After escaping back to the Eastern Depot's prison from the Zhang residence, my hands kept shaking uncontrollably. Zhang Beiyu's emotionless profile before the flames was like a thorn firmly lodged in my mind.
Locking myself in the cramped secret room, I pulled out the wooden box stained with my mother's dried blood from my tunic. Over the past few months, I had tried countless ways, yet failed to pry it open even a fraction of an inch. There was no keyhole on the box, only a few extremely fine seams. I used to believe that hidden inside was the ironclad evidence proving Zhang Beiyu committed the murder. But Zhang Beiyu's cover-up tonight had caused a terrifying shake in my conviction.
So I grabbed the iron awl from the table, aimed it at the seam of the box, and prepared to force it open as a last resort.
"This box is made with an imperial nine-aperture ingenuity lock. If you strike it with that awl, the self-destruct mechanism inside will be triggered, and the bone-melting acid will burn the contents to absolute nothingness."
"Commander. You recognize this mechanism. Please, Commander, help me open it. There must be evidence inside of Zhang Beiyu killing my mother. There must be."
As if clutching at the last straw, I desperately grabbed Wei Wuyuan's sleeve. Wei Wuyuan stared at me with a somber gaze. He didn't shake off my hand. Instead, he picked up the wooden box with his other hand. Using his slender fingers on several hidden patterns of the box, he pressed and slid them in an extremely complex sequence. With a click, the lid of the wooden box popped open a crack. Wei Wuyuan took a step back, leaving the box right in front of me.
My breath almost stopped. Trembling, I reached out and lifted the lid.
There was no poison in the box, nor was there any jewelry. There was only a torn piece of white undergarment cloth covered in writing of dark red blood.
"My child Nanji, reading this is like seeing my face. My child, the one who killed me is not Beiyu, but the current empress."
I read it out loud subconsciously, but my voice was trembling uncontrollably. The very first sentence was like a heavy blow, smashing hard against the crown of my head. My mind went completely blank in an instant.
Impossible. This is impossible. Clearly, it was Zhang Beiyu who went to the woodshed. Clearly, it was Zhang Beiyu who ordered them to send me to the Eastern Depot.
"The empress used the marriage as a pretext, but actually wants to seize the three million taels of private silver raised by the Zhang family. When the private silver is fully transferred into the crown prince's treasury, it will be the moment the Zhang family loses its utility. On the wedding night, the empress will surely have the entire Zhang family executed on charges of embezzlement, to win the crown prince a reputation of righteousness for executing his own relatives. I minded my own business in the inner chambers, but by chance, outside the study, I stumbled upon the secret message brought by the decree-bearing eunuch. Desiring to eliminate all future trouble, the empress has already bestowed poison upon me. I know I must die, and I only fear implicating you. Nanji, remember this. Beiyu has long seen through the empress's death trap."
The blood letter abruptly ended there. The final characters were distorted and blurred, clearly a sign of her struggle as the poison took effect.
The piece of silk in my hand slipped weightlessly to the floor. The entire secret room was dead silent, save for my heavy, ragged breathing, like a broken bellows.
It wasn't Zhang Beiyu. The one who killed my mother was the empress. The one who wants to drag the entire Zhang family down with them is the crown prince.
At this moment, my previous madness seemed like an utterly absurd joke. For the past several months, I had suffered torture day and night in the Eastern Depot, selling my soul to the devil, all just to point my blade at Zhang Beiyu, to ruin her wedding, to sever the crown prince's military power, smugly thinking I had driven her to a dead end. But in reality, the ones actually holding the butcher's knife were sitting high above in the imperial palace, watching the Zhang family, like ants, make their final struggle.
If Zhang Beiyu knew all along that this was a dead end, why didn't she run? Why did she still obediently prepare for the wedding? Why did she take the blame for killing my mother, put on a vicious face, and throw me into the Eastern Depot?
I snapped my head up to look at Wei Wuyuan, who had been watching coldly from the side. At this very moment, there was no surprise in Wei Wuyuan's eyes. He even looked down at me with an almost cruel calmness, watching me completely fall apart.
"You knew all along, Commander, didn't you? Nothing escapes the Eastern Depot. How could you not know about the empress's conspiracy? You've been laughing at me, watching me bite Zhang Beiyu like a mad dog."
"Zhang Nanji, do you think you survived in the Eastern Depot because you are tough? Or because of the scraps of intelligence you provided? You thought you were using my power to get your revenge. But in truth, from the moment you were stuffed into a sack and thrown into the imperial prison, you, myself, and indeed the entire Eastern Depot have all been pawns of Zhang Beiyu."
"A chess piece? She is just a woman confined to the inner chambers. How could she possibly use the Eastern Depot as her chess piece? You hold the power of life and death, Director. How could you possibly be at her mercy?"
Wei Wuyuan did not argue. He turned and walked to the desk, pulled open a drawer, and tossed a medallion forged from dark iron in front of me. Engraved on the medallion was a coiled five-clawed golden dragon that represented the supreme secret imperial order, as if the emperor himself were present.
The Director is the royalists' last hidden agent.
"His Majesty has tolerated the empress's clan for many years. Li Chongjing formed cliques for private gain, plotting to force the emperor to abdicate. His Majesty has long wanted to take action, but the Duke of Chen's estate holds military power. His Majesty needed a legitimate pretext, ironclad evidence that would seal the crown prince's faction's death sentence for treason. A month ago, on the night your mother died, Zhang Beiyu came to the Eastern Depot's prison alone. She handed over all of the Zhang family's private account books, and presented to me, as well as to His Majesty, an inescapable death trap."
"What kind of death trap?"
"She proposed that the Zhang family would deliver all three million taels of illicit silver to the Eastern Palace, to serve as the military funds for the crown prince's rebellion. On the wedding night, as soon as the illicit silver is secured in the treasury, Li Chongjing will launch his military mutiny, and Zhang Beiyu, as the crown princess, will stall Li Chongjing for His Majesty at the wedding banquet, until the Eastern Depot's army surrounds them. She is using the lives of the entire Zhang family as bait, in exchange for Li Chongjing's death sentence for treason."
"She is insane. She is even going to kill herself. Then why did she send me here? Why did she beat me? Why did she call me a mad dog born of a lowly concubine?"
"Because the Eastern Depot is the only place in the capital where the empress cannot reach. When the nest is overturned, no egg remains intact. The entire Zhang family is doomed to die. If she hadn't treated you as a discarded piece and thrown you into this palace of Yama, do you think you would have survived until today? She used the most heartless method to forcibly extend your life."