And that night they did. A small clearing in front of the estate served as the spot, and as the sun began to set, Ren read the charges and the verdict, then offered Lian an extra fifty copper pieces for each head she was willing to take.

"My men aren't great soldiers," she explained to the Shuli Go. "They don't have the stomach for this kind of thing. Plus, you found the truth. You deserve to set it right."

Only Mo Lan watched, of the servants. The rest had stayed inside with Lady Baodung, who had left her drug induced stupor and entered the shock of realizing the extent of her husband's crimes. She had been the only one in the house who had not known, though Lian couldn't be sure her ignorance was not willful and chosen.

Lady Jingyi cried throughout the reading and the execution. Lord Ma held her tight and Prefect Ren stood nearby in case she tried to stop the procedure. But she didn't. She just cried and watched and called for her father, telling him she loved him. And cursing Lian. She swore upon every God that had ever existed and begged for their intervention to strike down this evil woman who would ruin her family. Lian paid it no mind. She'd heard the same curses a hundred times already. Although usually they were coming from the men kneeling before her, and not women convinced they loved the man.

Two soldiers held each man kneeling, a foot on each side of the back, pushing the men forward. Lian withdrew her sword – she'd sharpened it dutifully the night before – and approached. Yao was silent as she severed the neck with clean precision, his head and then body slumping forward. But Baodung did something very odd: he screamed. Not in fear or anguish, but simple defiance. As if his shout could set right this great injustice of his love being wrong in every conceivable way. And it was a scream of love, too, Lian had to admit; it was not a lying scream – Lian could have deciphered that. In his own head, he truly loved his daughter. Then the head was on the ground and the scream gurgled and died, and then so did the man.

Jingyi fell to the ground, weeping and crying. By law the bodies had to be left at the execution spot for three days before the family could take them. So Lord Ma was forced to leave her on the ground, where she cried until her body dried up and the winter rains started to come down again, replacing her tears.

Back inside the Baodung estate, Prefect Ren paid Lian, and forced the highest remaining servant in Baodung's estate to pay the agreed upon five silver. Despite everything, Lian couldn't help but imagine the good a total of six silver would do for her own son. She allowed herself a long moment to miss Quan, whose face each winter she would forget for a few weeks until it came back on the road to Zhosian, like a sore muscle that required a familiar stretch to bring it back into use.

Ren then informed Fang about his own punishment: ten years of servitude in the army. "The army always requires doctors and surgeons. I hope you regain your appetite for severing broken arms and treating dysentery." Fang's head stayed low. He knew his sentence could have been to lose his head with his two masters. Giving up Yao had saved him.

Ren then said her goodbyes and instructed the servants to make sure Jingyi was brought inside before she became ill from the rain. "It's terrible. What she's had to endure." The Prefect put on her hat and rose to her full height. "If it was her father who poisoned her... is there any cure, Madam Zhao?"

"None. That feeling of love... and now, losing that love... will be with her until she's dead."

Ren sighed. "Then I hope for her sake you are wrong and you cut off the correct head."

"...I don't think it will matter one way or the other," Lian replied.

"...No. You're right. It won't." Ren agreed, then left.

Lian packed the few possessions she'd left at the estate while she'd performed the tax collection and search, and prepared to leave. As she walked back through the large home all the eyes of the servants met hers, and each set carried a different set of emotions she could feel in her bones: indifference, thanks, awe, but hatred too. Lady Baodung had inherited the estate, but was obviously in no position to run it effectively. Their son, the new Lord Baodung, was in Ying, the capital city, and had shown little interest in managing the farms and all the servants who lived in the manor. Their livelihoods were in jeopardy now. But Lian didn't care for their looks – she'd followed the law, and what's more, for once the law was in the absolute right. Two evil men had died, she wouldn't feel guilt for that.

She stepped outside into the rain and Lord Ma was there, waiting for her. They stood together under the awning of the Baodung home, and Lian tracked his eyes to Jingyi, still laying on the ground in the rain, still in her suffering.

"It's terrible," Ma said almost absentmindedly. "The whole thing."

"Yes... well," Lian corrected herself, "not the end, perhaps. That wasn't all bad."

"Well, not for me. I have a feeling the new Lord Baodung will be looking to sell many of his lands for a very good price."

Lian turned to look at Ma slowly, taking in the sincerity of his face. She found it, and it terrified her.

"One other thing," Ma stated as he bundled up his overcoats and prepared to step out. "Never show your face around these parts again. I'll have Ren put a bounty on your head if I so much as hear about you coming back."

Lian felt the six silver pieces in her purse weigh down on her. Another corner of the Empire she could never return to, never make even the slightest bit of money for herself and her son. "Your daughter never said those things," Lian confirmed what she'd known when the Lord had spoken earlier that day. "Your daughter never said Jingyi was being raped."

Ma stepped out into the rain, an umbrella outstretched above his head. "I'm not a monster," he stopped and turned back to face Lian. "If I knew, I would have stopped it then. And I would have had his lands a lot sooner on top of it. I'm not the monster. But you," he nodded sagely, "you're a monster. Meddling into the private affairs of a family. This is why no one trusts Shuli Go. You put your nose where it doesn't belong. I know Baodung. He would have said, 'Find my daughter and save her.' Not 'Punish whoever did this to her.' Next time, Zhao, don't take any initiative. Servants who take initiative aren't worth their weight in horse shit."

And then he set off and Lian was left with the weight of six more coins in her purse and something far, far heavier in her chest. She looked at Jingyi on the ground, the soldier pitying her and trying to cover her from the rain. And she knew the girl wouldn't live long. Couldn't. No matter what. She would be outcast from every social sphere, even her own family, likely. And everywhere she went, she would carry a lost love in her heart that would gnaw and digest her. And eventually she would die of it – either she would not eat, or she would take a knife or a pistol and plunge metal into her brain so that she wouldn't have to feel the terrible burn that was her grief eating away at her insides until they turned to liquid. Lian saw all that and felt part of it too, but she put it aside as she mounted her horse and left for the next bit of land she could get kicked off of.