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At lunch time, the Dong Ji restaurant was a scene of a by now familiar event: Tang Fan and Wang Zhi having lunch together to exchange information. Even a year ago this would have been an extraordinary sight — the Commander of the Western Depot had that kind of a reputation — but these days Aunt Dong simply set their plates in front of them and moved on with running her restaurant with nary an odd glance.
Tang Fan and Wang Zhi had lunch together with some reasonable frequency, with Sui Zhou often joining them. Today Official Pan sat down in the third seat at their square wooden table, on Tang Fan's invitation following their promotions at the Shuntian prefecture. Sui Zhou would join them as the forth eventually once he made his way from the Imperial Guard Barracks, which was a good walk away.
Tang Fan was wearing his brand new red Governor's robes, and savouring the thought of how many appetizing dishes, flavorful noodle soups and sizzling barbecued loins he could now afford on his higher salary. This meal for four would barely make a dent in the pay of a third-rank official!
"My treat," Tang Fan said to Wang Zhi, smiling with an intense sort of brightness. "Try the meat, it is delicious."
Wang Zhi side-eyed him with a knowing look, which told its own story of how Tang Fan had abandoned him and gone home unconcerned, after the explosion set off by Princess Gu'an and Wang Xian had laid them out. Wang Zhi was entirely capable of making Tang Fan squirm in his seat with just a simple arch of an eyebrow.
Truth be told, Tang Fan had been so disoriented after getting knocked out by the explosion that he didn't remember riding back with Sui Zhou, and in general recalled hardly anything from that evening until Pei Huai had started peering concernedly into his eyes a few hours later. This then had reminded Tang Fan strongly of how he met the good doctor on the site of an explosion years ago, which naturally brought back memories of Duo'erla. Head still throbbing, Tang Fan had immediately buried himself in books that yet covered every surface of his study, diving into the case notes anew to see if any trace of Li Zilong would reveal itself to him, needing to do something other than think about what had happened. By the time one of Wang Zhi's men arrived with the summons for an audience with the Emperor the next morning, it was a self-evident fact that Wang Zhi was back at the Western Depot, and Tang Fan's mind raced ever onward.
Looking back, he had to shamefully admit to not being entirely in the right, but truly Tang Fan wished Wang Zhi would stop tormenting him already. Where had he perfected that look of pure innocence and woe, and why was it incredibly effective?
"Another lamb loin?" Tang Fan forged forward sunnily, motioning with his chopsticks towards the barbecued meat in the center of the table. "Have as much as you like!"
Wang Zhi picked up the sizzling piece of meat from the shared plate and calmly proceeded to eat his due. He was fine — Wang Zhi was always fine — but he knew how to exploit the situation to his advantage. Even knowing this, Tang Fan's guilt abated not an iota.
Meanwhile, Official Pan glanced between the two of them awkwardly and cleared his throat. "How very generous of you, Tang-daren, to treat us."
Tang Fan demurred on cue. "Think nothing of it!"
"His Majesty has been so kind!" Official Pan babbled on in a clear onset of nerves, seemingly to fill the silence. "Happily, Shuntian prefecture resolved a major case in the national interest this time—"
Tang Fan watched Wang Zhi gracefully turn towards Official Pan, with a ready smile, and had to think on his feet to preempt whatever came next. Nothing nice followed when Wang Zhi smiled that particular smile at another official.
"Since you're here," Tang Fan said, calling Wang Zhi's attention back to himself, "I did have one thing I wanted your opinion on."
Wang Zhi faced him with a brow arched in question and merry amusement in his eyes, while Tang Fan pulled a folded letter out of the inner breast pocket of his pleated robe and handed it over.
"Take a look."
Using his thumb, Wang Zhi flicked the paper open along the the crease, reading, only to glance up at Tang Fan afterward. Amusement was replaced by narrowed eyes, lit up with curiosity.
"An extortion demand?" Wang Zhi frowned, studying the careful calligraphy. "Is someone blackmailing you?"
"No, no," Tang Fan waved a hand. "Not me." He hesitated, wondering how much was safe to reveal, and then recalled Wang Zhi going back to put in a good word for Tang Fan before the Emperor. Hadn't they been through enough together? Trust had to start somewhere, and Tang Fan plunged ahead with the whole story. "An acquaintance of mine from the academy. We studied together, but Cheng Zhu didn't place high on the official exam, and so ended up without a ministry posting. He now works as an assistant in the tax collection office."
Wang Zhi glanced down at the anonymous letter in his hand. "I didn't know tax collectors made enough money to be worth extorting."
"He doesn't," Tang Fan agreed. "Which is part of the problem. Although his merchant family is well-off enough to keep several servants, none of the wealth is his, and he is the younger of two brothers. And while the letter threatens his job as the tax collector, Cheng Zhu was adamant he didn't know what information they could have on him that would cause trouble. He was supposed to show up alone at the specified time and place to discuss the terms of the arrangement, but instead told his older brother, and they went to the rendezvous point together. Whoever it was must have gotten spooked and didn't show."
Wang Zhi propped his chin up with the knuckles of his hand, studying Tang Fan. "Why are you telling me about this trivial case?"
"On the way back home, someone tried to assassinate Cheng Zhu," Tang Fan explained earnestly. "They shot a crossbow that just scratched his arm, luckily missing him. The two brothers managed to run away, but they are scared, and Cheng Zhu asked me to find his would-be assassin. He truly believes the extortion scheme was just a pretext to get him to go to a secluded spot alone, so he would be murdered. He thinks it's some revenge scheme for someone he might have offended. Since he has no money and no real power as a mere deputy assistant, what else could it be?"
Wang Zhi tilted his head in seeming disbelief. "Tang Fan. You know how complicated the case with Li Zilong is, and yet you are spending your time thinking about such things?"
"We don't have any leads on Li Zilong right now, and my job at the prefecture is to look into all manner of cases!"
Wang Zhi relented with a sigh. "Oh, fine. But what do you want me to do about it?"
Tang Fan glanced down at the table even as he said, "I was hoping you could have one of your men follow Cheng Zhu and guard him in case something happens."
"You are audacious!" Wang Zhi exclaimed, making Official Pan twitch nervously where he silently observed their exchange. "You want me to use the Emperor's special agency to protect some commoner?" He stared at Tang Fan. "It isn't enough that you asked me for the government case files going back five years — you really think nothing of the requests you make."
Tang Fan swallowed. Put like that, it sounded like he was misappropriating resources for personal gain, when nothing could be further from the truth. And bringing up the other favour that he'd asked of Wang Zhi, not quite realizing its consequences, was simply unfair.
"Tang Fan asked for those government records?" Official Pan blurted out from his seat, looking stunned, and reminding Tang Fan that on top of everything they had an audience. He should have waited to get Wang Zhi alone before asking him. Perhaps at least some of the man's reluctance could be attributed to being unwilling to acquiesce to this request in public. Tang Fan generally found Wang Zhi much more tractable when speaking with him one on one.
Wang Zhi favoured Official Pan with a long inscrutable look over the question, before transferring his attention back to Tang Fan. "I can't use the Western Depot to guard every tax collector who finds themselves caught up in difficult circumstances. I have to find Li Zilong as the highest priority, and besides that — do you know how many cases there are that need to be investigated for His Majesty across the country?"
"A lot," Tang Fan muttered sullenly. "Okay, okay, I was just asking. I understand you can't do it." He swirled the noodles on his plate, thinking. "I'm going to have to interview everyone at Cheng Zhu's home, including the three servants, then see if I can talk to his coworkers at the tax office. After all, most crimes are committed by someone who knows the victim."
Wang Zhi considered the situation. "Did you ask Sui Zhou if he can spare some men from the Imperial Guard?"
Sourly, "I did. He said they are already stretched thin, and besides, he is a Baihu, he doesn't pick his cases." Which was as much as Tang Fan permitted himself to say on the account of Sui Zhou's so-called superior, but Wang Zhi no doubt picked up on his meaning.
Commander Wan Tong wouldn't give a toss about this case on a good day, and moreover had been taking his temper out on Sui Zhou ever since his promotion back to the rank of Baihu. Daily, he ran Sui Zhou ragged as if to make him regret ever joining up with the Imperial Guard. Tang Fan could bet that the reason Sui Zhou hadn't yet arrived for lunch with them was in some way down to the kind of man he reported to. For now, Tang Fan was on his own for this case, which would just have to do. His old classmate had begged for his help, and though they hadn't kept in touch since the academy, Tang Fan wasn't about to forsake someone in dire straits.
After slurping up a bit of his noodles, Tang Fan said, "As a friend of the family, I'm invited to dinner tonight. So I'll use that time to conduct my interviews."
Wang Zhi frowned at this. "You're going to his home?"
Tang Fan glanced up in surprise at the strange note of caution in his voice. "Yes, why?"
"Tang Fan." When simply weighting his name didn't work, Wang Zhi pointed out, "Someone is trying to kill him."
"Exactly. That's what I aim to stop by solving this case."
Wang Zhi said nothing for a moment. "I refuse to believe you're oblivious to the inherent danger." His voice turned frustrated.
Tang Fan fully understood the danger of getting caught in the cross-fire, but he played his own winning hand. "If I avoided everyone who is an assassin's target, where would we be?"
He could barely contain a smile when Wang Zhi had no counter-argument to that.
Tang Fan had so grown used to the easy comfort and camaraderie of their dinners at home — with Sui Zhou's cooking and the rest of their friends-and-family sitting around the table — that at first he only registered the atmosphere at Cheng Zhu's home as a strange sense of unease. An absence of something.
Dinner with Cheng household was different in that way even summertime could feel bracing on a damp morning with a strong breeze. Although Cheng Zhu's mother, Huang-furen, was polite in her address to Tang Fan, as their guest and her younger son's acquaintance from the academy, she showed no particular interest in conversation, and seemed a nervous sort in general. Twice she'd startled when unexpected sounds such as a clatter of chopsticks against a plate rang out. Tang Fan attributed this nervousness to fearing for her child's life, which she clearly did, if her woeful gazes towards Cheng Zhu were any sign, and so he viewed all interactions at the dinner table through that lens. Of course, the family dining with him couldn't be entirely at ease, knowing that someone could be plotting an assassination of one of their own at this very moment.
Besides that nervous tension, he couldn't fault them for their manner as hosts — everyone was pleasantly hospitable. Where the mother came across as frail, Cheng Zhu's father had a blunt, honest kind of address about him — a trait he seemed to share with his eldest son, Cheng Yun.
The older brother was in turn rather pre-occupied with his pretty fiancée, a young lady in soft blue robes, with deep dark eyes outlined with charcoal and a melodious voice. Guo Yizhen — who, as Tang Fan was told in confidence by his old classmate had been taken in by the family since being orphaned — didn't seem the shy kind, but rather coquettish and used to being the center of attention. If anything, she seemed skeptical of her future brother-in-law claims that someone would want to murder him. As, according to Guo Yizhen, who would go to all that trouble for a mere tax collector? She clearly didn't think much of Cheng Zhu's occupation, her sights set definitively on the older brother who was inheriting his father's textile merchant business.
None of them appeared to know quite what to make of Tang Fan's questions about the events of the past several days, the ridiculous threats sent to the younger son who had no money or power of his own.
After an awkward conversation about the case, Cheng Zhu tried to set everyone at ease, relegating the dinner table with some story from their academy days. Truthfully, they had rotated in different circles even while sharing the same teachers, and Tang Fan felt distinctly like he was hearing a familiar song sung off-key. The events retold by his acquaintance were the same, but the lens through which they were viewed was different. Where Cheng Zhu remembered punishments, Tang Fan only recalled reasonable limits. Perhaps it wasn't that difficult to understand why Cheng Zhu hadn't done well at the academy.
Tang Fan steered the conversation back towards the case that was his reason for visiting.
"Anything that stood out to you from the past weeks could be the key to unraveling the mystery." Tang Fan looked over at Cheng Zhu, who sat next to him at the round table.
"Well..." Cheng Zhu paused, then called a young servant boy to him, instructing him with something quietly. "Let me show you."
The other family members exchanged looks, while the boy left the room only to return with an official's black hat he handed over to his master. Tang Fan peered at it curiously when Cheng Zhu pushed it towards him; it was the typical black hat that tax officials wore on the job.
"When I came home the other day, I noticed a hole here." Cheng Zhu stuck his index finger through the side of the hat to demonstrate, the pink tip of the nail showing through the folds of the thick cloth. Tang Fan's eyes flicked up to his face, only to watch Cheng Zhu grimace. "I thought some moth ate through it at first, but now I think about it...it does look like a bolt hole doesn't it? Something a crossbow could make?"
Tang Fan was no expert on the matter of armaments, but he still wanted a look at the hat itself. Turning it over he peered through the small hole. The opening which he could see the table-cloth peeping through was in the side of the hat at the edge. It was impossible that someone could have shot at Cheng Zhu while he was wearing the hat without him noticing the shot and remaining unharmed.
"I left it on the bench at my work last week. Someone must have shot through the window—"
"Oh, you do go on!" Guo Yizhen sighed, before catching a stern look from Cheng Zhu's father and falling silent, hands folded primly on her lap.
"What do you mean, Miss Guo?" Tang Fan turned to her with curiosity.
After a glance at her future father-in-law, the young girl thrust out her lower lip slightly in a pout. "Nothing."
"Any information can be useful to the case," Tang Fan insisted. "Do you know something you could share?"
"Oh it's nothing," she sighed. "Zhu-gege is always full of fantastical stories, that's all."
"Guo Yizhen!" her fiancé scolded in a whisper, looking surprised.
"Know your place," Huang-furen said with a scowl at her future daughter-in-law.
Guo Yizhen fell silent, pressing her lips together, two blotches of color on her cheeks. Cheng Zhu's cheeks were similarly flushed as if her words struck home.
Tang Fan looked between the two of them wondering if there was any bad blood there, only to have Cheng Yun address his younger brother apologetically. "If you say it happened, then it happened." He turned to Tang Fan with a forthright stare. "Official Tang. Your appointment in the Shuntian prefecture speaks for your accomplishments as a sleuth, even if my brother hadn't already relegated me with tales of it." He asked in earnest, "You'll solve this won't you?"
Tang Fan's intention to respond was interrupted by a servant girl entering the dining room with a harried look on her face. She curtsied and went to the head of the table, saying a few words quietly only for the father to hear.
"The Western Depot?!" he cried out involuntarily, face drained of color in an instant.
"What?" Tang Fan straightened in his seat in considerable surprise. "Here?"
There was a sudden flurry of activity as another male servant ushered in the new arrivals, even as the hosts at the dinner table all rose to their feet with wild, bewildered eyes turned towards the door. Tang Fan rose to his feet along with them only out of politeness, his head was buzzing with questions.
Wang Zhi promptly strode in, taking in the scene with a quick glance about the room. His eyes flicked over Tang Fan and moved on. Two guards from the Western Depot stood behind him with impenetrable expressions, and Tang Fan felt sure he had more men outside.
"Commander Wang!" Cheng Lu exclaimed, rising from the head of the table. Knowing Wang Zhi by reputation if nothing else, he came forward to welcome him and bowed low. "...What an unexpected pleasure." His two sons exchanged glances and bowed as well, though more uncertainly, while the women curtsied.
"Official Cheng," Wang Zhi nodded back, including the rest of the family in his gesture, even while Tang Fan stared at him in shocked surprise. "Ah, I see I interrupted your dinner. Please excuse me."
Tang Fan kept quiet, not knowing what to make of Wang Zhi appearing in the middle of this previously rather mundane meal.
Dressed in his customary reds, including a crimson cape, Wang Zhi looked like a visiting noble. But even as Tang Fan took in the sight, he noticed the way the rest of the family reacted to Wang Zhi's appearance with fear and apprehension. It was far from the first time Tang Fan had seen Wang Zhi produce these feelings in others — once he'd had them himself — but somehow it startled him, as did his own nearly opposite reaction. He felt like a muscle in the back of his neck unclenched from a wary stance of caution and his shoulders could relax. He would never have admitted it to himself if the instinctive relief hadn't exposed the depths of his feelings. Having Wang Zhi on his side when danger threatened was a gift he was beginning to count on.
However, when he tried to catch Wang Zhi's eyes, Wang Zhi only nodded at him so briskly it felt dismissive. The man didn't say anything to him, making Tang Fan's eyebrows twitch in puzzled confusion and a slight tinge of hurt he didn't like to acknowledge. Tang Fan was being ignored, which didn't sit well with him.
"Would you join us for dinner, Commander?" Cheng Lu invited, only for Wang Zhi to shake his head.
"I won't be staying long. I only need a moment of your time." Wang Zhi smiled that smile at the father, tilting his head to the side.
"Then please, accompany me to my study, Commander Wang." Cheng Lu motioned towards the other set of rooms across the courtyard, correctly interpreting the expectant silence. Wang Zhi nodded and followed him. Soon the two men were out of sight and behind closed doors. Wang Zhi's guards remained by the door, standing still and gazing vaguely forward.
"What was that about?" Guo Yizhen whispered just on the edge of hearing, looking askance to her fiancé, who only shrugged indifferently.
"Eunuch scheming," Cheng Zhu answered in his stead in the same low volume, exchanging a significant look with Guo Yizhen, who hid a cheeky smile. Cheng Zhu was too busy ordering servants to bring them tea and biscuits to notice the look Tang Fan threw him at that dismissive answer.
Though it was not Tang Fan's place to correct him, he wanted to. He had a feeling that whatever reason Wang Zhi had for showing up so unexpectedly, it had to do with their earlier conversation at Dong Gu's restaurant. Wang Zhi had more than impressed upon him how busy he was, and yet he had come personally to attend to this matter, which meant he thought it that important. Cheng Zhu's casual dismissal rankled, but then, Tang Fan thought with a sour look at his acquaintance, Cheng Zhu had not been the brightest at the academy either.
Peering curiously across the yard, Tang Fan wished he could know what Wang Zhi was discussing with the head of the household. Wang Zhi's appearance had thrown his mind entirely off track. As Tang Fan and the rest of the family attempted to resume dinner in an awkward silence, Tang Fan was only half-listening, as he turned it over in his mind.
When Wang Zhi showed up, it was always business. If instead he had asked to speak with Cheng Zhu, Tang Fan would have assumed it had to do with the attempt on the young man's life. But Wang Zhi hadn't paid the others in the room much attention — had barely acknowledged Tang Fan's presence in fact! — and wanted to speak with the father. Cheng Lu was a merchant — perhaps there were some irregularities with his store?
Try though he might, Tang Fan could arrive at no solid conclusion on such sparse facts. Although the rest of the family tried to return to normal conversation, everyone was clearly on edge, until a short while later when they heard the other door open again and the pleasant voice filtering through: "I won't impose on any more of your time."
Cheng Lu's answer was a timid murmur. When the two men finally came back to the dining room, Tang Fan was immediately struck by the father's sweaty brow. Cheng Lu's eyes darted to his wife as if seeking courage, before dropping to the floor in meek surrender.
Wang Zhi meanwhile was his usual ever-so-charming self. He smiled at the hostess, and tipped his head slightly, saying, "Pleasant evening," in goodbye. The guardsmen from the Western Depot standing by the door remained at attention where they were, seeming to have no intention of departing. Wang Zhi was leaving his men here?
Wang Zhi turned to go, when Tang Fan had had enough. "Wang-daren!" he called, only to have Wang Zhi turn half way, looking at him over the shoulder with a mild expression of curiosity. "May I speak with you in private?"
Nothing showed on Wang Zhi's face as he slowly inclined his head in a nod and stepped outside. Behind them, the family exchanged curious glances, before politely turning their attention to their dinner, with Guo Yizhen pouring tea for her fiancé and smiling coquettishly as if to smooth over the mood.
Tang Fan and Wang Zhi walked across the courtyard towards the open gates to the house, where Tang Fan could see Wang Zhi's carriage waiting for him, accompanied, of course, by more guards from the Western Depot. Jia Kui sat in the coach seat, waiting patiently as always. He nodded at Tang Fan from a distance, but didn't otherwise move.
When they were out of hearing range of others, just inside the courtyard, Wang Zhi turned to him with a querying expression.
"What are you doing here?" Tang Fan asked immediately, just keeping his voice low.
Implacable, "I had some business to discuss with an official."
Tang Fan resented being treated like a fool. "What business?"
Wang Zhi huffed a laughing breath, and Tang Fan tensed as he realized the boldness of his own question.
Yet even as Wang Zhi studied him with that self-same patient amusement, as if marveling at his nerve, all it did was make Tang Fan curl his hands into fists and stand his ground, holding his gaze. Maybe he didn't have the right to know the Western Depot's official business in the ordinary circumstances, but this was his case — and Wang Zhi's appearance at the victim's house was too much of a coincidence, following their earlier chat. Wang Zhi would have mentioned it during their lunch conversation if he had been planning this visit already. Wouldn't he? Or would he still keep secrets from Tang Fan?
His heart hammered in his chest as Tang Fan waited to be called out on his boldness, but Wang Zhi choose not to pursue it, instead seeming to marginally relax, his lips quirking. "I had someone look up the Cheng's year-end accounting for the store and, shall we say, some things didn't add up," he said casually. "Some...irregularities in the record keeping that cast doubt on the honest dealings of the owner."
Tang Fan frowned. "Something to concern the Western Depot?"
"While investigating whether there is indeed legitimate fraud concerns, I will post guards at the house," Wang Zhi told him blithely, lifting his hand to peer at the state of his own nails as if he was far more preoccupied with their appearance than with the matter of the potentially fraudulent merchant. "After all, the Western Depot handles matters concerning the national treasury."
Tang Fan wasn't a genius for nothing. His earlier request for Wang Zhi's help had been summarily rejected, but it seemed Wang Zhi had found a way to get around the issue of committing his men to this case, even if only the two lower ranked guards. An unorthodox method to be sure that would result in some sleepless nights for Cheng Lu while he believed himself to be under an investigation by the long arm of the Western Depot, but much better than the alternative of leaving the family without any protection.
Wang Zhi looked up from examining his nails, eyes dancing with amusement. "Any more questions?"
Tang Fan bit his lip. Somehow, he always ended up on the back-foot in this little dance of theirs. Wang Zhi seemed to delight in always being one step ahead of him. This happened to Tang Fan so rarely with other people that he didn't know how to react. So caught flat-footed, he crossed his arms defensively on his chest. Wang Zhi always had multiple reasons for anything he did. "Only what is the reason behind the reason."
The look in Wang Zhi's eyes turned inscrutable.
Tang Fan wished only Wang Zhi wouldn't keep his reasons secret from him. He sighed, relenting, "Even though you are using him, I think it is for the right reason this time."
"Sometimes being used can still be better than nothing," Wang Zhi said simply.
Tang Fan was opening his mouth to respond, when he heard the yell.
"Da-ge!" The familiar baritone of Cheng Zhu tore through the courtyard hard enough to bounce off the stone walls in a semblance of an echo. Then a young woman's scream.
Tang Fan had a moment to glance at Wang Zhi to see he'd registered the screams as well, before the two of them rushed back to the dining room. A scene of tragedy greeted them: Cheng Zhu's older brother on the floor, frothing at the mouth and coughing violently. His fiancée was holding his head in her lap as the blood splattered her pristine pale-blue robes. She was sobbing, "Cheng Yun-gege! Cheng Yun-gege!" quite inconsolably. But he was already gone. His eyes rolled back one last time, the last gasp passing his lips as he faded away.
Face bloodless, Cheng Zhu dropped to his knees besides his older brother, staring at him, before slowly lifting his eyes up to his parents. A rough whisper tore out of his mouth, "He's dead." Then he stared back at the blood dribbling off his brother's chin. "He's— He's been poisoned?"
At the sight of her dead elder child, Huang-furen fainted, with her husband just barely grasping her around the middle and lowering her unconscious body to the floor, his face streaked with fresh tears. "It can't be! My son." He held his wife to his chest, fingers clutching her dress, but his gaze was fixated on his oldest son, whose sightless eyes would never see anything again. Tang Fan observed helplessly, with Wang Zhi equally silent at his side.
"Heavens preserve!" Cheng Zhu jumped to his feet. "Is this my fault?!" His eyes roamed wildly to Tang Fan, then back to his brother's body. "Oh heavens, no! Not this! They said they'd hurt me. My family— I didn't— I didn't think—" There was a profound trembling in his body.
With a manic look in her eyes, Guo Yizhen lowered her fiancé's head to the ground and leaped to her feet. "You!" she looked like a fury, mascara wet around her eyes, and face twisted in anger that belied her pain. "He was your brother! How could you let this happen?" At this, she collapsed around her middle in sobs, Cheng Zhu stepped closer and wrapped his hands around her. "Yizhen," he whispered softly and while she seemed to struggle against his hold for a few moments, eventually she fell against his breast and sobbed into his shirt, hands clutching him closer. He wrapped comforting arms around her, but his eyes moved to Tang Fan. "How could this happen?" he asked.
Tang Fan had no answer for him. He himself felt fine, which meant the meal they had shared wasn't poisoned. His eyes fell on the teapot and teacup lying turned over on its side, where a slack hand had dropped it, before what used to be the dead man's seat at the table. Nobody else had gotten to taste the tea yet. The teapot had been brought some time ago by a servant girl, but Tang Fan only vaguely recalled that the older brother had been served first, and looked to be the only one to partake of the drink. He looked towards Huang-furen who had a servant girl and her husband hovering over her form, but she looked to be in a dead faint from the shock and otherwise unharmed. Since nobody else at the table was coughing up blood and collapsing, it was safe to assume they'd all escaped the same fate.
"Don't touch anything," Wang Zhi's voice and his hold on Tang Fan's elbow only registered when he moved forward. Wang Zhi's somber eyes met his. "We don't know if it's the drink, or if the poison is coating the cup's surface."
Tang Fan had never heard of such a thing, but he supposed the Commander of the Western Depot had far more experience with poisons.
Wang Zhi was used to dead bodies, Tang Fan couldn't understand why he looked so pale and stressed as he observed the scene.
He walked around Tang Fan now, studying the residue in the cup with a frown, subsequently transferring his gaze to the steaming teapot nearby. With the slightest jerk of his head towards one of the guards who stood by the door waiting for orders, Wang Zhi called the man over. "Have this delivered to the Western Depot for Ding Rong to analyze." The guard bowed with a vigorous, yes sir.
"My son," the father was weeping meanwhile. "Please! You have to find who did this! What kind of a monster—" but the rest was swallowed up in tears.
Tang Fan looked around the room, at everyone's anxious faces. The young servant girl was peering into the room with a horrified look on her face. She'd been the one to bring the teapot and the cup, and she knew what followed: interrogation and questions she may not have a way to answer. Someone in the house had poured the poison with the intention to kill, and she had handled the teapot before it was on the table.
Wang Zhi looked over at Tang Fan. Their eyes met. "This is no longer a simple blackmail case. It's now murder."
Tang Fan was glad to have his backing, knowing he could rely on Wang Zhi to act rationally under pressure. His own training kicked into gear.
"I'll need to interview the servants. A doctor should" — he glanced at the family members in various states of distress, and lowered his voice so that only Wang Zhi could hear him — "examine the body to confirm cause of death."
Wang Zhi nodded, tension showing on his face. "This needs to be handled delicately. My visit here could start rumours."
Tang Fan blinked in bewilderment one instant — and arrived at comprehension the next. Because of Wang Zhi's reputation for executing the Emperor's will, a poisoning in an official's house could be interpreted as something entirely different than what they'd witnessed. Squashing rumours once they spread would be impossible; they had to get ahead of the situation.
"Have your friend Pei Huai look at him," Wang Zhi told him. "Outsiders don't need to be involved."
After examining the body, Pei Huai only confirmed the cause of death as poison and offered no further insights, so Tang Fan turned his attention back to the only solid clue he had. The letter sent to Cheng Zhu. Tang Fan wanted to learn more about the anonymous author by studying it further.
"According to the slant in his writing, he's a forward-looking person who doesn't spend much time in the past."
Wang Zhi didn't turn away from where he was staring out the window, seemingly lost in thought, his hands gripping one another behind his back.
They were in Tang Fan's study at Sui Zhou's house, where Tang Fan had just recently moved back into, once he and Sui Zhou had patched things up. After Pei Huai's examination of the older son's body was complete, Wang Zhi's carriage had delivered them home. When Wang Zhi hadn't just dropped him off at home and left, Tang Fan assumed he was curious about the case, but Wang Zhi had remained strangely remote through the visit, barely speaking, even while Tang Fan theorized about the case out loud.
Sui Zhou and Dong'er already had dinner by the time they had returned — just as well, since Tang Fan's stomach was still queasy following snatched glimpses of the autopsy Pei Huai had performed. It was late, but Tang Fan was running on the rush from earlier — swatting away distracting thoughts about Wang Zhi's taciturn silence so his mind focused on the case.
Sitting on the side-chair next to his desk, Dong'er picked up Tang Fan's words. "Do you think the poisoner is the same person?" He had tried sending Dong'er away, but she stubbornly refused to leave, arguing that she'd assisted him on many cases before, until he relented.
"In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we have to assume so," Tang Fan patiently explained. "The attempts on Cheng Zhu's life started a week ago. To have a wholly unrelated murderer show up suddenly out of nowhere is very unlikely." Glancing curiously at Wang Zhi, who didn't react, Tang Fan returned to his study of the letter spread out on the wooden table before him. "The methodical way this letter is written suggests determination. Precision. Planning. Nothing is a spur of a moment." He frowned, something niggling in the back of his mind that he couldn't quite grasp.
The letter itself was sparse on details. A time and place for a meeting. Come alone or else you'll lose your job. Nothing in the letter gave away the goals of the person who wrote it.
Clamping down on frustration, he passed a hand over his eyes, burning from staring at the letter unblinking for too long. "If we assume the same person is behind both the earlier attempts and this murder, then it follows that Cheng Zhu is the ultimate target. Is it a threat? Do as we say or else someone close to you dies? Or was he meant to die, his brother drinking the poison first simply an accident?" Those were questions Tang Fan was asking himself, but as yet he had no answers. He knew Cheng Zhu blamed himself. Before they had departed with his older brother's body, he had begged Tang Fan for help once more, saying that living with the guilt of being the cause of his brother's death was unbearable.
Tang Fan had postponed interviewing him any further until tomorrow, given that the entire Cheng household was understandably distraught. Wang Zhi's guards were posted at the house both to protect against further disturbance as well as to make sure nobody could flee. After all, Tang Fan couldn't discount the murderer being one of the people in the house. He would have to get samples of their handwriting tomorrow to match against the letter.
At that moment, Sui Zhou appeared in the doorway to his room with a tray of cups and steaming teapots. "Come have tea," he said to Tang Fan and Dong'er, setting the tray on the edge of the desk in an easy gesture of someone at ease in Tang Fan's presence. Things had been awkward at first, but they were getting better. Anywhere else, Tang Fan would have refused the drink on account of what happened earlier that evening, but in this house he was already confidently reaching for his cup. As Dong'er eagerly set to pour the tea into the cups in a well-practiced manner, Sui Zhou turned to Wang Zhi. "Would you like some?"
"No, thank you," Wang Zhi said, stepping away from his observation of the world outside the window. "I was just leaving." Sui Zhou frowned from the doorway, but stepped aside so that Wang Zhi could walk by.
Tang Fan found Wang Zhi's enigmatic distance unbearable.
"You've been silent," Tang Fan drew his attention from where he sat behind the table. Wang Zhi glanced at him with a frown, while too many thoughts seemed to flicker in his dark gaze. Tang Fan prompted, "What's on your mind?" and hoped Wang Zhi would trust him with an honest answer.
"That murder was rather sloppy, don't you think?" Wang Zhi asked carefully after a moment.
Tang Fan's eyes widened. This was it! This was the incongruity he'd unconsciously spotted when examining the letter. The strong contrast between the careful brush-strokes in the letter and the chaos at the dinner table. The tea served to the entire family, with no way to ensure the intended target would drink it. Or was it meant to be served to everyone?
Dong'er eyes were wide with curiosity as she looked from Wang Zhi to Tang Fan, even as Tang Fan nodded to himself. "Whoever it was, risked poisoning the entire family. Either they didn't care or... maybe something forced their hand to act. Anyone could have drunk that tea before Cheng Yun."
"You are fortunate it wasn't you," Wang Zhi met his eyes head-on.
Something like lightning raced up Tang Fan's spine, and sweat broke out on his back.
He wasn't scared. He didn't know what he was feeling.
The room fell silent, while their eyes remained locked. Eventually, Sui Zhou cleared his throat and Wang Zhi turned away. Tang Fan felt like he had come up for air. "We shall see each other soon," Wang Zhi said in parting, as he walked out into the courtyard.
"What was that about?" Tang Fan mumbled uncertainly, glancing at Sui Zhou, who only gave him a strangely exasperated look.
Tang Fan felt reluctant to intrude on the Cheng family's mourning rites, but as an official on the case he had no choice. As an acquaintance — however distant their relationship — Tang Fan paid his respects at the altar set up in Cheng Yun's honor, throwing joss paper on the flame. His parents answered Tang Fan's questions in weepy voices. When he asked to speak to Cheng Zhu in private, the man wiped his red eyes and followed Tang Fan outside, leaving his mother and father, along with Guo Yizhen, who had lost her intended, to kneel for the rites in their white mourning robes.
Wang Zhi hadn't yet sent word about the poison that the Western Depot was analyzing, but Tang Fan felt confident of several facts at least. Whoever had mixed in the poison had been inside the house — since, after thorough checking, none of the rest of the food was contaminated, the existence of poison in only the single teacup was noteworthy and unlikely to come from the outside.
Further, Guo Yizhen had served the tea to her fiancé while smiling in front of Tang Fan, yet when queried couldn't provide a sample of writing because she didn't know how to write — the fact confirmed by the rest of the family. She had never received any academic education, eliminating her from the pool of candidates who could have written the original extortion letter with such a practiced hand.
When he queried Cheng Zhu about her situation, the man insisted that she had no motive for killing his brother. As an orphan taken in by the Cheng family, she had no inheritance of her own to draw on. Her best bet for a good future was to marry, and Cheng Yun had certainly acted like a besotted man around her, in the brief period of time Tang Fan had to observe them. Now that the family money would rest with the younger sibling, it seemed that Guo Yizhen's presence was barely tolerated by Huang-furen, and soon she could be sent back to the countryside to live out her days with distant relatives.
Tang Fan turned his eyes to Cheng Zhu. His acquaintance from the academy on the other hand, benefited financially from his brother's death, but didn't have the means to administer the poison. Tang Fan had been with him from early afternoon prior to the murder, and the entire time sat next to him at the dinner table.
Still, just like with the parents, Tang Fan asked for a sample of his writing. When Cheng Zhu sat down by the parchment, his right hand trembled noticeably even before he started writing. "My hands still shake since yesterday," he explained, trying to take deep breaths. "I'm sorry. I'll try." But his writing was jittering and nothing like in the letter Tang Fan compared it to. "I'll try again once my nerves settle," Cheng Zhu promised. "I want you to find the real murderer."
Tang Fan nodded agreement. It wouldn't do to push the man who was the victim in all this, even though he took note of Cheng Zhu's promise to provide another sample later.
The Cheng family and their servants looked less likely to be the culprits in light of the evidence he'd collected thus far. Besides his home life, the only other place Cheng Zhu spent significant amounts of time was his workplace, so that was where they headed next.
Tang Fan tried not to pay any mind to the guard from the Western Depot who walked a few steps behind them, shadowing Cheng Zhu for his own protection as they walked through the tax collector's office so that Tang Fan could get a sense of the people Cheng Zhu came in regular contact with. The workers at Cheng Zhu's workplace were an imminently forgettable bunch, with friendly if distracted manner, besides only Cheng Zhu's boss.
Shen Lu, a gruff and serious man of short stature with a thinning mustache, squinted at Tang Fan in suspicion upon meeting, making Tang Fan instinctively think back whether he himself had any taxes to pay that year. The official's stare at the guard from the Western Depot standing in the doorway was truly withering. But Cheng Zhu at his side received an equally dark stare from his boss, a stare that spelled some sort of trouble brewing between the two. Shen Lu hadn't indulged Tang Fan's questions for overly long and shooed them out of the office.
That interaction with Cheng Zhu's boss was suspicious enough for Tang Fan to follow up, on that gloomy afternoon as they stood outside the tax collection office, other busy officials swarming around.
"Official Shen?" Cheng Zhu said in surprise, his white mourning robes swaying in the breeze. "He has always been fair to me."
Tang Fan considered him thoughtfully, remembering the squinty look in Official Shen's eyes back at the tax office. Seeming to sense his disbelief, Cheng Zhu huffed with some humour, and said somberly. "I can see you don't believe me. We had a small falling out last week because I made a mistake at work, but it was nothing serious. Certainly nothing that warrants mentioning under these terrible circumstances." He somberly shut his eyes for a moment, looking weighted down by his loss.
"And yet you did mention it," Tang Fan prompted shrewdly, noting the timeline of one week ago. "What was the disagreement between you?"
Cheng Zhu shook his head. "Work. It's fair to say Official Shen has somewhat of a short fuse. I made a mistake and he yelled at me over it. Guess I won't do it again, huh?"
Tang Fan considered the young man. "I need to understand if someone in your life has a motive to want to kill you. Your parents have alibis and so do the servants. So far you've said that nobody comes to mind as a likely culprit, which means I have to consider everyone who might bear a grudge."
"Shen Lu has been friends with my parents for decades. In fact, that's...that's part of why I got the job there, after what happened at the academy." He glanced at Tang Fan. "I didn't place anywhere near the top like you have, so there weren't many doors open to me after graduating. Shen Lu offered me the job out of respect for my parents and my older brother."
Tang Fan didn't like how his question was being avoided, and stared determined at Cheng Zhu, until the other man noticed his silence and cried out. "It really has nothing to do with the case! Official Tang—." He sighed as Tang Fan stayed unrelenting. "Fine, I'll tell you what the disagreement was about but—" Cheng Zhu glanced around, and motioned for Tang Fan to join him in a more secluded corner of the courtyard. "This has to stay between us," he said once they were sure not to be overheard.
Eyebrows climbing his forehead, Tang Fan shook his head. "I can't promise that. When it comes to people's safety, I may not be able to keep the information secret."
Cheng Zhu looked reluctant, but after a glance in the direction where his family mourned his dead brother, he gave in. "I found out that Shen Lu has been using pre-stamped documents," he said quietly yet significantly. "I shouldn't have looked into his books, it was not my place. He was unhappy and told me to keep it quiet. He's been short with me ever since."
At the revelation, Tang Fan could hardly contain his apprehension.
In the prior dynasty, some hundreds of officials had been executed on the mere suspicion of using pre-stamped documents for reporting year-end figures to the central government. Instead of filling out the forms and having them cross-checked when they were submitted to the Ministry of Revenue by official courier, these local officials of the Yuan dynasty had decided on a shortcut. They wouldn't risk the documents not matching up and being returned to them to fill out again. Instead, they would stamp a blank document that could then be filled in on the spot to make sure all the numbers matched up.
The Yongle Emperor, once he found out of the practice, had been furious. To show everyone he would not condone such behaviour, he had executed the officials who held the stamps and the signatories, while exiling accessories to the frontier. His anger wasn't without reason: rumours held that the participants probably cashed in on the venture, and Tang Fan could easily see how that might be. Still, the punishment had been very harsh.
Tang Fan could see why Shen Lu would be disturbed by someone knowing this was a practice he engaged in. After all, even though taxation was much simplified during their Ming, the high-profile historical precedent could very well mean Shen Lu's life was on the line if anyone found out. Tang Fan considered the situation in that light. Getting rid of Cheng Zhu would ensure nobody knew about the pre-stamped documents.
"Do you see that Shen Lu has motive to have you killed?" Tang Fan asked him, but Cheng Zhu only shook his head.
"He's not that kind of a man," he said with a shrug. "He just gets mad at me sometimes..."
Tang Fan stared in disbelief at his indifference.
The rest of the conversation wasn't very fruitful, as Cheng Zhu wanted to go back home to rejoin his family in the mourning rituals. Tang Fan had no choice but to let him go for now.
Earlier that morning, he had already interviewed the three servants at the Cheng mansion, all with an alibi as all three worked in tandem and never completely out of each other's sight on the crucial dates when the other incidents had occurred. Not to mention their poor education meant that the letter had been written by someone else, Tang Fan was certain of it. The writing had been too practiced and steady. He suddenly wanted very much to look at the handwriting of one Official Shen, but could find no pretext for it without outright accusing the man.
Standing around was getting him nowhere. His next stop was the Western Depot, where at least he had some reasonable chance of finding out more information.
The guards at the Western Depot didn't move from their spots when Tang Fan strode past the gates to enter the inner courtyard, throwing down casually, "I'm here to see Wang Zhi." He came around often enough; they knew him.
In the back of his mind, he registered the incongruity: the Western Depot was one of the most forbidding buildings in the Capital, and he had what amounted to a free entry. But Wang Zhi had never thrown him out; usually he would invite Tang Fan for a game of Go if they were both free that evening.
Tang Fan knew there would be no games tonight just based on the stack of papers sitting before Wang Zhi when he entered. The young Commander of the Western Depot looked up with a narrow-eyed, piercing stare that lightened marginally with recognition when his eyes fell on Tang Fan.
Something snagged in Tang Fan's chest, and he stopped half way through the room.
Wang Zhi evidently took his momentary silence for expectation, because he said, without a preamble, "Ding Rong gave me the report on the ingredients of the poison used in the tea earlier today. I sent a runner to Sui Zhou's house with a note."
"I haven't been back yet. I've been interviewing the members of Cheng household."
"The tea had traces of hemlock," Wang Zhi said. "Medicinal properties of the plant means that—"
"—it would be sold in many apothecaries," Tang Fan finished.
Wang Zhi nodded. "Yes."
His eyes looked tired, and he had a somewhat distracted manner about him of one who hadn't gotten enough sleep.
Suddenly, Tang Fan felt guilty about what he was about to do. Not enough not to do it, but regret pulled on his heart even as he said, sheepishly, "Actually, I have a favour to ask."
Wang Zhi's expression didn't change; he nodded slightly for Tang Fan to go on, as if he had somehow expected this. Which told its own story of how he viewed their relationship, Tang Fan realized with another pang. How many times had they had this exact exchange by now? How many times had he relied on Wang Zhi to solve cases?
His mind flashed back to what Wang Zhi told him earlier: being used can still be better than nothing.
Tang Fan shoved those thoughts aside to consider later. "I need access to samples of writing from the tax collection office where Cheng Zhu works at."
After considering him in silence for a long moment, Wang Zhi asked, "You have a lead?"
"I might have," Tang Fan admitted. He still wasn't sure that revealing to Wang Zhi what he had learned about the pre-stamped documents was the best path, so he kept the knowledge concealed for now.
"All right," Wang Zhi said. "I'll get it for you and have someone drop them off at Sui Zhou's." He glanced down at the papers before him on his desk, and though they clearly tugged at his attention, he looked up at Tang Fan with curiosity. "What do you plan to do next?"
"Visit the site of the first attempted murder. Where the two brothers were shot at by crossbow and see if I can learn anything there."
"Good luck."
Tang Fan had been to the street before, out of the way of the bustle of the crowds next to abandoned store fronts that bore For Rent signs and had clearly seen better days. Cheng Zhu had shown him the scene where according to his words he and his brother were shot at with a crossbow bolt that had scratched Cheng Zhu's left arm. This time he had brought Sui Zhou in tow, as well as Wuyun for their greater expertise with weapons.
Wuyun was frowning as he examined the location. High windowless walls surrounded them on both sides with arched rooftops. The back of the alley was where the brothers had been coming from and the street opened up to a set of small storefronts where the people of the capital sold various kitchen-ware and other crafts.
"There are only the rooftops," Wuyun scratched his chin in thought, before elaborating at Tang Fan's questioning look. "No windows for an assassin to shoot from, only the roofs. And any of the barrels in the street don't provide enough cover for a person to hide. It's a very weak spot for an ambush."
"The assassination attempts have been amateurish," Sui Zhou agreed. "If they wanted to kill him, they could have picked better."
"Suggesting this is no professional," Tang Fan proposed.
Wuyun huffed with a smirk. "The rooftop is half a meter above their heads. At this range, an amateur could have scored a kill." Although Wuyun said this confidently, Tang Fan wasn't so sure, recalling the time he had tried to use a sling-shot against Duo'erla with a bittersweet pang of sorrow. The position the assassin would have had to assume wasn't that different from the one Tang Fan had tried back then. Wuyun went on, "And they somehow managed to injure a man's lower arm from the roof? Are you sure that this is the right location."
Tang Fan nodded. "Cheng Zhu showed me himself. He and his brother ran that way," he motioned towards the shops where the alleyway ended.
"Are you sure the older brother wasn't the target all along?" Sui Zhou asked with a frown.
Tang Fan frowned as well, turning the possibility over in his head. "If an assassin wanted him dead, why involve Cheng Zhu at all? The letter asked for Cheng Zhu to come alone. The assassin would have no way of knowing that Cheng Zhu would ask his brother to join."
Sui Zhou nodded, and he and Wuyun walked up and down the alley, examining the walls for any hidden entrances or nooks where a person could have hidden — yet there were none. Eventually, the three of them had to admit that the scene of attempted assassination hadn't yielded any more clues. Sui Zhou proposed Dong Ji's restaurant for dinner, and they left the bleak alleyway behind.
The next morning as Tang Fan sat in his office at the Shuntian Prefecture, one of Wang Zhi's men dropped off several books of writing for Tang Fan to pursue. He leaped on the new evidence eagerly, as he was getting nowhere with the Cheng Zhu case. If he could find evidence that Shen Lu from the tax collection office had the same handwriting as the person who wrote the extortion letter that would be a great step forward.
However, it was not to be. The documents that bore Shen Lu's signature were written in a weary hand of an old man, the letters short and harried as often was the case with busy officials filling out numerous forms. Tang Fan threw the writing down in frustration, making Official Pan come over.
"You are studying calligraphy again?" Pan Bin exclaimed when he saw the papers Tang Fan was pouring over. "That is daring of you, Tang Fan, when we have this many cases to go over!"
Tang Fan glanced sourly at the stack of petitions on the side of his desk, waiting for him. All trivial little complaints about tenants missing payments and neighbour shop owners arguments over possessions. If he had realized how much of his time would be spent pouring over small and unimportant cases— Well he still would have wanted to become a magistrate, but at least the busywork wouldn't have come as such a shock.
After another glance at the stack of reports that he would need to deal with, Tang Fan stood. "I'm going out. Official Pan, cover for me!"
It worked just as before and Tang Fan was out of the Shuntian Prefecture before Pan Bin could complain. He made his way towards the Cheng household, thinking about how the one lead he had with Shen Lu, had suddenly slipped through his fingers. Who would have tried to kill Cheng Zhu, and how had they managed to stay in the shadows all this time?
Such thoughts were still high on his mind when he stepped over the threshold of the Cheng courtyard, but once there Tang Fan was immediately ambushed by the visibly frightened lady of the house.
Huang-furen came running up to him, and all but threw herself at his feet. "Official Tang! Someone had tried to kill Cheng Zhu again. At the market—" Tang Fan's eyes widened, and he ran around the woman to where he could just see Cheng Zhu sitting on one of the seats in the dining room.
"What happened?" Tang Fan cried out as he rushed inside and took in the scene.
Huang-furen had followed behind him, saying in a tearful voice, "Someone nearly stabbed my boy to death!"
Cheng Zhu didn't look quite as affected as that statement suggested, although he was quite pale. Guo Yizhen was bent over his right hand, tying a thick white cotton bandage across the palm.
"I'm lucky all they got was my hand!" Cheng Zhu said as if trying to laugh it off, but it came out nervous and shaky. "I didn't think they'd try again so soon after—" He cut off, as everyone in the room thought back to Cheng Yun's horrible death from poison.
Guo Yizhen finished ministering to the wound and glanced up once the bandage was secure.
"Yizhen, go fetch some tea," Huang-furen directed immediately.
The girl started to rise, but Cheng Zhu caught her wrist and forced her to sit back down. "Mother, we have servants for that."
The mother frowned, but then turned to call one of the servant girls. Meanwhile, Tang Fan observed with interest the look Guo Yizhen threw to Cheng Zhu. It wasn't one of surprise or endearment at the way he had stood up for her and the odd emotion in her expression eluded Tang Fan for a time before he recognized it as frustration. Although this puzzled him, Tang Fan had more important things to look into.
"Cheng Zhu, please describe what happened and omit no detail."
Cheng Zhu nodded and launched into his tale.
"I didn't even see the attacker! I was walking through the market with my mother. She had just purchased vegetables and I was carrying them in a sack over my shoulder. The afternoon market is always busy, but it was even busier than usual today. I went to transfer the heavy load off one shoulder to the other— wasn't even thinking about it, I was talking with Mother—" Cheng Zhu glanced at the woman, who briefly closed her eyes as if seeking calm in the face of a terrible memory, "—When he struck me. If I hadn't had a sack of vegetables before me, I would have been gutted. As it was—" he lifted his hand, the gash across the palm having soaked through the bandage Guo Yizhen had put on it.
She frowned and reached for the bandages again, to put another layer on so that the bleeding would stop.
Tang Fan turned to Huang-furen. "Does this agree with what you observed, Madam?"
She nodded. "My son was attacked in broad daylight. In public! Some evil man wants to take another child away from me! I only wish I'd seen his face," she lamented. "But it was too busy at the market and by the time I looked—You know," Huang-furen paused, "I did see some of those Oirats loitering about and I seem to remember—" she tilted her head. "I saw their backs in the crowd, walking away from us after my son was already on the ground bleeding."
"But you didn't see anyone strike Cheng Zhu?"
"Well I was looking in the other direction when it happened, at the rack of spices..." she trailed off with a sigh.
Tang Fan turned to the man from the Western Depot who was supposed to be shadowing Cheng Zhu for his safety and saw the man swallow. "Did you see the attack happen?" Tang Fan said warily, already knowing the answer he would get just from the discombobulated look on the guard's face.
"No, Official Tang." The guard swallowed. "I—" But he fell silent, as if knowing he had no excuse.
Tang Fan turned to Cheng Zhu. "You are lucky to be alive! Maybe you shouldn't be walking about when we haven't caught this person yet."
"I thought the market would be safe," Cheng Zhu protested. "But they are really trying to kill me. I'm starting to think I should be taking your advise more seriously." Tang Fan sighed, wishing it hadn't taken another attack to get there, but to his surprise Cheng Zhu went on. "What you said earlier about Official Shen. Do you think... Could he really be behind this?" He looked askance at Tang Fan. "I don't want to believe it myself, but at this point my mind is just lurching in every direction!"
Tang Fan shook his head. That had been a fool's errand. Shen Lu looked like an attractive suspect, and Tang Fan had been hopeful but it hadn't panned out. "I've studied the samples of his writing, they look nothing like the letter's script."
"You what?" Cheng Zhu looked incredulous. "How were you able to obtain them?"
Tang Fan waved off his question with a smile. He wasn't about to reveal that Wang Zhi had gotten them for him. Let Cheng Zhu wonder. "This does remind me of one thing I still need from you," Tang Fan said. "A sample of your own writing, just to be complete."
"Ah, yes, I'll happily do it," Cheng Zhu exclaimed. He rose from his seat and went over to the desk standing by the window that was evidently used for writing documents, an ink set stood in the corner. When he went to take the brush however, it was with his injured right hand. Tang Fan realized with a wince what he had asked Cheng Zhu to do.
"It's all right—" he started to say.
"No, no. I want to do this." Although he struggled to hold the brush while he wrote a short inscription, Cheng Zhu looked determined.
Once Tang Fan had the piece of writing in his hand, he studied it briefly, noting that it bore little similarity to the precise brushstrokes of the original extortion letter. "I guess we're done here."
Tang Fan said his goodbyes to them, wishing Cheng Zhu speedy recovery before leaving. On the way back to the Shuntian Prefecture, even as he stopped to buy deep-friend dough sticks, now that he could afford numerous ones on his new Governor salary, he still thought about Cheng Zhu's case. He had other cases on his plate, but this was the one that was bothering him, because the pieces didn't fit together.
He went to bed still thinking about it.
He didn't know why exactly he came awake that night, staring at the ceiling with eyes wide while his mind whirred. Perhaps it had been working all this time, even while he slept, to solve the puzzle. Cheng Zhu's injured hand stood before his mind's eyes, Guo Yizhen bent over it to bandage the injury, as he suddenly understood everything.
Two minutes later, after throwing on a robe over his sleeping clothes, Tang Fan threw the door to Sui Zhou's bedroom open, startling the man awake.
"What? What is it?" Sui Zhou was already rising, the bed covers thrown aside as his eyes roamed the room for danger.
Somehow it hadn't occurred to Tang Fan until that exact moment as he was standing in the doorway, with Sui Zhou in his sleeping garments, that he would be disturbing his friend's sound sleep. And now peering at Sui Zhou, he thought the man looked surprisingly alert for the middle of the night. Tang Fan was momentarily derailed. "Are you having trouble sleeping?"
"You woke me up to ask?" Sui Zhou squinted at him.
"Anyway—" Tang Fan barreled on with a well-hidden wince. "I've figured it out. I know what happened with the Cheng case!" He smiled winningly. "And since you're awake anyway, up, up, up, let's go!"
He swirled around with a flair of robes walking out before Sui Zhou could answer.
"I have asked you all to be here so that I can explain what took place during the dinner when Cheng Yun was unfortunately murdered." Besides the four guards from the Western Depot located about the room and guarding the door, Tang Fan was the only person who was standing — the rest of Cheng family sat around the very same dinner table where they had all gathered the last time. Wang Zhi sat off to the side of the room in a separate wooden chair, arms crossed on his chest and a bored expression, belied by a slightly hooded stare with which he observed the scene. Sui Zhou stood leaning against one of the walls, arms crossed on his chest. Some of his men were waiting outside to be called to action once the explanation ended.
With the eyes of the room on him, Tang Fan proclaimed, "It's time to reveal the murderer."
"You know who it is?" Huang-furen cried out, fingers digging into the skirts over her knees.
"Indeed," Tang Fan nodded, and didn't elaborate. He turned to Wang Zhi instead.
"I asked you to be here," Tang Fan said, "since the murderer involved you in his plans."
Wang Zhi must have surmised as much, since he only marginally inclined his head in agreement.
"And he did so unfortunately for him — even if it seemed like a stroke of luck at the time. By rushing to poison Cheng Yun, the murderer wanted to capitalize on an unexpected fortune. Nobody could have expected the Commander of the Western Depot to be present when the man drank his poison and bear witness, unless the killer had wanted it to be so. Which meant one of two things, either the murderer had known Wang Zhi would arrive during dinner — something I would struggle to believe since Commander Wang does not let anyone into confidence about his plans—" his eyes slid past Wang Zhi's expression and moved on to the other people sitting at the table.
"Or, far more likely, the murderer saw an opportunity. However, in the rush to have the rumour mill pick up on the connection to the Western Depot, the killers abandoned their plan and acted rashly. Thus the mistakes: the strange sloppiness of the murder and the lack of alibis."
"Official Tang," Cheng Lu said hoarsely. "Did you say...they?"
Tang Fan nodded. "The murderer and his accomplice. After all, there was one person present who ensured Cheng Yun would take the drink first before anyone else. The one who handed him the cup."
Guo Yizhen's bloodless face seemed to go grey as the eyes of the room squinted in her direction. "I couldn't have known," she whispered. "Please, sir, don't throw false accusations—"
"Be silent!" Cheng Lu snapped at her, making the girl jump. "Official Tang?" he implored.
Tang Fan picked up where he left off. "At first I couldn't understand what had happened at the table, how the murderer had failed so spectacularly at murdering their intended victim when the rest of their actions suggested deliberation and confidence. And then I realized: the murderer didn't fail. They'd accomplished exactly what they wanted." His hands were trembling where he clenched them into fists at his sides, but it was just as much exhilaration as any other emotion. "In fact, all the nonsense starts to make sense if one assumes Cheng Yun was meant to die."
"Wait a minute—"
"No," Wang Zhi interrupted Cheng Zhu with a calm finality. "Let him finish." He watched Tang Fan from his seat, even as Tang Fan paced once across the room. Cheng Zhu fell silent, shifting in his seat.
"So Cheng Yun was meant to die. Who benefits? Not his fiancée, surely, who loses out on an advantageous marriage match. Thus suspicion never falls on the desperately mourning woman, even though she was the only one with access to the drink besides the servants. In this entire scenario, two people act as one another's saviour. Guo Yizhen appears to have no motive, for she only seems to lose, not win, if Cheng Yun dies. And the person who benefits financially," — he turned to Cheng Zhu, who stared at him with lips pressed in a white line — "is never implicated because he never touches the poison."
Tilting his head back slightly, Tang Fan looked down at the man sitting before him.
"You collaborated with Guo Yizhen to murder your older brother, so that you would inherit the family fortune. The attempts on your life? Fake. Of course, the letter was written by you, only marginally disguising your handwriting. When you tried to throw suspicion on Shen Lu, you exposed yourself further. For the Western Depot has a wonderful way of obtaining records, which among them contain many written notes in your hand that you didn't want me to see." In fact, the ease with which Wang Zhi managed to obtain these worried Tang Fan a little, but he wasn't about to surrender an advantage. Once he had suspected Cheng Zhu, obtaining the records of his old handwriting from his job had sealed the case. For in the past Cheng Zhu had never tried to disguise his writing and it was all plain for Tang Fan to see once he knew where to look.
"This is preposterous," Cheng Zhu pressed out between his lips.
"Do you want to write a sample now, or does your hand still shake too much?" Tang Fan countered. "Oh yes, of course, you can't write properly since you were injured in the following attack. You sliced your hand open, conveniently so."
"Someone was trying to murder me!" Cheng Zhu cried out.
"The incident at the market," Tang Fan continued, ignoring him. "Where nobody had seen the attacker. Not you, who was attacked, not your mother as she had attested, not even the Western Depot guard! In fact there had been no attack." Tang Fan insisted. "Just as there hadn't been the original attack with a crossbow. I suspect you've gotten quite used to bearing a slight injury for the sake of convincing everyone that someone is trying to kill you."
Tang Fan paced across the room in a few strides before swirling to face Cheng Zhu again.
"Once I saw the direction, it wasn't difficult to put together how two people continued to ensure the other had an alibi. Of course, you had the antagonistic act down to perfection, playing it in front of me at that fateful dinner. Yet when Cheng Zhu stood up for you, that time when Huang-furen tried to send you away, it was clear you weren't enemies, far from it." As he talked, Guo Yizhen's face lost the remainder of color. She looked dead-eyed straight ahead and didn't move, like a small animal sensing danger. "When you looked frustrated at Cheng Zhu, it was because he was showing his hand too soon. You were supposed to dislike one another for a little longer, isn't that right?"
Guo Yizhen said nothing.
"And once I suspected, I understood the look in your eyes as you held Cheng Yun, dying in your arms. It wasn't grief — it was patience. So different from the passionate way you looked at the younger brother, even though he had never been in any danger of dying."
Tang Fan took in the two of them, sitting nearby each other by seeming coincidence, as if an invisible thread tied their fates together. "The game is up."
"Son," the father turned to Cheng Zhu, staring at him with an indescribable look on his suddenly-aged face. Part horror, part despair. For a moment Tang Fan expected him to try to argue and deny the truth just to believe the kinder lie, but all the old man choked out was, "What have you—" He seemed to want to say more, but his voice failed him, as tears rolled down his face. His similarly teary-eyed wife took his hand in hers, squeezing it and pressing close to his side as if to prop him up as Cheng Lu curled in on himself, sobbing his grief.
In that moment, Cheng Zhu jumped to his feet, and Tang Fan had to rear back. He'd almost started to lift his hands to defend himself, when he realized the man was entirely focused on the one open window in the room.
Abandoning Guo Yizhen to her fate, Cheng Zhu ran towards it, climbing the sill, intending to escape but the guardsmen from the Western Depot were cognizant of their roles and acted swiftly to intercept him. A set of strong hands pulled Cheng Zhu away from the window he was trying to climb, and down to the floor, where his hands were twisted behind his back by Sui Zhou. He wriggled on the ground, trying to get away, but Sui Zhou held him easily. Cheng Zhu's attempted escape was a confession. A guard from the Western Depot came to stand by Guo Yizhen's side, watching her every move in case she tried to escape, but she sat still in her pale blue robes, with her hands folded on her lap and tears in her eyes.
Wang Zhi gracefully rose to his feet. "Nicely done," he told Tang Fan with a slight smile of approval tugging on his lips. Then any soft sentiment went out of his eyes as he transferred them to look at the two suspects. A chill ran down Tang Fan's back as he said, in a calm deliberation, "Perhaps I shall invite you to the Western Depot for some fun." Then as the moments ticked by, he said with a slightly put upon sigh, "Though there are better uses for these things." He spoke of Li Zilong and other traitors of their Ming. Tang Fan hadn't forgotten their big case that loomed on the horizon.
Tang Fan stared at Cheng Zhu with sorrow, knowing his fate was sealed. Whether he had done it for greed or love, it mattered not in the end. A good man was dead and a family torn apart.
Sui Zhou rose and pulled Cheng Zhu to his feet with him. "I'll take them into custody and deliver them to the Northern Administrative Court."
"Take her as well," Wang Zhi finally ordered the guard who held Guo Yizhen. "Question them at your leisure, although I'm perfectly satisfied they had means, motive and opportunity to kill."
Tang Fan nodded.
"Yizhen," Cheng Zhu called to her while Sui Zhou marched him out of the door. "Yizhen, my love—" She shut her eyes as if to shut out the world as he vanished out of sight along with Sui Zhou.
Wang Zhi came up to stand next to Tang Fan, turning to glance at him with interest. "How did you put the two and two together in the first place?"
He had paid attention to the right things. Not to what came out of people's mouths, but to their actions that revealed what was in their hearts.
"I'll tell you later," Tang Fan promised. A look of thwarted curiosity briefly flashed on Wang Zhi's face, before he controlled his expression. Tang Fan grinned at him, teasing, "Patience, Commander Wang."
After the conspirators were caught, Tang Fan could only quietly depart from the Cheng household. He couldn't feel happy about the outcome of the case, even if the offenders were apprehended. They would lose their lives, leaving their parents with only more to mourn.
He had not known his old acquaintance from the academy as well as he might have thought. A part of him would always wonder if he could have stopped the murder in its tracks if he had only paid more attention. But dwelling on that was for lonely evenings, laying in bed, lost in thought.
Tonight... He glanced at the man at his side. Wang Zhi had been all business, dealing with the arrest and then inviting Tang Fan to share the carriage so Wang Zhi could take him home. Looking back, Tang Fan remembered countless moments just like this one, silent wordless backup when he needed it. A friendly hand extended.
"Thanks," he said quietly.
Wang Zhi gave him a side glance and answered with a brief and somewhat preoccupied smile. "You can thank me with a game of Go sometime." His attention was clearly elsewhere, gaze distant as he stared ahead.
"...How about tonight?" Tang Fan offered, just above the din of his hammering heart.
This finally drew Wang Zhi back to himself, as he glanced at Tang Fan with slight surprise flashing in his eyes, just as quickly hidden.
In truth, Tang Fan had never initiated any of their games before. That had always been Wang Zhi's role: to pull and prod and cajole, until Tang Fan gave in, with played up reluctance. When Wang Zhi had shown up for their lively family dinner, he had pushed Tang Fan to invite him, and gave him an easy excuse — gratitude. That way nothing had to be said.
Wang Zhi made a show of everything, except the silent moments in between that truly mattered. The moments he quietly put himself on the line to get Tang Fan information. The moments he stood by Tang Fan and shielded him from the Emperor's wrath, never seeking favours in return. Every time he put himself between Tang Fan and danger with just a few words.
Did it grow tiring to always play that role? If so, Wang Zhi would not admit it.
He smirked at Tang Fan, inclining his head in agreement of the offer. "If you like. Didn't you say you had a case you were working on besides this? Do you want help with that?"
Tang Fan shook his head. "It'll keep. Tonight, we are just friends playing Go together. All right?"
Wang Zhi's expression softened, the curl of his lips becoming a real smile.
Something that felt magical raced up Tang Fan's spine. The light-hearted, hopeful look turned his way — he liked it. He liked it very much.
Tang Fan grinned, admitting it: "Nowhere else I'd rather be tonight."