The Method
On the way to the main hall, Bai Jingyan heard the situation from Mama Jin — quite a few people from the clan had come to visit this time. Besides the clan head, several elders of high standing had accompanied him.
Bai Jingyan could guess what they were about. The clan head had brought the clan elders along to pressure her. They would no doubt try to persuade her to rescue the sons of the Bai clan kin who had run rampant in Suyang.
From what Mama Jin said, the clan head apparently hadn't mentioned the detained clansmen to her mother at all. He had merely handed over the property deed and said he wished to clear up a misunderstanding.
When Bai Jingyan arrived at the main hall, the clan head, as expected, lowered himself to the utmost and rose to offer her a bow.
"Commandery Princess."
Bai Jingyan seated herself beside Lady Dong with a dignified stride, then spoke with a smile.
"Elders, please, sit."
The clan head hastily produced the property deed.
"I have come to return the deed to the ancestral residence to you, Commandery Princess. Last time, I suppose some urgent matter called you away — you left before I could even finish speaking. So this time I have come in person."
Chun Tao stepped briskly before the clan head, paid her respects, and received the deed, then handed it meekly to Lady Dong.
A faint flush crept over the clan head's face. He clearly had not expected Bai Jingyan to pass the deed straight to her mother.
Watching this unfold, one of the clan elders hurried to speak.
"Onoya only stayed at the residence briefly. By the time we departed, she had already moved out, and the house had been cleaned spotless — you needn't worry, Commandery Princess."
"Elders, you've had a long journey."
Bai Jingyan nodded to the elders, then asked slowly.
"You've come all this way without so much as a word of warning, and Grandmother doesn't yet know. Shall I send someone to inform her?"
"We would never dare trouble the Grand Princess herself. The reason for this visit is that we have a favor to ask of you, Commandery Princess."
The clan head exchanged a brief glance with the other elders before speaking at length.
"We hope you might put in a word with Magistrate Zhu of Suyang County. Ask him, if you would, to release the Commandery Princess's cousins from prison."
Lady Dong arched a brow. So that was why they had abandoned all pretense of seniority and groveled so thoroughly. There was a reason a man who had once stood shoulder to shoulder with Duke Zhenguo Bai Weiting was setting aside all his airs.
She lowered her eyes and leisurely sipped her tea. She could roughly imagine what tricks her daughter had employed in Suyang.
Bai Jingyan said nothing, merely tapping the table with a finger. One of the elders, anxious that she might refuse, hastily pressed on.
"More than half the clansmen have been taken into custody, and everyone is terrified. That is why we have rushed to Dadu to beg you, Commandery Princess. Just say one word to Magistrate Zhu! If you so much as drop a single word to him, he will never dare keep our clansmen locked up."
Before Bai Jingyan could open her mouth, Lady Dong set her teacup down on the table with a sharp clack and swept her gaze across the clan elders.
"Elders, what exactly is this talk? You haven't even told us what crimes the clansmen committed, and you expect my daughter to throw her authority as Commandery Princess around and demand that Magistrate Zhu release them? One word from her, and the magistrate simply frees them?
How very convenient your tongues are, elders. With such shameless, boundless arrogance on display, am I to understand you hold the laws of Great Jin in utter contempt? Are you saying my daughter, a mere Commandery Princess, stands above the law of Great Jin?"
Bai Jingyan sat coldly at her mother's side and took a slow sip of tea. She looked as though she had no intention of saying a word.
The hand gripping the clan head's cane tightened. He regretted handing over the deed so hastily. If he had known this would happen, he would have extracted a promise of help from Bai Jingyan first.
But given the circumstances, the clan head had no choice but to keep groveling to the very end.
"Commandery Princess, we are, after all, of the same blood — the same clan, the same Bai. One day the Bai family of Dadu, and all its women, will return to Suyang. In this life, you will need your clansmen more than once. Why else do we call ourselves kin, if not to protect one another, help one another, and lend a hand when it is needed?"
The elder seated directly below the clan head hurriedly chimed in.
"Quite right — and those boys are your cousins, near your own age, Commandery Princess. There are no men left in the Bai family of Dadu. One day, whether your household takes in a son-in-law, or the daughters marry out, or children are adopted in from the clan, you will need your kinsmen's help — you will have to lean on your brothers, will you not? And furthermore... if your cousins one day accomplish great deeds and win merit and renown, they will surely repay the debt they owe you."
Lady Dong gave a cold laugh. Her tone and manner were resolute.
"Elders, spare us the meaningless talk. Enough of 'the same Bai family' and 'the same blood.' If you need my daughter's help, then say so plainly. What crimes did the clansmen actually commit? Am I simply to take your word for it? If they committed murder and plunder, then my daughter has no reason to carry that burden for them."
Bai Jingyan kept her lips pressed firmly shut while Lady Dong pressed the attack at full force. The clan head had never been treated this way in the Bai house of Dadu. For a moment, his composure cracked and his face twisted.
"Ever since Weiting and Qishan passed, Lady Dong, your attitude toward the clan has changed a great deal. Are you not afraid their unsettled spirits will find no peace?"
Their spirits — of her grandfather Bai Weiting and her father Bai Qishan. She should never have let those words slip. The moment she invoked the two men, it was like pouring oil on fire; Lady Dong's fury surged to the heavens. With phoenix eyes gone sharp and fierce, she glared at the clan head.
"Our Bai family has been struck by tragedy. Every man of ours lost his life in the Southern Border. And what did the clan do? It sent Bai Qiyun here, spouting demands — claiming my father-in-law and Qishan had promised to provide for the clan in every way, demanding more and more. The women left in the Bai house scraped together our entire fortune to gather the silver.
When Bai Qiyun offered incense, my father-in-law and Qishan refused his offering three times in a row! Was their fear for their own restless spirits too much for them then? Why on earth should I be afraid?"
At the mention of that incident, the elders' faces froze. One by one, they furtively looked away.
Lady Dong poured out every word she had swallowed back until now.
"Snatching mud from a swallow's beak as it builds its nest, melting down iron to forge needles, scraping gold leaf from the face of a Buddha statue, wringing oil from a mosquito's belly — those sayings all seem to have been coined for the sake of the Bai clan of Suyang. You stripped us of our silver to the last coin, and now you mean to squeeze even the private authority of the Bai house of Dadu for your own use? How impressive."
Listening to her mother's furious words, Bai Jingyan bowed her head and smothered a laugh.
The clan head's face burned red at Lady Dong's tirade. Then, gritting his teeth, he looked at Bai Jingyan and spoke with loaded meaning.
"The Bai clan rises and falls together, Commandery Princess. If one falls, all fall! With your cousins imprisoned, it cannot bode well for your own reputation."
"And would 'the Commandery Princess stood by while her clansmen treated the lives of Suyang's people as no more than grass' sound any better?"
Bai Jingyan set down her teacup and continued.
"Ravishing common women, beating innocents to death, seizing another family's ancestral residence — tossing about a few taels of silver to force shopkeepers to sell their storefronts, hounding an old widower to his death. Is that all? To obtain a secret prescription passed down through generations in a commoner's family, they conspired with the magistrate's office to drive the poor man to ruin. All of it, the work of your clansmen."
The clan head flinched, then finally spoke against his own conscience.
"That is nothing but the lies of lowborn wretches. It never happened."
"Bai Jingjie was caught red-handed in the middle of one of his misdeeds. He claimed, with his own mouth, that the Commandery Princess was his backer. And that the Commandery Princess had met privately with the Crown Prince — that she was a future Empress. Am I telling lies as well?"
Bai Jingyan fixed the clan head with a gaze cold enough to pierce bone.
Bai Jingjie was the clan head's own grandson.
The moment Lady Dong heard that the Suyang clansmen had trampled her daughter's reputation, she lost all reason — she hurled the teacup from her hand and shot to her feet.
"Mama Jin! Tell Nuoping to bring the Huwei guards. Drive these people out at once!"
Lady Dong had swallowed her rage when they tormented the pitiful women left in the Bai house, when they schemed to strip away even their property. But to demean her daughter — to use her daughter's name as a shield for their crimes — she could never forgive!
All this time she had endured, refusing to feud with the clan. Today, come what may, she would have it out with them properly.
The whole of Dadu, the whole world would know: from this day forward, the Bai family of Dadu and the Suyang clan could never again live under the same sky!
Otherwise, it would not merely be a crack in her daughter's reputation — if such an outrageous rumor reached the Emperor's ears, he would believe it and truly begin to suspect that the Bai family had designs on the Empress's seat.
Ever since the Bai men had all perished in the Southern Border, the plots and slander had not ceased for a single day. The Bai family had walked on thin ice at every moment, at times nearly to the point of discussing the clan's very survival.
It had held on because her daughter kept her every nerve taut, gritted her teeth, and propped it up. Had it not been so, the Bai family would surely not have survived in this world.
She had never once imagined the clan would share in their hardship. But she would not let these bottomless, insatiable creatures become a stumbling block in her daughter's future. She would not stand by and let them soil her daughter's name.
The clan head leapt up in alarm.
"Lady Dong! What are you saying? Have you resolved never to return to Suyang? Do you mean to disown the clan entirely?"
"A clan like this is better off nonexistent."
Bai Jingyan spoke with leisurely calm, rising to her feet and smoothing out the creases in her clothes as if to leave.
"Stand right there!"
The clan head trembled from head to toe with rage.
"I merely asked you to put in a word for us. What could be so difficult that you show us this insolence? I know you have sworn never to marry. Do you mean to let the clan's incense die out even in your old age?"
"The clan's incense? Incense that my own grandfather and father dared not accept — how could I possibly presume to receive it?"
Bai Jingyan turned, regarding the clan head with eyes that were calm yet unfathomably deep.
"It seems you have forgotten something, Clan Head. I am no daughter of some ordinary household. I am a descendant of Duke Zhenguo of the Bai family of Dadu. In honor of my grandfather's will, when war breaks out and the people suffer, I am one who steps forward to offer her body first and protects the people at the risk of her own life. In life, I shall live by the people's bounty; in death, I shall receive the people's incense! What need have I of a clan?"
The elders exchanged glances, feeling their throats go dry as they beheld Bai Jingyan in full, blazing force. The Commandery Princess held an illustrious rank and received a stipend. Above all, Bai Jingyan was a master of war — she had, from the very start, commanded enormous prestige among the people ever since the conquest of Shu.