Cen Sheng nearly ran out of the shrine hall.
Wang Guizhi's cursing faded behind her, scattered like paper ash on the wind—but her ears roared, and over and over the vermilion line from the ledger echoed in her skull—
"Send men to escort him to the frontier—and finish it on the road."
Finish it.
Her father had not been missing. Not an accident. He had been killed, deliberately, on the road of exile.
Twelve years. Twelve whole years she had believed her father was alive somewhere, believed that maybe, one day, he would come back for her.
In her past life, kneeling in this hall kowtowing to the Bodhisattva, she had always made two wishes: that Xue Wenyan would treat her a little better—and that her father be safe and well. Even if she never saw him again in this life, alive was enough.
And all the while she was making that second wish, her father's bones had already rotted beside some nameless wilderness road—scavenged by wild dogs, buried by windblown sand, without even a grave.
Cen Sheng set her back teeth and walked faster, out the corner gate of the rear courtyard, east along the village road.
The late-autumn wind flung dust from the yellow-earth road into her face; she didn't notice. Her mind held one thing only—
Xue Miao knows.
He had spent twelve years digging. He had traced down the very name of the old servant from Wang Guizhi's family—how could he not know how Cen Wangshan died?
And last night, he hadn't said one word.
At this hour the east end of the village held barely a soul.
Lame Wang's tailoring shop was indeed shuttered, a faded "to let" notice pasted across the door boards—and the shop Xue Miao had rented for her sat catty-corner across the way: two wooden doors freshly brushed with tung oil, no signboard over the lintel yet, a shop she herself had only just cleared out yesterday.
But today she had no mind for the shop.
She cut behind it and took the narrow lane she had walked a hundred times, toward the isolated little courtyard at the back of the Xue estate.
By day, Xue Miao's gate stood ajar, the yard beyond silent. Different from last night—in daylight the place looked more dilapidated still: half the roof tiles along the wall gone, moss running wild along the foot of the wall, and in the middle of the yard a crooked jujube tree hung with a few shriveled red dates that no one picked.
"Second Uncle? Are you in?"
No one answered.
Cen Sheng pushed open the gate and went in. The door of the main room stood ajar too; she reached out to knock—and her wrist was caught from behind and locked.
The grip wasn't heavy, but it pinned her joint with perfect precision. Cen Sheng went rigid, instinctively reaching back to pry at the man's fingers—in her past life, struggling in the coffin, she had forged a vicious streak—but the strength in that wrist was alarming; she couldn't break it at all.
"Miss Cen." Ling Mo's voice sounded at her ear, cool and restrained. "Second Master is resting. He receives no visitors."
"Let go." Cen Sheng didn't turn her head, her voice pressed low. "I have questions for him."
"Second Master's orders. He sees no one today."
"Me included?"
Ling Mo was silent for an instant. And that instant of silence confirmed her guess—Xue Miao knew she would come. He saw no one. Above all, not her.
"He doesn't dare see me." Cen Sheng said, character by character, "because he knows how my father died."
Ling Mo's grip eased a fraction—and still did not let go. He was about to speak when a low voice came from within: "Ling Mo. Let her in."
Ling Mo's hand released at once.
Cen Sheng rubbed her reddened wrist, pushed open the ajar door, and went in.
Inside, the room was plainer than its outside promised. A plank bed, a square table, two chairs, a few stacks of books in the corner. The only thing that caught the eye was the saber hung at the head of the bed—old cowhide wrapped round the scabbard, its edges burnished bright from handling. It had been wiped, and wiped again.
Xue Miao sat by the window, the wash-faded thin blanket across his knees. Sunlight leaked through the torn window paper and laid mottled light across his face. A scroll of a book in his hand, his fingers long and pale, the knuckles distinct.
At the sound of footsteps he raised his eyes.
Those eyes were still as a deep well. No bottom to be seen.
"Sister-in-law cuts quite a figure today." he said, his tone impossible to read as praise or blame. "Holding court in the shrine hall—you've startled the imperial censor's own clerk."
"You've heard." Cen Sheng said.
"The Xue household isn't big. What wind could get past these walls?" Xue Miao set down the scroll and tapped his fingers lightly on his knee. "Though I confess I underestimated you, Sister-in-law. A hidden compartment Wang Guizhi kept for twelve years—how did you know where it was?"
"I guessed."
"Guessed?" Xue Miao's brow rose a fraction.
Cen Sheng met his eyes without flinching. She couldn't say she had watched a household confiscated in her past life, so she lied: "Twelve years in this family. Wang Guizhi goes to the shrine hall three times a day, morning, noon, and dusk, rain or shine. A woman of her temper—if something that important weren't hidden in the shrine hall, why would she spend more time there than in her own rooms?"
Xue Miao studied her a moment, then gave a short laugh. It was a shallow laugh; the corner of his eye bent once and was gone, quick as an illusion.
"Sister-in-law is observant."
"It's you who commands respect, Second Uncle." Cen Sheng's voice tightened a little. "Everything from twelve years ago—the stone-trade ledgers to the old servant who had you thrown from your horse—investigated to the last thread. And that my father was killed on the road by men of the Xue family. You knew that too, didn't you."
The room went still for a beat.
Xue Miao said nothing. Outside the window the jujube tree swayed in the wind, a few dead leaves spiraling down onto the sill with a faint rustle.
"I knew." he said.
Two words only, weightless, as if remarking on the tea he'd had that morning.
It hit Cen Sheng like a fist to the chest.
"Last night I asked you for the whole truth of my father's scapegoating—every word of it, nothing held back. You promised. And you didn't tell me. You told me about the ledgers, the scapegoating, the exile—" her voice began to shake; not tears, but the tremor of something compressed far past its limit. "But you never said he died on the road."
"You didn't ask." Xue Miao looked at her evenly. "You asked for 'the truth of the scapegoating.' What I told you was the truth of the scapegoating. As for what came after—"
"After what?" Cen Sheng closed the distance, both hands braced on the table's edge, knuckles white. "He was murdered on the road after—and in your view, Second Uncle, that no longer counts as truth?"
Xue Miao lowered his eyes. A silence. When he spoke again his voice was as unhurried as ever.
"Miss Cen. Your father's affair—I do know it. I didn't tell you, not because I wanted it hidden, but because I judged it not yet time."
Cen Sheng stared at him and waited.
"Your father was killed on the road of exile, by two household servants sent by Xue Chongli. That much I only uncovered three years ago." He lifted his head, his gaze settling on her face. "But I have no proof. Both servants were dead five years since—one drowned drunk, one taken by an epidemic. The dead tell no tales."
"Isn't it written in the ledger?"
"What the ledger holds is one sentence, not ironclad proof. Wang Guizhi is perfectly capable of swearing it was Xue Chongli's muddled bookkeeping, or an entry someone else added. Besides—" Xue Miao gave the faintest of scoffs, "that ledger is in Clerk Song's possession now, to stand as documentary evidence in the river-dike corruption case. Your father's death is a separate matter. To overturn that verdict, one vermilion annotation in a ledger is nowhere near enough."
Cen Sheng straightened slowly.
He was right. The two cases both touched the Xue family, but they were different in kind. The river-dike case was a great matter of state; the imperial censor would not open a second case for the death of one laborer chief—not without iron proof.
And still she could not swallow it.
"So in your judgment, Second Uncle, I simply didn't need to know?"
"What I judged you needed was patience." Xue Miao looked at her, and something crossed those still eyes too fast to catch. "What you said to Clerk Song in the shrine hall was already a desperate gamble. You told him where the compartment was. You raised my fall from horseback. You handed over Xue Wenyan's private ledger as well. Do you understand that if Clerk Song had found nothing—or found something too light—you would be kneeling in the Xue family shrine right now, taking the family rod?"
"I know." Cen Sheng said.
"Known—and you did it anyway?"
"Because I have already died once."
It left her mouth before she could stop it—and only after saying it did she realize the slip.
Xue Miao's gaze tightened, very slightly.
Cen Sheng looked away, steadied her breathing, and when she looked back she was calm again:
"How I do what I do is no concern of yours, Second Uncle. From here on, I will not endure. Whoever owes me a debt will pay it."
Xue Miao didn't press. He simply watched her a while in silence, then reached for the coarse porcelain cup on the table and turned it slowly in his hand.
"Your father's affair—I promised you the truth." he said. "Today's fault was mine. If I find anything further, I will tell you directly."
Cen Sheng looked at him, surprised.
Xue Miao kept his eyes lowered, not looking at her, his tone as mild as ever: "Also—Clerk Song took men to Xue Wenyan's study just now. As you said, they found his private ledger in the compartment behind the curio shelf. Several of the entries match the stone merchant's accounts. The dates line up as well."
"Xue Wenyan isn't coming back, then?"
"Not for a while, at the least."
Cen Sheng drew a long breath; some of the weight pressing on her chest seemed to scatter. Then her brow creased again.
"Wang Guizhi is still in the Xue household."
"She can't stir up much." Xue Miao set the cup back on the table with a clear, light click. "Xue Chongli is dead, Xue Wenyan is in custody, the old servants from the Wang side are dead or scattered. The hands she can still use are few. The only one left to run her errands is your little brother-in-law. Xue Wenbin."
"Xue Wenbin?" Cen Sheng blinked.
Xue Wenbin was Xue Chongli's son by a concubine, three years younger than Xue Wenyan, in the cloth trade in the prefectural city. He rarely came home.
"Keep an eye out." Xue Miao said. "Xue Wenbin may live in the prefectural city, but he does business with shops on the Wang side. Wang Guizhi is certain to find a way to pass him word and bring him back to maneuver for her."
Cen Sheng nodded and fixed every word of it in her memory. She was about to take her leave when another thought struck her, and she stopped.
"Second Uncle. One more thing I want to ask you."
"Speak."
"After I left last night—did you have someone look into me?"
Xue Miao's fingers paused, just barely, on the blanket.
Cen Sheng let nothing escape her. She watched him without blinking:
"In the shrine hall today I told Wang Guizhi that the man who had you thrown from your horse was the Wangs' old servant. I learned that eavesdropping outside your courtyard last night—but I never explained the source to Clerk Song. If he comes asking you, what will you say?"
Xue Miao was quiet a moment. Then he gave a soft laugh.
This laugh was different from the last. It carried genuine, unmistakable interest. He raised his eyes, and the deep gaze mirrored the broken light through the window lattice, like a lamp suddenly lit at midnight.
"Miss Cen need not concern herself with me. I have lain low in this courtyard for twelve years. Handling one clerk is no great feat."
He did not answer the question.
Cen Sheng didn't press it either. She gave him one long look, turned, and walked out.
At the threshold, Xue Miao's voice came from behind her, unhurried:
"Your shop. What will the signboard say?"
Cen Sheng's step paused. She glanced back at him.
"Sheng Ji." she said.
And then she stepped over the sill, out into the noon light.
In the courtyard, Ling Mo leaned against the jujube tree, arms crossed, watching her go without expression. When she was well gone he straightened and went inside—to find Xue Miao lifting the untasted cup again, fingertips moving slowly along its rim.
"Second Master. As for Wang Guizhi—"
"Have her watched." Xue Miao said mildly. "Backed into a dead end in the shrine hall today, she will thrash. Xue Wenbin will most likely come back from the prefectural city within days. Once he's here, Wang Guizhi has her errand-runner."
Ling Mo acknowledged the order. A pause, then, hesitant: "And Miss Cen..."
"No." Xue Miao cut him off, and in his voice was an emotion Ling Mo had never heard from him—helplessness, or some mute, unprotesting indulgence. "She's cleverer than I thought. Let her walk her own road."
Ling Mo said nothing more.
Xue Miao lowered his eyes to the tea in the cup. It had gone cold; the dregs lay murky at the bottom, swirling up when the cup moved.
He thought of how she had stood at the window just now—back held straight, eyes bloodshot and utterly dry, hands braced on the table's edge, knuckles white. Like a young leopard crouched to spring at its prey.
What burned in those eyes was not rage. It was the ember that reignites out of dead ash—the one that refuses to go out.
He knew that look.
Because for twelve years, every night he lay staring into the dark, the eyes that looked back at him from the mirror were exactly those.
"Ling Mo."
"Here."
"Find out whether Wang Guizhi has been sending silver out of the house lately. To officials especially."
Ling Mo's expression turned sharp: "You fear she's bought people in the county office—to meddle in Xue Wenyan's affair?"
Xue Miao didn't answer. His eyes narrowed slightly, out the window, toward the crooked jujube tree. The last few red dates rocked on their stems in the wind; a sparrow pecked one, and it dropped and burst on the grey brick.
"This tree should be cut down." he said.
Ling Mo lowered his head and asked nothing further.
Autumn wind through the window chased the dead leaves around the yard with a dry rustle. From the main courtyard came, faintly, Jing Shishi weeping and Wang Guizhi smashing things, Xue Lan'er's tearful pleading mixed in—a kettle of chaos.
And at the east end of the village, before the shop with its new tung-oil doors, Cen Sheng pushed open the door and stood in the middle of the empty shop, looking up at the patch of sunlit space beneath the roof beams.
No signboard yet. No counter yet. Only an old table and two long benches.
But she could already see it as it would be—bolts of cloth here, finished garments hanging there, an embroidery frame by the window, sunlight falling across the work, gold and silver thread glinting.
It was her shop.
Hers alone.
Cen Sheng drew a deep breath, forced the sting from the corners of her eyes back down, rolled up her sleeves, and picked up the broom from the corner.
Then a voice came from the doorway—familiar and strange at once:
"Boss lady. Do you make clothes here?"
Cen Sheng turned her head. Against the light she saw a tall silhouette leaning in the doorframe, travel-worn, a short knife at his belt, watching her with the beginnings of a smile.
Not Xue Miao.
Someone else.
Her pupils contracted, and the broom nearly slipped from her hands.