At ten o’clock that evening, Yan Qing and Murong had long since returned, and Luo Huaimeng, who retired early, had already put out her light at eight o’clock. Lan Xiang Courtyard was utterly quiet.

Just past a quarter after ten, a figure slipped out of the hot water room. After glancing around in all directions, this person crept out through the back gate.

The Shi Mansion had not yet closed its main gate for the night; servants could still come and go freely, needing only to inform the gatekeeper.

After Bi Zhu left the Shi household, she quickened her pace and turned into the alley alongside.

Her complexion, cast in moonlight, appeared even more ghastly pale than usual — at a glance, she looked like a bloodless female ghost. Her steps were hurried, and in moments she had threaded her way through several alley junctions.

Only when she reached Shili Alley did she stop.

Shili Alley was a remote and desolate place, its lanes half-blocked by walls and buildings, its residents almost entirely enclosed behind those walls. Come nightfall, this junction was virtually deserted — utterly eerie and sinister.

Bi Zhu came to the mouth of the alley and looked around in all directions. Apart from a black cat leaping down from a wall and making a sound, the silence was such that a falling pin could be heard.

She swiftly produced a small iron trowel from within her garments and began digging rapidly at a spot in the middle of the junction.

At roughly half a foot’s depth, the soil yielded a small earthen jar. The jar was sealed with a lid, dark and glistening, exuding a gloomy, chilling air.

Bi Zhu shifted the lid aside, and upon seeing what lay within, a strange smile crept across her face.

From her body she retrieved a glass vial filled with a substance that had nearly congealed — a dark reddish-brown liquid. When she removed the stopper, a rush of pungent odor hit her full in the face.

She seemed not to notice, and swiftly poured the contents into the jar, then sealed the lid once more and re-buried it in the ground.

Bi Zhu gazed at the now-leveled earth, a frantic light dancing in her eyes.

Tomorrow at this same hour, the gu would be fully matured — having gone through nine times nine, eighty-one days, it would soon be accomplished.

Bi Zhu took one last look at the spot where the gu was buried, then departed with satisfaction.

Only after her figure had completely vanished did two people drop down from the wall.

Zheng Yun located the burial site with precision and, using the tools he had brought, dug it open in quick order. When he lifted off the lid of that jar and shone his flashlight inside, he felt an immediate wave of revulsion.

Inside the jar, only a single living centipede remained, its head submerged in the vial, drinking blood. Beside it were the remnant carcasses of other creatures — clearly those it had defeated.

Shi Ting had explained that this method of raising gu involved sealing venomous creatures together and letting them fight to the death. The one that survived, having inevitably absorbed all the lethal venom from every creature it had vanquished, would be the most ferocious and deadly of them all.

“Seventh Brother, what do we do now — kill it?” Zheng Yun asked.

“Wait a while yet.” Shi Ting said: “Grandma Liu said it will produce a toxic pellet, and that pellet is what the gu user intends to employ. It is not this centipede itself.”

To kill the centipede now would leave the gu practitioner’s scheme incomplete — but that was not the outcome he wanted.

“Very well.” Zheng Yun waited patiently to one side. “Then we’ll wait for it to produce the pellet.”

And so they waited — for several hours.

Zheng Yun and Shi Ting were long accustomed to this kind of tedious stakeout and did not find the time difficult to bear, until at last Zheng Yun opened the lid once more, his face breaking into delighted surprise: “Seventh Brother, there really is a black pellet.”

The pellet was small — no bigger than a soybean.

Shi Ting glanced over, the corner of his mouth curving slightly upward: “Memorize the appearance of both the centipede and the pellet.”

“Got it.” Zheng Yun understood that Shi Ting intended a sleight of hand — only then could they fully expose the one lurking in the shadows.

Not long after Bi Zhu had departed, the gate of Lan Xiang Courtyard was knocked upon. The young maidservant on door duty opened it to find Murong standing there in urgent haste.

“Murong Jie?” the maid said.

“Is Xiang Xiu asleep yet? I have something urgent to ask her.” Murong quickly stepped inside.

Xiang Xiu had seen Er Yitai settled for the night before returning to her own room. Not being in the habit of sleeping early, she sat beneath a lamp doing needlework. When word came that Murong had arrived, she was quite startled, and instinctively glanced at the clock.

“Murong Jie, why have you come at this hour? Is it something urgent from the Young Mistress?” Xiang Xiu dressed quickly and came out.

Murong hushed her: “Don’t disturb Er Yitai — this is a personal matter of my own.”

She drew Xiang Xiu to one side: “When I went to the hot water room for water earlier this evening, I was pulling out the candy to give to Bi Zhu and must have also pulled out a gold ring — it dropped off. That ring was just given to me by the Young Mistress as a gift; I absolutely must find it.”

“This is serious business — I’ll take you right now.” Xiang Xiu thought for a moment. “If it fell in the hot water room, Bi Zhu would certainly have seen it.”

Xiang Xiu and Murong went together to the hot water room. The lamps in the hot water room and the side chamber were both out.

“Bi Zhu normally sleeps in this side room — could she be asleep already?” Xiang Xiu stepped forward and knocked on the door. There was no answer from within. She pushed it gently — the door swung open. The room was tidy, the bedding folded with perfect neatness.

“Strange — Bi Zhu isn’t in her room and isn’t in the hot water room either.” Xiang Xiu searched the courtyard as well, even checking the outhouse, but Bi Zhu was nowhere to be found.

“Bi Zhu is quiet and withdrawn and almost never mingles with anyone. At this late hour, where could she have gone?”

As Xiang Xiu said this, she had already begun to harbor suspicions about Bi Zhu.

“Forget it — since she’s not here, I’ll come back and ask tomorrow. Xiang Xiu, just keep this in mind for me.”

Xiang Xiu felt somewhat apologetic: “Murong Jie, rest easy. The moment Bi Zhu returns, I’ll have her look for it. If the thing really did drop in Lan Xiang Courtyard, it won’t get lost — Er Yitai may be easygoing in most things, but she keeps a very strict eye on certain matters.”

“Then I’ll thank Xiang Xiu in advance.” Murong smiled, bid Xiang Xiu farewell, and departed.

Xiang Xiu gazed at Bi Zhu’s pitch-dark room, and could not help but furrow her brow.

Xiang Xiu did not keep watch at Bi Zhu’s room herself, only instructing the people below to keep an eye out.

“She came back just past eleven — what was she doing outside?” The following morning, Er Yitai took a sip of tea, puzzled.

Xiang Xiu shook her head: “The gatekeeper said Bi Zhu went out after ten and came back after eleven — she was outside for a full hour. She has only you as a relative in all of Shun Cheng, and she doesn’t know a soul here. Where could she have gone?”

Luo Huaimeng furrowed her brow, lost in thought.

“Go and summon the Young Mistress.”

Bi Zhu had slipped out in the middle of the night, and Murong had happened to come over looking for something — this was surely no coincidence.

When Yan Qing arrived, Luo Huaimeng asked directly: “Do you suspect Bi Zhu of something?”

Seeing that Luo Huaimeng had already become suspicious and would no longer blindly protect Bi Zhu without reason, Yan Qing told her everything — how she had investigated Bi Zhu’s background, and what Bi Zhu intended to do.

Both Luo Huaimeng and Xiang Xiu, upon hearing this, broke into a cold sweat.

“Does Xing Zhi know about this?” Luo Huaimeng’s voice carried a tremor as she spoke. How could she not understand that if this scheme had succeeded, it would have been utter ruin for her, and a great calamity for Shi Ting as well.

She would never forget Shi Yuan’s fate — banished from the Marshal’s Mansion for scheming against her own younger brother, disowned by the Marshal as a daughter from that day forward. The Marshal could be so ruthless toward his own flesh and blood; how much more so toward a concubine with no blood ties to him.

“He knows.” Yan Qing said with composure. “Mother need not worry for now. Everything outside has been arranged by Xing Zhi. All we need to do is keep a close eye on Bi Zhu.”

“What a scheme — using one person’s hand to kill another.” Luo Huaimeng drew a sharp breath. “I know she has always been vicious, but I never imagined she could be so merciless. And to think how loyal I was to her in those years.”

Xiang Xiu said: “They are driving Er Yitai into a dead end.”

Luo Huaimeng slowly set down her teacup and relaxed her stiffened fingers: “What does Xing Zhi plan to do?”

“His intention is to turn the scheme against its makers — not to tip our hand and startle the prey.”

“Bi Zhu is one of my people; if this were to blow up, I too would have difficulty escaping blame.”

“The one who brought Bi Zhu back from Lugou County was not Mother.” Yan Qing said. “According to the description given by Bi Zhu’s mother, the man who came to fetch Bi Zhu had half an ear lobe missing.”

“Half an ear lobe missing?” Xiang Xiu thought it over. “I don’t recall any servant in this Mansion with half an ear lobe missing.”

“This person is naturally not from the Mansion, but has a connection to the Mansion that runs through many threads. And the maidservant who made contact with Bi Zhu that day was also not from the Mansion — the First Madam would not be foolish enough to use her own people.”

“If not from the Mansion, then who?”

Yan Qing smiled faintly: “The people the First Madam can employ — apart from those around her — there is one other source.”

“The Meng family’s people?” Luo Huaimeng understood at once.

“Precisely.” Yan Qing said with certainty. “We need only let Bi Zhu go about completing what she has left unfinished. Once her task is accomplished, she will certainly make contact with that person again. At that point, we trace the vine back to its root and expose them all. As for San Yitai’s side — Mother will need to quietly tip her off. Since San Yitai became pregnant, all her food and drink have been prepared in her own small kitchen, tended by a dedicated person. Bi Zhu’s standing is too low for her to have any opportunity to approach San Yitai’s food and administer the gu. So the First Madam also has a person inside San Yitai’s courtyard — that person and Bi Zhu are working in concert to complete this scheme.”

The First Madam also had an informant inside San Yitai’s courtyard? San Yitai was so sharp-minded, yet the First Madam had still found a way in.

Yan Qing took a sip of tea and continued: “We shall draw out the ghost behind Bi Zhu, and San Yitai shall draw out the ghost in her own courtyard. When all these ghosts are gathered together, one look at their faces will tell us whose people they are — and at that point, will anyone still care whose person Bi Zhu is?”

Luo Huaimeng could not help but study Yan Qing at length. At this moment, she felt from the bottom of her heart a deep and genuine admiration for this daughter-in-law.

It seemed her own judgment of people truly could not compare to her son’s.

Not even close.