Jiang Man did not believe her.
Jiang Man should not believe her.
She should not believe her… Jiang Man and Shen Wen gazed at each other; seeing the look in her eyes, hearing her words echo in her mind, she felt an extravagant, unmerited hope she should not have.
Jiang Man wanted so badly to believe her—whatever it was she said.
Shen Wen started, then suddenly laughed: “You don’t believe me.”
Jiang Man dared not blink. If she moved the slightest bit, the tears would surely fall. Somewhat rudely, she kept her head raised, looking down at her ever so slightly: “Yes.”
“What nerve you have.” She narrowed her eyes.
“Does the Female Scribe prefer the bold, or the timid?”
Shen Wen seemed rather choked; she studied her a while, then turned her back and said instead: “Take the kerchief and wipe those tears. What a sight you make.”
“Presumably not an unlovely sight.” Jiang Man seized the chance, wiping her tears clean in a flash, then acting as if nothing had happened. “Today’s instruction from the Female Scribe, this humble one will engrave upon her heart, not forgetting a single word. Xiaojiu’s rashness today…”
“I won’t hold it against you.” Shen Wen cut her off. “And forget about going out. The day Old Xie softens is the day you return to being my vanguard. Eating free bread, then—eat free bread. In your view, with my wealth, could I not afford to keep one or two freeloaders like you?”
Jiang Man paused. Shen Wen’s words were that ugly, yet she could hear only the kindness in them. She thought she must truly be bewitched—but Jiang Man could not say a single word.
Just as she was stammering, two light knocks sounded from outside.
Huailou’s voice came: “Female Scribe. The little servant the Steward dismissed has been found; he waits at the back gate now.”
The voice was neither loud nor soft; both of them should have heard it clearly. But Shen Wen only lowered her eyes, came over, and with her thumb gently smoothed the corner of Jiang Man’s eye, studying her a while longer before saying: “Bring him in at once.”
“Yes.”
Jiang Man hid behind Shen Wen, tidying herself a little, somewhat flustered. Her heart was like a frost-bound field of snow with hooves striking upon it, so that her eyes and mind were filled with nothing but snow, and she could not see the road ahead—only make out the tracks the flying horse had left.
Though she did not believe her, the one who, in this moment, quietly shielded her, who in this moment protected her, was indeed Shen Wen.
That Shen Wen could be so meticulous, granting her a measure of dignity—this fact, it seemed, Jiang Man could never have predicted.
When the man was brought in, however intense the emotions in the study, they all scattered in competition.
Jiang Man lit the burner, pressed the incense ash flat, and carefully traced an Incense Seal, no longer approaching Shen Wen. Shen Wen likewise kept far from her, lounging before the desk, leaning askew against the chair’s armrest, her curtain-dense lashes lowered, eyes half closed. At her side stood Huailou, and behind Huailou, the little servant and his escorts. Jiang Man kept to the farthest spot; of Shen Wen’s divided attention she could not allow herself to hope.
Yet she felt that Shen Wen was looking at her.
And if not looking at her, then thinking of her.
She lit the fire; the moment the flame died, the fragrance woke at once. A thread of smoke was carried away by the retreating Jiang Man, along with her wandering thoughts. Jiang Man hid in the deepest corner, nearly pressed against the screen. Her face grew scalding hot again. Behind that screen stood a low couch that could seat or sleep one person, with no railing around it and no bedding to be seen—only a cold Porcelain Pillow, not yet covered with a pillowcase.
Jiang Man had never seen Shen Wen rest here, yet this couch clearly had one master only: Shen Wen.
Shen Wen’s left hand, still resting on the armrest, waved lightly twice, and the two sturdy men who had escorted the servant withdrew. As Jiang Man closed the door she noticed Sijiu was absent—perhaps off painting. This business was likely important; to have no one keeping watch outside seemed careless. She happened to want a breath of cold air anyway, so after adding a cup of water for Shen Wen, she pulled the door softly shut behind her and slipped out.
This little servant—Jiang Man knew Huailou had long since sent people making inquiries in every direction.
Around the time Accountant Mr. He died, the garden had indeed dismissed someone. The Hidden Osmanthus Garden had countless laborers of all sorts, and this servant was only a one-year short-term hire; perhaps he had committed some fault, and dismissed was dismissed. Jiang Man was never one to meddle; she had only happened to hear that one sentence, and she was hardly familiar with the garden’s serving people—why would she press for details?
The study’s affairs were inherently numerous and tangled; by the time Huailou thought to look for this man, nearly half a month had passed. Never mind asking Jiang Man—even asking Steward Dong himself, he likely couldn’t say on which exact day the man had been let go.
But Huailou had not gone to ask Dong Linyuan.
The search had been conducted with great discretion; the sturdy men who escorted the servant over were unfamiliar faces too. Jiang Man knew Huailou must already have traced things to Steward Dong, but mindful of avoiding suspicion, she had not asked a single question.
Steward Dong had naturally produced a suitable pretext—after all, a man serving as steward of so exalted a garden was bound to have such tricks. The servant had believed it too; taking his thin silver, he had gone to the broker’s house to strike his name from the rolls, and had been doing odd jobs at the canal wharf these past weeks.
Counting the surrounding counties, the people within and without Lin’an Prefecture were beyond counting—what method Huailou had used to fish the man out in just a few days, who knew?
But was this her skill, or Shen Wen’s? Thinking of Jiang Ling’s affair, Jiang Man felt a thin, faint thread of hope—but one breath of wind scattered it.
The Steward’s pretext—whether the man himself or the handlers believed it, the few in the study who knew the inside story certainly did not.
On the night Mr. He died, the servant had been sent out of the Hidden Osmanthus Garden.
From inside came a few scattered words; Jiang Man could tell the man was carefully recounting everything he had done, fearing to offend Steward Dong, fearing to violate the rules of this place. But he was only a laborer who couldn’t scrape up a drop of oil; begging a cup of tea on an errand, receiving a small tip—those were already the best of days. What great error could he have committed, to be driven from the residence in the middle of the night?
The speaker didn’t know the true meaning, but every listener understood.
This servant had relayed one message wrongly.
That day he had been sent to the He household to offer condolences. Dingxiang’s two elder sisters were home tending their sick father, and had answered through their grief that he probably wouldn’t make it. But the servant had a side job of his own—he was rushing to deliver some article the garden no longer needed to a pawnshop for appraisal. By the time the message passed through another’s hands to Steward Dong, it had become: the man was already dead. The words became prophecy—Mr. He did pass away that afternoon—yet within this, there lay a discrepancy of hours.
Without that discrepancy, how would they ever have discovered that one “Dong Chuan” had drawn so many phantom wages? How would they have known that the accounting office and the money vault were secretly colluding, the guardians robbing the store themselves?
That night Shen Wen did not erupt; she only had Huailou pay the servant his severance silver as well, dismissed him for good, and had him taken out again that same night. The matter still needed thorough investigation. Fortunately, Steward Dong believed he had managed everything cleanly; even if he moved again, he would be a step slower.
But Jiang Man had little confidence. Such a small thing as the unreturned promissory note—Sijiu had only mentioned it at noon in the Water Room, and by dusk Steward Dong had found time to return it. His sources of news in the garden might well be quicker than Shen Wen the Household Master’s. Even if the servant had left by the back gate, with one more person coming and going for nothing, how long could that stay hidden?
She had thought of this; Huailou, meticulous as a hair, surely wouldn’t miss it either. She felt a tightness in her chest. This was a matter under Shen Wen’s governance, but Jiang Man could not help connecting it to her own situation: to this day, whether Jiang Yun, the steward of her own house, had opened a back door for Lu Ping, who fled with the funds—she had no certainty at all.
However exalted Shen Wen might be, a steward is always a right arm and a left.
Jiang Yun’s loyalties were unclear, and that alone made her this anxious—Dong Linyuan’s treachery was proven fact. How could she tolerate such a man doing evil at the side of her own bed?
These days Shen Wen still went out as usual, only keeping Sijiu in the garden and taking Huailou along. Sijiu had her copying to do, and Jiang Man was left entirely idle, spending most of her time in the Inquiry Studio, pretending only casual interest as she asked about Song Ningning.
The Inquiry Studio was full of the garden’s old hands, and in idle talk, it turned out several of them had seen Lady Song. Fearing to arouse suspicion, Jiang Man did not ask in detail, only inquiring about food, clothing, and daily life, and from their scattered fragments tried to piece together Song Ningning’s half year there, imagining her relationship with Shen Wen.
Keeping a courtesan soon to be sent into the palace in one’s own home, entertaining her meticulously, meeting with her often—Jiang Man could not help thinking much.
Setting aside the future, what Song Ningning had received then was exactly what Jiang Man received now.
In this world there was causeless evil, but causeless kindness there was none. She always felt the way Shen Wen looked at her was wrong—not like looking at her, but like looking at someone from the past. Jiang Man had no way of knowing Shen Wen’s history; this Lady Song was her only thread.
In the mouths of the Inquiry Studio’s old hands, Song Ningning’s eyes held feeling; she could write and paint, and spoke little. She had once lived in a small courtyard in the west wing and had never once come to the Inquiry Studio—that was Jiang Man’s only comfort—but those pitiable, moving features bore some resemblance to Jiang Man’s own.
Beautiful women come in every mold; an occasional resemblance means nothing. Both were to trade beauty for bread—Jiang Man asked about her looks not to compete with a dead woman over some meaningless ranking. She only wanted to know: through her, whom was Shen Wen seeing?
It would certainly not be her, Jiang Man.
That thread of tenderness, now extinguished; that sorrow, flickering still to this day—could never be something Shen Wen had left for Jiang Man.
But the Inquiry Studio people seemed to have misunderstood her meaning; they only exchanged glances, then fell to praising Jiang Man’s looks in unison—whether to flatter her or to frighten her, who could say.
Such looks as hers—apart from drawing calamity, what else could they win back?
Lost in thought, Jiang Man remembered Shen Wen’s features, Shen Wen’s inspections, that sense of something lost and found again that surfaced in Shen Wen’s expression each time she returned at night and met her eyes.
Just past the first days of the third month, the matter was investigated and settled.
Dong Chuan was Steward Dong’s adopted son—originally not surnamed Dong at all; he had taken the name only in these last few years. The money drawn in his name, dragged before the yamen, was enough for a capital crime; he himself could not escape implication, yet what Dong Chuan could skim from it was mere hair and fur.
Long before Shen Wen gave the word to handle it, Steward Dong had already punished the man by household law, driven him from Lin’an, never to be employed again. Accountant Mr. He, his bones not yet cold, was to bear this slander of embezzlement—never mind how mother and daughters like Dingxiang burned with indignation; even strangers who heard of it could not help feeling the chill of shared vulnerability.
Jiang Man had never been able to stomach the likes of Steward Dong—petty advantage-taking, using office for private gain. That the affair had blown up so large and he had been dealt with—Jiang Man felt only satisfaction.
And then, this day, Dong Linyuan, imitating Lian Po, dragged his ailing body forth bearing a thorn branch to beg punishment.
Shen Wen handled it with a light touch: three months’ salary docked. She had truly played the part of Lin Xiangru.
Why?
