CH 34

A man whose body was bound in shackles was brought to a small courtyard, and the black cloth over his head was only removed once he was forced by others to kneel in the house. He struggled and lifted his head, taking in the sight of the person in front of him at once. “Su Shiyu?”

Su Shiyu met Ji Heng’s gaze with eyes dark and deep, and then he nodded, laughing lightly: “You’ve said it right.”

As soon as the words left him Su Shiyu took out a porcelain bottle from his sleeve, a guard on one side bowing over to receive it, and immediately people came from the sides to squeeze Ji Heng’s jaws, forcing him to open his mouth. Ji Heng clenched his teeth in a panic, struggling with all his might, yet his back was struck hard with an instrument. Something sank straight into his flesh, he could not hold back a pained cry, and that opening was used to shove a pill into his mouth, which passed down into his throat. Ji Heng violently coughed twice, and shaken with terror1 he yelled: “What did you do?!”

“You needn’t worry, it was a Heart-Protection Pill2 that was fed to you.” Su Shiyu took back the bottle, “You will ultimately need to be handed over to Loulan, so as of now I definitely won’t take your life.”

Ji Heng immediately understood, “Su Shiyu, as the Grand Secretary, you would actually torture and mistreat prisoners?!”

“Of course the Grand Secretary wouldn’t.” Su Shiyu looked at him, smiling faintly: “But these people are my privately-hired guards, this is my private villa, you and I also have personal enmity, it has nothing to do with public duty.”

“Personal enmity?” Ji Heng said disbelievingly, “What personal enmity do I have with you?”

Su Shiyu’s smile deepened, and said with his eyelids lowered: “Meimei’s judgement of people is not good, as her brother……I have to take care of these things for her.” With that, not even waiting for Ji Heng who was completely stupefied to react, he lifted his teacup to take a sip of Springtime tea3,

“Do it.”

Chu Mingyun put down his pen casually, and raised his eyes to look at Qin Zhao, “You are ‘unable to investigate’, what is that supposed to mean?”

“Yan Ye said news within the Censorate is also tightly guarded, he only heard that Ji Heng was a few breaths away from death when he was escorted over. But apart from a few intermediate officials in the Censorate and Su Shiyu scarcely few people were able to see him, who knows if this is true or false, and the signed confession is all in Su Shiyu’s hands, even the escort doesn’t know what is written in it.”

“That is indeed uncanny, seems like it wasn’t a crime of passion.” Chu Mingyun lightly knit his brow, “Thinking back in detail, it’s been one trouble after another these days.”

After a bit of consideration, he opened his mouth to instruct: “Go and investigate a person.”

“Which person?”

“He said that?” Su Shiyu’s gaze moved away from the memorial7, and after a moment of pondering he slowly smiled, and nodded saying, “He’s actually not wrong in his evaluation.”

T/L: No, I’m not dead nor dropping this. In about a month you can look forward to near-daily updates, but for now I’m quite busy.

1. 惊疑不定

2.护心丹 – translated literally here. ‘Eating a heart protection pill’ is often used as a phrase for something that puts someone at ease, but here it seems to be an actual Thing. Did the phrase originate from actual medicine in Chinese history? Idk

3.春茶 – refers to tea prepared with leaves harvested in spring. Supposedly the best time to harvest.

4. Senior student brother – people who were trained under the same teacher, but CMY has seniority.

5.人海战术 – meaning that if they just overwhelm him with numbers in a fight they can kill him. Qin Zhao’s not saying Su Shiyu’s bad at math.

6. Likely adapted from 满院落花春寂寂，断肠芳草碧。from《谒金门·空相忆》, a Tang dynasty poem.

7. 秦表 – an official report to the emperor.

8. 玉佩 – This is a important item in this story, so I was very divided on what to translate this as for a long time. This could either be worn as a literal pendant, around the neck, or at the waist as a charm like most young masters of the nobility would back then.