I wish for all of you to find a way out of this dead game.
Yu Lin entered Song Yinbing’s room alone.
The thick scent of blood filled her nose.
Though she did her best to endure it, she still couldn’t suppress a cough.
Hearing the sound, Song Yinbing was startled.
Enduring the pain, he quickly reached out and lightly gripped the blanket at his waist.
Seeing this, Jiang Huiyun sighed, rose from the bedside, gave up her place, and quietly left the room, closing the door behind her.
Song Yinbing had looked after Yu Lin in the Ministry of Justice for many years.
He knew well that her senses were sharper than most people’s. She had always feared pain more than others and was less able than most to tolerate unpleasant smells and disagreeable tastes.
This was the first time he had seen Yu Lin since her release from prison.
Originally, he had planned to buy her a proper set of jewelry for a young woman, or at the very least some cosmetics and face powder, as a blessing for a former colleague and dear friend who had been granted a new life.
Yet when they met again, he was reduced to this miserable state, unable even to get out of bed.
And she, dressed in the plain hemp skirt worn by registered servants, her long hair slightly damp and her face pale, had come through the rain to tell him she intended to help him.
Song Yinbing could not bring himself to speak directly about the matter.
By the dim yellow lamplight, he looked at Yu Lin—once the young woman who had grown under his protection, then surpassed him and earned renown among the officials of the judicial system, and who had now fallen into the status of an official servant.
His voice caught in his throat.
“Everyone in the Ministry of Justice knew you. You never withheld your sincerity from anyone.”
“Teacher is the umbrella of all officials.”
“And you were worthy of the title of Vice Minister of Justice.”
“But when you were imprisoned…”
“Not one of us ever thought of saving you…”
“Xiao Fu…”
“Senior Brother, you’ve apologized to me many times already.”
She accepted his guilt and smiled gently.
“Actually, it’s fine. Trying to save me would’ve been throwing away your lives for nothing.”
Song Yinbing lowered his head.
“Don’t you… feel sad about it?”
Yu Lin shook her head.
“That’s a foolish question.”
“Every step I’ve taken was my own choice.”
“You were the Vice Minister of Justice.”
There was unmistakable sorrow in Song Yinbing’s voice.
“When has Great Liang ever had a twenty-six-year-old Vice Minister of Justice?”
“And throughout history, when has there ever been an Vice Minister of Justice who used her official status to protect a prisoner?”
“The title of Vice Minister of Justice is only an old designation.”
Yu Lin picked up his words and met his gaze.
“It can be given to anyone. There’s nothing especially precious about it.”
“If this were in the past, I’d probably give you a whole lecture about benevolence and righteousness.”
“But now, I only want to say this.”
“I’m a woman.”
“I want to save women.”
“Back then, I protected prisoners in court.”
“Now, outside the courtroom, I want to save the Liu girl.”
“My heart hasn’t changed.”
After saying that, she sat cross-legged on the floor beside his bed, hugging her knees.
“It’s just that I probably can’t do it as honestly and honorably as I did when I was an official.”
Song Yinbing let out a coughing laugh.
“Thank you…”
Resting her chin on her hand, Yu Lin looked at him with amusement in her eyes.
“I never realized before that Senior Brother was such a hopeless romantic.”
Song Yinbing lowered himself onto the pillow.
His damp, disheveled hair hung before his eyes, partially hiding their faint brightness.
After a long silence, he finally spoke.
“If she still had brothers to protect her…”
“If she still had a place to belong…”
“I wouldn’t have gone this far.”
“But now she’s completely alone in the world.”
“Abandoned by her own family.”
“Trapped in absolute isolation.”
“As you said, none of those distinguished gentlemen are obligated to save her.”
“But I am.”
“Even if I die, I cannot retreat.”
“Otherwise, I’d be worse than a pig or a dog.”
As soon as he finished speaking, pain surged through him again.
He bent over and coughed several times.
Yu Lin looked at his fingers.
“Do you still have Yinglian’s letters?”
“I have all of them…”
Bracing himself on his arms, Song Yinbing pushed up his upper body and knelt on the bed, trying to reach a wooden box atop a low cabinet beside it.
Following the direction of his hand, Yu Lin looked up.
The wooden box appeared fairly heavy.
She lowered her eyes to her own hands.
At this moment, she could not afford even the slightest injury to them.
“Zhang Yao.”
Outside beneath the corridor, Zhang Yao, who had been leaning against the doorway, turned his head.
The rain had weakened.
Yu Lin’s voice was very clear.
She was calling him by his full name again, just as she had done when presiding over court proceedings, calling out the names of defendants below the bench.
Deep down, she still hadn’t entirely shed that former identity.
She kept saying she needed to repay the money he had spent on the coffin used to buy her freedom.
Yet from the end of August until the middle of September, she had done nothing except lie in bed recovering.
Whenever fever muddled her mind, whether she wanted water or needed help washing her hands, she called his name.
And it was only at the age of twenty-eight that Zhang Yao had truly become aware of his own name.
After all, Zhang Min stubbornly called him “Yaoyao.”
Throughout the court, if people didn’t call him Commander Zhang, they addressed him simply as Imperial Envoy.
The two characters “Zhang Yao” were the words he saw most often on identification plaques and official documents.
Yet he rarely heard them spoken aloud by another person.
Only now did he realize how casually his parents had chosen the sound of his name while focusing all their efforts on the meaning behind Zhang Min’s.
“Zhang” was an exceedingly common surname.
And “Yao” was not an especially pleasant-sounding character.
Yet every time Yu Lin said the two together, he found himself developing the absurd feeling that he had somehow been born beneath her station.
Like now.
Her tone wasn’t urgent at all.
But the moment he heard her voice, Zhang Yao had already straightened up.
“What is it?”
“Come in and help me get a box.”
“…”
In the rain-soaked courtyard, Tougulong lowered its head and paced restlessly.
Zhang Yao sighed.
Unfolding his arms, he turned and entered the room.
“Which box?”
This was the first time Song Yinbing had ever met Zhang Yao in private.
Moreover, the injuries covering his body had been inflicted by Li Hanzhou of the Northern Garrison Office.
Now he lay wounded and bedridden in such a miserable state.
With Zhang Yao standing before him, he found it impossible to preserve any dignity.
Zhang Yao noticed his embarrassment but seemed unconcerned.
Walking to the bed, he reached up and took down the wooden box.
Lowering his head, he said to Song Yinbing,
“As officials, it’s inevitable that you’ll have dealings with me.”
Song Yinbing said nothing.
Placing the wooden box into Yu Lin’s hands, Zhang Yao continued,
“So what if you’ve become a prisoner for a while?”
“You once imprisoned me too…”
He glanced at Yu Lin before finishing,
“…for her sake.”
“That was because you, Zhang Yao, are shameless! Cough—cough cough—”
Song Yinbing cursed between violent coughs.
To his surprise, Zhang Yao merely nodded.
“Mhm.”
“You…”
Song Yinbing was rendered speechless.
Meanwhile, Yu Lin had already opened the wooden box.
As expected, it contained years of correspondence between Song Yinbing and Liu Yinglian.
There were more than a hundred letters.
“Do you have paper and brushes?” Yu Lin asked the still-stunned Song Yinbing.
Only then did he come back to himself.
Looking toward his writing desk, he replied,
“Yes. They’re on the desk.”
Yu Lin glanced over.
“That paper won’t do.”
Zhang Yao looked down at her.
“What kind of paper do you want?”
Yu Lin organized the letters in her hands.
“The best paper in the world.”
“The best paper in the world…”
Song Yinbing repeated thoughtfully.
Then he hesitated.
“Imperial approval paper?”
A shadow suddenly fell before Yu Lin.
Looking up, she found that Zhang Yao had crouched down.
“What are you planning to do?”
“A game.”
Song Yinbing and Zhang Yao exchanged glances.
Then, almost simultaneously, both asked,
“What do you mean?”
Yu Lin looked toward Song Yinbing.
“Senior Brother Song, we’ve both worked in the Ministry of Justice for many years.”
“When men commit crimes, no matter their background or the severity of their offenses, someone always works on their behalf.”
“Powerful officials have political allies protecting them.”
“Even upright scholars have fellow disciples willing to rescue them.”
“But when women are imprisoned, no one pays them any attention.”
“Just look at me and the Liu girl.”
“We sat in prison cells.”
“We knelt before execution platforms.”
“Other than hearing people shout over and over, ‘Slice her apart!'”
“…we heard nothing else.”
“In prison, I asked myself countless times.”
“Why?”
“On what grounds?”
A faint sheen of moisture glimmered in her eyes.
Even Song Yinbing found himself moved.
“The day I was bound to the execution platform, I finally understood.”
She drew a slow breath.
Looking toward the doorway ahead, she spoke calmly and openly.
“A single household gate cuts off every path available to us.”
“We aren’t expected to carry burdens or perform labor.”
“And so we have no way to earn even a single tael through our own efforts.”
“In this world, those who are considered useless have no companions.”
“Once abandoned by their families, they become wandering ghosts.”
“How could anyone risk their lives to save them?”
“From the very beginning, we were discarded pieces.”
“So if I want to save the Liu girl, there is only one method.”
Turning back to Zhang Yao, she continued:
“If this game succeeds, your Northern Garrison Office will no longer be beyond restraint.”
“As for the Liu girl…”
“I’m going to turn her from a discarded piece into a move.”
“A piece that every player in Liangjing must protect.”
Song Yinbing said,
“I still don’t understand…”
“It sounds dangerous.”
“It sounds like gambling with your life.”
“Xiao Fu…”
“That’s just who I am.”
The words she spoke were suddenly the very phrase Zhang Yao often used himself.
He stared in surprise.
Yu Lin merely laughed softly.
In the shifting light and shadow, she raised her right hand.
The worst of the inflammation had finally faded.
Though the finger torture had damaged both tendons and bones, the bruising and swelling remained alarming to behold.
But at least now, she could write again.
“Zhang Yao.”
This time her voice was gentler than before.
So gentle, in fact, that Zhang Yao suddenly felt his ordinary, unremarkable name sounded much better than usual.
“What is it?”
“Thank you.”
“That night in the Ministry prison, you told me to treasure the hand I use for writing.”
“Fortunately…”
She lowered her eyes to her hand.
“Fortunately, I still have one.”
Zhang Yao looked at her fingers.
He remembered the night he had gone to the Ministry prison to “buy” her.
How fortunate indeed.
Fortunately, he had twisted his own wrist restraint at the time and had not given in to the urge to strike down that fragile body.
Fortunately, when Yu Lin had tried to strangle him, he had steadied himself in time and not allowed the thin shackles to sever her fingers.
Otherwise, he would never have heard this word of thanks.
“Imperial approval paper, then?”
“Mhm.”
Zhang Yao stood and walked toward the door.
Yet before he could leave, Yu Lin called after him.
“Actually, even without imperial approval paper, I don’t really mind.”
Zhang Yao turned around.
In an even voice, he asked,
“You like saying ‘it doesn’t matter.'”
“But is that really the truth?”
Standing in the doorway, Yu Lin crossed her arms, mimicking his usual posture.
“Of course not.”
“It’s just that I think everything in this world has a price.”
“You keep helping me.”
“I keep accepting your kindness.”
“And you’re always so eager to die.”
“So I worry that one day you’ll kneel before me, place a knife in my hand, and beg me to kill you.”
“And to repay what I owe you, I’d be forced to break the principles I’ve upheld for years.”
“Don’t worry.”
The rain had stopped.
Zhang Yao stepped into a deep pool of darkness.
“I understand that you dislike private executions.”
“I won’t force you to kill me.”
“I’m helping you simply because saving one more life is saving one more life, Yu Lin.”
Yu Lin was silent for a long while before finally responding.
“…All right.”
Zhang Yao looked toward the thin figure standing in the doorway.
Then he said quietly:
“I wish for all of you to find a way out of this dead game.”