Someone Is Waiting for Me at Home — Chapter 3

The Qian matriarch turned to leave, but Xie Huaichuan entered through a side door with several officials from the Court of Judicial Review.

It turned out he had been questioning a captured former warehouse supervisor in the adjoining hall the whole time. The man saw the contents of the letter and immediately knelt, admitting that a shipwreck had indeed been arranged to cover up a massacre years ago.

Even so, the Qian matriarch did not panic.

She stared at me and lowered her voice. “Wen Zhi, do you think digging up a fake ledger can shake the Qian family? Your mother was just as stubborn. In the end, no one even collected her bones.”

I looked at her. It felt as if a block of ice had settled heavily in my heart, yet I smiled.

“Then, Matriarch, watch closely. I will finish the road my mother could not. Today, the first step begins with digging right beneath your feet.”

7.

That night, soldiers surrounded the old Qian garden.

I was not supposed to go. Xie Huaichuan had forbidden it too. He said the late-night dew was heavy and investigating the case was the authorities' responsibility.

I asked him, “This is about my mother. Am I supposed to wait inside the residence and do nothing?”

He fell silent for a long while. Then he personally draped a cloak over my shoulders and placed Xie Yan's small hand in mine.

“Come with me. But stay close.”

Xie Yan lifted his little face. “A Yan can stay close to Mother too.”

The old garden had been abandoned for many years. Moonlight fell across its crumbling walls like a layer of cold mist.

The third step beneath the north wall had already been pried open. There really was an iron box beneath it, but inside lay only half a ledger, rotted by water.

The Qian family had prepared in advance.

The judicial commissioner turned through the ledger, his brows drawn tight. The surviving pages recorded only ordinary grain shipments. All the important pages had been torn away.

When the Qian matriarch was brought in under guard, she even laughed. “Grand Secretary Xie, what a spectacle. You brought the whole Court of Judicial Review to dig up a pile of rotten paper?”

I stared at the stone steps, remembering the three black dots Xie Yan had drawn.

“A Yan, where are the three black stones?”

He slipped from Xie Huaichuan's hand and ran to the corner of the wall.

Just as he had remembered, three jet-black river stones were buried in the weeds, arranged in a crooked triangle.

He crouched and counted them, then looked up. “Mother, the ground sounds hollow beneath the third stone.”

The guards immediately moved it.

Underneath was a small sealed well.

There was no water inside, only a bundle wrapped in oilcloth.

Inside the bundle, along with the intact shipment-inspection ledger, was a silver longevity lock.

The character “Zhi” was engraved on it, with a tiny “An” on the back.

I recognized it.

When I was three, my mother had hung it around my neck.

Later, my stepmother said I had lost it while playing and punished me by making me search for it in the snow all night.

There was also a letter my mother had written to me, wrapped in the oilcloth.

“Zhi'er, if you are reading this, it means I could not return home. The Qian family used the grain-transport routes to steal grain and sank ships, taking many lives. I kept the ledger not to seek revenge, but so that people in the future would know those who starved along the road that year could have lived.”

Time had blurred the handwriting, but I read every character without daring to blink.

Xie Huaichuan stood behind me. He did not comfort me or hurry me.

He only raised a hand to shield me from the cold wind blowing through the mouth of the well.

I tucked the letter away safely and looked up at the Qian matriarch.

“Where are my mother's remains?”

The composure on her face finally cracked.

The judicial commissioner immediately ordered an overnight interrogation.

The former warehouse supervisor, the Qian family's steward, and the clerk who had forged the documents years ago all confessed, one after another.

After discovering irregularities in the accounts, my mother had been imprisoned by the Qian family in the old garden.

She had hidden the evidence at the bottom of the well in the middle of the night, but afterward someone pushed her into the canal.

She had not died of illness.

She had died for a group of people she had not even known.

The Qian case implicated a wide circle. The Empress was also confined while the investigation continued.

The Third Prince was punished with closed-door study for taking part in framing Xie Yan.

Liu Ting'an was expelled from the Imperial College.

When Liu Yanjing heard the Qian family had fallen, she finally spoke in the guest courtyard.

She admitted that both the silver button and the theft of the draft had been ordered by a Qian family matron. The Qians had promised to help her marry Xie Huaichuan once their plan succeeded. If it came to light, they would use the Liu family's old debt to force her to take the blame.

I asked her, “You knew Xie Yan's future would be ruined. Why did you still do it?”

She cried that she had no choice.

“You did,” I told her. “You could have come to me. You could have reported it to the authorities. You could have left the capital. You chose the easiest path and put the knife in the hands of someone more powerful. Now that path has reached its end. Stop using ‘I had no choice’ to deceive yourself.”

Liu Yanjing was sent back to the Liu family.

The Liu household was also sealed for helping falsify the old ledgers.

My stepmother came to the Xie residence to beg for my help. She knelt outside the gate and cried for the entire day.

I did not see her.

She had once taught me to bind others with rules. Now she was bound by the very rules she trusted most.

A debt of money must be repaid in money; a debt of life in life. There was nothing more to say.

8.

After the case was settled, many people left the Xie residence.

Old Madam Xie took back the keys to the inner household and personally handed them to me. She stood beneath the corridor, her expression complicated.

“I misjudged you before.”

I accepted the keys. “That wasn't the only thing you misjudged.”

Her face turned unpleasant.

But I did not keep pressing. I only said, “A Yan gets cold easily. Have him pay his respects every other morning instead. He has a lot of schoolwork; no more copying punishments after dinner. And anyone who tries to force him with the word ‘well-behaved’ will copy A Yan's Survival Guide.”

Old Madam was silent for a long time, then nodded.

She had genuinely cared for Xie Yan, but her generation did not know how to show love, so they only knew how to fit a child into rules. I gave her a chance to change while making the limits clear.

When Xie Yan heard the news, he was so happy he almost jumped, then hurriedly straightened up again.

I looked at him. “If you want to jump, go ahead.”

He tested me by jumping once.

When I did not get angry, he immediately jumped three times. His laughter rang through the wind chimes under the corridor, clear as a stream thawing in early spring.

That night, Xie Huaichuan was polishing a piece of jade in his study. He had recently spent less time at the palace. The case was not fully closed, but he always tried to make time for dinner.

I brought in hot soup and saw a red mark on his hand from the polishing.

“My lord, have you taken up jade carving?”

He hid the piece of jade in his sleeve so awkwardly that it was obvious.

I sat across from him and deliberately did not ask.

After a while, he finally spoke first. “This is for you.”

It was a small jade pendant carved with a gardenia branch. On the back was the character “An.” It matched the longevity lock I had found.

“I couldn't find your mother's remains,” he said. “Consider this a small replacement.”

My fingertips brushed the warm, smooth jade. Something in my heart softened.

Xie Huaichuan was very bad with words. He did not know how to say anything flowery; even his concern sounded like he was submitting a memorial. But I understood. He treated my mother's case as if it were his own. He saw Xie Yan's changes as lessons he himself needed to learn, and he remembered, one by one, the sorrows I had never spoken aloud.

I tied the jade pendant beside the longevity lock.

“Xie Huaichuan.”

It was the first time I had not called him “my lord.”

He looked up. Candlelight fell in his eyes like a glimmer wavering over deep water.

“Yes?”

“The soup is about to get cold.”

He said nothing, but he smiled.

9.

In the fourth month, the Emperor held a policy examination.

As the youngest student at the Imperial College, Xie Yan was invited to the palace. Old Madam Xie was so nervous she had started preparing his clothes the night before. I was calm. I only told him to take A Yan's Survival Guide with him. His notes had filled the pages: what he ate that day, who praised him, what he didn't understand, and whether he had told Mother about it.

He tucked the book against his chest and asked softly, “What if I don't answer well?”

“Then come home and eat.”

“What if someone bullies me?”

“Remember his face and tell me when you get home.”

He smiled. His gaze no longer dodged away from people as it once had.

The Emperor's examination prompt was: “Why do the common people trust officials?”

Throughout the hall, the officials wrote polished phrases about benevolent governance, moral instruction, and ritual law. When it was Xie Yan's turn, he stood in the center of the hall, saluted the Emperor, and answered seriously.

“The people trust an official when he does what he promised. If he says grain will be distributed in winter, he cannot wait until spring. If he says he will investigate an unjust case, he cannot make people wait until they die.”

The court fell silent for a long while.

The Emperor looked at him and asked, “Who taught you that?”

Xie Yan thought for a moment. “Mother taught me to speak the truth. Father taught me to keep my promises. Grandmother taught me to dress warmly when I go outside.”

The whole hall burst into laughter. Only Xie Huaichuan, standing below the dais, had slightly reddened eyes.

Xie Yan came top of the examination. The Emperor granted him a small inkstone and said that when he was older, he could study in the Wenyuan Pavilion.

On the carriage ride home, he fell asleep hugging the inkstone. Afraid it would dig into him, Xie Huaichuan put it on his own lap and gently shifted the child's head onto my shoulder.

Looking at the big one and the small one, I suddenly felt that the carriage was full.

I used to think a family was a battlefield a woman had to defend after marriage. First you had to establish authority, then secure your place. If you softened by an inch, you lost an inch.

Later I understood that no one in a household should be tamed into unquestioning obedience. When you're tired, you should be able to lean on one another. When you're wronged, you should dare to say so. When you walk through the night, someone should be waiting at the door with a lamp. That is what makes a home.

10.

The Qian case had reached a critical point when an imperial decree summoned me alone to Fengyi Palace.

The eunuch who delivered it smiled politely and said the Empress only wanted to speak with me. I noticed the mud on the toe of his shoe and knew this was not an invitation for tea. Xie Huaichuan was at the Court of Judicial Review, and Xie Yan clung tightly to my sleeve.

“Mother, don't go,” he said.

I crouched to straighten his collar. “Someone in the palace wants to question me. If I avoid them, they'll think we're afraid.”

He was so worried his eyes reddened. “But they'll bully you.”

“What should you do, then?”

Xie Yan bit his lip, remembered what was written in his book, and slowly replied, “Remember their faces and tell Father when you get home.”

I laughed and pinched his cheek. “Very clever. One more thing: you have to eat your meals on time.”

When I entered Fengyi Palace, the Empress was pruning a pot of ink orchids. The Qian family had fallen, and she had lost her authority to assist with the management of the Six Palaces, yet her face showed no sign of agitation. She offered me a seat and immediately asked, “Madam Wen, do you think you've won?”

I sat upright. “If Your Majesty wishes to discuss the case, the Court of Judicial Review will send you the documents. If you only want to discuss winning and losing, then I do have a few honest words to say today.”

She cut off a yellowing leaf. It fell onto the white jade bricks.

“My elder brother embezzled. He deserves to be punished. But you stirred up court over an old case from eighteen years ago, and Xie Huaichuan used the opportunity to clean house among the old Transport Office officials. Was all of this really only for your mother?”

I looked at the yellow leaf. “My mother is not an excuse. She kept the ledger for the common people and preserved evidence for those who had died. Whether Xie Huaichuan clears out old officials is a matter for the court. If Your Majesty feels she has been wronged, she may present evidence.”

The Empress raised her head, her gaze turning cold. “You are indeed sharp-tongued. But a woman who is always eager to put herself forward may not be blessed. Do you think Xie Huaichuan protects you out of affection? When he grows tired of you, you won't even compare to Xie Yan's birth mother.”

In the past, I might have turned those words over and over in my mind. My stepmother always said that after marriage a woman's support came entirely from the man who granted it. Xie Huaichuan treated me well today, but might not tomorrow, so I should please him first, yield first, and make myself smaller first.

But my mother's letter told me, each word at a time: In one lifetime, there are things you must stand firm for yourself.

I set my teacup down. My voice was not raised.

“Your Majesty, whoever I married, I would never base my life on whether a man might grow tired of me. Xie Yan calls me Mother because I protected him. Xie Huaichuan respects me because I did what I believed was right. Even if one day neither of them were beside me, I would still be Wen Zhi. I could still eat, sleep, check accounts, and argue my point.”

The scissors in the Empress's hand stopped.

I rose and bowed. “And Xie Yan's birth mother deserves respect. Your Majesty has truly lowered your standing by comparing a woman who died young with me as though we were rivals.”

Her expression finally darkened. “Wen Zhi, are you not afraid I'll punish you for disrespect?”

I turned to look at her. “If I have been disrespectful, please point out what I have done. If not, I still need to return home for dinner with my child.”

I walked out of Fengyi Palace. No voice followed me. The sunlight was bright, and the palace walls cast long shadows. As I walked out beneath my own shadow, for the first time I did not feel alone.

When I returned to the Xie residence, Xie Yan was indeed sitting on the threshold waiting for me, holding a bowl of almond tofu that had already been reheated twice. The moment he saw me step down from the carriage, he ran so fast he nearly tripped on the threshold.

I caught him. He immediately threw himself into my arms and asked sadly, “Was she mean to you?”

“Yes.”

He looked up at once.

I took the bowl of almond tofu and had a bite. “But she wasn't as mean to my A Yan as you were last time when you misread the Analects. Your little face was so scrunched up it could have pinched a mosquito to death.”

He laughed at my teasing, then said quietly, “If she is mean to you again, when I grow up I'll protect you.”

Warmth spread through my heart. I took his hand and led him inside. “All right. But first, grow up well. Protecting yourself is already helping me.”

11.

A few days later came the death anniversary of Xie Yan's birth mother, Madam Shen.

Old Madam Xie had prepared incense and candles. But when it was time to leave, she hesitated. She worried that I would feel uncomfortable, and that Xie Yan might say something inappropriate at the grave, so she sent the steward to ask if I was willing to go.

I changed into pale clothes and brought the osmanthus cakes Xie Yan liked.

The grave was on a hill outside the city, where the wind blew strongly. The tombstone looked quite new; someone clearly repaired it each year. Xie Yan knelt and bowed. First he told her that the Emperor had bestowed an inkstone on him, then that he had not been a picky eater today. At last he fell silent for a long while and whispered, “Mother, I have a mother now.”

His voice was very small, as though he feared the person beneath the grave might be hurt.