Chapter 3

“Every tael you borrowed was secured against a human life.”

I rose.

He suddenly seized the bars, his voice urgent.

“Qingwu, I was wrong. I lost my head for a moment. Give me a chance. I'll break with Xie Roujia completely and return your entire dowry. Seven years of marriage—can you really be so heartless?”

I turned to look at him.

“When you held Xie Roujia in your drunken arms and called me a vase fit only for display, did you think of our seven years of marriage?”

His eyes shifted away.

“It was only drunken talk.”

“Drink only makes people say what they most want to say.”

I gave him no chance to answer. I turned and left the prison.

Hurried footsteps and rattling chains followed me.

“Ruan Qingwu! Come back!”

I did not turn.

As the prison door was locked, I heard him lose control and smash things inside.

The noise was loud. But from now on, those blows could no longer fall on me.

8.

Lu Wenjing signed the divorce agreement sooner than I expected.

Qin Chongshan sent word that the Court of Judicial Review had obtained Xie Cheng'an's accounts, and the palace had dispatched an imperial commissioner to inspect the Yong'an embankments. If he continued delaying the divorce, my promissory notes, private letters, and evidence of concealed assets would all be presented at the joint hearing.

He was frightened.

When the agreement arrived at the Lu residence, the ink was not quite dry.

I had it posted in the most conspicuous place in the main hall, then summoned every servant in the household.

“From today, Lu Wenjing and I have no connection.”

Those who wished to remain in service at the Ruan residence would receive their current wages plus a fifth. Those who wished to leave with the Lu family would receive three months' pay. The storerooms and accounts would be checked within three days. Anyone who had taken something they should not have could return it now, and I would not pursue the matter.

After a silence, Lu Cheng was the first to kneel.

“I wish to stay.”

The cook followed, then the gardener and the young gatekeeper. For years, the Lu family had delayed paying wages. They had all weighed things up for themselves. They knew whom to follow.

Old Madam Lu stood beneath the veranda, livid.

“Very well! You mean to drive every last one of us to ruin!”

I looked at her.

“You may stay in the west courtyard until the end of the month and take the furnishings there. I won't keep a single Lu family heirloom. Anything bought with my money stays.”

“And Mingzhu's dowry?”

“Value the sixty-four loads she took in silver, down to the last fraction, and send the reckoning to the earl's residence.”

Old Madam Lu nearly fainted.

She loved Mingzhu most, and knew better than anyone the state of the Earl of Yongchang's household. The earl was addicted to gambling. His entire household depended on Mingzhu's dowry. If that money was reclaimed, they would be the first to throw her out.

I had no intention of driving anyone to their death.

I was only taking back what belonged to me.

That afternoon, Xie Roujia came.

Gone were her alluring clothes. She wore a plain light-gray skirt and looked unwell. A Ling barred her entry, but she knelt outside, insisting she had something she must tell me.

I let her into the side hall.

The moment she saw me, she bowed her forehead to the floor.

“I haven't come to beg your forgiveness.”

“And I won't forgive you.”

She nodded. Her eyes reddened, but she did not cry.

“I know. I've come to tell you one last thing. The Qins have a separate residence outside the city. A register is hidden there, listing the people from whom they took money and for whom they did favors on the Crown Prince's behalf.”

I held my teacup. I did not immediately believe her.

She bit her lip.

“When my brother gave me to Lu Wenjing, I hated him. I thought Lu Wenjing was different. That he would save me from the Xie family.

“Only later did I understand they were no different. My brother sold me openly. Lu Wenjing did it in secret.”

Her hand rested on her flat belly.

“The child is gone. I found a physician to prescribe the medicine myself. The night Lu Wenjing said he would send it, I knew I could not keep this child, and should not. I didn't want to bear a child only for them to use it as a pawn.”

She raised her head. For the first time, there was firmness in her eyes.

“Madam, I'll testify and lead you to the residence. But I have one request. My father died early. Half the Xie family's shops should have been mine. I don't ask you to save the Xie family. I only want the two silk shops Mother left me, so I can leave Shangjing.”

It was a practical request.

I did not pity her, nor did I consider her evil by nature. She had done wrong. Her responsibilities were clearly recorded in her testimony. If she chose to take the right path afterward, I need not close off every escape.

“After you testify, you must still face whatever punishment the law requires. If those shops truly belonged to your mother's dowry, I'll ask someone to investigate for you.”

She bowed deeply.

“Thank you.”

I watched her leave.

Some women fought over men. Others fought for a way to live.

At last, Xie Roujia had learned the difference.

9.

The findings from the Yong'an embankment inspection reached the capital three days later.

Three newly built sections looked sound and orderly from outside. Inside, they were packed with rubble and sand. The imperial commissioner immediately halted the work. Two officials in charge were escorted back to the capital under arrest. Fortunately, the discovery came before flood season. No commoner had yet died because of it.

But precisely because no one had died, Qin Chongshan tried to reduce the charge to inadequate supervision.

At court, he spoke with pained sincerity of having been deceived. Lu Wenjing was young and inexperienced, Xie Cheng'an blinded by greed. He offered to forfeit his salary as a mark of contrition.

When the news reached us, A Ling was so angry she smashed a teacup.

“Deceived! If he gets away with that, Lu Wenjing will be exiled at worst, while Qin Chongshan stays at court.”

I looked at the pomegranate blossoms newly opened outside.

“To escape, he'll need someone to die in his place.”

“Lu Wenjing?”

“Yes.”

Qin Chongshan would not save a pawn who knew too many secrets.

Nor would Lu Wenjing willingly take all the blame. People were most likely to reveal their final card when they had no way out.

I had A Ling deliver a letter containing a single sentence: Vice Minister Qin has placed all blame for the flood-control works on you. The Ministry of Justice will hold a joint hearing tomorrow afternoon.

I also asked Pei Zhaoye to have someone deliberately spread word that Qin Chongshan was preparing to send Lu Wenjing's mother and sister out of the capital to weather the storm.

Sure enough, Lu Wenjing panicked.

On the day of the hearing, the Ministry of Justice's courtroom was packed.

When he was brought in, he had grown noticeably thinner, his eyes bloodshot. He saw me first. Malice flickered in his gaze. Then he looked toward Qin Chongshan in the observers' seats.

Qin did not look at him.

Asked who had approved the flood-control documents, Lu Wenjing initially gritted his teeth and admitted negligence. Asked about Xie Cheng'an's gifts, he called them a private loan. Then the presiding official produced a letter from the Qin household's steward.

It contained only one sentence: Secretary Lu may accept the blame without concern; His Lordship will see to his mother and sister.

It looked like reassurance. It was a threat.

Lu Wenjing's face twisted.

“He lied to me!”

He jerked his head up and pointed at Qin.

“He told me to approach Xie Cheng'an! He told me to use Lady Ruan's dowry to cover the accounts! He said once the flood-control funds were disbursed, every shortfall could be made good!”

An uproar filled the hall.

At last, Qin Chongshan's expression changed.

“Absurd!” he thundered. “Lu Wenjing, you've committed grave crimes, and now you dare falsely accuse your superior!”

“I have proof!” Lu Wenjing's voice was hoarse. “His handwritten authorization! And the register at the separate residence!”

Pei Zhaoye spoke at once.

“Your Lordship, the witness Xie Roujia can confirm that a register is concealed in the Qin family's separate residence.”

She was brought forward, calm and composed. She described its location, the mechanism of the hidden chamber, and the register's cover, without missing a detail.

Cold sweat broke out on Qin Chongshan's forehead.

He had never imagined that a merchant's daughter he regarded as a plaything would dare step forward.

Still less had he expected Lu Wenjing to turn on him in open court.

Lu Wenjing spoke not out of righteousness, but because he did not want to die.

Sitting among the observers, I suddenly found the whole performance ridiculous.

One man usually spoke of nothing but country and duty; the other, of devotion. With death at hand, they tore at one another more viciously than anyone.

That night, the Court of Judicial Review sealed the Qin residence. The register and authorization were found, just as promised.

Qin Chongshan was imprisoned. The emperor reprimanded the Crown Prince, and more than ten officials in his household office were implicated. The political skies over Shangjing changed quickly.

Lu Wenjing had tried to climb by clinging to power. In the end, that same rope tightened around his neck.

10.

After Qin Chongshan's fall, Lu Wenjing began sending letter after letter to the Ruan residence.

Some said he knew he had been wrong and begged to see me just once. Others recalled our wedding year, when I had said in the bridal chamber, “My heart is no stone; it cannot be turned.” One very long letter offered his life in repayment if I would only speak a word for him in court.

A Ling brought each one for me to read. Then she asked, “Shall I burn it, my lady?”

“Keep it.”

“What for?”

“When the case is over, we'll take them to the Lu ancestral hall with his promissory notes.”

I kept those letters so the members of the Lu family still indulging in daydreams could see exactly what their cherished son owed.

Before the Ministry of Justice passed sentence, Old Madam Lu came once more.

This time, she came alone. She neither wept nor made a scene. Her hair at the temples was white, her steps unsteady.

I received her in the garden hall.

She sat for a long time without speaking. At last, she drew a small cloth bundle from inside her robe.

Inside lay the pair of reddish-jade bracelets I had brought with me when I married.

“On your wedding day, Wenjing took these to pay for my medicine,” she said quietly. “I've kept them all this time, intending to return them to you later.”

I did not reach for them.

“What do you want to say?”

Her tears fell.

“I know I treated you badly. But however wrong Wenjing has been, he's the Lu family's only male heir. Could you… ask Deputy Chief Justice Pei to spare his life?”

I looked at the bracelets.

For seven years, she had feigned illness to demand ginseng, claimed the household was struggling, and used filial duty to pressure me.

She remembered it all.

She had always known what I gave.

She simply believed I owed it.

“His life is not in my hands,” I said. “It is in the hands of the law, and the people who nearly died because of that shoddy embankment.”

“But if you would forgive him—”

“Whether I forgive him changes none of his crimes.” I cut her off. “You've come to the wrong place. Ask your son whether he thought of this day when he took the silver, approved the documents, wanted the child aborted, and pushed Xie Cheng'an forward to take the blame.”

She covered her face and wept.

I had her shown out. I did not accept the bracelets.

She owed them to me. I did not want them.

Half a month later, the sentences came.

For offenses including supplying inferior materials, bribery, and destroying evidence, Xie Cheng'an was exiled three thousand li. All Xie family property was confiscated. Qin Chongshan was stripped of office and rank for embezzling flood-control funds and forming a political faction, and taken to the imperial prison to await trial. For appropriating his wife's property, accepting bribes, and falsifying the flood-control accounts, Lu Wenjing was sentenced to exile in Lingnan, permanently barred from office.

A Ling let out a long breath.

“Too easy on him.”

“Living is not necessarily easy,” I said.

What Lu Wenjing prized most was his reputation, his office, and the admiration in other people's eyes. He would carry that disgrace for the rest of his life. At every relay station on the road, someone would know him as the man who used his wife's dowry to keep a mistress and took silver from embankments at the cost of people's lives.

That suited him better than a quick death by the blade.

11.

On the day Lu Wenjing was escorted out of the capital, heavy rain fell.

At first, I did not intend to go. But Pei Zhaoye said he had made several scenes in prison, insisting on seeing me. He had something to return.

So I went with an umbrella.

Mud covered the ground outside the city gate. The escort was drawn up in order. In coarse prison clothes, his ankles in irons, Lu Wenjing bore no trace of his former vigor.

His eyes brightened a little when he saw me.

“Qingwu.”

I stopped three paces away.

“Whatever it is, say it quickly.”

He drew a small, tightly folded silk handkerchief from his robe.

The escort examined it before passing it to me.

Inside was an old, faded wooden fish.