Chapter 77
Proofreader : Mim
” Director Li, what is the meaning of this…”
Chunmei tried to feign composure, but her instinctive avoidance of Li Zhi’s gaze betrayed her unease.
“Four years ago, the Crown Prince was deposed, and the instigator was a secret letter hidden inside a dragon statue. Someone saw the person who planted the letter. That person was you.”
Chunmei was entirely unprepared for Li Zhi’s accusation, her expression revealing panic.
Before she could come up with an excuse, Li Zhi continued methodically.
“Four years ago, on a rainy day, someone stuffed a secret letter into a dragon statue in front of Ziwei Palace’s main hall. That stone was clogged with oiled paper, and out of the thousand dragon statues in the palace, only that one stopped draining. A palace servant who witnessed the suspicious act went to investigate the statue and discovered the letter. Due to the gravity of the matter, they were relocated and sworn to secrecy to avoid execution.”
“I reviewed your records. If you hadn’t fabricated evidence and drawn my attention, I wouldn’t have traced this back to you so quickly,” Li Zhi said. “Two months before the Crown Prince’s downfall, you were stationed at the Xuanhui Hall.”
“And so what…” Chunmei forced herself to ask.
“The dragon statues at Ziwei Palace only exist in the front hall. The only people who could have witnessed the clogging of the statue were those stationed in the rear of Xuanhui Hall, which faces the main hall of Ziwei Palace,” Li Zhi explained. “Xuanhui Hall only opens its gates during rituals and is otherwise abandoned. On regular days, only one palace servant is assigned to guard it.”
“According to the records of the Bureau of Astronomy, the year the Crown Prince was deposed, the capital experienced forty-five rainy days,” Li Zhi said. “Narrowing down those forty-five days to investigate the palace servants stationed at Xuanhui Hall significantly reduces the pool of suspects. Do you want me to continue for you, or will you speak for yourself?”
Li Zhi smiled faintly. “Here’s a kind reminder: if I continue, you’ll have to come back with me to the Palace Administration Bureau.”
Faced with the truth, further denial would have been a futile struggle.
Chunmei gave up resistance and admitted dejectedly, “Director Li is right. I was the first to discover the letter.”
Now it was Chunmei’s turn to speak, and Li Zhi’s turn to listen.
“That day… I was on duty at Xuanhui Hall. It had been raining on and off since the afternoon.”
“I remember it clearly because it was the Emperor’s Longevity Festival. Apart from those on duty, everyone else had the day off. Xuanhui Hall usually has nothing to do outside of rituals, so the steward eunuch kindly allowed me to go home early.”
“After I returned, I realized I’d left my pouch in the hall,” Chunmei said awkwardly. “Since it contained my monthly allowance, I grabbed a paper umbrella and hurried back to retrieve it.”
Chunmei’s memory took her back to that rainy day four years ago.
Cold rain pelted her umbrella with a loud pattering noise. Stray droplets splashed onto her cheeks, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away. Instead, she prayed fervently that no one had taken her pouch as she quickened her pace toward Xuanhui Hall.
Unlocking the door, she entered the hall and found her lost pouch by the window.
Relieved, she was just about to leave when she happened to glance out through the rain-splattered window. What she saw froze her in place.
A short eunuch in palace livery stood in front of Ziwei Palace’s main hall, stuffing something into the corner dragon statue of the terrace base.
After a moment, the eunuch turned and left. The dragon statue stopped draining water.
“…Out of curiosity, I waited until the eunuch was gone, then walked over with my umbrella to check the spot. I pulled out a bundle wrapped in oiled paper from the dragon statue,” Chunmei recounted.
“When I opened it, I found a secret letter accusing the Crown Prince and the Chancellor of collusion. I didn’t dare conceal it, so I immediately handed it over to Chief Eunuch Gao of Ziwei Palace. After that… you know the rest.”
“Did you see the eunuch’s face?” Li Zhi asked.
Chunmei shook her head. “It was raining, so it was hard to see clearly. I only remember that the eunuch was completely drenched.”
“If you saw this eunuch again, could you recognize him?”
“Maybe,” Chunmei said hesitantly. “But I’ve never seen him since. Perhaps he was killed to silence him after delivering the letter.”
Li Zhi shifted her line of questioning.
“When did Prince Jing approach you?”
“Half a month ago,” Chunmei replied. “I don’t know how he found out about this. Maybe he deduced it, like you. Aside from Chief Eunuch Gao and the Emperor, I haven’t told anyone else about it.”
“Keep this to yourself. Don’t let anyone know I questioned you,” Li Zhi instructed.
“Understood.”
“You may go. Don’t keep Consort Lu waiting.”
Li Zhi dismissed Chunmei and remained standing at the gate of Jiangxue Palace for a moment before leaving herself.
When Xie Lanxu served as a vice minister at the Court of Judicial Review, he was little more than a figurehead and had almost no exposure to real cases.
But after being promoted to the top position, Xie Lanxu quickly realized that even after layers of filtering, the cases that landed on his desk were still overwhelming in number.
If he wanted to slack off, he could live a leisurely life like his predecessor. But Xie Lanxu was not the kind of person to let himself remain ignorant.
He reviewed every case that reached him, and if there were cases that didn’t, he would suspect ulterior motives and find ways to obtain them.
Promotion? Yet it didn’t feel like one.
The long nights of working tirelessly had only increased.
If being the Emperor was like this, Xie Lanxu felt that his desire to claim the throne was beginning to dissipate, much like the cold air of this harsh winter.
After all, his ambitions to become Emperor had nothing to do with the world, nor the common people. His desire was entirely selfish—he simply wanted complete control over his own life.
Not just his own life, but the lives of others as well.
And for that, he was willing to resort to any means necessary.
…Except for overtime.
Every time he worked overtime, he couldn’t help but reminisce about how he spent his usual evenings.
On a normal night like this… he would be drinking tea and playing chess with Li Zhi. Comparing who was worse at chess—each trying to outdo the other in creative blunders—had become one of Xie Lanxu’s favorite ways to relieve stress.
He felt like he had split himself in two. One half of him mechanically sifted through the endless national case files, while the other half floated above, strategizing how to lose to Li Zhi in a more spectacular manner.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
A young man, dressed in soft armor and carrying a sword at his waist, strode in with an air of vigor.
Now that Xie Lanxu was a dignified official of the third rank, it wasn’t inappropriate for him to have a lieutenant serving as his personal bodyguard.
Li Xiangsheng leaned close and whispered a few words into his ear, and Xie Lanxu’s mood instantly improved.
Without hesitation, he abandoned the mountain of files on his desk and got up to leave the office.
Since Xie Lanxu had become the head of the Court of Judicial Review, overtime had become a custom for his colleagues. As he left the building, many of his colleagues were still working. But the moment he was gone, they all heaved sighs of relief and scattered like startled birds, scrambling to escape the Court of Judicial Review as fast as possible.
The sky was already dark when Xie Lanxu boarded his carriage. Outside, it had started to rain lightly.
This time of night, most of the people leaving were also officials of the Court of Judicial Review, and the carriages had created a terrible traffic jam outside Chunyu Gate. The guards tasked with maintaining order were standing in the rain, cursing loudly.
“Do you people from the Court of Judicial Review not have homes? Why do you all wait until the palace gates are about to lock before leaving?”
Xie Lanxu, sitting by the open carriage window, watched the fine rain fall in the night with a detached boredom, completely unaware that the traffic jam was partially his fault.
Finally, the carriages began to move.
As his carriage started rolling forward, the window of the carriage beside his opened. The Minister of Justice poked his head out, smiling warmly as he invited Xie Lanxu to join him at Huixue Pavilion.
“Prince Feng and many of our colleagues are there.”
When Prince Feng’s name was mentioned, Xie Lanxu felt obliged to at least make an appearance.
And so, reluctantly, he went to Huixue Pavilion.
Sitting among a rowdy group of drunken men, with the scent of wine heavy in the air, Xie Lanxu maintained a stoic expression. He watched the performers on stage—brightly painted, their faces smeared with garish reds and greens—as they sang a mournful tale of betrayal and heartbreak. The lead actress wailed in a falsetto voice about an unfaithful man abandoning his promises.
To make matters worse, Prince Feng, whom Xie Lanxu had specifically come for, was not there.
Instead, it seemed he had been duped by the pudgy Minister of Justice, who was now pretending to be his close friend, calling him “virtuous brother” with a sickening familiarity.
Xie Lanxu, meanwhile, was calculating whether the koi pond beneath Huixue Pavilion could accommodate the Minister’s bulk if he were to push him in.
On stage, the performance continued.
They sang about regretting secret vows of love, about lamenting a faithless man who cast aside promises for someone new.
Xie Lanxu wondered where the Prince Feng was.
Could he be at his house, stealing his treasures?
The thought alone was enough to make Xie Lanxu restless. He called over Li Xiangsheng and said calmly, “Handle things here for me. I’m going to the veranda for some fresh air.”
Li Xiangsheng, ever obedient and straightforward, nodded and took his place, even though he was clearly no match for the Minister’s drinking capacity.
Once Li Xiangsheng was left behind, Xie Lanxu immediately walked out of Huixue Pavilion and climbed back into his carriage.
“Take me to Hulu Alley,” he instructed.
The carriage moved slowly through the rainy night.
Xie Lanxu opened the window to let the cold air blow against his face, chasing away the heat. The lyrics from the opera echoed in his mind:
Sweet words that lured her into surrendering herself. But after passing the imperial exam, he married the daughter of his mentor, discarding their past vows like old shoes…
Such stories made Xie Lanxu think: women were indeed passive in matters of love. Whether they were cherished or abandoned depended entirely on the man’s conscience.
Suddenly, he spoke. “Old Wang.”
It was the first time he had ever addressed his coachman by name. The driver, startled and flattered, quickly replied, “Yes, my lord?”
“Tell me… is a woman’s reputation truly as important as her life?”
“Of course it is! If she loses her reputation, she’ll be drowned in a flood of spit!”
“And if a woman is willing to stay with you, even without a title or status…”
He was probably drunk.
Otherwise, why would he be discussing women with a coachman?
Xie Lanxu had already decided to hold his tongue, but the coachman cheerfully responded through the rain, “Then she must really love that man. A woman’s reputation is more important than her life!”
“She must really love that man…”
Xie Lanxu fell silent, lost in thought.
The rain that fell on winter nights felt frozen, each droplet icy to the core. Cold rain dripped from the eaves, forming strings of silver beads.
After many days, Xie Lanxu visited late at night once more. He seated himself in a warmly lit bedroom, its brazier glowing red. Jia Sui took his soaked oiled-paper umbrella and quietly left the room.
Li Zhi poured him a cup of hot tea and, over the sound of the rain, recounted Chunmei’s testimony.
Xie Lanxu sat on the bed, the buzz from the alcohol mostly gone. He toyed absentmindedly with an empty glass teacup, spinning it between his slender fingers.
“Did she see the eunuch’s face clearly?” he asked.
“It was raining. She couldn’t see clearly,” Li Zhi replied.
“Times change, and whether the eunuch is still alive is hard to say.”
Xie Lanxu set down the empty teacup with a faintly mocking expression.”For Prince Jing to attempt to trade such useless information with me… it seems he truly has no other bargaining chips left.”
Li Zhi, seated across from him, asked, “If we can’t find that eunuch, how does Ah-Li plan to clear the Crown Prince’s name?”
“The knot must be untied by the one who tied it,” Xie Lanxu replied. “But not now.”
His gaze shifted to her face, his deep eyes holding a hint of amusement.
“There are countless palace servants with seniority. Do you know why it was you who replaced Director Ma?”
“…Because of my contributions to solving cases?”
“Because the newly favored Consort Lu spoke highly of you to His Majesty,” Xie Lanxu said with a small smile. “It seems women are particularly fond of you.”
“If Ah-Li would extend a hand to women in distress more often, he’d also win their favor,” Li Zhi countered.
Xie Lanxu raised his hand to her face, his fingers tracing a line from below her ear to her cheek, then down to her jawline.
His well-defined fingers brushed against her fair skin, slow and deliberate.
Looking into her eyes, he said meaningfully, “I don’t need anyone’s favor.”
His fingers lingered on her neck for a moment before pulling away.
He drained the tea she had poured him in one gulp, then stood.”I should go.”
Ever since Prince Jing had tried to blackmail him with this matter, Xie Lanxu had stopped staying overnight at Li Zhi’s residence.
Even when he visited, it was only for a short while before leaving.
Li Zhi picked up the oiled-paper umbrella left by the door, intending to walk him out. Before they could step outside, Jia Sui came running through the rain, shielding her head with her hands, clearly flustered as she crossed the courtyard to reach Li Zhi.
“Where did you go? Why didn’t you take an umbrella?” Li Zhi asked, distressed, as she patted the raindrops off Jia Sui’s hair and shoulders.
From her sleeve, Jia Sui pulled out a folded note.
“Miss, a little beggar just knocked on the door and asked me to deliver this to the Prince Langya.”
Another letter addressed to the Prince Langya had found its way to Li Zhi’s residence.
Li Zhi couldn’t help but wonder if the entire capital knew the Prince Langya was practically living at her house.
Xie Lanxu took the note from Jia Sui’s hands and flipped it open.
On it were just eight characters:
“The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.”
Li Zhi glanced at Xie Lanxu in surprise. He was staring at the unsigned note, lost in thought.
Turning to Jia Sui, she asked, “Where’s the little beggar?”
“After knocking on the door and tossing the note inside, he ran off. With this rain and the darkness, I lost sight of him quickly,” Jia Sui replied. “Should I have Hei Huo go find him?”
Li Zhi looked at Xie Lanxu.
“…No need,” he said. “I think I understand what it means.”
“What does it mean?” Li Zhi asked.
“Do you remember what I told you? That the case of spreading rumors in the capital was resolved far too smoothly, as if someone was helping behind the scenes?”
Realization dawned on Li Zhi. “Could it be the same person?”
“Hard to say.”
Xie Lanxu tucked the note into his robe and stepped decisively into the rain.
Li Zhi hurried after him, raising the umbrella to shield them both.
A man and a woman walking in the rain under an umbrella—there was a certain romanticism to it. It felt like the kind of scene that would grace countless romance novels, a dream for many young women confined to their chambers.
Li Zhi had read plenty of such books herself.
But a woman holding an umbrella for a man who accepted it without guilt? That she had not seen before.
The worst part was that Xie Lanxu, who she could once look at on an equal level, had grown taller over the past two years at Mingyue Tower. Now she had to stretch her arm uncomfortably high just to keep the umbrella from hitting his hairpiece.
His hairpiece.
Suddenly, she noticed something.
He was still wearing the hairpiece she had gifted him—the one adorned with silver gingko leaves cradling a pearl.
Now that Xie Lanxu had been granted the title of Prince Langya, wearing a silver-plated hairpiece seemed rather inappropriate. Since entering the capital, he had received imperial rewards and a hefty salary—more than enough to replace it with gold or jade hairpieces. Yet he continued to wear her humble gift, one that clashed starkly with the extravagant tastes of the capital.
“You finally noticed?” Xie Lanxu took the umbrella from her hand and gave her a cool glance.
He… couldn’t possibly have made her hold the umbrella on purpose just so she’d notice the hairpiece, could he?
“I noticed,” she replied, still in a daze.
Xie Lanxu said casually, “Tonight, the Minister of Justice mocked me.”
Li Zhi, still a bit muddled, met his serious gaze.
“He asked if this was the only hairpiece I owned,” Xie Lanxu said slowly, his tone grave. “Tell me, where should I bury him?”
Most people wouldn’t even consider such a thought. But with Xie Lanxu, it was hard to say.
Not wanting to test his limits, Li Zhi quickly grabbed his hand that was holding the umbrella.
“I understand. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the market and pick out some nice hairpieces for Ah-Li.”
“Just hairpieces?” Xie Lanxu asked, his voice carrying a hint of mischief.
What else do you want…?
Li Zhi swallowed her retort and smiled. “From head to toe, everything you need!”
“Good.” Xie Lanxu stopped at the entrance to Li Zhi’s residence.
He gestured, and his coachman jumped down from the carriage parked across the street. From the carriage, the coachman began hauling out heavy wooden chests, carrying them one by one into Li Zhi’s home.
Xie Lanxu opened them all in front of her.
The dazzling golden treasures inside momentarily blinded Li Zhi.
“What… what is all this?”
“These are treasures confiscated from Moqi Chuanmin’s private stash, as well as rewards I received upon returning to the capital,” Xie Lanxu replied.
Li Zhi stared, wide-eyed, as the chests of riches piled up into a small mountain at her doorstep.
“And this too.”
From his robe, Xie Lanxu pulled out silver banknotes, property deeds—everything Li Zhi could imagine as valuable. Before she could react, he stacked them into a neat pile and placed them into her hands.
“What is Ah-Li doing?” Li Zhi asked blankly.
“For buying everything from head to toe,” Xie Lanxu said seriously.
“But… this is far too much…”
“Then keep what you don’t use.”
Xie Lanxu paused, his gaze shifting to the side. Li Zhi could only see the sharp line of his raised chin.
“…Remember,” he said, his voice steady. “I will never betray you, and you must never betray me.”
