A Beast in Human Skin
Nanny Dong continued speaking, quick and methodical, laying everything out in an unbroken chain of logic.
"Prince Liang intends to tell the Duke later that he had known all along how the Duke's eldest daughter was admired by him, and that was why he intercepted the letters sent to her. He will also claim that the Duke promised to return once the Southern Border campaign was concluded and personally arrange the marriage between himself and the eldest daughter! If this letter ever comes to light, her honor would be ruined — and at that point, Prince Liang would step forward, take responsibility, and carry her off as his bride. He even promised that once she married into his household, he would take that woman as his concubine! The treacherous creature agreed to it all, it seems. The letters are in her hands right now. This old servant hasn't been able to take a single one from her yet!"
Bai Jinchi had heard Bai Jingyan's warning in the carriage only moments ago, but the viciousness of Prince Liang's scheme set her blood boiling beyond all restraint. She kicked Chunyan square in the body, then kicked Dong Gil for good measure.
"Your gall has swollen to the size of a mountain! How dare you try to frame our eldest sister!"
Head bowed, Bai Jinchi's eyes darted about, searching for anything that might serve as a weapon. She had decided Dong Gil would be beaten first, and beaten thoroughly.
So that was it. In my past life, this was how Prince Liang persuaded Chunyan. He promised to take her as a concubine, and that was what drove her to do this in his stead. This was the method that let the loyal dead of the Duke's estate die with open eyes, branded as traitors who had sold their country.
Bai Jingyan's gaze slid past the letters clutched tightly in Chunyan's hands and came to rest on Dong Gil, who gritted his teeth and endured the pain without a single whimper. She provoked him deliberately.
"Pass a message back to Chunyan, will you? Tell him my grandfather asked to borrow a precious military treatise from me and demanded a meeting! Men and women past the age of seven do not share a table, so I refused to see him. But out of consideration for both families' dignity, I had Chunyan deliver to him the treatise written in the founding Emperor's own hand. I believed it made my position unmistakably clear — that I wanted no further dealings with Prince Liang — and I assumed he would never cling to this obsession again. Apparently Prince Liang failed to grasp even that!
"A few days later he demanded another meeting, and my mother had to dispatch dozens of Bai household servants to turn him away! When words kept failing to get through, he sent a maid from his own estate to our residence to claim that he and I had been exchanging visits — a scheme to ruin my name! And today, of all days, on the day of our family's funeral procession, he stoops to such vile tricks in all this chaos. Have you no shame at all? What is truly unforgivable is that he tried to forge my late grandfather's name and force this marriage. Am I not telling the truth!"
At Bai Jingyan's open humiliation of Prince Liang, Dong Gil could hold back no longer. Pain throbbed through his chest, but he lifted his chin defiantly and shouted.
"You're the woman who can't even bear children, aren't you? You should count it a blessing that His Highness deigns to favor you! Who else in all of Dadu would have you? His Highness has carried you in his heart like this — how can you behave with such shamelessness!"
A cold smile curved Bai Jingyan's lips. Dong Gil had admitted it. That was all she needed.
Extreme cold bled out from her composed voice — a voice utterly without warmth.
"I believe I made myself amply clear at the Bai manor that day? Prince Liang may be an imperial prince, but I, Bai Jingyan, do not care for such a sneaking, underhanded man. Did I not say I would sooner marry the lowest gutter-rat alive than ever marry him? Instead of reflecting on it, he has only grown more brazen — scheming more viciously each time, crawling about without a shred of dignity. Tell me — how is he any different from a beast wearing human skin?"
At her denunciation of Prince Liang, fury surged through Dong Gil. Rage blazed until his eyes felt ready to split, and his voice tore out of him.
"A beast in human skin, you say? You're the one who's beneath pigs and dogs — the one who left her conscience to the dogs! You're nothing like a match for His Highness at all!"
"Why you wretched little—"
Bai Jinchi lunged forward, curses already spilling from her lips, but Bai Jinxiu seized her arm and hauled her back. Bai Jinxiu's voice rang out, clear and cutting.
"You believe our eldest sister is far beneath Prince Liang's station, and our eldest sister holds Prince Liang in contempt — so why did you come all this way on his behalf? Why did you commit an act that stains another's honor? This is what it means to be without righteousness! If you are Prince Liang's servant, your duty is to counsel him to conduct his affairs openly and honorably — not to abet him in filth like this. That is disloyalty! Unrighteous, and disloyal — what standing does a creature like you have to slander our eldest sister?"
"Your Highness the Grand Princess… Eldest Miss!"
Chunyan cried out through her tears.
"His Highness is sincere toward the eldest Miss! Your Highness, Eldest Miss — judge with clear eyes! This servant did it for the eldest Miss's own future! The eldest Miss struggles even to conceive — among the honored military families of this capital, who would take her as a lawful wife? His Highness alone! When the Duke's estate was in its glory, and again when every man of the estate fell on the battlefield leaving no heir to carry its name, His Highness never wavered — his devotion was single and whole! Eldest Miss, think carefully. In all of Dadu, who but His Highness would strive this hard for your sake!"
To strive so pitifully, so desperately, to win the one he loves… So Chunyan claimed that even when the Duke's estate could no longer pass down its glory, Prince Liang had held Bai Jingyan in his heart all along. Was that not, in the end, true love?
Even among the onlookers, some hearts wavered, moved despite themselves.
"Strive, he says! In all my days I have never seen anyone mistake such vile, despicable scheming for the depth of devotion!"
Fury burned in Dong Qing'e's face.
"He used these means to obtain our eldest sister, and she is supposed to be grateful for it? Whatever this business was — whatever it cost her honor? He forges her grandfather's name to force her into marriage, and she is meant to receive it as kindness and submit? Whose house teaches its daughters such duty?"
Bai Jindong's indignation boiled up from her chest, her voice rising louder and louder.
"He never once chose the honest road of sending a matchmaker to make a proper offer — no, he stoops to this filth again and again, and still claims he'll take my sister as his lawful wife! It beggars belief!"
At last Lady Dong's rage broke loose entirely.
"Did our Bai family ever once entertain a single matchmaker sent by Prince Liang? A devotion that tramples honor and costs human lives just to be kept — my daughter wants none of it! She cannot bear it!"
Bai Jinchi remembered what Bai Jingyan had told her in the carriage. She shook off Bai Jinxiu's hand, strode up to Chunyan, wrenched the letters from her grasp, and spread them open.
"Let me see just what kind of devotion he bears our eldest sister — the kind he can't even bear to have read aloud!"
Bai Jinchi unfolded one of the letters and began to read.
"'To the Honored Duke of Zhenguo — with deepest respect, I have received your esteemed letter. That Jin has stationed troops along the Southern Border…' — wait! This isn't a love letter to our eldest sister at all!"
In that instant, what her eldest sister had told her in the carriage flashed through Bai Jinchi's mind. Her eyes went wide, and she lifted her head to look at the Grand Princess and Bai Jingyan.
"Prince Liang means to frame Grandfather for conspiring with an enemy state to betray the country! That's why he told Chunyan to plant these letters in Grandfather's study!"
Bai Jingyan's face darkened. With a gaze cold enough to pierce bone, she fixed her eyes on Chunyan — still cringing, still too dazed to collect herself — and spoke.
"Keep reading."
"'That Jin has stationed troops along the Southern Border, I already know. I intend to dispatch General Wang Yuanzhe and Yun Paxing, the Grand General of Xiliang, to negotiate with the envoy… As for the letter you sent me in your own hand, Duke of Zhenguo, I return it to you unopened. You would do well to set your mind at ease — I have no wish to leave you with the slightest trouble hereafter.'"
Having finished the letter, Bai Jinchi fished around inside the envelope and found yet another letter. But this one was not written in the Duke's hand at all.
"Grandmother! There's another letter — and this one isn't in Grandfather's hand!"
The Grand Princess reached out with a trembling hand.
"Quickly… quickly, give the letter here!"
Bai Jinchi hurried over and pressed the letter into the Grand Princess's hands.
"This is… this is the founding Emperor's hand, is it not?"
As a princess of the imperial blood, the Grand Princess had naturally been exposed to the founding Emperor's calligraphy — few samples of which survived to this day.
After the Grand Princess had examined the letter purportedly written in the Duke of Zhenguo's own hand, Bai Jingyan looked over it as well. Just as she had expected, the letter was an imitation of the founding Emperor's script.
Prince Liang never ceases to disappoint me!
In the letter, the grandfather — the 'Duke of Zhenguo' — not only reported the precise details of the troop deployments to the Prince of Nanyan, but also declared that the true reason he was leading the seventeen sons of the Bai family to the battlefield was to cement his grip on military power, and that the Bai family would soon become the true masters of Jin.
Every line of the letter struck precisely at what the Emperor harbored in his heart and used to suspect the Bai family. This was why, in her past life, the Emperor had issued the decree that drove the Bai family to destruction.
Bai Jingyan's blood surged hot in her throat. She sank to her knees before the Grand Princess and spoke.
"Grandmother. Before the mourning period, on the day before Jinxiu was to wed, Prince Liang incited Chunyan to lure me into a meeting under the pretense that Grandfather wished to borrow a precious military treatise from me. The treatise I sent him was one written by the founding Emperor's own hand. My intent was to make it unmistakably plain to Prince Liang that the Bai family wanted no dealings with him! Just now, his own servant has already confessed it. Could it be… that Prince Liang, believing what I sent him bore Grandfather's handwriting, copied it deliberately and forged this letter to frame our entire family!"
Tears welled in Bai Jingyan's eyes.
"Everyone calls Prince Liang incompetent and weak — but look at what he has done to us, and tell me that man is incapable of anything! He was never trying to force a marriage upon me. He is trying to destroy the Bai family! What grievance can the Bai family possibly hold against him, that he would employ poison this bitter! Every son of the Bai family gave his life for this country! The only mercy in all of it is that Yin Shuang saw Chunyan meeting his servant in private. If she hadn't… it would have been too late for us all!"
This was a matter far too grave.
Grave enough to turn the blood in the Grand Princess's veins to ice.
If Nanny Dong had not witnessed Chunyan meeting Prince Liang's servant today, those letters would have entered the Duke's estate — and then, with a hundred mouths, the estate could never have explained itself.
The onlookers were just as stunned. Prince Liang was this venomous!
Where the letters had come from, the crowd had now confirmed with their own eyes.
Prince Liang had most likely deceived even his own servant. The man had simply believed he was carrying love letters — that his master wanted the Bai eldest daughter in his estate so desperately he would risk staining her honor to do it. Convinced that Prince Liang cherished a deep and abiding love for the eldest Miss, the servant had been protesting his master's grievances on his behalf until only moments ago.
And yet the truth was that these letters were forged to accuse the late Duke of selling his very country. If the eldest Miss's maid had truly coveted a concubine's place in the princely household and slipped these letters into the Duke's study, the consequences were beyond imagining!
It would have not only heaped infamy upon the honored dead of the Bai family, but left every surviving member of the clan teetering on the edge of ruin.
"No wonder Prince Liang forbade Chunyan on pain of death to open the letters! This was a plot to exterminate the Bai family, root and branch! Grandmother — you said today you would enter the palace and petition His Majesty. You said you would offer to resign your title yourself. When you stand before the Emperor, you must demand justice for the Bai family and see to it that every surviving member of our clan is kept safe!"
Bai Jingyan bowed low before her grandmother.
"A'yan, rise! This old woman will protect you — every one of you!"
The Grand Princess spoke through brimming tears, her voice trembling with grief and iron resolve.