"Might I ask the lord's name?"
Li Fei had settled onto the long bench at some point, legs crossed, her voice lazy.
Her half-lidded black eyes were an abyss, distilling endless sin and desire, and they took hold of a man's soul.
The square-faced man met that gaze, and his heart clenched; two-thirds of his blustering momentum drained away.
Every scrap of experience Li Fei owned was soaked in blood. The roads she had walked were littered with bones.
So, without ever noticing it, Li Fei had taken on an air both dangerous and lethal. Beside her, the demons whose names made grown men blanch looked positively harmless.
One sentence, and the whole mood had flipped, as though the square-faced man were the criminal and Li Fei the interrogator, the master of his fate.
"This official is Zhao Jingren!"
He steadied himself and pitched his voice higher, trying to seize back control.
"Ah. Lu Qianfan's adopted son."
Li Fei let out a short, scoffing laugh.
Lu Qianfan had nine adopted sons, every one of them either a wealthy merchant or a ranking official, holding money and power between them. They were the core of the strength that let Lu Qianfan blot out the sky with one hand at court.
"Insolence! You dare speak my adoptive father's name aloud!"
Zhao Jingren glared at her.
"Ha. Can't even say the man's name. What a grand display of official authority."
Li Fei scoffed again, then asked with genuine curiosity, "Say... since when did your lot turn so incorruptible? Eating at a place like this?"
"Watch your tongue!" Zhao Jingren barked. "My adoptive father is an honest official. How dare you slander him?"
"If you people are honest, then there wouldn't be so many starving ghosts under heaven."
Li Fei rose to her feet and asked, unhurried, "Out with it. Why frame me? Was it Lu Qianfan who told you to do it?"
"Fine. I took you for nothing but a shameless little thief out for a free meal, but it seems..."
Zhao Jingren's fury curdled into laughter. "You dare blacken the name of a great minister of the court in broad daylight! Either you're a spy for an enemy state or a demon's agent. Whatever else happens today, I'm hauling you back for questioning."
"Sure. Let's go."
Li Fei stood at once and gestured for him to lead the way.
"..."
Zhao Jingren's face darkened, his expression shifting.
Today's arrangement was only a small probe. The ideal outcome was for the enchantress, once slandered, to erupt and start killing. Then the men positioned in advance would swarm in and take her down, and however high Nie Yunyi's prestige stood, he would have nothing to say.
Of course, an enchantress who could talk Nie Yunyi into running errands for her, contacting his old subordinates, reaching for the post of Commander of the Demon Suppression Bureau, was presumably not that impulsive. So the true purpose of this whole business was to sound out her character.
If she paid to make the trouble go away and meekly swallowed the humiliation, that meant she was deep and smooth in her dealings. If she refused to let it drop and insisted on arguing it out, even to the point of slitting her own belly open to show the crowd how many plates of fish she'd eaten, then her nature was fierce and she would break before she bent.
Different characters called for different handling.
As for the truth being exposed, that was no worry at all. Once this was over the shop would suffer a fire, and everyone connected to the matter would die in the flames. Zhao Jingren himself, naturally, would come to no harm. The Daoist Order did possess means of sifting truth from lies, but a court that had long since been reshaped into Lu Qianfan's own likeness would never, over one paltry plate of fish, permit some country woman sprung out of nowhere to interrogate a great minister in public.
And if the enchantress dared question him in private, better still. Abducting a senior official and beating a confession out of him was a capital crime, clean and certain.
What he hadn't expected was that the enchantress would play nothing by the book at all. She had changed the very nature of the matter, volunteering to be tried, and now Zhao Jingren was riding a tiger he couldn't dismount.
Torture, killing to silence a witness, that sort of thing, no one dared attempt without Lu Qianfan's word. Only days ago Nie Yunyi had gone before the Song Emperor in person and defused the whole affair of Lü Zhengchun's death, and had the warrants against Li Fei and Squire Wang's family withdrawn as well.
Which meant a small probing trick or two was harmless enough, but if Li Fei died murkily in a cell... the Song Emperor's side could be managed, yet if Nie Yunyi came knocking in the middle of the night to settle accounts, not even Lu Qianfan could save him.
"Very well."
With every eye in the room on him, Zhao Jingren hesitated, then let his tone soften. "You've got a measure of nerve, at least. Then come along with this official. If you've been wronged, I'll clear your name myself."
"Mm-hmm."
Li Fei answered brightly and waved Qiao'er and the others along after her.
The old shopkeeper, who had watched it all, sighed once more. He hurried to apologize to his diners and announce that no one would be charged, said a few words to his staff, and then, leaning on Fugui's arm, was herded out of the shop by soldiers who had arrived from somewhere.
Before he stepped through the door some premonition seemed to touch him, and he turned for one long look at the century-old shop, a bleak sorrow showing in his clouded old eyes.
In a cold, quiet palace hall, incense curled upward in slow threads.
A woman dozed with her cheek propped on one hand, her breath as sweet as orchids, a white cat asleep across her knees.
She was extraordinarily beautiful. Even with her eyes shut she carried herself with dignity and poise, upright and self-possessed. Only her brows drew faintly together, lending that clear, moonlit face a touch of sorrow.
Footsteps drawing nearer woke her. She sat up, and the eyes she opened held a still autumn pool, lovely and desolate at once.
"Your Majesty, the Empress."
The palace maid who had crept in knelt and paid her respects.
"Rise."
The Empress's voice was clear and gentle, like hot spring water in winter, the kind of sound that settled the mind.
For all that the hall held little warmth of ordinary living, the Empress's ink-dark hair was pinned up without a single strand astray, leaving only her porcelain nape bare. The red court robe could not conceal the grace of her figure, delicate as any woman of the water towns, yet broad enough of spirit to mother a nation.
"Your Majesty..."
The maid kept her head lowered, not daring to look at the foremost beauty of the Great Song. A faint trace of plum fragrance drifted to her nose all the same, cool and refined, and set the girl's heart fluttering.
"Whatever it is, just say it."
Seeing the maid stammer and shy away from speaking, the Empress had already guessed most of it, yet she asked without a trace of impatience.
"Consort Xiang and Consort Hui, they've again..."
The maid's face went red.
"Don't let it be spread about. I'll remind them myself."
The Empress seemed to have a headache. One hand rubbed her temple while the other combed through the white cat's fur, her voice gentle and yet carrying an authority no one could refuse.
"This servant understands."
The maid stole an envious glance at the white cat and lowered her eyes.
A moment later she withdrew, clutching the pearl ornament the Empress had bestowed on her, while the Empress let out a soft sigh and turned her gaze to the window.
The cold, towering palace walls were a cage, ringing hall upon hall, leaving those deep inside no way out.
The Song Emperor was a good man, and over the years the two of them had treated each other with courteous respect, but he was far too sparing with his rain and dew.
Laughable, really. As Empress of the realm she seemed to want for nothing, more dazzling than a whole pond of lotuses in bloom, and yet at nearly thirty she was still a virgin. Thinking it over carefully, she had never so much as held the Song Emperor's hand.
If even the Empress fared so, what of the consorts scattered through the harem?
The less a flower is watered, the more fiercely it thirsts for rain. Since the Song Emperor did not come, the women warmed one another instead. Consorts and maids pressed cheek to cheek were no rare sight within these deep palace walls.
The Empress knew what drove them, and so she kept one eye closed to their mutual comforting, unwilling to watch a thousand exquisite blossoms wither in loneliness. And the tacit consent of the mistress of the inner palace only let the fashion of such pairings spread all the wider.
In time, what should have been a capital crime of defiling the palace had become an everyday thing that everyone looked straight past. Only newly arrived maids still reported it in a panic, and it was never long before they too sank into it.
"Send word to Consort Xiang's quarters. Tell them to be more discreet."
The Empress rubbed her brow and gave the order to the personal attendant who had been about to massage her temples for her. Then she paused and asked, "His Majesty's birthday banquet is nearly upon us. Is everything we need prepared?"
"In reply, mistress, only the birthday gift remains, and that requires your own decision," the attendant answered.
"I'll embroider something for him and send that. The court is hard-pressed at present; there's no call for extravagance."
The Empress lowered her lashes. "I hear Luyuan County suffered that demon calamity. Send this month's surplus allowance there as a donation, the same as before, into Chancellor Liu's hands. At least a few more lives will be saved that way, and less will be skimmed off along the road."
"Understood."
The attendant bowed and withdrew.
In the bedchamber, silent once more, the Empress lowered her lashes, and her porcelain fingertips pressed harder against her temples.
The white cat on her knees had slept through all of it, quiet and docile, without making the smallest sound.
In the sealed, airless chamber, the candle flames swayed.
Li Fei cradled a cup of tea, entirely at ease.
Against a frame-up prepared in advance, proving one's innocence was a very difficult thing. Reason alone couldn't untangle it, and slitting her belly open to prove a point had never been among Li Fei's options.
Killing her way out obviously wouldn't do either, not when she was angling for authority over the Demon Suppression Bureau. And swallowing the loss and paying up was less possible still. Even the immortal maidens of heaven wouldn't dare take Miss Top Courtesan for free, so what right did some local nobody have?
So Li Fei simply escalated the conflict. She didn't believe that with Nie Yunyi in the picture, the Nine Thousand Years would dare flip the table.
"Confess. Exactly how many plates of fish did you eat?" The fierce-faced constable pressed on. "And why did you smear Lord Lu's name? What were you trying to achieve with those words? Who put you up to it? What's your motive? Who are you mocking? What are you trying to overturn? To sabotage? To insinuate?"
"Why are you shouting like that?"
Li Fei slapped the table in displeasure, and the constable was struck dumb.
He had honestly never met so brazen a prisoner.
"Pah."
Li Fei took a sip of the tea, frowned, and spat it out, then said in a lordly tone, "What rubbish tea is this? Is government tea really this cheap? Or did you embezzle the budget for it?"
"Hey! You won't shed a tear till you see your own coffin—"
The constable came back to himself and rolled up his sleeves to go at her, only for Zhao Jingren's voice to cut him off.
"Just bring her a fresh pot," Zhao Jingren said, his face grim.
As Zhao Jingren saw it, Nie Yunyi's return to Lin'an, with his blade aimed squarely at Lu Qianfan, meant designs on a grand scale. Li Fei was nothing but a pawn thrown out to muddy the water and conceal the real intent.
After all, a mysterious enchantress out of nowhere suddenly announcing she meant to be Commander of the Demon Suppression Bureau was absurd on its face. Think about it for a second and it was impossible.
What put Zhao Jingren more on his guard was the news of Lü Zhengchun's death, a deeply dangerous signal. Even though he and his adoptive father were branches of the same tree, and even though he believed the old man would be the one laughing at the end, none of that stopped him from keeping his own skin intact while the Bureau's old and new commanders fought it out. He had no wish to die murkily the way Lü Zhengchun had.
So when his adoptive father handed him the task of probing the enchantress, he carried it out obediently. But beyond that, the less hatred he drew onto himself, the better.
"Very good."
Li Fei snapped her fingers and set about recruiting him on the spot. "That Lu the Eunuch-Dog's days are numbered. If Lord Zhao pledges himself to an enlightened master early and surrenders with proper courtesy, high office and a fat salary are still his. Wouldn't that be a fine thing?"
Zhao Jingren nearly laughed out of sheer fury.
Everyone in this secret room was a trusted subordinate of his, so he dropped the pretense. "Nie Yunyi is only a brawler. However sharp the sword in his hand, he can't out-scheme my adoptive father."
"Lord Zhao misunderstands," Li Fei said earnestly. "The enlightened master I'm speaking of is me. The Demon Suppression Bureau is going to be mine to run."
"Do you take me for a green boy?"
Zhao Jingren sneered. "Hero Nie's martial skill may be formidable, but his tricks for throwing dust in people's eyes are pitiful. He picks up some mysterious woman at random and thinks he can usurp my adoptive father's position? If you can be Commander of the Demon Suppression Bureau, then I'd have taken the dragon throne long ago."
He paused, then spoke with the weight of hard-won counsel.
"Girl, take one piece of advice from me. Tell me now what Nie Yunyi is really after. These waters run too deep, and you can't handle them... otherwise, when it's all finished, the worst he faces is wandering off to the ends of the earth again. But you young ladies, I'm afraid..."
"What? You've actually seen through Hero Nie's plan!"
Dismay spread across Li Fei's face.
"..."
The corner of Zhao Jingren's eye twitched. He forced his anger down. "Girl, if you tell me everything you know, I have the authority to give you a thousand taels of gold. The world is wide. Where couldn't you go?"
"What a joke."
Li Fei's voice rang with righteous indignation. "Hero Nie has the heart and gall of a true knight, and he places enormous trust in me. Do you imagine I'd be bought for a miserable thousand taels of gold? This is an insult!"
Zhao Jingren's face went stiff, and he flicked his sleeve to leave.
"You'll have to add more."
Li Fei said it gravely, one word at a time.
Zhao Jingren sat back down.
In the end Li Fei got no money, and Zhao Jingren didn't believe a word of her nonsense.
Lilith covered her face, unable to watch the two of them haggle.
"Kill this man, and I'll believe what you say."
Zhao Jingren, his face still as water, had a filthy, disheveled prisoner pinned down before him.
The man had old ties to Nie Yunyi. If Li Fei struck him down, a rupture between them was guaranteed.
"Money first! Five thousand taels of gold!"
Li Fei slapped the table. "I've already told you Nie Yunyi's plan, so how are you the one raising the price now? Besides, I'm a merciful soul. I sweep the floor gently for fear of harming the ants, I never touch wine, and I never kill."
"It was three thousand a moment ago..." Zhao Jingren said furiously.
After a round of wrangling, Li Fei's spur-of-the-moment scheme to squeeze a payday out of him came to nothing, which surprised no one.
Then a constable stepped into the room and whispered a few words in Zhao Jingren's ear.
"Someone's come to bail you out. Go, quickly."
Zhao Jingren dropped the argument entirely and waved them out like a man seeing off a plague god.
"You owe me ten thousand taels of gold. Don't forget it!"
Li Fei tossed the line over her shoulder and paid no further attention to Zhao Jingren, whose face had gone black as the bottom of a pot, following the constable out of the chamber.
"This way, please."
The constable bowed and scraped, fawning for all he was worth.
He had no idea where these absurdly beautiful women came from, but they'd faced down the Nine Thousand Years' own adopted son to his face, and Hero Nie himself had come to fish them out. Their backing was beyond anything he could measure, and he couldn't afford to offend them.
If he gave offense to people of that stature, crushing a little shrimp like him would be effortless.
"My lord, we've arrived."
Before long the constable halted and spoke with the utmost respect.
Li Fei followed his gaze and saw Nie Yunyi, his curling beard as unkempt as ever. An old man in a blue robe stood beside him, with two carriages waiting behind them.
"Hero Nie, as impressive as ever."
Li Fei, who had done her homework beforehand, offered the greeting, then turned to the old man with a brilliant smile and cupped her hands. "Chancellor Liu. I've long looked forward to meeting you."
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