Zhang Zhixu replied evenly: “You did without question release Lu Qingrong without authorization. Did you not?”
Xie Lanting choked, his brow furrowing slightly. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“Lord Xie solves cases with godlike clarity and never shows partiality — that is why he is so greatly praised by the common people.” Zhang Zhixu repeated this reputation at an unhurried pace, then raised his eyes to look at him. “And what do you look like now?”
Ever since Lu Qingrong had returned to Shangjing, this man had been slowly changing. Where he used to have seven or eight cases running in parallel, he now spent his days fixated entirely on Chen Baoxiang alone — listening to one side, prejudging before the evidence was in, as though he intended to convict Chen Baoxiang through sheer personal determination.
“I’m rather curious,” Zhang Zhixu said, his eyes narrowing slightly. “How did she manage to convince you?”
Xie Lanting was no naive young man who had never seen the world. The charms of women should have been nothing new to him — and yet he had been brought to this state by someone he had once looked down on entirely?
“She had no intention of convincing me,” Xie Lanting said, frowning. “I chose to investigate on my own. This is also my duty.”
Zhang Zhixu looked at him in silence.
Held under that gaze for quite some time, Xie Lanting finally dropped his eyes: “A person is not made of wood or stone. Who can be entirely without personal feeling? After all, I once deceived her and caused her family to be ruined.”
“If I heard correctly, you are saying—” Zhang Zhixu gave a cold laugh, “—that the ruin of Lu Shouhuai’s entire household, which came about because of his corruption and murders, was caused by you?”
Xie Lanting froze.
Zhang Zhixu looked at this old friend who had once been the most celebrated rake in all of Shangjing, and gave a slight shake of his head: “Knowing how it would end, why did you begin?”
Chen Baoxiang had even warned him at the time — there were plenty of methods for handling cases; why get entangled with Lu Qingrong? It had been his own arrogance, his conviction that manipulating a woman was the easiest and most straightforward shortcut. Now that he’d capsized in a ditch of his own making, he was feeling remorse.
“It’s not entirely how you’re imagining it,” Xie Lanting said. “She’s already forgiven me. We’re something like friends now.”
It was just that the more magnanimous she was, the more he felt unable to leave it alone, and he found himself instinctively wanting to fulfil her wishes for her.
“Friends.” Zhang Zhixu savored those two words, the mockery at the corners of his eyes already on the verge of spilling over. “So the years of close friendship between you and me don’t count as friendship — but someone who is using you like this, that qualifies as your friend.”
Xie Lanting was displeased: “You can say what you like about me, but she and you haven’t even met again, and yet you can pronounce judgment on her character just like that.”
Zhang Zhixu: “…”
He pressed a hand to his temple with a headache: “Ningsu. Come here.”
“Master?”
“Throw this fool out for me — and throw him as far as possible.”
“Yes.”
Xie Lanting was hoisted up, his face darkening considerably: “The ancients said that brothers are like limbs, and women are like garments — I never imagined that you and I would one day sever our own limbs for the sake of garments. Very well, very well indeed. From this day forward, I, Xie Lanting, am done with you, Zhang Fengqing — our bond is severed, and we shall have nothing more to do with each other!”
Zhang Zhixu covered his ears.
It would have been nice if someone could have shown this version of Xie Lanting to his sixteen-year-old self. The sixteen-year-old Xie Lanting would certainly have given him a thorough slap across the face, saying that he had set his will on solving every remarkable case in the world — how could he possibly be brought low by sentiment like this?
But now, the twenty-year-old Zhang Zhixu could not talk sense into the twenty-one-year-old Xie Lanting, just as back then he’d had no idea how to resist being dragged along to play at holding court.
The sun sank westward. The light in the room faded little by little. Zhang Zhixu sat where he was and did not move.
After a long while, he let out a long, quiet sigh.
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