Su Cen narrowed his eyes slightly. “You’re saying you didn’t kill him after all?”
He wasn’t surprised by Liu Cheng’s sudden change of testimony; instead, he felt an inexplicable excitement.
This case was like a thick fog. After groping through it for so long, he could finally part the clouds before his eyes and see the deeper truth.
But his expression remained as still as water, making others feel cold.
Liu Cheng found some reassurance from the warm current flowing through his hands, lowering his eyes and saying: “I didn’t intend to kill him.”
“You didn’t put the hazelnut powder in his food?”
Liu Cheng pressed his lips together: “I did.”
Su Cen frowned. “Then what else is there to say?”
“I did give him hazelnut powder, but I didn’t want to kill him,” Liu Cheng looked up at Su Cen in panic, and seeing no impatient expression, continued: “The dosage I used wouldn’t have been fatal at all. I just wanted him to perform poorly in the examination and not pass.”
“Why?”
“Because if he passed, someone would take his life!”
Su Cen suddenly raised his gaze, looking over with sharp eyes.
It was the instinctive reaction of a hungry wolf seeing prey. Liu Cheng inexplicably felt intimidated, momentarily unsure whether Su Cen’s prey was the truth he was about to reveal or himself.
Liu Cheng steadied himself and began from the beginning: “A few days before the metropolitan examination, someone suddenly approached me, asking me to find a way to… kill Ruoheng.”
Tian Pingzhi’s courtesy name was Ruoheng, which Su Cen knew, but hearing someone call him by this name for the first time still made him momentarily distracted. More than ten years ago in Chang’an, two equally renowned talented gentlemen—perhaps only Liu Cheng was worthy of calling Tian Pingzhi “Ruoheng.”
Liu Cheng lightly pressed his lips and continued: “At first, I didn’t take it seriously. I thought someone was joking, or perhaps someone jealous of Ruoheng was trying to intimidate us both. I just laughed it off as a joke.”
“But what I didn’t expect was that he approached me again the day before the examination, this time speaking more clearly. Ruoheng had to die because he had offended the Sage. Even if I didn’t do it, someone else would. If I did it, he would ensure I passed this time and would prosper in the future.”
“The Sage?” Su Cen frowned. Throughout history, there were only a few who could be called sages—like Confucius, people of high virtue and supreme wisdom. Some enlightened monks in Buddhism were also called sages, and then there were… the imperial family, who were honored with the title “Sage.”
It was unrealistic to say Tian Pingzhi had offended those ancient sages, since most who could be called “sages” had truly ascended to sainthood. That left only the last possibility, and the fact that this person could promise Liu Cheng prosperity confirmed this point.
Su Cen said directly: “Tian Pingzhi offended someone in the palace? Who was this person?”
But Liu Cheng shook his head. “Ruoheng was naturally open-minded and carefree, never making enemies with anyone. I’d never even seen him angry with anyone. Moreover, it was his first time in Chang’an, and he’d never entered the palace. How could he have offended anyone there?”
Su Cen pondered for a moment, then speculated: “Tian Pingzhi was a renowned talent at the time, his poems widely circulated. Could it be that one of his poems touched upon someone’s taboo?”
“I’ve thought about what you mentioned,” Liu Cheng said. “Afterwards, I searched through all his poetry works, but didn’t see anything inappropriate. Besides, as you know, he mostly wrote impromptu verses about mountains and waters. How could such works bring about fatal disaster?”
Su Cen lowered his head in thought. The situation in the palace during the year of their imperial examination was too complex. Emperor Taizong was critically ill, the former emperor was acting as regent, and the empress at that time—Empress Zhuang—was still alive, wholeheartedly trying to push her own son onto the throne. With several forces competing, based on just one “sage,” it was really hard to say which one it was. Unable to reach a conclusion for the moment, Su Cen temporarily set this aside and continued with his previous question: “So this time you agreed to help him?”
Liu Cheng nodded, “I agreed to help him, on the condition that I would use my own methods, and during this period, he couldn’t seek out others or interfere with me.”
“I never intended to kill him.” Liu Cheng raised his hand to gently cover his face. “I thought as long as he didn’t pass the examination, he wouldn’t touch upon those people’s interests, and he could survive. So I gave him hazelnut powder, just wanting to affect his performance. As compensation, I submitted a blank paper along with him. At worst, we could make a comeback three years later, and perhaps those people would have forgotten about small fries like us. But I never expected… I really never expected…”
“You never expected that while you showed mercy, someone else delivered the finishing blow for you,” Su Cen completed Liu Cheng’s thought, “or rather… your employer didn’t trust you much either and hired others as well.”
Liu Cheng’s fingertips pressed hard, unconsciously leaving finger marks on Cui Hao’s hand. His expression showed a somewhat lost confusion, “What exactly did Ruoheng do wrong? Why did those people insist on putting him to death? Why him? Why did it have to be him?”
Su Cen noticed Liu Cheng’s hand movements and deliberately glanced at Cui Hao, but saw that Cui Hao maintained a calm and serene expression while looking at Liu Cheng, completely oblivious to the marks on his hand.
With someone offering devoted trust and another accepting it gladly, Su Cen couldn’t say much more. He continued asking: “What about Tian Pingzhi? Did he know what kind of person he had offended at the time? Was there anything unusual about him?”
Liu Cheng frowned in thought, then said hesitantly: “Ruoheng had a gentle nature, rarely offended anyone, and rarely took anything to heart. If he had inadvertently offended someone, he probably wouldn’t even know it himself. I don’t remember anything unusual about him… if I had to mention something, there was one thing. A few days before the examination, he suddenly stopped studying and went out drinking every day with a group of dandy sons who admired him. I spoke to him about it several times, and later he stopped going and resumed studying. I didn’t pay much attention to it.”
“When did that person approach you?” Su Cen’s eyes lit up again as he looked directly at Liu Cheng. “Was it before or after Tian Pingzhi stopped studying?”
Liu Cheng thought carefully, “It seems like… after? Yes! At that time, Ruoheng would go out drinking at night and sleep during the day. I disapproved and said a few words to him, then encountered that person as soon as I went out. But I was angry at the time and didn’t take those words to heart. It wasn’t until he approached me again that I realized the seriousness of the situation.”
This meant that something happened before the metropolitan examination that made Tian Pingzhi suddenly give up studying, and then something else happened that made him resume studying. What were these two incidents? Could they be what brought fatal disaster upon Tian Pingzhi?
“Can you remember specifically when he stopped studying?” Su Cen asked. “The more specific, the better.”
Liu Cheng frowned in deep thought, his expression growing increasingly grave, and the finger marks on Cui Hao’s hand deepening.
“How could anyone remember such details from over ten years ago?” Cui Hao complained to Su Cen. He wasn’t concerned about his own hand, but felt sorry seeing Liu Cheng’s furrowed brow.
Su Cen looked at Liu Cheng and gently shook his head, “He should remember. Even if everyone else forgot, he should remember.”
All these years, Liu Cheng had carried the guilt of killing Tian Pingzhi in his heart. Such a heavy sin—he went to the examination hall every year to pay respects to Tian Pingzhi, replaying the scene in his mind annually. How could he possibly forget?
The autumn cold was heavy with dew, and the prison cell was even more damp and chilly, yet fine sweat unconsciously appeared on Liu Cheng’s forehead. Cui Hao couldn’t bear to watch and was about to interrupt when Liu Cheng suddenly raised his head.
“The twenty-eighth!” Liu Cheng said. “The metropolitan examination was on the ninth day of the second month. Ruoheng stopped studying on the twenty-eighth day of the first month and didn’t resume until the fourth day of the second month.”
Su Cen’s breathing hitched, and his heart tightened inexplicably. He wasn’t clear what day the twenty-eighth was, but the fourth day of the second month… was the day Li Shi was besieged at Surrender City.
##
(advanced chapters available on kofi)
You’re doing a fantastic job with this blog.
I enjoyed every paragraph. Thank you for this.