Xue Tao choked softly through her tears as she spoke. “After I hid the agreement, I began to make my plans — how to kill the young mistress without anyone knowing. I thought back to the artificial lake where the young mistress had once fallen in the water, and so I came up with the idea of poisoning her and throwing her in. That way, people would assume she had jumped in and drowned herself.”

Xue Tao swallowed hard. “That evening, I poured the poison into the young mistress’s milk. To keep her from tasting anything unusual, I added honey to it. The young mistress liked honey — she added some to everything she drank. I added an especially generous amount, but when she drank it she still tasted something strange. She asked me why the milk had such an odd flavor. I told her the honey was a new variety, just sent over by the Madam. She had no suspicions.”

“While you watched her drink that cup of milk, knowing that once she drank it she would die — did you not even for an instant think of stopping her?” Yan Qing had seen all manner of criminals, including those who killed for money. Even so, she still could not understand these people — how, when facing a person with whom they had no enmity whatsoever, they could bring themselves to strike such a merciless blow.

Xue Tao hesitated, and her face could not help but flush red. “At that moment I was only thinking of those ten gold bars. I thought: once the young mistress is dead, I could take her money and the ten gold bars and live out the rest of my life in comfort. Beyond that, I thought of nothing else.”

Perhaps sensing the cool, distant look in Yan Qing’s eyes, Xue Tao lowered her head a few degrees further. “After the young mistress drank the milk, she soon began to have stomach pains, and then she started writhing on the floor. She told me to go find a doctor. I pretended to go out, but instead locked the door from the outside. Only the two of us lived in that courtyard — so no matter how loudly the young mistress called out, no one could hear. I waited outside the door for a long, long time, until the young mistress fell silent before I finally opened it.”

Recalling the scene from that time, Xue Tao felt a chill of dread herself, and her voice carried an involuntary tremor. “When I went back inside and checked her breathing, I discovered she still had breath in her. I was terrified — afraid she would not die — and so I carried her on my back to the lakeside and dragged her into the water from the bank. After throwing her in, I hid to one side. At first she was still making faint struggles in the water, but before long she stopped moving. I waited for a very long time until I was certain she was truly dead before returning to the courtyard. I packed the young mistress’s money box and my own belongings, and then under cover of darkness, with no one around, I quietly slipped away from the Shi Mansion. On the way home, I discovered that the ring on my hand was gone. Although that ring wasn’t especially valuable, I still felt pained about it. It never crossed my mind that the ring would fall into the lake together with the young mistress.”

Shi Ting said, “When Yin Minghui was thrown into the lake by you, she was still half-conscious. She knew it was you trying to kill her, and using her last remaining strength, she pulled this ring from your hand in order to expose you.”

“The young mistress — the young mistress was half-conscious then? She knew I had killed her?” Xue Tao was immediately horror-stricken. “Will she come looking for me?”

“Do you still know how to feel afraid?” Shi Ting looked at her with absolute gravity. “When you were killing someone, how was it that you felt not even the slightest trace of fear? Yin Minghui was a living person, yet you took her life for ten gold bars. You were capable of such ruthlessness for money — how can you still feel fear now?”

“I… I…” Xue Tao shook her head repeatedly, as though wanting to deny something, yet not knowing what to deny.

Shi Ting said, “Liu Xue Tao, think carefully now — on the day Yin Minghui died, was there anything unusual about her behavior?”

“Unusual behavior?” Xue Tao seemed to be trying hard to recall. “After that incident, the young mistress would sometimes be in a low mood, but only for a little while — once there was food and fun to be had, she would forget all about it.”

Yin Minghui was a somewhat tiresome person, yet she was straightforward by nature. She was the type whose emotions were extremely easy to read — happiness came quickly, and unhappiness left just as fast.

“Think more carefully — for instance, did she suddenly seem agitated and restless, or appear anxious and nervous?”

Xue Tao thought for a moment, then her eyes suddenly lit up. “That’s right — the young mistress told me that in two more days she would be going back to the Qian Family’s house. She had originally planned to keep staying at the Shi Mansion. She… she also had thoughts of marrying the Second Young Master.”

Yan Qing thought: …so Yin Minghui had hit a wall with Shi Ting and then turned her sights on Shi Guang. She was clever about it — Shi Guang was single, and her chances of marrying him were greatest. But Shi Guang and Qian Lan were on the same boat, and Shi Guang would absolutely never marry someone of no use to his current situation. So even if Yin Minghui was setting her sights on Shi Guang, Qian Lan would never help arrange it, and in the end it would only amount to empty joy.

“Yin Minghui suddenly wanted to return to the Qian Mansion?” Shi Ting’s brow furrowed. “Did she say why?”

Xue Tao shook her head. “She did not say why. She was just a bit anxious… Actually, I heard her muttering to herself. She seemed to have — to have seen something she should not have seen.”

Shi Ting’s instinct told him that Yin Minghui must have discovered someone’s secret, and this person was somewhere within the Shi Mansion. She wanted to avoid that person, which was why she had wanted to leave.

“I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time — the young mistress often said strange things that made no sense, and I thought nothing of it, assuming she had only had a bad dream.” Xue Tao said. “She was just rather scatterbrained that way.”

“On the day before Yin Minghui died, was there anything unusual about her?”

Xue Tao said, “Nothing unusual as such — except that morning she slept straight through until noon and did not eat breakfast. That evening, when the Madam sent someone to call her for dinner, she hesitated for quite a while. Ordinarily, she would not have waited for the Madam to call — she would have gone over long before that.”

Shi Ting asked a few more questions about Yin Minghui, but the clues Xue Tao could offer were of little use.

“Seventh Young Master, will I die?” Xue Tao asked with tense, fearful anxiety. “I killed the young mistress. Will I die for it?”

“A life for a life — that is Bei Di’s law.” Shi Ting’s face was cold. “Ten gold bars, two lives — do you think it was worth it?”

After Shi Ting and Yan Qing left, the sound of Xue Tao’s crying and screaming could still be heard from inside the room. But no matter how loudly she cried, it was already too late for regret — nothing could be undone.

“Can this agreement be used to trace whoever opened that safe?” Yan Qing asked.

Shi Ting shook his head. “The agreement is anonymous. Even if the bank staff can still recall what he looked like, it would not have been the person behind this who showed up in person. Finding an ordinary person in a sea of people — how would that be easy? That person calculated that this lead could not be exploited, which is precisely why they dared open the safe.”

“If what Xue Tao said is true, this person must be concealed somewhere within the Shi Mansion.” Yan Qing reasoned. “Yin Minghui must have stumbled onto some secret, and this person wanted to silence her.”

“If we speak of secrets within the Shi Mansion, there is only Qian Lan.” Shi Ting said, then immediately denied his own conjecture. “But if it were Qian Lan, she would have had no need to go to such lengths with a safe deposit box — she could simply have had her own people approach Xue Tao directly. And judging from her reaction, she clearly had no knowledge of Yin Minghui’s death; that kind of expression is not something one can fake. My guess is that this person, though present within the Shi Mansion, found it inconvenient to meet Xue Tao in person and did not want Xue Tao to know their identity — which is why they secretly left the agreement and the poison in Xue Tao’s room.”

“Were they not afraid Xue Tao might tell Yin Minghui?”

“Even if she had told Yin Minghui, Yin Minghui would not have been able to discover who was trying to harm her. Moreover, this person must have looked into Xue Tao and known what those ten gold bars meant to her — they counted on Xue Tao being willing to poison Yin Minghui for those ten bars.”

Shi Ting continued. “I have a bold conjecture: Yin Minghui must have witnessed a private meeting between Qian Lan and Shi Guang.”

Yan Qing found this conjecture quite surprising as well, yet the more she thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.

“If Qian Lan and Shi Guang were meeting privately in secret, they would naturally take every precaution and would absolutely never choose to do so within the Shi Mansion.” Shi Ting said. “They very likely had a secret meeting place outside. When Qian Lan was leaving the mansion, she happened to be spotted by Yin Minghui. Driven by curiosity about Qian Lan’s destination, Yin Minghui followed her right out of the mansion — and was then discovered by Shi Guang. Fearing she would ruin his plans, Shi Guang killed her to silence her.”

Shi Ting finished and let out a sigh. “This is only my conjecture. Without evidence, conjecture is just conjecture — it cannot serve as grounds for making an arrest.”

“But I think your conjecture comes very close to the truth of the matter.” Yan Qing said. “If the person behind all this really is Shi Guang, he would certainly not act personally. Once he acted, he would leave not a single trace. Yin Minghui’s death can only be laid at Xue Tao’s feet — the mastermind has completely distanced himself from the whole affair.”

As they were speaking, Zheng Yun walked in from outside. “Seventh Brother, Sister-in-law.”

Seeing Zheng Yun, Yan Qing could not help but smile. “I used to always wonder what kind of person could melt a block of ice like Zheng Yun — he was even colder than your Director. I even thought it would be very difficult to find such a person in the whole world.”

Zheng Yun smiled softly. “Sister-in-law is teasing me.”

Shi Ting, standing to one side, said, “Let me know the wedding date so Yan Qing can have the gift money ready.”

Zheng Yun, in a rare moment of awkwardness, said, “That depends on what Ling’ai wishes. For my part, the person and the house are both ready and waiting.”

The person and the house were ready — only a mistress of the house was needed.

“Seventh Brother, about Hui Cun’s father…”

“From what I know of Hui Cun, he is a father who puts his daughter above everything. So Ling’ai’s wishes — he will not go against them. You may proceed boldly and with confidence. Whatever test Hui Cun sets for you will only concern your character and the sincerity of your feelings for his Ling’ai.”

Zheng Yun seemed greatly encouraged and nodded with firm resolve. “Good.”

He then touched his forehead. “I got so caught up talking about my own affairs. I came to ask Seventh Brother — which day should I get the train ticket to Qian Guan Cheng?”

Upon hearing the words “Qian Guan Cheng,” Yan Qing could not help but look toward Shi Ting with a trace of despondency.