Chapter 2 — The Heir to the Throne with the Wicked Face

Lenient Sentence

Eighteen days after the night of the incident, Nhược Hi was arrested in a small town more than a hundred miles from the capital Vân Khánh, when she was trying to exchange a ghost mask for a handful of rice from an old farmer who did not know who she was. Hunger, thirst and exhaustion had eroded the quick reflexes of the Đại Hạ princess who had been trained since childhood. When she realized that the patrolling soldiers were not local militia but soldiers in civilian clothes, they bound her hands tightly and took her back to the capital in a wooden cot covered with black cloth.

She was imprisoned in a large prison for seven days before being brought before a closed trial, without many officials, only a few trusted officials of the ruling faction and the head of the interrogation - Khưu Bá Trạch, the royal deputy of the court, who had just been promoted to the position of Deputy Chief Minister within only half a month after the incident.

"Your Highness is awake now?" Khưu Bá Trạch sat on a high chair, his voice so calm that it was chilling, completely opposite to the image of someone who had just orchestrated the massacre of the entire royal family. His face was thin, his long narrow eyes always looking straight at the other person as if he were measuring every smallest reaction. "I'm sorry to see Your Highness in this situation."

"Are you sorry?" Nhược Hi raised her head, her hair was messy, but her eyes still couldn't hide the smoldering hatred. "You killed my parents, then sat there saying sorry?"

An official standing next to him slammed the table and shouted loudly, but Khưu Bá Trạch just raised his hand to stop her, as if her accusation was not worth worrying about.

"Is there any evidence for what Your Highness says?" He slowly flipped through a stack of papers on the table, his voice still maintaining a frighteningly leisurely tone. "Meanwhile, we have many witnesses testifying that Your Highness herself secretly met many times with the great thief, the Demon-Faced Witch, in the months before the incident, including correspondence found in Her Highness's palace."

Nhược Hi was stunned. She knew right away that they were fake letters, someone had skillfully imitated her handwriting, but in this humid world, no one bothered to listen to the excuse of a young woman who had just lost both her parents.

"You people make up stories." She grumbled every word. "That night I had never met anyone by that name."

"So why, on the night of the incident, did someone see Her Highness wearing the same outfit as the Ghost-Faced Witch while running out of the palace?" Khưu Bá Trạch raised his eyebrows, pride flashing in his eyes beneath a stern expression. "Khấu Đình Ân, Your Highness's chief administrator of internal affairs, confessed everything before... before falling seriously ill in prison."

That sentence was like a knife piercing Nhược Hi's chest. She knew that "severely ill" was just an understatement for the cruel tortures that a nearly seventy-year-old man had to endure to protect her secret.

"He didn't declare anything." She gritted her teeth. "You forced confessions."

"Your Highness may think so." Khưu Bá Trạch folded the stack of papers and stood up, the hem of his dragon-embroidered official uniform fluttering in the dim candlelight. "But the evidence was enough for the Penal Ministry to accuse Her Highness of colluding with bandits and plotting to harm her parents in order to seize the throne. This is a serious crime, and Your Highness understands that better than anyone."

Nhược Hi raised her head, her eyes no longer had any fear but only extreme contempt. "Then why don't you kill me already? Why are you still trying to judge me?"

At that moment, a low female voice rang out from behind the pearl curtain:

"Because I don't want to see the blood of the royal family die again."

Uất Nguyệt Hàn stepped out, a graceful figure in a dark purple outfit, a jade-encrusted phoenix hat on her head, and each step she took was leisurely, as if she were giving grace to the whole world. She was the stepmother of the First Emperor, whom Nhược Hi had called since childhood by the two words "grandmother" even though they were not related by blood, and had never once doubted her.

"Your Majesty..." Nhược Hi stammered, a faint ray of hope rising in her heart.

"Don't call me that anymore." Uất Nguyệt Hàn shook her head slightly, her voice was gentle but contained a coldness that made Nhược Hi shiver. "Your crime cannot be tolerated by the law of the country. But I still have a little love left, and I cannot bear to see you suffer the death penalty. I will ask the Great Master for mercy and banish you to a distant temple, so that you have the opportunity to repent for the rest of your life."

Nhược Hi looked deeply into the eyes of the woman in front of her, trying to find some trace of sincerity, but only saw a deep silence, like the bottom of a bottomless well. Only later did she understand that it was not mercy, but a carefully calculated move: killing a Đại Hạ princess would cause public outrage, especially while the Three Kingdoms of Western Liang were closely monitoring every change in the Đại Hạ court before deciding whether to renew the peace treaty. A sentence of exile, dressed up as benevolence, would quell all doubts and permanently push her out of the chessboard of power.

"I thank the emperor's mother." Nhược Hi bowed her head, her voice stiff as if every word had to be swallowed along with the indignation welling up in her chest.

Khưu Bá Trạch looked at that scene, the corner of his lips slightly curled up into a smile as thin as a blade. "Then it's decided. Princess Khương Nhược Hi, for colluding with robbers to harm her parents, was stripped of all titles, exiled to Tịnh Nghiệp Am on Lam Phong Mountain, repented for the rest of her life, not allowed to leave the door of the hermitage without a decree."

After Nhược Hi was led back to the prison, Khưu Bá Trạch lingered in the courtroom, pouring himself a cup of cold tea. Uất Nguyệt Hàn sat down opposite, removing the gentleness that had just been put on in front of Nhược Hi, like taking off a layer of clothing that was no longer needed.

"Forgiveness?" She smiled faintly, her voice now colder. "What do you intend to keep her alive for? A righteous and well-respected Crown Princess, even if she is stripped of her title, is still a thorn that can grow back at any time."

"Because killing her now would be like personally giving the Three Kingdoms of Western Liang an excuse to accuse our court of injustice." Khưu Bá Trạch took a sip of tea, gazing through the wooden-barred window. "The Western delegation is still at the border. If news that a sixteen-year-old Đại Hạ girl was executed right after her parents' deaths reached their ears, the border trade agreement would be considered broken. A distant temple and a sentence of lifelong exile will silence the gossip and ensure that she never has a chance to set foot in this royal court again."

"You are so confident that locking her behind the temple walls is absolutely safe." Uất Nguyệt Hàn snorted lightly. "My Bạt Nghi has been waiting for that position for twenty years. I don't want any more variables."

"The Queen Mother can rest assured." Khưu Bá Trạch put down the teacup, his long narrow eyes flashed with a familiar coldness. "I have ordered people to closely monitor Tịnh Nghiệp Am. A young girl with no iron, no relatives, no money, even if she has the fire of hatred in her heart, she cannot accomplish anything in that deep mountain and valley. Time will erode everything, even the strongest will for revenge."

That sentence, if Nhược Hi could have heard it in the prison at this time, would have made her even more determined to prove the opposite.

Three days later, before the escort group left the capital, Nhược Hi was allowed to see Khấu Đình Ân one last time in the prison. He was so old that he was no longer recognizable, his left arm was broken and deformed, he could not move, his face was covered with whip marks that had not yet healed. But when he saw her, his cloudy eyes still shone with an unusually warm light.

"Her Highness is still alive," he whispered, his voice hoarse from screaming under torture. "That's enough."

"I'm sorry." Nhược Hi knelt down next to the iron bars, tears rolling down and she could no longer hold back. "Because of you, you have to suffer like this."

"Don't say that." Khấu Đình Ân tried to smile, even though every movement on his face caused him pain. "I have never said a word about helping Your Highness escape, about the mask, or about everything that happened that night. They are only threatening Your Highness. They have no real evidence, only fake testimonies made up to legitimize the verdict."

Nhược Hi tightened her grip on the cold iron bars, her heart aching as if someone was strangling her. "So when you're exiled to the temple, what should you do?"

"Living." He looked straight into her eyes, his gaze unusually steadfast even though his body was ruined. "Live, bide your time, and never let the fire in your heart go out. Three years, five years, ten years is fine. Đại Hạ needs a true ruler, not someone who sits on the throne with someone else's blood."

The escort group left Vân Khánh capital on a dense foggy morning. Nhược Hi sat in the prison car, her hands chained, looking through the gap in the rough cloth curtain at the familiar streets gradually receding behind. She saw people standing on both sides of the road, some were curious, some pointed contemptuously, calling her an "unfilial princess" and "a murderer of her father and mother". None of them knew the truth, and in that moment, Nhược Hi understood that the road ahead would be longer than anything she had ever imagined.

She reached out to touch the jade tablet hidden in her bra, feeling its familiar coldness, then gently closed her eyes. Lam Phong Mountain is still nearly a hundred miles from the capital, but in her heart, the real distance lies not in those miles, but in learning how deeply to bury her true self in order to survive long enough, enough to one day return to reclaim everything she lost.