Following that thread of inquiry, the truth came into focus: the private salt ship had been able to slip into the canal because it held an official travel permit. At the time, only one person could have issued such a privilege — Commissioner Lin.
There was no longer any excuse. Lin had abused his office, colluded with river bandits, and effectively stolen under the emperor’s seal. The Emperor’s wrath was swift and absolute. He ordered the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Punishments to employ any means necessary to wrench from this most heinous traitor the whereabouts of the tribute pearls.
With the throne’s mandate behind them, no one among the ministers bothered with restraint. The interrogations turned brutal. Commissioner Lin had been broken almost beyond recognition, yet the one truth the state demanded—the location of the pearls—remained stubbornly unrevealed.
The jailers were exhausted from their beating and questioning when Su Buchi arrived, travel-stained and breathless, flanked by two low-ranking clerks. The guards eyed him warily; they assumed he had come to scold them for failing to get a confession.
Su said nothing to alarm them. Calm, almost indifferent, he observed, “Commissioner Lin must have thought that if he confessed to where the pearls are, he’d forfeit any hope of survival. So he clenched his teeth and refused to speak.”
“Leave it to me,” he added. “I will conduct the interrogation myself.”
At his word, the clerks fell silent and obediently threw open the cell. They hauled out Commissioner Lin, a broken man who looked half-dead: pale, streaked with blood and filth, the fire gone from the proud face that once wore pomp and confidence.
“Your Excellency,” one of the clerks said, standing aside. “We shall await your orders outside. Ring the bell if you need anything.”
Su Buchi’s name had lately carried weight in the palace. The clerks bowed and closed the heavy door behind them, shutting the interrogation chamber off from the rest of the world.
Inside, the room was a hush of wavering candlelight, the flames popping and guttering like nervous hearts. Lin leaned against the cold stone, coughing as if even breath hurt. When he looked up, a snarl tugged at his lips — a brave, hate-filled expression from a shell.
“Victors write history. Losers are villains,” he spat. “So today, Su Buchi, you come to strut your power?”
There was a sneer in his voice, a scornful challenge. “That disciple of Yan Lian — the same tricks: contrivances and frame-ups, turning truth to lie. Those so-called black pearls on the tribute ship? I didn’t see a single one. You planted that evidence!”
He tried to make his voice strong, but it wavered. “My fortunes are done, my power gone. Cut me down as you please — but don’t revel. Today is your fate too; tomorrow it will be mine.”
Su Buchi said nothing. The two clerks behind him exchanged a glance, then, as if on cue, reached up and slowly removed their hoods.
“Of all people…” Lin’s face went slack with shock as recognition hit. “It’s you two! Su Buchi, you’ve got a bold streak.”
His shout ricocheted meaningless in the sealed room. There was no one to carry his accusations away.
The three of them—Su Buchi, Li Ying, and Lu Xunguang—regarded him without show. Lin ranted for a moment longer before calming himself, bitterness curling at his mouth. “Ha. Su Buchi, what a grand performance of abusing your office for personal ends.”
Su’s fingers tightened imperceptibly, but his expression stayed composed. He began to speak when Li Ying stepped forward, her movement precise and unhurried. She planted herself between Lin and the others like a blade laid across his throat.
“You must feel bitter, Commissioner,” she said softly. “Being wronged tastes like ash, doesn’t it?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She went on, as if reciting the stages of a play they’d long rehearsed.
“Mr. Commissioner, your misfortune today is the result of a trap the three of us set together.”
Li and Lu’s hands were clasped so tightly the veins showed. Lin’s clouded old eyes landed on that grip and flared with hatred as if the sight alone caused him pain.
“You two only pretended to quarrel!” Lin cried. “I’ve made a life of reading and manipulating hearts—yet here, in some gutter, I’ve foundered because of your trickery.”
Li smiled, light and unrepentant. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You are, by nature, suspicious. To convince Qingliu and your allies that you’d been estranged from Lu, both Lu and I put on a show. That was the first act.”
She explained with the calm deliberation of a strategist: they had spread word of the “sea-conch pearls” and arranged for Qingliu to steal a pair of dyed fake beads. That bait was meant to inflame the commissioner’s greed. Once he succumbed to passion, his judgment would fail.
The fake dragon-pearl rumor was the second move: create enough doubt in the Emperor’s mind to ensure the situation escalated.
After Qingliu took the bait and Lin sunk most of his fortune into building a pearl farm and expanding his operations, the Southern princess happened to appear in the capital. Riches breed risk. The tribute ship from the South did not carry any true imperial pearls — never did — but Lin, driven by desperation and opportunity, sent out the protected canal guild and their hired river thieves to seize what they believed to be real treasure.
Li and Lu had prepared for the moment the ship was sabotaged; they had planted men to ensure no one aboard was harmed. Lin’s scheme was to wait in hiding until the storm settled, then quietly cash in by producing the pearls when their value, and the court’s gaze, could be exploited for profit.
But he had not planned for the transit crew to vanish, nor for the ship to be lost without trace. He lost everything—his wealth, his prize—and was left holding nothing but the stain of theft and the accusation that would burn his family line.
Lin listened, white-faced and furious, the color draining from him until only rage remained. “You venomous woman!” he bellowed at Li. “You have committed treason! I will have you torn limb from limb!”
Lu Xunguang’s displeasure was visible: he stepped forward with a frown. With a single, awful motion there was a sharp crack. Lin’s jaw broke free in Lu’s hand. He howled, a raw sound, and could offer nothing but a weak, shuddering groan.
Li Ying pressed a hand to her forehead as if a headache had interrupted her amusement. She stepped closer, eyes bright and cool, and fixed them upon Lin.
“Commissioner, you are right in one thing,” she said, her voice as sweet as sugar and twice as chilling. “What we did was audacious. Any of those charges you can name—if they go out—would damn nine generations of your family.”
Her smile didn't reach her eyes. “But tell me this: who would step forward to accuse me?” She let the question hang, soft and venomous.
Her beauty and her tone made the question into something else — not merely a challenge, but an insinuation that there would be no accuser, no witness to point a finger, and thus no trail leading back to her. In the dim, flickering light of the interrogation room, those words felt less like a question than a blade sliding into a wound.