Reincarnation In The Shanghai Dynasty

Untitled Episodechapter9

Chapter 9: The Fire in the North

The orange glow of the fire lit up the night sky, turning the falling snow into golden sparks. The North Pavilion—the cold, neglected prison where Lin Xia and her daughters had spent their years—was now a torch of roaring flames. The wooden beams groaned as the fire licked the roof, and thick, black smoke began to pour from the cellar vents.

"The midwife!" Lin Xia’s voice was like a whip. "She’s still inside!"

Master Chen stood frozen, clutching the "Golden Son." His world was falling apart, and he could only watch the fire with hollow eyes. But Lin Xia’s daughters were already moving. They didn't wait for a man’s command. They had been trained by a woman who didn't believe in waiting.

"A-Mei, get the servants to form a bucket line!" Lin Xia ordered. "A-Ling, watch the perimeter. Don't let anyone use this chaos to steal the ledgers! A-Jiao—"

She didn't even have to finish the name. A-Jiao, the youngest and the shadow of the family, was already halfway across the courtyard. She didn't run toward the front door, which was already a wall of fire. She ran toward the old drainage grates—the secret tunnels she had mastered just hours before.

"A-Jiao, come back!" A-Zhen screamed, reaching out for her sister. But the girl was gone, slipping into the dark opening of the stone grate like a ghost.

Beneath the earth, the air was changing. It was no longer damp and cold; it was growing hot and thin. A-Jiao pulled her damp tunic over her nose and mouth, crawling through the narrow stone passage. Above her, she could hear the terrifying crackle of the wood and the thud of falling debris.

I have to be fast, she told herself, her eyes stinging from the heat. Mother says a lawyer only wins if they keep their witnesses alive. I am the lawyer’s hands today.

She reached the section of the tunnel that opened into the North cellar. The stone walls were hot to the touch. She pushed against the grate with all her might. It didn't budge. The fire above had caused a beam to fall directly onto the exit.

A-Jiao didn't panic. She didn't cry. She looked at the hinges of the grate. She took the small metal scraper she had used earlier—the one she had used to save the midwife the first time—and began to dig at the mortar around the stone. Her fingers bled, and her lungs burned, but she worked with a ferocity that would have made Lin Xia proud.

Snap.

The stone shifted. A-Jiao put her shoulder against it and shoved. The grate gave way, and she tumbled into the smoke-filled cellar.

In the corner, curled into a ball, was the midwife. The old woman wasn't moving. The smoke had already started to take her. A-Jiao scrambled over, slapping the woman’s cheeks.

"Wake up!" A-Jiao hissed. "You don't get to die yet! You still have a truth to tell!"

While A-Jiao fought the fire below, Lin Xia was fighting a different kind of fire in the courtyard. The Imperial Captain was watching the Pavilion burn, his arms crossed.

"The witness is gone, Lady Wei," the Captain said, his voice flat. "Without her, your claim that the Physician and Lord Feng framed your family is just a story. And my men still found the Emperor's silk on your husband's land."

"The silk was found in the West Wing, under the cradle of a boy who is being fed goat's blood," Lin Xia said, stepping right into the Captain's space. She didn't care about his sword or his rank. "If you let that building burn without saving the woman inside, you are letting the real thief walk away. Is that the kind of 'justice' you want to report to the Emperor?"

The Captain looked at her. He saw the soot on her face and the iron in her eyes. He had never met a woman who spoke to him as an equal. He turned to his men.

"Get in there! Break the windows! Find the girl and the old woman!"

But before the guards could move, a violent explosion rocked the North Pavilion. A jar of oil in the kitchen had caught fire. The roof began to sag.

"It’s too late," Master Chen moaned, falling to his knees. "We are ruined. Everything is gone."

Lin Xia felt a cold weight in her stomach. Had she pushed too hard? Had she sent her youngest daughter to her death? For a split second, the echo of a flatline filled her ears. She felt the same emptiness she had felt in the car crash in 2024.

Then, the ground near the fountain erupted.

A-Jiao burst out of the drainage grate, gasping for air. She was covered in soot, her clothes were singed, and she was dragging the unconscious midwife by her arm. The girl collapsed onto the grass, coughing violently, but she didn't let go of the woman’s sleeve.

Lin Xia was at her side in a second, pulling her daughter into her arms. "A-Jiao! You're alive."

A-Jiao looked up at her mother, her eyes red and watering, but a sharp, triumphant smile crossed her face. She reached into her tunic and pulled out a small, charred object. It was a metal cylinder—the Physician's private record book, which the midwife had been clutching when A-Jiao found her.

"I got... the woman," A-Jiao panted, her voice raspy. "And I got... the evidence."

The midwife was revived with water, coughing and gasping. As the Imperial guards watched, she pointed a trembling finger at the Physician, who was still held by the guards.

"He told me to lie!" the midwife screamed. "He told me if I said the boy was the Master's son, he would give my family a farm! But then he locked me in that closet! He was going to kill me to keep the secret!"

The Captain took the metal cylinder from A-Jiao’s hand. He opened it and began to read. His face went from pale to dark red.

"This isn't just a frame-up for silk theft," the Captain whispered. "This Physician was working for a rival silk family to systematically bankrupt the Chen estate so they could take over the Imperial contracts. This is economic sabotage."

The Captain looked at Lin Xia. He saw her four daughters standing together—A-Mei, A-Ling, A-Zhen, and the soot-covered A-Jiao. They looked more like a squad of soldiers than a family.

"The Master of this house is a fool," the Captain said, looking at the weeping Master Chen. "But the Wife is a shark."

He turned to Lin Xia. "The Emperor still needs his silk, Lady Wei. And the Physician is a traitor. If you can really produce the Tribute Silk as you promised, I will delay the arrest of this household. But you have thirty days. If the silk isn't ready by the Moon Festival, the fire you saw tonight will be nothing compared to the Emperor's wrath."

Lin Xia stood up, her ruined robes blowing in the wind of the fire. She looked at the burning North Pavilion—her old life was literally going up in smoke. She felt no sadness. Only a terrifying, cold clarity.

"Thirty days is plenty of time," Lin Xia said.

She turned to her daughters. "A-Mei, find us a place to stay in the West Wing. Since Hua’s room is empty, we shall take it. A-Ling, I want a full list of every weaver who is still loyal to us. A-Zhen, I want you to find out which rival family the Physician was working for. We aren't just making silk. We’re going to take their market share."

But as the family began to move, A-Ling stopped. She was looking at the charred metal cylinder the Captain had handed back to her mother.

"Mother," A-Ling whispered, her eyes wide. "I just looked at the dates in the Physician’s book. He wasn't just working for a rival family. There’s a regular payment here from a man in the Imperial Palace."

Lin Xia froze. The "Golden Son" fraud wasn't just a local scam. Someone close to the Emperor wanted a fake heir in the Chen family.

"Who is the payment from, A-Ling?" Lin Xia asked.

A-Ling swallowed hard. "It doesn't have a name. It only has a seal. The seal of the Imperial Prince."

Lin Xia looked at the baby, Chen Bo, who was now sleeping in the arms of a terrified servant. The child wasn't just a pawn. He was a weapon belonging to a man who could kill them all with a single word.

"Well," Lin Xia said, a dangerous light in her eyes. "It seems we aren't just silk merchants anymore. We are in the middle of a coup."