Seeing A Zi bristling with wariness, Lou Yun felt amused and retorted, "You were just thinking about how to entrust Pei Qing to me. Why are you acting as though I have ill intentions now?"
"Please explain yourself, Your Highness." The ease on A Zi's face
was
gone. He spread his arms, completely blocking the way forward. He wanted no person or thing that threatened his young master to remain.
Even someone the young master had chosen himself.
Lou Yun tilted her ear slightly. "I heard it."
Heard it? A Zi narrowed his eyes. "May I ask who taught you, Your Highness?"
"I taught myself."
So she did not want to say. A Zi took his stance, pointing the handle of his fan at Lou Yun. "Forgive my offense."
In an instant, hidden weapons flew toward Lou Yun like blossoms scattered by a celestial maiden.
A smile lingered on Lou Yun's lips. Lightly tapping her toes against the ground, she dodged the storm of hidden weapons in a few movements.
At the sight, the excitement in A Zi's eyes grew. Since Lou Ze'an had left, he had not had a proper fight in over four years.
Seeing how effortlessly Lou Yun handled it, he immediately stopped suppressing his strength and used Eerie Pacing Steps, preparing to strike.
Unhurried, Lou Yun dodged several attacks in succession. As A Zi gathered his strength for the next move, she suddenly appeared behind the young man like a ghost.
Startled, A Zi looked down. The Ghost Step beneath Lou Yun's feet was identical to his.
"You!"
Only five people in the world knew Eerie Pacing Steps. Where had this princess, who spent all year tucked away in the palace, learned it? She was even more proficient than he was-or rather, did the person before him have greater internal power than him?
Holding a hidden weapon she had taken from A Zi against the young man's neck, Lou Yun asked, "Still want to compete?"
A Zi knew when to stop. "I have lost."
With that, he stepped aside.
Lou Yun, who had thought A Zi would risk his life to stop her, asked, "You're not stopping me now?"
A Zi's expression was deferential. "You are someone the young master and His Highness the Crown Prince trust. How could I stop you?"
Lou Yun fell silent. Then what had that whole performance just now been about?
"It's merely been too long since A Zi last exchanged moves with anyone, so I resorted to this."
Lou Yun was speechless. "You trust me so easily. Aren't you afraid you'll regret it?"
A Zi leaned bonelessly against a tree, his fan spread wide, a peacock painted on one side and an orange cat on the other.
"No. If the day ever comes when Your Highness truly harms the young master, we will ascend to heaven and descend into the earth to take your head."
A Zi's tone was calm, but the fallen leaves beneath the locust tree stirred without a breeze.
"A Zi alone might not be able to do anything to Your Highness, but thousands upon thousands of A Zis could still tear a layer of skin off you."
Lou Yun scoffed. "Then I'd better be careful."
She pushed open the door. Inside was Rouniang, who had heard the commotion outside and huddled fearfully at the foot of the bed.
The room was small, but it had everything needed. Clearly, this vast residence had no cells specifically prepared for prisoners.
At the sight of her, Rouniang's eyes were utterly lifeless. She said flatly, "I won't say anything. Please leave, Your Highness."
Lou Yun walked over to the room's only table and sat down without ceremony, rinsing a cup and pouring tea.
"I'm not Pei Qing. I don't have his good temper. I ask, you answer. Understood?"
Rouniang's eyes flickered. She still wanted to fight for control.
Sheets of xuan paper detailing her life fluttered down onto her bed.
Trembling all over, Rouniang picked them up one by one to read. Unable to hold out any longer, she knelt on the floor and pleaded, "What exactly do you want? Everything was Rouniang's fault. Please ask His Highness the Crown Prince to stop investigating."
Lou Yun stared at the girl kneeling by her feet without a word, watching her go from incessant pleading to utter despair.
She bent down and lifted Rouniang's face with her fingertips.
"Why won't you talk?"
The moment the girl's eyes met Lou Yun's, the defenses around her heart crumbled completely. "I'm afraid! Your Highness, I'm afraid... sob... I'm afraid..."
"Afraid of what? Afraid we'll shield our fellow officials? Afraid those women won't escape the mire?"
Rouniang sobbed too hard to speak. Two streams of clear tears ran down Lou Yun's arm into her sleeve, vanishing from sight.
Without betraying anything, Lou Yun glanced at where the tears had disappeared, then at the weeping girl.
Not as pretty as Pei Qing... not as pretty as Pei Qing when he cries.
Was this person really specially raised as a thin horse? Why does she look so ugly crying?
Had anyone heard Lou Yun's thoughts, they would surely have pointed at her and cursed her roundly. The girl looked like pear blossoms drenched in rain, and she still wasn't pretty when she cried? In their place, they would already have been wiping the beauty's tears and gently coaxing her.
Though all of that was on the condition that she was not a murderer.
Rouniang still could not stop crying. Lou Yun released her and took out a handkerchief to wipe her hand, pointing out the truth. "So what if you killed Li An? Did you really think keeping thin horses was something Li An could do alone?"
The white handkerchief drifted down from above. Though made of fine brocade, its owner simply discarded it on the floor, just like them-though all were in the prime of their lives, they had withered away just like that.
"Cui Rou."
The moment she heard her real name, the girl looked dazed. How long had it been since she had heard that name? Rouniang, Rouniang? Ever since that name had been kept, she had hated the word Rou in her name to death.
It was as though that word encompassed all the filth in her life. If only it were gone, she would still be that clean little girl from Jiangling.
"Did you really think your parents offended the powerful by accident?"
"Didn't they?" The girl's expression became hysterical. A furious roar tore from her throat, hoarse from crying. "Didn't they? Sob... didn't... they?"
Then what had her family's suffering been for? What was it that had destroyed a lifetime of happiness for her? Countless times, she had thought that if her parents had not gone looking for that trouble over a single coin, perhaps the officers would not have beaten them half to death in the name of offending the powerful.
Her younger brother would not have died, and Li An would not have picked her up and taken her back, plunging her into a den of demons.
She had even resented her parents for quibbling over every penny, had even accepted her fate, believing all this was a disaster her parents had brought upon them and that, as their child, she ought to repay it. Had that not been the case?
Then what had all her suffering over these four years been for?
"Aaaah! Sob..."
She hated the heavens for being unjust, hated Heaven for being blind, hated natural disasters, yet had not known that this was actually a man-made calamity?
Chapter 12
Lou Yun showed not the slightest disgust. Of course, there was no pity or regret either.
She had said that she had no time to sympathize with others. But she did not interrupt, allowing this girl at her feet, whose life had been so troubled, to cry her heart out beside her.
Only once Rouniang had completely calmed down did she say, "Li An was merely one of those who instigated your family's ruin."
"To gather enough qualified thin horses, they used various sudden incidents, such as offending the powerful, to force you to sell yourselves. Once they had your contracts of sale, even if you escaped and went to the authorities, there would be nothing you could do."
"Then what can we do? Your Highness, please save them!" Rouniang had wanted to grab Lou Yun's robe, but at the woman's look, she cautiously lowered her hand and picked at her own fingers instead.
"Tell me first, was Li An truly the one who took your contract of sale?"
Rouniang froze for a moment. "Mine, yes, but not the other sisters'. Back then, Li An took my contract and left me in Jiangnan. So I never went through being selected like the others. Instead, I was sent straight to the capital and kept in Li An's residence."
Lou Yun understood. "Then do you know whether money changed hands when they selected the others?"
"That..." Rouniang lowered her head and thought for a moment, then suddenly said, "There probably was. When I was sent to the Li residence, I couldn't be sure who was behind it. But whenever something displeased Li An, he liked to come to me. Once, he even came drunk. That night, he was even more vicious in bed, beating me while saying something about money already in his hands being gone. It sounded as though someone they had sent over had been returned."
"That was also why I thought Li An was the mastermind."
"So you thought that if you killed Li An, the others would be safe?"
"Yes."
She was, after all, a youngster of fourteen or fifteen and could not see far ahead.
Lou Yun sighed and pressed her forehead. "Then do you know that if Li An really was the highest mastermind in this chain, and he died-especially in this way,
"Leaving aside whether there really was an enemy seeking revenge."
"The assassination of a third-rank official is a major matter. The Court of Judicial Review would certainly investigate. Li An did so many things that weighed on his conscience, and with the Court of Judicial Review investigating, wouldn't the people connected to those matters be busy destroying bodies and erasing traces for their own safety?"
"I didn't, I didn't want to, I only... only..."
"Only wanted revenge?"
With her thoughts laid bare, Rouniang nodded, whimpering.
"Cui Rou, death doesn't wipe the slate clean and put an end to everything. You thought exchanging your one life for the lives of Li An's entire family was worthwhile, didn't you?"
The girl bowed down against the floor without a sound, clearly not thinking there was anything wrong with it.
"Then what about the others implicated in this? I can say for certain that if Li An were the highest-ranking official behind this, probably few of those you wanted to save would remain alive."
"Sob..." Rouniang scrabbled blindly at Lou Yun's instep, pleading, "Please, Your Highness. Doesn't your telling me all this now mean they aren't dead yet? Please, Your Highness, save them."
Lou Yun moved her foot away. This was why she had come to see Rouniang.
"You're reasonably clever."
Lou Yun slapped the table, sending the teacup flying into the eaves.
"Have someone bring brush, ink, paper, and an inkstone."
A Zi, who was lying on the roof sunning himself and eavesdropping along the way.
"As you command~"
Rouniang, startled by the sudden voice: Where is someone hiding?!
"When the things arrive, write down how you entered the capital back then. Write as much as you can, no matter how small the detail."
"Yes." Rouniang nodded emphatically.
With official matters finished, it was time to ask about private ones.
"How did you recognize the Imperial Preceptor?"