“Temple fair lanterns?”
Under the scorching sun, beneath the shade of trees outside Qingcheng Courtyard, Zhou Qin, who had just finished practicing and was drenched in sweat, sheathed her blade. She looked utterly bewildered at Fu Yanyang, who stood before her impeccably dressed and looking like a proper gentleman. “You made me sneak out on such a sweltering day just to ask me about this?”
Fu Yanyang muttered, “You only walked from inside the gate to outside. If we’re talking about making special trips, I’m the one who came from far away…”
Zhou Qin couldn’t bear the heat any longer. While rolling up her sleeves, she said, “Isn’t your brother severely injured? How can you still have the leisure to go stroll around some lantern festival…”
“Elder Brother’s condition has stabilized. The imperial physicians all say what he needs is time to slowly recuperate. I’ve been working myself to exhaustion these past days—can’t I have a rare chance to go out and have some fun?”
You, Second Young Master Fu, need to ask my permission to have fun? Zhou Qin had no interest in chatting with him further. She waved her hand dismissively. “I understand. I’ll help you ask Miss Fang, but whether she wants to go or not, I can’t guarantee…”
“Who said I was inviting Zhuyi! I’m inviting you.”
Zhou Qin froze for a moment. “Huh?”
Fu Yanyang coughed and looked up at the sky. “However you look at it, I’m still your senior martial brother. It’s been so long since we’ve all gathered together… Our masters took such good care of us before. Now that we’ve finally made something of ourselves, shouldn’t we properly treat them to a meal?”
Zhou Qin nodded. “You’re right. I went to see Master just a few days ago, but she and the Young Marquis both seem very busy. I don’t know if they’ll have time…”
Fu Yanyang interjected quickly, “I’ll go ask them. Whether they’re free or not, let’s first set the time and place, shall we?”
When Zhou Qin heard she could go out and have fun with Changling, she thought it sounded quite nice and readily agreed. “It’s tomorrow night then, right? I need to inform Senior Brother Mo Chuan so he won’t schedule me for duty and have to find someone to cover.”
With that, she waved at Fu Yanyang and scurried back without looking back. Fu Yanyang retracted his outstretched hand and sighed. “Is my charm really this pathetic… Having to use another woman as an excuse to invite a woman out… This is truly…”
He shook his head and mounted his horse alone, riding away. After passing several streets, he stopped for a moment in front of the He Manor but ultimately didn’t go knock on the door. He thought to himself: I probably couldn’t get them to come out anyway. When the time comes, I’ll just say I didn’t see them, won’t that work?
After congratulating himself on his clever plan, Second Young Master Fu returned to the Fu Manor. The next evening, after arranging the manor’s security and other affairs in advance, he changed into a bright, presentable outfit. Before the sky even darkened, he was already waiting at the temple fair entrance. Watching the constant stream of people and numerous couples passing by, he couldn’t help but smile, murmuring, “That silly girl only thinks about practicing with her staff all day. If I didn’t invite her, how would she know to celebrate the Qiqiao Festival…”
Just as he was thinking this, he suddenly heard a familiar voice call from behind him: “Second Young Master Fu—”
Fu Yanyang turned around, and before the joy could reach his brow, when he saw who had come, his smile froze on his face—he saw three people strolling toward him from the front of the street. Besides Zhou Qin, the other two were naturally his “dear and approachable” two masters.
One wore an eternally unchanging expression of detached asceticism, and when she looked over, it always seemed to carry a hint of killing intent. The other looked more like someone who had tagged along on a date to watch the show. Most depressing of all was that as Ye Qi walked over, his elegant and refined bearing instantly crushed Fu Yanyang’s presence—making him look rather vulgar by comparison.
Second Young Master Fu silently thought: What’s the use of just inheriting his brains? I also want a face that looks handsome even in plain robes… Wait, no. Even if we’re comparing brains, I can’t compete with the Young Marquis or Little Master.
Zhou Qin didn’t notice anything amiss in the atmosphere between the parties. When she reached them, she said excitedly, “I came out early today and made a detour to the He Manor. Who would have thought Master and the others were actually home, so we came together… Isn’t that such a coincidence!”
“Yes… truly a wonderful coincidence…” Fu Yanyang barely managed to adjust his facial expression and offered a guilty smile. “Why do both masters have the leisure to stroll around viewing lanterns?”
Ye Qi stepped forward and grabbed his arm. “Having heard that our disciple has a generous heart, how could we as masters not accept this kindness?”
Changling certainly hadn’t come to “accept kindness.”
She had been wanting to settle the score with Fu Yanyang about the folding fan. When she heard Zhou Qin mention that Fu Yanyang had invited them to see the lanterns, she went along with the flow—naturally, given her thick-headedness when it came to emotions, she hadn’t sensed where Fu Yanyang’s discomfort stemmed from. Seeing his guilty expression, she became even more convinced of Ye Qi’s earlier speculation.
Zhou Qin bounced around holding Changling’s arm, looking left and right. The various lanterns on the street dazzled her eyes. One lantern stall was particularly unique—the light inside each lantern was like countless twinkling stars. Zhou Qin picked one up in wonder and said, “This lantern… why is it green?”
The stall owner smiled broadly and declared, “This is the Immortal’s Lantern. Any young man and woman who buy this lantern will surely have a lifetime of happiness.”
“Do you like it?” Fu Yanyang said. “If you like it…”
Changling raised an eyebrow and said coolly, “It’s just fireflies placed inside the lantern. Come tomorrow when daylight breaks, this Immortal’s Lantern will just be a cage of dead insects. What an auspicious meaning indeed.”
The stall owner: “…”
Zhou Qin awkwardly put down the lantern. Fu Yanyang withdrew the hand reaching for his money. Ye Qi laughed twice. “Everyone must be hungry, right? Let’s go eat first. Since Little Fu is treating, naturally we should go to the most expensive place… that one on the river will do.”
However, throughout the entire meal, Changling still couldn’t manage a pleasant expression.
Even as slow as Zhou Qin was, she could vaguely sense something was wrong. To avoid an awkward silence, she proactively brought up a topic: “Second Young Master Fu, regarding the assassin who tried to kill Prime Minister Fu earlier, has there been any progress?”
Fu Yanyang was in the middle of stuffing rice into his mouth. Upon hearing this, he nearly choked. After gulping down two mouthfuls of tea, he said, “No, no progress.”
“That assassin was truly ruthless and vicious, to actually pierce his chest with a sword. If the Prime Minister’s heart hadn’t been positioned abnormally, he might not have escaped this calamity…” Zhou Qin sighed. “But there really are people in this world whose hearts grow differently from others. I’ve never seen such a thing before…”
The “ruthless and vicious” assassin smiled coldly. “Some people appear like ordinary people on the outside, but their hearts are born strange. How could ordinary people possibly tell…”
Zhou Qin still didn’t catch the implication and asked Fu Yanyang, “Second Young Master Fu, is your heart also positioned abnormally?”
“No, no.” Fu Yanyang waved his hands repeatedly. “My heart is perfectly straight, not crooked at all…”
“That may not be certain. Sometimes when it’s crooked, you yourself remain unaware,” Changling picked up a piece of intestine with her chopsticks. “If you don’t split open the heart and intestines, how can you know for sure?”
When Fu Yanyang heard “split open the heart and intestines,” he couldn’t help but swallow hard. “Master is joking. I can tell where my conscience lies just by touching it with my hand. Why would I need to use the word ‘split’? It’s rather… rather frightening.”
“Weren’t we talking about the heart organ?” Zhou Qin said in confusion. “How did it turn into conscience?”
“Uh, well, why have we been waiting so long and the dishes still haven’t come…” Ye Qi finally spoke up. “Little Qin, go to the kitchen and urge them about the remaining dishes. We need to finish eating early to go see the lanterns.”
Zhou Qin said “Oh” and left through the corridor. Fu Yanyang watched her walk away, then turned back to ask Changling, “Master, have I offended you two somehow?”
Seeing him still playing dumb, Changling grew even more irritated. “You know in your heart what you’ve done.”
Fu Yanyang exclaimed, “I’m not clear about it at all. I beg Master to enlighten me.”
Ye Qi smiled. “Don’t be nervous. Do you have a folding fan on you?”
“A folding fan? Didn’t I give the fan to you?”
“I’m talking about an ordinary fan… With the way you’re dressed today, wouldn’t it be inappropriate not to have a fan…”
Fu Yanyang suddenly understood and pulled out a fan from his waist, handing it over with both hands. After Ye Qi took it, he casually picked up a teacup and without a word poured it over the fan head—Second Young Master Fu’s mouth twitched. He barely swallowed back the words “this fan is very expensive.” Then he saw Ye Qi put down the cup and snap the fan open with a flourish, instantly dazzled by the golden, glittering fan.
Ye Qi cleared his throat lightly and pointed to the dampened spot on the fan surface. “Look, if your brother kept the fan on his person and it got stained with blood, with the fan closed, the blood wouldn’t be so obedient as to only stain certain spots—”
Fu Yanyang was startled and stood up to continue, “Instead, it would flow down strand by strand from top to bottom like this…”
Changling glared at his face and ground her teeth. “Fu Er, stop putting on an act…”
“It really wasn’t me. When I opened it, I already saw blood stains on the fan…”
Changling sneered. “If it wasn’t you, then those two blood prints were probably made by your brother himself…”
“That’s even more impossible. The blood on the fan was fresh. At that time, my brother’s chest had been pierced into a huge hole by you. How would he have the strength to open a fan and make two stamps…”
Just as Changling was about to lose her temper, Ye Qi looked at the fan and suddenly raised his hand. “Wait a moment!”
Fu Yanyang and Changling both turned to look at him simultaneously.
“We seem to have all overlooked something…” Ye Qi looked at the gradually wrinkling folding fan in his hand. “That night, it was pouring rain, right? After Prime Minister Fu was struck by the sword on the mountain, did he get rained on?”
“After I stabbed him, he fell into a rain puddle.”
“When I arrived, he was already a drenched blood chicken.”
The two master and disciple spoke in unison.
After speaking, all three seemed to realize something was wrong. Ye Qi pointed at the wrinkled golden fan in his hand. “But the fan that Fu Er gave us that day was smooth and flat—it hadn’t been rained on.”
Fu Yanyang said urgently, “But I truly found it in my brother’s chest pocket… You must believe me… I…”
Ye Qi asked, “During the times your brother occasionally woke these past days, did he ever ask you about the fan?”
“No. I didn’t dare bring it up, and I haven’t seen him ask… I think he might have… guessed.”
“That’s not right.” Ye Qi shook his head. “If he treasured this fan to the point of carrying it on his person, he would never keep silent about it… Unless he didn’t have the fan on him.”
Changling: “Then how…”
Ye Qi said solemnly, “This fan was placed on Prime Minister Fu by someone after he was assassinated.”
On the auspicious Qiqiao Festival, all the restaurants in Jinling City were packed with guests. A single cook wished he could grow ten or eight more pairs of hands to manage.
Zhou Qin waited outside, watching those servers busily shuttling back and forth. She really had no ability to intercept them, so she decided to be self-sufficient. Carrying three dishes and a soup, she wobbled up the stairs. The narrow corridor happened to be blocked by a large group of newly arrived drunkards. Unable to wait, she simply turned around and decided to go through the other side of the corridor, planning to hand the dishes in through the window first.
This restaurant was located by the river in the city. One side faced the river, the other faced the street. The windows of the VIP rooms all faced the corridor. Zhou Qin made a large detour. When she was almost at the window, she faintly heard Fu Yanyang’s voice from inside: “After my brother was injured, we sent him back to the manor. At that time, besides the imperial physicians, it was just me and Sister-in-law Bi. It couldn’t have been Sister-in-law Bi who placed it…”
Ye Qi: “Did you encounter anyone along the way?”
“Along the way…”
Zhou Qin arrived at this moment, not understanding what they were discussing. She focused all her attention on the soup bowl in her hands, afraid of spilling it. In a blink of an eye, she saw a pair of eyes reflected in the soup—Zhou Qin jerked her head up and saw a masked person suspended and hanging from the overhead beam.
“Who’s hiding there!” she shouted loudly. She saw that dark shadow suddenly drop down, about to flip onto the roof. She instinctively threw the plates and dishes in her hands, and the soup and water immediately splashed all over that person’s leg!
Zhou Qin immediately pushed off the railing and leaped onto the roof. When she looked up, she actually saw two people on the roof!
One of these two wore ordinary clothes but had his face covered. The other wore a standard set of night-traveling clothes—they didn’t even look like they were together!
“What are you…”
Before the word “people” could leave her mouth, the black-clothed person threw both hands, and more than a dozen throwing weapons that looked like seven-star darts came at her. Zhou Qin hadn’t brought any weapons and could only spin to dodge. However, these throwing weapons were extremely strange—just after she dodged them, they spun around and came back, stabbing toward her back!
A gust of wind swept in, blowing away the seven-star darts circling around Zhou Qin. Then Changling floated over gracefully, and beside her, Ye Qi waved the wrinkled golden fan in his hand and smiled. “You two… I’m afraid you’re not companions, are you?”
Those two masked people didn’t seem to know each other, but seeing that Changling and Ye Qi had discovered their whereabouts, they showed remarkable coordination—they both turned and ran—in opposite directions.
Changling and Ye Qi split up to chase them without hesitation.
Fu Yanyang circled around Zhou Qin, and seeing she wasn’t injured, before he could breathe a sigh of relief, he saw Zhou Qin also about to give chase. Fu Yanyang grabbed her. “Don’t get involved in this mess. Those two are clearly not people we can handle.”
Zhou Qin asked curiously, “How can you tell?”
Fu Yanyang looked at the figures that had vanished from view in an instant. “Think about it—they were hiding on the roof, and even with our two masters’ abilities, they didn’t notice them. This shows what level these two have reached in controlling their breathing and presence.”
What Second Young Master Fu said wasn’t wrong. These two people’s lightness skills were both among the best of masters. Even with Ye Qi’s leg strength from mastering the second level of the Wanhua Compendium, using all his might, he could barely keep up. The masked person in ordinary clothes ran along walls and roofs the entire way. Seemingly annoyed at being chased, he was about to draw his sword when he heard Ye Qi say, “No need to fight. I’ve already recognized you.”
That person’s movements halted. He turned around. Ye Qi said, “You were probably just dining at the same restaurant, happened to see the four of us together, and wanted to come eavesdrop a bit, right?”
“The Young Marquis has good eyesight. However…” That person spoke up. “Let me kindly remind you—compared to me, that person on the roof is far more dangerous…”
Having said this, he leaped down and disappeared into the night. Ye Qi hesitated for a moment, didn’t continue chasing, and instead returned the way he came. Who knew that just as he burst out of the alley, he was blocked by a shadow ahead.
Ye Qi’s eyes turned sharp. “You…”
Changling swiftly wove through the crowded lantern street.
That black-clothed person’s lightness skill was slightly inferior to hers. Not wanting to fight head-on, he actually jumped directly into the crowd, intending to muddy the waters and escape.
However, no matter how fast his transformations, he couldn’t be faster than Changling’s eyes—most people who came to this temple fair were couples. Even if not dressed in colorful splendor, they all wore various colors. But a person wearing night-traveling clothes squeezed into the crowd was actually harder to hide without a trace.
The black-clothed person twisted and turned, Changling swept past even faster. With a swing of her long fist, the two began exchanging moves in the cramped space!
That person blocked and parried. Within a few moves, she could see his profound skill. With people coming and going everywhere, Changling didn’t dare easily use those overwhelming internal force techniques to avoid accidentally injuring bystanders. At the moment, she could only land her fists and palms on solid targets, engaging in close combat!
However, this person actually blocked every single move—as if he was extremely familiar with her fighting habits. Although not as fast as her, he wasn’t inferior to her at all.
Changling’s hands never stopped moving, but her heart grew increasingly surprised. She felt this person vaguely gave her a familiar feeling, but for the moment, she couldn’t recall it. She developed the intent to capture him. Her killing moves changed to capturing moves. But just as she grasped his shoulder—he shrank his body and smoothly shed the entire black outfit—Changling grabbed a handful of night clothes. She looked up and saw a blue figure swiftly dart away.
The men of Jinling City, from nobles to commoners, all liked to wear blue. If she lost sight of him now, it would be like a fish entering the ocean—even if she had the ability to fish him out, she wouldn’t have the ability to identify him.
She chased while staring intently at that patch of blue more than five steps away, virtualizing all surrounding obstacles, trying to discern what made this person different from others. In a moment of distraction, she glimpsed the longevity lock hanging at his waist. Her heart jumped. Before she could reach out to seize it, she suddenly heard someone nearby shriek, “Someone seems to have died over there! It’s a young master in white!”
When Changling heard the words “white clothes,” her heart jumped heavily. In this moment of panic, she lost track of the person she’d been following closely!
The next instant, a barely audible finger snap rang out in the darkness. All the candle lights along the entire street extinguished one after another in response. What had been bright as daylight a moment ago now plunged into pitch-black darkness!
This scene was too bizarre. There was clearly no wind tonight—how could the candle fires in the lanterns all be extinguished simultaneously!
Someone in the crowd screamed that ghosts and demons were at work. Some fled with their heads covered. In the pushing and shoving, more screams rang out—one could easily imagine people falling and being trampled as panic spread. Even if a few people called loudly for everyone to stop, no one could hear them.
At this moment, how could Changling not be anxious and frantic? But if she couldn’t quell this sudden panic, in this pitch darkness, she had no way to determine whether that earlier shout about “the young master in white” was real or fake. She forced herself to calm down. When she turned around, she saw the only source of light not far behind her—it was the firefly lantern stall they’d seen when they first arrived at the temple fair.
She spun and rose, directly leaping to the lantern stall. With one kick, she shattered the table board, grabbed the wooden frame along with all the lanterns hanging on it, and leaped up. In three or two steps, borrowing the shoulders of pedestrians on the road to spring across, she landed solidly on the elevated platform at the intersection.
That platform already had several large leather drums set up. Originally, a few dancing girls had been standing on it dancing. When the entire street’s lights went out, the people had all scattered who knows where. Changling casually picked up a silk ribbon from the ground, tied on a lantern, then with a flick of her hand, the lantern on the long silk flew dozens of zhang away and lodged in the branches of an ancient tree. Then she strung all the lanterns from the frame through silk ribbons. In just a moment, she had constructed an extremely simple lantern string—although the light was dim, one could barely see the road.
With light, the pedestrians on the street regained some composure. Just as their minds wandered, they suddenly heard a deafening drum sound—”boom”—it was Changling deliberately stomping her foot to create the noise.
Changling said, “Whoever just said someone died, come out now!”
The street fell silent for a moment. No one responded.
Changling’s gaze swept around the surrounding scenery, but the lamplight was too weak. What could be seen was extremely limited. She took a deep breath and said, “Ye! I want you to appear before me immediately, right now, this instant, otherwise…”
“Otherwise what?” A clear, laughing voice rang out from behind her. Changling turned around and saw that white figure standing on another leather drum. “Otherwise you’ll marry me?”