Li Zhengda returned home without even having time to change out of his court robes. He instructed his trusted steward, Steward Zhang, to bring a few men and wait with him in the storehouse.
Though Steward Zhang didn’t understand, as a servant and especially as the master’s confidant, his job was simply to follow whatever the master wanted to do.
Before long, the sound of the storehouse being opened came from inside, and Li Zhengda clenched his fists.
The door swung open. Sun Minghao was dressed in a dark green brocade robe, holding a heavywood fan in his hand, with a concentric-circle jade pendant hanging at his waist.
He tapped the fan lightly against his palm and instructed the men behind him, “Hurry up and put the things away, then leave through the back door. Don’t let anyone see you.”
After giving these orders, Sun Minghao went out. Then a group of men in brown short jackets came in carrying several chests. Just as they set the chests down, they were seized and gagged.
Li Zhengda led Steward Zhang out of the storehouse and saw that scoundrel Sun Minghao standing outside waiting. Without needing any word from Li Zhengda, Steward Zhang stepped forward and pinned Sun Minghao down with a grappling hold.
Sun Minghao hadn’t even figured out how he’d been seized when he saw Li Zhengda coming out from the direction of the storehouse. His eyes widened instantly, and putting together his current situation, he realized he’d been discovered.
Still, he clung to a sliver of unrealistic hope and said with an ingratiating smile, “Father, what is this? Why have Steward Zhang seize me? Have I made some mistake?”
Li Zhengda couldn’t be bothered to waste words on him. Ever since he learned what Sun Minghao had done, even one extra sentence with him made him feel sick.
He simply ordered the steward to carry Sun Minghao out of the residence along with those several large chests, to be delivered to the Court of Judicial Review. And this scene was witnessed by exactly the crowd of officials who had come to watch the spectacle. One look at those wooden chests, and anyone could tell with their toes, this was the evidence Liu Fen had intended to plant on Li Zhengda.
As the officials looked at those wooden chests, along with the restrained Sun Minghao, the same thought rose in all their minds: Shen Shixu was terrifyingly formidable, absolutely not someone to offend.
They all went home and told their families about the matter, instructing them never to cross Shen Shixu. Thus, without Shen Shixu himself even knowing it, his name became famous throughout the entire capital’s circles of nobles and officials.
Meanwhile, Shen Shixu was riding a tall horse down the street, flanked by the second and third place winners of the imperial examination, parading in celebration.
Today was the top scholar’s parade, and the shops along both sides of Chang’an Street were already packed with spectators. Those who couldn’t find a spot stood at the edge of the street, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the top scholar’s grand bearing.
Shen Shixu listened to the crowds on both sides shouting “The Literary Star descended to earth!” “Handsomer than Pan An!” “Overflowing with talent!” His fair, jade-like face flushed with a rosy glow, and his small, delicate earlobes turned so red they seemed about to bleed.
He looked at Yang Mingxuan and Yan Huaimin beside him. The two of them appeared perfectly composed, as if they hadn’t heard the mortifying shouts in their ears, occasionally raising their hands to greet the common folk on either side.
It made Shen Shixu wonder if he was making too big a deal of it. Just as he calmed himself and raised his hand to greet the people on both sides, his sharp eyes caught sight of an auntie wearing a headscarf and a floral front-buttoned jacket, holding a sleeping young child, nervously squeezing her way out of the crowd.
It looked like a grandmother who had brought her grandson to watch the excitement, and now that the child had fallen asleep, she was anxious to take him home, afraid the crowd’s shouting would wake him.
But as Shen Shixu watched, something felt off, so he kept staring and sure enough, he spotted something wrong. That auntie’s build was far too robust!
She didn’t seem like an auntie at all, more like an uncle dressed up as one.
At this thought, Shen Shixu was reminded of a profession that had existed from ancient times through the present, and would persist even into the future child traffickers!
Shen Shixu also considered whether he might be overthinking it, but with something this important, even if he was wrong, he couldn’t just let it slide.
A child is, at all times, the most important person in a family. Lose the child, and the family falls apart.
So Shen Shixu shouted directly toward the auntie he suspected, “Catch the trafficker! That auntie in the floral front-buttoned jacket with the headscarf is a child trafficker! Grab her quickly, don’t let her get away!”
Shen Shixu was already the center of attention in the crowd, and hearing his words, everyone surged into motion.
No one doubted him. Everyone looked toward the auntie in the floral jacket and headscarf he had pointed out.
Perhaps out of a guilty conscience, the moment Shen Shixu finished speaking, the auntie scooped up the child and ran.
Seeing her flee, the crowd rushed to block her. One man took a running start, leaped into the air, and delivered a flying kick.
It struck the auntie square in the back. A blow from something weighing over a hundred catties would fell even a martial arts master, let alone an aging auntie, she let out a miserable scream.
But that scream wasn’t the sharp shriek of a woman at all it was rough and gravelly, unmistakably a man’s voice.
And looking at his attire, he was clearly dressed as a woman. Now the onlookers understood: this person really was the trafficker the Young Master Zhuangyuan had spoken of.
The Zhuangyuan truly lived up to his title, no wonder he’d earned top honors in the exams. His eyes were sharper than anyone else’s, spotting a trafficker from that far away.
Shen Shixu had heard the scream too, and dismounted from his horse. Yang Mingxuan and Yan Huaimin, never expecting they’d actually caught a trafficker, dismounted as well.
The three of them walked through a gap the crowd had deliberately left open for them. The first thing Shen Shixu did upon approaching was check the toddler held by an older woman nearby, a very beautiful child.
A little face fair with a rosy glow, long thick lashes like a tiny fan, lips slightly pouted, a pair of gold bracelets on the wrists of hands clenched into little fists, wrapped in a layer of patched clothing.
Seeing those gold bracelets, Shen Shixu knew this abducted child came from a wealthy family. He lifted the tattered outer wrapping to reveal the clothes the child wore underneath, fine Huanhua brocade.
“This child isn’t from an ordinary family. Whoever lost him must be frantic with worry. We should hurry and send the trafficker and the child to the Jingzhao Prefecture, his family may well be waiting there.”
After examining the child, Shen Shixu turned to the young man who had captured the trafficker and said, “Young brother, that was quite agile of you. Might I trouble you to take this trafficker, along with the child, to the Jingzhao Prefecture?”
When Li Daniu saw the top scholar, a man as radiant as the bright moon in the sky, speaking to him, his face instantly flushed red, and he stammered, “Th-thank you for the compliment, Your Excellency. I’ll deliver him to the Capital Prefecture right away.”
Shen Shixu smiled and bowed to him. “Then my thanks to you, young man!”