Auntie Liu and her entire family had come to town. After considerable effort, they had managed to find out where the He family lived and were preparing to confront them when an elderly gentleman appeared and advised them not to.
This was Elder Zhang. The Xing family had informants stationed throughout Guluo Town, so news of the Zheng family’s inquiries had quickly reached him.
Elder Zhang did not reveal his connection to the Xing family in the capital or say that he was acting on instructions from the Jiangcheng branch. Instead, he invoked Tang Huai’s name and urged them not to act rashly.
“Going to He Jie’s home and making a scene will accomplish nothing now. You would only muddy the waters and put them on guard. What you really wish to know is how He Yi is doing. I can tell you that he is out of danger and regained consciousness earlier today.”
“Is that really true?!” The Zheng family’s faces brightened, but they did not allow their relief to overwhelm their judgment. They were not wholly convinced by the old man’s words.
Elder Zhang stroked his beard and offered no further explanation. Instead, he brought up another matter, one of considerable importance.
While they were talking near the He residence, someone suddenly burst out of its gate and strode angrily toward the Chang estate.
It was He Jie, fresh from a furious argument with his family.
He Yongxing and Zeng Qianqian knew nothing of the outrageous things He Jie had done. They only knew that he kept failing to report for work at the Patrol Inspector’s Office, and had scolded him, demanding to know whether he wanted to be dismissed again.
How could He Jie dare go back to the office? Yet he could not explain what he had done or whom he had offended. His parents were useless, too. If they could be relied upon, would he have wound up in such a desperate position?
Nor did he dare approach Chang He directly. After turning the matter over in his mind, he decided to start with Chang He’s daughter, Chang Xinyi.
The woman playing the guqin in her room was graceful and alluring. Her fingerwork was not particularly accomplished, but fortunately none of those listening could tell the difference.
He Jie had never cared much for gentlemanly behavior. He was impulsive and reckless. But Chang He had needed a useful blade, an ambitious pawn willing to carry out dirty work he could not do himself, and had therefore taken He Jie into his confidence.
Unfortunately…
Chang Xinyi glanced sidelong at He Jie, who for once had refrained from interrupting her music. She continued playing until the piece ended, then began A Drunken Fisherman Sings at Dusk all over again.
With his mind full of worries, He Jie could not listen to a single note. At last he knocked on the table, forcing her performance to a halt.
Chang Xinyi stopped as he wished. A slight smile touched her red lips, but never reached her eyes.
Before He Jie could speak, she said, “Don’t come looking for me again.”
It was not the first time she had said this. He Jie remembered how she had once sent him away in the same fashion while entangled with another contemptible man. Rage surged through him, and he raised a hand as though to strike her.
Chang Xinyi seemed to have expected this. Without so much as blinking, she smiled. “Will hitting a defenseless woman somehow conceal what a pathetic man you are?”
“You! Don’t think I wouldn’t dare hit you! Even if you’re Chang He’s own daughter, your father has already chosen me as his future son-in-law. How can I let a woman walk all over me?!”
Chang Xinyi seemed amused. She laughed until her body shook, then finally composed herself. “Before you leave this estate, I’ll tell you an interesting truth. Consider it a way to put an end to our two years of acquaintance.”
Describing their relationship as mere acquaintance humiliated He Jie. His knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists, but she was not intimidated. She continued.
“You think that because I’m Chang He’s only daughter and have been willing to give myself to you, it must mean he places extraordinary trust in you.”
He Jie’s face reddened as though he, rather than she, had been slandered. “What madness are you talking about?!”
“Then you imagine that the master of the Chang household knows nothing of how immodestly I’ve behaved?” She covered her mouth with a handkerchief and laughed in clear, bell-like peals.
He Jie’s raised fist slowly lowered. Chang Xinyi now looked even less normal than he felt, and for a moment he was at a loss.
“I don’t blame you. Who would imagine Chang He would send his own daughter to lure men into bed? And who could imagine that I’m not his daughter at all? I’m a courtesan he bought from a pleasure house and took in as an adopted daughter.”
“You! You filthy, whore-born bitch!” Her words shredded what remained of He Jie’s pride, then seemed to gather the pieces and slap him across the face with each one, leaving his expression twisted with hate.
Unable to endure the provocation, He Jie swung his arm to slap Chang Xinyi across the face.
But she stepped sideways and avoided it. His hand merely brushed her shoulder.
He hated her, but Chang Xinyi hated him even more. The venom in her eyes was no less than the malice He Jie showed whenever he looked at He Yi.
She smiled bitterly at herself. “It’s true. What genuine daughter of Master Chang would be raised in a crude place like this and matched with rubbish like you? Only a lowly creature like me would do.”
While He Jie was still struggling to digest her words, Chang Xinyi leaned close to his ear and whispered, “Farewell forever, He Jie.” Then she walked gracefully out of the study without looking back.
A discarded pawn. That was what he had become…
However foolish He Jie might be, he could not miss the meaning of her words. Chang He had abandoned him completely.
But wait. If the woman Chang He had first sent to approach him had never been his real daughter, merely a prostitute bought from a brothel, then Chang He had never intended to cultivate him as a genuine successor. He had only ever been a chess piece to discard whenever convenient!
That bastard… That son of a bitch, Chang He…
He Jie sat motionless in the study for who knew how long. Even when he was finally thrown out, he remained dazed.
The moment he stepped through the Chang estate’s gate, his former subordinates, now serving as officers, arrested him.
Guluo was a town, not a county, and had no separate yamen. The Town Supervisor’s Office and the Patrol Inspector’s Office performed rather similar duties and were perpetually at odds. The case of He Jie’s impersonation of an inspector, extortion, and attempted killing was therefore handled entirely by the Patrol Inspector’s Office, without the town supervisor’s involvement. Its main hall was temporarily cleared and turned into a courtroom for the hearing.
By the time He Jie was brought into the hall, his clothes were filthy and his hair disordered. He had begun muttering incoherently. When the officers pushed him down to kneel, he pressed his forehead against the floor and refused to raise it. They had to strike him with a staff before he would straighten his back.
Despairing, He Jie looked up at Wu Yundi, the patrol inspector seated behind the hearing desk. None of his former arrogance remained.
Only a sparse crowd of a dozen or so gathered outside. Townspeople had little idea what the case concerned, and most were too wary to come watching. Only a handful of the bolder ones dared.
Before long, Zhang Wu and Ning Fuwen were brought in too, their hands restrained in wooden stocks. He Jie scarcely reacted. When he was locked underground the night before, he had learned that the two were held in neighboring cells.
Wu Yundi had not been able to hire a court clerk, so he asked the owner of a bookshop to record the proceedings. Once the accused had been summoned, it was time to call the complainant.
A sharpness returned to He Jie’s unfocused eyes. He seemed eager to see who had come to demand justice for He Yi.
A familiar tall figure emerged from the middle of the hall. His steps were a little unsteady, but someone supported him, lending his movements an air of composed dignity.
He Yi had refused to drink all of the yao dew collected that morning. He had insisted on splitting it evenly with Xue Ci. Both were somewhat better for it, though neither had fully recovered, and they could only walk by supporting each other.
After helping He Yi to the designated spot, Xue Ci withdrew to the area reserved for spectators.
Yes. The injured complainant summoned to testify was He Yi himself.
Suddenly, mad laughter rang through the hall. Tears and mucus streamed down He Jie’s face as he cried in disbelief, “You’re not dead?! You’re actually alive! If you’re not dead, what are you accusing me of?! Hahahahaha! I’m safe! I’m safe!”
He scrambled to his feet and hurried toward the inspector, demanding to be released. “Why have you arrested me?! Why?! Tell me what right you have! He isn’t dead! I haven’t committed any crime!”
He Jie had spent the night terrified, even considering the extreme step of killing Wu Yundi. He had assumed he had been arrested because He Yi had died. With a death on his hands and his patron gone, prison had seemed inevitable.
But now He Yi was standing before him, alive. He Jie was beside himself with joy, practically insane with it. If He Yi was alive and well, then surely He Jie was innocent!
That was how beautifully he chose to imagine it. He disregarded the fact that He Yi had almost died and tried to shed every last scrap of responsibility.
He Yi gave him a cold glance without answering. Wu Yundi, unable to tolerate the performance, seized the court block and brought it down hard on the desk. “Silence! How dare you behave so outrageously in this court!”
The officers were not proper yamen runners and had never seen a scene like this before. At the sight of Wu’s dark expression, they hurried to force He Jie back to his knees.
He Jie struggled uselessly. The wooden restraints held both his hands and his head, and he was easily kicked down and dragged back, powerless to resist.
“Complainant He Yi, resident of Chongzi Village, you are ordered to relate the events in question and state your complaint.”
He Yi bowed and described how He Jie had come to his home with Zhang Wu and the others to threaten him. As he spoke, more townspeople gathered outside, all listening with fascination.
At the end, He Yi declared, “I accuse He Jie of having someone impersonate Your Honor to extort money from me and of using violence against me. He struck my head with a long wooden bench, leaving me unconscious for two days. Cough. I only barely awoke yesterday, and the physician can testify to that. I beg Your Honor to judge the matter fairly!”
He Jie glared at He Yi with naked malice. At the accusation of impersonating the inspector, his eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. He had never expected He Yi to attack him on that point. Joy had so overwhelmed him earlier that he had forgotten this fatal weakness.
Yet he quickly regained his composure. Nobody in the village had known Zhang Wu was posing as the inspector. The only people who knew were the three conspirators and He Yi. If they all denied it to the end, what could He Yi do?
Anyone could deny the truth and turn facts upside down with bare assertions. Besides, the families of those two men were under his watch. They would never dare confess. At worst, he would pay some compensation and lose a little salary. So He Jie confidently told himself.
He Jie opened his mouth to argue, only for Zhang Wu and Ning Fuwen, who had been huddling beside him and staring at the floor, to begin competing to confess! Not content with admitting their own offenses, they identified He Jie as the ringleader who had ordered them to act in his capacity as head runner, all to take revenge on He Yi.
He Jie went mad again and lunged toward the two traitors as though to tear into them with his teeth, but the officers pinned him down in time.
Behind the desk, Wu Yundi gave the two men a startled look and silently considered what had happened.
He had never dreamed it would go this smoothly. He had expected the two men, who were tied to He Jie by their shared guilt, to be difficult to crack. Instead, they had confessed without hesitation and had even volunteered as witnesses against him.
Still, a smooth case required proper procedure. Wu called Zheng Yuanfeng and his father Zheng Ziya to the front and instructed them to relate everything they had learned that day.
Although Elder Zhang had asked them to serve as witnesses the day before and they had spent an entire night preparing themselves, the older Zheng was still so nervous that he could barely speak coherently. It fell to the younger, braver Zheng Yuanfeng to give a clear, detailed account of what he had seen.
Because Zheng Yuanfeng told the truth, his testimony largely agreed with that of the others and indirectly corroborated much of what had happened.
The pieces fit together. There was no doubt that He Jie had schemed to extort He Yi’s money and take his life, and had ordered his subordinates to impersonate an imperial official. The charges were established.
Expressionless, Xue Ci watched He Jie continue loudly denying all guilt. He Jie shouted that He Yi had disobeyed an order, that even if he had beaten him to death, He Yi would have deserved it! At those words, a long, sharp icicle suddenly formed inside each of Xue Ci’s tightly clenched fists. Cold spilled from the spikes and chilled the spectators beside him. Their cries broke through the fury that had closed his ears.
“Ah! It’s freezing! Where did this ice come from?!”
“What’s that thing? What’s that young fellow holding?!”
Xue Ci looked down, saw the ice spikes he had conjured without realizing it, and hurriedly opened his hands. As they fell to the ground, he asked along with everyone else, “What are these? I only just picked them up off the ground.”
The people around him exchanged baffled looks. Believing him, they began searching the ground too, though none seemed to know what for.
A disturbance stirred at the edge of the hall. Wu Yundi had to strike the court block and call for silence before preparing to announce judgment.
Curious, He Yi turned toward Xue Ci and saw him innocently studying the sky. The sight made his eyes curve with amusement. But before he could turn back, he heard the patrol inspector above and to the side utter two stunning words.
“Exile.”