Chapter 6

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Chapter 6

Cui’er reclaimed her indenture papers and left without looking back.

Later, I heard she went straight to Jiangnan, where she kept accounts for a respectable family and finally found peace.

By the time Xiao Chengli had recovered from his injuries, the girls’ academy’s opening ceremony had arrived.

Qinghe wore a deep-red ceremonial robe and stood at the entrance to welcome guests from the various households.

The court had made a special exception to allow her to wear this official robe; she had also formally been appointed to oversee the girls’ academy.

Nearly every prominent family in the capital had come.

Qinghe arranged the guests and checked the student roster at the same time, composed from beginning to end.

Watching her bustle about from a short distance away, I was more certain than ever that this was where she belonged.

Halfway through the ceremony, she came to my side and lowered her voice.

“Mother, a few rats have slipped into the rear courtyard.”

I immediately grew alert.

“What happened?”

“When I checked the list of staff in charge of refreshments, I found that the tea servant had been replaced by a stranger. He moved clumsily, and there was a smell of medicine on him that shouldn’t have been here.”

She did not make a scene. She merely ordered the steward to take the man to a side room.

“He looked terrified right away. When they searched him, they found a packet of potent aphrodisiac hidden inside his robe.”

Before the steward even had to resort to force, the tea servant confessed everything.

“He said someone paid him fifty taels to put the drug in your tea. When the guests were at their most distracted, he was to bring the mad beggar from beneath the bridge south of the city into the room where you were resting.”

I tightened my grip on my cane.

“Who ordered him to do it?”

Qinghe answered with only three words.

“Xiao Chengli.”

Unable to bear seeing Qinghe rise above him, he wanted to drag her back into a mire of scandal.

“Even at this point, instead of thinking how to survive, he is still intent on ruining a woman’s reputation.”

I was so disgusted I no longer wanted to say his name.

“Just seeing him once more would foul my eyes.”

The packet of drugs, the banknotes, the tea servant, and the beggar were all being held in secret by the Jinwu Guards.

With a single order, Xiao Chengli could be taken to the authorities.

“How do you want to handle it? Report him now, or beat him and throw him out?”

Qinghe looked toward the rear courtyard, entirely unruffled.

After discovering the smell of the drug, she had sealed off the tea room and separately questioned the servant and the attendant responsible for bringing people inside. That was how she kept the commotion from reaching the front hall.

The mad beggar had not appeared by chance, either. Xiao Chengli had lured him there beforehand with food and wine, waiting only for a signal to enter the courtyard. There was evidence for every link in the chain, so Qinghe could choose when to close the net.

10

“He loves putting on a show and has gone to the trouble of building a stage. I should let him finish his performance.”

Qinghe sealed the packet of drugs and handed it to an official from the Dali Temple who was waiting out of sight.

“Only the ending of this play must change. If we report him now, he can deny everything and claim that the Shen family abused its power to frame him.”

She checked each statement from the tea servant and the beggar.

“I want him to lay out the evidence of his own crime with his own hands, in front of everyone.”

At last, she had completely cast off the timidity the Xiao family had pressed upon her for so many years.

I did not correct a single word. I simply placed the Jinwu Guards’ command token back in her hand.

“Go ahead boldly. If the sky falls, your mother will hold it up for you.”

The imperial decree was still being read in the front hall. None of the guests knew witnesses had already been placed in the rear courtyard.

Half an hour later, a commotion erupted at the side gate of the front courtyard.

A crowd of old scholars who opposed educating women had gathered at the entrance. Xiao Chengli was hiding among them.

The elderly scholar at their head pounded the doorframe and shouted:

“What has become of the dignity of scholars? It is utterly lost!”

Xiao Chengli stepped forward at once, putting on an expression of grief and indignation.

“With my own eyes, I saw a ragged man sneak into Miss Shen’s room! The academy claims to educate women, yet it harbors filth behind closed doors! If this isn’t investigated today, then this academy is committing treason!”

The students he had riled up began shouting too, pressing everyone to go to the rear courtyard.

Xiao Chengli pointed and shouted louder than all the rest:

“Catch them in the act!”

The guards in the front courtyard had meant to stop them, but on Qinghe’s orders, they deliberately stepped aside.

Thinking they had the upper hand, the crowd pushed the guards away and rushed toward the row of rooms on the east side.

The Grand Princess was speaking with a palace eunuch when she heard the commotion. Her expression darkened.

“Who is making such a disturbance outside?”

I bowed to her and answered calmly.

“It sounds as though they are targeting the Shen family. Since someone dares to cause trouble at the girls’ academy’s opening ceremony, I ask Your Highness and the others to come with me and see what sort of people they are.”

The guests exchanged glances, then followed the Grand Princess through the moon gate.

Xiao Chengli ran at the front. He failed to notice that officials from the Dali Temple and members of the Jinwu Guards had joined the group behind him.

He thought only that today he could drag Qinghe through the mud in front of every powerful family in the capital.

Qinghe was already waiting at the row of rooms on the east side, letting him open the door himself.

Only when Xiao Chengli personally led the way and kicked in the door would everyone see that he already knew which room supposedly hid the adulterer.

Qinghe had deliberately let him come to the east wing, merely telling the guards to clear a path. From riling up the students to charging straight here, every step had been his own choice.

11

Outside the room on the east side of the rear courtyard, Xiao Chengli led the crowd in pounding on the door.

As soon as the doorkeeper stepped back, he charged up the steps.

“Shen Qinghe, you shameless, vicious woman! Get out here!”

The students who had followed him grew more and more excited, hoping there really was something sordid behind the door.