“Steward Wang, you said you entered the room at the hour of Zi and found two people there. Who were they?”
“My young master, Mu Xueshi, and Wu Cai.”
Hearing his own name, Mu Xueshi immediately straightened and turned his attention back to the case.
The Emperor narrowed his eyes and looked at Wu Cai with a complicated expression. “Wu Cai, why did you go to Grand Tutor Mu’s room that day?”
Wu Cai’s lips trembled. His exhausted face showed almost no expression. To make speaking easier, he even dragged himself a little farther forward. Seeing the ruined state of his body, Mu Xueshi finally understood who Li Qian had been buying medicine for, and why Li Qian had repeatedly hesitated to speak.
Mu Xueshi hurriedly lowered his head and no longer dared look at Wu Cai. Looking at him felt like staring directly at his own guilt.
“Master came home and went straight to Madam’s room. When I learned that, I became jealous and went to find him. By the time I reached his room, Master had already been… cough…”
Wu Cai swallowed hard. His body seemed boneless, and he barely supported himself on both hands. The Emperor asked, “When you entered the master’s room, besides seeing his corpse, what else did you see?”
“I also saw…” Wu Cai hesitated, glanced at the Third Prince’s dark face, then at the Emperor, and finally said, “I saw Mu Xueshi continuously pouring fuel over Master’s body. Master was already barely alive in the flames.”
Mu Xueshi jerked upright. “That’s nonsense!”
The Emperor’s expression darkened. “Insolence!”
Mu Xueshi recklessly answered anyway, “That isn’t what he told me before.” He turned toward Wu Cai, anger written across his face. “I know I wronged you, but you can’t take revenge on me like this!”
Wu Cai glanced at him and laughed coldly. “How exactly did you wrong me?”
Mu Xueshi choked. His stubborn eyes remained fixed on Wu Cai, yet he could not answer. A moment ago he had still felt guilty and worried for Wu Cai. Now Wu Cai had turned around and struck him from behind.
A hard kick landed behind Mu Xueshi’s knee, forcing him back down to the floor.
“Shouting recklessly in the imperial hall. Twenty slaps each,” Eunuch Li announced in his peculiar high voice.
Two short servants immediately stepped out and stood beside Mu Xueshi and Wu Cai. Before Mu Xueshi could react, a slap swept across his left cheek. It burned instantly and left him dazed.
There was a long pause before the next slap came. In that interval Mu Xueshi caught the change in the Third Prince’s expression, from cold indifference to murderous darkness. Mu Xueshi smiled. The next blow landed even harder, yet somehow gave him a petty sense of revenge.
Watching the once-soft, rosy face turn red, the Third Prince’s fury swelled to its limit. If the larger situation had not mattered, he would already have torn those servants apart.
Slap after slap landed, and Mu Xueshi did not make a sound. He only bit his lip and looked at the Third Prince. The prince felt as though sword after sword were piercing his heart, while his face remained perfectly still.
By the time Wu Cai’s punishment ended, he had no strength left and collapsed beside Mu Xueshi. Mu Xueshi turned and tried to help him upright anyway.
Wu Cai slapped away Mu Xueshi’s hand with obvious disgust. Mu Xueshi showed no reaction on his swollen face. He touched the corner of his mouth and found it wet and streaked with blood.
“Wu Cai, you claim you personally witnessed Mu Xueshi harming Grand Tutor Mu. Do you have evidence?”
Wu Cai looked at Mu Xueshi and answered weakly, “Of course.”
He requested that the evidence be brought in. When a bundle was opened, Mu Xueshi went completely still. Inside were the clothes he had worn on the day of the incident, the same clothes the Third Prince had kept in his room.
How had they ended up with Wu Cai?
Had the Third Prince joined forces with Wu Cai to condemn him to death?
The thought made even Mu Xueshi’s breath feel bleak. He stared at the clothing and noticed only one thing was missing: the pair of shoes he had handled. If those shoes were gone, he felt that even nine lives would not be enough to explain himself.
Madam Mu had remained silent all this time. Her face was pale, and without her maid supporting her, she might already have fainted.
“Your Majesty, look…” Wu Cai picked up the clothing with trembling hands and pulled at the cuff. “The left sleeve was originally dark blue, but the moment it is splashed with water, it begins to turn white. Everyone knows only Jiuyuan carbon material reacts to water this way. Normally it is colorless and odorless. Once applied to a person, it causes immediate unconsciousness, and even after burning it leaves no trace. Most importantly, only Jiuyuan carbon material could reduce a human body so completely in such a short time.”
When Wu Cai finished, even the ministers began thinking. The other three people kneeling there also looked startled. They had to admit that his explanation resolved many of the mysteries surrounding the incident.
Unexpectedly, Mu Xueshi laughed and asked almost jokingly, “Then why can’t we say you put that material on the clothing only recently to frame me?”
Wu Cai seemed to have expected the question. A sly smile appeared on his exhausted face as he looked around confidently. “Who in court does not know how Jiuyuan carbon material works? It leaves no trace after burning. Only after more than a month will residue from the burned material begin reacting with water. It is often used in palace assassinations. If no one discovers it at the time, the matter usually disappears forever.”
The word “assassination” made the ministers visibly uneasy. Jiuyuan carbon material was indeed often used to dispose of bodies, especially servants abused by their masters or victims of secret battles between consorts. Everyone knew such things happened, though no one was supposed to say them aloud.
Wu Cai was already exhausted from speaking, but Mu Xueshi ignored his certainty and continued, “Then why couldn’t someone have put the carbon material on the clothes after my father died, specifically to frame me?”
Wu Cai sneered. “Young Master Mu, were you not listening? Only Jiuyuan carbon material that has already been burned will react with water. What is on your clothes was transferred there while you committed the crime.”
“Then why couldn’t you have burned the material yourself at the time and deliberately put some on my clothes to frame me?”
Mu Xueshi’s endless objections left Wu Cai panting with frustration. He drew a deep breath and snapped, “You’re twisting logic.”
“No. Your logic is weak. I’m not twisting anything.”
Mu Xueshi’s repeated questions confused nearly everyone in the chamber. Only the Third Prince understood his peculiar way of thinking. The Emperor’s expression grew complicated. He had assumed Mu Xueshi would be easy to deal with, but the calm young man before him did not resemble the foolish, reckless person he had been hearing about.
Mu Xueshi had actually confused himself too and no longer knew what he was arguing. He looked relaxed only because he had stopped expecting anything. The moment he saw those clothes, his hopes had already fallen to the bottom.
The Emperor accepted the tea Eunuch Li offered, took a slow sip, and suppressed the anger building inside him.
“Mu Xueshi, you say every piece of evidence Wu Cai presented contains a flaw. I would like to see what evidence you can use to defend yourself.”
At that, Mu Xueshi reached inside his clothing for the small bottle. Because his robes were put on carelessly, he had to tug them around until a large part of his chest was exposed before he managed to retrieve it.
Half of Mu Xueshi’s chest remained uncovered, the edge of his robe leaving one rosy point partly visible against snow-white skin. His collarbones were delicate and his neck slender.
The accidental exposure made everyone in the hall hold their breath and stare involuntarily. Even the Emperor glanced over. He had taken countless consorts since ascending the throne, yet had never seen skin so flawless.
Everyone said Grand Tutor Mu’s son was hideously ugly. Looking only at his body, however, there was no denying that he was extraordinary. His disguised face was already handsome, yet beside the beauty of his body it suddenly seemed ordinary. Several ministers even imagined that body paired with the Third Prince’s face, and the thought alone made them uncomfortably warm.
The Emperor cleared his throat. Only then did everyone abruptly return to themselves and focus on the bottle in Mu Xueshi’s hand.
“This bottle contains soil I removed from Mu Xueshi’s… no, from the shoes I was wearing that day. Those clothes and shoes were what I wore on the night of the incident. The soil on the shoes contains Zhiluo flower pollen. Everyone here knows the Zhiluo flower blooms at the hour of Xu on the eighth day of the third month. According to the coroner, my father was burned during the hour of Xu as well. One person cannot be in two places at the same time, so the evidence Wu Cai presented must be false.”
As soon as Mu Xueshi finished, a court apothecary came forward to examine the contents carefully and confirmed that the soil in the bottle did indeed contain Zhiluo flower pollen.
Sweat appeared on Wu Cai’s sallow forehead. The officials were startled as well. None of them had expected Mu Xueshi to notice something so precise.
“Heh… and that proves you are innocent?” Wu Cai mocked. “A full shichen is a long time. How do you prove you didn’t return to the manor after looking at the flowers and commit the crime? Or perhaps you burned him first and only went afterward.”
Mu Xueshi almost laughed. This was the first time he had met someone even more foolish than himself. Wu Cai had practically handed him the next part of his defense. Anyone who did not know better might think Mu Xueshi had planted him there as an accomplice.
“The Zhiluo flower blooms during the hour of Xu, and the only place nearby where it grows is Taixin Garden. Even on horseback, reaching Taixin Garden takes at least the time needed to drink a cup of tea. Everyone in the manor knows I cannot ride, so on foot it takes about one shichen, roughly two hours. That means I had to leave before the hour of Xu if I wanted to see the flower bloom. Even if I looked at it only once and immediately returned, I could not have reached the manor until after the hour of Xu. During the entire time the coroner says my father was burned, I could not have been at the scene.”
The interrogation chamber became utterly quiet. Wu Cai had no answer, though he still looked unconvinced. The other officials regarded Mu Xueshi with approval. Only Mu Xueshi himself looked anxious. Inside, he was desperately praying the Emperor would not ask the one question he feared most.
After a long silence, the Emperor looked meaningfully at Mu Xueshi. “Your reasoning is thorough, but you have overlooked one point. How do you prove that the soil in that bottle actually came from your shoes? In other words, where are those shoes now?”
Mu Xueshi’s mind exploded. He had predicted the question from the moment the Emperor began speaking but had still clung to the hope that His Majesty might overlook it the way Wu Cai had overlooked other things.
Mu Xueshi looked toward the Third Prince, unable to name what he felt. A few days ago, he would never have doubted that the prince would help. Now, meeting that gaze, the request at the tip of his tongue would not come out. He was afraid of being refused. Worse, he was afraid this entire situation had been designed by the Third Prince himself to kill him. Otherwise, why had the prince so easily handed the clothes to Wu Cai while deliberately keeping the shoes?