In itself, Situ Sheng’s appearance on the streets of Lianzhou’s market was nothing unusual — but Chu Linlang glanced at the shop front where he was standing, and her expression changed dramatically.

For this establishment, Mancang Rice Shop, was none other than a business set up through a middleman by Zhang Xian’s younger brother-in-law. It was also one of the shops that Chu Linlang had fabricated in the fake ledger, listed as having frequent transactions with the granaries.

This Situ Sheng surely hadn’t come on a whim to buy rice for himself — or had he perhaps come across that page of the fake ledger and come here to investigate and verify the details?

At this thought, Chu Linlang forgot all about Miss Yin of the Yin family and her tearful entreaties, and suddenly stood up, saying she had drunk too much tea and needed to use the facilities — then rushed off down the stairs.

Chu Linlang’s original intention was to go downstairs and get closer, or pretend to be browsing a stall near the rice shop, to see if she could eavesdrop through the window and learn what Situ Sheng had come there for.

But unexpectedly, the moment she came downstairs and crossed the street, she found that Situ Sheng had vanished without a trace.

Just as she was looking around in search of him, a low voice came from behind her: “May I ask, Madam — have you perhaps dropped something again? Does this one need help?”

Chu Linlang spun around abruptly and found that Situ Sheng had somehow appeared silently behind her without her noticing.

She steadied herself, quickly arranged a smile on her face, and greeted him with a bow: “What a coincidence — how is it that I run into you here, My Lord?”

Situ Sheng’s features were cool and reserved, with the trace of a polite smile. He lowered his gaze to glance at Madam Chu: “Madam still hasn’t said — what is it you are looking for?”

Chu Linlang could hardly blurt out that she had been looking for this very troublesome man standing in front of her.

She smiled slightly: “I brought a relative to dine here, but found the dishes rather disagreeable, and was just thinking of coming downstairs to buy some small snacks to go with the wine…”

She had only gotten halfway through when she could no longer keep up the story. Because she saw Situ Sheng reach into his robe and pull out a page that looked familiar — that paper… was none other than the very one she had lost the day before.

Of all the things she had feared, this man had indeed picked it up.

He had held his tongue in Zhou Sui’an’s presence — and now had come in person to confront her privately and suddenly show his hand. He was clearly treating her as a woman who would be easier to interrogate and break open in private.

At this realization, Chu Linlang swiftly composed herself instead. She blinked her eyes and smiled with studied softness, pretending not to recognize what Situ Sheng was holding.

Situ Sheng, of course, knew perfectly well whose possession this had fallen from. The day before, when Chu Linlang had used the Sixth Prince as leverage in that rather dramatic fashion, he had watched with his own eyes as this paper slipped from the woman’s waist.

When the Sixth Prince had questioned that Zhou family Vice Prefect about military supply account matters, this newly appointed Vice Prefect Zhou had been in post barely six months, and yet he knew nothing, as if he hadn’t yet begun to settle into his role.

And yet this Vice Prefect’s family member had such a suggestive ledger tucked inside her robes…

Situ Sheng had not shown the ledger to the Sixth Prince, but had instead arranged for someone to keep watch on the Zhou family gate, and to “happen” to appear across the street from the restaurant where this woman was dining when she went out.

Predictably, the moment the woman spotted him appearing at the rice shop, she came straight downstairs.

Situ Sheng saw no point in beating around the bush, and produced that page, holding it out before Chu Linlang’s eyes: “What Madam was searching for — it should be this, should it not?”

Chu Linlang’s first instinct was to deny it, but he was so certain that it was obviously hers — and to say something foolish about not recognizing it would hardly get her past him.

She was silent for a moment, then raised her head slightly and asked in a small voice: “My Lord — do you know what this is?”

Situ Sheng watched her put on this fragile, delicate act again, and the corner of his mouth curved ever so slightly. He gestured, inviting Chu Linlang into a quiet private tea room nearby that his servant had secured.

Once both were seated and the servant had poured tea, Chu Linlang, in the spirit of fulfilling her duties as a host, took the initiative to pick up bamboo tongs and transfer pieces of fragrant pear into a small dish, mixing a cup of fruit-infused tea for Lord Situ.

Accompanied by the drifting fragrance of pears, Situ Sheng began to speak in a measured tone: “Twelve years ago, at the Battle of the Negative Waters on the border frontier, the great protective general Yang Xun fell in battle. His eldest son was captured by the Jing Kingdom and surrendered to the Jing people. The entire nation was shaken. The Yang family members who remained in the capital were all convicted and sentenced to death. It is said that the general’s military misfortune was actually caused by a problem with the military supplies from Lianzhou. At that time, several officials implicated in the embezzlement were arrested, but the missing funds and supplies vanished without a trace. The paper Madam dropped — what is recorded on it appears to be several entries from those very years.”

Accompanied by his low, clear voice, Chu Linlang’s wide bright eyes and small cherry mouth all slowly opened wider together.

To frighten Zhang Xian into line, the pretense Chu Linlang had fabricated was nothing more than accounts of granary losses from a fire in Lianzhou a year prior.

But those accounts were something she had written at random, the sums not even large — just the petty pilfering and filching of grain officials, bearing no relation whatsoever to whatever great old case of Lianzhou embezzlement that had shaken the dynasty.

This idle official — this Junior Preceptor — was spouting slander, deliberately dragging this paper into a connection with a major case from twelve years ago that had shaken the foundations of the court itself. He was trying to make June snow fall on Lianzhou, fabricating an injustice to bring ruin upon her entire family.

Chu Linlang was not merely sweating through the soles of her feet — her entire back was damp and clammy.

Yet she maintained her smile throughout, and carefully explained: “My Lord, though I am a woman, I can still read an official seal. Have you not noticed that the seal impression on this paper does not quite look right?”

A seal carved from a white radish — how could it withstand scrutiny? Looked at carefully, the real and the fake could certainly be distinguished. How could this Situ Sheng not see through it?

Hearing her say this, Situ Sheng narrowed his phoenix eyes and looked at the paper, as though he could not quite make it out, and only said: “Madam still refuses to admit it — are you trying to shield a traitor who sold out the nation?”

Chu Linlang swallowed a great gulp, and only after managing to force it down did she hear Situ Sheng say with what sounded like approval: “Madam Chu is a woman of many talents — to swallow a paper that large — you have truly opened this one’s eyes.”

Madam Chu’s face was beautiful, and her hands were beautiful as well — slender, elegant fingers… and possessed of considerable strength.

At this thought, tears welled up rapidly in Chu Linlang’s eyes, and she knelt down, choking out her plea: “Lord Situ, you are a man of outstanding distinction come down from the capital — why trouble yourself to make things difficult for a woman like me? If I have truly committed some wrongdoing, please name your price — though this humble servant does not come from wealth, I will do my utmost to gather something as a token of respect for My Lord.”

Back then, his young master had been young, living in hiding in the river port town of Jiangkou, and had once had a clash with a certain little salt-seller’s girl. If she recognized him now, it would likely invite a great deal of unnecessary trouble.

So she forced down the lump in her throat, steadied herself, and said firmly: “It was My Lord who frightened me first. This thing is nothing but a piece of idle nonsense I made up to amuse myself — My Lord insists on connecting it to a great case at court, but I would ask you to produce evidence. My husband has only just taken his post here six months ago — he has no connection whatsoever to these old cases from years past in this prefecture.”

Situ Sheng glanced at Guanqi, and asked in a mild tone: “If you were her — would you recognize me?”

She had fabricated a set of accounts, but had not used them to commit crimes or frame others — apart from Zhang Xian, anyone else would regard it as the harmless nonsense of an ignorant woman. Even if he was the Sixth Prince’s Junior Preceptor, he could not fabricate charges against a local official without cause.

At that critical moment when she was in the middle of her pointing, Chu Linlang suddenly reached out her hand, grabbed the paper from Lord Situ’s hand, then briskly crumpled it up and crammed it forcefully into her mouth, chewing and swallowing with great effort…

As she said this, she extended her slender fingers and pointed at the seal impression: “Look — a genuine official seal has an auspicious swallow pattern, but here the swallow is as round and fat as a hen. It must be a fake…”

His large, threatening words and this haphazard dragging of things together amounted, she was now certain, to nothing more than a capital official coming down to shake them down for money. If that was all it was — that was manageable. It would simply cost her the contents of her purse.

Situ Sheng’s long fingers tapped slowly on the table surface, and he stared at Chu Linlang’s expression — now soft, now hard, with tearful eyes — then suddenly asked: “Judging from Madam’s accent, you are from the river town of Jiangkou in the water country, are you not?”

If she hadn’t been driven to desperation, Chu Linlang would never have acted so recklessly. In any case, he had already seen that the accounts were fake — what could he do to her even if she swallowed it?

If this Situ scoundrel was determined to grasp at straws and link this piece of idle nonsense to a major case at court, what recourse did she — a trifling Vice Prefect’s wife — have?

But unfortunately, what emerged from those fine-looking thin lips were the words of a death sentence: “You’ve already swallowed it — who’s to say now whether it was real or fake? If I tell the Sixth Prince you deliberately destroyed evidence, how would you defend yourself?”

From start to finish, Situ Sheng had not moved to stop her — only his thick brows had arched slightly upward, as he watched Chu Linlang without moving.

Situ Sheng looked at the slight anxiety and unease in her eyes and found nothing else there — she appeared to have no reaction at all to his earlier question about Jiangkou.

Situ Sheng smiled. He was genuinely handsome, and when that smile broke across his features, it carried a startling beauty like flowers suddenly blooming by the roadside.

Only when Chu Linlang found she could not swallow it and was nearly choking, clutching at her own throat, did he finally reach out, pick up a piece of pear with the tongs, and — imitating exactly what Chu Linlang had done moments ago — mix a cup of fruit-infused tea with great care, and considerately hand it to the Vice Prefect’s wife who was nearly unable to breathe.

Chu Linlang started. She recalled that this lord seemed to have asked her this very question the day before as well. She nodded: “Has My Lord been there?”

He finally rose to his feet and said coldly: “If Madam has committed no wrongdoing, why this fear and panic? This matter of official proceedings — I shall keep it noted. I would ask Madam to be more careful in word and deed from now on.”

Guanqi was stumped for a moment. His young master in his youth had suffered a serious illness, and his circumstances had been dire — he had carried the look of a sickly, gaunt, and frail young man, utterly unlike the tall and striking figure he cut now. Even if someone pointed it out, it would be hard to connect the two images. No wonder that rough girl hadn’t recognized the young master.

At this moment Chu Linlang had no heart for idle pleasantries with him — she was urgently intent on clearing her husband of suspicion.

As for Guanqi — since he had never shown his face before that girl at all, he had nothing to fear from her recognizing him.

Situ Sheng was casting such a wildly tenuous connection — clearly hoping to feed well off this. If so, that was manageable, and would only cost her some money from her own private reserves.

Situ Sheng held the paper with downcast eyes and let Chu Linlang’s slender fingers trace back and forth across it as she made her case.

Situ Sheng said slowly: “I have never been there — but I do know a few people from Jiangkou.”

At that moment, Situ Sheng said gradually: “Just now I pushed her into a corner of desperation, and then steered the conversation toward Jiangkou. Given her nature — if she had recognized me, she would certainly have tried to invoke old acquaintance, and on top of that would have issued verbal threats. She would never have settled for cutting off a piece of flesh and bribing me.”

Chu Linlang said helplessly: “My Lord does not believe me? Please allow this humble servant to show you.”

With that, he rose, and together with his servant, strode in great steps out of the tea room.

For some reason, she found that when this man asked questions, his gaze was far sharper and more penetrating than before — as though whether or not she was from the river country of Jiangkou mattered far more to him than whether those accounts were real or fake.

She tried again: “This servant still has some private savings — I wonder where Lord Situ is staying? I could have a servant boy deliver it to My Lord shortly — would that be acceptable?”

When Situ Sheng stepped out of the tea house and boarded his carriage, his servant Guanqi said with some hesitation: “Young Master — she… it seems she did not recognize you. But for absolute certainty — should we… eliminate the concern at its root?”

Fearing he might not believe her, Chu Linlang reached into her robe and pulled out a packet of silver: “My Lord, please accept this first, and this servant will slowly gather the rest…”

These officials sent from the capital on assignments — not one of them failed to seize the chance to skim money from local people. Chu Linlang dared not be stingy, and planned to sacrifice her finances to ward off disaster — she only hoped this Situ scoundrel wouldn’t be too greedy, otherwise she couldn’t produce what he asked for, and that would be disastrous.

—