Hongdou stirred slightly. It was much too hot all around her, thick steam pressing directly into her nose, and it felt somehow like being back in her childhood, sick in bed. Someone was turning her this way and that, fussing over her—it seemed as though they’d taken up a handkerchief or something similar; wiping her arms and legs wasn’t enough, they had to wipe her chest and bottom too.
Both embarrassed and ticklish, she kept trying to squirm away, but the person was endlessly patient, murmuring softly by her ear the whole while. She opened her eyes without meaning to, and met that pair of ink-black eyes before her—and at once, inexplicably, she relaxed, pressing her forehead to his chest. For some reason she felt a wave of grievance, and holding back the urge to cry, let him handle her drowsily, half-conscious.
She didn’t know how long she’d slept. Her face felt itchy, as though something was lightly moving across it; she frowned and tried to dodge away, but the person, like a child fondling a beloved toy, kept fussing over her endlessly—pinching her cheek one moment, nibbling her earlobe the next, unwilling to stop. Unable to bear the disturbance, she mumbled and rolled over, and after a good long while, things finally settled down.
This sleep was extremely deep. When she opened her eyes again, the whole room was filled with warm golden morning light. Not far from her, someone was murmuring in low conversation. Her head was still foggy and aching, her thoughts seemingly stuck together. She vaguely remembered having a very long, bizarre dream the night before. As her thoughts gradually cleared, she turned her head to look around and only then realized she was back at the He residence, dressed in clean clothes, the bedding around her fluffy and soft. She lay there in a daze for a good while before remembering what had happened before she lost consciousness the previous night, and involuntarily shivered, calling out without thinking: “He Yunqin.”
The conversation at the door stopped abruptly. She braced herself up on her arms and looked toward the doorway. Before long the inner door opened and He Yunqin came in from the outer room, having changed into a clean white shirt, an obvious weariness on his face. The moment his eyes met hers, they brightened slightly. He closed the door behind him again, came to the bedside, helped her sit up, and reached out to feel her forehead—finding no fever—asking softly: “Feeling better?”
His voice was hoarse beyond measure. Hongdou was startled, and despite still being somewhat dazed, quickly grabbed his arm to steady herself as she sat, asking in surprise: “What’s happened to your voice?”
He Yunqin’s gaze searched carefully over her face, not missing even the fine new fuzz that had grown along her forehead. After studying her for a long moment, he pointed to his own throat and said: “Hurts.”
“Hurts?” Hongdou instinctively wanted to reach up and touch his Adam’s apple—hoarse to this degree, she knew it must hurt. The reason she’d asked was because she wanted to know why he’d suddenly ended up like this.
But in the next instant, meeting his gaze, she understood in a hazy sort of way. What had happened the previous night had been too horrifying; even while unconscious, she’d remained tense the whole time, and only now, in this very moment, actually touching He Yunqin, did that long-lost sense of safety finally return.
Judging by He Yunqin’s current state, the fact that she’d made it back unharmed was largely thanks to him. Could it be that he’d suddenly lost his voice because of what happened last night? He didn’t seem inclined to hide his worry from her at all, even openly telling her, right to her face, that he was in pain.
Her heart warmed, and she raised her hand, wanting to properly comfort him—but her mind was still somewhat muddled, though her memory hadn’t failed her. Besides remembering how she’d ended up in danger, she also remembered how the two of them had quarreled the night before. Her hand, already halfway extended, paused, and she pursed her lips instead.
He Yunqin had been waiting for this moment for the longest time, and naturally wasn’t about to let her withdraw her hand. The two of them remained locked in this standoff for a moment before he simply leaned down to kiss her—just then, someone knocked at the outer room door. A servant’s voice called: “Young Master, Young Madam, Miss Gu is here.”
Hongdou blinked, and used the moment to pull her hand back: “Gu Yun’s here?” She still remembered vividly how Gu Yun had gone missing the night before, and lifted the blanket, about to get out of bed.
He Yunqin had no choice but to let go, helping her to stand: “I told everyone outside that you’re unwell from drinking too much. She’s come under the pretext of visiting you. Captain Wang is here too, in the small study. Your brother cried out of guilt the whole night and didn’t sleep at all—he wanted to keep watch over you here, but was afraid it would arouse suspicion, so he went home to wait for news instead. Now that you’re awake, I’ll call him right away.”
Hongdou was still in a daze—so this was how much chaos her disappearance had caused. As He Yunqin went out to the outer room to make the call, she hurried to the washroom and changed into a qipao suitable for receiving guests, quickly washed up, and came out.
Gu Yun had indeed been shown into the room by a servant, sitting quietly on the sofa. Her face, originally drawn tight with tension, relaxed the moment Hongdou appeared. She stood, looked Hongdou over carefully, and though her expression remained calm, there was an unmistakable thickness to her voice: “Are you alright?”
Hongdou had also been worried about Gu Yun the whole time, and seeing her safe and sound, felt a rush of emotion herself: “What exactly happened last night? Where did you go?”
Just then He Yunqin came in and said: “Miss Gu, Captain Wang is already in the study. Let’s discuss it there together.”
Gu Yun nodded: “Alright.”
He Yunqin, seeing Hongdou about to follow along as well, hastily stopped her: “You haven’t fully recovered yet. Stay here and rest. Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you afterward.”
Hongdou had no intention of waiting idly in her room: “There were too many strange things about last night that don’t add up. If we don’t sit down together and sort it out, we’re bound to miss something.”
After the previous night’s ordeal, He Yunqin, unwilling to quarrel with Hongdou over small matters and eager to find the murderer as quickly as possible, saw that she truly didn’t look unwell. After studying her for a long moment, he gave in.
The group made their way to the study, where Wang Bide was indeed waiting. Seeing Hongdou, he flushed with both shame and embarrassment, rose, first bowing formally and properly, then said with deep remorse: “If it weren’t for my carelessness last night, how would Young Madam have ended up in danger? Thank goodness nothing happened, or I truly would have been ten thousand times guilty and unable to make amends.”
Hongdou gave a small smile—how had Wang Bide made it sound so serious? She was about to offer some reassuring words when He Yunqin calmly helped her sit down on the sofa, which left Hongdou utterly astonished. He Yunqin was normally so mild-mannered, yet here he was letting her passively accept Wang Bide’s apology—could it be that Wang Bide owed He Yunqin some enormous favor in the past?
He Yunqin, not giving Hongdou room to dwell further on the matter, went straight to the point, asking Gu Yun: “Miss Gu, what exactly happened before you lost consciousness yesterday?”
Gu Yun thought for a moment: “School let out at around 4:30. Since I wanted to research the tool used to kill Xu Yishan, I went to the library and borrowed a few books, then went back to the large classroom in the Education Department to study. I studied for about an hour, and seeing it was getting late, the other students gradually left one by one until I was the only one left in the classroom, and I decided to head home. Just then, someone suddenly came up from behind and covered my mouth with something. By the time I woke, the classroom was pitch dark. My mind was foggy, and I sat there dazed for a long while, unable to understand what had happened. Still muddled, I packed up my things, and only when I got home did I learn that everyone had been thrown into an uproar looking for me. I rested through the night, and this morning my mind felt considerably clearer—things came back to me in fragments, and I finally managed to recall a little of what happened before I lost consciousness.”
He Yunqin asked her: “Did you see what the person behind you looked like at the time? What clothes and shoes were they wearing? Was there any particular smell on them?”
Gu Yun shook her head: “I didn’t get a clear look at anything. I only know their hand was very large and quite strong—it should have been a man. As for smell, I didn’t notice any particular scent.”
The other three all showed expressions of surprise. Hongdou said: “Not even the smell of cigarettes?”
Gu Yun, ever meticulous, thought back very carefully: “No, there really wasn’t any smell of cigarettes on that person. Though I’m still a bit foggy right now, so perhaps I’m misremembering.”
Hongdou looked at Gu Yun, puzzled. If the person who’d attacked Gu Yun was the same as the one who’d attacked her, there should have been the smell of cigarettes as well. Although things had happened too quickly at the time, and even now her own mind was somewhat unclear, she distinctly remembered smelling cigarette smoke on the person’s sleeve, and it was very likely the Changle brand the murderer habitually smoked.
He Yunqin lowered his eyes in thought for a moment, then said: “If neither of your memories are mistaken, there are two possibilities. First, the person who attacked Gu Yun and the person who attacked Hongdou are not the same person. Second, if it is the same person, judging by the time gap, he hadn’t yet set up the crime when he attacked Gu Yun, and Hongdou happened to stumble onto the crime scene—perhaps that’s exactly why there’s a discrepancy in the smell.”
Wang Bide interjected: “A true chain-smoker would have the smell of cigarettes on his clothes at all times—it wouldn’t suddenly appear later when it wasn’t there before. Could it be that this person doesn’t normally smoke at all, and deliberately smoked only when it came time to kill, and for some reason deliberately chose the Changle brand?”
He Yunqin asked Gu Yun: “Did you bring the books I asked Miss Gu to bring?”
Gu Yun produced a book bag from behind her: “All the books I borrowed from the library that day are here.”
Hongdou looked—there were four in total, and judging by the title pages, all were technical manuals related to machinery.
“After you woke from unconsciousness, did you notice any of these books missing?”
“No, not a single one was missing.”
He Yunqin picked up the first book, flipping from the first page to the last, finding nothing tucked inside like a note, then moved on to the second.
All four books were gone through in turn; inside, they were perfectly clean, nothing tucked away at all.
He Yunqin tossed the last book back onto the round table, staring at the pages in thought: “My guess is that the reason this person attacked you was to take advantage of your unconsciousness to retrieve some extremely important item he’d accidentally left inside one of these books.”
Author’s Note: Tomorrow’s update will mainly feature scenes between He the Second and Hongdou. If you’re not fond of this kind of content, please purchase with caution. Someone messaged me on Weibo asking for Republican-era book recommendations, so let me pitch a few with my shallow expertise.
- Zhang Henshui’s Eighty-One Dreams (already out of print; the copy I have was bought for me by my father years ago. This book is bizarre and wildly imaginative, very much to my taste—my favorite of all Zhang Henshui’s works)
- Eileen Chang’s essay collections (compared to her novels, I prefer her essays, especially “My Genius Dream” and “Written on Water”; in my view these two pieces are the pinnacle of modern essay writing, every word a pearl, worth rereading again and again)
- Qian Zhongshu’s Fortress Besieged (sharp, witty prose, satirizing the ways of the world to the bone; I always listen to it while running, and I’ve basically memorized some passages by now)
- Ba Jin’s Family, Spring, Autumn (I personally consider this the Republican era’s Dream of the Red Chamber—I love nearly every character in it, hehehe)
- Cao Yu’s Thunderstorm (one of my favorite reads as a young girl; many of the scenes and dialogue in it are classics)
23333 hope these aren’t poisoned recommendations.