Zhang Sao nodded. “Back then, the second young miss accompanied the mistress on a visit to Baiyun Convent. Master Hui Yuan discovered that the second young miss had exceptional musical talent and wished to take her as a disciple. The mistress was overjoyed at the time and agreed at once. Every time the second young miss went for her qin lessons, the mistress was too busy to come, so I was the one who accompanied her. That continued until the Chen family met with its calamity — the young miss never went back to Baiyun Convent again — but she never once gave up practicing the qin.”
“Do you know what that young man said to your family’s second young miss?”
“I don’t know.” Zhang Sao closed her eyes and shook her head, a pained look crossing her face. “At the time the two of them were speaking inside, while I waited upon them outside. After the young man left, the second young miss suddenly told me she was going to Shun Cheng. I asked her why, but she wouldn’t say. Not long after, the young man sent people to take the young miss away, and I returned to my son’s home. From that day on, I never saw the second young miss again.”
“Zhang Sao, Chen Lingling is now going by the alias Qian Lan. She is the long-lost daughter of Shun Cheng’s foremost merchant, Qian Yongfu. Not long ago, she married the Commander of the Northern Warlords. She is no longer Chen family’s second young miss — her identity now is Lady Shi of the Shi Mansion.”
“The second young miss… she got married?” Zhang Sao was greatly astonished. “She always said she would never marry for the rest of her life — that when she reached thirty she would go to Baiyun Convent and take the tonsure. How did she… No, wait — who did you say she married?”
“The Commander from Bei Di, surnamed Shi.”
“How can that be?” Zhang Sao cried out in shock. “How could she possibly marry a warlord surnamed Shi? That’s impossible — utterly impossible. The second young miss would absolutely never marry a Shi family warlord. He — they — were the ones who caused the eldest young miss and Mr. Lin’s deaths!”
“Zhang Sao, did you witness it yourself — did you see with your own eyes that a Shi family warlord forced the eldest young miss to her death and murdered Lin Zhi?”
“I — I didn’t see it with my own eyes, but that day — the Shi family warlord sent people to take the second young miss away. I was there. They were very overbearing — only the young miss was permitted to go, and they wouldn’t allow her to bring any servants. I was desperately anxious the whole time, waiting until evening before the young miss finally returned. And then shortly after she came back, she hanged herself. If that Shi family warlord hadn’t violated the eldest young miss, why would she have been unable to go on living? And later, when Mr. Lin went to avenge her, he too was shot to death by their guns. The Chen family was ruined because of him — how could the second young miss ever marry him?”
“What if she married into the Shi family in order to seek revenge?”
Yan Qing’s single question left Zhang Sao speechless. A moment later, grief and anguish swept across her face. “The second young miss — the second young miss actually had to marry someone she doesn’t love just for the sake of revenge? The second young miss was always so proud and pure, and yet she must smile at her enemy day after day. Living like that must be worse than death.”
“Zhang Sao, Chen Lingling married the Commander to seek revenge — but regarding what happened all those years ago, there is not a single eyewitness who can prove it was the Commander’s doing. From what I know of the Commander, he is absolutely not the kind of man who would force a woman against her will.”
“If not him, then who?”
“Perhaps there is some misunderstanding in all of this that we simply don’t know about yet.”
Zhang Sao turned her head away, letting tears fall without restraint.
“Zhang Sao, even if Chen Lingling is driven by a desire for revenge, her methods are truly unconscionable. Lin Zhi died for your Chen family — what crime did the Lin family commit? You have given your whole heart to the Chen family’s service, and yet what fate befell your son’s family and yourself? She may seek her revenge — no one will stop her — but she has sacrificed so many innocent lives for it. Beyond the Lin family and the Zhang family, those who once had close ties to the Chen family have probably all met gruesome ends. Perhaps Chen Fangfang died unjustly, perhaps the entire Chen family should never have suffered such ruin — but do those innocent people deserve to die? She wants her vengeance — why should others be made to pay the price on her behalf?”
“No — it can’t be so. The second young miss has a kind heart — she wouldn’t do such things.”
“Zhang Sao, then tell me — who else knows the Chen family’s affairs as thoroughly as she does?”
“Steward Liu,” Zhang Sao said without hesitation. “Steward Liu was a household bondservant of the Chen family — his entire family served in the Chen Mansion. Steward Liu was utterly loyal to the Chen Mansion. Half of the master’s affairs were entrusted to him. After the master died, Steward Liu did his utmost to try to keep the Chen Mansion from falling apart, but he couldn’t withstand the machinations of those small-minded people, and in the end he was driven out of the Chen family as well. If anyone knows the Chen family’s affairs thoroughly, Steward Liu knows even more than I do.”
“Where does Steward Liu live now?”
“When he left, he said he was going to the countryside — somewhere called Dawang Village, if I recall correctly.”
“What is Steward Liu’s name?”
“Liu Dazhu.”
Yan Qing rose to her feet. “Zhang Sao, I’m afraid you’ll have to endure staying here for two more days. Once I’ve uncovered the truth of the matter, I’ll let you go.”
“The second young miss wouldn’t do it — she truly wouldn’t,” Zhang Sao kept shaking her head. Even as belief was settling in her heart, she still wanted to deny it.
After leaving the room, Yan Qing had Hei She untie Zhang Sao’s bonds and posted someone to keep watch, then sent food and drink in for Zhang Sao as well.
“Did she talk?” Long Yunxiao asked.
Yan Qing nodded. “Qian Lan going to Shun Cheng truly was for the purpose of revenge.”
“Then the one who drove Chen Fangfang to her death and killed Lin Zhi — was it really the Commander?”
“Zhang Sao only knows that the person who summoned Chen Fangfang away that day was the Commander, but what happened afterward — no one witnessed it firsthand. Everything is conjecture. If we could find Lin Zhi’s body, perhaps it could tell us the whole truth.”
“Hei She has already gone with Yang Yongkang to search for the burial site. When Lin Zhi died violently back then, people said he had offended someone powerful, so his family didn’t dare make a public display of digging a grave and erecting a headstone — they simply found a patch of woods in the dead of night and buried him hastily. Yang Yongkang can’t remember the exact location and is now searching with Hei She’s men.”
As Long Yunxiao spoke, he suddenly let out a sneeze.
He quickly rubbed his nose and said apologetically: “Pardon me.”
“Have you caught a chill?” Yan Qing took hold of his wrist, placed her fingertips on his pulse, and held her breath to listen quietly.
Long Yunxiao was startled, then felt warmth spreading from his wrist. He couldn’t help but lower his head — and there he saw a pair of soft, pale, slender hands resting over his wrist.
Her knuckles were fine, her fingernails trimmed very neatly, showing a healthy rosy pink.
Even knowing she was taking his pulse, even knowing this was simply a physician’s instinct, Long Yunxiao couldn’t stop gentle ripples from rising in his heart.
He was glad to have chanced upon her here. He was equally grateful to fate for granting him this surprise. Though the time they spent together was guided by the courtesies of friendship and conducted under friendship’s name, for him it was more than enough.
He only hoped that time could pass a little more slowly — just a little more slowly. Even sitting across a table from her like this, saying nothing, doing nothing, he felt it was the happiest thing in all the world.
And yet he knew clearly that they would inevitably return to where they had started, and she would go back to the Shi Mansion — for there was the husband she deeply loved, the home that belonged to her.
He truly envied Shi Ting. If they had met her at the same time, he would have competed with him without hesitation — and he did not believe he would have lost.
“You were already soaked with cold water today, and now the wound is slightly inflamed,” Yan Qing frowned. “I’ll have Hei She buy a few doses of medicine. Take them soon — three days straight, and you should see improvement.”
“How is it that my constitution is worse than yours now,” Long Yunxiao said with a laugh. “Didn’t you get soaked in ice water too?”
“Sometimes it just works out that way. Even the strongest person gets a headache and a fever occasionally. So don’t push yourself too hard — people are made of flesh, not iron. Overexerting yourself is no different from self-destruction.”
Long Yunxiao laughed: “Understood. I will faithfully follow Dr. Yan’s guidance.”
He regretted those words almost immediately — because the medicine Hei She brought back was bitter and sour in equal measure, the kind of taste that made one want to spit it out the moment it crossed the tongue.
Hei She stood to one side watching his own boss clutch a medicine bowl, brows furrowed so deeply they could have mapped a mountain range, glancing up at Miss Yan from time to time as she sat across the room reading.
He could read his boss’s meaning clearly: the boss wanted to ask Miss Yan whether this medicine really couldn’t be skipped. But every time he seemed about to open his mouth, he swallowed the words back down.
It was only when Yan Qing looked up from her book and gave him a look that said ‘why haven’t you drunk it yet’ that Long Yunxiao shut his eyes, tilted his head back, and drained the medicine bowl in several large gulps.
Hei She inwardly shook his head in resignation. He knew his boss’s temperament better than anyone — rarely went to the doctor when ill, and even when a prescription was given, he wouldn’t take it. Unless he was sick enough to be unable to get up, he might, as a special concession, take a little medicine.
To see him this well-behaved and utterly powerless to resist — Hei She found it nothing short of miraculous.
After Long Yunxiao finished the medicine, he looked over at Yan Qing, his expression that of someone hoping for praise.
Unfortunately Yan Qing’s eyes were fixed entirely on the book in her hands, and she paid him no attention whatsoever. He waited a moment, then, with a measure of disappointment, twitched the corner of his mouth.
Hei She — not a man given to laughter — very nearly laughed out loud watching this.
The next morning, word came from Hei She’s men: Yang Yongkang had located the burial site where Lin Zhi had been laid to rest all those years ago.
Yan Qing and Long Yunxiao ate breakfast, after which Long Yunxiao was compelled to drink another bowl of the bitter, sour medicinal broth. When he had finished, Hei She noted that his boss’s face had taken on a somewhat greenish tint.
In truth, the medicine was not especially unpleasant — it was simply that Long Yunxiao rarely took medicine, and so found it unbearably hard to drink.
“Coming all the way to Huxi Town and digging up two graves,” Yan Qing reflected on all that had happened this trip, and couldn’t help but feel a wave of profound sentiment.
“I’m genuinely curious — are you not afraid at all?” Long Yunxiao rode alongside the carriage and called in through the cabin. “Most people would have trembling legs just walking past a graveyard.”
“I am a forensic examiner,” Yan Qing laughed. “A forensic examiner without nerves of steel would die on the job — from sheer fright.”
“Yan Qing, you don’t seem like someone of this era,” Long Yunxiao said, gazing at her with deep, unfathomable eyes. “You carry a different kind of spirit about you.”