They called it heavy guard, but in truth the Court of Judicial Review could only mobilize a very limited number of troops at a moment’s notice, and the households implicated in the case numbered no fewer than twelve — so much so that some residences had only three or five armed constables watching over them.

The Lu household was thoroughly surrounded, but Lu Shouhuai had served alongside Cheng Huaili for so many years that he had amassed considerable influence of his own within the capital. The patrol garrison alone had no small number of soldiers under his private command, and the Court of Judicial Review’s forces were entirely insufficient to seal him in completely.

Lu Qingrong seized upon this opportunity, and on a night when the wind blew dark and the sky hung low, she was pushed onto a cargo vessel by Lu Shouhuai and made her way out of Shangjing.

Xie Lanting had actually received word of this in advance, and he rode out in time to reach the ferry crossing.

But Lu Qingrong stood on the deck, gazing down at him with cold, detached eyes.

The two of them were separated by no more than fifteen feet. He held his reins and met her gaze, and for no reason he could name, felt a pang of guilty unease.

Lu Qingrong was foolish — after all this time she had never discovered that he had been using her. Even when she found out the study had been broken into, he was not the first person she suspected.

She had even sent him pastries, saying they were freshly made and that she had gotten the sugar right this time.

Xie Lanting found it amusing, but as he laughed, a small, nagging thread of remorse crept in.

He thought back to their time together after the housewarming banquet — the occasional strolls by moonlit flowers, the leisurely boat rides on the lake.

The Lu Qingrong of those days would cling to his waist with a jealous pout, interrogating him about whether he had gone to some pleasure house to listen to music again, or she would tell him some joke about Chen Baoxiang, laughing so hard she would tumble sideways onto his knee.

She was not a gentle or virtuous person — she was even a little spoiled and willful.

But if he was being honest with himself, Lu Qingrong had never once wronged him. She had even gone out of her way to coax him into a better mood whenever his spirits were low.

He had been the one who had gone too far.

With a quiet sigh, Xie Lanting pulled his horse to a stop and watched helplessly as she disappeared from his sight. The white-sailed vessel dissolved into the evening glow on the horizon, its silhouette fading until there was nothing left to see.

When Zhang Zhixu arrived at the reception hall of his own home, he found Xie Lanting slouched listlessly inside. The rakish, windswept ends of his usually carefree hair now hung low and disheveled, and the man himself was utterly devoid of his usual luster.

Zhang Zhixu found this oddly remarkable. “Did your favorite courtesan run off with some musician again?”

“No.” Xie Lanting sighed. “I came to ask if I could borrow some of your men — to tighten the cordon around the various households.”

Zhang Zhixu looked at him.

He had known Xie Lanting his entire life, from childhood onward, and no one understood this man’s nature better than he did. It was an exceedingly rare thing to see a look of genuine guilty conscience on his face — truly, this was a first.

“Take my dispatch token and borrow Xu Buran,” he said. “He has nothing to do lately.”

“Alright.” Xie Lanting came back to himself. “The former head manager of your silver exchange has some entanglements with Lu Shouhuai’s side — it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to handle that interrogation myself. I’ll have to trouble you to go and speak with him.”

“I don’t have time.” Zhang Zhixu turned and walked away.

“Hey, hey — do me a favor, would you? I’ll repay you properly when the time comes.”

“With what?”

“That burnt-tail zither I just found?”

“Dull.” He gave a dismissive snort. “I’d rather have that fine gaited horse from the foreign tribute.”

A gaited horse differed from ordinary horses — the legs on each side moved in tandem rather than in alternating pairs, which looked peculiar at first glance but made the ride extraordinarily smooth. Even at a hard gallop, the rider suffered barely any jostling.

The moment Xie Lanting heard this, his face fell. “That horse is incredibly rare.”

“If it weren’t, I wouldn’t ask for it.” Zhang Zhixu lifted an eyebrow. “Give it or not?”

“Fine, fine, fine — you absolute menace. I knew the moment you heard about something good I’d never get to keep it.” He let out a wail of theatrical anguish.

Having thoroughly plundered his insufferable friend, Zhang Zhixu felt the suffocating vexation that Chen Baoxiang had stirred up in him ease somewhat.

He saw Xie Lanting off and then, as instructed, went to find Liu Sheng — the man who had previously overseen the Huitong Silver Exchange.

From the moment Liu Sheng had been implicated in the theft of the Reviving Elixir, Zhang Zhixu had kept him locked away in the back courtyard of the Zhang Mansion, leaving him to sit and stew without ever conducting a proper interrogation, slowly wearing down his resolve.

Now that Xie Lanting’s investigation had worked its way around to him, Zhang Zhixu finally opened the door that had been locked for so long.

The formerly haughty and imperious Chief Manager Liu had been thoroughly hollowed out by his confinement — his eyes held nothing but a dull, ashen emptiness.

At the sight of Zhang Zhixu, he lurched forward and threw himself to his knees. “Fengqing, Fengqing — you were only this tall when you were little, and I was the one who used to carry you! I have been with the Zhang household for eight years — I have served with all my heart, even if I haven’t accomplished anything remarkable!”

Ningsu stepped forward and held him at arm’s length. Zhang Zhixu settled unhurriedly onto a stool.

“Do you think I’ve treated you too harshly?”

“Fengqing, good nephew — what I did wasn’t truly such a great offense…”

“Four years ago, the Huitong Silver Exchange went from profitable to running at a loss, and you said it was because several of the farmland properties had suffered drought years.” Zhang Zhixu opened the account ledger. “Three years ago, someone discovered you had been secretly embezzling from the books, and you said your elderly mother had died and you had no money for her burial.”

“Two years ago, you were caught accepting three hundred taels from the Lu Family, and you claimed it was payment for a tea shipment.”

“One year ago, a twenty-year-old young woman with the surname Lu appeared in your courtyard, living and eating alongside you, and you said she was a distant cousin who had come to stay.”

He closed the pages with an almost-smile. “All of this — I believed. Do you believe it yourself?”

Liu Sheng desperately wanted to argue, but meeting Zhang Zhixu’s gaze, cold sweat broke out across his brow and the fight drained out of him entirely. “Young Master, I know that what I did caused some losses to the Zhang household, but the Zhang family is so wealthy—”

“You also know I’m wealthy, and that I don’t care about these losses.” Zhang Zhixu cut him off. “Does Uncle Liu know what I do care about?”

Liu Sheng looked up in bewilderment.

The young man before him was approaching his twentieth year. The soft angles of boyhood had sharpened into something hard and precise. Those deep, still eyes moved down to fix on him, like the keen edge of a blade suspended above his head.

Was it that I bit the hand that fed me? he murmured inwardly. Or that I shamed the Zhang Family’s reputation?

“Neither.”

Zhang Zhixu crouched down and looked at him steadily. “It’s that you should not have deceived me.”

It was the one thing he despised most in this life — being lied to.

Liu Sheng had presented himself as a kind and upright man all this time. He had reminded Zhang Zhixu to dress warmly when the weather turned cold, sent him ice when summer came, and occasionally brought fresh produce from the countryside — the look on his face always one of guileless, honest sincerity.

Had Zhang Zhixu not heard his voice with his own ears that day at the Pei Family residence, he would never have suspected him in a thousand years.

The more cherished those gestures had once seemed, the deeper the fury that now replaced them.

“Whatever Ningsu asks, Uncle Liu had best answer truthfully.” Zhang Zhixu turned his gaze away with languid indifference. “I won’t be keeping you company for this part.”

Liu Sheng was seized with terror and tried to plead again, but Ningsu had already stepped neatly to the side, deftly stuffed something into his mouth to silence him, grabbed the rope at his back, and hauled him out the door.

The muffled, choking sounds drifted over the high wall, mingling with the wails echoing from the main room of a small courtyard on the second street past Xuanwumen.

“It hurts so much.” Chen Baoxiang was grimacing, teeth clenched. “I’ve already been using the salve he gave me — why does it still hurt this much?”

“That salve is for external use. It can’t touch your internal injuries.” Sun Sihuai opened his medicine case with a puzzled frown. “But how did you injure yourself again?”

Chen Baoxiang laughed dryly.

The wound on her right shoulder blade had not seemed serious to begin with — at least not to her. She had thought a little salve and a couple of days’ rest would be enough. But at midday, while eating with the immortal, she had suddenly coughed up blood.