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The door locked with a bang, leaving the three teenagers to fend for themselves.
After a while, Lan Nian climbed down from the table, while his two playmates slumped to the ground and sighed deeply.
“What should we do, Young Lord?”
“Cui Wei, Bai Lihong, don’t worry, my lord father will come back,” Lan Nian said calmly.
“But what if we starve to death…” Cui Wei began, visibly worried.
Bai Lihong raised his arms. “Young Lord, I’m fatter than Cui Wei, if that happens you can eat me!”
“Go to hell,” Lan Nian scolded, “Am I a beast? I’ll beat you until you see your fish grandma!”
But Bai Lihong wasn’t to be outdone. “It’s better than starving!”
Lan Nian snorted, and as his lips curled into a smile, he went up to a large vase which he smashed open, revealing a big pile of dried meats and wine jugs. Standing in front of the mountain of meat, he propped his hands on his waist and said proudly, “Look! You’ve never been hungry before, so you don’t know how to save food.”
“Wow, you’re doing it again Young Lord, you’re really not afraid that the lord will beat you up?”
“Just let him, it’s not as if he hasn’t done it before. Besides, if it weren’t for me preparing for a rainy day, we might really have had to eat Bai Lihong!” Lan Nian didn’t care, he threw a piece of dried meat over. “I just don’t know what kind of wife he can find at the capital with a personality like that.”
“He’ll find a good lady to clean out your dirty mouth!”
“Shit, you make it sound like you don’t swear! And would a good lady even like my father? He swears too, where do you think I learned it from.” Lan Nian stared out. “I think he’ll definitely bring back another feral kid, I’ll bet a month’s pocket money on it.”
“Why do I feel like Young Lord has already won…”
* * *
Tianyan’s evenings were always lively, especially due to the many spring banquets being held, but tonight was unusually ‘lively’.
“Murder, murder–!”
The night was pierced by a shrill scream. Iron-Clad Guards, not people to move less loudly just because it was late at night, galloped through the streets with sharp blades at their hips as the clatter of horse hooves thundered throughout the capital. Chief Justice Zhang Fengyu had been found dead in his study, bleeding from all seven orifices1Both eyes, both ears, the nostrils, the mouth — his wife’s miserable howl had woken up practically half the city.
Cases involving an intersection between assassins and government employees were all handed over to the emperor’s personal Iron-Clad Guards. This group were uniformly dressed in dark red robes, which made them look very ominous, as if they were covered in dried blood. They added another layer of chill to the moonless, windy night.
The Iron-Clad Guards moved out. This wouldn’t be a small case — Zhang Fengyu was the Chief Justice and one of his daughters was part of the imperial harem, so he could be said to be somewhat related to the emperor. A strict curfew was imposed on the entire neighbourhood while the Guards’ Commander, Bai Jing’an, led a team to the crime scene.
A banquet had been held at Chief Justice Zhang’s home that night and many nobles were present as guests, all of whom had been requested by the Guards to remain in the main hall. None of then dared to speak against Bai Jing’an when the resolute commander interrogated them.
“When was Sir Zhang’s body found?” he asked a female attendant.
She trembled and stuttered as she replied, “It was after all the lords arrived, when the feast was about to start. The master still hadn’t come out so someone was sent to call him, but as a result they found that he had been killed.”
“Did anything unusual happen tonight?” Bai Jing’an continued to ask.
“No… Nothing unusual,” she answered obediently.
“Who else is in the manor?”
“Except for… Except for the guests, there’s only the cooks from Zuixian Plaza, and… oh, and the dancers from Jingshan Court.”
Jingshan Court was the most famous brothel in the capital, their dancers possessed many special skills and appeared often at banquets hosted by nobles. It wasn’t surprising that Chief Justice Zhang invited their dancers to his banquet.
“Where are Jingshan Court’s dancers now?”
The shivering women were huddled together in a corner of the hall. Their bright makeup couldn’t hide their terror; some cried quietly, while others trembled against the wall.
Once there was an assassination attempt, the first suspects would naturally be these dancers with unclear backgrounds, because any assassin would be likelier to hide among them than among the nobles. Moreover, the Iron-Clad Guards of the capital had a bloody reputation — they would rather kill innocents than let the guilty escape.
When Bai Jing’an pulled out his sabre, the dancers exclaimed in surprise then covered each other’s mouths.
“Perhaps, among you, there is a murderer,” he growled in a low voice, as if something in his chest was rumbling, “your mission is over, I hope you can come forward yourself. There is no need to bring your innocent sisters to death with you.”
As soon as he finished speaking, all the dancers burst into tears.
“If no one comes forward, I can only let everyone stay behind,” he said.
A guard reported to him: “Sir, the cooks and all the other servants have been checked. All the kitchen’s cooks have alibis, none of them came into contact with Chief Justice Zhang.”
“What does the coroner say?”
“He was beaten to death, which caused bleeding from the orifices. We’d initially thought he had been poisoned, but when the coroner got here he immediately knew that he died due to trauma. What’s strange is that the coroner said that according to the evidence, the assailant punched him to death.”
“Punched to death,” Bai Jing’an repeated, then glanced at the slender dancers and slowly frowned.
“And the murderer’s fists weren’t small either, it should be a man and quite a strong one at that.”
Bai Jing’an’s frown deepened even more as the dancers let out a relieved breath. They were squeezed together and crying in fear, but indeed, none of them had a pair of big iron fists.
“Ordinary assassins don’t do this. Maybe it wasn’t an assassination, but a crime of passion?” the guard wondered.
Another guard brought the coroner’s detailed report. “Sir, traces of a fight were found at the scene. The assailant shouldn’t be an assassin, it looks like they had an argument before coming to blows, so it should be because of a dispute.”
At this time, one of the dancers couldn’t help but sob, “Everyone saw what happened at the Spring Banquet at Linghe Pool, the only people who had conflicts with Sir Zhang recently are… are…”
Lord of Western Tang, Lan Jue.
“The Lord of Western Tang didn’t attend this banquet,” a servant said quietly.
“If he beat someone to death of course he has to run, otherwise wouldn’t staying be irrefutable evidence!”
“The Lord of Western Tang does have the ability to beat Chief Justice Zhang to death with his bare hands, but do you think a lord of a principality would beat someone to death like a street gangster?” Bai Jing’an interjected.
“…That’s the Lord of Western Tang, it’s hard to say…” someone in the crowd muttered.
* * *
Bai Jing’an brought his men to the post house and knocked for a long time, long enough for the night dew to add a layer of dampness to his deep red uniform. Finally, the door opened a small crack.
A girl… no, half a girl appeared from behind the door.
“What’re you knocking in the middle of the night for?” Chu Hexing asked, very rudely.
The Guards were stunned, never having expected to meet such a girl — was this one of the Lord of Western Tang’s maids? Someone so disrespectful?
Bai Jing’an raised the token of the Iron-Clad Guards in his hands. “Tianyan’s Iron-Clad Guards, asking to see the Lord of Western Tang.”
“Asleep!” Chu Hexing snarled.
Bai Jing’an’s sabre was unsheathed in an instant. Fortunately, Yang Feng rushed out, dragged Chu Hexing backwards, and asked, “It’s very late, I wonder what is the reason for your visit?”
“Murder case,” was the reply.
* * *
The Iron-Clad could not so easily touch the lord of a principality, even if Lan Jue was covered in suspicion and circumstantial evidence they could not interrogate him. They could run rampant in the capital, but the authority to deal with lords of principalities still rested solely with the half-useless emperor.
Iron-Clad Guards were stationed outside the post house and temporarily placed Lan Jue and his servant under house arrest in their courtyard residence. Chu Xiang and Chu Hexing weren’t restricted because they weren’t on the initial registration list, and Lan Jue was the lord of a principality after all, so Bai Jing’an didn’t strictly enforce their movements.
Yang Feng was so frustrated that he went to Chu Xiang privately — not to strategise, it was purely to complain. Yang Feng was Lan Jue’s personal attendant, which in Chu Xiang’s eyes was similar to an aide-de-camp; that was, he carried bags, ran errands, passed on orders, and might block a few knives at critical moments, but had no redeeming features in terms of discussing tactics or strategy.
Now that he came to vent, Chu Xiang had the opportunity to ask something he couldn’t find out from Lan Jue. “Sir Yang, may I ask, what exactly was the dispute between His Majesty and Chief Justice Zhang that Commander Bai mentioned?”
“The Lord intended to ask for the hand of the youngest Zhang daughter in marriage, but Old Man Zhang adamantly refused,” Yang Feng answered frankly.
…Chu Xiang couldn’t help clicking his tongue.
At this moment, Lan Jue coincidentally emerged from the back room and explained, “Because Old Zhang has a couple important business routes in his hands and special channels for purchasing grain and grass. My principality has been suffering from famine for many years, I have no other choice.”
“However, this trip was unsuccessful,” Chu Xiang said as he bowed in salute.
“Yes.”
Upon hearing this, Chu Xiang frowned. “But you are only one person. Even if it did succeed, if there came another famine in the future, how many marriages can you have?”
Lan Jue was silent for a moment, then, “It was originally a last resort. Since it is so, then it doesn’t matter if it fails.”
“If you want enough food and clothing, it must start from yourself. Your Majesty, in the future… please don’t consider marriage so easily again,” Chu Xiang said.
Marriage was a favoured strategy in ancient times, but Chu Xiang didn’t take it seriously at all. In another world where he had studied thousands of years of history, not a single marriage had solved the fundamental issue. Binding a country’s fate to the life of a single woman was truly barbaric.
But after saying that, Chu Xiang belatedly realised that he seemed to have ‘overstepped’ a little. Just as he wanted to say something to rectify it, Lan Jue unexpectedly nodded. “You’re right.”
Chu Xiang: “…What’s more important now is to take care of the matter of you being framed.”
“Yes, who’s the one framing our lord!” Yang Feng said angrily.
“It’s not important who it is,” Chu Xiang said, “it’s the same no matter who. We just need to solve it, right?”
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