Several guards carrying lanterns led the way at the front. Behind them, a group of people advanced through the bright light.

Shi Guang, still kneeling on the ground, dared not raise his head even at the sound of footsteps.

Qian Lan watched the approaching figures and took two astonished steps back.

Nearly everyone in the Shi Mansion had arrived. Leading them was the Shi Family’s Matriarch, supported by her personal maid, leaning on a cane. Her stern gaze cut through the air and landed squarely on Qian Lan.

Even Er Yitai, Luo Huaimeng — who had been nowhere to be found — was among the group. She stood there with a calm, composed expression, as if she had long since seen through everything.

The Commander unhooked a sachet from his person, first held it before his nose and inhaled, then threw it down on the ground in front of Qian Lan.

Qian Lan stared at the familiar sachet and didn’t know how to react.

“I should have realized it long ago,” the Commander sighed. “How could a young woman in her early twenties possibly be attracted to an old man past fifty like me? It turns out that from the very first encounter — from the moment you gave me this sachet — I was already caught in your trap.”

Qian Lan protested: “Commander, are you perhaps mistaken about me? This is just an ordinary sachet.”

“The substance inside this sachet is called ‘Enchanting Butterfly,’ isn’t it? And on your person, one would also find something called ‘Bee Crystal.’ Am I correct?”

Qian Lan’s eyes went wide in an instant.

Even Shi Guang, still kneeling on the ground, suffered a sudden shock. He had not expected the Commander to have traced things back to this sachet — let alone that he had learned its contents.

That person had repeatedly assured him: even if someone became suspicious of the sachet, they could absolutely never determine what it contained, let alone discern its purpose.

He couldn’t stop himself from raising his head from the ground. In the glow of the lanterns all around, he saw Shi Ting standing there, clearly visible.

Shi Ting and the Commander should both have been at the banquet — not here. It was obvious they had anticipated his feigned drunkenness from the beginning. The men he had sent to keep watch must also have been taken down. What he had thought was an airtight plan had, in reality, been within the other side’s grasp all along.

Shi Ting. Yes — it was Shi Ting. All of this must have been his doing.

“I’m not wrong, am I?” the Commander’s voice carried a chill that made one’s blood run cold. “If someone wears this Enchanting Butterfly over a prolonged period, they grow dependent on the person who wears the Bee Crystal, and gradually become a puppet — so completely under their control that even if told to die, they would not hesitate. Even more terrifying, the longer this substance is worn, the greater the toll it takes on the body. The wearer would fall gravely ill and die within no great span of time.”

“How truly vicious.” The Matriarch’s cane struck the ground. “Qian Lan, how could you be so utterly heartless? The Commander loved you with his whole heart, and this is how you repaid him?”

Qian Lan pressed her lips together and said nothing.

“What a pity. Your schemes have ultimately come to nothing.” The Commander shook his head. “Had Xingzhi not discovered your plot, I might truly have become your puppet, allowing you to do as you pleased with the Shi Family and with all of Bei Di.”

“Qian Lan — kneel down.” The Matriarch said furiously. “You vile woman.”

Two strong-built matrons heard this and stepped forward at once, pressing down on Qian Lan’s shoulders from either side.

Qian Lan refused to submit, but she was no match for the two stocky servants. Her knees went cold as she was forced down onto the ground. The broken wrist from earlier was jostled, drenching her in cold sweat from the pain.

For Qian Lan, kneeling before this enemy was like having her heart gouged out. Even pinned down in a kneel, she held her head high with pride, glaring fixedly at the people before her.

“I’m sure you never imagined this.” The Commander regarded this woman who had shared his bed with cold contempt. “The sachet I’ve been carrying has long since been swapped out. Throughout these past two weeks, Dr. Zhang has been secretly feeding me the antidote, slipping notes into the palm of my hand when you weren’t looking, evading the watchmen you had placed nearby.”

Qian Lan let out a cold laugh. “So it was Dr. Zhang. I was careless.”

She had assumed Dr. Zhang could not be bought off. What she had not foreseen was that Dr. Zhang didn’t need to be bought — he held a deep, abiding affection for the Shi Family, and that kind of feeling required no transaction at all.

And Dr. Zhang was also the most suitable person for this task, because only he had access to the Commander. But no single doctor could have uncovered this much on his own — which meant the one who had been pulling strings behind the scenes could only have been Shi Ting.

Qian Lan looked at Shi Ting, a flash of bitter resentment igniting in her eyes. She had always known that if the day came when she fell, it would be at this man’s hands.

“How did you manage it?” Qian Lan narrowed her eyes. “I inspected this sachet myself. It was indeed the very one I had given the Commander. If you had opened it to swap out the contents, I would certainly have noticed.”

“Are you certain? Is this really the same one you gave the Commander originally?” Shi Ting’s calm, measured voice fell without any inflection. “What’s inside this one is not Enchanting Butterfly — only substitute materials that Dr. Zhang found as a replacement.”

He drew from his pocket a sachet identical in every way. “The one truly containing Enchanting Butterfly is this.”

“How is that possible?” Qian Lan’s face was a mask of disbelief. “How could you possibly obtain a sachet exactly like that one?”

The resemblance was so perfect that even she hadn’t noticed anything amiss — they had successfully deceived her.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t suspected Dr. Zhang. On the contrary, she had been extremely wary of him: not only had she stationed someone to watch during his private time with the Commander, but she had also examined the sachet every single day. Yet it had never occurred to her that the sachet itself might be swapped.

“This sachet was embroidered by someone you know very well — the same person who taught you your needlework. So it’s perfectly natural that you couldn’t tell the difference.”

Qian Lan first froze, then opened her mouth in alarm. “Zhang — Zhang Mama?”

Apart from Zhang Mama — the wet nurse who had raised her from infancy — there was no one in this world who could embroider a sachet identical to hers. Whether in pattern or in stitch, it could pass for the real thing at every turn, because every skill she had ever learned had been taught to her by Zhang Mama.

“You actually found Zhang Mama?” Qian Lan stared in shock, then gave a bitter smile. “How did you coerce her?”

“You assumed Zhang Mama treated you as her own daughter and would therefore never betray you?” Shi Ting gestured behind him, and someone led Zhang Mama forward.

Zhang Mama saw Qian Lan — pressed down in a kneel by two servants — and she still looked just as beautiful and dignified as ever, even now with her hair disheveled and her posture somewhat wretched. This was still the Second Young Miss she remembered.

Apart from becoming even more beautiful, nothing about her had changed.

Yet she also knew that she had long since ceased to be that kind, sweet-natured Second Young Miss who used to smile.

“Zhang Mama.” Qian Lan’s gaze moved to Zhang Mama, trembling with emotion. A rare glimmer of tears surfaced in her eyes. “Zhang Mama, it’s really you.”

“Second Young Miss.” Zhang Mama wept as she spoke. “Second Young Miss…”

Zhang Mama was already crying so hard she couldn’t find any more words.

“You even found Zhang Mama.” Qian Lan gave a bitter smile. “Then you must already know my reason for entering the Shi Family as well.”

Shi Guang, upon seeing this Zhang Mama, couldn’t help but clench his fists.

When he had helped Qian Lan sweep away these loose ends, the only one he had missed was Zhang Mama.

When he tried to make a move against Zhang Mama a second time, Qian Lan had pleaded with him not to touch her, saying that Zhang Mama had already retreated to a life of seclusion in the mountains and could never appear in the world again — she would never become a breach in their defenses.

Shi Guang had kept people watching Zhang Mama for quite some time. Only when he was certain she would pose no real threat did he decide to let her be. And yet that momentary lapse of judgment was the very thing Shi Ting had seized upon. They had used Zhang Mama to break open the entire situation, successfully unraveling Qian Lan’s true identity.

Once Qian Lan’s background was exposed, all their efforts would come to nothing.

“Second Young Miss, is it true that the death of my son and his family had something to do with you?” Zhang Mama’s voice trembled as she asked.

A thread of desperate hope still lingered in her eyes. How she wanted all of this to have nothing to do with Qian Lan — yet at this point, Qian Lan no longer had any reason to hold back. She was a fish caught in a net, and no amount of struggling could set her free.

“Zhang Mama, I’m sorry.” Qian Lan looked away with a hint of guilt. “Everything was for the Chen Family — for my parents, and for my sister.”

After receiving this confirmation, Zhang Mama wept as the tears streamed down. The Second Young Miss she had raised from childhood had truly killed her entire family in the name of revenge.

“And the Lin Family, and the steward?”

“Yes, it was all me.” Qian Lan made no denial. “Everyone who knew about my past — I silenced them all.”

“To think it really was like that…”

Zhang Mama was overcome with grief, her slight, wasted body suddenly crumpling to the ground. She tilted her head back toward the pitch-black sky, her face contorted in agony.

“Why has it come to this? Why?”

She was asking Qian Lan. She was asking herself.

“So it was Zhang Mama,” Qian Lan said with a cold, scornful laugh. “You really are capable. Not only did you find her — you actually managed to persuade her to embroider a sachet identical to mine. Yes. I’ve lost.”

If not for Zhang Mama, whoever else they might have used, it would have been the greatest flaw in their plan.

Qian Lan turned her gaze to the Commander, her face sealed over with a hatred as cold as frost. “So you recovered long ago. These past days were nothing but a performance staged for my benefit. You played me for a fool — deliberately having me write out the document to install a Young Commander, then handing me the Commander’s seal to keep, all so I would believe you were still following my every word.”

The Commander’s eyes held no emotion whatsoever. He had not sat in the Commander’s position this long merely because he was the old Master Shi’s son.

On the contrary — he was ambitious. He had the aspirations of a soaring eagle. Everything he set his sights on, he intended to have.

He would not let personal sentiment delay his great undertakings, just as he had not eloped with Huiyuan all those years ago.

The truth was, so long as he had been willing to relinquish his claim to the lands of Bei Di, he could have taken Huiyuan and fled to the ends of the earth, bound by no one’s hand.

But in the end he had chosen the land and its power. Though losing a beauty would be a lifelong regret, it was still something he could let go.

Huiyuan had remained in his memory all his life — but Qian Lan was not Huiyuan. What had drawn him to her in the first place was only that she was Huiyuan’s disciple, able to play the instrument as beautifully as her teacher.

As for the way he had gradually grown to rely on her and be captivated by her — that was nothing more than the effect of the Enchanting Butterfly. Without it, he felt not one shred of feeling for Qian Lan.

So in his eyes, Qian Lan was now nothing more than a venomous woman who had sought to harm him.