Beiji

Chapter 2 (Pt. 2)

"Your Majesty."

"Hmm?" Meng Yuan looked up from the letter in his hand – another report of the growing tensions at the border with [X] that he had worked ceaselessly to suppress.

It was Fang Huizhong who stood before him, appearing to be somewhat discomfited about something. Meng Yuan immediately set down the paper and approached him.

"What is it?" he asked urgently. Fang Huizhong was one of few people he trusted wholeheartedly, and there was very little that had ever ruffled him. "Is it Jiejie, is she alright?"

"She's fine," the man replied, but before Meng Yuan could breathe a sigh of relief, he continued with, "but it is regarding her."

Meng Yuan froze momentarily. "Well...where is she? Does she need something?"

Seeing that he was about to march out of the room in search of her, the other man grabbed his arm to stop him – one of few people who could get away with such an action. As things stood, Meng Yuan didn't even bat an eye at the action. He had grown up with Fang Huizhong and could scarcely treat him merely as an emperor might one of his guards, even if he was one.

"There's someone I think you should talk to, first," Fang Huizhong said cautiously, and Meng Yuan had never seen him this ill-composed before in only his presence. It filled him with a sense of foreboding, but he nodded his consent, his mind calming only out of a practiced sense of urgency. When he was at his most strained was when he needed to be the calmest. His father had always told him that, before his untimely death, and Meng Yuan had since found it to be true.

Fang Huizhong went to the door and opened it, gesturing for someone outside the door to come in. To Meng Yuan's surprise, it was a young man, barely more than a boy, who had joined the imperial guard some months ago. Indeed, he was one of those few who had met with the emperor's temper and scathing words at some point or another more recently and fled nearly in tears once he was dismissed.

"Huang Zhi has been working in the prison these past few weeks," Fang Huizhong said, directing his gaze to the trembling boy to his right. "Tell him," he ordered, but he was not harsh. He had always had a better handle on his temper than Meng Yuan had on his own.

Huang Zhi nodded in response, bowing to the emperor before speaking. "Your Majesty. It is as he said, I've been working in the prison. And I – I didn't want to cause any trouble, but there was something that bothered me, and so I went to Fang Huizhong about it and –"

"Enough," Meng Yuan said, though he tempered his tone. "What is it Fang Huizhong brought you here to tell me? I need nothing more than that."

"Your Majesty's sister," the boy blurted out, shocking Meng Yuan. "In the prison, a week ago. Her Highness came and – and visited that man who they said – they said –"

"He knows what he was accused of," Fang Huizhong cut him off, confirming Meng Yuan's theory that he was referring to the man who had raped his sister. Visited him? For what purpose?

"What words passed between them? What happened while she was there?"

Huang Zhi, having thought he was done after blurting out what he'd witnessed, had sweat dripping down his forehead, and he shook his head violently. "I don't know. I only saw her approach the cell. One of the other guards was with her, but I couldn't see his face, and we all wear the same things, so..."

Meng Yuan paused a moment, silent. "But you did see Her Highness' face? Clearly?"

"Yes," he answered, and then his face paled at the dark look on the emperor's face. "I'm not lying, Your Majesty! I would never fabricate such a thing!" Abruptly, he fell to his knees with a soft crack against the floor, and he prostrated himself before the other man. "I swear on my life!" he exclaimed.

"Get up," Meng Yuan said, covering his face with one hand at the boy's overly dramatic display.

Fang Huizhong didn't wait for the boy to stand on his own, dragging him to his feet by his collar and sending him back out the door. Once the door was shut, he turned back to face his friend and emperor.

The two were silent a moment before Meng Yuan spoke. "So what is it you make of that?" he asked, but the other man merely shrugged.

"I didn't bring him here to tell you because I'd 'made something of it.' I just thought you'd want to know."

"Of course I want to know. Why would..." There were a limited number of possibilities. Either she had doubts about the man she had identified as her assailant, or...or what? She went there for revenge of some kind? That seemed unlikely. Que Hua wasn't like him. Even against her own attacker, she wouldn't do something as shameless as fuck him unconscious on top of a desk. Meng Yuan covered his eyes with one hand, squeezing at his brows as if that would relieve some of the tension – or perhaps some of his confliction, considering that since that day, he'd been avidly trying to avoid contemplating the questionable choice he'd made.

"Bring..." His voice trailed off. The man had refused to make a sound even as he raped him. How likely was it he'd be willing to talk to him now? However, the other option was asking his sister directly, and he'd rather do so only as a last resort. He didn't want her to think he doubted her.

Did he? He certainly hadn't that day when she told him, when she confirmed her attacker was the man kneeling here in this very room, the day he'd taken the man and pushed him down on the very same desk he was now leaning against and stripped him of his clothes...

Meng Yuan stood up straight abruptly and walked across the room to mask his thoughts from Fang Huizhong, and then finally made up his mind.

"Bring the man here," he said. "I'll question him directly."

"Given that in nearly a week's time he hasn't spoken a single word and hasn't even told us his name, I doubt he'd suddenly find it in himself to explain it all to you now," Fang Huizhong said, and Meng Yuan ignored his sardonic tone. "However, even if I wanted to bring him here, I couldn't. He's long gone by now."

Meng Yuan turned back abruptly. "Gone?"

"Sent to the auction with the others this morning."

Meng Yuan was shocked speechless a moment, though he wasn't sure why. "On whose authority?"

"His Highness Meng Shi's."

That made sense. Meng Shi normally dealt with matters akin to this, and yet Meng Yuan still felt a prickle of irritation that his uncle had acted without his knowledge regarding such a serious matter. "Is slavery generally the sentence given to those who commit similar crimes?" Meng Yuan asked.

"He didn't assault just anyone, Meng Yuan," Fang Huizhong replied, dropping the formality with which he'd been speaking to him up till now. "And he killed the maid who caught him."

A sense of shame infiltrated Meng Yuan's chest as he realized in the midst of everything, he had forgotten the prisoner had also killed someone. He lost his head when something concerned someone close to him, and apparently he could also forget about murder now.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. You've had a lot to deal with lately."

"Mm. I'm sure the maid's family would be consoled with such excuses."

"Either way, her killer has received his punishment."

Meng Yuan was silent, a complex look on his face.

"You didn't want him sent away?" Fang Huizhong asked, trying to figure out his mood, but Meng Yuan couldn't figure it out himself, let alone anyone else. "Did you want to castrate him first?"

He wasn't sure if Fang Huizhong was joking or serious. A week ago, probably. Before he'd done something just as humiliating to the man instead.

Either way, there was no one left to ask about the matter at hand excepting Que Hua herself.

"Well," he said at last, "I guess I'll go and talk to my sister then."