Someone Is Waiting for Me at Home — Chapter 2

4.

The Minglun Hall was packed with people.

Xie Yan stood in the middle of the hall. His face was pale, but he was not crying. When he saw me, his eyes brightened at once, then he lowered them again, as if afraid he would drag me into trouble.

I stepped up and first straightened his crooked collar.

“Have you eaten lunch?”

He shook his head.

I took an osmanthus cake from my purse and put it in his hand. Only then did I look up at Prince Xiao Jingheng, seated on the dais.

“Your Highness, you've kept a child who hasn't eaten in this hall for half a day. Are you investigating a case, or trying to make him too hungry to think?”

Xiao Jingheng's face cooled. “Madam Xie, choose your words carefully. The evidence that Xie Yan plagiarized is conclusive.”

Liu Ting'an immediately presented two essays and pointed to one of them. “This is my Treatise on the People's Livelihood. I wrote it three days ago. Xie Yan changed only a few words. He even wrote the two characters for ‘granaries and storehouses’ incorrectly.”

I took the two pages, but did not hurry to read their contents. I examined the handwriting first.

One was hurried, with short horizontal strokes and a habit of lengthening the final stroke of the character for “people.” The other was steadier, its strokes pausing and turning with care, the ink clearly applied at different times.

Xie Yan usually used pine-soot ink that I had mixed myself. Whenever he wrote, there was a faint scent of plum blossoms.

The page Liu Ting'an had written smelled of agarwood.

I asked Xie Yan, “When did you write your essay?”

“Before the third watch last night. Mother says staying up late is bad for one's health, so A Yan went to bed as soon as he finished.”

“Do you still have the first draft?”

His pageboy immediately brought over a pile of discarded sheets.

Liu Ting'an's expression flickered.

I spread the pages out. The revisions were clear, one after another. Even where Xie Yan had written the two characters for “labor tax” incorrectly and crossed them out, the mistake remained.

The errors in the final version had plainly been corrected step by step from these drafts.

“Master Liu says he wrote this essay three days ago.” I raised my eyes to him. “Then please bring out your drafts. If you really did write it then, the ink, corrections, and word choices should all be verifiable.”

He stammered, “The drafts… I burned them by accident.”

“How convenient.”

Xiao Jingheng struck the table. “What can a pile of discarded paper prove?”

I smiled slightly and handed Liu Ting'an a clean sheet.

“Then let's make this simple. Write another essay here and now. The topic is ‘Relieving a Spring Drought.’ Since you can write an essay like this, half a shichen should be plenty.”

Sweat beaded on Liu Ting'an's forehead.

I handed Xie Yan a sheet of paper too.

“A Yan, you write as well.”

Xie Yan looked at me. I nodded.

“Finish the part you hadn't completed last night. Don't be afraid. Write what you know.”

The hall fell silent except for the scratch of brush tips on paper.

Half a shichen later, Xie Yan submitted a complete policy essay.

Liu Ting'an's page held only a few empty phrases about “showing compassion for the people.”

The teacher took Xie Yan's essay. The more he read, the more solemn his expression became.

Xie Yan's writing was not ornate. He began by calculating how much grain remained in the granaries, then laid out the roads in each county, and finally proposed providing relief through public works.

The earnest, practical concern for the people in his words was remarkable for a seven-year-old.

Xiao Jingheng ground his teeth. “Perhaps you taught him in advance.”

I was about to refute him when Xie Yan stepped forward.

His small hand clenched the edge of his robe. His voice trembled a little, but every word was clear.

“Your Highness, yesterday afternoon Liu Ting'an asked for A Yan's draft in the corridor. He said he wanted to take it back to the residence for me. A Yan didn't give it to him, so he slammed into me.”

Liu Ting'an whipped around to stare at him.

Xie Yan edged half a step closer to me and continued, “A Yan didn't dare say anything before. Mother taught me that if someone forces me to take the blame for him, I should remember his face and tell someone who needs to know.”

I gently rubbed his back.

At that moment, a sheet of paper slipped from Liu Ting'an's sleeve.

It was the missing page from Xie Yan's draft.

A drop of agarwood oil still marked one corner.

The whole hall erupted.

Xiao Jingheng's face turned from green to white.

The college's libationer immediately ordered Liu Ting'an taken into custody and asked the Third Prince to apologize to Xie Yan.

Xiao Jingheng refused.

I looked at him. “Your Highness needn't apologize if you don't wish to. I'll go straight to the palace and ask His Majesty whether a prince who tolerates his page stealing an essay and framing a fellow student has brought disgrace upon the imperial family.”

In the end, he clenched his teeth and forced out, “I was mistaken.”

I did not accept his perfunctory apology on Xie Yan's behalf.

“Your Highness should apologize to him.”

Xiao Jingheng glared at me. At last, he turned to Xie Yan.

“I'm sorry.”

Xie Yan pressed his lips together and saluted seriously.

“A Yan accepts your apology.”

When we left the college, the sunlight was beautiful.

Xie Yan suddenly took my hand. “Mother, did I embarrass you just now?”

I put the last osmanthus cake into his mouth.

“You stood up for yourself. What's embarrassing about that? You were very impressive today.”

He lowered his head and smiled, his ears red as two little maple leaves.

5.

The incident at the college did not end there.

That night, Xie Huaichuan brought back news: someone had ordered Liu Ting'an to steal the draft. The person behind it had left no name, only a silver button engraved with a crabapple blossom.

It was the same design Liu Yanjing often wore on her cloak.

I was combing Xie Yan's hair. Hearing this, I said calmly, “She has more nerve than I thought.”

Xie Huaichuan stood behind me in the mirror. His voice turned low. “I'll deal with it.”

“How do you intend to deal with it, my lord?”

“I'll send her back to the Liu family. She won't be allowed to set foot in this residence again.”

It was not a light punishment, but I still shook my head. “If all she wanted was to marry into the Xie family, why would she gamble with the Third Prince's future and a child's? There is someone else behind her.”

Xie Huaichuan's gaze darkened.

I took an old bronze token from the bottom drawer of my dressing case. It bore a carved branch of gardenias just beginning to bloom, and its rim had been worn smooth.

“This is something my mother left me. Before she died, she said that if I ever entered the Xie family, I must give it to Xie Huaichuan.”

He took the token. For the first time, his expression changed.

He turned it over. On the back, a tiny character, “Cao,” was engraved.

“This is a grain-shipment inspection token from the Transport Office, from eighteen years ago,” he said.

Eighteen years ago, Xie Huaichuan's father had been Transport Commissioner. He later died in a shipwreck. The authorities said a storm had destroyed the vessel, and the Xie family fell into decline because of it. As a youth, Xie Huaichuan had come to the capital alone and risen through the imperial examinations to become Grand Secretary. He had never spoken of his father.

Why had my mother possessed an inspection token belonging to his father?

Xie Huaichuan tightened his grip on the bronze token. His voice was very low.

“Before my father died, he wrote to a female bookkeeper surnamed Wen. He said she had discovered fraud in the grain-shipment accounts and told her to take the evidence and flee.”

“The bookkeeper disappeared afterward.”

My heart sank.

My mother had known how to read and was skilled with accounts. Yet my stepmother had always said she was nothing more than a seamstress.

“She wasn't sick when she died,” I said.

Xie Huaichuan looked at me. He did not offer empty consolation. He said only one word:

“Investigate.”

The next day, Liu Yanjing came to see me voluntarily.

She wore simple clothes. Her eyes were red, and she knelt as soon as she entered.

“Cousin-in-law, I truly didn't steal the draft. Someone forced me.”

I asked a servant to bring her a chair, then sat down myself. “Then tell me who.”

She bit her lip as though she had suffered endless injustice. “I can't. That person will harm my aunt.”

“Liu Yanjing, when your aunt sold me to the Xie household, she wasn't worried I would suffer.”

Her expression stiffened.

I set the silver button on the table. “If you were truly forced, then bring me evidence. If you only hope to trade a few tears for me to take a risk in your place, the door is right there.”

She suddenly lifted her head, a trace of venom showing in her eyes. “Do you think Xie Huaichuan will really protect you? My aunt said your mother trusted a man too much once. In the end, no one even collected her bones.”

The lid of my teacup struck its rim with a crisp chime.

“You know what happened to my mother.”

She realized she had said too much and rose to leave.

I caught her wrist. I did not use much force, but enough to keep her from moving.

“Tell me everything.”

Liu Yanjing panicked and cried that I was wronging her. The maids outside heard the commotion and rushed in. I released her and calmly straightened my sleeve.

“Take Miss Liu to the guest courtyard. No one is to see her without my permission.”

She cried shrilly, “By what right are you imprisoning me?”

“By the right of someone who was threatened with her dead mother's story. You'd better hope the investigation doesn't uncover your involvement.”

6.

Investigating a case was never as simple as summoning someone and asking a few questions.

Xie Huaichuan went to retrieve the old Transport Office records, while Xie Yan helped me with a small task: drawing.

His memory was excellent. I told him everything about the token, the stitching on my mother's old clothes, and what Liu Yanjing had said. He drew it all, stroke by stroke.

When he made a mistake, he did not tear the page in frustration. He circled the error and started again on another sheet.

At first, I only wanted him to draw what he remembered so all those scattered clues would stop tangling together in my mind.

Unexpectedly, he turned the bronze token over and over for half a day, then asked his pageboy to find the old records of an outing. In the end, he produced a crooked drawing of a garden.

“Mother, here.”

He pointed to the corner of the picture with his little finger.

“I remember there were three stones there. Liu Ting'an said they were the eyes of a river-guardian beast and wouldn't let me touch them.”

One day, he drew a flat landing by the water from memory, then added three small black dots beside it.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“It's the old garden of the Qian family. Grandmother took me there once. There were three black stones in the garden, just like the back of this token.”

The Qian family were maternal relatives of the Empress.

The abandoned garden had stood beside a canal. It had once served as the Qian family's grain storehouse.

Xie Huaichuan returned and fell silent for a long while after hearing our findings. Then he said we could not casually search the place. The Qians were deeply rooted in court. Without hard evidence, we might alert them.

“Then we'll make them bring the evidence to us,” I said.

Xie Huaichuan raised his eyes. “How?”

I opened A Yan's Survival Guide to the last page.

It had once said, “How to make a stepson both respect and fear you.” I had crossed that out and changed it to, “What are old foxes most afraid of?”

“They're most afraid a hunter has already spotted their tail.”

The next day, under the pretext of hosting a spring banquet for the Xie residence, I sent invitations to several long-standing families in the capital, especially the Qian family matriarch.

I added one line on the invitation: “Madam Wen has come across an old shipment-inspection token and hopes the elders can identify its origins.”

The Qian matriarch came, just as I expected.

She was nearly sixty, her hair arranged without a single strand out of place. When she smiled, she looked like a merciful bodhisattva.

The moment she saw the bronze token, a flicker passed through her eyes before she smiled again. “That looks like something from years ago. Where did Madam Xie get it?”

I lifted my teacup. “My mother left it to me.”

Her smile deepened. “Wen nương tử? I remember her. She once worked for the Qian family, but she was dismissed for stealing. She died of illness afterward. Madam Xie is still young. There's no need to stubbornly defend someone who committed a crime.”

The ladies in the hall all turned toward me.

I did not rush to anger. I merely asked a maid to bring in a wooden box.

Inside were several letters my mother had left behind. The paper looked pure white, marked only with a faint water pattern in one corner.

“Since the matriarch remembers my mother, you must also remember the watermark paper from the Qian family's granary.”

The Qian matriarch's fingers paused.

I continued. “This paper was only used in the accounting room of the old granary. It contains reed fibers; when soaked, the mark of the ferry landing appears. My mother's letters seem blank because she wrote them in a special solution. The words appear when warmed.”

The letters had been hidden in a thin wooden box behind the token, but damp had faded the ink.

I had someone bring a brazier and slowly warmed each page over the flame.

Brown characters gradually emerged.

“The Qian family used the transport route to steal grain and sank ships to cover it up. The shipment ledger is hidden beneath the third step of the north wall in the old garden.”

The entire hall erupted.

The Qian matriarch sprang to her feet. “Nonsense and slander!”