Meng Guanlou liked to beat the jiegu drum after heavy drinking.

This jiegu drum was produced in Qingzhou, its drumhead made from ram skin, producing a crisp sound. He hung the jiegu drum on his body, hair disheveled. After finishing a piece, his entire bare upper body was covered with a layer of crystalline sweat, venting his pent-up emotions.

“You go help me mix the things in that paper packet with water.” Meng Guanlou said breathlessly, his eyes extremely vacant.

In the private room was also a petite eighteen-year-old flower girl. Hearing this, she carefully moved to the desk. Her hand trembled and all the powder from the paper packet spilled outside. Meng Guanlou immediately grabbed her wrist and angrily said, “You spilled it all outside!”

He furiously dragged her onto the platform. The flower girl shrank back in fear, but Meng Guanlou didn’t strike her. Instead, he embraced her waist and slowly knelt on the carpet himself. Tears filled his beautiful eyes as he began sobbing.

A drunk person—being crazy and delirious was understandable. The flower girl didn’t dare move, listening as Meng Guanlou pillowed on her knee and asked, “I heard you often served Lu Huating before. What did you two do?”

“Chief Administrator Lu only drank wine. This servant never spoke with him.” The flower girl mumbled.

“What people did he usually meet?”

“He didn’t meet anyone.”

Meng Guanlou stopped asking. This flower girl grew bolder and reached out her hand, stroking Meng Guanlou’s hair like a mother would. “Has the Court Gentleman encountered some sad matter? This servant is called Wen Niang. When I was wronged as a child, I liked to pillow on Father’s knee like this, and Father would comfort me this way too.”

Meng Guanlou laughed. His reddened eyes shed more tears. “Even you, a flower girl, have a good father.”

“Do you know? The phrase my father said most often was scolding me for not measuring up to that bastard. He wouldn’t comfort me like this, nor would Mother.”

“Why… clearly I’m also excellent. I’ve been intelligent since childhood, supremely talented. Clearly I had the best teachers, the best clan members, the best mother—just a little short, just a little short. Why does someone who has nothing be naturally gifted… He’s a demon, he’s not human.”

Meng Guanlou’s skin flushed red. He grew increasingly agitated, looking up at Wen Niang expectantly. “Do you think between me and Lu Huating, who looks better?”

Wen Niang timidly gazed at his beautiful countenance. “…Still Chief Administrator Lu looks better.”

Meng Guanlou began laughing strangely. He was so hot he wanted to remove his clothes, but his upper garment was already off. He scraped several bloody marks on his skin. Fortunately, he fumbled from the ground and found a paper packet, handing it to Wen Niang. “You eat some too?”

Wen Niang was greatly alarmed and repeatedly refused. “Master, this thing cannot be eaten carelessly… This Five-Stone Powder came from beyond the passes. The previous dynasty’s emperor had prohibitions forbidding its consumption.”

“You even know about prohibitions…” Meng Guanlou’s expression turned sinister.

“To tell the Court Gentleman honestly, this servant deliberately knocked it over earlier. You’ve already been drinking—you cannot consume the powder again, otherwise it will become more and more… ineffective.”

Hearing the word “ineffective,” Meng Guanlou’s face contorted. He suddenly pressed Wen Niang down on the bed, urgently trying to pull down his trousers. Who knew that after a while, Wen Niang made an “aiya” sound, her expression puzzled. “Could Master really be unable to…”

“Get out, get out! Out!” Meng Guanlou furiously pounded the bed, his eye sockets growing redder. He began missing Yu Nu. No matter what he said, Yu Nu’s pure apricot eyes would always look at him with charming tolerance, absolutely not showing fearful or disgusted expressions like they did.

But even Yu Nu, he couldn’t protect. His father said to kill and killed her…

Just at this moment, the door was knocked three times. Wen Niang ran to open it and made another startled cry. Meng Guanlou staggered to the doorway, his pupils slightly contracting.

Lu Huating stood outside the door in proper dress and cap. He glanced at Wen Niang, then gazed at him, lips blooming in a smile quite meaningful.

Meng Guanlou burned with internal fury, with some fear as well. “What did you tell him?”

Wen Niang fearfully hid behind Madam Liu, revealing only half her face. Hearing this, her expression flickered. She used her sleeve to cover her mouth, appearing disgusted. “This servant said nothing at all.”

The more she acted this way, the more Meng Guanlou suspected. His head buzzed. “Come out, explain yourself to me!”

“Is Court Gentleman Meng so fierce he wants to beat people?” Wen Niang pretended to cry.

Madam Liu hastily tried to dissuade him. Lu Huating also reached out, blocking Meng Guanlou who wanted to rush over and strike someone. “Hey, what are you doing?”

The four people were at daggers drawn at the doorway.

At the same time, upstairs, Qun Qing opened the window of Lu Huating’s private room.

She stood at the window listening to the commotion below, watching the servant with a lantern patrolling downstairs circle to the back of the building. She stepped outside the window, arranged her skirt, pushed off with her hands, and hung down from upstairs, jumping through the window into Meng Guanlou’s private room.

Wearing only silk stockings, she bent her knees when landing—light and soundless, only stirring a corner of the bed curtain.

Meng Guanlou’s private room was much larger, the walls neatly and elegantly papered. Curtains hung from the bed. Pillows and torn curtains lay on the floor. The incense burner burned something rather choking.

Qun Qing began searching the room.

She first rushed straight to the treasure cabinet under the desk. Generally, valuable items would be hidden here. But when she looked up and saw a bookshelf placed against the wall, she changed her mind.

Meng Guanlou was a typical noble young master from an aristocratic family, extremely refined. The bookcase was crammed full with poetry collections and musical scores. The bookshelf had ten levels.

Horizontal row nine, vertical row four.

Qun Qing pulled out the book at that position.

Opening it to look through, Qun Qing’s heart sank—this was merely an ordinary musical score.

Had she decoded it wrong?

About to search further, she heard chaotic footsteps approaching from outside. Qun Qing also pulled out the books at horizontal row four, vertical row nine, taking out everything she could think of as possibilities, then slid under that large canopy bed to hide.

Outside, Meng Guanlou grabbed Lu Huating’s collar. Lu Huating also gripped his wrist. The madam’s attempts to dissuade them and Wen Niang’s startled cries alerted Cui Zhu.

“Stop!” Cui Zhu brought two Cui family sons and strode over quickly. “What are you two doing?”

“Since you’ve come to enjoy wine and banquets, why aren’t you happy?” Cui Zhu saw clearly the two had long-standing grievances, but he remained vigilant, his gaze frequently sweeping over Meng Guanlou’s private room with its door wide open. “Come, I’ll treat both gentlemen to wine!”

His two illegitimate brothers understood and quietly walked into the private room.

Lu Huating couldn’t help glancing into the room, then withdrew his gaze to stare at Meng Guanlou. “Xianting, someone has entered your private room.”

“Dog bastard, this is my private space—you think it’s a marketplace? Who gave your brothers permission to step inside?” Meng Guanlou erupted in fury. “Cui Zhu, even you don’t respect me?”

Qun Qing hid under the bed, watching those two pairs of feet that gradually approached stop, then gradually move away. She temporarily breathed easier.

But she had flipped through those books—not one was a ledger.

Cui Zhu’s voice came distantly, scolding his two brothers. “Who told you to go in? Before, when placing that jade vase from the South Seas, you were so clumsy you collapsed the Court Gentleman’s bookshelf. You want to do it again?”

Hearing these words made Qun Qing’s hair stand on end. Collapsed the bookshelf… somehow it felt like Cui Zhu was deliberately taunting her.

After Chun Niang’s incident, to search for the ledger’s whereabouts, Cui Zhu must have searched the entire building up and down. Chun Niang was close with Yu Nu—he couldn’t have failed to suspect this connection.

Even though it was Meng Guanlou’s private room, Cui Zhu could use excuses like repairs or gift-giving to send people in to search while Meng Guanlou was present, deliberately collapsing the bookshelf and taking the opportunity to search while picking up books.

Could the ledger have already been found by Cui Zhu? This thought made her back run cold.

Even if he hadn’t found it but just disrupted the order—that ten-level bookshelf with over a thousand books couldn’t be searched through tonight…

The alcohol was hitting her. Qun Qing felt dizzy and disoriented, her temples throbbing with pain, heat constantly surging upward.

She heard Cui Zhu’s voice: “Yunming, didn’t you leave with another lady today? How do you have the leisure to stand up for old acquaintance Wen Niang? Where is that lady? If she doesn’t please you, why not have her accompany me?”

Lu Huating said, “I hit it off immediately with that lady. I plan to redeem her status and marry her in the future. Brother Cui wouldn’t snatch away what another loves, would he?”

“Naturally not…” Cui Zhu hadn’t expected him to answer this way.

Meng Guanlou said eerily, “Have you forgotten what you did to me? I can impeach you right now for taking a prostitute as a concubine, keeping an outside mistress!”

“I’m not marrying a princess—why would I take a prostitute as concubine?” Lu Huating smiled innocently. “When I said marry, naturally I meant as principal wife.”

“You’ve gone mad…”

From the sounds, the two actually started fighting.

Qun Qing lay on the floor. Somehow, these few sentences entered her ears, dissolving silently like dew into the carpet.

Lu Huating was truly good at acting—using his enemy as writing paper to freely fabricate tales, yet he could speak so seriously, truly without any scruples.

His way of delaying time forced her to crawl out, enduring her headache to stand before the shelf again and think.

She didn’t believe the worst had already happened.

That “Kill”-rank spy Chun Niang whom she’d never met should be a cautious and thorough lady, otherwise she wouldn’t have stumped her with a nursery rhyme.

Qun Qing closed her eyes and thought—if Chun Niang were her, if she were Chun Niang… to hide evidence right under Cui Zhu’s nose, she would first prepare a fake as a distraction. Only by letting Cui Zhu find the fake would the real one be safe.

Cui Zhu had disrupted the bookshelf and taken the fake. He thought he had the upper hand, so he didn’t come in to finish her off completely.

But where was the real one that Chun Niang hid?

Cui Zhu expended great effort to pull Meng Guanlou away and was somewhat annoyed too. “The Crown Prince is patrolling nearby tonight. Even if the Court Gentleman won’t give Chief Administrator Lu face, surely you’ll give me some face?”

Meng Guanlou stopped. Cui Zhu was called by servants below and left with a sleeve flick.

Lu Huating leaned on the railing, straightening his collar, looking Meng Guanlou up and down with mockery. “Did you hear? The Crown Prince is coming. Look at your disheveled appearance—you want your master to see you like this?”

Meng Guanlou glared at him angrily, staggered a few steps, closed the door, and retreated into his room. He picked up the round-collar robe from the bed and hurriedly pulled it over his head. Quick as lightning, a throwing needle silently pierced through the collar front and back, pinning the round-collar robe into a sealed cloth bag.

Trapped inside, Meng Guanlou immediately began struggling.

Qun Qing took advantage of the chaos to run out of the private room. A person appearing out of thin air startled Wen Niang, whose eyes widened, but she said nothing and lowered her eyes again.

Lu Huating glanced at her and knew the ledger was secured. He walked forward. Qun Qing followed beside him, as if the two had been walking together all along.

Qun Qing saw Lu Huating raise his finger to casually wipe away blood from the corner of his mouth. The cost of delaying time was actually being struck in the face by Meng Guanlou.

“Where did you find it?” Lu Huating said in a low voice.

“In the wall.” Qun Qing said quietly.

Lu Huating couldn’t help glancing at her. No wonder it took so long—her clothes were covered in dust. This hiding place wasn’t one ordinary people could think of. She had suffered a bit too. He couldn’t help curving his lips.

Qun Qing lowered her eyes, recalling the scene from a quarter-hour ago.

She stood before the bookshelf, imagining herself as Chun Niang. Having left clues for Yu Nu, these clues had to guard against Cui Zhu while hinting to Nan Chu spies. She also didn’t want the painstakingly collected evidence buried underground with her death.

That meant horizontal row nine, vertical row four—besides placing a fake at that position, it must also hide the real ledger.

Qun Qing supported the other books, revealing that small gap. Behind the gap was plain white wallpaper. When she first entered, she had noticed Meng Guanlou’s room was elegant and luxurious, the walls all papered over…

She removed a hairpin from her head, probed it into the gap at “horizontal row nine, vertical row four,” and from top to bottom cut open the wallpaper. Like slicing open a fish belly, it revealed a ledger hidden between the brick seams.

Amid the joyful drinking and noise, Qun Qing stepped on a gem and frowned from the discomfort. Seeing her look down, Lu Huating then noticed that under her skirt she was walking in only silk stockings.

His gaze originally just flashed past, but walking on Siye Tower’s floors in only stockings was somewhat unclean.

A patron ahead accidentally knocked over a jar of wine on the ground. After the crisp sound, Lu Huating raised his hand to stop Qun Qing. “Where did Miss hide her shoes? I’ll help you retrieve them.”

Qun Qing also saw the ground full of porcelain shards. If she carelessly stepped on them, she couldn’t serve her duty.

But Lu Huating was full of schemes. She feared he would shake her off to call people and then seize the ledger. She said falsely, “Just around this corner behind us.”

Siye Tower spent money like water. She had observed earlier that behind the pillars at each floor’s corners were placed low tables, flowers and plants, plus large quantities of new rouge, powder, clothing, and shoes—apparently for flower girls to change clothes whenever drunk.

Qun Qing fumbled under the low table, found shoes of approximately the right size, and put them on herself. Lu Huating stood beside her, his gaze turning away, directly meeting Lin Yujia’s sneaky face.

Before Lu Huating could warn Qun Qing, she had already stood up.

Lu Huating grabbed a piece of scratch paper from the desk. Glancing back, Qun Qing’s reaction was quite fast—she had already found a plain fan from somewhere to cover her face, eyes lowered—exactly a bashful attitude.

Perhaps because only her eyes showed, he discovered her lashes were actually so curved and upturned. And because of his gaze, she glanced up at him—like butterfly wings opening, greenish as autumn water, yet with soft resilient spirit between her brows and eyes.

Qun Qing felt Lu Huating grasp her wrist through his sleeve, raising her fan upward. She gave him a look, but he acted as if he saw nothing, continuing to grasp and raise her fan until it covered even her eyes.

If her entire face was covered, she couldn’t see, and it would seem deliberate. As the two struggled at the wrists, Qun Qing heard Lin Yujia’s steps approaching and didn’t dare act rashly.

Then the white expanse before her eyes darkened slightly, as if Lu Huating had turned around and blocked her with his body.

Lin Yujia had doubts in his heart. Seeing Lu Huating with that flower girl again, he walked quickly forward, willing to pay any price to see clearly. Unexpectedly, Lu Huating suddenly circled that flower girl before the low table—going closer would be improper.

He took two more steps and saw Lu Huating holding a box of rouge, dipping a brush in it. So he had the leisurely mood to lean over and paint the fan for that flower girl. “Are you annoying or not? Even when I’m drinking wine, you have to come join the excitement?”

Lin Yujia’s face alternated between red and white. He could only apologize and reluctantly walk away.

In the white mist before Qun Qing’s eyes, a bright red petal fell, followed by a second, third, and fourth petal. She held her breath, watching as a gorgeous flower gradually took shape before her eyes, appearing in the hazy void.

Lu Huating painted with extreme concentration. When he collected the final stroke, his lashes trembled. He moved her fan away, turned, and walked off. “The Udumbara Miss wanted—I’ve given it to you.”