Chapter 28: Luring the Prey into the Trap

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Enraged, Zhou Xing suddenly let out a thunderous roar. The long saber in his hand swept toward Li Linghuan with the force of Mount Tai bearing down upon her.

Yet the person before him merely ducked, and the saber struck the ground, becoming lodged there so firmly that he could not pull it free.

“So the Vice Minister Zhou possesses such formidable martial strength. You have certainly made me see you in a new light!”

In her previous life, she had heard only that Zhou Xing was a ruthless official who had invented countless forms of torture without scruple. She had never heard that he was also a master of martial arts.

What a surprise.

“There was no choice. A man who claws his way up from the bottom has to learn some martial arts. I have too many enemies.”

“That is true. It cannot have been easy for you to rise to the position of Vice Minister of the Autumn Court, a senior third-rank official. Still, are there not rather too many bleached bones beneath your high office?”

“One must do what one must. When a general achieves success, ten thousand bones lie withered in his wake. What famous general has ever achieved glory without leaving heaps of corpses behind?”

“Vice Minister Zhou certainly knows how to flatter himself. At most, you are merely a cruel official destined to stink for ten thousand years. How can you compare yourself with a renowned general?”

At those words, Zhou Xing’s two caterpillar-like brows suddenly knotted together.

“Boy, your tongue is truly vicious! Since you call me a cruel official, today I shall show you exactly what a cruel official can do!”

As he spoke, Zhou Xing gave another great shout. He yanked up his saber and hacked at Li Linghuan once more. Yet at the instant the blade descended, Li Linghuan had already turned and appeared behind him, her long red sash winding around his neck.

Zhou Xing was horrified, but the person behind him asked, “May I ask you one question, Vice Minister Zhou? Why did you try to assassinate Su Minghe and his wife and child? Was it because of a personal grudge, because someone ordered you to do it, or because you are concealing some other secret?”

“I cannot tell you that. But you, boy—how can someone so young move with such astonishing speed? Who taught you these arts of killing?”

“That, too, I cannot tell you.”

While Li Linghuan was speaking, the force of Zhou Xing’s palm struck like a razor-edged blade. Just as he was about to tear away the cloth covering her face, she once again slipped out of his reach.

The red sash stretched taut. Li Linghuan had already moved to the desk beside him, where she gazed at scroll after scroll of treason confessions written by Zhou Xing, each bearing a bloody handprint.

It was easy to imagine what sort of brutal torture these people had endured before being forced to confess. They would rather bear the crime of having their entire clans exterminated than suffer any longer beneath his torment and humiliation.

Li Linghuan fell silent for a moment, then sighed. “Vice Minister Zhou, your skill at fabricating charges is truly remarkable.”

After another soft sigh, she suddenly raised her head and asked, “May I be so bold as to seek your advice, Vice Minister Zhou? If I wanted someone to admit to plotting rebellion, but he refused no matter what, what should I do?”

Zhou Xing gave a cold laugh. “That is simple enough. Find a large vat and heat it from all sides with charcoal. Then bind the man inside it. Do you really think he still would not confess?”

Li Linghuan smiled and pointed toward the large vat already placed in the hall. “So this is the vat you prepared for Li Xiaolian? Vice Minister Zhou, you truly have no regard for beauty.”

“How can one pity beauty when dealing with a criminal? Besides, since that vile woman has already escaped, you will have to climb into the vat in her place!”

With that, Zhou Xing glared and once again brought his saber down upon Li Linghuan’s head with crushing force.

But just as the blade was about to strike, her expression suddenly changed. In the blink of an eye, her figure flashed forward like a ghost, and one hand closed around his throat.

“Thank you for the lesson. Vice Minister Zhou, now please climb into your own vat!”

Smiling, she exerted her strength and flung his body into the air. At the same time, the red sash in her hand shot out like a serpent and tightened around Zhou Xing’s neck. She herself sprang upward like an arrow released from its bow and clung to the roof beam. The sash passed over the timber, and as the weight of her descending body pulled it taut, Zhou Xing’s body abruptly rose until he hung suspended from the beam.

His legs thrashed wildly. His mouth gaped as he emitted muffled, meaningless cries, but he could no longer utter a single word. He could only stare wide-eyed at Li Linghuan.

Li Linghuan, however, looked toward the documents on the desk and shook her head. “Vice Minister Zhou, your handwriting is truly atrocious. Much like you yourself, it resembles an ugly yet vicious blade. Why do I not finish this incomplete confession for you, and let you emit one last, faint glimmer of light before you die?”

Her eyes still held a smile, glittering with a chilling radiance like stars in the night sky.

With that, Li Linghuan dipped her brush in ink and began to complete the unfinished confession in sweeping strokes.

Regardless of whom Zhou Xing had intended to frame with that confession, the final signature and handprint would now belong to Zhou Xing himself.

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After finishing the confession, Li Linghuan released the sash with her left hand. Zhou Xing, already dead, dropped heavily and landed directly inside the vat he had prepared.

Li Linghuan hung the confession around his neck, took his bloodstained hand, and pressed it firmly onto the document. Then she set fire beneath the vat, climbed onto the roof beams, lifted the tiles, and departed.

“Vice Minister Zhou, this ending I arranged for you is not so bad, is it?”

She was already gone. Only her words continued to echo in Zhou Xing’s ears.

...

The fading echoes still drifted from the roof, while the fire beneath the vat burned fiercely. Several servants and guards who had rushed to the storehouse to put out the flames finally realized that something was wrong and ran back into the hall.

The moment the doors were thrown open, everyone froze in astonishment. Zhou Xing lay inside the very vat he had prepared, his tongue protruding and his eyes bulging. A confession hung from his chest, bearing the words:

I am guilty. I failed to discipline my son, framed the loyal, and harmed the people. Death is too mild a punishment.

At the same time, Lai Junchen arrived at Zhou Xing’s residence with a secret accusation. When he opened the door and entered the hall, he too stood rooted to the spot.

He was merely an Investigating Censor. To speak plainly, Zhou Xing, a senior third-rank Vice Minister of the Autumn Court, outranked him by far; Lai Junchen himself was only a junior sixth-rank official. Thus, when Xiao Muchen had approached him and asked him to bring Zhou Xing down by accusing him of treason, he had been filled with dread and apprehension.

He had no absolute confidence in dealing with Zhou Xing, who was equally notorious as a cruel official. Still, he had already devised a way to use Zhou Xing’s own spear against his shield.

He had never expected to witness this scene.

“Murder! Murder!”

The servants and maids of the Zhou residence scattered like startled birds, rushing and stumbling through the streets. Their cries soon attracted the Imperial Guards patrolling the Literary Cultivation Ward.

At their head was Qiu Shenji, Grand General of the Left Imperial Guards.

Qiu Shenji immediately sensed that something was wrong and led a contingent of Imperial Guards to Zhou Xing’s residence.

When he saw Zhou Xing crouched inside the vat, eyes bulging at the onlookers while fierce flames roared beneath him, Qiu Shenji was stunned into silence. For a long while, he stood there like a wooden statue.

At last he came to himself and shouted, “Put out the fire at once and rescue Vice Minister Zhou from the vat!”

The leading Imperial Guards stared at him in disbelief.

My lord, are you joking? In this state, can he still be saved?

“Leave a few men behind to rescue Vice Minister Zhou. The rest of you will follow me to pursue the murderer. He cannot have gone far!”

“Yes, sir!”

There were normally no pedestrians on the streets at night, but with fierce flames suddenly blazing at the Zhou residence and cries of “Murder!” ringing out, the streets were instantly thrown into chaos. Shadows rushed everywhere, and noise rose from every direction.

“Search the streets! Clear them at once!”

Qiu Shenji immediately ordered all the Imperial Guards to search the streets and alleyways. As gongs rang out, countless elite guards carrying long spears raced back and forth, sealing the ward gates and attempting to seize every suspicious person traveling at night.

At that moment, Li Linghuan, dressed in black, was still racing through the alleys. She suddenly saw Li Xiaolian, who was likewise hiding from the Imperial Guards’ search, and quietly came up behind her.

“Come with me!”

“You must leave this place immediately. Act as though you have never set foot in Zhou Xing’s residence.”

Li Linghuan was about to pull her away when she saw Li Xiaolian looking at her through tear-filled eyes. Grateful yet sorrowful, the woman asked, “Why are you helping me?”

Why?

Having returned to this world, she had not come merely to witness once more an age in which cruel officials ran rampant and ordinary lives counted for nothing. She had come to change this world.

To rewrite the fates of those who should not have died.

And to rewrite the fates of those who deserved to die.

Li Xiaolian was the second person whose fate she was destined to change.

In her previous life, after Li Xiaolian failed to assassinate Zhou Xing, she had been boiled to death in his vat torture. Zhou Xing had felt no shame; instead, he had gloried in it, regarding the torture he had invented as one of the great achievements of his legal reforms. He used it to terrorize the officials at court, and from then on, most of the civil and military officials were cowed by his power and joined themselves to the Wu clan relatives, Wu Chengsi and Wu Sansi.

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As powerful assistants to her mother, Wu Zhao, in consolidating imperial authority, Wu Chengsi and Wu Sansi’s greatest political achievement was the elimination of all opposition. They hacked open a bloody path for Wu Zhao’s rule, murdering countless loyal ministers and brilliant generals who refused to submit to the Wu clan and remained devoted to the Li dynasty.

Li Linghuan did not oppose her mother’s ascension to the throne under the Wu clan name. What she could not accept was Wu Zhao’s indulgence of these cruel officials as they slaughtered her relatives and brutalized the people.

Nor could she accept the countless humble lives struggling to survive beneath the splendor of the Great Tang’s golden age—lives discarded like ants, or like useless refuse once they had served their purpose.

With these thoughts in mind, Li Linghuan looked at the wretched woman before her, a fellow descendant of the Li imperial clan, and said with absolute resolve, “I killed him. This has nothing to do with you. Go. I will lead the Imperial Guards away.”

“And live well. That will be the greatest reward you could give me.”

Before Li Xiaolian could answer, Li Linghuan had already leaped from the alley and appeared openly before Qiu Shenji.

“Grand General Qiu, are you looking for me?” she asked mockingly.

Qiu Shenji was another cruel official whose hands were stained with countless innocent lives. His greatest crime was having driven her second elder brother, Li Xian, to his death.

“Were you the one who killed Vice Minister Zhou?”

“Yes. Do you intend to arrest me?” Li Linghuan replied. “Then come and catch me.”

“How dare you! Where did this assassin come from, to provoke the Imperial Guards? Seize her!”

Several Imperial Guards charged forward on horseback with their spears. Li Linghuan seized one of the spears and used its momentum to vault onto the horse’s back, kicking the guard to the ground in the same motion.

She swept the spear sideways, knocking several more guards from their horses. By then, the steed beneath her had already thundered to the end of the street and vanished around the corner.

“Do not let her escape! Keep pursuing!”

...

With her pursuers closing in behind, Li Linghuan cut through several alleys. She was almost at the place where she had arranged to meet A Shu when she suddenly saw a figure standing ahead.

“Wu Lingyue! It is her again!”

Wu Lingyue was also a master swordswoman. With Imperial Guard pursuers behind her, Li Linghuan had no intention of becoming entangled in a prolonged fight. She therefore struck first, thrusting her spear toward Wu Lingyue. The instant Wu Lingyue raised her weapon to block, Li Linghuan drove her horse wildly to the right. Then, upon turning into another alley, she leaped from the saddle and sprang onto the roof tiles of a nearby house.

“Who is there?”

Wu Lingyue had already caught up. Li Linghuan dropped from the roof, intending to find a secluded place where she could change out of her black night clothes. Unexpectedly, a hand landed on her shoulder. Reacting instinctively, she spun around and clamped her hand around the other person’s throat.

Only when she turned and raised her eyes did she discover that the person before her was Xiao Muchen, his hair once again as white as snow.

Strangely, she had no memory of this man from her previous life.

A brilliant young man who had risen to the position of Vice Chief Imperial Censor, and who had once served as one of the Empress’s Northern Gate Academicians—she could not possibly have failed to remember him.

In her previous life, she had memorized the identities and life histories of every civil and military official at court, as well as every member of the Li imperial clan. That was precisely why several of her elder brothers had trained her to become an elite covert guard.

“How did you know I was here? Have you been following me?” Li Linghuan asked.

Xiao Muchen did not answer. His eyes were filled with concern. Seeing the bloodstains on her clothes, he could not help asking, “Are you hurt? Is it serious?”

Li Linghuan’s expression flickered with surprise. Before she could reply, a clamorous rush of footsteps sounded outside the door, followed by a woman’s sharp voice:

“Search inside! I saw him just now—he fled into this alley. Search every house and every courtyard!”

At the sound of this, Li Linghuan looked toward Xiao Muchen. Then the corner of her lips curved upward. She reached out and caressed his face, smiling.

“Vice Chief Imperial Censor Xiao, you are exceptionally easy on the eyes. You are so concerned about me—have you taken a fancy to this princess?”

“Why do we not consummate our marriage right now?”