Chapter 7

With Uncle Wei's help, Zhao Baiyu slipped past the Imperial Guard's night patrol and pounded on the gate of the Chen residence.

The young page boy who answered had red-rimmed eyes and a dazed look on his face. "Zhao Baiyu?"

"Where's Chen Fangrong?" Zhao Baiyu shouldered his way through the gate and strode straight toward the courtyard where Chen Fangrong lived. Uncle Wei stuck close behind him. The page boy scrambled to shut the gate and hurried after them, shouting for them to stop.

"Eldest Young Master said you're not to be let in."

"When my teacher gets out of that jail cell, I'll personally have a sign made for him: NO ZHAO BAIYU OR DOGS ALLOWED." Zhao Baiyu walked faster, calling out at the top of his voice, "Chen Fangrong!"

He rounded the winding gallery and there was Chen Fangrong coming toward him, face haggard, waving the page boy off. He looked at Zhao Baiyu with a strange expression. "You rushed over here in the middle of the night because of my father?"

"What do you think?" Zhao Baiyu's face had gone cold. "How much do you actually know?"

Chen Fangrong's face was pale. "I haven't taken up any post yet. No connections, no way to get news. And with the whole thing looking so suspicious, they might strip my own examination rank for good measure."

"Does the leaked question have anything to do with our teacher?"

Chen Fangrong's eyes went sharp, his voice rising. "You suspect my father?!"

Zhao Baiyu stood with his hands tucked into his sleeves, spine straight. He had always kept his head in a crisis — the worse things got, the calmer he became.

"You just said it yourself — it looks suspicious. Our teacher is one of the associate examiners this term, one of the people setting the questions. Given his seniority, it's likely he personally wrote most of them. Besides him, only the chief examiner would know what's on them. Right now our teacher is innocent but compromised by appearances — even if he didn't leak anything, he's still the most likely suspect. And even if he neither leaked a question nor took a bribe, there's no guarantee someone under his own roof didn't sell out their conscience for money."

Chen Fangrong was no fool. He caught Zhao Baiyu's meaning at once, and understood that Zhao Baiyu really was working out how to save his father.

"You think someone stole my father's exam questions and sold them?"

"Unless the chief examiner leaked them himself, that's the only explanation."

The worst of it was that the examination system of this era wasn't nearly as airtight as it would later become. Once an official was appointed an examiner, he was still allowed to return home, and in the stretch of time between that appointment and the actual examination, there were countless ways for a question to leak out.

Zhao Baiyu sighed inwardly. It was a pity he hadn't known in advance that his teacher would be named an associate examiner — and it was his own fault too, having been so busy these past two months that he hadn't paid his teacher a single visit. If he had, he might have understood the situation well enough to prepare before the fraud case broke, instead of being caught flat-footed like this.

"First, gather everyone in the household and question them one by one. I know someone at the Court of Judicial Review — I can ask him to look after our teacher, and see what he can find out while he's at it. You don't need to panic. Don't get yourself dragged into this — stay out of it and keep your name clean for now. I saw your examination rank. Thank god you weren't in the top tier, but you still placed high enough to draw attention. Be careful, or someone will use it against you."

Across two Palace Examinations, Chen Fangrong had placed near the front of the second tier both times — proof enough of his ability. But right now, with not a shred of real evidence against him and suspicion already running high, people could manufacture a case out of nothing at all. If that happened, he'd end up a weapon used to bring down his own teacher, which would be disastrous.

Ever since his father had been swept into the fraud case, Chen Fangrong had gone around begging for help — old classmates, his father's students, friends who'd once been close to his father. Every one of them had either made excuses or hadn't dared get involved; some had simply shut their doors to visitors. Whatever pride Chen Fangrong had once carried in his chest had been worn down to almost nothing, and something dark and bitter had begun creeping into his heart.

All those fine words about morality and righteousness, about honoring one's teacher, that people were so fond of mouthing on ordinary days — and when it actually mattered, not a single one of them had dared to step forward!

And instead, it was the man he despised most, the one he'd always privately thought two-faced and honey-tongued — Zhao Baiyu — who, on hearing the news, had ignored the Imperial Guard patrols and come rushing over in the dead of night. No empty words of comfort, just methodical, purposeful action to get at the truth.

The darkness in Chen Fangrong's heart eased, just a little. "Thank you," he said quietly.

"Don't mention it."

He remembered — in the original story, this examination fraud had been used by the Crown Prince's faction to strike at Prince Qin's. Wait. Did this have something to do with the Crown Prince?

Zhao Baiyu thought of the woman he'd run into at the back door of the Chen residence two months ago, and asked at once, "Does your father know any woman who works in the Eastern Palace?"

"My father's never had any dealings with the Eastern Palace," Chen Fangrong said. "No connection at all."

Zhao Baiyu turned to the page boy. "Answer me — that ivory tablet I left with you two months ago. Has anyone come to claim it?"

The page boy scratched his head, thinking it over. "No."

"Go get it."

The boy dashed off toward his quarters to fetch it.

Chen Fangrong asked what was going on. Zhao Baiyu only said, "I've got a lead. When you question the servants, ask them directly who took money two months ago, and who they let into the house. Then have the steward search every room and see whose quarters are hiding cash."

Chen Fangrong did as told and hurried off to the front hall.

A while later the page boy came running back with the ivory tablet. Zhao Baiyu tucked it into his sleeve and headed for the front hall, where he came face to face with Chen Fangrong, his expression uglier than Zhao Baiyu had ever seen it.

Chen Fangrong's eyes were cold as ice. "Someone bribed a servant with two ingots of gold to sneak into the house — three days before the examination, right after my father had finalized the questions!"

"Did they find out who it was?"

"Only that it was a woman. Nothing else. You mentioned an ivory tablet just now... a palace woman from the Eastern Palace? Does this involve the Crown Prince?"

Zhao Baiyu said nothing, and Chen Fangrong understood he didn't want to say too much — the more said, the greater the risk of the truth slipping out and causing more trouble.

"Who's in charge of this case?" Zhao Baiyu asked suddenly. He was already considering whether to ask his superior, the Acting Prefect of the Capital, for help.

The Capital Prefecture, the Court of Judicial Review, and the Ministry of Justice each had their own jurisdictions, but they crossed paths often enough, handing off case files back and forth. Perhaps the Acting Prefect could get him access to someone at the Court of Judicial Review.

"It's the Prince of Lin'an."

The moment he said it, Chen Fangrong remembered — Zhao Baiyu had been granted a marriage by imperial decree, and was already the Prince of Lin'an's "betrothed."

The Prince of Lin'an's reputation was as bad as reputations came, and everyone knew Zhao Baiyu had sacrificed himself in Zhao Yuzheng's place. It had never seemed like much of a problem before. Only now did it strike him just how hard these past years must have been for Zhao Baiyu.

A tangle of emotions rose in Chen Fangrong's chest, and for a moment he had nothing to say.

Zhao Baiyu looked thoughtful. "That title might actually come in useful."

At that, Chen Fangrong cupped his hands and bowed deeply. "Your great kindness — Jiyu will repay it one day, whatever it takes!"

Zhao Baiyu helped him back up. "Nothing matters more to a scholar than honoring his teacher. By duty and by feeling both, as a student to a man who was both mentor and something like family, I'll give this everything I have."

Chen Fangrong's eyes went wet, and he stood there a long moment without moving.

Nothing matters more to a scholar than honoring his teacher, indeed. As a student to a man who was both mentor and family, indeed. You could search the whole Capital and never find another Zhao Baiyu.

......

The moment Zhao Baiyu left the Chen residence, he went straight to find a clerk he knew at the Court of Judicial Review. The man owed him a favor, and agreed without hesitation to look after Chen Shidao in his cell. Then, checking that no one was around, he quietly filled Zhao Baiyu in on how the case was progressing.

"Minister Wang and the rest of the candidates who cheated have all confessed. Master Chen is holding firm, insisting he's innocent, but Minister Wang has named him, and if you ask me, the verdict's all but settled — it's just a matter of time. The young Commandery Prince came by the prison once, told the men under him to see that Master Chen was looked after, but he hasn't been back since. Looks like he's washing his hands of the whole thing, not planning to get any further involved. Oh — and the day the young Commandery Prince came, I happened to be there. I heard him say two separate groups were involved in the fraud."

"Tell me everything."

The clerk repeated everything he'd overheard that day.

"You said the man who sold the questions was called what?"

"Something like Old Nine, Old Eight?"

"Old Eighth Liu?"

"That's it — that's the name!"

Liu Congde. Old Eighth Liu. A man with a foster mother who'd once served as the Crown Prince's wet nurse in the Eastern Palace. A woman who'd dropped an Eastern Palace ivory tablet. A servant of the Chen household bribed into stealing the examination questions his teacher had drafted —

Zhao Baiyu had more or less pieced together how the leak had happened, and it was thornier than he'd imagined. Old Eighth Liu had already died suddenly, leaving only the Crown Prince's wet nurse as a witness — and she was inside the Eastern Palace.

In the original story, thanks to Zhao Yuzheng's protagonist's luck, the Crown Prince's faction had dodged this disaster entirely. Perhaps that was because they'd learned in advance that the wet nurse had stolen the questions. Assuming the Eastern Palace already knew — what would they do to shake off the blame?

Once the Court of Judicial Review traced things back to Old Eighth Liu, they'd have no trouble following the thread straight to his connection with the Eastern Palace. Add to that the fact that half the cheating candidates were tangled up with the Crown Prince's faction one way or another, and there'd be no escaping the connection, however you sliced it.

So how would the Crown Prince's faction get themselves clear?

"Divert the flood downstream. Stage the whole thing themselves." Zhao Baiyu murmured to himself. "Prince Qin — the professional scapegoat."

No matter who ended up paying for this, his teacher would have a hard time clearing his name. He'd become the nail used to seriously wound either Prince Qin or the Crown Prince, and Emperor Yuanshou would never truly move to kill his own son — he'd only look for someone else to take the fall.

His teacher was that someone. And for a scapegoat, there was only one possible outcome.

Even if the whole truth came to light, no one would step forward to help clear his teacher's name, because the case touched both Prince Qin and the Crown Prince — and beyond them, all the civil and military officials whose interests and factional loyalties were tangled up with the two princes.

To save his teacher, he would have to offend the entire court.