For a moment, voices raised in plea after plea for pardon rose one after another. Chu Linlang knelt in the hall below, head bowed, motionless, waiting for the Sixth Prince to pass his judgment.

Liu Ling hadn’t imagined that he would nearly be throttled by a common country woman. He reached up to touch his throat, still rattled, and demanded irritably of the tall, blood-soaked man at his side: “Mr. Situ — you tell me! What should be done with this violent woman?”

The one called Situ was the man who had driven the carriage. He glanced at Chu Linlang’s slender, kneeling back and said with measured deliberation: “By law, she should…”

Chu Linlang caught the phrasing and sensed that Mr. Situ seemed about to say “should be executed by law.”

She quickly raised her head partway, her cheeks drained of color, and cut into Mr. Situ’s words with a trembling voice: “This ignorant woman failed to recognize Your Highness — a severe beating with the rod is what I deserve. But… there is one thing I do not know whether I should say.”

Liu Ling had been in such shock just moments before that he hadn’t paid the bold woman any real attention. Now, seeing her raise her head, he finally took a proper look at what sort of face she had — and it was a face of breathtaking beauty.

My goodness — to find such a striking beauty in this frontier town of Lianzhou, almost rivaling the celebrated women of the Jiangnan waterlands?

She was bent forward in prostration, her figure graceful and willowy. On that luminously fair face, a pair of phoenix-shaped eyes already brimmed with crystalline tears, her red lips trembling faintly — she looked like a creature that inspired endless tenderness, fragile and helpless.

The Sixth Prince had always been soft-hearted toward beautiful women. Once he had a clear look at this Prefectural Judge’s wife, he no longer pressed the matter of her interrupting him, and his tone softened almost without his noticing: “You… what did you want to say?”

Chu Linlang’s voice still quavered, but her words rang clear and strong: “This woman only wishes to ask — though I have been exceedingly impertinent, is it not also true that I rendered some service in protecting His Highness? Had it not been for divine guidance that led this common woman, as if by some unseen hand, to that very street — how could this fortunate accident of rescuing the blood of the Son of Heaven have come to pass? This is surely proof that the Sixth Prince is a man of such uprightness and benevolence, so beloved of his people, that the divine beings in all four directions extended their protection — and arranged in secret for this woman to be His Highness’s deliverer, so that disaster might be turned into fortune!”

The Sixth Prince had not imagined that a soft-spoken woman could produce words as smooth as a seasoned, oil-tongued official. He couldn’t help but laugh. He was just about to speak when the one called Situ beside him cut in with a cool and deliberate question: “By that reasoning — is the Sixth Prince also meant to thank you for pressing a hairpin to his throat?”

Chu Linlang bit down on her lip. She was now of the firm opinion that she should have leapt onto this plague of a driver instead, and driven her hairpin straight through his throat.

Beside her, Zhou Sui’an’s face had gone the color of a pot bottom, and all he could do was watch helplessly as his wife drew a deep breath and continued, her voice still tearful and sweet: “This official is jesting. What strength does a mere woman have, that she could overpower His Highness? Only now does this woman understand — the Sixth Prince, in his vast magnanimity, simply could not be bothered to struggle against a woman, and chose to let her have her way. Unfortunately, this woman had eyes and failed to recognize a great mountain when she saw one — the error was already outrageous enough. How could I let His Highness personally punish me, and give those who don’t know better the impression that the Sixth Prince is harsh and cruel? Rather — I propose to confess my own guilt, impose upon myself a month of kneeling in the ancestral hall, and pray for blessings on His Highness’s behalf in the meantime!”

Even as she finished those words and pressed herself back into prostration, she had the distinct sense of a sharp gaze landing on her slender neck.

If she wasn’t mistaken, that blade-like stare had to belong to that insufferable Situ. Perhaps still displeased that she had given deliberately misleading directions — this man seemed to be targeting her on purpose.

Chu Linlang thought to herself: what a waste of such a fine-looking face, hiding nothing but the heart of a dog or a chicken behind it.

And sure enough, the plague of a man with the gentlemanly appearance opened his mouth again: “Your Highness, we were the ones who commandeered her carriage first. This woman, not knowing the truth, acted out of self-preservation — by law and by reason, she bears no fault. However — since she has volunteered her own punishment, a month of kneeling in the ancestral hall is not a bad outcome…”

Chu Linlang’s body tensed slightly. What? This man called Situ had not been trying to make things worse for her? Had she actually outwitted herself?

But she still couldn’t shake the sense that his face held nothing good. Could someone like him truly be so well-intentioned?

The Sixth Prince had been rather flattered by the praise Chu Linlang had heaped on him. The women he ordinarily encountered were mostly demure, downcast, docile ladies of refinement — he had never once met a woman like this Prefectural Judge’s wife, whose clear, gentle voice flowed like a mountain stream while every last word was laced with layer upon layer of cunning flattery.

Listening to that bright and warm voice, much of his anger had dissipated. And as she had put it — if he punished this woman, wouldn’t that be admitting he had no masculine dignity, and had been restrained by a frail woman?

The slim yet quietly commanding Sixth Prince had no intention whatsoever of admitting that a slight woman had nearly squeezed him breathless.

What mattered most right now was dealing with the local tyrant who had been running rampant in this region. A misunderstanding involving a woman’s momentary confusion was not worth any more of his attention. He had an iron hand, but it needed to be applied where it truly counted.

Thinking this through, the Sixth Prince Liu Ling waved his hand and said warmly: “It was we who acted improperly first — the circumstances left us no choice but to commandeer an official family’s carriage, and it is no wonder a misunderstanding arose. Let the punishment be dropped. May I ask whose household this lady belongs to?”

Zhou Sui’an quickly stepped out of line to acknowledge his wife. The Sixth Prince offered a few gracious words of thanks and even issued a command for Chu Niangzi to be given silk and silver as reward — a gesture of gratitude.

With that shower of grace and favor complete, the thunder and lightning came next.

The Sixth Prince was to hold the Prefect to account for the state of local security. As a woman, Chu Linlang had no place listening further, and she excused herself and withdrew.

When she stepped out through the gate of the official yamen, it was the dead of winter, and yet her entire back was soaked through with cold sweat. So she stood in a spot shielded from the wind at the gate, letting herself cool down.

Her maid Xia He was still trembling with residual fright, mopping the cold sweat from her own forehead: “My lady, shouldn’t we go home first?”

Chu Linlang looked up at the sun overhead: “My husband won’t be able to come home early today, and won’t be back for lunch either. Didn’t we still need to buy fabric? Let’s go — fabric shopping!”

What? Xia He was struck speechless for the second time that day. She had always known her mistress had a big heart, but they had just been through all of that, barely escaped punishment by a prince, only just made it out by the skin of their teeth — and her mistress still had the presence of mind to think about shopping for fabric?

Chu Linlang was not nearly as unruffled as Xia He imagined. Her heart was still thumping rapidly.

Heaven knew what kind of temper that Sixth Prince had. She hadn’t been entirely sure, just now, whether her words would move a man of such standing. Though she had made it out safely, her husband’s glare at her earlier suggested she was in for a lecture when she got home.

In that case, she might as well hurry and buy some things to get back in her husband’s good graces first.

So Chu Linlang bought the fabric for her husband’s collar, and also picked out hair combs and embroidered handkerchiefs for her mother-in-law and her young sister-in-law.

Disaster narrowly averted; spend a little to ward off misfortune — she planned to buy goodwill from the whole household, given how large a mouthful of trouble she had swallowed today.

She had been somewhat distracted during the shopping — she kept feeling that this Mr. Situ looked oddly familiar, though she could not for the life of her recall where she might have seen him before.

But he spoke with such a fluent capital accent, and she was certain she had never laid eyes on anyone from the capital. If she had truly encountered a face so handsome as this, she could not have forgotten it.

Lost in thought, Chu Linlang reached into her pocket to pay — but when her hand went in, it could not come back out. She felt around frantically: the forged account sheet was gone.

At that, Chu Linlang’s expression shifted. She abandoned her shopping entirely and set off retracing her steps with her maid.

After reprimanding the Prefect and ordering him to apprehend the criminals, the Sixth Prince turned around and found that his Junior Preceptor Situ Sheng was nowhere to be seen.

After asking a nearby attendant, Liu Ling made his way to the yamen’s study.

The tall man who had protected the Sixth Prince in the crisis had already changed out of his blood-soaked clothing. Now dressed in a plain-colored long robe, a wide sash at his waist, he stood with his back to the door, head bowed, by the window.

The Sixth Prince Liu Ling called out: “Mr. Situ, you were injured — don’t stand by the window in the cold.”

Situ Sheng slowly raised his head. He slipped the sheet of paper he had picked up beneath the carriage into his sleeve with no visible reaction, then walked toward the Sixth Prince and bowed: “Today was quite turbulent. Your Highness need only have sent someone — why trouble yourself to come in person?”

Liu Ling looked at his teacher with admiration: “I always knew you were outstanding in your learning, Mr. Situ — I had no idea your martial skills were equally impressive!”

Situ Sheng lowered his eyes: “I was frail as a child. My mother hired someone to teach me, hoping to build up my strength. I never imagined it would come to actual use like this.”

Though the Junior Preceptor spoke modestly, the Sixth Prince’s admiration only deepened.

Liu Ling ranked low among the princes — his mother-consort was of humble birth, timid by nature, and he himself had been physically frail from birth. Long overlooked by the Emperor. A prince out of favor like this could not accompany the Crown Prince as a study companion, and the Junior Preceptor assigned to him would never be any great Confucian scholar of renown, the way the Crown Prince’s Grand Preceptor was.

This Situ Sheng was nothing more than a young compiler at the Hanlin Academy, an idle post with no connections to speak of.

Liu Ling had originally looked down on Situ Sheng — a scholar from humble origins who had earned his way through examinations alone — and had suspected that Situ Sheng was some unwanted nobody foisted onto him. His words and manner had reflected plenty of high-handedness, with little of the respect a student owes a teacher.

Fortunately, Situ Sheng was easy-going by nature. When the Sixth Prince was unruly and showed no interest in self-improvement, he said nothing in the way of stiff, moralizing lectures — he simply set aside the Four Books and Five Classics altogether, and instead picked up amusing local anecdotes and curiosities to tell the Sixth Prince.

One thing led to another, and the Sixth Prince found himself genuinely drawn in by these entertaining stories. Among all his teachers bound by propriety and convention, it was Mr. Situ’s lessons he most looked forward to.

For such an obscure and lowly-ranked prince, lessons naturally required no formal exams. If the Junior Preceptor taught with genuine effort, imparting the arts of kingship, that would be overstepping in a way the imperial family would not tolerate.

And so teacher and student were both happily content to coast along, and they got along increasingly well.

Situ Sheng’s teaching methods were unconstrained by convention — in his spare time, he would take the Sixth Prince to the imperial estate to work the land, catch dark-shelled crickets to pit against each other in battle, and along the way talk about farming and animal husbandry from every corner of the realm.

In the end, it had gotten this palace-bred imperial child to open his eyes — to see something of the human world beyond palace walls and garden courtyards.

Even the Crown Prince, in occasional conversation with his brothers, having praised his own Grand Preceptor’s strictness and brilliance, would add with a faint note of envy that Old Six’s Junior Preceptor was at least easy to get along with — all play and leisure — nothing like the stern masters who drove them to study hard every single day.

Yet the Sixth Prince gradually came to feel that what his teacher imparted was perhaps not entirely without use.

Such as not long ago, when the Emperor had summoned several princes to gather in the garden for tea brewed over a small brazier, and in the course of easy conversation had touched on the customs and conditions of the frontier.

The Crown Prince and the favored princes all delivered grand speeches about national strength and border defense strategy, yet none of them had much real understanding of frontier day-to-day affairs.

It was Liu Ling who, in the course of drinking his tea, casually mentioned some local frontier geography and the customs of the people there.

Emperor Liren of the Great Chu dynasty was intrigued by this son who so consistently made him forget his name, and after a few casual questions discovered that, though this slight young man could not write proper formal essays to save his life, he had a wanderer’s sensibility and could speak of frontier market life and local customs as though from memory.

And he happened to need a sharp blade to inspect the frontier and cut away the rot. He had many sons, but setting aside those still too young, the ones who had survived to adulthood and could be counted on were only this few.

This inspection mission would require some dirty work. If the Crown Prince were sent, it might tarnish the heir apparent’s reputation. Better to send an idle prince — one who could represent the imperial family’s thunderous authority, yet whose mistakes wouldn’t be disastrous. And if a capable official could be cultivated from the experience, all the better.

After several such observations and tests, Emperor Liren found that the sixth son had a real grasp of practical affairs — not the sort of sheltered young man who couldn’t tell grain from chaff and had never worked a day in the fields. It was said that every spring planting and autumn harvest season, this particular prince would go to the imperial estate and get his hands dirty alongside the farmers. Very much a man of the earth.

So the Emperor issued a decree, entrusting him with this important charge — and thus the journey to Lianzhou had come to be.

Liu Ling was not destined for the throne, but those who managed to reach adulthood within the palace walls all had their share of cunning. He realized only later that what his father the Emperor had been asking about was, every time, precisely the things his unreliable Junior Preceptor had taught him.

What little had been imparted had been applied entirely where it counted most.

With that realization, much of his former contempt had faded. This time, he had brought Situ Sheng along on the imperial mission to serve as his treasury of clever stratagems.

In truth, the trail of thunder and killing that had marked this journey was not Liu Ling’s nature at all.

Below, the corrupt officials were all entangled in webs reaching back to the capital — pull one thread and the whole thing moves. He, a prince with no backing or influence, was hardly in the business of making trouble for himself. He had originally intended to go through the motions, keep things light.

Situ Sheng had asked him: “Your Highness is so benevolent and mindful of your own reputation — is it that you wish to cultivate the name of a virtuous and sagely prince?”