Chapter 3

Hoofbeats drowned the crowd’s cries.

Guards sealed off the riverbank.

Another squad forced every cage bearer to the ground.

Only then did the spectators realize this was nothing like the Songs’ proclaimed household cleansing.

Someone recognized me from the Grand Secretary’s carriage the previous night.

Those who had cursed loudest quietly retreated into the crowd.

I had no strength left to bother with them.

I watched only Pei Zhao dismount.

For the first time in my life, I understood what it felt like to have someone rush to save me regardless of everything.

Without even removing his cloak, he drew a blade and cut the cage door’s binding.

He lifted me out.

When his fingers touched the marks on my wrists, his face turned frighteningly cold.

“Who touched you?”

Pulling the gag free, I pointed to each in turn.

“All three.”

Song Jing’an’s legs weakened, but his mouth was stiffer than his knees.

“G-Grand Secretary… this is a family matter.”

Wrapping me in his cloak, Pei Zhao asked, “Which law permits a husband to force sterilizing medicine on his wife and then invent grounds to drown her without trial?”

He had no answer.

Suddenly, he knelt toward the imperial city and shouted that the Grand Secretary had seized a subject’s wife. He begged the Emperor for justice.

The crowd exchanged baffled looks.

Pei Zhao simply lifted me onto his horse.

“If you want to petition the palace, I’ll go with you.”

In the imperial study, Song Jing’an, his mother, and Su Wantang knelt in a row.

All wept more piteously than I did—and I was the one nearly drowned.

He accused Pei Zhao of stealing his wife and destroying his career.

His mother called me a seducer of powerful men.

Su Wantang wept about the humiliation she had endured since entering the household.

The Emperor looked at the black-armored guards behind Pei Zhao, then at me in his arms.

“Well… Song Jing’an says you seized his wife…”

“Where is the proof?”

Song Jing’an immediately pointed.

“She is my wife!”

Pei Zhao lowered his head and asked whether I wanted to return.

Before everyone, I shook my head.

“If I go back, next time I may really reach the river bottom.

“Today, I choose to go with the Grand Secretary.”

Song Jing’an called me shameless.

Pei Zhao merely raised a hand. An imperial physician stepped forward to take my pulse.

I had been going between the two residences for over a month. The Songs were so busy calculating appointments that none had noticed my missed monthly bleeding.

The physician checked twice before rising to report.

“Madam Zhao is one month pregnant. There are slight signs of exposure to cold, but the pregnancy remains stable.”

The Emperor asked whether the child was certainly Pei Zhao’s.

The physician knelt in terror. He dared not confirm any man’s paternity. He said only that the pregnancy’s timing matched my arrival at the Grand Secretary’s residence.

That was enough.

For three years, Song Jing’an had despised my fallen family background. For the past six months, he had kept himself chaste for Su Wantang. Everyone knew he never entered my courtyard.

Claiming the child now would publicly admit he had given away his wife while trying to use the Grand Secretary’s blood to continue the Song line.

He went deathly pale.

“Impossible! How could she conceive so quickly?”

Pei Zhao glanced at him.

“Are you questioning my abilities, Lord Song?”

“No, that isn’t—”

“Then you mean to claim this child?”

He dared not answer.

His mother, however, stared greedily at my belly.

Pei Zhao had an old betrothal document presented.

It stated that, before the Zhao family’s decline, the Zhaos and Peis had arranged a marriage. Only because Pei Zhao spent years campaigning abroad had Song Jing’an exploited the absence of anyone to represent my family and hurriedly deceived me into marrying him.

I had never seen it before. Astonished, I turned to him.

He gave me no signal. He only tightened his hold on my hand.

Song Jing’an immediately shouted that it was forged.

Pei Zhao asked, “When you married her, did you complete the three documents and six rites? Did you register a marriage contract with the authorities?”

He had neither.

The Emperor knew perfectly well how suspiciously this document had appeared. He understood even better whom he needed to protect today.

Pei Zhao did not need a flawless lie.

He merely placed a choice before him.

Accept Song Jing’an’s fraudulent marriage, and only the Songs needed punishment.

Investigate the document’s authenticity, and the private violence at the riverbank and the stolen memorial would also come before the court.

The Emperor examined the paper twice.

In the end, he never even asked whether it was genuine.

He slammed it on his desk and pronounced judgment through gritted teeth.

“Song Jing’an deceived a woman into marriage, deceived the throne, and allowed his servants to harm his wife. Strip him of rank and reduce him to commoner status! Confiscate the Song family’s property!”

His mother collapsed.

Su Wantang clung to a pillar, crying for mercy.

He only stared at me numbly.

Leaning against Pei Zhao, I smiled at him.

“Didn’t you say sooner or later I’d have no one to protect me?

“Today, the Song family truly has nothing.”

Pei Zhao carried me to the door.

The Emperor forced out, “Take care on your way, Grand Secretary…”

Without looking back, he ordered the physician to accompany us and tend my pregnancy.

6.

At home, Pei Zhao ordered me to rest while he prepared to lead the confiscation.

I immediately threw back the quilt.

“I’m going to reclaim my dowry.”

“You’ve been in the water. The physician says rest.”

“If those people hide what my mother left, will he compensate me?”

He had no answer. He could only assign another squad to protect me.

Official seals already covered the Song gates.

My mother-in-law clutched a red-sandalwood chair and wailed that her son had bought it.

I opened my dowry inventory, found the matching entry, and told the guards to set both woman and chair aside.

Calligraphy, paintings, porcelain, silk, jewelry—every item I reclaimed drew another howl.

She had always treated my dowry as the family’s common property. If Su Wantang liked a hairpin, she took it from my chest. If Song Jing’an lacked money to entertain colleagues, he had the accounts office draw it from my shops’ profits.

Every inventory entry bore the old Zhao steward’s signed confirmation. The palace eunuchs checking the property matched the seals. However greedy they were, they dared not count my things among the confiscated assets.

I took not so much as an extra bowl. Only what belonged to me.

In the end, even the iron cooking pot was carried away. I really had paid for it when I entered the household.

Kneeling beneath the walkway, Song Jing’an watched the home he had occupied for years empty around him. He bit his lip until it bled.

I closed the inventory.

“The rest belongs to the authorities. You couldn’t keep it if you wanted.”

The three Songs were driven to an abandoned temple outside the city. Su Wantang went too.

I did not see this myself. The guard assigned to watch them reported the next day.

My mother-in-law hid her last few taels and a gold hairpin in her undershirt.

Su Wantang stole them in the night.

At dawn, discovering the loss, my mother-in-law screamed for her.

Song Jing’an stared at the empty sleeping place.

“She ran away…”

Then he held his head and repeated, “She took the last silver and ran…”

The shock brought on a stroke. Afterward, his mother could not move half her body.

When he went begging for food, Pei Zhao’s men pulled a sack over his head.

He woke in a capital establishment where men served male clients. Several burly customers were choosing who would have him first that night.

Terrified, he shrank into a corner of the bed.

“Isn’t this… a place where men entertain customers?”

The proprietor smiled. The Song property had been confiscated, he said. The price paid for Song Jing’an barely covered fodder for one of the Grand Secretary’s horses.

He was put to work there. His cries that night carried to the alley behind.

At this point, even the reporting guard cleared his throat.

I laughed until my waist hurt.

He also told me that before fleeing the capital, Su Wantang had sought refuge with that thug. Seeing her gold hairpin, the man agreed to take her in.

When the Songs fell, she still proclaimed she would share Song Jing’an’s hardships. The moment she discovered his mother’s hidden silver, she changed her mind overnight.

I had not forced that knife into him.

The woman he brought home chose it herself at their lowest point, in precisely the manner mother and son had taught one another.

Pei Zhao sat by my bed, steadied my lower belly, and forbade more laughter.

“Didn’t you say if he injured you, he’d have to take your place in bed?”

“It was only something I said in anger. You actually did it?”