"Smack!"
Magistrate Zhu struck his gavel again and thundered: "You said you saw a black figure kill him and vault the wall to flee. Then why, when the constables searched the flower bed at the foot of the wall today, did they find no footprints—no sign at all of trampled plants?"
Zhang Yang-shi blinked, her pretty almond eyes rolling once: "This... this..."
Zhang Xian cut in at once: "Your Honor, how would my mother know how the thief snuck into the house? If the yamen's constables can't dig it out, you can't force the blame onto my mother and me."
Damn "mother," don't sully the word—she's only a stepmother... Xu Qian couldn't listen to another line of it.
Magistrate Zhu flew into a rage: "A tongue slick as oil! Take them, apply the instruments!"
That, by and large, was how interrogation went in these times—push the questions, then bring out the torture. With evidence nearly impossible to gather, given the lack of equipment and professional technique, the instruments had become an essential part of the procedure, for all their merits and flaws, and it was hardly surprising how often men had confessions beaten out of them.
Zhang Xian shouted: "Your Honor means to beat a confession out of me? My uncle serves as Scrutinizing Secretary in the Ministry of Rites—surely you wouldn't want a memorial impeaching you."
The "uncle" was, in truth, a distant relative outside the five degrees of mourning. But though the blood was far, the connection was close—the Zhang family had long been funneling benefits to that far-flung kinsman.
A hit right on the nail. Magistrate Zhu's eyebrow twitched; he knew the Zhang family had a bit of background.
"You dare threaten me? Men, twenty strokes of the cane!"
Four runners stepped forward. Two pinned the collar of Zhang Xian's neck between crossed staves while the other two yanked down his trousers, and the runners set to work. The crack of blows filled the courtroom.
Zhang Xian screamed in agony.
Magistrate Zhu watched with a grim face. Twenty strokes of the board would not force a man to confess to murder; fifty might, yet could also beat him to death. And even if Zhang Xian confessed, once the case reached the Ministry of Justice he could still overturn it—don't forget, he had a Scrutinizing Secretary for a kinsman. Far from clearing the books, the Magistrate might find himself charged with extorting a confession under torture.
In the lull while Zhang Xian lay pinned and flogged, Xu Qian beckoned to the attendant at Magistrate Zhu's side.
The attendant hesitated, then edged back a few steps, broke into a trot, and came over.
"Pass a message for me—ask His Honor to pause the court for now. I have an idea." Xu Qian said low.
"What ideas could you have? Don't talk nonsense and drag me down with you." The attendant plainly didn't believe him.
"There's no stopping it. At this rate nothing will be squeezed out, and His Honor is stuck on the horns of a dilemma. He'll agree. I'll stand you a drink afterward." Xu Qian said.
"Fine... fine."
The attendant hurried to Magistrate Zhu and murmured in his ear. The Magistrate at once turned his head toward Xu Qian. He pondered a moment, then drew his gaze back and slapped the gavel: "Take the two into custody. Court is adjourned."
...
The inner hall.
Magistrate Zhu raised the steaming cup a maid had brought him and took a sip. Xu Qian, who had spent a few years muddling through officialdom and knew its rules only half-way, promptly raised his own cup and sipped.
"Xu Ningyan, what idea do you have?"
Xu Qian was surprised at the Magistrate's manner—oddly mild, without laying on any official airs. In his experience, Magistrate Zhu was never this civil to the clerks of the yamen. Could a man really have gotten better-looking since the transmigration?
"I could try."
"Without torture?"
"Naturally."
Magistrate Zhu grew more intrigued, setting down his cup to look over: "Explain, then."
Game theory—you wouldn't understand it anyway, so why explain... Xu Qian smiled: "Allow me to keep a little mystery. Your Honor, just wait for the good news."
...
In the quiet of the sealed room, Yang Zhenzhen was brought in. Her dewy eyes darted about; she could not sit still.
She'd expected the clerk to make trouble for her; instead, whoever had brought her had simply left. But that did little to settle her nerves.
"Creak..."
The wooden door swung open, and a young man in a constable's uniform walked in: tall and straight, with hard-set features and a passably handsome face.
"Don't be nervous. Just a friendly chat." The young man had even brewed tea, all smiles: "You can call me Xu-Sir."
"Xu-sir"? Not used to such fine treatment, Yang Zhenzhen said nothing, watching him warily.
Xu Qian, for his part, was sizing up the beauty. A woman fit to be coveted by a rich man—as flawless as nature could make her, only a shade short of the aunt back home. And her age was just right; in his past life, a woman of thirty was at her juiciest, ripest point.
"All that gold and silk on you—Zhang Yourui treated you well." Xu Qian opened the conversation.
Yang Zhenzhen neither confirmed nor denied.
"Truth be told, a woman your age still childless after all these years—odds are the problem is Zhang Yourui, not you." Xu Qian said.
Yang Zhenzhen had braced for an interrogation. She never expected this young man's manner and tone to be uncannily gentle—nothing like the official badges she'd pictured. And when a woman couldn't conceive, blame almost always landed on her. What Xu Qian said fell sweetly on the ear. Little by little she let her guard slip, and whimpered:
"It's all my fault, my belly's the failure. All those years to finally carry a child, and the master has to be struck down just now."
Her eyes reddened again.
"The dead don't come back." Xu Qian offered a word of comfort, then asked: "Did Zhang Yourui visit the pleasure houses much?"
"He went often, of course." she said. "Since ancient times, which big master or grand official didn't visit the pleasure houses?"
Heavens, best watch what you say... Past fifty, and haunting the pleasure houses, a treasury drained to the dregs... I can almost confirm the baby in your belly is the neighbor's. Girls who adore the night scene never lack for fortune in pregnancy—and neither do wives left to guard an empty bedchamber.
"All of a sudden I understand you." Xu Qian clicked his tongue. "A woman of thirty burns like a wolf, of forty like a tiger, and at fifty she sucks up the very dust. Zhang Yourui was past the half-century mark, frittering away his nights among the painted ladies and leaving you cold—a red apricot branch climbing over the wall is only natural."
"But killing a man is another matter."
Yang Zhenzhen's expression shifted: "This officer, I don't know what you're saying."
Xu Qian smiled. "I read the file. That Zhang Xian is a full seven years younger than you."
Yang Zhenzhen stiffened: "And what is this officer implying?"
"You're an old eagle eating a chick."
"This woman doesn't understand." This time Yang Zhenzhen truly didn't follow.
"Then I'll speak of things you do understand." Xu Qian's voice hardened: "Zhang Yang-shi, you were left to guard an empty bedchamber, aching with loneliness. So you seduced your stepson and did a shameless, lawless thing."
"On the night in question, you took advantage of Zhang Yourui riding out to collect rents and carried on your tryst with your stepson. Who could have known he'd come home early and catch the two of you in the act? Father and son fell to blows, and while they fought, you fetched a vase and smashed it into Zhang Yourui's skull from behind, killing him."
"To cover your crime, you dragged the body into the courtyard and rigged it to look like a thief broke in to rob. Zhang Xian deliberately left footprints on the wall to confirm your story."
Yang Zhenzhen's face turned paper-white, staring at Xu Qian in utter disbelief.
"I didn't. I'm innocent." she cried, hands balled into fists, palms slick with sweat.
Her nerve was cracking... Xu Qian, who had drilled hard in the craft of interrogation, dropped all his gentleness. His face went blank, cold: "Aren't you wondering how I know all this so clearly? Because Zhang Xian already confessed."
Impossible... That was the thought flickering in Yang Zhenzhen's eyes. Her face went a shade paler, but she forced calm and still denied it: "This woman is wronged."
"You think your lover couldn't possibly confess?" Xu Qian's face stayed blank.
He wasn't raging, wasn't threatening—yet somehow the beauty's dread only deepened.
"Because you both thought your handiwork flawless. In fact it was full of holes."
"Zhang Xian left footprints only on the way out over the wall—none on the way in. A thief worthwhile would have emptied their reserves in flight and never left a mark at all. One."
"Two: Zhang Yourui was killed by a blunt blow, not a blade. By Great Feng law, whoever enters a house without cause at night receives eighty strokes of the cane, and the head of the household may strike him down on the spot with impunity." Xu Qian tapped the table: "Tell me, what thief breaking in to rob would go unarmed? Yet Zhang Yourui was beaten to death by a blunt object."
Yang Zhenzhen's face went blank, vacant.
"I'm not done." Xu Qian gave a cold laugh. Having shattered her psychological defenses, next came the killing blow.