"Your Majesty, they've brought in another man matching the description."
Meng Yuan looked up from the papers spread across his desk and by this point, eight days into this endeavor, Meng Shi was no longer surprised by the expression on his nephew's face.
"This is what number now, and they still haven't found him?"
"The city is large," Meng Shi said conciliatorily. "I want to catch the man as much as you –"
"Somehow I doubt it," Meng Yuan interjected. "She's not your sister."
Meng Shi fell silent, possessing no rebuttal. Not that he thought Meng Yuan would have listened even if he'd had one.
"Well, where is he then?" the man demanded.
"The guards are holding him near the prison at the moment. Should I have him taken to the –"
"No, send him here. I don't have the time to waste on yet another man pulled off the streets in hopes of placating me."
"That's not –"
"Don't try to excuse them. I'm not blaming you, but I've seen the way they've looked at me recently, like I'm merely obsessed with it, rather than it being a matter of justice, like I've gone mad over the last eight days."
Perhaps earlier than that, Meng Shi thought to himself. Once they'd received word of the unrest at the border of [X], the emperor had been on edge, and with nowhere to vent his frustration and anger, there had been a few younger soldiers that had been admonished excessively for small mistakes.
"Bringing him here would be most unconventional," Meng Shi said somewhat hesitantly.
"What are you standing there for?" Meng Yuan snapped as though he'd not spoken at all. "Send him here, and send for Que Hua." When had he ever cared for conventions? Meng Shi should have known that by now.
Meng Shi left and sent orders for the man to be brought to the emperor in his private quarters, and when he returned, he was accompanied by the emperor's sister, as ordered. Que Hua stood quietly to the side, her face pale, her fingers gripped tightly together in her sleeves. At the sight of her, Meng Yuan immediately stood and came to her side.
"I'm sorry, Jiejie*," he said softly, perhaps the only words spoken in such a way by him that entire day. "Hopefully this will all be over soon."
Que Hua nodded briefly without speaking, but it was impossible. Even were a man to be sentenced to death today for the crime, it would not be over.
The doors opened abruptly after an announcement, and a man with bound hands was dragged unwillingly into the room and thrust to his knees, pain flashing through his features as he made contact with the hard floor. He was wearing a simple shirt and pants, either because the men arresting him had removed his outer clothing or perhaps because this was all he was wearing to begin with. Que Hua's face paled at the innocence on the youthful face of the man kneeling before them, at the terror in his eyes, and tears pooled in her own.
Watching her reaction, Meng Yuan moved closer to her instantly, a hand on her arm, though the closeness he displayed was hardly appropriate in their current setting. However, the way she flinched at the touch was still unexpected.
"Jiejie?" he asked gently, his voice so low that no one else in the room could hear.
Her throat was tight and she couldn't look her brother in the eye. She couldn't look Meng Shi in the eye. And she certainly couldn't look the man on the ground in the eye. Meng Shi took a step in her direction as if also wanting to comfort her, but she spoke in that moment.
"It's him," she gasped out. "It was him."
Her brother's grip tightened unintentionally on her arm. "You're certain?" His voice was calm, but she could hear the underlying malice in those two words: the anger and violence he would seek to release on someone as a result of her admission here today.
Her eyes were closed, tears seeping past her eyelids. "I'm certain," she managed. "May I leave now, Your Majesty?" she requested, though he felt little need for the formality, even in front of others. At his assent, she left the room, her shoulders trembling as she held back her tears.
Meng Yuan's heart clenched in his chest, and he knotted his hands into fists. He wanted to go after her, but he couldn't in such a state. Later. He would comfort her later.
"Go with her," he ordered Meng Shi, and the other man nodded, gesturing to the other men to leave as well. Yet when they reached for the man on the ground, Meng Yuan spoke again. "Leave him."
Meng Shi stopped in the doorway, looking back. "Your Majesty," he said hesitantly as the guards froze in their movements.
"Later," he snapped in return. "Whatever you have to say can wait."
When he looked as though he were about to begin speaking again, he was cut off.
"Get out! All of you!"There was fury in the emperor's eyes and his chest was heaving, and Meng Shiknew that if they left this man here with him, there was a possibility the manwould not leave the room alive. The guards filed out one by one and Meng Shitook a step back, his glance alternating between the man on the ground and theman standing over him, then he closed the door and left Meng Yuan to his owndevices. Perhaps, after all, it was better this way.
*Older sister
YOU ARE READING
Beiji
Romance"In a life filled with unvoiced and therefore unanswered questions, if there was one thing with which Wan Xue was familiar, it was confusion." Wan Xue has never spoken, so far as he can remember. While his muteness innately comes with its share of d...
