Chapter 24

The room was dark.

There were no dungeons in the White Deer Lingying Palace. It had originally been a Buddhist temple before being converted into a Taoist abbey, but neither monks nor Taoists would commit such a bloody act of blasphemy beneath the feet of the deities they worshipped. Consequently, this room was built at ground level and had originally served as a storeroom. However, once the window shutters were nailed tight and the heavy doors were bolted shut, it became pitch black, so dark one could not see one's own hand.

Wang Chuanyun had been imprisoned in such a place for so long that she had begun to wonder if people had forgotten her.

This was not entirely accurate, but it was close enough.

To the noble ones, this tiny ant destined for death was not worth a second glance. They did not care whether she lived or died, nor did they feel any genuine sympathy, pity, or anger regarding the assassination attempt on the Imperial Princess.

Everyone was preoccupied with their own precarious positions and their own futures. They were so busy that they wished they could fly back and forth between Bianjing and Xingyuan Prefecture in a single day and night. As for the name, appearance, or the duration of the prisoner’s confinement in Lingying Palace, who truly cared?

Once the dust had settled on the entire affair, the county magistrate had made a tentative inquiry, but the Lingying Palace offered no response. Thus, the female prisoner remained locked away in the Taoist abbey, kept in that suffocating darkness.

She was given one meal and a ladle of water each day. These were not delivered by opening the main door, but by unfastening a window shutter at night and sliding them in like food for a dog. It was not enough to starve her to death, but it was hardly a life worth living.

Yet, what did that matter? Anyone kept in such a dark and silent cell would eventually find their mind growing strangely calm.

Suddenly, a commotion erupted outside.

It sounded like people talking, but the young girl could not hear it clearly. She did not know if it was day or night, nor whether the sounds were real or merely a hallucination. Her ancestral home would often manifest from the darkness—a house that was somewhat dilapidated, yet still capable of sheltering her from the wind and rain. Especially when the winter rains lingered, her old grandmother would light the brazier, and the firelight dancing within the charcoal was so warm, so bright.

A beam of light suddenly burst through the gap in the door.

It was as bright as firelight—even brighter!

The girl, huddled in the corner, shielded her eyes with the back of her hand, but the light transformed into a brilliant radiance, possessing a supernatural sharpness.

Someone stood at the doorway, and the light emanated from her.

"Take down the window shutters and open the doors wide," she said.

Zhao Luming detested these kinds of psychological tactics.

They could loosely be categorized as interrogation strategies, including but not limited to putting on a stony face, positioning light sources behind oneself, sitting on an exceptionally high chair to look down on the subject, and having two burly men stand on either side. Everything was designed to heighten the interrogator's sense of intimidation; the goal was for the subject’s mental defenses to collapse the moment they made eye contact, leaving them to slump like a pile of mud, ready to confess anything.

She walked through the door and took a step to the right, moving herself out of the glare of the blinding sunlight.

Wang Chuanyun stared at her, bewildered and estranged.

"Who are you?" she asked in a soft, gentle voice.

The palace maids and eunuchs guarding the door looked on with inexplicable shock, but Zhao Luming felt no surprise at all.

She did not recognize her.

She hated the Imperial Princess Zhaozhen, the subtle guardian fairy of the Jade Capital and master of the White Deer Lingying Palace, with a fierce, absolute hatred. But when Zhao Luming walked over in a plain Taoist robe, the girl did not recognize her—even on that day, when she had lunged forward and stabbed the person before her, the one she had struck was the figure dressed in the magnificent, resplendent robes of the Shenxiao Sect.

"I am curious, so I came to see you," she said.

Wang Chuanyun frowned. "I have committed a grave crime and will be sent to the executioner sooner or later. What is there to see in me?"

"You are incredibly bold," she said. "That makes you worth seeing."

"What kind of boldness is this?" Wang Chuanyun let out a bitter laugh. "I just don't care about my life anymore."

"Why are you not afraid?" she asked again.

"Afraid?" The young girl laughed coldly. "I was afraid long ago! What use is fear? I was terrified in the daylight, so terrified that in my dreams I could see those bailiffs smashing down my door! Dragging away my father and uncle! My grandfather’s coffin hadn't even been covered with soil, and my third brother had to dig another pit beside it to bury my father!"

As she spoke, though no tears fell, her voice was filled with a shrill, choked misery. She rambled on to this strange girl about her family’s affairs. Had her family committed any wrong? Had her neighbors? It was only because the Imperial Princess had arrived that the world had turned upside down!

Yes, indeed. Her family was not even the most miserable. Because of their negligence, their land deeds were indeed incomplete, but what guilt did Old Man Wu from the same village bear? Just because his land lay between two "wastelands" owned by the Lingying Palace, the palace stewards, finding his plot irregular, had set fire to the old man's house!

How many generations does it take to build a family’s fortune? Yet they could be so cruel as to burn it all down in an instant!

And those were merely the servants of the servants of the Imperial Princess!

Why did she assassinate the Imperial Princess? It was because of this!

The young girl opposite her remained silent, listening quietly. As she watched the tears brimming in Wang Chuanyun's eyes, about to spill over, she turned her head and seemed to say something, and someone handed a handkerchief inside.

Not only was a handkerchief passed in, but a cushion was also provided so the girl could sit down comfortably.

Wang Chuanyun stared at the handkerchief. Her mind, dulled by long imprisonment, gradually began to clear.

True, she was a condemned criminal. The only people who should be seeing her were eunuchs or the county magistrate, coming to finalize her sentence and take her head. Why would a girl even younger than herself walk in with such composure and listen to her grievances?

Moreover, this girl was surrounded by a retinue of attendants. Was her identity not self-evident?

When Wang Chuanyun realized this, her blood seemed to freeze, and she grew calm.

"Have you come to watch how I die?" she asked.

"I am not going to kill you," the Imperial Princess Zhaozhen looked at her kindly. "I will let you go. How about that?"

The room fell so silent that even breathing seemed to stagnate.

"Why?"

"You stabbed me, and I have already bled once," the Imperial Princess said. "In all my years, this was the first time I realized that bleeding hurts so much. I do not wish for you to suffer the same pain."

She sat on the cushion at the doorway, wearing the most ordinary of Taoist robes. Her face still bore the pallor of blood loss, yet her eyes were as clear and limpid as the sky in September.

She spoke such naive, absurdly foolish words that Wang Chuanyun was stunned. A mixture of anger, contempt, pity, and regret churned within her. These bitter, painful emotions collided, and she suddenly burst into hysterical tears.

"How can you be so naive! So stupid!" she cried. "Do you not know how many people have bled dry because of you!"

A pair of hands gently took hers, pressing a fragrant handkerchief into her palm.

"I am indeed very stupid, and there are many things I do not understand," the Imperial Princess said softly. "I am just a little girl, too. Now that you have told me, I understand."

Cao Fu listened coldly from outside, his expression unreadable.

It was not until Zhao Luming had arranged this "test" and left the cell that the old eunuch slowly followed. His eyes were downcast, and he did not speak, but she could sense that he had something to tell her.

"Eunuch?"

Cao Fu bowed his head in a salute.

She walked up the steps to the rear hall and waved her hand, causing the eunuchs and maids to retreat with natural subservience.

"Does the Eunuch have something to teach me?"

"This old slave is a withered and useless man; I am unworthy of the word 'teach' from the Imperial Princess," Cao Fu said. "The old slave only feels that the Imperial Princess seems a bit impatient."

She paused, startled.

"Why would you say that, Eunuch?"

"The old slave has been watching with a cold eye for a long time."

She was silent for a moment. "And what have you seen?"

"The old slave does not see a child; I only see an Imperial Princess with the face of a Bodhisattva but the heart of stone," Cao Fu said. "If the Imperial Princess acts like this day and night, will you not grow weary? One should proceed slowly; that is the proper way."

What secrets the Imperial Princess harbored, Cao Fu could not discern. But he was old, and having seen countless people in his lifetime, he still possessed a keen eye.

He knew what an ordinary princess was like.

Although later generations criticized the status of Song princesses as inferior to those of the Han and Tang dynasties, that was only when compared to the ancients. How did they compare to the people of the present? The eunuchs and maids in the palace felt that the status of the princesses was still transcendent, noble figures whom countless people could only look up to.

Most well-behaved princesses were only docile in front of the Emperor, the Empresses, or their consorts. They were raised by eunuchs and maids, and they were naturally very relaxed around their servants.

Relaxed and a little spoiled, and therefore very authentic.

Yet, the Imperial Princess Zhaozhen had never shown her true self.

Toward the three children sent by Zhao Liangsi, she showed a flicker of warmth beneath her majesty; toward the magistrate and the county lieutenant, she used a mix of favor and intimidation to win them over; toward the Taoist official Li Weiyi, she engaged in patient maneuvering before suddenly attacking, shattering his spine; toward the eunuchs of the Western City Office, she was cold and ruthless... even that memorial she wrote was clearly meant to make Li Yan bleed as well!

Such a person would not lose her temper with her maids, yet she would never forgive those who had betrayed her, nor would she ever allow them to return to her side.

Now, she had come before a female Jing Ke who dared to assassinate her, and she had donned this naive, clear-eyed mask. What did this mean?

It meant that she was desperately seizing power, regardless of potential dissent from the court or the even more likely retaliation from Li Yan.

If she only wanted to live comfortably, she would not need to go to such great lengths. With the title bestowed upon her by the Emperor, she could live in Xingyuan Prefecture securely and without any risk.

A child of twelve or thirteen, tossing and turning from Bianjing to this place, tireless, clutching her unhealed wounds, seizing every opportunity to grab power.

Her sisters of the same age, and even her younger brothers who were not much smaller than her, would cry out in pain at the slightest scratch on their skin, demanding that their mothers coax them before they would stop their tears.

So, what was she after?

"If the Eunuch sees me this way," the Imperial Princess said after a long silence following Cao Fu’s words, "then why did you leave the palace to follow me to Xingyuan Prefecture? The mountains are high and the roads are long; you are old, do you not find it bitter and tiring?"

Cao Fu smiled. "If life in the palace were secure, would this old slave have come here to suffer? The Imperial Princess has a discerning eye; this old slave is merely a stray dog, posturing with mystery, only seeking a safe place to settle."

"Old Cao," she smiled, "I am the same."

She was the same—a stray dog forced to flee her home.

But she was not resigned. She had to go back, no matter the thousands of dangers.

As long as she did not die.

She would never stop.