Ning Chen met Li Zhixing, and the two of them went down to the Ministry of Justice’s cells together.

With Ning Chen’s arrangements in place, Zisu had not been put to torture again.

And she no longer had to sleep on dry straw. There was bedding now—still laid on the floor, but far better than before.

Ning Chen walked into the cell.

Li Zhixing stayed outside, as before, and did not come in.

Zisu did not look nearly as glad to see Ning Chen as he’d expected.

“Zisu is grateful for Ning the Silver Coat’s kindness, but I would ask that Ning the Silver Coat not come again.”

“I killed Xiuzhou’s Governor and Prefect… there’s no escaping a death sentence. Zisu owns to all of it. Kill me, carve me, please yourself!”

Ning Chen looked at her and lowered his voice. “Zhirou is very worried about you.”

Liu Zhirou was Yudie’s original name.

Zisu’s expression froze on the instant. She stared at Ning Chen in astonishment. “You, you…”

Ning Chen said in a low voice, “Yudie told me everything… you’re set on dying to protect her.”

Zisu stared blankly at him, then laughed bitterly. “That foolish girl. Why would she tell you? If I die, the whole thing is over.”

“Ning the Silver Coat, may I ask one thing of you?”

Ning Chen nodded. “Go ahead.”

Zisu looked at him and pleaded. “I beg you to act as though you know nothing, and to leave this alone… one death is enough!”

“She writes to me often. In her letters she tells me every little thing about you, and I can see it—she really does love you.”

“A woman’s life is a hard one. That she found you makes me glad for her… I hope Ning the Silver Coat will treat her well.”

Ning Chen’s expression turned strange. “The two of you are as close as that. Close enough to throw your lives away for each other… and yet, knowing perfectly well I’m Yudie’s man, you still showed me your unpracticed mouthwork?”

Two patches of color rose in Zisu’s pale little face.

“Yudie asked me to.”

Ning Chen’s eyes went wide, his whole face astonished.

Zisu said, a little embarrassed, “When we were small, we used to talk about what sort of husbands we’d marry when we grew up.”

“One time I asked her what we’d do if we both liked the same man.”

“She said, then we’ll marry him together… that way we sisters could live together and never be parted.”

The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched. Was she playing for stakes that high?

Zisu went on. “I’d written to her once, so she knew I was in Mangzhou. Before you came to Mangzhou, she wrote back to me.”

“She’d been injured during that time and couldn’t attend to you, and she felt terribly guilty about it, but you wouldn’t go to any other woman… so she asked me, if I could, to look after you for her.”

Ning Chen’s forehead filled with black lines. He had no idea what to say to that.

That foolish woman Yudie. Generous past all reason.

Still, for the women of this world, three wives and four concubines was nothing out of the ordinary… better than bringing home some stranger and scheming against each other day in and day out. Better to bring in your own sister.

That was probably how Yudie had thought about it.

“When Yudie’s letter came, I hadn’t meant to have anything to do with you… but the night you attacked Mangzhou, I saw what the muskets could do.”

Ning Chen frowned. “So you came near me for the muskets?”

Zisu nodded.

“That’s a little wounding, put like that. And here I thought it was my own great charm.”

Zisu smiled sweetly. “Ning the Silver Coat is a man of rare gifts. There’s no telling how many women in the Great Xuan would want to marry you. Your charm is considerable.”

Ning Chen rolled his eyes, then changed tack and said deliberately, “Ten thousand acres of good farmland ruined. Those two you killed did deserve to die.”

Zisu’s eyes darkened, and her face showed she could not accept it. “But Prince Duan is still alive. I only wish I’d been able to kill that wicked creature.”

Ning Chen’s eyes flickered faintly. “Rest easy. Heaven collects the wicked in its own time… you and Yudie really are close!”

Zisu said softly, “Of course we are! We’re not sisters by blood, but we’re closer than sisters… we played together from the time we were crawling around on the floor.”

“My father and Uncle Liu were classmates. They took office together and worked for the good of the people together… I’m a few months older than Yudie, and before either of us was born, my father and Uncle Liu agreed that if it was a boy and a girl, they’d betroth us in the cradle.”

Ning Chen thought for a moment, then asked, “Your father was Yan Wenbo, the former Prefect of Xiuzhou?”

Zisu was about to nod when her face changed all at once. She fixed her eyes on Ning Chen. “You, you… no. If Yudie had told you everything, she’d have held nothing back. How could you not know who my father was?”

“Are you baiting me?”

Ning Chen rubbed his nose and coughed. “All right! I admit it. Yudie told me nothing.”

Zisu glared at him furiously.

“Yudie told you nothing. How did you put all this together?”

“I guessed!”

Ning Chen ran through the gist of what he had pieced together.

Zisu was very angry. “You’re devious.”

Ning Chen rolled his eyes. “Could you pick another word? I’d have thought clever was better.”

“You’re not clever, you’re a fool. A fool beyond saving… don’t you understand? This will drag Yudie in, and it will drag you down with her. If I died, the whole thing would have been finished.”

Ning Chen was lost for words. “You don’t know good from bad, woman. I’m trying to save you.”

“Why do you want to save me?”

Ning Chen thought about it, and a wicked smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Put it down to my wits going out the window over a pretty face. Your little mouth really is very good.”

Zisu was furious and mortified at once. “I should have bitten it clean off at the time.”

Ning Chen laughed. “No need for regrets. You’ll have plenty of chances to bite it later.”

Zisu was too angry to speak.

After a while her tone softened, and there was something like pleading in it. “You’re clever enough to know that I killed Xiuzhou’s Governor and Prefect and there’s no escaping a death sentence… I’m begging you, let go of this. Dig any further and you and Yudie will both be dragged into it.”

Ning Chen said it one word at a time. “I never leave a thing half done… why not take the gamble?”

Zisu looked at him, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Do you believe me? I can save you, and I can clear your father’s name.”

Zisu stared at him blankly.

She was tempted.

The truth was that her greatest wish in all these years had been to see her father’s name cleared.

But after years of running from place to place, she had found she had been far too naive about it. The matter reached a prince of the royal house, and overturning it was as hard as climbing to heaven.

It was because she could see no hope at all that she had taken the desperate course and gone to kill her enemies with her own hands.

“You… do you mean that?”

Ning Chen laughed. “Things being where they are, you might as well try trusting me… if it works, you live and your father’s name is cleared. If it fails—well, you were set on dying anyway. Where’s the loss?”

Zisu fixed her eyes on him. “I’m not afraid to die! If you can truly clear my father’s name, I’ll do anything you ask.”

Ning Chen nodded. “Good. Then tell me—what actually happened back then?”

Zisu was silent a long while before she spoke, slowly:

“I was only seven when my father’s trouble came… my father and my master were old friends. I’d fallen badly ill at the time, with a fever that wouldn’t break, and my father sent for my master to treat me.”

“I was unconscious. My master told me afterward that while he was treating me, a great many soldiers came rushing into the house, seizing everyone they saw and killing many of them.”

“My master saw how bad it was and carried me out through the back gate… once we were out, he didn’t dare stay. He took me away from Xiuzhou altogether.”

“After that my master kept me hidden, moving from place to place… I didn’t believe my father and Uncle Liu were corrupt officials. Neither did my master.”

“It wasn’t until five years later, when I was twelve and my face had changed, that we dared go back to Xiuzhou and look into the truth in secret.”

(End of Chapter 294)