Chapter 2

I looked up in disbelief.

My eyes met Lord Li’s by chance.

He seemed merely to glance down and happen to notice me. His gaze was cool and piercing, as inviolate as a snow lotus on a frozen peak.

Even so, for my brother’s sake, I had to summon my courage and try.

“Lord Li.”

Li Jici actually stopped. I fought to calm my pounding heart and approached the terrifying official notorious throughout the imperial court on trembling legs.

“This humble woman is Xie Mengjiao. Lord Li, may I ask whether you remember my brother, Xie Tingshan? He has been imprisoned on a false charge. I beg you to investigate the truth.”

My voice shook with nerves. I had met many of Father’s colleagues at court before, yet for some reason, speaking to Li Jici left me unusually stiff and shy.

With my mind gone blank, my gaze drifted to the belt around his waist.

It was an ordinary official’s belt, clean and unadorned—unlike the belts of his colleagues, with their loops, jade pendants, and sachets. It was perhaps two fingers wide.

It felt strangely familiar, as though I had held that belt with my own hands. One glance, and I somehow knew exactly what it would feel like beneath my fingers.

I shook my head to clear it.

Li Jici narrowed his eyes. He seemed to despise my awkward, nervous manner. In an icy voice, he said, “Official duty admits no private sentiment. I will not wrong an innocent man, but neither will I spare a guilty one. If you hope to rely on a personal connection and beg for leniency, you are indulging in wishful thinking.”

He walked away without looking back.

That night, I dreamed again.

There was the same dim candlelight and the same man overcome with feeling.

I could not see his face. He kissed my neck and murmured, “Jiaojiao, I’m so happy.”

“So happy to see you again.”

He laughed aloud, unable to contain his delight.

But the next moment, his voice filled with hurt and reproach.

“Why did you call me nothing but ‘my lord’? Why were you so afraid of me? Have you already forgotten who I am?”

Who are you?

The question drifted hazily through my mind. I lifted a hand, wanting to brush aside the murky night and see his face.

Just as the candlewick flared and a sudden blaze of light was about to illuminate him, he lowered his head.

He gently laid his palm over mine and threaded our fingers together.

Then he raised my hand and bowed his head even lower.

“How could someone like me ever be worthy of you?” he sighed.

The dream slowly dissolved into the quiet gloom of his self-mockery.

When I opened my eyes, a beam of white light swept past the lattice window.

Without thinking, I looked at my wrist. There were no marks from his kisses.

“Miss! Miss! Wonderful news!” my maid called softly from outside.

Only then did I realize that the passing white light had come from lanterns hastily lit in the middle of the night.

I sprang out of bed, threw on my clothes, and rushed outside.

My brother was standing in the courtyard.

Tears in her eyes, Mother ran her hands over his clothes and his face again and again.

When he saw me, he smiled and spread his arms. “Little sister! Come here!”

I was beside myself with joy.

Heaven had shown mercy. My brother had truly survived this calamity.

I ran to him and hugged him tight. He embraced me and said with feeling, “If not for Lord Li, I would have suffered terribly this time. Little sister, you have no idea what an upright and scrupulous official Li Jici is. The moment he took the case, he investigated through the night. I don’t know how one man can be so sharp-witted, but he untangled that entire snarl of connections by himself. Why did the witnesses lie? Where did the physical evidence come from? Who forged it? Who fabricated it? Who paid the bribes? He sorted all of it out in just a few days.”

“Li Jici is decisive, and his sense of right and wrong is absolute,” my brother continued. “If his family background were not so humble, then with his talent, he might have been assigned straight from the Hanlin Academy to the Grand Secretariat.”

I suddenly remembered those fathomless eyes.

Almost despite myself, I asked one more question.

“Brother, what do you mean by a humble family background?”

My brother smiled at my sheltered innocence. “Can you imagine someone too poor to attend school, forced to crouch outside and listen from the foot of a wall? Can you imagine someone unable to afford a carriage, walking for miles through wind and snow?”

“That was Li Jici. Our teacher took pity on his diligence and waived his tuition. That was how he became our schoolmate.”

I fell silent.

Once my brother was settled, Mother urged me to sleep a little longer.

I lay down, closed my eyes, and slipped into a very brief dream.

It was the bitter heart of winter. A young, thin Li Jici huddled outside the schoolhouse wall, his cold eyes fixed quietly on me.

Like a puppy aggrieved because I had forgotten him.