Young Master Wang followed Song Yan step by step out of the teahouse, only feeling that this blazing sun made his heart panic and his feet heavy. After following for a stretch of road, he was so out of breath he could no longer keep up. He couldn’t help but reach out and tug at Song Yan’s clothes, brushing aside the fan someone handed him, and asked: “Now that we’ve found the person, what else needs to be done?!”
He wasn’t a fool either. He knew people hadn’t schemed against him for his own sake—he had lived in Jinling City for so many years without offending anyone. Yet as soon as he went to the Cui family and married into them, someone specially set a trap to take his life. This matter was clearly aimed at the Cui family! Thinking again about the news his family had received about Cui Yingshu in faraway Jiujiang getting into trouble, he increasingly felt someone was targeting the Cui family, using him as cannon fodder. His heart was unbearably stifled with anger.
But stifled as he was, this anger wasn’t directed at the Cui family—although he loved playing and carousing, he had learned proper etiquette and grown up hearing the words of sages, knowing this matter couldn’t be blamed on the Cui family. Yet just thinking about the venomous snake behind all this, coiled and ready to strike with its tongue flicking, made his entire being turn cold with dread.
Song Yan paid him no attention. Although he indeed wasn’t rotten to the core, he ultimately couldn’t withstand even a bit of temptation, actually taking Five Stone Powder and striking Cui Huaying—this was something Song Yan couldn’t tolerate. He glanced back at him and lifted his foot toward the Wang estate.
People had long been waiting at the Wang family gate. Upon seeing them, they swarmed forward, competing to lead their horses and guiding them through the main entrance into the estate, all the way to the study in the front where the masters conducted business.
Second Old Master Wang was reading the letter sent by the Song family, his heart truly full of sighs—the letter was sent by Eldest Young Master Song, saying that in this matter their Song family found it inconvenient to interfere too much, and all affairs would be decided by Song Yan himself.
This tone, such trust in an eleven-year-old child! Second Old Master Wang couldn’t help but glance at his own nephew. In the past, his essays had seemed adequately written and his deportment proper enough, but now looking at him, he seemed completely inadequate in comparison.
He sighed and heard Song Yan say calmly that they had indeed caught the person who came to bribe the jailer to murder and silence witnesses. He couldn’t help but ask: “Do you know who it is?”
Young Master Wang hurriedly shook his head: “Never seen him before. This matter still needs to be asked of the prefect. Once the prefect has conducted the trial, we’ll know.”
After all, this involved a prominent family in the city and had resulted in a death. It was proper for the prefect to personally conduct the interrogation.
They must interrogate thoroughly to see exactly who had such a wicked heart, treating the lives of the Wang family as worthless, actually thinking to use Young Master Wang’s life to frame Song Yan, simultaneously sowing discord between the Wang and Song families while also creating enmity with the Cui family. It was truly too malicious. Second Old Master Wang stood up from behind his desk, looking at Song Yan whose expression remained impassive, unable to restrain his curiosity: “How did Fourth Young Master know something was wrong in all this?”
Young Master Wang had this problem since his youth—for children of prominent families, dragon-yang affairs weren’t really considered a problem. There were plenty of sons from great houses who enjoyed both men and women. The issue was that Young Master Wang was purely cut-sleeve oriented. His family had nearly turned their hair white with worry over him. With great difficulty, they had spent several years sternly correcting him, curing him of this habit, and even arranged a well-matched marriage for him. Who knew Young Master Wang would start causing trouble again? At the time, the family was heartbroken and angry but hadn’t thought there was any conspiracy involved—after all, Young Master Wang originally had this predilection.
It was Song Yan who had come angrily demanding justice at first, later telling them there was probably deception involved, that someone had deliberately lured Young Master Wang into learning bad habits. Only then did they take it seriously. Upon investigation, they discovered something was wrong—they bound Dashan and questioned him, and everything came out. Only then did they learn about the young male courtesan secretly feeding him Five Stone Powder.
Old Madam Wang had nearly died from this matter. She hated the mastermind behind it so much her teeth itched. Second Old Master Wang, thinking of the letter his elder brother had sent back, didn’t dare take it lightly and urged Song Yan to explain clearly.
Song Yan couldn’t help but cough once, not wanting to damage his elder brother’s reputation—he had followed Song Jue through the streets and alleys of the capital, seeing all sorts of people from all walks of life. Although the young masters of Jinling City played hard, to put it bluntly, compared to those wildly carousing noble dandies in the capital, they fell far short. He had immediately noticed that something seemed physically wrong with Young Master Wang—every time he saw him entering or leaving the qing courtesan houses, he always looked abnormally excited, and when he came out he was listless and weak.
Moreover, if Young Master Wang were truly a complete wastrel, the young male courtesan he visited was quite fixed and devoted. Song Yan instinctively felt something was wrong. At first he hadn’t thought much of it, only feeling perhaps someone had instigated him to learn bad habits. But upon investigation, he discovered the problem.
That young male courtesan was clearly deliberately leading him to worsen his behavior. Cuiting had even heard him coax Young Master Wang to invite him to the pleasure boat for an outing—although he and Young Master Wang hadn’t had an open conflict, they were at odds over Cui Huaying’s matter. The young male courtesan’s suggestion was very suspicious. It seemed specifically aimed at him and the Cui family. After being schemed against once by Han Zhi, he had learned his lesson, not to mention having seen all sorts of people while following Song Jue around. He immediately felt something was amiss and found an opportunity to have Cuiting use heavy bribes to buy off someone serving the young male courtesan. He also gave that person Five Stone Powder, and while their mind was unclear, extracted much information.
This included the crucial detail that the person who gave him silver wanted him to egg on Young Master Wang to invite him to the pleasure boat, then take the opportunity to push Young Master Wang into the water, or grab a candlestick and stab Young Master Wang to death.
This clearly intended to make him mortally offend the Wang family while also making him bear the crime of murder.
Who bore such deep hatred toward him? He had only been in Jinling a few days—it was impossible he had offended anyone, unless someone had been targeting him from the start.
These complications he couldn’t explain well to Second Old Master Wang, so he could only say: “My grandfather and my brother taught me that when encountering matters, one cannot take things for granted. No matter how reasonable something appears, one must think thrice before making a judgment. Based on my understanding of my brother-in-law along the journey, he is absolutely not the kind of person who is so bad as to ignore propriety and decorum. He shouldn’t be so lawless while I’m still in Jinling.”
Just based on this premonition? Second Old Master Wang stroked his beard, somewhat unable to imagine it. He couldn’t help but feel the Song family members could perhaps set up stalls as fortune tellers—this ability to accurately judge human nature based on premonitions was something he certainly didn’t possess.