Lin Sui’an saw a courtyard — rammed earth walls, a thatched roof, a wicket gate of poplar wood with a bamboo lantern hanging from it, its surface thick with dust, the color washed by wind and rain to a faint pinkish-white. Everything in her field of vision was swaying and unstable. That courtyard swayed too, and then it slowly receded, growing more and more blurred. In the haze, she heard the rumbling of wooden wheels rolling — bone-drum, bone-drum — and finally the soft, gritty sound of a carriage rolling over a stone path.

When her vision returned to the present, Lin Sui’an’s head was still spinning, her stomach vaguely unsettled — like motion sickness. She raised a hand to knock against her own temple. Her hand was taken down by someone else, and Hua Yitang offered a small blue glass bottle with a silver cap, its surface fired with pale white jasmine petal motifs that made his fingertips look translucent and luminous.

The sticky little-beggar-boy that had been glued to him was gone, leaving only a few black handprints. Jin Ruo stood ten paces away holding the little beggar boy. Both were craning their necks in this direction, their expressions like two faces cast from the same mold.

“This is a secret aromatic balm that Mu Xia prepared. It clears the mind and calms the spirit.” He spoke gently. Seeing that Lin Sui’an’s expression was still dazed, he sighed softly and twisted open the cap. Using his ring finger and middle finger, he dabbed a small amount and carefully spread it on Lin Sui’an’s temples. The balm — despite appearing as a creamy white solid — dissolved into a liquid with the lightest touch and sank into the skin, cool and releasing a faint jasmine fragrance, making the mind feel clear and refreshed.

Lin Sui’an’s head cleared. Her gaze swept briefly around the scene. Fang Ke had sent away all the clerks and law enforcement officers and had cut open the clothing of the body — everyone’s attention was on Fang Ke. It was the perfect moment.

“Do you still have the small portable writing set you bought to carry with you?” Lin Sui’an asked quietly.

Hua Yitang sighed again, put the lid back on the balm and tucked it into Lin Sui’an’s hand, then produced a small writing box from his sleeve. He uncapped a brush and dipped it in ink. “Go ahead.”

Lin Sui’an quickly described in detail every image she had seen in the golden ability’s vision. The content this time was richer than the last. Hua Yitang went through five drafts before finishing a reconstruction sketch. Lin Sui’an thought for a moment and added: “Also still in a carriage — the road is a cobblestone road.”

“This courtyard looks like it has been abandoned for quite some time,” Hua Yitang said with some worry. “After nine months, it may be difficult to find the exact location.”

“We can,” said Jin Ruo’s voice, suddenly appearing at their side. He had carried the little beggar boy over, both their necks stretched long as he peered down. “Even if it’s a single tile or a single blade of grass in the Eastern Capital, the Net Sect can turn it over and find it. But—” He paused, his eyes shining bright. “You two have to first tell me how these paintings were made. And the last one, the Zhu-curtained cloth shop.”

Hua Yitang let out a haughty sniff. “Naturally I calculated it with a pinch of my fingers—”

“If you truly help me find all the locations in the paintings,” Lin Sui’an cut Hua Yitang off, “I will tell you.”

Hua Yitang shot Lin Sui’an a stunned look.

Jin Ruo’s eyes went wide. “You mean there’s more than just this one?”

Lin Sui’an: “If nothing goes wrong, there should be nine in total.”

Jin Ruo let out a long “whoa,” snatched the paper from Hua Yitang’s hand and studied it closely. The little beggar boy suddenly called out: “I know this place! It’s an empty garden on Qu Xiang Street in Sishun Quarter — no one’s lived there in ages. There are wild dogs inside; the dogs stole my food, and I went to fight them.”

Jin Ruo was delighted. “Little beggar, are you sure?”

The little beggar boy nodded vigorously. “I’ll take you there.”

Jin Ruo flashed his teeth at Hua Yitang, hoisted the little beggar boy up onto his shoulder, and took off at a run.

Lin Sui’an breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Thank goodness for Jin Ruo and the Net Sect — otherwise, the two of them alone would probably still be searching by next year without finding the right place.

Hua Yitang’s expression had gone sour. He fanned his folded fan with ill-tempered energy, lips moving in a muttered monologue. Lin Sui’an caught a snatch or two — something along the lines of “barely got all his feathers, can he even be trusted” — and she assumed he was talking about the little beggar boy, but listening a little longer, she realized it was Jin Ruo he was disparaging. She found that somewhat amusing.

As though he had forgotten that Jin Ruo was eighteen, and he himself was only sixteen — hardly in a position to call anyone else a little brat.

Fang Ke finished the examination. Apparently there was nothing of particular note to be found. He pressed his lips together and carefully sewed the burial clothes back together with neat, precise stitches, then used a small knife to scrape something from the hairline at the temple into a small porcelain vial, rearranged the body, burned the soul-stilling talisman so that the ash drifted and fell across the body, then climbed out of the pit and called for people to close the coffin and fill the earth back in.

Ling Zhiyan and Wan Lin rushed over eagerly. Fang Ke unhurriedly finished writing the examination report. Both men looked somewhat crestfallen upon reading it. The victim’s two elder sisters had meant to ask about the results — but seeing the expression on the two officials’ faces, they already understood somewhat. Their quiet weeping grew louder. Once the grave had been restored, they stepped forward with paper spirit money and incense candles to pay their respects.

Fang Ke handed the examination report to Hua Yitang, but his gaze settled on Lin Sui’an’s face. His eyes were still as deep water, hiding what seemed like a thousand emotions beneath a motionless surface. “Lin lady — unless I am mistaken, the bodies of all these victims will have already decayed, and we will likely find no useful leads from the examination. Do you feel it is still necessary to continue?”

Fang Ke had clearly sensed something long ago. Lin Sui’an thought for a moment and said with steady certainty: “Continue.”

The total absence of expression on Fang Ke’s face finally shifted. His left eyebrow lifted fractionally, lending an unexpected trace of human warmth to that dry, severe face.

In the eight hours that followed, the group traversed the entirety of Baochuan Ridge. Seven graves were dug. Seven bodies in an advanced state of decomposition were examined. Fang Ke wrote seven examination reports. They met seven families broken by grief and loss. Lin Sui’an and Hua Yitang had both worried beforehand that Ling Zhiyan’s condition might flare up midway, but he exceeded all expectations — the Lord Ling Sicheng remained composed throughout, demonstrating in full the professional steadiness of a high-caliber Court of Judicial Review investigator.

Lin Sui’an witnessed seven more fragments of memory. Each was very similar in content, with no direct leads whatsoever pointing to the killer.

Every one of the memories was seen from inside a moving carriage. Sometimes it was a street scene, sometimes a house, sometimes a market, sometimes a crowd of people, sometimes a tea house — almost always blurred, swaying scenes from ordinary city life. Lin Sui’an found this puzzling. By all reason, each person’s final clinging thought should be different — so why were the memories these women had left behind so remarkably alike?

Perhaps because each exhumation required such a lengthy period of preparation, she had adequate rest between uses of the golden ability. Despite activating it repeatedly throughout one day, she did not feel particularly worn out.

Hua Yitang remained deeply worried. For every coffin opening, he stationed himself within arm’s reach of her without fail. The moment she came back to herself, he kept his gaze fixed on her until she had applied the reviving balm, and his expression only softened once she had recovered fully.

Jin Ruo and the little beggar boy had still not returned. Instead, a team of Net Sect disciples came to collect the sketches — Hua Yitang would finish one drawing, they would take it away. The rest of the group continued moving forward.

Through Wan Lin’s relentless coaxing and cajoling and pressure, he finally obtained the address of the ninth victim’s burial plot in the common pauper’s graves. At the third watch of the hai hour, Fang Ke wrote the ninth examination report at the pauper’s graves, and Lin Sui’an received the ninth fragment of her golden ability’s memory — the image of a carriage crossing a bridge. In the frame of the image she could make out the glimmering ripple of river water and the distant sails of boats.

The Net Sect disciple took the final sketch away. Lin Sui’an stood among the burial mounds of the pauper’s field and let out a long, long breath.

Grave grass grew in sparse clumps. The moonlight spread thin and vast. She tilted her head back and listened to Hua Yitang and Ling Zhiyan talking quietly about the examination reports, listened to Fang Ke packing away his porcelain vials with their soft clinking, listened to the wind moving overhead, listened to the owl perched on a tree fork uttering its laughing “gu-gu-miao, gu-gu-miao,” listened to the paper spirit banners at a distant grave tearing free and falling in a rain of frozen rime across the ground.

Something inside her quietly went hollow. Like a gap in a wall where a cold wind blows through. Qian Jing in its sheath sent up a low, resonant moan of its blade, numbing and aching through her palm, as though the blade were sounding in harmony with what she felt.

Lin Sui’an suddenly understood why the golden ability’s aftereffects had not come this time. Because these memories were all tranquil. Devoid of any sharp emotion.

In that moment, they had not known that what lay before their eyes would be their last, lingering gaze upon this world.

Girls as delicate as flowers had died just like this — wholly unprepared, knowing nothing of what was coming.

A flower-petal hem drifted to her side. In the moonlight, Hua Yitang’s face was pale, nearly translucent. The angle at which he tilted his head to look at the sky made Lin Sui’an think of the time in Yangdu.

“Can you find them?” Lin Sui’an asked — the way that time in Yangdu he had found the carcasses of the white animals. Find Zhong Xue. Find the killer.

She had done everything within her golden ability’s power. What came next, she could only entrust to him.

Or rather — only he could do it.

Hua Yitang’s lashes gave the faintest tremble. He turned his head to look at Lin Sui’an and smiled. “I told you — I will always believe in you. So you must believe in me.”

His voice rang clear as moonlight. “I will absolutely find that murderous beast.”

The Chief Justice of the Court of Judicial Review, Chen Yanfan, was quite certain he must have gone mad — sitting here watching a yellow-haired wastrel draw circles for amusement.

When Zhang Huai had dug him out of his bed at the third watch of the zi hour, he had been told that a critical lead in the case had been found, and to bring the Eastern Capital’s survey map to the case records hall to convene. He had come with enthusiasm, sat there for half an hour, and had seen nothing except that Hua Family fourth son holding a charcoal pencil and drawing all over his prized map — lines here, dots there, then dots connecting to lines and lines connecting to dots, then turning into circles, large circles inside small circles, round circles layered over flat circles. Granted, he had swallowed his pride and asked that young man to look after Liu — his sixth son — but this was going too far, wasn’t it — acting like he owned the place!

Did this young man have any idea how valuable this survey map was? Every district, every street, every lane of the Eastern Capital’s one hundred and eight quarters; the Eastern Capital’s water network of four rivers and nine channels; even the underground water paths, the drainage channels — all of it annotated. A map this detailed — anywhere in the entire Eastern Capital, aside from the Palace and the Jinwu Guards’ offices, only he could produce one. Not even money could buy it elsewhere!

To be perfectly honest, if Ling Zhiyan and Zhang Huai had not been holding him back, he would have upended the table eight hundred times over by now.

What was worse — he, the Chief Justice of the Court of Judicial Review, was sitting here burning midnight oil, while the people this Hua Yitang had brought along were dozing off without a care in the world. Especially that coroner in the red clothing, who was using the wooden box as a pillow and sleeping beautifully, snoring away. When Chen Yanfan shot him a glare, he found himself glared back at by the young woman sitting nearby.

He remembered that this young woman’s surname was Lin — reputed to be capable of holding off a hundred opponents single-handedly. Chen Yanfan considered this pure fabrication. Everyone in the land knew the habits of Yangdu’s First Wastrel. The whole story was surely invented to disguise some unspeakable purpose — giving the pretty little woman traveling alongside him a ferocious-sounding identity as a cover.

And yet, he had to admit — when that Lin lady had glared back at him just now, he had felt a definite chill running up his spine.

“Fourth Young Master, how are you getting on?” Ling Zhiyan asked.

Chen Yanfan cut his eyes sideways: Even calling him Fourth Young Master so familiarly now?

Hua Yitang held the charcoal pencil in his right hand, his left hand working the fan at high speed, words tumbling out just as fast: “I assigned sequence numbers to the victims based on their time of death — fifteen in total. Feng Er Niang is number fifteen, Huo Si Niang number fourteen, Zhou Xing Hong number nine, and so on. The locations where the bodies were discovered I have already marked.”

Chen Yanfan took a glance — indeed, more than ten points had already been marked on the map. Their positions were widely scattered, showing no obvious pattern.

Hua Yitang: “Several points require particular attention: number one, five, ten, and fourteen.”

Zhang Huai: “Why those?”

Ling Zhiyan: “I recall — the cause of death recorded in the examination reports for these victims differed from the one preceding each of them.”

“Precisely.” Hua Yitang said. “Victims one through four all died of strangulation. Victims five through nine died of suffocation. Victims ten through thirteen also died of suffocation, but the bodies were preserved in better condition. Fourteen and fifteen died of carbon monoxide poisoning.”

Ling Zhiyan’s finger traced from point to point across the map: “Victim one’s body was found at the confluence of the Cao Channel and the Luo River. Victim five was found at the confluence of the Xie Kou Channel and the Run Water Channel. Victim ten was in the Run Water Channel. Victim fourteen was in the Yi Water Channel. All in the northern Luo district.”

Zhang Huai: “What does that mean?”

Hua Yitang gave his fan a languid wave. “It means the killer has a particular fondness for the northern Luo district’s scenery — and yet not quite so much fondness as all that.”

Chen Yanfan: “What kind of nonsense are you talking?”

“Precisely so.” Lin Sui’an wrapped both arms around Qian Jing and kept her gaze on the map. “I do not know whether Lord Chen has ever heard a saying — a rabbit does not eat the grass beside its own burrow.”