The Dasheng Dynasty's Sky Prison sat in the northwest corner of the imperial city. Its gray brick walls, soaked with centuries of damp, evoked a biting chill even in the twilight. Liu huddled on a straw mat at the innermost edge of the cell, her half-worn blue prison uniform barely shielding her from the drafts that seeped through the cracks in the stone. Three days earlier, she had been warming silver charcoal in the General's mansion's warm room, leisurely sipping fresh tea from a gold-inlaid cup. Now, she could only smell the musty odor emanating from beneath the straw mat, her nails digging deep into her palms, leaving crescent-shaped bloody marks.
"Bang—"
The rusty iron door was roughly pushed open, its hinges creaking. A ferocious-faced jailer stepped in, carrying a chipped ceramic bowl. Inside was two hard steamed buns and a pool of murky vegetable soup. The sour, rancid smell instantly filled the small space.
"Liu, it's time for dinner." The jailer's voice was like sandpaper scraping across wooden boards, filled with undisguised contempt.
Liu suddenly raised her head, her messy hair clinging to her sweaty forehead, her once carefully maintained face covered in dirt. She stumbled to the iron bars, her hands gripping the cold iron bars, her knuckles turning white. "Where's my daughter? Where is Shen Ruorou? Which cell did you put her in?"
The jailer threw the ceramic bowl to the ground, splashing the soup onto Liu's shoes. He scoffed, revealing his tea-stained teeth. "Second Miss Shen? She's already been escorted to Jingxin Temple on the outskirts of the capital by a detachment of imperial guards. You didn't know, didn't you? Her feigned pregnancy was exposed, and the current emperor has personally decreed that she's never to return to the capital!"
"Pregnant?" Liu was struck by lightning, stumbling back half a step, bumping into the cold stone wall. She recalled her daughter's heart-wrenching cries when she was taken away three days ago—"Mother, save me! It was Shen Weiwan! She stuffed that cotton in my stomach!" At the time, she had thought it was her daughter's desperate ramblings, but now she understood that Shen Ruorou had actually taken such a risky move. To salvage her plummeting reputation among the noble ladies, she had come up with such a shady idea as faking a pregnancy, only to be publicly exposed by Shen Weiwan.
"Impossible..." Liu muttered to herself, her eyes vacantly fixed on the dewdrops condensing on the spider web in the corner. "Ruorou is so smart, and she bribed the midwife she knew well, how could she be caught?"
"Smart?" The jailer, as if hearing a ridiculous joke, crushed the gravel with his foot. "Liu, Liu, you still don't understand? Miss Shen has long since laid a net for you to fall into! While your second daughter was crying out for justice in prison, the Imperial Tutor's wife and her maidservant came to the prison to visit the wives of the imprisoned officials. Coincidentally, they saw a ball of snow-white cotton fall out of your daughter's underwear and roll onto the side of the Imperial Tutor's embroidered shoes!"
Liu's eyes buzzed, and she seemed to see Shen Weiwan's almond-shaped eyes, always feigning innocence, now curved into a cunning crescent. She remembered that Shen Ruoruo had indeed sent word a few days ago that she had bribed midwife Wang in the south of the city and was waiting for the right moment to announce her pregnancy. Even if her reputation was damaged, she could still use the excuse of "secret pregnancy" to marry into a wealthy family. Little did she know that this calculated scheme had been a trap set by Shen Weiwan from the very beginning.
"Ah!" Liu suddenly let out a scream that was not human, and threw herself against the wall like an enraged female beast, her skinny fingers scratching the rough brick wall with a harsh sound. "Chen Weiwan! You little bitch deserves to be cut into pieces! Even if I become a ghost, I will not let you go--!"
The jailer quickly grabbed her by the back of the collar and flung her back onto the straw mat like a chicken. "Want to die? Not so easy! The Emperor has decreed that you, old thing, must live and watch the general's mansion fall into complete ruin, and your precious daughter live a life of vegetarianism in a nunnery!"
"Hahaha—Madam Liu? What a rare visitor!" A playful voice suddenly rang out from the cell next door. A female prisoner with a scar on her face peeked out from behind the bars. "What? Madam Liu, who used to lord it over the General's Mansion, is now crammed in with murderers like us?"
Another hoarse voice chimed in, "I heard your dainty second daughter's belly is stuffed with cotton fluffier than the stuff sold in silk shops! Tsk tsk, she's a noble lady, and yet she comes up with such a despicable trick, isn't she afraid of being laughed at?"
"That's right! I think Miss Shen is the real deal. She's got you and your daughter fooling around!"
The roar of laughter pierced Liu's ears like needles, and she trembled violently, her nails almost digging into her flesh. She thought of Shen Weiwan before her rebirth—the silly girl in a washed-out skirt, timidly following behind her, calling her "Auntie," the fool who would even give up a piece of dessert to Shen Ruorou. But this soft persimmon, so easily manipulated, had now become a hunter with a butcher's knife, forcing them to this point.
"Mother...save me...mother..."
In a trance, Liu heard her daughter's faint cry again, the cry of Shen Ruorou as she was dragged out of the general's mansion. She suddenly tore at her hair, and a few strands of gray hair were pulled out and fell on the dirty straw mat. The jailer kicked the broken bowl at his feet impatiently: "Do you want to eat? If not, I'll feed it to the dogs!"
Liu suddenly rushed to the iron fence as if grasping a life-saving straw, with a crazy light flashing in her eyes: "I want to see the emperor! I want to see the emperor! I want to accuse Chen Weiwan of framing Zhongliang! She is the vicious woman who harbors evil intentions!"
"Loyal and good?" the jailer laughed, slapping his thigh. "You embezzled 30% of the General's treasury and pocketed the frontier soldiers' pay. The case files at the Dali Temple are taller than you! The Emperor spared you execution because you're a woman and out of respect for the old general. And you still want to overturn the verdict? You're like a toad trying to eat swan meat!"
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