Chapter 27: Huaizhen’s Soft Heart
The next day.
Because she had to go out for her task, Lin Shuang didn’t make anything fancy. Everything was light—porridge, steamed buns, and vegetables, with a few extra boiled eggs.
Although Old Madam Jiang was old, her hearing and eyesight were sharp. She had been suspicious when Hu Guiying came yesterday, and with Lin Shuang’s special care for Jiang Huaizhen this morning, she knew what her granddaughter was going to do. She couldn’t help but nag a few more times.
Jiang Huaizhen was used to it. After breakfast, she left with a few steamed buns that Lin Shuang had wrapped for her.
After tidying up the house, Lin Shuang still couldn’t help but worry about her.
The previous condemned prisoners were all incorrigible criminals, but today’s servant was truly pitiful. She was afraid that Jiang Huaizhen would overthink it.
So, after telling the old woman, she also left for the city.
The execution was set for the third quarter of the Hour of the Horse.(11 a.m. to 1 p.m.) Seeing that it was still early, Lin Shuang went to the blacksmith’s shop from the other day.
She had a few more details she wanted to discuss with the owner.
When she arrived, the old blacksmith was busy hammering away at the frying pan they had ordered.
The owner readily noted down her requests and said she could pick it up in three days.
After leaving the shop, Lin Shuang went to the execution grounds.
It was still at the same market square. The bailiffs and the prisoner were already in place. Jiang Huaizhen stood at the edge of the execution platform, not far behind the prisoner, her right thumb rubbing the plain hemp wrapped around the hilt of her saber.
She was wearing a long black robe underneath and a dark red jacket over it. A black belt was tied around her waist, making her look very tall.
A red ribbon, used to ward off evil spirits, was braided into her high ponytail and hung by her ear. A few stray hairs from the back of her neck were blown onto her cheek by the wind, adding a touch of softness to her stern temperament.
Because of her good performance in the previous executions, people had already accepted her identity as an executioner, and the focus of their discussion was no longer on her.
A few young girls with vegetable baskets squeezed to the front of the wooden fence. Their silk handkerchiefs covered their mouths and noses but couldn’t hide their shining eyes.
“I heard this executioner is a woman…”
“How do you know?”
“People from her village said so.”
“Why would the yamen hire a woman to be an executioner?”
“What’s wrong with that? There’s no rule that says women can’t be executioners.”
“That’s true…”
“It doesn’t matter if she’s a woman. She’s so good-looking. I love watching girls like this wield a big saber.”
“Looking at it this way, a woman holding an executioner’s saber is even more handsome than the swordsmen in the storybooks…”
The girls whispered among themselves and squeezed forward a little more to get a better look at her.
Jiang Huaizhen paid no attention to this, her head lowered, leaning against the edge of the execution platform. A yamen runner in a black robe next to her was beating a bronze gong, reading out the prisoner’s crimes.
In the crowd, the relatives and friends of the deceased had all come, crying and huddling together.
And in the best viewing position, directly opposite the execution platform, many wealthy families had also come to join in the fun.
Someone was fanning themselves with a gold-flecked folding fan and sneered, “This kind of dog servant who kills her master should be drawn and quartered—”
“Exactly. This kind of lowly bitch who attacks her superior should be cut into a thousand pieces and die a horrible death.”
Some disagreed, and they pushed and cursed at each other, creating a chaotic mess.
Jiang Huaizhen stood there with a blank expression, as if all this had nothing to do with her.
Until her pant leg was pulled.
She looked down and saw an old woman in her sixties looking up at her with teary eyes. She stuffed a heavy package under her pant leg and pleaded in a low voice, “Little Lord Jiang… I beg you… let her go peacefully…”
Next to the old woman stood a few raggedly dressed men, women, and children, all with looks of grief on their faces.
These were the family of the condemned prisoner.
They were bribing her, begging her to be quick and clean when she did it, so the maid wouldn’t suffer too much…
This was not the first time Jiang Huaizhen had heard of a condemned prisoner’s family bribing an executioner. When Jiang Gui was still alive, sometimes when they were chopping winter melons together, he would tell her about these trivial matters.
She had asked, “Did Father accept those bribes?”
Jiang Gui had said, “They were delivered to my door, why wouldn’t I take them? It’s just a matter of one stroke. Everyone gets what they want. Otherwise, how could Father support this family by just chopping five or six prisoners a year?”
She couldn’t understand it at the time. Now that it was happening to her, she felt a chill run through her.
Just then, a bailiff from the side came over, bent down, and waved his stick at the people below the stage, shouting, “Go, go—don’t interfere with the execution here—”
The old woman was pushed away. She looked back at Jiang Huaizhen and cried, “Little Lord Jiang—don’t torture her—she’s suffered enough—”
Jiang Huaizhen’s thin lips were pressed tightly together. She lowered her head, looked at the tips of her shoes, and didn’t meet her eyes.
More and more people were squeezing into the execution grounds. The bailiffs on the stage were walking back and forth, repeatedly reciting the prisoner’s crimes. She took the opportunity to adjust her pant leg, bent down, and took the heavy bag of copper coins that had been stuffed into her boot, putting it in her waist pocket.
And in the crowd, Lin Shuang had also seen this.
It wasn’t until the supervising official shouted, “The hour has come! Execute—”
Jiang Huaizhen raised her saber and walked behind the prisoner.
The token fell, and her great saber was raised high.
Some people in the crowd were crying, and some were shouting, “Let her die a horrible death—” “Cut her eighty-one times before you let her die, the bitch who betrayed her master and killed him—”
A sparse beam of light from the sky reflected off the blade, creating a blinding glare.
The great saber swung down, and before the crowd could even blink, the head had already fallen.
The execution was over.
A wave of dissatisfaction erupted from the crowd. “Can’t that executioner understand human language—” “This bastard—did someone give him money? Didn’t our people give him any?”
Jiang Huaizhen seemed to not hear the surrounding discussion. She wrapped the blade in a black cloth, left the execution grounds without looking back, and headed for the yamen.
Lin Shuang followed her from a distance, watching her enter the yamen.
Jiang Huaizhen received one tael of silver this time. Perhaps it was because one tael was too little for the petty official to bother skimming. Or perhaps it was because Hu Guiying had gone with her to the Household Department, and the petty official didn’t dare to do anything in front of others, so he gave her the full tael.
She tried her best to ignore the lowered head of the female prisoner on the execution platform just now, and the tear-streaked face of the old woman by the side. She forced herself to calculate, how much would each of the three parts be if she divided this one tael of silver according to what Lin Shuang had said last night?
She didn’t even pay attention to what Hu Guiying was chattering about in her ear.
It wasn’t until she was about to leave the yamen that she suddenly asked, “Where is Zhao Mei’er’s home?”
Zhao Mei’er was the name of the servant who had killed her master, the female prisoner Jiang Huaizhen had executed today.
Lin Shuang was standing outside the yamen, having just given directions to someone. When she turned back, she saw that Jiang Huaizhen, who had been in her red clothes, had already left the yamen at some point. But she wasn’t heading for the east gate, which they usually used to leave the city, but for the west gate.
She quickly followed.
After leaving the west gate, Jiang Huaizhen followed the address Hu Guiying had given her and found Zhao Mei’er’s dilapidated home in a village called Han Village.
The Zhao family had just returned from the execution grounds, crying as they walked home. When they arrived, they saw Jiang Huaizhen standing outside their door.
The old woman was Zhao Mei’er’s grandmother. Although her eyes were cloudy, she recognized the person before her as the executioner who had carried out the sentence on her granddaughter.
Thinking of how her quick and clean stroke had not caused her granddaughter too much suffering, she quickly knelt down, trembling, to thank her.
Jiang Huaizhen quickly helped her up, then took the bag of copper coins she had given her from her pocket, placed it in her hand, and left the Zhao residence without a word.
The old woman watched her leave, holding the money bag, and couldn’t help but cry, “There are still good people in this world…”
“Mei’er, my poor child—why didn’t you meet a good person—”
The few people next to her were all crying bitterly.
Jiang Huaizhen held the saber in her hand tightly, her face expressionless, letting the cries enter her ears.
But after just twenty paces, as if she had realized something, she suddenly turned her head and saw a girl in plain clothes standing at the corner of the house, her eyes looking at her softly.
“…What are you doing here?”
Lin Shuang smiled. “Waiting for you to come home.”
The lump that had been in Jiang Huaizhen’s throat suddenly cleared.
She stood there, waiting for Lin Shuang to walk over, link her arm, and walk out toward the village entrance.
…
The two of them didn’t take a cart and just walked back at a leisurely pace.
Jiang Huaizhen remembered the reward money she had just received, stopped, and took out a small coarse cloth bag from her inner pocket, handing it to Lin Shuang. “Today’s income.”
Lin Shuang smiled and took it. “I’ll exchange it for five hundred copper coins for you when we get back.”
“Alright,” Jiang Huaizhen’s expression was clearly more relaxed, as if she had temporarily forgotten what had happened before. “I have over two taels now.”
The medicine her grandmother was taking now was twenty copper coins per dose. Even if she had to take it for a long time, the emergency fund they had saved could last for several months. And in these few months, they would definitely not be standing still with no income.
In the two years since her grandmother had fallen ill, the first year had already used up all the savings her father had left. In the following days, with no income, they had sold almost everything they could. On the night a few days ago when her grandmother had coughed up blood, there were only seven copper coins left in the jar. She had gone to several houses in the rain to borrow money but couldn’t even get in the door. Fortunately, the village chief and Head Constable Lu had later extended a helping hand, lending her five taels of silver to get through the difficult time.
Life was very difficult, and she could hardly see a future.
But since Lin Shuang had arrived, the family had had an income almost every day, and she and her grandmother could eat and drink well at every meal.
For the past two years, she had never dared to imagine that there would be a day when things would get better. But now, it seemed that everything was slowly improving.
Lin Shuang smiled. “We have about eight hundred copper coins for living expenses now, and the remaining part has also saved up over one tael and two hundred. We can start a small business.”
As for what to do, of course, it was to make sauce flatbreads.
Since Jiang Huaizhen had spent so much money to get her a frying pan, she had to make good use of it, right? Thinking back to Hu Guiying’s wolfing down the flatbread yesterday, she was very confident in the sauce flatbread business.
“In a couple of days, when we go to the city, we’ll see where we can set up a stall. We also need to ask about the price of charcoal. The flatbreads have to be freshly made and hot to be delicious. Firewood smoke is not good, so we have to use charcoal.”
Jiang Huaizhen said, “We don’t have to buy charcoal outside. We can make our own.”
“Do you know how?”
“Yes. The mountain is right behind our house, and it’s full of trees. When Father was still alive, he would make charcoal every year. Grandma can’t stand the cold. Before you came, it was about this time of year that we would have to make it. But since we built the heated kang, and I haven’t had time, I wasn’t in a hurry. Since we need it now, I’ll go and make it tomorrow.”
Lin Shuang was delighted. “You really know how to do everything. We can save another expense.”
Jiang Huaizhen said with some embarrassment, “I just don’t know how to cook.”
“It’s alright, I do,” Lin Shuang said. “But if you eat my cooking every day, you’ll get tired of it one day.”
“I won’t,” Jiang Huaizhen said softly.
