A few days after the murder case broke out at the Wu family’s old ink shop in Yandu, the Imperial Guard Alley already knew about it.

Past noon, Qiqian’er finished her meal in her own courtyard, then sauntered over to the old lady’s courtyard with Siyue. As soon as she entered, she saw eldest sister-in-law Li Shi, second sister-in-law Kou Shi, and third sister-in-law Luo Shi keeping the old lady company.

It was interesting how these sisters-in-law sat—like flatbreads stuck to the wall, all seated far away against it.

Just as she entered the courtyard, Qiqian’er heard the name Ge Sansu mentioned, so she said with a smile, “Ah, this business in Yandu? Even you sisters-in-law know about it already.”

One might think the capital under the Son of Heaven’s feet was vast, but a case like this—an elder brother poisoning his widowed sister’s entire family of seven—was rare throughout history.

Hearing Qiqian’er ask this, Li Shi and the others’ eyes lit up, and even the old lady sat up and called out, “Qian’er, you know too?”

The moment Qiqian’er entered the room she caught a strange odor. Holding her breath, she still climbed onto the kang with her shoes on and said, “Such a big matter—Jixiang’s family has been chattering about it all morning, how could I not know?” She glanced at Li Shi. “Sister, who did you hear it from?”

Li Shi smiled and said, “From the Guo Yang family. Their livestock got sick, so early this morning she came to borrow a cart from my courtyard, and I happened to overhear it. Isn’t their courtyard rented out to some official from the Ministry of Justice? At first I didn’t believe it, but once I came over here, well! Everyone already knew.

Tsk, can you imagine? This, this is truly unheard of. Right under the Emperor’s nose, a brother wiping out his sister’s entire family—oh my, is that even human? My teeth were chattering just hearing about it.”

The old lady, annoyed at their rambling, impatiently asked Qiqian’er, “Qian’er, is it really true?”

Qiqian’er quickly nodded. “It’s really true. Actually, this matter has some connection to our family…”

Before she finished speaking, the women in the room let out a collective gasp.

Seeing them flustered, Qiqian’er quickly added, “Oh, remember that night it thundered?”

Li Shi nodded immediately. “How could I forget? A’Nai kept insisting the Dragon King was seizing someone, not knowing who had sinned. She refused to sleep alone, and in the end it was me and third sister-in-law who went to keep her company.”

Recalling that night’s ordeal, Li Shi and Luo Shi both grimaced.

The old lady, somewhat embarrassed, gave her granddaughter-in-law’s leg a pat and turned to Qiqian’er. “Never mind that! Such a huge thunderclap—weren’t you all scared? Just tell me, what happened that night of the thunder?”

She had once handled clothing taken off a corpse in her youth, and ever since had been fearful of such things—it had become something of a phobia.

Qiqian’er thought about it, finding it unbelievable herself, and said, “This business of the brother poisoning his sister’s family happened that very night of the thunder. As it happens, your family’s Choutou was on night watch in the streets right then. When the rain was falling hardest, a young lady came bursting out from behind that house and grabbed onto our Guan Si’er’s leg, screaming for help. Then a bunch of people came rushing out from that house, saying the girl was mad, trying to drag her back inside…”

The old lady grew anxious and cut in hastily, “Nonsense! That’s nonsense. Something this serious happened and you call her mad? She’s not mad—there’s an injustice here!”

Qiqian’er nodded. “Exactly right, a monumental injustice. You know how stubborn as mules our family’s men are—hearing that girl’s crying wasn’t right, and she was screaming for help. They immediately kicked down a few servants and rushed into that room, but it was already too late—everyone inside was dead, as dead as could be!

That girl was lucky to survive too. That night, when her uncle’s family sent over soup, she didn’t touch a drop of it, giving it all to her wet nurse instead. Later, when she saw her wet nurse collapse, she crawled through a dog hole in the inner courtyard to the back gate, and once the old woman guarding the gate went to the outhouse, she made a run for it—and happened to run right into your eldest grandson.”

The old lady, being someone who valued family and clan greatly, asked in utter disbelief, “So it’s really true—the elder brother killed his own sister? Truly born of the same mother?”

Qiqian’er nodded. “Yes, it’s true. I asked Jixiang the same thing—truly born of the same womb.”

The old lady slapped her leg. “Then why? What kind of grudge could be that deep?”

Indeed, what kind of hatred could run that deep?

Qiqian’er sneered. “What else could it be? Money. Once that thing gets involved, people stop being people and turn into something worse…”

That Ge Sansu’s family had originally run the largest ink shop in Yandu. Their family also had an old brand name called “Xuanyu Studio,” which scholars and refined gentlemen of the previous dynasty loved to collect from. It was said their colored inks came in ten shades and ten hues, with tones so fine they remained unmatched to this day—top-quality goods. They had even done business making tribute vermilion ink for several generations, and the family was quite wealthy.

The Ge family’s business was large, but due to the nature of their materials, their ink workshop had always remained in their old home in the south. A couple of years ago, when military chaos broke out there, Ge Sansu’s father and several clan elder brothers perished in the south. Left with no choice, Ge Sansu’s mother gathered the family wealth and took the children to seek refuge with her elder brother’s family.

That Wu family also came from the ink trade, and they wanted the family’s wealth and the formula. But Wu Shi absolutely refused, feeling this was the foundation her sons needed to make their way in life. She quarreled repeatedly with her sister-in-law and brother, and finding it unbearable to stay, she planned to move out of the Wu household and return to the Ge family’s old home to live. But once meat is nearly at one’s lips, would they really let her leave?

The Ge family lost seven members, but the Wu family—from masters down to servants, everyone was involved in this. With a case of this magnitude, none of them would likely survive.

After Qiqian’er finished telling the old lady, the elderly woman was quiet for a good while before saying, “If it were me, I’d have just given them the formula. Once people are dead, it’s useless to you anyway. Didn’t she know what kind of people her own brother and sister-in-law were? Alas… what a foolish mother she was…”

Having said this, the old lady grew quite sad, leaning against her beloved kang cabinet for a long while before steadying herself. Finally she said, “Ah, people ought to cherish their blessings. If there’s food, eat it! If there’s drink, drink it! Otherwise who knows who ends up benefiting?”

To show she was different, she gritted her teeth and pulled out a key from inside her lapel.

The moment this key-pulling motion appeared, several granddaughters-in-law changed expression drastically, hastily reaching for their handkerchiefs to cover their noses and mouths.

The old lady beamed at her granddaughters-in-law, giving them meaningful looks as if they were about to receive a great treat. She opened the cabinet and reached her hand into her pile of treasures.

She fished around, and around, and finally pulled out two packets of pastries left over from who-knows-when, to share among the granddaughters-in-law. She even said, “You all have such fortunate lives, hmph! Only by marrying into our Old Chen family could you get such a blessing—no other family has this kind of fortune! Eat! Eat! Just look what you’ve caught here—these are the very pastries His Majesty loves to eat, sent over last time by Choutou’s father! Eat up, I’m telling you, they’re delicious!”

The granddaughters-in-law looked at the rock-hard, moldy pastries in their hands, at a loss whether to eat them or not. In the end, Qiqian’er, being good at ingratiating herself, took out her handkerchief, spread it out, and arranged several pieces of pastry on it. Wrapping them up carefully as if they were precious, she held them in her hands and said with a smile, “A’Nai really dotes on me, saving all the good things for us. Nai? Why so little? I bet you’ve still got more, right?”

She looked at the old lady with sparkling eyes. The old lady immediately grew defensive and scolded, “What, you’ve already grabbed and eaten some and still aren’t satisfied?”

Qiqian’er covered her mouth and laughed. “Listen to you—these are pastries His Majesty himself eats. Tomorrow I’m holding a little tea gathering in my courtyard, and bringing these out would be quite the show of face, wouldn’t it? A’Nai, give me a bit more…”

The old lady grew even angrier. “You greedy child, never satisfied! I’m telling you, the Bodhisattva has said how many clothes a person wears and how much food they eat is all written before they’re even born. If you eat too much of the good stuff now, you’ll have none left when you’re old! I’m warning you, you mustn’t be greedy, understand?”

Qiqian’er paid this no mind. She rolled along the edge of the kang to snatch the key. She’d long wanted to clean out the old lady’s cabinet. Last time, Eryue had quietly mentioned that the old lady hid everything in there—pastries, fried snacks, fruit, even bowl after bowl of meat dishes. All these things mixed together made the cabinet reek unbearably, and worse, she’d secretly feed it to Xique and Lanting Ge’er, causing the children to have stomach troubles all the time.

These past few days the weather had been stifling and humid, and after several rounds of rain the room had grown damp again. The old lady’s room was truly beyond saving at this point—it had the stench of rotting grain, almost bad enough to rival an outhouse.

But this stench was something the old lady couldn’t smell at all. Last year she’d suffered a bout of chills and headaches, and once she recovered, her sense of smell was simply gone—she couldn’t smell anything anymore.

No one else dared touch the old lady’s cabinet, but Qiqian’er alone was bold enough, often acting like a bandit and forcing the cabinet open to clean it out for her.

But you couldn’t just keep snatching things away from her to eat, either. Sometimes they had to wait until she was fast asleep, then bring the maids in to empty out the cabinet’s contents and stuff in some odds and ends to replace them—as long as the cabinet looked full, it was fine.

Now, watching the old lady’s increasingly muddled state, Qiqian’er found herself puzzled. In her previous life, the old lady had been sharp as a tack—she’d known exactly how many copper coins were tucked in the corner of her cabinet right up until her death.

How had she ended up like this?

Grandmother and granddaughter “fought hard” for a while, and in the end Qiqian’er was driven out with a shoe thrown by the old lady.

She had barely been standing in the courtyard for a moment when Li Shi and the others stumbled out in a sorry state. Seeing Qiqian’er, they pleaded as if seeking rescue, “Hey! Qian’er, you really need to do something about this quickly. That room’s smell is unbearable now. We suggested using more incense to mask it, but the old lady thinks it’s a waste of money. We can bear it, but Xique and Lanting are still so young—keep tormenting the children like this and half their lives will be gone, do you believe me?”

Qiqian’er, helpless, used a mind-calming incense that evening. Once the old lady was fast asleep, she led people into the room, carried out the old lady’s large kang cabinet, and began cleaning it up in the courtyard.

This wasn’t the first time either. These days it happened two or three times a season, and now that the weather was turning hot, it would probably need doing every ten-odd days.

The moment this cabinet was opened, the stench was something else entirely. Qiqian’er covered her nose and watched from a distance as several young maids cleared out broken bits of silver and scattered copper coins—things meant for the old lady to hand out as rewards, yet she’d get heartache over giving away even a single coin.

Afraid Qiqian’er would scold her, the old lady would take the money out, wander around for a bit, then turn around and hide it again.

Money was one thing—it wouldn’t grow mold or spawn offspring. The real problem was the old lady’s beloved worn cotton socks that she refused to throw away, dried fruits swiped from who-knows-whose banquet table, offering fruits from temples, bowls of meat stew gone green and shrunk to half their original size, dripping rotten fruit and peaches, half a cabinet of pastries, plus a nest of rats sleeping pink and cozy in the old lady’s cotton socks.

If these things were thrown away, they’d have to replace nearly everything to match, since the old lady, being sharp-eyed, would remember exactly what was where and things couldn’t be out of order.

In her confusion, the old lady didn’t believe that food and drink could spoil—she thought that as long as things were hidden away, they’d stay edible for ten thousand years.

Once everything was restocked and the cabinet carried back in, the whole courtyard finally breathed a sigh of relief.

They could finally live in peace.

Jixiang’s wife untied the handkerchief from under her nose and cautiously said to Qiqian’er, “Young mistress, I think something’s not quite right with the old lady.”

Qiqian’er nodded. Not quite right was putting it mildly. Physician Cheng had long ago told the old lady to eat a plain vegetarian diet and never touch anything greasy again, but expecting the old lady to actually listen would be a miracle in itself.

Whenever she got hold of food, she had to stuff her belly until it couldn’t hold any more. At home it was manageable, since they could keep some control over her, but now she was a well-known figure in the neighborhood, presiding over the entire Six Ministries Alley—whenever any family held a gathering, they’d invite the old lady to a seat of honor.

Qiqian’er, at a loss, calculated the spare cash she had on hand and said to Jixiang’s wife, “What do you think about moving to Yandu for a while, to help get the old lady’s health in order?”

Jixiang’s wife naturally agreed, nodding repeatedly. “That would be wonderful, wonderful! The master is also moving out of the palace next month—it’s only right for the whole family to live together… Young mistress, should I go back to the old residence tomorrow to start preparing?”

But Qiqian’er waved her hand. “We’re not staying with my adoptive father’s place. It’s only right that his own son support him! The more I think about it, the angrier I get. That Choutou needs to put in some effort and exert himself for once—what’s the point of us slaving away at home taking care of the old and young, while he gets to be a big shot in the capital, and even at home he’s still treated like some young master…”

Young master? As for Chen Dasheng, “young master” was hardly a fitting title for him anymore.

Because the culprit had escaped during that stormy night’s great battle, the following day Yandu had been sealed off for a full day of fruitless searching. In his fury, His Majesty had the group of officers responsible for that night each given twenty strikes of the rod.

And because Chen Dasheng had been off drinking mutton soup with a group of brothers, watching the whole spectacle from a rooftop, he’d received an extra five strikes on top of that.

There was no explaining to His Majesty now that it had been Meng Dichen who’d told everyone not to intervene, wanting to seize control of the operation himself—since the culprit had escaped, it was everyone’s fault, and everyone had to take their beating.

Though it was his own comrades administering the punishment, twenty-five strokes of the rod still left one’s backside a mass of bruises, with the skin broken in places.

Chen Dasheng, unable to sit and recover in the palace, had to go rest at the new Imperial Guard station instead. While he needed to rest, the station itself was in an uproar, with people constantly coming and going to curry favor with him.

There was another troublesome matter at hand now, too. That stormy night, once the Wu family’s poisoning case had come to light, Chen Dasheng had also sent for the Shuntian Prefecture office.

That Ge Sansu was the wronged party, so they couldn’t very well lock her up—they needed to find her a safe place to stay instead.

The Shuntian Prefecture wouldn’t take the girl in. She was also in heavy mourning, and with her entire family wiped out, it was considered rather inauspicious, leaving her with nowhere to go.

Since they’d already gone this far to help, Lao Dao and the others weren’t ones to be superstitious about such things, so they brought the girl back to the station, and now they were just waiting for the investigation to finish before the case went to trial.

The new courtyard at the Changdao station was enormous, with no shortage of space. Guan Si’er, being quick-witted, had even paid out of his own pocket to find an old woman to attend to the girl whose reputation he’d inadvertently ruined that night.

It wasn’t so bad for Ge Sansu to take refuge here—the difficulty was that the Wu family were long-established residents of Yandu, with all nine generations of their clan rooted there.

The Wu family had clan relatives and a clan head in the area, and however they’d deliberated among themselves, they’d decided to seek out Ge Sansu and beg her to put in a good word, asking her to spare a bloodline for that branch of the Old Wu family.

Hah! That’s what they said on the surface, but who would believe it? With the Old Ge family’s line extinguished, that meant there was now an “extinct-line fortune” to be had.

The weather was hot that day, so Chen Dasheng had someone carry him behind the bamboo blinds to watch the commotion.

The Wu family had some standing in Yandu, and within three days, someone from the Six Ministries had already pulled strings to send word to Chen Dasheng, saying that those who deserved death had gotten their just deserts, but this third young lady was also a Wu family relation by marriage—they wanted to take her in and care for her, since she was, after all, their own flesh and blood.

If Chen Dasheng would only agree to this, the Wu family was willing to offer a hundred thousand strings of cash.

Needless to say, Chen Dasheng wasn’t foolish. Even the Physician had sent someone out from the palace specifically to say that this girl carried behind her the assets of two of the largest ink guilds in Yandu—these people talking sweetly about flesh and blood kinship were the same flesh and blood that had poisoned an entire family to death.

Once the girl was taken away, they could later claim she’d died of grief missing her family, or say they hadn’t watched her closely enough and she’d hanged herself—and there’d be nothing anyone could do about it.

That girl was already carrying a fierce resolve, waiting to avenge her family’s wrongs. Send her away, leave her alone and helpless, thrown into the wolves’ den—they wouldn’t even need poison; a few cruel words would be enough to send her to her death.

Chen Dasheng refused to release her, so the Wu family went to great lengths and expense, pulling strings through Liu Daya’s mother, desperate for any chance to see the girl, no matter what.

Liu Daya had also taken his share of the rod punishment and couldn’t come himself, so he had the Wu family’s female relatives bring a letter instead.

Chen Dasheng received the letter from behind the curtain and read it through once, not quite sure what to say. Liu Daya explained that this was a debt of gratitude owed by his mother’s side of the family from years back, and his mother insisted he repay it—he couldn’t be unfilial. Furthermore, his wife had accepted fifty thousand strings of cash from the Wu family, which he planned to split evenly with his sworn brother.

As for the Wu family wanting to see Ge Sansu, well, this was how it would go…

Guan Si’er was a good kid. Ever since that day his reputation had been ruined, he’d come to resent that woman. That woman was unfortunate too—having arrived at the Changdao station nearly three days now, surviving each day on barely a few grains of rice.

His elder sworn brother had put it well: even if she died, she mustn’t die on Lao Dao’s turf. Thinking this over, Guan Si’er figured it made sense, so early one morning he went to the street corner to buy the wretched girl some tofu pudding.

The tofu pudding at the street corner was truly delicious—Guan Si’er could eat five bowls of it every time. He thought to himself that if the woman saw this tofu pudding, perhaps she’d actually eat some.

He ate his fill at the corner himself, and bought two extra bowls for her too. Carrying the food box, he’d barely taken a few steps toward the back when several of his sworn brothers dragged him aside into a small room. They undid his hair and found a mute old woman to style it into a woman’s bun for him. They also stripped off his clothes and dressed him in a woman’s skirt.

Guan Si’er naturally refused, struggling fiercely, but then he heard his sworn brother Qingguan say, “Old Seven, just listen up. In a bit, sit behind the shop and don’t make a sound. If that woman nags at you for the time it takes to burn an incense stick, you get a hundred strings of cash. If she nags for ten incense sticks’ worth of time, you get a thousand strings.”

Guan Si’er had no idea what was going on, but hearing “a thousand strings,” he agreed on the spot.

He stopped struggling after that, sitting obediently while the others fussed over him, dressing him in a woman’s robe and skirt, styling his hair into a woman’s bun, putting on a wind-guard headband, and even powdering his face white.

Once he was all dressed up, several sworn brothers carried him off to that wretched woman’s room, and even laid him down on her bed, covering him with her blanket.

Ge Sansu had left the room not long before. As soon as Guan Si’er lay down, he caught a strange, unfamiliar scent—a fragrance belonging to a woman that gradually filled his nose, making his mind grow hazy and his thoughts wander.

Just as he settled in, a wizened old man with a pointed mouth and monkey cheeks entered the fragrant bed, grinning at Guan Si’er and speaking in a soft, feminine voice that seemed utterly out of place coming from him, “Forgive the intrusion, sir~”

With that, the old man hopped over to crouch behind the bed near the chamber pot.

Guan Si’er, shocked and furious, was about to resist when he saw his sworn brothers lower the thin gauze curtain around the bed, then turn to guard the door.

Not long after, the sound of soft footsteps drifted in from the courtyard.

Tong Jintai stood at the doorway, his expression grim, looking at seven or eight women in the courtyard and asking, “What are you to this Ge Sansu?”

The woman leading the group had a dignified appearance but red, swollen eyes. She bowed first, then approached Tong Jintai and pulled a heavy packet from her sleeve, pressing it into his hands. “Sir, I am the third young lady’s own maternal aunt. Our family has also met with misfortune—to think we’d encounter such a catastrophic disaster. My husband couldn’t bear the shock at home and has, has taken to his bed unable to rise.”

Tong Jintai weighed the packet in his hand a few times, guessing it held at least fifty taels of gold, and turned to the man beside him with a crooked grin. “Oh? How is it he can’t rise?”

The woman, following his gaze, noticed several other officers standing nearby and, in the same distressed tone, went down the line crying to each of them in turn, handing out fifty taels of gold to whoever she met.

Having given out the gifts and seeing the officers accept them, she pleaded, “Gentlemen, please do us this one kindness. We’re simply worried about the third young lady and wish to speak a few comforting words with her privately. She’s still so young, and has suffered such terrible misfortune—we’re heartbroken over it. Could you gentlemen do us the favor of letting us see the young lady alone, just this once?”

As she spoke, she held her handkerchief and stared at the gold packet in Tong Jintai’s hands, shedding no tears herself, only weeping for the benefit of those inside.

Tong Jintai felt no sympathy at all. Weighing the bribe in his hand, he sneered coldly. “Impossible. Do you take us officers for fools?”

The woman’s crying abruptly stopped. Gritting her teeth, she finally pulled out a deed from her sleeve and handed it to Tong Jintai. “Sir, there comes a time in every man’s life when he dozes off on the job. What do you say?”

Tong Jintai opened the deed and saw it was for a two-mu plot of land in Yandu. He gave a cold snort through his nose. “Dozing off? That could certainly be arranged, only there are orders from above…”

He took a breath, glanced around, and made a show of greedily fanning himself with the deed in front of his brothers. Finally, tilting his head, he gave a signal, and Yu Qingguan and the others smiled and slipped out of the small courtyard.

Once they’d left, Tong Jintai turned to the woman and said, “Our superiors have repeatedly warned us not to disturb the third young lady. So here’s how it’ll go—in a moment I’ll go inside, and you all pretend I’m deaf and dumb and dozing off. We’ll each give the other some room, how about that?”

The woman thought it over for a moment, glanced at the time, and finally, gritting her teeth, nodded at Tong Jintai…

Guan Si’er lay half-reclined, his face twisted toward the inside of the bed in a grimace. He couldn’t help but grimace—that gaunt old man was squeezed in right behind the bed, mimicking a woman’s voice in soft, muffled sobs.

The whole thing was simply bizarre.

He could hear a transaction happening outside and had no idea what scheme those scoundrels were up to now, cheating him like this.

He didn’t have long to wonder before he heard Jintai approach the bed, and a number of women entered the room as well. The old man behind the bed wept even louder, his sobs growing more mournful.

One of the women spoke first, her voice dripping with feigned kindness and sympathy, “My, my third young lady, my poor third young lady!”

Amid the roomful of weeping and choked sobs, Guan Si’er heard someone say, “Last night, several of us all dreamed of your mother. Oh, my third young lady, a person’s fate is predetermined. Your mother said that down there, oh~ she truly cannot rest easy, worried about you suffering alone in this world. Others have parents, siblings—what do you have? You have nothing at all, my poor third young lady, whatever shall we do…”

Oh, so after all this fuss, this was an attack meant to break her spirit!