From the main courtyard, Wang Guizhi's wailing rose louder and louder, as though her heart had been gouged out.
When Cen Sheng stepped through the gate, several rough-work matrons were clumsily helping Wang Guizhi toward the family shrine.
Her hair was disheveled, tears had streaked her face powder, and she kept repeating the same cry:
“My Wenyan! Those damned officials, accusing an innocent man!”
Jing Shishi knelt at the shrine entrance, crying even more piteously. In a thin, delicate voice, she called, “Brother Wenyan is a licensed scholar, a man of learning. How can the constables take him away? There must be a mistake...”
Xue Lan'er stood beneath the covered walkway, red-eyed and at a loss.
Expressionless, Cen Sheng passed them and entered the shrine.
Guanyin stood on the altar amid curling incense.
Wang Guizhi knelt on a cushion, kowtowing and muttering prayers. At the sound of footsteps, she whipped around. Recognizing Cen Sheng, hatred flared in her tear-reddened eyes.
“You dare show your face!” Scrambling up, she jabbed a finger at Cen Sheng's nose. “Your father got the Xue family investigated, and now you've got Wenyan taken away! You jinx! Was bringing death to your parents not enough? You have to kill my son too!”
In her previous life, Cen Sheng would already have knelt to apologize.
Now she lowered her eyes and spoke quietly but clearly. “You're mistaken, Mother-in-law. My father was implicated by the Xue family. Xue Wenyan was taken by the authorities. What has any of it, from beginning to end, got to do with me?”
“You—” Wang Guizhi choked. She hadn't expected this daughter-in-law, who accepted everything meekly, to talk back.
“Why exactly did you send for me?” Cen Sheng gave her no chance to erupt, her tone even. “If there's nothing else, I'll return to my room. There's work waiting at the shop.”
“The shop?” Wang Guizhi's crying stopped abruptly, her gaze sharpening. “What shop?”
Damn.
Cen Sheng's heart sank.
She had kept the tailoring shop a secret from the Xue family.
Xue Miao had quietly rented it for her. Every day, she went there to work on the pretext of buying embroidery thread, telling others she merely mended villagers' clothes for a few coppers.
Wang Guizhi had always disdained the little money she earned from needlework and never asked closely.
But a moment's carelessness had let it slip.
“Sheng-niang.” Wang Guizhi's gaze cut into her face as she slowly advanced two steps. “Where would a woman like you get the silver to open a shop?”
“I'm helping out.” Regaining her composure, Cen Sheng lied without changing expression. “Tailor Wang at the east end of the village needs workers. I do odd jobs for him. You can hardly call that opening a shop.”
“Tailor Wang?” Wang Guizhi sneered. “Lame Wang at the east end? He shut his shop three months ago and went home to farm. You're working for him? Sewing for ghosts?”
Cen Sheng's heart lurched.
She hadn't known he'd closed three months ago.
Wang Guizhi advanced step by step. Her tears weren't yet dry, but her face had already twisted into something vicious. She seized Cen Sheng's wrist, nails digging into flesh, her grip almost crushing the bone.
“Have you been plotting with Second Brother?”
Cen Sheng was shaken, but showed nothing. “I don't understand what you mean.”
“Stop playing dumb!” Wang Guizhi lowered her voice, bringing her lips almost against Cen Sheng's ear. Her hot breath carried a sour, decaying smell. “Yesterday, Second Brother came to the main hall to rescue you for no reason. Today, you've suddenly got a shop. What a coincidence! Have you been carrying on with that cripple?”
It was a venomous accusation.
In a place like Qinghe Village, rumors of a cast-off wife “carrying on” with her disabled younger brother-in-law could get her drowned in a pond.
Cen Sheng inhaled deeply and met Wang Guizhi's bloodshot eyes. Suddenly, it seemed almost laughable.
How she'd feared this woman in her previous life. Her scolding, her beatings, the threat of being driven from the Xue household. Every morning, her first thought had been how to please her mother-in-law, how to earn a few fewer insults.
Only after dying once had she understood: the things she'd feared amounted to so little.
“You need evidence for what you say.” Cen Sheng pried Wang Guizhi's hand away, finger by finger. “Second Uncle came to the hall yesterday to deliver a letter. As for the shop, I've already told you—I'm only helping out. If you don't believe me, investigate all you like.”
She paused and looked directly into Wang Guizhi's eyes. “But do you have time to investigate me now? Xue Wenyan has been taken away. The imperial censor's people may already be on their way here. Instead of watching me, perhaps you should consider how to deal with what's in front of you.”
Wang Guizhi's expression changed.
This was the second time today Cen Sheng had left her speechless.
The incense crackled, sandalwood smoke curling between them. Through it, Wang Guizhi looked at the young woman standing straight before her, her gaze clear, and felt briefly dazed.
Was this Cen Sheng?
The same Cen Sheng who had spent twelve years in the Xue household as a child bride, eyes lowered, submissive, barely daring to breathe?
“Mother—”
Xue Lan'er's timid voice from outside broke the charged silence.
Both turned.
Xue Lan'er stood at the entrance with someone behind her: a minor official in a blue-green robe, a saber at his waist. His face was cold and solemn as he surveyed the shrine.
Wang Guizhi's knees weakened. She nearly fell to them again.
“My... my lord...”
“I am a clerk from the imperial censor's office. My surname is Song.” He saluted with clasped hands, his tone businesslike. “I've been ordered to collect several old records from the Xue household. Madam Wang of the Xue family, please cooperate.”
Old records.
Something stirred in Cen Sheng's mind.
An imperial censor investigating a case wouldn't collect old records from a household for no reason. They must have found a lead indicating that the Xues held ledgers or documents relevant to the case.
Wang Guizhi had evidently realized the same thing. Every trace of color drained from her face. Her lips trembled for a long time before she managed, “Wh-what records, my lord? We don't have any old records...”
“Ledgers, contracts, and correspondence between the Xue family and the stone merchants during last year's river-dike project,” Clerk Song said. “Don't be nervous, Madam Wang. This is only a routine review. If there are none, I will report that truthfully. However—”
His gaze swept over those in the shrine as he added unhurriedly, “If it is later discovered that the Xue household possessed such documents and failed to surrender them, that constitutes deceiving a superior official. Under the law, the punishment ranges from beating to exile.”
Wang Guizhi swayed and caught the altar to keep from collapsing.
Listening at the door, Jing Shishi turned pale too. She secretly tugged Xue Lan'er's sleeve and whispered, “Lan'er, the ledgers... where does Mother keep them?”
Xue Lan'er shook her head blankly.
But Cen Sheng suddenly remembered something.
In her previous life, on the day the Xue household was raided, soldiers had found a tin chest in a hidden compartment in the shrine. She didn't know what it contained. She only knew that when Wang Guizhi saw it brought out, she'd gone mad on the spot, laughing and crying, shouting, “Chongli, you've ruined me!”
That tin chest should still be in the hidden compartment now.
“Mother-in-law,” Cen Sheng suddenly said, her voice gentle and obedient, “since Lord Song wants documents concerning the river-dike project, and our family did none of those things, naturally we can't produce them. I think we should invite him to look for himself. That would clear the Xue family's name.”
Wang Guizhi fixed her with a stare that almost threw sparks.
Meeting it, Cen Sheng smiled slightly, then turned and curtsied to Clerk Song.
“My lord, I've lived in this household for twelve years and never seen any ledgers or contracts. But the Xues are a proper family. Whenever Mother-in-law has important documents, she places them beneath the shrine altar to seek the bodhisattva's protection. If you wish to look, perhaps start beneath the altar.”
Wang Guizhi's face turned deathly gray in an instant.
“Cen Sheng—you dare—”
Before she finished, Clerk Song had strode to the altar, bent down, and begun feeling beneath the offering table.
A moment later, his fingers touched a loose wooden board.