On the third day of exile, the Ninth Princess’s prison clothes were torn.
The watching refugees shouted, “Good! Tear them off!” The escorting officer leered and lunged at her.
Then a wooden hairpin, sharpened over three days, sank into his thigh, half an inch from his manhood.
Li Huaibi got to her feet without covering herself, her prison clothes hanging open, the whip marks on display. In full view of everyone, she called out to the Jinyiwei’s Northern Commandery Guard, Lu Lin:
“Lord Lu, I’ll trade you the list of the smuggling network for your protection until I reach Liangzhou, plus three months as your wife. Do we have a deal?”
The entire crowd fell silent. Lu Lin stood there for three breaths, then drew his saber.
The blade cut through the secret message tube at the officer’s waist.
“While the Northern Commandery is investigating this case,” he said, “she is under our protection.”
He didn’t leave. Nor could he bring himself to call those three months over.
Later, Rust City took the surname Li, and the Jinyiwei commander became a prince consort.
When refugees asked whether she was really mad or only pretending, she chewed on a steamed bun and answered with a rhyme:
“Rust flies from Rust City’s walls, the horses don’t return, and the people don’t come home.”
Until one day, someone discovered that the map she had drawn on the city tower concealed the entire Great Xia’s grain routes.
And Lu Lin stood behind her, tying a red cord around the broken saber in his hand before setting it gently beside her.
