Chapter 7

The shade was green, the flowers dense, the warm breeze light.

Wang Yun was away. Wang Xi was consulting books in his study.

As usual, I lounged beside him, casually waving a round white fan and pretending to yawn.

There was no room for all those chests in the study. What if it had a hidden room?

Behind a bamboo curtain stood a Buddhist shrine with a bodhisattva’s statue.

So many chests would warp the floor beneath their weight.

And from the threshold to the shrine, the floorboards sagged slightly… I fixed my eyes on the shrine beyond the curtain.

The hidden room must be behind it.

“Go and rest if you’re tired.” Wang Xi rubbed my wrist.

“I want to stay with you.”

Pomegranate flowers bloomed richly outside the window. I went over, broke off a sprig, twirled it in my hand, and casually lifted the curtain to step into the shrine.

Wang Xi turned a page, glanced at me, and gave a quiet laugh. “What, have you taken to believing in bodhisattvas?”

He knew I did not believe in gods or Buddhas.

Playing with the pomegranate sprig, I looked back with a smile. “I don’t. But if there happens to be one, I want to ask it to bless us lovers with marriage.”

I knelt on the cushion and looked around.

Where was the mechanism?

The kindly bodhisattva shone. The area around its base was spotless, though incense ash lay elsewhere in the shrine.

They must turn the statue often.

“What are you thinking?” The curtain stirred. Wang Xi followed me in and bent to embrace me.

“Why did you come in? To pray too? Don’t you disbelieve as well?”

He smiled, swept his robe aside, and knelt on a cushion.

“I’ll believe with you this once.”

I turned to look at him. Hands joined, eyes closed in prayer, he wore a devout expression. Soft light lay over his face. He looked just like a believer.

Wang Xi…

I looked away, rose, and went out. With my back to him, I added a drug and poured tea. “You must be thirsty, Brother. Come and drink.”

He parted the curtain and approached, raising his hand to take it. I moved the cup away, sipped some myself, held it in my mouth, and came close, pointing at my red, inviting lips.

“Hm?”

“Mm.”

His gaze was so deep it made my heart flutter wildly.

Wang Xi fell asleep. I closed and barred the door so no one could disturb me, then turned the bodhisattva statue.

Just as I had thought. Behind the shrine, steps led down to an entire spacious chamber stacked with chests. I opened one. Gleaming yellow gold.

Even as a Grand Secretary, Wang Yun could not earn so much in a year’s salary. The court explicitly forbade officials to engage in commerce. Where had all this gold come from? Embezzlement, surely. A ledger lay on a nearby table. I opened it: relief funds, bridge construction funds… every account was plainly itemized.

I could not take the ledger. I could only copy it. There was so much; I selected the largest entries and committed them to memory.

Enough to bring Wang Yun down for good.

When Wang Xi woke, I was already beside him, brush in hand, about to draw on his face.

He caught my hand and smiled. “What mischief are you up to?”

My heart pounded.

“If I did something bad, would you forgive me?”

I was like a prisoner awaiting judgment, eager to hear the sentence and afraid of it.

His voice, just after waking, was a little tired, a little lazy.

“That would depend on what.”

“You really don’t know how to coax anyone. Aren’t you supposed to say, ‘Of course I would’?”

Wang Xi looked down at me. “I’m no saint.” He paused. “Just don’t lie to me.”

My heart lurched.