Chapter 5

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Chapter 5

He suddenly put on a gentle expression and came over to take Cui’er’s hand.

“Cui’er, you’ve suffered these past few days. Censor Feng is willing to recommend me for a post in Jiangnan. Once I take office, I’ll make sure you have servants to attend to you.”

Cui’er’s eyes lit up, but wariness soon replaced the hope.

“Is that true?”

“Of course. It’s just that Censor Feng is hosting a banquet on a pleasure boat outside the city tonight, and he specifically asked me to bring my family. Dress up a little and come toast him with me.”

Cui’er had heard all the ugly stories about Censor Feng. Her fingers slowly tightened.

She had barely opened her mouth when Xiao Chengli turned away to light the fire, as though the matter were already settled.

Xiao Chengli took a packet of paper from inside his robe. With his back to Cui’er, he sprinkled powder into the hot tea.

He carried the cup back, wearing a smile more intimate than usual.

“Come now. It’s cold outside. Drink some hot tea and warm yourself first.”

Cui’er did not reach for it. She only stared at the pale steam rising from the cup.

Xiao Chengli moved the tea an inch closer.

“For our good days ahead—and for the child—could you put up with a little discomfort tonight?”

Xiao Chengli’s air of superiority, as though everything were his by right, suddenly reminded her of the silver bangle that had been pawned.

She understood what he meant for her to endure—and what he expected her to pay.

These details were later recorded in Cui’er’s testimony at the Shuntian Prefecture yamen.

Censor Feng had stared at her swelling belly and hinted that his attendants would clear everyone else off the pleasure boat. Yet Xiao Chengli called it nothing more than a cup of wine and a social engagement, as if a wife’s or concubine’s body could simply be traded for an official post.

When he put the powder in her tea, he had not spared a thought for the child in her belly.

8

Cui’er had spent years in brothels. She knew the smell of an aphrodisiac and an intoxicant all too well.

One sniff was enough for her to detect the faint bitterness in the tea.

A few days earlier, she had discovered that the silver bangle left by her mother was missing.

Xiao Chengli said he had put it away to prevent theft, but it had long since been exchanged for drinking money.

Now she understood: the bangle had become liquor money, and the powder had gone into the hot tea. This man had sold her last keepsake, and now he meant to sell both her and the child.

She lifted the teacup and suddenly smiled at him.

Xiao Chengli thought she had finally agreed. A flash of delight crossed his eyes.

But she flung the tea straight into his face.

“Ah!”

Xiao Chengli clutched his face and howled. He staggered into the corner of the table, knocking it over.

Cui’er snatched up a shard of broken porcelain from the floor and held it against her own neck.

“Xiao Chengli, do you really think I’m so easy to fool? I heard all about what kind of filth Censor Feng is, back when I was still in the brothel!”

She backed toward the door, her gaze colder than the shard in her hand.

“You used to live off your wife. Now that you’ve lost the Shen family, you want to trade the child in my belly for an official’s cap. You’re worse than an animal!”

Cui’er suddenly straightened, gripping the shard tightly.

Xiao Chengli ignored the burn on his face and raised his hand to strike her.

“You wretch! I gave you food to eat. So what if I asked you to do one little thing for me? You think you’re some virtuous chaste woman?”

Cui’er dodged as he lunged at her.

The shard cut across his arm.

Blood welled up. Xiao Chengli cried out in pain and stumbled backward.

While he clutched his wound, Cui’er snatched the last banknote from the table and dashed into the rain.

At daybreak, she did not flee the capital. She knelt before the Shuntian Prefecture court.

In the yamen, Cui’er wept as she accused Xiao Chengli of forcing a respectable woman into prostitution and trying to deliver his pregnant concubine to a superior for his pleasure.

She handed over the tea residue containing the drug and gave a detailed account of the planned meeting on the pleasure boat.

The constables set out for the north of the city at once.

When they dragged Xiao Chengli out of the ramshackle house, his arm was still wrapped in a bloodstained cloth.

Qinghe and I sat in a teahouse across the street and watched the farce unfold from beginning to end.

“Mother was right. We didn’t need to lift a finger. Sooner or later, he would shut off every path for himself.”

Qinghe no longer looked at the prisoner being taken away.

She placed the list she had prepared beside my hand.

“Everything at the girls’ academy has been arranged. The Grand Princess plans to hold the opening ceremony in three days, and His Majesty will send a palace eunuch to deliver the imperial decree.”

I flipped through the list. Every item had an assigned person, figures, and a deadline.

“Neat and decisive work.”

Sunlight streamed through the window. Qinghe’s face remained calm.

I returned the ledger and gave her one last reminder.

“Qinghe, remember: crushing a worm is no great skill. Rising so high that those worms can never reach you again—that is victory.”

Cui’er’s accusation meant that Xiao Chengli was escorted through crowded streets as a criminal for the first time.

She abandoned her old path of begging the Shen family for help, and refused to use the child to bind that man to her. She relied only on the drugged tea, her injuries, and the planned meeting aboard the pleasure boat to tell the truth. After hearing it, Qinghe merely checked the girls’ academy’s progress. Xiao Chengli’s miserable life no longer concerned her.

9

The magistrate’s block slammed down in the Shuntian Prefecture court, and Xiao Chengli was forced to his knees.

Though his attempt to force someone into prostitution had not been carried out, the prefect sentenced him to thirty strokes of the rod.

Without the Shen family backing him, the once-arrogant marquis was reduced to a heap of limp flesh after the beating and thrown out of the yamen gate.