Chapter 2

She also coveted the position of mistress of the Song household and the money she might one day receive.

There was nothing wrong with ambition.

Her mistake was the same as mother and son’s: she thought trampling me would give her everything.

After the guards left, Song Jing’an blocked me beneath the covered walkway and seized my wrist.

“Do you think Pei Zhao can protect you forever?”

His grip hurt the old injury.

I drove him back with my knee, rubbed the red mark, and answered, “At least he can protect me now. You can’t even decide whether Su Wantang kneels.

“Worry about your pitiful office first.”

He stood there, hatred finally overcoming caution.

Passing him, I saw Su Wantang behind the moon gate.

She made no move to help him.

She only stared fixedly at the chests.

Before dark, he blocked my courtyard door, holding a jade pendant carved with twin lotuses.

It was a keepsake from my mother.

I had always carried it after marriage, until his mother took it six months ago for “safekeeping.”

He held it over the stone steps.

One loosened finger, and it would hit the paving.

“What do you want?”

“I want you to steal the salt-quota memorial. Bring me the list from Pei Zhao’s study, and I’ll return your jade.”

When I deliberately repeated his demand, his face darkened. He lowered the pendant.

“Don’t play stupid. Don’t think of informing on me.

“Return empty-handed, and I’ll smash it before your eyes.”

Staring at the clear white jade, I pretended to be cornered and agreed through gritted teeth.

At Pei Zhao’s residence, I went straight to the study instead of his bedchamber.

He reclined on a couch, reading military dispatches.

I sat directly on his lap and told him everything, word for word.

“Song Jing’an wants a salt-quota memorial stolen. One that can bring you down.

“What will you do?”

“If he’s so eager for a meritorious deed, let’s give him a great one.”

Hooking a finger into his sash, I leaned closer.

“Could you write a false list damning enough to kill him, so he can submit it himself?”

Pei Zhao did not immediately agree.

His hand moved up my waist and stopped at my clothing’s knot.

“My services are expensive.”

“You collected payment last night.”

“That was last night’s price.”

I asked what he wanted today. He only bolted the study door.

By day, in dark official robes behind his desk, he was cold as iron. But a loosened collar exposed every scratch I had left on his shoulders.

I meant to tease him with this evidence. Before I spoke, he caught my waist and lifted me onto the desk.

The brush washer rolled into a corner, spilling water over two unimportant documents. He didn’t glance at them. He only asked whether I could still be so bold tonight.

Even when he pressed me back onto the couch, I was laughing.

Eventually, the laughter gave way to breathlessness.

Only after the watch drums sounded twice did he put on a robe, sit at the desk, and write a string of names.

They were officials to whom Song Jing’an had secretly pledged himself.

If he carried this list to seek credit, the censors could follow the trail and uncover his dealings with them.

Pei Zhao folded the sheet and handed it over.

“Whether the list is true or false matters less than his daring to accuse me with affairs he helped arrange.

“You’ll have your mother’s jade back. He won’t keep his post.”

He had deliberately included two annotations only Song Jing’an would recognize.

They came from the pledges of allegiance he had personally offered when attaching himself to others.

He would think he had found proof that Pei Zhao harbored a faction.

Once he submitted it, his former associates would push their old liabilities onto him to clear themselves.

This trap did not depend on crimes conjured from nowhere. It used what he had actually done.

No wonder Pei Zhao handed it over so readily.

I accepted the false memorial but did not leave.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll steal something else for real?”

Leaning back, he let me rummage freely over his desk.

“Choose whatever you want.”

I took his private seal from his waist, weighed it in my palm, then tucked it back.

“Keep it on account. I’ll collect when I’ve decided.”

By next morning, Song Jing’an had paced his study countless times.

I slapped the false memorial on his desk.

He snatched it and read every name, his grin almost reaching his ears.

“With proof against these men, the Grand Secretary’s opponents will protect me.

“Once I’ve earned this credit, Pei Zhao alone won’t be able to suppress me!”

I held out my hand.

“The jade.”

He tossed it to me and hurried out clutching the memorial.

I wiped his sweat from the pendant, hung it at my waist, and waited to see how far that broad road to office would take him.

Before afternoon, he staggered into my courtyard.

His official cap sat askew. Someone had pulled his robe out of shape. Dust from a fall outside the Censorate still marked his face.

“That memorial was fake!

“They treated me as an accomplice and held me half a day! I’ve been demoted three ranks to the lowest little post! You and Pei Zhao planned this!”

I was eating melon seeds. I spat a shell into the small dish.

“You forced me to steal it. You rushed into the pit yourself. Did I tie you up and make you accuse him?”

He lunged for my throat, but two maids stopped him.

After several struggles, he suddenly ceased shouting.

He merely smiled darkly.

“You’ll regret this.”

At dusk, before Pei Zhao’s carriage arrived, servants kicked open my courtyard door.

Song Jing’an entered with his mother and Su Wantang.

She carried a bowl of foul, bitter medicine.

“You’ve cut off my future. Then I’ll cut off your hope of bearing Pei Zhao a child.

“Drink. Afterward, we’ll all be clean.”

I knocked the bowl away.

Broken porcelain and black liquid splashed his shoes.

He grabbed my hair and forced my head down.

I clawed his hand open. While pain distracted him, I kicked the back of Su Wantang’s knee.

She fell.

My mother-in-law screamed for the servants to restrain me.

Four men pinned my shoulders and arms.

Panting, Song Jing’an stood. He didn’t dare try pouring the medicine down my throat again.

“Put her in a bamboo cage. Carry her to the moat.

“If she won’t preserve our family’s dignity, I’ll show the city how an adulteress ends!”

Afraid of Pei Zhao’s retaliation, his mother caught his arm and tried to dissuade him.

He flung her off.

“Once she’s sunk, will he slaughter the whole Song family for a dead woman?”

They stuffed me into a bamboo cage and carried it into the street.

Su Wantang gagged me herself.

The slats pressed into my back and shoulders, scraping painfully with every step. The men deliberately tipped the cage up and down so I couldn’t even balance.

Through the gaps, I saw my mother-in-law following.

All along the road, she loudly proclaimed they were “cleansing the household.” Whenever she met an acquaintance, she wept about the shameless daughter-in-law she had sheltered.

Someone asked why the Grand Secretary’s carriage collected me every night.

She turned away at once and urged the men to hurry.

Su Wantang stayed close to Song Jing’an, sometimes wiping his sweat as though she truly could step over my corpse into the lawful wife’s seat.

Passersby knew only that the Songs meant to drown an unfaithful wife.

Vegetable sellers joined the abuse. Someone threw wilted greens into my cage.

Ahead, Song Jing’an beat a gong and accused me of adultery, never mentioning who had sent me away.

At the moat, river water had soaked half my body.

He stood on the bank and looked down.

“Don’t be so arrogant in your next life.”

As they pulled the cage away from the edge, a feathered arrow skimmed the rope knot and buried itself in the mud beside a bearer’s foot.