Meng Qianzi walked out and saw three maids in green standing properly outside the courtyard gate, each holding a large wooden box.
She was startled for a moment, then said, “Come in.”
The three maids bowed at the knee and then carried the wooden boxes straight into the main hall.
Meng Qianzi stood in the courtyard. They soon came back out, and the round-faced maid said, “Miss, this servant is Lüwan. His Highness has arranged for the three of us to attend to you. These are Hongdou and Lanying.”
Hongdou and Lanying were clearly younger, no more than thirteen, but they too carried themselves with easy confidence, with not a trace of timidity.
Lüwan instructed them, “Go fetch water for the Miss to bathe.”
Meng Qianzi raised a hand. “Wait. I don’t need anyone to attend to me.”
She remembered that these maids had all been chosen by the Empress Dowager, and worried that from now on her every move might well be reported back to Nanny Xiangyun. It made her deeply uneasy.
Besides, she had had no one to attend to her on Cuiwei Mountain, quite the opposite, she had had to chop wood, cook, wash clothes, and tend vegetables herself.
Even at the Meng residence, she had never once enjoyed the luxury of being surrounded by maids.
The Meng family had produced generals for three generations, and though their salaries and rewards were considerable, the three generals had taken most of it to support disabled soldiers and the families of the fallen, and could not afford to keep so many servants.
Lüwan smiled. “This is His Highness’s own arrangement. This servant asks the Miss not to make things difficult for us.”
Meng Qianzi said no more.
After a hot bath, she did not put on airs, and settled down to sleep in the main hall, where Lüwan had freshly made the bed.
The moment her body touched the soft silk quilt, days of exhaustion swept over her all at once, and she fell fast asleep.
Still, with important matters weighing on her mind, her sleep was not restful, and she woke before the mao hour (5 a.m.).
Today was the nineteenth of the eighth month, thirty-eight days remained before her father’s execution.
Meng Qianzi’s heart grew heavy. She rose and got out of bed, and from the several sets of clothes the maids had brought the night before, chose the plainest one, a light moon-white robe, to change into.
Hearing the sound, Hongdou hurried in at once to bring water for her to wash.
It was still early, and after training in the courtyard for a while, Meng Qianzi timed her arrival at the front hall to wait for Xiao Jiuyi.
Just past the chen hour, Xiao Jiuyi and Qingzhou appeared in the front hall.
Xiao Jiuyi glanced at her, and this time at least there was no more disgust in his eyes.
He strode outward, speaking rather quickly. “For the next three days, you are this Prince’s person. Pay no attention to anyone who questions your identity, and do not say your surname is Meng.”
You are this Prince’s person… the words stirred a strange feeling in Meng Qianzi, but she pushed it out of her mind at once.
She hesitated for a moment. “There are a good number of people in the capital who know this subject…”
She had trained under Dugu Yuan for nine years, returning home only once every two years, and had spent most of the past year fighting on the frontier. When she returned to the capital, it had happened to be the turn of the year, the season of the busiest social visits, and she had met many people.
Xiao Jiuyi suddenly stopped in his tracks, and Meng Qianzi nearly walked straight into his back, hastily stepping back and standing straight.
Xiao Jiuyi looked sideways at her as though she were a fool. “Can’t understand plain speech? This Prince says who you are, and that’s who you are!”
Meng Qianzi understood, and her heart stirred. “My father once said, if I had been born a son, he would have named me Meng Jiuguan, meaning to guard the nine passes of Great Qian, so let this commoner be called Guan Jiu, a jianghu wanderer come to seek shelter under Your Highness.”
Xiao Jiuyi, as though not noticing her small trick, said coolly, “Not too stupid.”
Meng Qianzi sighed silently, though she was grateful he had thought through the details so carefully, his tongue was just a little too sharp.
Stepping down from Little Prince Yong’s grand, splendid carriage, Meng Qianzi quietly studied the Jinyu Si, the office everyone feared.
At first glance it looked no different from any other government office. If there was anything different about it, it was that it was both larger and far more silent.
Across the great courtyard, nearly a thousand Jinyu Guards stood in ramrod-straight rows, every one of them in solid black brocade robes, dense and dark as a stroke of heavy ink.
As the morning wind swept past, the faint feather patterns embroidered along the hems of their black robes seemed to take flight, and one strong hand after another gripped tight around the hilt of the saber at each waist, the whole atmosphere unusually solemn.
Meng Qianzi had no doubt that with a single word from Xiao Jiuyi, they would empty out at once and descend straight upon whatever household he named.
Xiao Jiuyi merely waved a hand, and hundreds of Jinyu Guards silently dispersed, each going about their own duties, with nothing but the rustle of footsteps to be heard.
It showed just how strict Xiao Jiuyi’s command over them was.
From the very start, Meng Qianzi had been quietly searching for one particular person.
In her past life, a Jinyu Guard close to her cousin, named Zhou Yi.
She had once heard her cousin say that Zhou Yi held her father in great regard. If he were willing to help her, it would greatly improve her odds of getting to the bottom of her father’s case.
Unfortunately, there were too many people, and she did not spot him.
Following Xiao Jiuyi into the room where he handled his daily official business, Meng Qianzi could not help but gasp quietly at the thick stacks of case files piled on the desk.
Everyone said civil officials were overworked, but this Commander, who was not even a civil official, seemed to be busier than most of them put together.
Xiao Jiuyi sat down at the desk and instructed, “Qingzhou, bring Mingzhi in. You, first, look over the Princess of Xiang’s case file.”
Meng Qianzi took the thin file and began reading it carefully.
The contents of the file held far more detail than what Xiao Jiuyi had told her the day before.
A brief account of the Princess of Xiang’s life, along with the time and place she was discovered dead, and the testimony of the first witness. Beyond that, there was also a drawing.
A drawing depicting the peeled skin from the Princess of Xiang’s back, carved all over with sutra verses.
Meng Qianzi was drawn to this eerie drawing at once.
The sutra text in the drawing appeared to reproduce most of the real details accurately, even the bloodstains beside the characters had been rendered.
“Regardless of man or woman, of Qiang, Hu, or other foreign peoples, of old or young, noble or lowly, whether dragon or spirit, whether of heaven or of the underworld, all who feel the retribution of their sins and karma suffer it together without distinction, and thus it is called Uninterrupted.
If one falls into this hell, from the moment of first entering it, through hundreds and thousands of kalpas, day and night without pause, ten thousand deaths and ten thousand rebirths, one cannot find a single moment’s respite, not until the karma is exhausted, and only then may one be reborn, thus, without any break, it is called Uninterrupted.” ①
Meng Qianzi had never studied Buddhism, and for a moment had no idea what sutra this was.
But from these two passages, it seemed to be hinting at something.
Suddenly a shadow fell across the light, and Meng Qianzi looked up.
Xiao Jiuyi stood looking down at her, rubbing his jade thumb ring, and asked, “See anything?”
Meng Qianzi steadied herself. “From this rubbing of the sutra text alone, this subject can only make out two points, first, this text must have been carved into the victim while she was still alive, second, the content of the text seems to carry a deliberate implication, that no matter one’s station, anyone who commits evil karma will fall into the Uninterrupted Hell.” ②
Xiao Jiuyi pressed his thin lips together, his palm resting on the case file, the bones of his slender hand evenly shaped and full of strength.
Meng Qianzi looked at that hand, one that had known nothing but ease and comfort its whole life, and yet somehow felt he could crush the life out of her at any moment.
The man raised an eyebrow, seemingly satisfied enough with her answer. “This text comes from the Ksitigarbha Sutra, and it does mean roughly what you understood it to. What else do you make of it?”
Meng Qianzi answered, “Going by that reasoning, the killer must hold some deep, bitter grudge against the Princess of Xiang. But the Princess of Xiang was not from the capital, she was born in Huainan, and after marrying the Prince of Xiang lived for a long time in Hexi. Who would travel such a great distance to the capital, and inside the tightly guarded imperial palace besides, to torment her in such an elaborate way before finally killing her?”
“Hmph.” Xiao Jiuyi suddenly gave a cold snort, his tone turning severe. “If you assume from the start that the killer isn’t Consort Chun, then there’s no need to investigate this case at all.”
Meng Qianzi’s heart lurched violently, and she understood his meaning at once.
Until the truth of the case was fully uncovered, anyone could be the killer. If she wanted to find the truth, she could not allow personal feelings to sway her, or she might overlook the very clues that mattered.
She answered, “This commoner understands. Thank you for the guidance, Your Highness.”
Xiao Jiuyi’s expression eased slightly. “Set your mind straight, memorize the contents of the file well, and come with this Prince into the palace shortly.”
Meng Qianzi asked, keeping her voice even, “Will this subject be able to see Her Ladyship Consort Chun today?”
Note: ① This passage is taken from the Ksitigarbha Sutra.
② From Baidu Baike: the karmic forces spoken of in Buddhist teaching are divided, by the nature of the act, into good karma, evil karma, and karma of no fixed nature, by whether or not retribution is fixed, into fixed karma and unfixed karma, by the scope of retribution, into shared karma and individual karma, and by the difference in what is received, into leading karma and fulfilling karma. Among these, good karma and evil karma are each formed by different kinds of acts, and are comparatively easy to understand.