“Miss Ni, are you inside?”

Zhou Ting vaguely heard some voices. He was about to knock again when the door suddenly opened. Inside, that young lady wore a narrow jacket and long skirt, her shawl half-draped over her arm. She had only combed her hair into a low bun, pinned with a single white jade comb.

But somehow, a brocade handkerchief was wrapped around her neck.

“Miss Ni, what happened to you?” Zhou Ting asked in confusion.

“The rain made it damp. I broke out in a rash.”

Ni Su opened the door fully. Xu Hexue, who had been standing at her side, instantly transformed into cloud and mist, dispersing.

Zhou Ting suspected nothing and entered the back corridor. Taking the tea bowl Ni Su handed him, he immediately said: “Miss Ni, during this morning’s court session, Vice Censor-in-Chief Jiang has already memorialized His Majesty about your brother’s case. The Yinye Bureau now has authority to thoroughly investigate this matter. Commissioner Han has already interrogated many people today, but unexpectedly, he suddenly implicated an unexpected person.”

“Who?”

Ni Su immediately asked.

“Grand Marshal Miao’s second young master,” Zhou Ting scrutinized her expression, “that very Court Gentleman for Rendering Service Miao Yiyang who brought you out of the Yinye Bureau.”

Zhou Ting had always assigned Yinye Bureau personal guards to monitor and protect Ni Su, so naturally he also knew that before coming to settle on South Pagoda Tree Street, she had been staying at Grand Marshal Miao’s residence all along.

“How could it possibly be him?”

Ni Su couldn’t believe it.

While at the Grand Marshal’s residence, because Ni Su had been bedridden recovering from her injuries, she actually hadn’t seen Miao Yiyang many times. But in her impression, Miao Yiyang was gentle and slow-tempered—in many matters he needed his wife Cai Chunxu to help him make decisions.

“Actually we can’t be certain yet. It’s just that your brother and that Yanzhou examination candidate He Zhongping didn’t know any aristocratic family sons. Your brother also wasn’t someone who conducted himself in a high-profile manner. Coming to a strange place like Yun Jing, how did the culprit target him? But I wonder if Miss Ni still remembers—I told you before that He Zhongping had borrowed one of your brother’s policy essays.”

Ni Su nodded: “Naturally I remember.”

“Your brother didn’t socialize much, but this He Zhongping wasn’t like that. After three rounds of wine he loved to boast. Having nothing good to boast about himself, he would boast about his good friend—your brother’s poetry and essays, he mentioned them all to people at the drinking table.”

“Among those who had dealings with him was someone called Ye Shanlin whose family runs a bookshop business. He Zhongping said this person knew a certain young master who loved collecting ancient supernatural tale books—precisely the Grand Marshal’s residence’s second young master, Miao Yiyang.”

“And he also happened to have participated in the winter examination but didn’t pass.”

“It can’t be him.”

After hearing this, Ni Su shook her head. “If it really were him, when he bribed the jailer in the Guangning Residence Records Office to kill me unsuccessfully, afterward I walked right into his trap—leaving the Yinye Bureau to go straight to the Grand Marshal’s residence. Since I was right under his nose, wouldn’t it have been easier for him to act? If so, then why didn’t he act?”

If it really was Miao Yiyang, he had far too many opportunities to strike. Yet during those days she recovered from her injuries at the Grand Marshal’s residence, everything had been calm and peaceful.

“Perhaps precisely because you were under his nose, he didn’t dare act rashly,” Zhou Ting held his tea bowl and continued, “However, this is just one of Commissioner Han’s conjectures. There’s another possibility—this Court Gentleman is merely one of the means the culprit used to confuse people.”

“Have you arrested Miao Yiyang and taken him to the Yinye Bureau?” Ni Su wasn’t unfamiliar with the Yinye Bureau, but she feared that this time the Yinye Bureau Commissioner would absolutely not treat him as before when dealing with her—merely frightening without taking action. Having received His Majesty’s edict and authority, he had the right to torture any official involved in this case.

“The Commissioner did not torture the Court Gentleman.”

After Zhou Ting left, Ni Su returned to Xu Hexue’s room to eat, but when she picked up her bowl, she thought of Cai Chunxu again. Her heart felt rather unsettled, and she no longer had any appetite.

“Miao Yiyang doesn’t have such means.”

Pale mist condensed in the room into Xu Hexue’s form. Having just weathered the Release from Darkness period, he didn’t have enough strength even to speak: “Grand Marshal Miao would absolutely never take risks for him either.”

“You also know Grand Marshal Miao?” Ni Su looked up at him.

Xu Hexue met her gaze, but his eyes inevitably fell again on the brocade handkerchief at her neck. His lashes lowered: “Yes. I understand him fairly well.”

When he was fourteen years old and gave up Yun Jing’s splendid prospects to travel far to the border garrison to join the army, it was in Mighty General Miao Tianzhao’s Huning Army. At that time, Miao Tianzhao was not yet the current Grand Marshal Miao.

Fifteen years ago, in the battle at Tanji Desert, Miao Tianzhao had also fought foreign enemies alongside him.

Though Grand Marshal was the highest official rank among military positions, compared to civil officials at court, the actual power was insufficient. Moreover, the current Grand Marshal Miao was temporarily not leading troops due to injury and illness. Even if he truly had the heart to scheme for a future for his son, he probably couldn’t employ so many stratagems at court.

“Actually, I also heard Sister Cai mention that her husband has a slow temperament and is somewhat solitary. Originally he didn’t much associate with outsiders. Only after becoming Director of the Court of Judicial Review was he forced to engage in superficial elegance with others. Apart from that, he ordinarily only wished to stay at home. How then would he be willing to go drinking heartily at that Ye Shanlin’s banquet?”

The more Ni Su thought about it, the more impossible it seemed.

She was somewhat concerned about Cai Chunxu, but seeing that Xu Hexue’s soul-body was still faint—in his condition, how could it be convenient for him to go out with her?

“Xu Ziling, if I light more incense and candles for you, will you feel better?” Ni Su stood and took out more incense and candles from the cabinet.

“Thank you.”

Xu Hexue sat beside the bed, his wide sleeves concealing his clasped hands.

Outside, the sky gradually darkened. Ni Su lit several more lamps and placed incense in the burner by the window so the room wouldn’t have too much smoke.

She turned back around and discovered Xu Hexue had removed that cloak unsuited to the season, wearing only that snow-white robe. Even though he looked so weak, his bearing sitting there remained upright and proper.

Only his robe wasn’t as luxurious as the cloak she had burned for him in the cypress grove at Great Bell Temple. Rather, it was extremely ordinary fabric, even somewhat coarse.

This was something Ni Su had noticed early on, but she had never asked about it.

Yet at this moment she suddenly wanted to ask, because she always felt that today’s Xu Ziling seemed able to tolerate all her impertinence.

“This robe of yours—did your old friend also burn it for you?”

She really asked.

Hearing this, Xu Hexue raised his eyes. His lips moved slightly. Looking at her, he still obediently answered: “It was a gift from a soul in Youdu.”

It was difficult for him to tell her that when he first entered Youdu, he was just a mass of blood-red mist, without clothing for cover, without people from the mortal world to burn offerings, drifting wretchedly east of the River of Hatred.

Among the reed flower clusters, souls often came to collect items sacrificed by relatives in the mortal world. This coarse cloth robe on his body was a gift from an old man’s soul.

Ni Su hadn’t expected him to answer like this.

She wanted to ask: What about your relatives? Was there not a single person to burn winter clothes for you, write memorial texts for you, cry for you on your death anniversary?

Then she remembered—there was one person.

Only, why had that old friend prepared winter clothes and written memorial texts, yet stopped performing sacrifices?

Ni Su looked at him but couldn’t ask.

“The moon has come out.”

Ni Su turned to look toward the door, suddenly saying.

Xu Hexue followed her gaze. Outside the eaves, pale silver frost covered the ground. He heard her voice sound again: “Don’t you need to bathe?”

Just like that night at the inn in Qiao Township, Xu Hexue stood in the courtyard, and when he turned back, that young lady was watching him from the corridor.

Only somehow, Xu Hexue felt that tonight, being watched by her like this, he was especially constrained.

Moonlight intertwined with luminous dust, silently dispelling the mortal world’s dirt and dust that clung to the soul, and the luminous dust congealed into bloodstains at his cuffs also disappeared.

His cleanliness was a cleanliness that did not belong to this mortal world.

Ni Su watched his back, thinking of the men’s clothing she had bought from the ready-made clothing shop. He was actually quite tall, only his form was much thinner. Those robes were obviously more suitable for more robust men.

Xu Hexue heard footsteps on the corridor. Turning, he saw Ni Su run into her own room. Before long, not knowing what she had taken, she walked toward him again.

When she drew near, only then did Xu Hexue see clearly that she held a thin cord in her hand.

“Raise your arms.”

Ni Su unfolded the thin cord and said to him.

Xu Hexue didn’t understand, but today he was obviously very obedient to her. Without a word, he complied and raised both arms. Little did he know that the next moment, she would suddenly draw very close to him.

The thin cord in Ni Su’s hand wrapped around his waist. Xu Hexue could almost smell the extremely faint fragrance of osmanthus oil in her hair. His lashes trembled lightly, his Adam’s apple rolling: “Ni Su…”

“I failed to consider—those clothes in the cabinet don’t fit your measurements. I also never asked what colors you like, what styles you prefer. I was too busy at the time, and the ready-made clothing shop proprietor’s taste was somewhat too old-fashioned. Those clothes look to me like what forty or fifty-year-old men would prefer.” Ni Su remained focused on the thin cord in her hands.

“I don’t mind. You know, if I were still alive, actually…”

Xu Hexue didn’t finish his words.

Ni Su knew what he wanted to say. Fifteen years ago when he died at nineteen, if he were still alive now, he should also be a man of thirty-some years.

She looked up and smiled at him. “How can you count it that way? You’re forever nineteen, forever at the youngest and most beautiful time.”

Young and beautiful—such words, Xu Hexue actually felt could in no way be used to describe himself anymore. Yet the young lady before him spoke to him so earnestly.

His crystalline eyes reflected the candlelight beneath the eaves. Hearing her say “don’t move,” he stiffened his body, not moving at all, letting her manipulate him just as she had when washing his face during the day.

“Having measured your size, I’ll tailor clothes for you myself. Rest assured, at home I also made clothes for my mother. Though Father passed away early, I also made winter clothes for him. I’ll definitely make them look good.”

Ni Su circled behind him, using the thin cord to measure his arm length.

“Actually you needn’t tailor clothes for me. I…” At this moment she was behind him. Xu Hexue couldn’t see her but could feel her occasional touches. “Last night I offended you. I still don’t know how I can repay you.”

“Your willingness to stand here obediently now and let me measure you is already your repayment.”

“I’ll record these measurements and give them to the ready-made clothing shop to have them make several pieces for you. But I must make one set of clothes for you myself.”

Ni Su didn’t understand why someone like him, who died at nineteen, had no one to perform sacrifices—even the clothes on his body were gifts from other souls in Youdu.

When he was alive in this world, surely he too must have been a youth who grew up amid splendor?

Putting away the thin cord, amid the drifting luminous dust, Ni Su said earnestly:

“That will be my gift to you.”