Flowers planted with care refuse to bloom; a willow switch stuck in the ground without a thought grows into shade.
Li Fei had tried all three routes into the upper reaches of power — the inner palace, Nie Yunyi, and Zhao himself — and though each had borne some fruit, none of them could shift Lu Qianfan an inch.
Nie Yunyi would not throw the stone for fear of shattering the vase; the bond between Zhao and Lu Qianfan was unbreakable; and the noble ladies of the inner palace lacked the weight to overturn heaven and earth.
Even the "The Crown Prince Replaced by a Cat" plan had gone bankrupt, since Lu Qianfan had no intention of arranging a Surrogate Birth at all.
But just as she had begun to think of withdrawing — of scooping up one last haul and vanishing, throwing together a "Great Demon-Catching Contest" along the way to squeeze out merit — the Demon Suppression Bureau's men, who would have dug three feet into the earth to find their quarry, dragged in a female ghost who laid a clue of immeasurable importance right in front of Li Fei's eyes.
"H-his face was so twisted... and he kept swearing, calling him the dog emperor, things like that..."
The strange female ghost told her unspeakable story a piece at a time, terror and venom warring in her eyes.
"But wasn't he gelded..."
Huang Zhenzhen, who had known marriage in life, frowned in bewilderment.
"Filth doesn't live in the body. It lives in the heart."
Li Fei, by contrast, had already gone calm. "I've heard that certain powerful men who cannot perform will use all manner of unthinkable methods and implements to torment a girl's body and break her spirit, and take a sick satisfaction from it... That Lu the Eunuch-Dog is doubtless much the same."
The strange female ghost lowered her head — assent, plainly enough.
Li Fei was no great scholar of history, but in all her years of growing up she had come across her share of scenes in dramas and novels where eunuchs took wives and concubines. Beyond that, she had scrolled through news both true and false: old crooks perched high in great conglomerates who had long since lost the ability to father children and still could not smother their appetites, leaning on their authority to coerce the women who worked under them.
Clearly, a knife could not reverse a man's inclinations.
She also knew perfectly well that taking both was hardly a rare inclination.
But stack the two together and the disguise became almost impenetrable — and on top of that, Lu Qianfan was willing to carry on the imperial bloodline with his own body. That was why Li Fei had believed, for a while, that the Nine Thousand Years genuinely had feelings for the dog emperor, and had never once questioned which way he leaned.
The strange ghost's testimony lit up the blind spot in her thinking all at once.
"What's your name?" Li Fei asked, her face warm and gentle, once the ghost had finished.
"Xiao'e," the female ghost answered softly.
"Sister Xiao'e won't look at this python robe of mine." Li Fei smiled suddenly. "Is it fear, or hatred?"
"Both." Xiao'e hesitated a moment, then answered honestly.
"You aren't the only one who hates and fears this robe."
She rose to her feet and swept a hand toward the female ghosts standing around them. "The Demon Suppression Bureau hasn't been doing evil for just a day or two. In this room alone there are plenty of sisters who still see men in python robes in their dreams — men who tore their families apart, who left them unable to close their eyes in death..."
Pity for all the world's suffering settled over Li Fei's face. She let out a long, low sigh, then bent down, brows and eyes curving with a smile.
"And yet when I put this robe on, not one of them is afraid. Why does Sister Xiao'e think that is?"
Xiao'e shook her head, uncomprehending.
"Because the fault was never in the robe. It's in the one who wears it."
Huang Zhenzhen answered in Li Fei's place. "If more women wore the python robe, would the women of this world still shake at the sight of it? Still lie awake at night?"
"They wouldn't. Because by then, the ones whose hearts leap into their throats at the sight of this robe would be the gambler who sells his wife and daughters to the slavers for stake money, the drunk who beats and curses his wife, the beast who forces himself on a woman where there's no one for miles... and the women officials in python robes would become the saving stars, the lucky stars, of every woman under heaven."
"Perhaps you don't know it yet — I was ruined by a man of the Demon Suppression Bureau myself. Our Mistress avenged me, then brought me to Lin'an and has been wearing herself to the bone scheming for the seat of Commander of the Demon Suppression Bureau... And now you see it: she is already Prison-Warden Chiliarch, with the power to keep more sisters safe."
As she offered up her own life as testimony, she stroked Xiao'e's forehead, a tender, motherly light in her eyes that melted the girl's guard away.
—Excellent. Very quick on the uptake. Nearly ready to graduate.
Faced with the assist Huang Zhenzhen had served up, Li Fei nodded, gratified.
Seeing Xiao'e's face soften with feeling, Li Fei let precisely the right measure of guilt surface on her own.
"Sister Xiao'e, that Lu Qianfan is far too powerful. I don't yet have the strength to win you justice... To keep him from silencing you, I'll move you somewhere safe first, and when the day comes that I can, I will avenge you without fail."
"..."
Xiao'e clenched her fists and asked, unprompted, "Then is there anything I can do?"
Li Fei looked faintly troubled.
"You witnessed Lu Qianfan's crime with your own eyes. If you came forward to accuse him, that alone could tip the balance... but no, forget it. It's too dangerous. Lu Qianfan would find some way to strike at you from the dark, and I might not be able to keep you whole."
"The moment that villain carried me off, I was already dead."
Xiao'e was silent for a moment, then looked straight at Li Fei, as though she had made up her mind for good. "I'll never forget what he did to me... So long as what you say is true, why should I fear dying a second time?"
"Sister Xiao'e, have you truly thought this through? Sooner or later this fight of ours will raise a storm."
Li Fei's brows drew tight. "Even if you did nothing at all, I would never let Lu Qianfan go... but if you tangle yourself in it, then given what you are, you'll be dragged into the very heart of the whirlpool. There's no telling how bad it could get."
"I'm not afraid of dying. I'm only afraid of never getting the chance to buy my revenge with my death."
Xiao'e glanced at Huang Zhenzhen, and hesitated no longer.
"Very well."
Li Fei nodded firmly and gave her word. "Since your mind is made up, I will not fail what you expect of me. I will take that seat of Commander of the Demon-Suppression Bureau, and set things right for the women of the Great Song and of all the world besides, and hold up a clear and open sky."
As she spoke she brought out the discarded [Myriad Ghost Gourd], smiling faintly.
"The sisters have all moved into their new home, but given what you are, Sister Xiao'e, it's better that you stay apart. You'll have to make do in here for a while... Don't worry, though. Once the bright-red python robe is on my shoulders, I'll see to it that you come and go as you please."
Xiao'e glanced at Huang Zhenzhen once more and, under her encouraging gaze, drew a deep breath and dissolved into white smoke that drifted into the gourd.
Huang Zhenzhen was quiet a moment before she asked, "Mistress, do you mean to take her... and lay an accusation before the throne?"
"Before the throne? So what if that useless emperor learns Lu Qianfan has been unfaithful? At worst they'd freeze each other out for a few days."
Li Fei snorted with laughter. "Don't worry, I have a plan already... Oh — the fewer who know of this, the better. As far as all of you are concerned, you never saw her."
Huang Zhenzhen blinked, then nodded as instructed.
"How many sisters do we have now?" Li Fei ran her eyes over the female ghosts handling the "vetting" and the "welcoming," turning to business.
"The [Qian] Division has three thousand one hundred and twenty-six sisters, the [Kun] Division one thousand seven hundred and forty-three," Huang Zhenzhen answered. "Barring surprises, we'll finish screening every candidate in the Ice Jade tonight. By then the total should break five thousand."
"Great waves wash away the sand and leave the true gold behind..."
Li Fei sighed. The number gratified her and gave her a headache in equal measure.
For a female ghost, the [Ice Jade] was a prison that killed nine out of ten — and it was also a touchstone.
Those without a fierce will to live, without deep enough attachment, had long since guttered out inside the jade. Those left over tended to have decent aptitude. Aptitude was an extremely complex and mysterious attribute: some wastrel drifting through life in a stupor might possess astonishing aptitude and let it rot unnoticed, while a striver grinding away at the top of the rat race might be capped by their aptitude and never accomplish anything great.
On the whole, though, "firmness of will" and "height of aptitude" were positively correlated. Those of outstanding character had a far better chance of possessing outstanding aptitude.
So while ordinarily only one female ghost in ten met the cultivation threshold for the [Soul Gathering] secret art, under the brutal winnowing of the [Ice Jade], one in every three or four ghosts in the Demon-Locking Tower qualified.
Which meant the ranks of her female ghosts were swelling far faster than Li Fei had estimated — a source of both delight and worry.
The delight: once [Soul Gathering] was invoked, the more ghosts there were and the stronger their average power, the more formidable the fused Ghost Giant became. If she could fill the [Myriad Ghost Gourd] and find an Innate-grade female ghost to serve as its core, the Ghost Giant that came out of it could absolutely stand toe to toe with a Sequence 5 Transcendent.
And having swollen her ghost count past five thousand in one stroke, Li Fei could count herself invincible at the Sequence 6 tier, at the very least.
The worry... challenging the Sequence 7 Ascension Ritual once in a while was all well and good, but running it twice, three times over on end — even Miss Top Courtesan would get worn out from all that cuddling.
"You've worked hard."
Li Fei patted Huang Zhenzhen's shoulder and let out a heavy sigh.
The words were for the female ghosts pulling overtime, and equally an encouragement to herself.
"It's you who works hardest."
Huang Zhenzhen inclined her head, then turned back to the work, using the [Soul-Gazing Art] to appraise the aptitude of the newcomers.
As a rule, only High Sequence beings possessed the divine faculty to gauge aptitude with the naked eye; a Middle Sequence Transcendent needed special methods to judge how high or low a target's aptitude ran.
The [Soul-Gazing Art], a Legacy from the Tree Demon, could at least be cast by low-Sequence female ghosts to sort through their sisters — but its limits were severe.
First, its scope was narrow. It worked only on ghost-kind.
Second, its precision was poor. It gave only a blurred answer — whether the subject met the cultivation standard for [Soul Gathering] — nothing like the Magic Academy, where the aptitude line in a student's file could be filled in to two decimal places.
On top of that, casting it burned no small amount of ghost qi. Huang Zhenzhen and Xiao Lian could never have finished the task on their own; fortunately other ghosts had mastered the Soul-Gazing Art and pitched in, and by working in three shifts they had compressed the whole recruitment drive into a single week.
Li Fei watched the work in silence for a while, then turned and left alone.
She had only just reached the door of the Demon-Locking Tower when she found someone waiting there.
It was Lu Qianfan's adopted son, Xu Yuzhong.
"Chiliarch Li. My adoptive father wishes to see you. Please come with me."
He had used the word "please," but his tone was poisonous, and the smile on his face never got past his lips.
"How convenient. This official wants to see him as well."
Li Fei waved a hand. "Lead on."
"Hmph. Ruin at her doorstep and she hasn't the wit to know it."
Xu Yuzhong snorted coldly and climbed straight into the carriage waiting nearby. Li Fei took the other one.
When the curtain lifted again, Li Fei had arrived at Lu Qianfan's residence.
Down a long cobbled path, and there in the hall she found Lu Qianfan waiting.
The great red robe was gaudy and impossible to look away from, and it only made that soft, androgynous face more luminous.
This time he was not playing the zither. He sat at the head of the hall facing the doors, every window shut tight, a sword laid crosswise on the table before him. His long narrow eyes were half-lidded with a killing chill — like a punishment officer presiding over a magistrate's court, waiting for the constables to haul the criminal before him so the session could open and sentence be passed.
"Lord Lu. I trust you've been well."
Li Fei seemed not to notice the oppressive air at all. She picked a seat at random, then waved at Xu Yuzhong. "What are you standing there for? Tea."
"You—"
Xu Yuzhong was on the verge of erupting when Lu Qianfan cut him off.
"Pour her tea."
"Yes."
Xu Yuzhong's face went dark, but he did not dare cross his adoptive father's word, and filled Li Fei's cup in silence.
"And what business has my lord summoned me for?" Li Fei went straight to the point.
"This official had nine sons at his knee. Only, one of them was murdered by villains some days ago — not a bone of him left. It has kept me from sleeping."
Lu Qianfan spoke softly. "Chiliarch Li, you were in Luyuan County at the time. Have you any leads?"
"My condolences, my lord."
Grief crossed Li Fei's face. "It galls me that the culprits were so cunning. They left nothing behind at all."
"Never mind. The ancients said: a lone yang cannot flourish. My child's death bears the saying out, I suppose."
Lu Qianfan sighed. "Come to that, this official has nine sons at his knee and not one daughter. It can hardly be called a complete life."
"Oh? My lord means to say..."
Li Fei asked it knowing full well what he meant.
"I have turned it over carefully. Zhengchun lies buried in Luyuan, and it so happens that the immortal maiden descended to the mortal world at that very time, alighting in Luyuan County. Perhaps that is the will of heaven?"
Lu Qianfan looked her full in the face. "Chiliarch Li. Would you be willing to become my adopted daughter, and grant this official his wish for a son and a daughter both?"
—He wants to collect me as his dog, is what he wants.
Li Fei's smile widened, and she waved him off. "I'll pass. I'm not in the habit of picking up fathers at random."
"You don't know good fortune when it's handed to you!"
Xu Yuzhong cupped his hands at once and reported, "Adoptive Father, in truth your son recently tracked down an accomplice in elder brother's murder. There hasn't been time to inform you..."
"Oh?"
Lu Qianfan gave his order. "Bring him in."
"Yes!"
Xu Yuzhong turned and went out, and before long came back dragging a man by the scruff, whom he flung hard onto the floor.
The man's hair hung loose and wild, his whole body caked in blood and filth. He was a wretched sight.
He had barely been shoved through the door and knocked down, yet he showed no anger at all — he pitched forward onto the boards, knocking his head against them again and again, his voice thick with weeping.
"I've confessed it all, I've confessed it all, my lord, no more questioning — this old man can't bear the pain..."
"Well, well, well. If it isn't Squire Wang."
Li Fei feigned astonishment. "It's been only a few days. How did you get so shabby?"
"Convicting yourself out of your own mouth."
Xu Yuzhong let out a savage laugh and drove a heavy kick into Squire Wang's body. "Speak. Was it she who murdered Lü Zhengchun?"
The kick sent Squire Wang skidding half a meter. He howled, coughed up a few drops of blood, and only then lifted his head, unsteady, showing a face gone bloodless and greenish.
He spotted Li Fei almost at once, and seeing her in her dark-red python robe, shock surfaced plain in his clouded, deadened eyes — then terror came flooding in after it, and he raised a shaking finger toward her.
"It — it was her, she's the one who killed Lord Lü, this old man saw it with his own eyes..."
"Rubbish! How dare you smear an innocent name out of thin air!"
Li Fei slapped the table, seething. "Squire Wang, I saved the lives of your whole household, old and young. Who knew you were the sort of ingrate to repay kindness with a wolf's heart and a dog's lungs—"
"..."
If Li Fei had said nothing, it might have been fine, but the moment she raised that debt for his life, Squire Wang let out two ghastly, deranged laughs, and rancor and hatred rose plain in his dulled eyes.
"It was all you!"
Strength came to him from nowhere. He struggled up off the floor and loosed a hysterical roar from his shredded throat.
"You lured Lü Zhengchun to my house!"
"You killed Lü Zhengchun and sent my whole family fleeing for their lives!"
"And after that you set your sights on my estate and drew the demons in to ruin me! That road had been quiet for years — how did a whole swarm of demons suddenly gather on it? The Soul-Spawning Flower is one of the rarest things in the world — why should it grow in that exact place, and open at that exact hour? If there was no plot behind it, then how did you arrive in time to save us?!"
"The hate in me! If not for you, how would the Wang family ever have met such utter ruin... urgh—"
In the middle of that raw-throated outpouring Squire Wang doubled over and vomited for a while, then swayed upright again, weeping and laughing at once.
"All dead, only me left... haha, all dead, haha, hahaha..."
"Lord Lu, isn't it obvious the man's gone mad?"
Li Fei tilted her head, puzzled. "Are we taking a lunatic's word for things now?"
"I'm mad? Heh heh... then I'll take you down with me!!!"
Seeing Li Fei stand there so entirely above it all, Squire Wang hurled himself at her with vicious force, eyes bulging till they seemed ready to split — the very image of a vengeful ghost.
The corner of Xu Yuzhong's mouth curled. He was looking forward to whatever Li Fei did next.
Having brought the man here, they had naturally made their preparations. If Li Fei dared seize the moment and silence him, it would only deepen the charge against her.
And if she didn't dare silence him, she still could not slip the net of the law.
The moment his men had caught Squire Wang, Li Fei had been left with only three roads: surrender, flight, or judgment. With so grand and respectable a pretext, not even Nie Yunyi could shield her.
In truth, Xu Yuzhong rather hoped she would choose death before submission. Then he could put her to the question himself...
Li Fei, meanwhile, appeared not to have grasped the gravity of the situation at all. She simply knocked Squire Wang flat with one slap, then turned to Lu Qianfan for instruction.
"Lord Lu, this man is framing an officer of the court on fabricated charges. I'd recommend putting him to death at once, wouldn't you say?"
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