Wei Caiwei’s heart was conflicted, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. Near dawn, heavy rain began, and only listening to the pattering sound of rain hitting roof tiles did she finally close her eyes.

Her sleep was restless, filled with continuous dreams.

Sometimes she dreamed of various intimate pleasures with her deceased husband from their previous life. Though Eunuch Wang had been castrated, his seven emotions and six desires weren’t severed along with it.

She was skilled in medicine and human anatomy, had studied various illustrated manuals, and self-taught methods to help him find relief as well. Both were dexterous and understood how to please each other, indulging in passionate love.

They were a pair of “paired eaters” who knew how to play, worldly men and women rolling in the mortal dust, embodying human desires. Eunuchs were most skilled with tools – being castrated didn’t mean having one’s brain cut off, so how could they truly be incapable?

Thus, things that ordinary middle-aged couples could no longer sustain, the two of them could continue until old age and death. A loving couple who could calmly die for each other and also work to make each other happy.

She had learned the branch dance alongside Consort Shang Shou, and after mastering it, would close the door and dance only for her deceased husband.

She learned to dance for her own pleasure and to please him.

But before finishing a single dance, her thin dancing costume would be almost completely torn off by her deceased husband…

Outside the mandarin duck curtains, red candles flickered. She cupped her deceased husband’s face, but discovered something different – his eyes were innocently passionate, clear as mirrors without a trace of shadow. He said to her: “I truly have feelings for you. I think I must have fallen in love with you.”

What?

This wasn’t her deceased husband – this was her half-grown husband!

He was only fourteen with an unsettled temperament. How could he be in my bed? I’m truly too beastly…

Wei Caiwei woke with a start, her forehead covered in fine cold sweat.

Not wanting to recall the absurd dream, she put on shoes and got up, pushed open the window, stretched out both hands to catch a handful of cool rainwater, and splashed it on her face to quickly wake up.

The cold summer rain splashed randomly on her face, chasing away the remnants of her dream.

Wei Caiwei sat at her dressing table and pulled away the red mirror covering from the bronze mirror – ancient people believed mirrors could steal souls, so when not in use they would cover them with cloth called mirror clothing.

In the mirror, her eyes had dark circles – clearly she hadn’t slept well, looking like someone who had indulged excessively.

The raindrops carried a chill. It was somewhat cold. Checking the almanac, today was actually the beginning of autumn – this summer was about to end.

Summer quietly passes, leaving behind a little secret, pressed in the heart, pressed in the heart, cannot tell you. So sweet, so sweet, how can I forget.

Wei Caiwei arranged her hair before the mirror but couldn’t help glancing out the window from time to time.

Usually at this time, Wang Daxia would ride around to the front of the building, whistle, rain or shine, and she would lean out the window to wave and greet him.

Today he didn’t come.

Was he busy with new assignments, or had he worked all night and was now catching up on sleep?

Wei Caiwei was distracted and even braided her hair crooked. She loosened her hair and re-gathered her long tresses.

Re-doing her hair, her arms ached as if soaked in a vinegar vat.

In their previous life, they would sometimes help each other with hair. Wang Daxia would use aromatic water to comb her hair until it was glossy, every stray hair obediently in place, so smooth that even a fly’s leg would slip on it.

His terrible aesthetic sense would have him insert various gem-inlaid hairpins and rings, silk flowers so realistic they could fool anyone. He would fret over a box of earrings, holding them one by one against her earlobes for comparison, thinking this one was good, that one was beautiful too, wishing he could pierce a dozen holes in her ears to wear them all…

Can’t forget you, still thinking of you in my heart.

Wei Caiwei had just finished arranging her hair when the sound of horse hooves suddenly came from downstairs.

Had Wang Daxia come after all?

Wei Caiwei instantly forgot all her inner conflict. Despite the heavy rain outside, she leaned out the window. A person wearing a bamboo hat and straw raincoat dismounted and knocked on the door: “Half-Summer sister, it’s me, open up.”

It was Ding Wu.

Wei Caiwei hurriedly applied rouge and powder to cover the dark circles under her eyes and went down to open the door.

Ding Wu removed his bamboo hat. Wei Caiwei was startled – his dark circles were even darker than hers!

“Brother Ding didn’t sleep last night?”

“Time was urgent. Not just me – none of us slept.” Ding Wu removed his wet straw raincoat and hung it on a rack to dry. “I came back to find you on urgent business, need your help preparing medicine…”

Ding Wu explained Wang Daxia’s plan: “…Ten Thousand Goods Trading Company’s kitchen is in the back courtyard where we can’t enter. We can only tamper with the drinking water. It needs to be as colorless and tasteless as possible, with moderate potency – not immediate collapse after eating, just sleep aid for deep rest.”

Wei Caiwei looked toward the door: “Since it was Wang Daxia’s idea… where is he?”

Could it be that after last night’s rejected confession, he was too hurt to dare visit again?

Did I speak too harshly? Did I hurt his feelings?

“Commander Lu assigned him a very important task. He took the assignment and immediately went to work.” Ding Wu pulled out an oiled paper package. “I also bought breakfast for you on the way – two preserved vegetable and pork buns, one radish green bun, one tofu skin bun. Here, eat while they’re hot. We’ll get busy after eating.”

All were things she usually liked to eat.

Ding Wu even produced a gourd from his coat, opened the stopper, and poured out thick soy milk.

Wei Caiwei looked at the gourd, finding it familiar. In summer’s heat, Wang Daxia would usually fill it with cooled tea, hang it on his horse, and drink while riding.

“This is… Wang Daxia’s gourd water bottle?”

Ding Wu said: “We ate breakfast together before separating for work. I bought the buns, he bought the soy milk and put it in the gourd, saying it was for you to drink.”

Her half-grown husband was now learning to take care of people too. What did this mean? Was he… still persisting after being rejected?

Wei Caiwei ate the entire breakfast, almost stuffed. Ding Wu lay down on the arhat bed and closed his eyes briefly. Unlike Lu Ying and Wang Daxia who practiced martial arts with good physiques who could withstand all-nighters, he was a weak scholar who couldn’t handle it as well.

Originally Ding Wu just wanted to rest his eyes before getting up to help Wei Caiwei prepare medicine, but after Wei Caiwei finished breakfast, he couldn’t help falling asleep.

After the beginning of autumn, the weather turned cooler. Wei Caiwei tiptoed to cover him with a thin blanket, then went alone to the medicine room, opened her “secret” treasury, and began preparing sleeping medicine.

They had found the right person. Wei Caiwei never forgot revenge for a moment. Back in Tieling while learning medicine from the Wei Nanshan couple, she had already begun paying attention to these medicinal materials – highly toxic ones, sleep-inducing ones, eye-irritating ones, unconsciousness-inducing ones, and so forth.

Back in Tieling, she had already refined pills and sealed them in hard-shell capsules made from beeswax and white wax, then placed them in medicine boxes labeled as Black Chicken White Phoenix Pills, marking the wax shells and mixing them among real Black Chicken White Phoenix Pills.

So when Lu Ying brought Embroidered Uniform Guards to search her home for poisons, they hadn’t discovered this deception, allowing her to get away with it.

Wei Caiwei lit a lamp and examined the secret markings on the wax pills by lamplight, selecting five.

This was a blue mushroom from Ivory Mountain. Mountain people who accidentally ate it would sleep for three days and nights straight, then wake up with uncoordinated limbs, speaking incoherently like stroke victims – incomprehensible words though their minds were clear, recovering only after several days.

Wei Caiwei had found this blue mushroom, dried and ground it into powder, sealed it in wax pills, and named it “Lanke Dream.”

Based on her experience, when she went to Ivory Mountain in Tieling with her adoptive father Wei Nanshan and hunters to eliminate a black bear that repeatedly attacked people, she dissolved one pill in a bean bun. The black bear collapsed within five steps of eating it.

“Lanke Dream” mixed in a large water tank would be essentially colorless and tasteless, not arousing suspicion, but she had only tested it on a bear and didn’t know its effect on humans.

If she couldn’t control the dosage, people eating might fall asleep mid-meal.

Wei Caiwei took the five wax pills to the Embroidered Uniform Guard office and had Lu Ying arrange a dozen men temporarily without assignments. She dropped one wax pill into a water tank, had the cook use water from the tank to prepare meals according to Ten Thousand Goods Trading Company standards – one meat and one vegetable dish, soup, unlimited rice and flatbread, plus boiled water for brewing coarse leaf tea – to see when they would start yawning and fall asleep.

The first batch of five medicine testers basically became irresistibly drowsy as soon as they put down their chopsticks, falling asleep sprawled on the dining table.

Lu Ying watched, deeply shocked. Deliberately not breaking through that thin veil, not asking what this substance was or where Wei Caiwei obtained it, she said: “This medicine is too strong – let’s reduce it by half.”

Wei Caiwei nodded. Halving it and testing again, they still couldn’t last half an hour before the five testers’ upper and lower eyelids began fighting.

Not until the third attempt, reduced to one-third, did they last a full hour – precisely when shops would close and rest for the night.

Wei Caiwei worked busily for an entire day, recording dosages and timing in detail, and gave the remaining Lanke Dream wax pills to Lu Ying. “This is roughly it. It won’t be perfectly accurate, but it can ensure those who eat dinner won’t wake during the night.”

Lu Ying reported all this to Lu Bing: “This medicine is powerful. The first batch who tested it this morning are still asleep – I stood outside beating gongs and couldn’t wake them.”

Lu Bing looked at the wax pills: “I’m increasingly certain Wei Caiwei is the missing Second Miss He. She hasn’t lost her memory – she’s always remembered revenge, and stopped immediately after completing it without killing again. Fortunately we turned her from enemy to ally, otherwise she would have been a very troublesome opponent.”

Lu Ying said: “Father, don’t dig up Doctor Wei’s past anymore. That Wang Po and the Chen Qianhu father and son deserved to be cut into pieces. They died too quickly – it was too merciful for them.”

Lu Ying had a personality that hated evil like enemies, different from Lu Bing.

“Fine, we won’t mention it. Let’s pretend we don’t know.” Lu Bing stood up. “Take me to see those medicine testers.”

Lu Bing went and pinched their ears, scratched their soles – the people didn’t wake. Even when occasionally opening their eyes, their pupils were dilated, making unconscious movements like sleepwalkers.

Lu Bing was very satisfied and asked Wei Caiwei: “You did excellently. What do you want?”

Wei Caiwei said: “Could you change Ding Wu’s exile status to civilian? I want to return his freedom.”

Lu Bing rubbed his nose: “This… I’m afraid not. Yan Shifan would object. Best not to anger him for now. Ask for something more practical.”

Wei Caiwei said: “Then please allow Ding Wu and Ding Rukui to meet once more.”

This was Wei Caiwei’s strategy. She naturally knew the first request was absolutely impossible and hadn’t expected Lu Bing to agree. But once Lu Bing rejected her first request, he would be much more lenient with the second, feeling compensatory.

Indeed, Lu Bing nodded: “This can be arranged. Come autumn, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, I’ll have someone bring Ding Rukui to my courtyard. The father and son can spend a whole day together.”

Author’s Note: All seasoned foxes with plenty of schemes.

Note 1: From the song “Pink Memories” – this was a household divine song from my childhood, with national popularity like “Little Apple.” It magically matches Wei Caiwei’s current mood, and happens to contain the character for summer too.