In the backyard of the embroidery workshop, Wang Xiuxiu gently placed a teacup on the stone table.
Eighteen women sat around the perimeter; the oldest was only twenty-five, and the youngest was just sixteen.
Sunlight filtered through the pear tree branches, casting dappled shadows on their scarred faces.
A girl instinctively raised her hand to shield her eyes from the light, revealing a deep, bone-revealing knife wound on her wrist.
"If you want to accuse those beasts, you must reopen old wounds in public," Wang Xiuxiu said, her voice strained. "I don't want to force you all..."
They had finally achieved a stable life, and if there were any other way, she would never want to disturb them with these old stories again.
"I'll go." Yunniang, with the brand on her face, was the first to speak. As she spoke, the scar at the corner of her mouth resembled a twisted centipede. "My father believed until his death that I had eloped with someone."
Her fingers brushed against the sachet at her waist, which contained a lock of her father's white hair.
The sachet's stitches were crooked; she had secretly sewed it with bed sheet thread in the Golden Pavilion.
"I'm going too." Qinghe, who had lost her left eye, sneered. The empty eye socket looked particularly ferocious in the sunlight. "Let them see what kind of wolf in sheep's clothing that gentle and refined young master Wang really is!"
As she spoke, a chilling flame burned in her remaining eye.
Wang Xiuxiu had eighteen embroidered veils purchased for her, and then personally embroidered a kapok flower on each veil.
These are flowers from Lingnan, said to remain bright red even as they fall, just like these girls.
----
After much deliberation, Wang Xiuxiu finally decided on her lawyer.
She went through all the lawyers' files in the capital three times, and finally her gaze settled on the name "Zhang Heng".
Seeing her hesitation, Lu Jingze made up his mind.
"You still want to choose Zhang Heng?"
Wang Xiuxiu nodded.
"Then let's take a gamble, I'll be with you."
Wang Xiuxiu and Lu Jingze deliberately chose to go together in the middle of the night, which really startled Zhang Heng.
When they scaled the wall and landed in the Zhang family's backyard, this poor scholar, known for his courage, was so startled that he dropped the "Great Laws" he was holding into the brush-washing jar.
"I wonder what brings you two here?" Zhang Hengqiang asked calmly, his right hand already stealthily reaching for the dagger under the table.
Wang Xiuxiu took out the woman's confession from the Golden Pavilion and handed it to him.
The silk fabrics bearing bloody handprints glowed a dark red in the candlelight.
Zhang Heng's fingers suddenly trembled, and the lamp on the table snapped with a "pop".
"These women need a lawyer with a silver tongue."
As the candlelight flickered, cold sweat gradually seeped from Zhang Heng's forehead.
He understood what taking on this case meant.
Whether he succeeds or fails, those powerful families who have controlled the government for decades will not let him go.
The hooting of owls came from outside the window, like the sobs of the unjustly killed.
The silence lasted for a full fifteen minutes.
Zhang Heng suddenly stood up and took out a cracked Chengni inkstone from the bottom of the box.
The five characters 'Iron shoulders bear the burden of righteousness' were written in cinnabar on the back of the inkstone, but they have become mottled and faded.
"This was a gift from my father on his deathbed." His voice suddenly choked with emotion. "He was the best lawyer in Wuzhou. Years ago, he was driven to suicide by hanging himself by powerful families after exposing corruption in the granary. That night, he used this inkstone to write his last petition..."
His fingers traced the cracks in the inkstone, and he resolutely said, "I'll take this case."
---
The plan to demolish the barren mountains on the outskirts of Beijing was decided after three days of secret discussions between Wang Xiuxiu and the Vice Minister of Works.
That vice minister was the emperor's man; his father had served as the director of the Imperial Observatory and left behind a secret book recording the geomantic veins of the capital before his death.
They chose a hillside with soft soil and precisely calculated the amount of gunpowder to ensure that it would shake away the topsoil without damaging the buried remains.
On the night of the explosion, Wang Xiuxiu stood on a hill three miles away, watching the smoke and dust rise into the sky, clutching the roster she had brought out from the secret room of the Golden Pavilion.
This booklet, made of sheepskin and with each page soaked in tung oil, records the "appraisal comments" of nearly a hundred women.
When the first skeleton was ripped from the ground by the blast wave, she suddenly remembered the vermilion annotation at the end of the roster: "All goods of grade B have been destroyed." The handwriting was elegant and flowing, yet it exuded a chilling indifference.
The night wind carried the scent of earth, and in a daze, she seemed to hear a sobbing sound coming from underground.
-----
After the storm subsided, Wang Xiuxiu went to the embroidery workshop to visit the girls.
The moment the carved wooden door was pushed open, sunlight slanted into the hall, and tiny dust particles danced in the beams of light, like countless souls breaking free from their constraints.
They had already removed their veils; some were embroidering, others were reading. When they saw Wang Xiuxiu arrive, they all stood up and bowed.
Sunlight streamed through the windowpanes, falling on their scarred faces—those wounds that were once shameful to be seen now revealed a somewhat grotesque beauty in the sunlight.
The red plum blossoms on the embroidery frame are stitched with fine lines, and the annotations between the pages of the book are written in neat handwriting.
"Miss Wang, thank you so much... for getting justice for us." Yunniang handed over a cup of tea, her once trembling hands now as steady as a rock.
A few jasmine blossoms floated in the tea soup, their fragrance carrying a slight bitterness.
Wang Xiuxiu shook her head: "It was your own courage."
Her gaze swept over the painting "A Cry for Justice" hanging on the wall.
The painting depicts eighteen women playing drums in the snow, each with their features vividly portrayed.
This was painted overnight by the most famous painter in the capital after the public trial.
Xi Mei chuckled: "We're not afraid anymore. We were never the ones in the wrong."
As she spoke, she rolled up her sleeves, revealing a hideous brand on her wrist—the character for "cheap" had been changed to "war" by her embroidery needle dipped in cinnabar.
The sunlight shone on the words, making them a dazzling, proud red.
"It's a pity that Sister Shen and Yue'er didn't get to see the day when this great revenge was achieved." Qinghe suddenly spoke, her embroidery needle stabbing fiercely into the brocade, creating a resolute arc.
There were no tears in her one intact eye, only a fire-like light.
This episode stirred up painful memories for everyone present.
The embroidery workshop suddenly fell silent, with only the rustling of sycamore leaves outside the window.
In the corner, a little girl silently stroked the cloth doll on her lap—it was sewn for her by Yue'er before she died, and now it has become her only memento.
In fact, initially, there were twenty girls who came to settle down in this embroidery workshop.
It was a snowy winter night, and Lu Jingze personally escorted them there.
Twenty pairs of terrified eyes, twenty wounded bodies, like twenty butterflies with wings soaked by a downpour.
The humiliation they have suffered over the years cannot be erased simply by fleeing far away. They suffer from nightmares every night, battling unseen demons in their dreams.
One day, two unfortunate women, unable to bear their past pain any longer, agreed to jump into the river far, far away from their embroidery room.
They walked hand in hand toward the center of the river, their skirts billowing in the water like two withered water lilies.
Outside the window, a woman was singing a folk song, her voice mingling with the cheers of the crowd and drifting into the distance.
The tune was light and bright, and it sang "Spring comes and all flowers bloom, daughters return home".
The streets were bustling with noise as people celebrated the downfall of the powerful clans, unaware of the many unhealed wounds hidden beneath the bright sky.
Wang Xiuxiu stood on the upper floor of the embroidery workshop, looking at the women.
The sunlight shone through their many hardships and fell upon them, finally bringing them warmth.
Beneath the courtyard wall, several wild rose bushes had somehow climbed up the window frame, blooming with tiny red flowers.
Qinghe was leading several little girls in practicing calligraphy under a tree, writing each stroke with great care.
Wang Xiuxiu recognized that they had written the four characters "天理昭昭" (Heaven's justice is evident), the ink still wet and shimmering in the sunlight.
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