“You seem like a kindhearted person and probably not bad. Please don’t aid a tyrant and bring doom upon yourself.”
The little girl who had just reached hairpin age was thin and weak, fragile as if a gust could blow her away. Yet her courageous stance blocking in front of her brother was something not everyone could do.
And she said he was kindhearted.
Cracks appeared on Han Jian’s eternally icy face. A trace of nearly moved emotion flowed. She said he probably was not a bad person.
From childhood to now, he had done too many foolish and evil things for his masters just to eat. This little girl was the first to say he was not bad.
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
Han Jian raised his hand, signaling the thugs to stand by.
Sensing something amiss, passersby began to gather and murmur.
Wei Ying grew anxious, sweat beading on her pale face. “Brother, what do we do?”
Wei Qin pulled his sister behind him and looked at the stunned maid Miaodie nearby. “Take Miss away.”
He then instructed Wei Ying, “Go find your sister-in-law. She knows what to do.”
Wei Ying hesitated, her feet rooted. Just as the Yan Mansion thugs grabbed their weapons, another figure hurried over.
“No, no, no. Don’t ruin the harmony first thing in the morning.”
A silver-robed man with an unfamiliar face, carrying a painting scroll, inserted himself between the two groups. “This humble one is setting up a stall here. Please show mercy, everyone.”
They stood on the empty ground where the silver-robed man had set up his stall.
Han Jian glanced at the unfamiliar painter and was about to give the order when Wei Qin said, “I will go with you to see the Salt Transport Envoy.”
“Brother!”
“Go find your sister-in-law.”
Wei Qin stepped forward and left with Han Jian and the others.
Wei Ying wanted to chase after but was blocked by the silver-robed painter.
“Your brother said to go find your sister-in-law.”
“Who are you?”
“A street vendor.”
Wei Ying gazed at her brother’s receding back, suppressed her turmoil, and pulled Miaodie to head back. But her body was too weak; a few quick steps left her gasping.
“Miaodie, go find sister-in-law.”
“But Miss…”
“Never mind me, go quickly!”
Miaodie stomped her foot, told Wei Ying not to wander, and then ran toward the Wei Residence. She did not know what trump card the Second Young Madam had to confront the local tyrant Yan family. Could the trump card be… the Crown Prince?
Wei Ying clutched her chest, wanting to return to the clinic, but her body disobeyed and tilted to the side.
“Hey hey hey…!”
The silver-robed painter quickly reached out to support her. His peripheral vision stretched endlessly after the departing group.
In the opulently decorated study of the Yan Mansion, the rotund-faced Yan Hongchang tossed aside his ink brush and smiled at Wei Qin sitting across from the desk. “What does Transport Judge Wei think makes a person valuable?”
Melon rind tea from Yunjin wafted fragrance, hazy like mist between them.
After waiting long for Wei Qin’s answer, Yan Hongchang smiled without mirth. “A person is valuable for knowing when to yield. Don’t you agree?”
Without the poise he maintained in public, Yan Hongchang stretched out his leg and rested it on the footstool in front of the round-backed armchair, his posture relaxed and casual. “Also, words from the wine table can’t be taken seriously.”
With a clap, the venue merchant from last night appeared at the study door, nodding and bowing toward the inside.
Yan Hongchang glanced at Wei Qin. “Nephew is still too green, eager for merit, thinking boldness alone can make a name. Little do you know how many new officials have fallen to their own boldness. You and I are old acquaintances. For old times’ sake, name your price.”
From his early days in officialdom, his father-in-law had warned him that wine table words were not to be trusted. Wei Qin had long anticipated being betrayed by that venue merchant. He raised his eyes and asked, “What do you mean?”
Yan Hongchang pulled a silver note from his sleeve and tossed it onto the desk. “A person is valuable for knowing when to yield, and stopping while ahead. If not for His Highness the Crown Prince still being in Yangzhou, nephew might already be in pieces.”
Wei Qin took the banknote, as if ten thousand taels of silver were shimmering before his eyes. He suddenly sneered, a cold smile appearing on his face, which was even more solemn than Han Jian’s.
“Does Milord think His Highness the Crown Prince lingers in Yangzhou simply to reward the troops?”
Yan Hongchang froze, his legs on the spring stool stiffening as the blood in his body seemed to congeal drop by drop. Meanwhile, Yan Zhuyu, seated behind the folding screen, suppressed the twitch at the corner of her mouth.
“What do you mean…”
“Your days are numbered, Milord.”
Yan Hongchang slammed the table and stood, his cold face circling around the desk to loom over Wei Qin, looking down disdainfully at this junior who preferred to act alone. “Is His Highness the Crown Prince truly here to investigate me?”
Wei Qin remained seated, his gaze inscrutable. He also drew a stack of thin papers from his sleeve and slapped them one by one onto Yan Hongchang’s weathered face.
The papers fluttered down, piling up layer by layer.
Ironclad proof.
Part of it had been gathered by Wei Qin himself, while the rest was the “grand gift” from Cui Shihan— all evidence of Yan Hongchang’s bribery and abuse of power for personal gain.
“In this junior’s humble opinion, a man should strive to be upright. Impartial and incorruptible, without favoritism, upholding trust, and correcting one’s mistakes—these are the marks of an upright man.”
“Impartial and incorruptible, without favoritism”—this was aimed at Yan Hongchang. “Upholding trust, correcting one’s mistakes”—this was for the Venue Merchant’s ears.
An abnormal man reaps what he sows.
Yan Hongchang hastily picked up the papers from the floor, flipping through them one by one. His air of unshakable composure shattered in an instant. Before such solid evidence, even the most glib villain could not argue his way out.
“Where did you get this? Ah?!”
Watching Yan Hongchang erupt in fury, Wei Qin rose to his feet. His tall, imposing stature gave him a broader view as he looked down scornfully at the panicked middle-aged man. “You’ve spun a cocoon around yourself—what right do you have to question those who gathered the evidence?”
“You think you can walk away unscathed?” Yan Hongchang jabbed a finger at Wei Qin, grinding his teeth. “Today, you won’t leave the Yan Mansion alive.”
“On what grounds would Milord detain an imperial official?”
No longer able to sit calmly, Yan Zhuyu emerged from behind the folding screen, a veil of gloom gathering between her delicate brows.
“Drunkenly harassing This Consort—is that reason enough?”
Yan Hongchang looked at his daughter in astonishment, then flew into a rage, barking with exaggerated indignation, “An imperial official harassing an Eastern Palace Side Consort—ten heads wouldn’t be enough to atone for that!”
Yan Zhuyu’s hands trembled as she clenched them into fists. That night, she had seen her father whispering with the salt merchants and vaguely sensed something amiss.
After repeatedly pressing her father in her anxiety, she finally learned the enormity of the blunder he had committed.
She hated him, ached with pain, but the priority now was to destroy the evidence and silence Wei Qin.
“Last night, Transport Judge Wei drank with the salt merchants, got dead drunk, encountered This Consort on the road, acted insolently, spoke flirtatiously, behaved improperly, with clear ill intent.”
An ordinary man slandered like this might scramble to defend himself, but Wei Qin’s expression remained unchanged. He calmly scrutinized Yan Zhuyu, just as he had at the mountain waystation that day.
“Fabricated charges?”
Yan Zhuyu knew this pretext was absurd, but the more absurd, the harder to disprove. Once she reached the Crown Prince, she would insist Wei Qin had lost control in his drunkenness. Whether the Crown Prince believed her would depend on how much affection he held for her.
Affection…
She wanted to laugh, to mock herself. How could the Crown Prince believe her? How could he protect her? But she had no other way to put Wei Qin to death.
“Second Brother Wei, let’s go.”
“I have one question.”
“Speak.”
“Didn’t you hate your father for selling you off for his own gain back then?”
Struck at her sore spot amid this sudden crisis, Yan Zhuyu braced her hands on the desk to steady herself and let out a mocking laugh. “Second Brother Wei hails from Jinyang, was abused by his birth father from childhood—yet after that father hanged himself, you still cleared his debts. Don’t you hate him?”
Wei Qin showed no anger at having his own wound prodded—whether from having let it go or grown numb to it, who could say.
Few knew that the gambling carter had been saddled with debts by Wei Qin’s design and indirectly driven to his death by him.
Yan Hongchang’s face burned with shame at the accusation of selling his daughter for gain. Losing patience, he snapped, “Why waste words on him? The night grows long and dreams breed trouble! Han Jian, send him on his way!”
Han Jian entered the study, hand on his sword hilt, but made no reply.
Yan Hongchang fumed, “Deaf?”
Han Jian remained silent, his hand on the sword trembling violently.
To draw and strike was child’s play for a swordsman—but was aiding a villain truly right?
“Useless trash.”
With the matter so confidential, the father and daughter had kept only their trusted aide Han Jian at hand. Now with no one else to use, Yan Hongchang went to the front courtyard himself to call for men. But the scene there left him aghast.
The Yan Mansion’s hundred guards were pinned down between the main gate and the hanging flower gate by several thousand troops.
They surrendered without a fight.
Their encirclement included soldiers from the Yangzhou garrison, yamen officers, and escorts from the Princess Dowager’s Mansion and the County Princess Mansion.
Not only that—Prefect Lin Yu had come personally, with a woman in a red skirt at his side.
Jiang Yinyue stood there, having the Prefect Lin Yu completely under her thumb.
“Does Prefect Lin know what to do?”
“I do, I do.”
Lin Yu stepped forward and pointed at the dumbfounded middle-aged man. “Yan Hongchang, you dare detain an imperial official—do you know your crime? Release him at once!”
Yan Hongchang bellowed, “Lin Yu, you’re overstepping your rank!”
Lin Yu raised the token in his hand. “Your Majesty’s decree is here—this official is commanded to protect the imperial officer!”
This was the “talisman” Jiang Song had secretly obtained from the throne for his son-in-law, precisely to counter the peril of even a dragon being crushed by local snakes.