”
The deputy magistrate said, “What’s there to panic about? Watch and wait.”
“Coming back from the Prefect now, just when the Prefect’s already summoned you and me — does this mean something? Is the Prefect going to deal with her again? She’s not easy to deal with?”
The deputy magistrate said, “See the Prefect first before saying anything. Hmm — whatever the Prefect says, we acknowledge vaguely and see how things develop. When the immortals fight, we stay out of it.”
The registrar deliberately said, “She’s got whatever grand achievements she’s got that we don’t know much about, but she certainly doesn’t give people a moment’s peace. If only we could have an easy-going superior. Take the former County Magistrate Wang — he was wonderful! Lived in the circuit prefecture city every day, only came by once or twice a year at most. Nobody asked him to do any work — everyone just handled county affairs well, and sent County Magistrate Wang’s share of the public field income to him at the circuit prefecture city. We all lived freely.”
For a superior official — not creating trouble for subordinates, not living in the same place as subordinates — that should be the basic standard of decent conduct!
The deputy magistrate said, “Aside from County Magistrate Wang, have you ever seen another magistrate like that? Also — from now on, be careful what you say in front of her!”
“Ah — the days of easy living are over.”
“She’s actually not bad compared to some. She hasn’t gone through the accounts, hasn’t raised any cases, hasn’t called anyone in for a dressing-down.”
The deputy magistrate and registrar pondered how to proceed going forward. Their troublesome, easy-life-ruining superior, meanwhile, returned to Fulu County.
……
Zhù Da and Zhang Xiangu had been feeling rather suffocated cooped up in the government office.
Zhang Xiangu, being somewhat younger than Zhù Da, felt she should adapt more easily than him. She ventured out of the county office to find a shop and try to chat with someone. This had been perfectly natural in the capital, where officials of every sort were everywhere, and Zhang Xiangu had never quite managed to carry herself with the dignity of a titled noblewoman there.
In this small place, everyone showed her great respect — yet she and everyone spoke languages mutually incomprehensible, and wherever she went, there was a three-foot empty circle of space around her.
Zhang Xiangu went out for one day and came straight back, never mentioning going out again. Only when Zhù Ying and Huajie returned did Zhang Xiangu finally find someone to talk to — she immediately bombarded them with questions: “How was it? Was the Prefect easy to deal with?”
Zhù Ying said, “Not bad. Were you stifled from boredom? Pack up — starting tomorrow we’re going out to tour the villages.”
Zhang Xiangu said, “Good, good — I’ll go with you. Did the Prefect issue any orders?”
“This is my own matter to take care of.”
“That works too.” Zhù Da jumped in to agree — he was stifled too.
Zhù Ying said, “Xiao Wu — go and tell the people outside: tomorrow morning early, I want the constables lined up!”
Xiao Wu said, “Yes.”
His progress in the local dialect was not particularly fast, but between speech and gestures he could still manage. He ran out to find people and explained. The constables spent quite a long time figuring out what he was saying, wondered if they had heard right, and all asked, “Is the county lord going out into the villages?” They asked many times before confirming it: the new county magistrate was going to make trouble!
But both the deputy magistrate and the registrar were away. They didn’t quite dare openly defy orders either, and privately said to each other: “How convenient is the timing? One comes back from the Prefect and the other two go to the Prefect. Was something planned… it’s like the new county magistrate is giving out orders the moment she meets the Prefect…”
After much chatter, they still decided they’d line up the next day and see what tricks the little county magistrate was planning.
In the rear quarters, the Zhù family was busy. Zhang Xiangu and Huajie needed to travel by cart and would need clothing, bedding, and such. Zhù Da worried that the food out in the villages would be worse than the county office kitchen and wanted to bring wine and provisions.
By nightfall, the family at last put their hands down. Zhù Ying and Huajie then told the old couple about the meeting with the Prefect.
The old couple first asked, “A sensible person doesn’t fight a battle they can’t win. The Prefect is such a high official — challenging him like that, could there be trouble?”
Zhù Ying said, “If I let him corner me this time, there will be more and more trouble from him going forward!”
Huajie said, “Adoptive Father, Adoptive Mother — think back. When we were in Zhū Family Village — was it that we weren’t courteous enough?”
The two confirmed again and again with Zhù Ying that “taking losses endlessly was worse than just turning the table.” Zhang Xiangu cursed: “Even in the capital, Lord Zheng and Lord Wang had to speak reasonably and explain things properly!”
Zhù Da also spread his feet wide and pointed in what he assumed was the direction of the prefectural seat, opening his mouth: “Sticking out your rear end and expecting everyone to come licking it? And expecting them to feel grateful for the privilege? Those who come fawning and licking are dogs!”
The two finished their ranting and went to bed.
The next morning, the constables had all gathered in front of the county office waiting for Zhù Ying’s address.
Their line was only barely presentable. It had been several years since the county had properly lined up like this. Zhù Ying came out and opened her mouth in official speech they couldn’t understand: “Divide into three shifts. One shift remains here; one shift accompanies me on patrol; one shift rests.”
Zhù Da and the others couldn’t understand the dialect; these constables couldn’t understand official speech. Zhù Ying had done nothing to inconvenience them in these past days in Fulu County, and they weren’t really inclined to be openly difficult with her. They even rather wanted to applaud for her at an appropriate moment. Unfortunately, no one had taken the lead, so they couldn’t find the right beat to chime in. And they weren’t sure whether the county lord had finished speaking.
Zhù Ying had no desire to let them go on being baffled. She suddenly switched to the local dialect and repeated what she had just said.
It was as if a whip had been cracked across all their backs. The barely-presentable formation gave a collective shudder. In an instant it had straightened into something very nearly resembling neat rows — the whole thing looked like a long rectangle.
Zhù Ying continued in dialect: “All right, divide into shifts.”
But neither the deputy magistrate nor the registrar was there — who was to give the command? How should they be divided — equal thirds? Who was in charge? There was another moment of confusion.
Zhù Ying said, “Silence. I will call names. Step out when called. First shift: Tong Li, Tong Sheng, Tong Bo…”
She called names one by one. The constables began to find it harder to breathe. They had a name register, and it wasn’t surprising that the county magistrate knew their names. But as each name was called, her gaze moved precisely to find each person! Dozens of people, and she knew every face.
And that wasn’t all — those with a keen eye would notice that the three shifts she had arranged were equally balanced, old paired with young, and the distribution of height, build, and age appeared deliberately even.
The constables dared say nothing. They listened as Zhù Ying assigned tasks — the first shift would go with her, the second would watch the county office, the third could go home and rest. In ten days’ time, when she returned with the first shift, the first shift would rest, the second would continue patrolling with her, and the third would guard the county office.
Zhù Ying asked calmly, “Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
Not even the most chatty constable dared to laugh or ask whether she, an outsider, actually spoke their dialect and was playing a joke on them. Never mind them — even Zhù Ying’s own mother didn’t know she had already learned something of the local dialect. The old couple only saw their daughter at ease and in command, and though they couldn’t follow a word Zhù Ying had said, they were overjoyed and cheerfully set off with their daughter into the villages.
……
Zhù Ying rode her horse; Zhang Xiangu and Huajie rode in the cart behind; Zhù Da sat up on the cart’s footboard.
Two constables beat gongs at the front to clear the way, the others following behind.
Zhù Ying’s first stop was a village not far from the county town. She ordered the constables to beat gongs through the village and announce: “The county magistrate has come to the village. Rich or poor, high or low — anyone with a grievance may speak, any dispute may be mediated.”
She then sat down in the open threshing ground where the village dried its grain, with a bamboo table in front of her — a simple impromptu court.
The whole village gathered in the threshing ground. Several older, respectably-dressed middle-aged men stepped forward to bow. Zhù Ying said in dialect, “The village elders are the village’s treasure — please, rise quickly.”
The villagers were astonished anew. Zhù Ying personally helped several of the elders to their feet, had someone bring them chairs, and then said, “I serve here as an official by imperial edict, with the authority of the court over this land — how could I not manage things?”
All of her exchanges with the villagers were conducted in dialect. Zhù Da and Zhang Xiangu at first found it entertaining, but once they couldn’t understand the entertainment it stopped being enjoyable. The two gradually drifted away to take a little walk. Zhang Xiangu had sharp eyes. She suddenly noticed two figures in dark blue Daoist robes and started — she went closer.
At ten paces she could see clearly: it was Xiao Jiang and the little dark-haired girl.
Xiao Jiang and the little dark-haired girl stepped forward two paces and curtsied to the old couple. Zhù Da didn’t know how to speak to young women. Zhang Xiangu said, “What a coincidence — you’re here to watch too?”
Xiao Jiang said, “Madam, I came of my own accord. I did wrong before and put Lord Zhù through needless trouble. I’ll make it up by doing some work.”
“Oh no, no — no need! You don’t have to do anything! Look — even we have no proper tasks to do here. We can’t even understand the speech — what could we do? “
“I can understand it,” Xiao Jiang said, her back straight as a board. “I’ll interpret for you.”
She slowly translated what was happening on the threshing ground for Zhang Xiangu’s benefit. Zhù Da listened to each sentence, well-formed and clear. He said in amazement, “You know this local tongue? Have you been here before?”
“No.”
“You learned it just now? That’s truly remarkable.”
Xiao Jiang said, “There’s nothing remarkable about it. Learn it or die — so you learn it.”
Zhang Xiangu was taken aback. “What kind of thing is that to say?”
Xiao Jiang said, “A person can put on deafness and muteness, but can’t truly be deaf and mute. Ha — let me continue telling you. That blue-robed one is the elder brother, the green-robed one is the younger brother. Both say the division of family property was unfair and the other side got more. Lord Zhù is telling them to each bring their wives and children over and swap houses… pfft, neither of them wants to. Lord Zhù is going to redivide the family property — it wasn’t really about making them swap houses…”
Xiao Jiang slowly translated the dialect for the old couple. Her heart was also gradually forming a thought: she is not a cold person. She showed a good deal of protection for that poor soul too. The matter with the pearl seller’s family — I misjudged the situation and wasn’t in a position to make promises on her behalf.
Her heart ached. She held herself upright and refused to simply leave.
Huajie had been watching from the side for a while and drifted away from the threshing ground to find the old couple as well.
Only Zhù Ying remained on the threshing ground, going through the village matters one by one. She adjudicated the petty cases — family partition counted as a major case among them, the rest were mostly things like your chickens scratched up my vegetables.
In the eyes of the exalted, these didn’t even register as “matters” — just “small talk” that might pass the time amusingly. But for ordinary villagers, these were the weightiest matters imaginable. A spring’s worth of vegetables that should have fetched a small jar of salt — now ruined by chickens and the whole family had to eat without seasoning. Was that acceptable?
Zhù Ying had spent her years at the Court of Judicial Review handling cases where serious bodily injury was the minimum threshold — she had adjudicated treasonous plots and full family massacres. Now it was all village trivialities, nothing that sounded remotely grand. And the villagers here, while they gossiped about treasonous plots as entertainment, were very concerned indeed about how the chickens and ducks should be compensated.
She quickly found her footing. First let the village elders speak their minds; based on everyone’s reactions, learn the village’s customs; then compare with the law and judge according to her own sense of fairness.
Take family partition, for instance: no division, however done, could be completely equal. Even splitting a single string of coins in half, one side taking five hundred and the other five hundred, the elder brother could still say his own son was the eldest grandson, the eldest grandson was like a son, deserving a bigger share. The younger brother would counter that the elder had taken advantage of seniority to encroach on a substantial portion of the property while he was still too young to know any better.
When Zhù Ying divided things, she did the opposite of “splitting equally.” She offered the brothers several options to choose from. If a little more went to the elder, it would be acknowledged that the elder had contributed more to the original household as the eldest son — witnessed by the village elders as the grounds — so the additional share was given. If the younger brother was to care for their aging mother, the younger would receive a bit more. She also made it explicit: if the younger brother took more of the property and then failed to care for the mother, she would come and deal with him by the laws of the state as an undutiful son.
Genuine heart-and-soul satisfaction — that was impossible. If everyone were truly reasonable, behaving as older brothers should and younger brothers should, pushing generously back and forth, there would be no quarrel to begin with. For many people, not gaining an advantage was equivalent to suffering a loss — that kind of person could never be satisfied. And there were others who had endured much injustice and couldn’t be simply told to let it all go.
Ordinary village families who couldn’t read a few characters — one couldn’t even speak of keeping household accounts. At best there was a ledger at the county office recording how much land each household had. As for how many quilts were in the house — no one could say clearly. Yet it was over those quilts that they quarreled.
Face was preserved, more or less. That was about the best you could do. It wasn’t about convincing the two brothers — it was about letting others see that she was taking charge of things. And managing them with a degree of fairness.
All the other matters were much the same.
The deputy magistrate and registrar made the journey to the prefect’s residence and back, taking over ten days in all. The day they returned to the county office, Zhù Ying had just finished one round of village touring and was back to switch shifts.
The deputy magistrate and registrar thus received a piece of dreadful news: the new county magistrate — she was an absolute rascal! Didn’t need a single hair stuck on her before turning into a monkey! She was full of schemes from head to toe! She speaks our dialect! She can understand it!