After Being Betrothed to a Powerful Minister, I Found Him Mourning Me - Chapter 12
Chapter 12
The day after Nanny Lin was taken to the Court of Judicial Review, the Empress sent someone to deliver a letter.
The letter wasn’t for Pei Yanzhi.
It was for me.
There was no signature on the envelope, only a lock of old hair and a scorched scrap of blue cloth tucked inside.
Bitao’s face went pale the moment she saw that piece of cloth.
“This is from my mother’s clothes.”
Her mother was still on the estate of the Empress’s Maternal Clan.
All these years, Bitao had never dared to act recklessly because her mother was being held hostage.
I unfolded the letter.
There was only one line written on it.
“If you want Liu Shi and her daughter to keep their bodies intact, bring the deposition to Ci’an Temple at noon tomorrow.”
Bitao dropped to her knees, her forehead striking the floor hard.
“My lady, I know I shouldn’t beg you.”
I didn’t wait for her to finish before helping her up.
“Your sister saved me.”
She shook her head through her tears.
“But that was my sister, not me. My lady, you don’t have to pay with your life for the Liu family.”
I looked at her.
I had heard words like that far too many times in the Shen Family.
They said, your mother is already dead, so stop bringing her up.
They said, a maid shielding her master from disaster is simply her fate.
They said, the living should look ahead, not ruin themselves for the dead.
But if everyone looked ahead like that, Liu Fuchun would truly be reduced to nothing but a set of bones buried under the wrong name.
I slipped the deposition into my sleeve.
“I’ll go.”
The deposition in my sleeve was fake.
The real one had already been hidden by me inside the lining of the old cloth from Bitao’s mother’s clothes. The moment that blue cloth was delivered to Pei Mansion, I had someone unpick it overnight and check it.
I wasn’t going to Ci’an Temple to exchange evidence.
I was going there to make the Xue Family personally admit that they were still holding a living witness.
Pei Yanzhi stood in the doorway, his expression frighteningly cold.
“No.”
I asked, “Do you have a better plan?”
He was silent.
I said, “You want to go in my place, don’t you?”
He didn’t deny it.
I walked up to him and reached out to touch the back of his bandaged hand.
“Pei Yanzhi, you’ve already kept watch over the dead for me. This time, let me save the living myself.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“I’ll follow you.”
“Fine.”
“But you can’t leave my sight.”
Looking at him standing there as if he were barely restraining the urge to lock me away, I suddenly felt like laughing.
“Lord Pei, didn’t we just agree not to make decisions for other people?”
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, his tone had lowered.
“Shen Zhaoning, I’m afraid.”
I froze.
This was the first time he had ever said the word afraid aloud.
It wasn’t an order, not an arrangement, and not that cold, distant kind of “for your own good.”
That single sentence knocked a crack into the hard shell around my heart.
“Then watch me.”
I said, “I won’t run into the rain alone anymore.”
At noon the next day, I went to Ci’an Temple.
The temple’s worshippers had all been cleared out. Only the courtyard full of pines and cypresses remained, along with a bronze bell hanging beneath the eaves.
The Empress did not come in person.
The one who came was her elder brother, the imperial uncle, Xue Qi.
He sat inside the Buddha Hall with a wooden chest placed beside him.
A faint cough came from within the chest.
Bitao stood behind me, her nails digging so deeply into her palms they nearly broke the skin.
Xue Qi looked at me with a smile.
“Madam Shen is truly loyal and sentimental.”
I placed the deposition on the table.
“Where is she?”
He lifted the lid of the chest.
Curled inside was a woman so thin she had nearly lost her human shape. Her mouth was gagged with cloth, and half her hair had gone white.
Bitao almost threw herself forward, but I held her back.
Xue Qi picked up the deposition. He only glanced at it before the smile on his face faded.
“You brought me a fake to fool me?”
I said, “The real one is with Pei Yanzhi.”
His face darkened.
I continued, “Lord Xue, you know how timid I am. If I really brought the only deposition here, wouldn’t that mean I could never leave this temple alive?”
Xue Qi stared at me.
“You aren’t as stupid as the rumors say.”
“The rumors also say I bring death to my husbands.” I looked at him. “Isn’t Pei Yanzhi still alive and well?”
As soon as I finished speaking, a soft laugh came from outside the Buddha Hall.
Pei Yanzhi pushed the door open and walked in. Behind him were the Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review and a squad of Imperial Guards.
Xue Qi shot to his feet.
“You dare surround Ci’an Temple with Imperial Guards?”
Pei Yanzhi said coolly, “Lord Xue is holding a witness hostage and attempting to destroy testimony from the old Eastern Palace case. The Imperial Guards have come by His Majesty’s secret decree. What would we not dare?”
The smile on Xue Qi’s face could no longer hold.
He drew a dagger and, with a backhanded motion, pressed it to the throat of the woman inside the chest.
Bitao cried out, “Mother!”
In that same instant, I saw the cold gleam of a crossbow behind the Buddha statue.
Xue Qi hadn’t come to exchange the deposition.
He had come to kill us.
Without thinking, I grabbed the incense burner from the offering table and hurled it behind the Buddha statue.
A crossbow bolt grazed past my shoulder.
The next moment, Pei Yanzhi yanked me into his arms.
The scent of medicine and blood on him mingled together, and I heard him grit out a curse beside my ear.
“Shen Zhaoning, you truly know how to pick your moments to scare people.”
I sucked in a breath from the pain, but still didn’t forget to talk back.
“Weren’t you watching?”
The hand he had locked around mine trembled slightly.
“Watching doesn’t mean I’m not afraid.”
The Imperial Guards quickly subdued Xue Qi.
Bitao rushed over and held her mother, sobbing so hard she could hardly breathe.
Leaning against Pei Yanzhi’s arms, I watched Xue Qi being dragged away. Then I suddenly heard the wind strike the bronze bell.
The sound fell deep and heavy.
Only when I heard Bitao burst into tears while holding her mother did I slowly loosen my aching grip.
