As time passed, the smell from within grew ever stronger. The two eunuchs caught a whiff of what smelled like meat broth and instinctively sniffed the air, feeling a twinge of hunger. But then came another round of earth-shattering retching from Ling Qing, which completely killed their appetites. They could only stand there with stony faces, continuing their vigil at the door.
Over an hour later, Ling Ting finally emerged from the room.
He handed the small stove to Ling Qing and told her to return it, then—in full view of the two eunuchs—smashed the sand pot to pieces.
The eunuchs exchanged puzzled glances, at first assuming Ling Ting was venting his frustration at being watched by smashing the pot like a bowl. But then he gathered up the shards and flung them away.
The actions were utterly bizarre, leaving the people outside the courtyard utterly baffled.
…
Three days passed in the blink of an eye. Gu Lianzhao had not shown his face once during that time, though the night before, he had sent word via an Embroidered Uniform Guard that he had completed the task Prince Rui had assigned him.
Since Gu Lianzhao said it was done, Liu Yuanxun’s mind was put at ease. He did not press for details on his three-day absence, assuming that with his position restored, Gu Lianzhao was simply busy handling affairs at the Imperial Prison.
Three days had passed since the last hearing, and the investigative leads had mostly been sorted out. Any further delays risked stirring up rumors among the common folk once more.
At the break of dawn, Prefect Bai hurried to the side hall, eager to learn if Prince Rui had found a way to break the case.
Liu Yuanxun said nothing of his plans, only insisting that the doors of the yamen be thrown open for today’s trial, to be conducted under the watchful eyes of the public.
Though Prefect Bai was puzzled, the request did him no harm and only good, so he agreed without hesitation.
The case had been hanging for four days, and now a public trial was announced. Crowds of onlookers immediately packed the area outside the yamen, so dense not a drop of water could pass through. Even the street performers joined in, teetering on their stilts.
When the gates swung open, the crowd craned their necks to peer inside. Alas, the legendary celestial beauty of Liu Yuanxun offered only a glimpse of his back. Unable to see his face, they turned their attention to the case at hand.
Today’s Liu Yuanxun remained as calm and detached as before, but Wang Mingxuan sat there listlessly, a far cry from the fury of days past. He looked as if his heart had died of grief.
Prefect Bai cleared his throat and said, “Lord Wang, do you have any further evidence to present? If not, it will be Prince Rui’s turn to produce proof.”
Wang Mingxuan lifted his eyelids with effort and said listlessly, “Please, go ahead.”
A strange feeling stirred in Liu Yuanxun’s heart, and he could not help lifting his gaze to Wang Mingxuan.
Wang Mingxuan seemed to sense it, meeting Liu Yuanxun’s eyes. But he was far too weary; after a mere instant of eye contact, his eyelids drooped once more.
Brief as that glance was, Liu Yuanxun saw it clearly: Wang Mingxuan’s eyes were utterly vacant, devoid of even a shred of hatred.
Liu Yuanxun’s doubts deepened, but with the expectant crowd outside and Prefect Bai awaiting him in the hall, he could only proceed as planned.
After all, regardless of Wang Mingxuan’s attitude, to fully clear his own name and create an opening to overturn Xiao Jinye’s conviction, he had to prove his innocence to Prefect Bai and the assembled populace.
Liu Yuanxun said, “Prefect Bai, might I trouble you to send men to the Mass Grave Mound outside the city to fetch a few bones? Also, have the yamen kitchen provide a clay jar and a brazier.”
These requests were simple enough. Prefect Bai nodded and immediately gave the orders. The bailiffs mounted up and galloped toward the Mass Grave Mound.
The hall fell quiet afterward.
Fortunately, the items were easy to procure. Less than half an hour later, the brazier was lit, the water in the clay jar bubbling away, and the bailiff who had gone for the bones returned, holding them aloft.
Ling Ting stepped forward and announced in a raised voice on Liu Yuanxun’s behalf, “Prefect Bai may inspect these bones himself, or summon a few citizens to verify.”
Prefect Bai had no interest in handling human bones. He gave them a cursory glance and signaled the bailiff to remove them. Hearing that commoners were to be called forward, he pointed casually at a few spectators jammed at the front of the crowd. “You lot, come up here.”
The chosen ones had not expected their idle gawking to draw them into the proceedings and tried to shrink back. But the press of people behind them left no escape. Resigned, they followed the bailiff up to the hall, trembling.
Ling Ting smiled politely. “If you would kindly extend your hands.”
The three men exchanged uneasy glances before slowly holding out their hands.
Ling Qing pricked their fingertips one by one with a silver needle. Crimson droplets fell onto the bones fetched by the bailiff. With no blood ties, the blood naturally refused to seep in.
The sight left the onlookers baffled, and even Prefect Bai furrowed his brow. “What is the meaning of this, Your Highness?”
Liu Yuanxun smiled faintly. “Patience, Prefect Bai. Just a moment longer.”
Then Ling Ting did something that left everyone dumbfounded—he tossed the bone straight into the boiling water!
The hall erupted in uproar!
Prefect Bai shot to his feet, exclaiming, “What is the meaning of this, Your Highness?!”
Boiling bones took time, and Liu Yuanxun had planned to use the interval to explain. Seeing Prefect Bai’s shock, he said mildly, “I know this seems shocking, but does the prefect know that bones, once boiled, can circumvent the Bone-Drop Kinship Test?”
Before Prefect Bai could respond, the crowd outside could not contain themselves. “What?! The Bone-Drop Kinship Test can be faked?”
Someone nearby clapped a hand over the speaker’s mouth. “Shh! Quiet down. The prince’s maid is speaking—listen to her.”
Liu Yuanxun knew his voice was too weak to carry, so he had assigned the explanation to Ling Qing. She loved wandering about and listening to storytellers in teahouses, and over time had picked up a knack for it, turning an ordinary tale into a riveting yarn.
“At the border where Tianyong meets Zhaozhou lies a deep mountain, home to a reclusive tribe that reveres witchcraft. They particularly favor using the thigh bones of sturdy men to craft ritual tools…”
The tribe Ling Qing described was no fabrication of Liu Yuanxun’s. He had read widely and eccentrically, including tomes on the customs of remote peoples. While none mentioned the Bone-Drop Kinship Test, one described how this tribe fashioned thigh bones into sacrificial staves, inscribing runes on them with ink.
The book did not explain the runes’ meaning but noted that to purify the staves, the bones were boiled in water beforehand to remove impurities.
From this, Liu Yuanxun had glimpsed a crucial insight.
Ordinary bones could not hold ink well; runes written in ink would fade over time. Yet the book claimed these never did.
When he first read it, Liu Yuanxun had wondered if the boiling was the key to the ink’s longevity, though curiosity had not driven him to test it then.
It was only when Wang Mingxuan presented those remains that the memory resurfaced, solidifying his backup plan.
For ink to endure on bone, it had to penetrate deeply. Boiled bones, being more porous, would absorb it readily—and blood should behave the same.
The method he devised might differ from that of his framers.
If they possessed a technique to repel others’ blood while accepting a specific person’s, testing Ling Qing’s blood rashly would doom him. So he had used his own instead.
Later, he had Gu Lianzhao steal the evidence, boil it, and return it.
Just in case Wang Mingxuan refused to concede and demanded another test.
As the bone boiled longer, a meaty aroma—not from any beast—began to waft through the hall. Liu Yuanxun’s face paled, though he held on. Ling Qing, having just finished her tale, could not help retching loudly.
Her reaction shifted the color from faces around her. It was only a fragment of remains, but the thought that it had once been part of a living person unsettled everyone present.
Yet with the revelation so close—and so astonishing—no one left. They endured the smell, awaiting the moment the pot was ready.
Liu Yuanxun had tested this beforehand and knew the timing. After another half hour, he instructed Ling Ting to fish out the bone, let it cool, and have the three men drip their blood once more.
Had anyone split the bone open then, they would have seen the difference plainly: boiled bone was spongy and porous, allowing blood to seep in easily.
The Bone-Drop Kinship Test had circulated for years, long regarded as irrefutable proof. To think it could be falsified right before their eyes! Did that not mean countless past convictions based on it might have been miscarriages of justice?
Liu Yuanxun heard the commotion from outside and knew in his heart that the matter was as good as done. Thus, he spoke again. “Lord Bai, please bring out the evidence that Lord Wang presented once more. Let the people around us try it and see if that bone can dissolve everyone’s blood, just like this one.”
At that moment, a raspy voice cut in abruptly. “No need…”
Liu Yuanxun turned toward the sound and looked at Wang Mingxuan. He saw the man’s face ashen with defeat, and in just a few short days, the lines of age had become starkly visible on it.
Wang Mingxuan had been unusually quiet that day. Even during Liu Yuanxun’s process of clearing his own name, he had remained utterly silent. Now, he directly admitted his wrongdoing. “It was I who wrongly accused the Prince. I am willing to accept the court’s punishment. But before I do, there is one more person I must accuse…”
Prefect Bai was stunned by this sudden turn of events, his eyes wide in shock. “Lord Wang, who are you accusing this time?”
“I must accuse the true man who lured and violated my daughter. I must accuse… I must accuse…” As Wang Mingxuan spoke, his body began to tremble violently. The shaking grew so intense that he could no longer sit steady. With a thud, he slid to the floor.
If the Wang Mingxuan who had accused Liu Yuanxun before had been propped up by a burning thirst for revenge, then this Wang Mingxuan resembled nothing so much as a pile of cold ashes, devoid of even the slightest spark of strength.
He did not cry out. He did not curse. He simply shook without cease.
His father had held a high rank, and he himself occupied a fifth-rank position. Though he was a mediocre official, he was still a man of dignity, addressed respectfully as “Lord” wherever he went. Even when he had staked his life on identifying Liu Yuanxun, he had maintained some semblance of composure.
But now, slumped on the ground, he was scarcely human any longer—like soulless rotten flesh, devoid of all vitality and displaying every possible indignity. No matter how many people stepped forward to help him up, he slipped from their grasps like a spineless invertebrate, limp and unsupported.
Wang Mingxuan could not utter a single word. He merely hung his head and shed silent tears, the choked sobs escaping his throat from time to time the only sign that he had not fainted. The emotions churning within him were too raw, too overwhelming; not a soul among the crowd inside or out could bear to mock him.
Prefect Bai could not help but feel a stir of pity in his heart. “Lord Wang, who exactly are you accusing?”
Wang Mingxuan laboriously lifted his face, streaked with snot and tears, and forced out a twisted expression somewhere between a sob and a laugh. His voice quavered, laced with a despair that everyone present could hear all too clearly. In a hoarse whisper, he said, “I won’t accuse anyone. Just administer the beating.”
By the law, those who beat the Drum of Grievances without cause or fabricated a case were to receive fifty lashes. With these words, Wang Mingxuan had clearly confessed his guilt.
Liu Yuanxun had no idea why the scene had shifted so dramatically, but as he looked toward Wang Mingxuan once more, the corner of his eye caught the silent black shadow lurking behind one of the yamen runners.
He did not know when Gu Lianzhao had arrived or how long he had been standing there. But the moment Liu Yuanxun spotted him, that figure seemed to sense it as well. Slowly, Gu Lianzhao raised his head, his gaze meeting Liu Yuanxun’s.
His eyes were calm, his face betraying no emotion whatsoever. Yet for some reason, Liu Yuanxun’s heart stirred, and a faint premonition took root within him.
It was as if he suddenly knew what Gu Lianzhao had been occupied with these past few days…
