Those eyes were like deep, secluded pools, chilling beyond measure. Their owner did not even lower her head, merely looking down through lowered lashes as though gazing at the lowliest ant.
For some reason, after
officialdom-
so many years in it, the Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, who thought he had seen every grand spectacle there was, truly felt his courage freeze this time. The crown prince had never seemed this frightening before. How had even his features changed after a trip to the battlefield?
His knees buckled, and he dropped to the ground with a thud, crying, "This official knows his mistake!"
"Your mistake? How is it that I don't know what you did wrong?"
Lou Yun took half a step forward, bent down, and whispered beside the minister's ear, "If you cannot produce the people I want, offer up your black gauze official's hat in exchange."
Under the weight of Lou Yun's words, the minister sank lower and lower. The instant he bowed his head, the cord of his official's hat abruptly snapped, and the hat tumbled off his head.
Watching the black gauze hat roll away, the minister felt as though his own head had rolled off with it.
It was over! Everything was over!
The minister scrambled up from the ground and stumbled after Lou Yun.
"Your Highness, Your Highness!"
Lou Yun turned a deaf ear and headed straight for the cells.
"Your Highness! They're all dead!"
When they were less than three feet from the cells, the minister finally could not help confessing.
Only then did Lou Yun mercifully stop and turn to ask, "Dead? How did they die?"
"They feared punishment... and killed themselves." The minister trembled as he forced out the words, his face almost buried in his neck.
"All of them?"
Lou Yun's tone was so flat that no one could tell what she was thinking. The minister was no exception. Wearing a mournful expression, he said, "The women. Only the women died."
"What a coincidence. Out of so many people, only the women died?"
"Boohoo... Your Highness!" The minister fell to his knees again. No, to stay alive, he could only follow the plan and cling to his story. "Your Highness, Lord Li did not love his wife as the rumors claimed. Not a single woman in the Li household escaped his demonic claws. Because of this, the women throughout the household banded together and killed Lord Li!"
There was no evidence anyway. Even Lou Ze'an could do nothing to him!
"Is that true?"
Lou Yun's words drifted lightly into the minister's ears like those of the King of Hell. "Your hat is gone. Why don't you guess what will snap next?"
The man kneeling at her feet trembled and curled into a ball of flesh, stubbornly clinging to his last breath and refusing to say more.
Lou Yun had not expected to get anything out of him anyway. It had simply been a long time since anyone had obstructed her, and she was venting her anger.
A smile curved her lips as she soothed him gently. "Why are you so frightened? I'm not going to eat you. Since the others have already killed themselves out of fear of punishment, take me to see those who remain."
"Phew-" The minister had no idea what madness had seized this crown prince, who had suddenly returned to normal. He stole several glances at her, but the smile on Lou Yun's face was the same warm, gentle one Lou Ze'an had always worn. Relieved, he agreed repeatedly, rose, and led the way.
The instant the minister stepped ahead of Lou Yun, the smiling mask dropped from her face. In just a few days, everyone who was supposed to die was dead. How very quick they were.
"I have records of all those women's statements. I will have someone deliver them to Your Highness's residence later."
Lou Yun's tone was unreadable. "You certainly work quickly."
"Heh... haha." The minister steadied himself and even found a little courage, making conversation with Lou Yun. "Your Highness's affairs are my affairs. I, too, wish to do something for Your Highness. For such a small matter, my duty allows no refusal."
"Is that so? Then your labors and achievements are truly great."
After being met with sarcasm each time he spoke, the minister dared say no more and quietly led the way.
"These are the cells."
Lou Yun followed his gaze. Sure enough, not a single woman remained.
"How did they die?"
The straw mats in the cells were covered in bloodstains that had yet to dry, but there was not a single corpse.
"One of the slave girls used a trick to break a bowl during a meal and hid a shard. They all slit their own throats and died."
Chapter 20
"How convenient. They all died before I arrived?"
"They had been questioned for several days in a row, you see, and only today could they no longer bear it," the minister replied with a dry laugh.
"Then that really was a coincidence." Lou Yun's smile did not reach her eyes.
Lou Yun ordered a bailiff to bring her a stool and seated herself at leisure, looking very much as though she intended to hear the minister's report right there in the prison.
"Hadn't you finished questioning them for me? Present the case records. Let me see exactly how these women murdered Lord Li."
"Well..." The minister looked troubled and changed the subject. "This place is filthy. Why don't you take a seat in the hall, Your Highness, and let me explain everything slowly?"
"Is it? I think this is just the place to judge a case. If we encounter anyone bending the law for private gain, we can lock them up here as well, can't we?" Lou Yun narrowed her foxlike eyes, a hint of a smile on her face.
"Heh, haha, Your Highness does love to joke. To tell the truth, these women killed themselves so suddenly that I was unable to establish all the facts of the case. I know only that these women joined forces for
revenge
."
The minister knocked his head heavily against the ground, his words utterly earnest. "I am ashamed that I could not ease Your Highness's burdens. So ashamed!"
Lou Yun straightened her sleeves and asked in puzzlement, "Didn't you just tell me you would have someone deliver their statements to me later?"
At this, the man kneeling on the ground knocked his head even louder and explained, "Though there is some evidence, it is still impossible to reconstruct every scene of the crime. In order to find all the evidence before presenting it together to Your Highness, I have had no appetite for tea or food. Even in my dreams, I have been reconstructing the crime. I had finally uncovered some leads, only for those women to kill themselves out of fear of punishment. It is my fault for failing to keep the prisoners safe for Your Highness. Please forgive me, Your Highness. Please forgive me."
The minister, who was over fifty, pleaded guilty below her, streaming tears and snot. He really did look as though he sincerely wished to ease Lou Yun's burdens.
Since this old ox-nose had taken his performance this far, wouldn't it be a little excessive if she refused to play along?
Lou Yun stood, bent down, and helped the minister up, soothing him. "For working so hard on my behalf, you have my tearful gratitude. With you laboring so hard in mind and body, I cannot very well do nothing. How about this? I will personally take the remaining people away for questioning. That should help lighten your burden."
The minister still wanted to refuse, but Lou Yun blocked him again. "Or do you not trust me and insist on questioning them yourself?"
"Not at all, not at all. Since Your Highness has spoken, I dare not disobey. I will have them sent to Your Highness's residence at once."
He had already dealt with all those bed pets anyway. The remaining men knew nothing, so nothing would be exposed.
The minister saw Lou Yun off with a beaming smile, but the moment he turned around, his expression chilled. He beckoned a subordinate over and instructed him quietly, "Send word to that person. Say the crown prince has grown suspicious."
"Yes."
After returning to her residence, Lou Yun casually wrote a few words on a sheet of paper, summoned Shutang, and instructed her, "Show this paper to the people in the cells. Whoever reacts most strongly, give him special attention."
"Yes."
Once Lou Yun had dealt with these matters, she put on a slight disguise and rode to the city gate to wait for someone.
The sun sank behind the western hills, its dying light like blood.
Only then did the person Lou Yun had waited so long for quietly appear in her sight.
Sword in hand, she swung herself onto her horse and blocked his path-
"The road to Jiangnan is long. Would you care to travel with me, young master?"
At the sight of that utterly familiar sword, the young man wearing a bamboo hat and carrying a little cat bag on his back parted his vermilion lips. His voice was like a clear mountain spring, bright and pleasing to the ear.
"Yes."
Lou Yun's face bore the very mask she had worn on their outing that day. Pei Qing had arrived late because he had hurried over only after finishing his lessons and asking Lou Qing's permission.
After they found an inn and settled in, Pei Qing asked, "Won't you be discovered, leaving the capital like this, Your Highness?"
"Shh." Through the veil of his bamboo hat, Lou Yun pressed a finger to the young man's lips and corrected him. "Don't call me Your Highness while we're away from home."
"Then... what should I call you?" Even the bamboo hat could not conceal the young man's confusion.
Lou Yun's thoughts turned, and she spoke a name that had never appeared in this world. "Fangyi."
Fangyi, Lou Fangyi, Great Jing's youngest female emperor, and the first sovereign in history to unify the foreign states, ending more than two hundred years of fragmentation among them.
It was her name in her previous life, but after she became emperor, no one had called her that again.
"Fangyi? As in 'Heaven and earth are called the two forms, hence fangyi'?"
"Yes." Lou Yun nodded, looking out at the pedestrians coming and going outside.
In Great Jing, earth was held supreme. She had not been favored as a child, and her imperial mother had chosen her name carelessly. After seizing power, she had changed her name to Lou Fangyi. But by then, no one in the world dared call her by name, so Pei Qing's "Fangyi" was truly the first time she had heard her own name from someone else's lips.
"Say it again."
"Hmm?"
Those eyes hidden behind the mask seemed to crave more than just a name. There was something else, too much and too tangled for Pei Qing to distinguish in that moment.
He only felt that he could not disappoint the anticipation in those eyes, so he said again, "Fangyi."
"Mm."
Lou Yun answered very coolly, even lifting her teacup to take a sip, looking as though she did not care.
But Pei Qing still sensed her delight from the slight upward curve beneath the teacup and the little finger raised slightly as she held it.
"Fangyi, Fangyi, Fangyi." The imperial tutor called her name three more times in succession.
With her thoughts seen through, Lou Yun could not help feeling a little embarrassed and annoyed. Thinking that even if she lost, she could not lose face, she wanted to win a round back and blurted out, "If you called me that somewhere else, Imperial Tutor, I might be even happier."
"What?" Pei Qing's bewilderment was genuine.
Lou Yun felt chagrined. She had spent more than half her life in army camps, and even after living in the palace for so long, certain dirty jokes still rolled off her tongue. Someone like Pei Qing, who looked as though he had never even seen an erotic picture, would certainly not understand what she meant.