Stratagem
Bai Jingyan stepped outside with a dark expression. The words Lady Chungyong had spat out in her fury kept circling in her mind.
'The day will come soon when you all weep.'
What could those words be hiding? Bai Jingyan stared blankly at the stone flagstones beneath her feet. Could it be that Lady Chungyong knew something—knew something that made her dare to move against Bai Jinxiu the very moment she married into the household?
Madame Zhang's manner that day at the Chungyong estate had practically radiated confidence. Even though her daughter had hurt someone, not a trace of fear showed in her. Chungyong Hou was a cautious, timid man by nature—so even if the Bai family's disregard for his estate's dignity in dragging Bai Jinxiu away had enraged him, with right and wrong already laid bare for all to see, where on earth had she found the courage to take such an aggressive stance?
A chill ran down Bai Jingyan's spine. Just how many of Dadu's great families were entangled in the Bai family's calamity?
Bai Jindong, walking at Bai Jingyan's side with slow, measured steps, wore a look of pure satisfaction.
"Seeing that wicked woman trembling with barely contained rage—what a pleasure it is to watch."
When Bai Jingyan did not respond, Bai Jindong recalled the five maidservants and asked, clutching at a thread of hope.
"Eldest sister, has something truly befallen the maidservants?"
The question pulled Bai Jingyan back from her thoughts. There was no reason to hide anything from Bai Jindong.
"Of the maidservants who followed your second sister as part of her dowry, all of them drowned except for Mingyu. Afraid the servants' clothing and ornaments would betray their identities, Lady Chungyong stripped them bare and rolled their bodies up in straw mats on a snowy night, dumping them all into the Nanjiang River."
Bai Jingyan bowed her head as she fiddled with the hand warmer in her palms. Her eyes were cold.
"By now the Jingzhao Prefecture Office will have received the report, and someone will have been sent to confirm the corpses by the Nanjiang River outside the capital walls."
The eyes of Dadu's people were fixed on the Chungyong estate and the Duke of Zhenguo estate alike. Several great families she knew of were openly—or secretly—probing for news from both residences.
Madame Zhang of the Chungyong estate did nothing but wail about her innocence, while Crown Princess Dong of the Duke of Zhenguo estate answered every question with only 'I do not know,' insisting she would track down the maidservants Madame Zhang had sold to learn the full course of events. Second Madam Yu, tending to her injured daughter, refused to see anyone at all.
The less information surfaced, the wilder the public speculation grew. The common folk, eager to prove their own guesses correct, could only wait for the maidservants who had gone with the dowry to return as quickly as possible.
Even Bai Jindong, who had been to the battlefield herself, stared at Bai Jingyan in shock at the sheer ruthlessness of Madame Zhang's methods.
"Eldest sister, you've already found everything out? So the reason Great Aunt reported it to the authorities was to make this affair as big as possible."
Bai Jingyan strolled slowly around the courtyard.
"The Jingzhao Prefecture Office has received a report of five unidentified corpses dumped in the river, and just at that moment, our estate happens to be searching for the five maidservants Lady Chungyong sold. Without needing to investigate any further, the office will remember those sold maidservants and request that our estate identify the bodies."
"But, eldest sister..."
Bai Jindong, standing with her hands clasped behind her back, bore a spirited glint in her eyes that was almost masculine in its boldness.
"A maidservant or a male servant is nothing more than a 'possession' that walks on two legs. Even if this blows up all the way to the authorities, it will end as nothing more than Lady Chungyong tampering with your second sister's dowry. Her reputation has already fallen into the gutter—tacking on one more disgrace like this will hardly affect her at all. Is it really worth the effort?"
"This morning I sent word to annul the deeds of servitude for the maidservants. Your second sister also returned their household registers to their parents."
Light flared in Bai Jindong's eyes. Then she clasped Bai Jingyan's arm in both hands.
"If their deeds of servitude are annulled, they're as good as free commoners—and if you kill a commoner unlawfully, you must pay the price! That's why you told Second Sister to keep the household registers safe—it was all for today, wasn't it? Then that wicked woman will be punished for what she's done. Why not go a step further and press this all the way to the end? Someone as vicious as her deserves whatever punishment heaven sends her."
Looking into Bai Jindong's clear, bright eyes, Bai Jingyan felt a flicker of concern. Bai Jindong was soon to leave home and strike out on her own, yet she still lacked a measure of composure.
Since the subject had come up, Bai Jingyan decided she would walk her through the whole affair in finer detail, teaching her step by step until Bai Jindong fully grasped the reasoning buried within it.
Of all the sisters, Bai Jindong was the most clever and sharp-witted. She was still young, and occasionally handled matters according to her moods, but she had the gift of understanding instantly when properly persuaded.
"Our original aim was to free Jinxiu from her mother-in-law's persecution, and to make sure those two daughters of the estate never came near Jinxiu again. It was never to drive Lady Chungyong to her death. Was it?"
Bai Jingyan took Bai Jindong's hand and walked forward, carrying the conversation along gently.
Bai Jindong nodded, apparently not yet following where Bai Jingyan was leading.
"To achieve that goal, Madame Zhang must be driven out of the Chungyong estate entirely. If she isn't, then even after a formal division of the household, she'll trot out 'filial duty' with one excuse after another—headaches one day, a burning fever the next—forcing your second sister to nurse her through every imagined illness. And Jinxiu will have no way to refuse. It's the same with the two daughters of the estate. Once Madame Zhang is gone, the elder sister-in-law must play the role of mother, which means your second sister will be responsible for arranging their marriages as well. Who knows what those two might do to Jinxiu then? Do you follow me?"
Bai Jindong thought for a moment, then nodded.
"That's why the outcome of this case, whatever it turns out to be, doesn't matter. If Lady Chungyong is sentenced to death, so much the better for us—but that was never our aim. What we want is for her to be implicated in a murder case, and all the consequences that come of it.
Even if she doesn't pay for the crime with her life, the stain of murder will cling to the estate's reputation. A great family holding power and rank, caught up in a homicide—the Censorate will move, and they've been watching with hungry eyes, waiting for just such an opening. They may well call for impeachment. That is the first thing. And next—once the mother's reputation collapses, the two daughters and the one son she raised will no longer be able to hold their heads up anywhere in Dadu.
Think more deeply. Chungyong Hou is a man who abandons loyalty and pursues only advantage—do you truly believe he'd keep a wife whose name has plummeted to the bottom, letting his own children be dragged down with her? Our goal will be within reach just like this. But if, at this very juncture, we needlessly push Madame Zhang toward death, we'd only ruin everything. Wouldn't you agree?"
Seeing Bai Jindong's eyes glaze over in confusion, Bai Jingyan stopped, straightened the young woman's collar, and continued in a quiet voice.
"You will soon have to set out on the road alone. The reason I'm telling you all this is so you understand one thing: whatever you do, whatever scheme you devise, you must never lose sight of the goal you're trying to reach. Every stratagem is merely a path toward that goal. You must never, on a whim, make a move simply to gain more—misstep once, and you stand to lose far more than you'd hoped to win. And no matter what the matter at hand may be, never judge it by its outcome alone. The outcome of this case doesn't matter. What matters is whether the consequences it sets in motion are what you want or not. Outcome and consequence may look like twins on the surface, but between them lies the distance of heaven and earth."
Bai Jindong remembered what Bai Jingyan had once said in Bai Jinxiu's chamber.
'To break them in, you must shatter the pillar in one strike and bring down the great mountain that props them up. Once they learn what pain is, what fear is, the mere mention of your second sister's name will set them trembling. Only then can Jinxiu live on in peace, untroubled.'
Bai Jindong had always thought of herself as brimming with talent and carried herself with pride. Not quite her eldest sister's equal, perhaps—but she'd never imagined the gap was all that great. Yet the way her eldest sister had dismantled the Chungyong estate was clean, without a single excess motion. Even a single step she took accounted for ninety-nine possibilities of what might follow, so meticulous was her foresight. That deliberate, unhurried thoroughness was something Bai Jindong could never hope to match.
She decided there was a great deal she needed to learn from her eldest sister.
"I will hold your teachings close to my heart and never forget them."
Bai Jindong bowed respectfully to Bai Jingyan, her face full of genuine, wholehearted admiration.
Bai Jingyan raised her up, took her hand, and said:
"The world you're about to walk into is vast beyond anything you can compare to home. That's why I say one word more than I need to—I only hope you'll exercise caution upon caution."
"I understand, eldest sister. Don't worry about me."
Bai Jindong gripped Bai Jingyan's hand, the rims of her eyes reddening, and smiled.
"Come, eldest sister—I'll walk you back to the inner quarters."
As the two walked forward together, Zhen Xiangzhi, who had been having his wounds treated in the estate, stood at a distance watching Bai Jingyan. Then he offered a greeting with a smiling face.
Bai Jindong, not understanding why, returned the greeting with a courteous bow all the same.
Zhen Xiangzhi furrowed his brow as he looked at Bai Jingyan. He seemed to have something he wanted to say, but in the end he offered a cupped-fist salute in silence and turned away.
He had told the eldest young lady that if the Bai family wished to protect the Duke of Zhenguo estate, it must learn to yield. Yet everything the Bai family's eldest daughter had done and said of late made her look like a second daughter who had been injured and lost her reason. She seemed prepared to stake everything on settling accounts with the Chungyong estate—and that was unmistakably an act that would push the Duke of Zhenguo estate to the very edge of the cliff.
Zhen Xiangzhi had tried to remind Bai Jingyan: when the moon fills, it wanes; when water fills, it overflows. But her eyes were remarkably clear and bright. She had some deeper design in mind, clearly. And so he had said nothing. He could only pray that the Bai family's eldest daughter would prove able to protect the loyal and honorable house of Bai.
"Eldest sister, who was that?"
"A guest staying at our estate," she answered.
* * *
The moment she returned to Qinghui Courtyard, Bai Jingyan dismissed the servants, then stood before the brazier with her eyes closed, turning over and over the words Lady Zhang had spoken before her departure.
Lady Chungyong, shut away within her own household, surely lacked the power to make good on such a threat on her own. Then—Chungyong Hou, Jin Deshao?
Jin Deshao currently held the post of Bureau Director in the Ministry of Revenue. Later, when word had come from the Southern Border, the Bai family had been plunged into crisis, and the allied armies of Nanyan and Xiliang had driven straight for the Sanleng Pass. Her grandfather's old lieutenant, Liu Huanzhang, had requested permission to take the field, and afterward Jin Deshao had been promoted to Minister of Revenue, given charge of the army's grain supply.
Bai Jingyan's eyes snapped open. The mere thought of the grain and baggage trains sent to the Southern Border front two months ago raised gooseflesh across her whole body.
Before the soldiers and horses move, the grain must move first.
In any army, provisions were the foundation of all foundations.
Chungyong Hou had been responsible for preparing the army's grain. Either he had known from the start that something was wrong with those provisions—or Jin Deshao had tampered with them.