He would not eat inferior meat, nor fruit that wasn’t fresh…
Xu Songnian took down a sheet of imperial approval paper from the Emperor’s desk and placed it beside Zhang Yao’s knees.
Zhang Yao understood. The Emperor wanted him to write the original memorial requesting intervention in the Tianji Temple arson case, so that Fengming Emperor could approve it on the spot. With the imperial approval and travel warrant in hand, he could then go to the Ministry of Justice Review Office for authorization before proceeding to the Military Patrol Office to take Liu Yinglian away.
“Use my ink,” the Emperor said. “No need to go through any more trouble. Xu Songnian, give him a brush.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Xu Songnian took a Huzhou writing brush from the imperial desk and handed it to Zhang Yao. While drawing close, he lowered his voice and whispered, “Do not show your anger.”
Zhang Yao lifted his eyes toward Xu Songnian.
The old eunuch stood bent at the waist, his gaze dim and weary. He looked utterly exhausted.
“What is it?”
The Emperor spoke up.
“Not taking my brush? Do you still have something you wish to say to me?”
Xu Songnian hurriedly answered, “Oh, perhaps Commander Zhang’s shoulder injury has not yet healed…”
Zhang Yao accepted the Huzhou brush, cutting Xu Songnian off.
“I have nothing to say.”
With that, he lowered himself over the paper and silently began writing.
Standing behind the imperial desk, Fengming Emperor looked down from above at the sheet before Zhang Yao’s knees. Only after Zhang Yao had written more than half of it did he let out a laugh.
“Your handwriting really hasn’t improved at all. So many years have passed, and it still looks like this.”
…
The torrential rain over Liangjing had not stopped.
By the time Zhang Yao stepped out through Shenwu Gate, water had already pooled ankle-deep in the depressions before the gate.
A gate guard handed his saber back to him.
Zhang Yao lowered his head and stared at the rain splashing against the blade’s snowy edge. For a moment, he made no move to take it.
Li Hanzhou accepted the saber on Zhang Yao’s behalf and asked where he intended to go next.
Zhang Yao handed Fengming Emperor’s approval document to him.
“Transfer Liu Yinglian to the Imperial Prison.”
Remembering Song Yinbing’s miserable state, Li Hanzhou felt a trace of pity.
“Interrogate her…?” he asked softly. “Song Yinbing said she’s mute.”
Zhang Yao stepped forward through the pooled rainwater.
After several paces, he stopped and turned back.
“Forget it. The Ministry Review Office can wait until tomorrow. The rain is too heavy today. Go home early.”
Li Hanzhou was puzzled.
Delaying action was unlike Zhang Yao.
Still, he held back his questions, saluted, and took his leave.
After Li Hanzhou departed, the road stood empty.
Rain poured into Zhang Yao’s ears, yet the world felt strangely silent and cold.
He had no desire to return home.
Instead, he went alone to Yang Zhaoyue’s outer residence.
By dusk, he returned carrying a basket of Duke Li peaches and ten Liaodong ginseng roots.
Holding an umbrella in one hand and balancing the basket on his shoulder, he had no free hand to knock, so he nudged the gate with his knee.
Before long, it opened.
The person who answered was not Zhang Min.
It was Yu Lin, recently recovered from serious illness.
She stood in the rain holding an oil-paper umbrella.
Draped over her shoulders was Zhang Yao’s Flying Fish cloak.
The Flying Fish cloak was an imperial gift.
For a slave to wear it was a crime of overstepping one’s station.
Yet this woman had thrown it over herself like a blanket, carelessly draping it across her shoulders.
Looking at her, Zhang Yao felt both helpless and amused.
When she had been an official, she loved eating tribute peaches from the imperial court.
Now that she was a slave, she still wanted to wear luxurious clothing that even he himself rarely had the opportunity to wear.
When a person was covered in wounds and suffering so badly that life itself became difficult, they could sleep anywhere and swallow any bitter medicine.
But once their condition improved even a little, the bitter medicine remained acceptable while everything else became unbearably particular.
She wouldn’t eat poor-quality meat.
She wouldn’t eat fruit that wasn’t fresh.
While recovering, she refused to wear outer garments, yet demanded underclothes that were clean and soft.
And now, just to come answer the door, she had wrapped herself in the finest thing Zhang Yao owned.
“Awake now?”
“Mhm.”
“If you’re awake, you shouldn’t be wearing that.”
“I know.”
Her brows curved into a smile.
“Don’t worry. I know wearing it like this is punishable by death. I won’t step outside this gate.”
Zhang Yao looked at his Flying Fish cloak, now damp from the rain.
“You think I’ll protect you?”
“You…”
“Stop dreaming.”
His sudden cold interruption made Yu Lin’s expression change slightly.
She said nothing more.
The rain crashed down in deafening sheets.
Under the waterproof coverings, the rows of coffins resembled wooden drums being beaten into chaos by the storm.
The hilt of Zhang Yao’s saber knocked repeatedly against the doorframe.
Aware that he had lost his composure, he coughed lightly before lowering his voice.
“Where’s Zhang Min?”
“She’s not doing very well. She’s already asleep.”
Yu Lin stepped aside near the doorway.
“I made perilla porridge and butter pastries. The porridge turned out fairly well. The pastries were meant to nourish both me and your sister. There aren’t many left now, and they don’t look very good anymore…”
“I don’t eat heavy animal fat.”
Carrying the basket into the courtyard, Zhang Yao set it beside the kitchen sink.
Straightening up, he saw that there was indeed a bowl of porridge and half a plate of leftover butter pastries on the kitchen table.
He touched the bowl.
It was still warm.
Truthfully, he was rather hungry.
He casually fished half a vegetable root from an old pickle jar and finished the porridge with it.
Looking at the pastries—which admittedly no longer looked very appealing—he thought of Yu Lin’s picky appetite.
Sighing, he leaned against the stove, picked up the plate, and silently finished them as well.
When he set down the chopsticks, he noticed Yu Lin crouching beside the basket, carefully sorting through the peaches.
Unable to resist, he said:
“Those are already the finest peaches in the world. You’re still picking through them?”
Leaning over the basket without even looking up, she replied,
“If there are better ones, of course I should choose them.”
After speaking, she selected the largest peach.
She washed it at the sink, then took a small knife from beside the stove and carefully peeled and pitted it.
Only then did she bend down onto a small stool by the stove and slowly eat the peach flesh one bite at a time.
Zhang Yao lowered his gaze to her fingers.
The joints were still swollen and bruised.
In truth, Zhang Min and Jiang Huiyun had taken excellent care of her.
After more than ten days, most of the torture wounds on her body had nearly healed.
Only the injuries to her fingers showed little improvement.
“Zhang Yao.”
“Speak.”
“I was sick for too long. How much time do I have left regarding Liu Yinglian?”
She slowly swallowed the final bite of peach before lifting her head to ask.
Zhang Yao did not deny it.
Out of habit, he folded his arms and looked down at her.
“You know the relationship between Song Yinbing and Liu Yinglian?”
Yu Lin nodded.
“I do.”
Zhang Yao looked outside the kitchen.
The stacked coffins stretched one after another beneath the raincloths, resembling a range of brownish-green burial mountains hidden in the storm.
“Today, at Shenwu Gate, Song Yinbing publicly pleaded Liu Yinglian’s innocence.”
Yu Lin abruptly raised her head.
“His Majesty ordered him beaten to death—”
“No.”
Zhang Yao cut her off.
Then he added,
“I kicked him. Whether he’s awake yet or not, I don’t know.”
Yu Lin laughed bitterly twice.
“I suppose that’s one way to handle it…”
“You’re very clever.”
Zhang Yao’s voice turned cold.
“The very first thing you thought of was that His Majesty intended to beat Song Yinbing to death. That means you understand something.”
“If Song Yinbing’s life doesn’t matter, then Liu Yinglian’s life matters even less.”
“I assumed everything you said at Tianji Temple was merely to comfort Liu Yinglian, Yu Lin.”
Yu Lin did not answer.
She sat quietly beside the cold stove, resting her chin on one hand without moving.
“Yu Lin.”
Zhang Yao raised his voice.
Only then did she turn toward him.
Zhang Yao’s words had always been cruel.
Even now, he was already trying to restrain himself.
Yet when the words left his mouth, they still struck like hammers against bone.
“A praying mantis trying to stop a chariot never ends well. Look at yourself. You can’t even recover from your illness properly. How can you possibly hope to overturn the world for someone else?”
Yu Lin smiled.
“You’re right.”
Zhang Yao remained silent for a moment before continuing.
“I know you pride yourself on ten years in the judicial system and believe you’ve walked a path different from the rest of us.”
“You killed Wang Shaolian yourself.”
“You revised the Regulations on Criminal Inquiry.”
“You rescued female prisoners from the Ministry of Justice prison.”
“Those achievements prove your ability as Vice Minister of Justice.”
“But Liu Yinglian is not one of those nameless female prisoners.”
“She is an imperial criminal.”
“She is definitely going to die.”
As the words reached their harshest point, Zhang Yao saw her shoulders tremble.
He immediately stopped himself.
After taking a breath, he softened his tone.
“For my sister’s sake, I’ll give you one last piece of advice.”
“It’s fine.”
Yu Lin sniffed.
“Wasn’t I an imperial criminal too?”
Her fingers gently clasped together.
“When you came to the Ministry prison wearing burial clothes and asking me to kill you, didn’t you also think I was definitely going to die?”
Zhang Yao had no answer.
She wasn’t wrong.
His connection with this woman had begun precisely because of that certainty.
He had believed the sentence of death by slow slicing could not be changed.
He had believed she was doomed.
He had thought that killing the lackey she hated most before her death might offer some small comfort.
Yet she had refused.
She insisted on living.
And now she truly was alive, right before him.
Day after day.
Demanding food.
Demanding clothes.
Forcing Zhang Yao to sell coffins one by one throughout Liangjing.
And forcing him to admit that he had genuinely been wrong.
“Stop folding your arms all the time.”
Zhang Yao froze.
“You look heartless when you do that. This is your own home.”
He said nothing.
But slowly, his arms lowered.
Yu Lin rubbed her forehead, trying to clear her mind.
Then she gathered the Flying Fish cloak more tightly around herself.
“Liu Yinglian is still at the Military Patrol Office?”
“Yes.”
After uncrossing his arms, Zhang Yao suddenly felt awkward.
He didn’t know how he ought to stand.
“Why don’t you squat down?”
“Huh?”
Zhang Yao raised an eyebrow.
“My throat hurts. If you keep standing there, I have to raise my voice to talk to you.”
Sitting on the ground was impossible.
Although Zhang Yao spent money only on coffins and never on household luxuries, and cared little for the grandeur of noble estates, he had led the Northern Garrison Office for many years.
Countless people had knelt at his feet.
Aside from the Emperor in court and Zhang Min at home, no one had ever been able to tell him to squat or kneel.
“And who do you think you are—”
Before he could finish, a scraping sound interrupted him.
Yu Lin dragged over another small stool from beside the stove.
“Please have a seat, Master of the House.”
Already uncomfortable, Zhang Yao somehow found himself sitting down.
The moment he settled onto the stool, he heard her murmur softly beside him:
“Men are so troublesome.”
“Yu Lin!”
Instead of answering, she laughed.
The laugh made even Zhang Yao’s iron-like face turn red.
“Talk properly.”
Yu Lin nodded.
“Fine.”
“Then let me see how much hope Liu Yinglian still has left.”
Her eyes swept over his boots.
“You’re wearing leather boots. That means you were summoned into the Inner Court…”
She was breathing a little heavily.
Clenching her fingers, she forced herself to concentrate.
“You encountered Song Yinbing pleading for Liu Yinglian at Shenwu Gate. That means the Military Patrol Office has already identified her as the culprit behind the Tianji Temple fire…”
“His Majesty attempted to have Song Yinbing beaten to death, which means he does not want the theory of Heavenly Response to Human Affairs used to criticize his rule.”
“You said Liu Yinglian has become an imperial criminal…”
Yu Lin looked up at Zhang Yao.
Zhang Yao continued for her.
“Your deductions are correct.”
“I already have the imperial approval.”
“Once the Ministry Review Office authorizes it, the Punishment Office commander will bring Liu Yinglian from the Military Patrol Office back to the Imperial Prison.”
Yu Lin stared at him.
Water dripped from her wet hair and slowly traced down her cheeks.
She wiped her face lightly.
Her lips parted, yet for a long time no words emerged.
“You don’t dare ask, do you?”
Yu Lin lowered her head.
“It’s not that I don’t dare.”
“It’s that I can’t bear to.”
“I know you’re going to execute her through judicial punishment.”
As she spoke, she looked toward the coffins in the courtyard.
“When?”
“Before sunset tomorrow.”
Yu Lin immediately asked,
“The Ministry Review Office doesn’t take that long to authorize a transfer. Why not execute her tonight?”
How was he supposed to answer?
Tell her he had delayed things by one day because of her?
Zhang Yao could not bring himself to say it.
Yet beside him, Yu Lin answered for him.
“You actually still want to believe I can overturn the heavens, don’t you?”
That’s right.
Looking at her, Zhang Yao unconsciously answered in his heart.
“My clothes.”
“…”
Thinking of how sick she had been—like some disheveled ghost unable even to leave her bed—he had not yet found time to buy any for her.
Now that she asked, he could only reply with another question.
“What do you need them for?”
“I want to go see Song Yinbing.”