“What object?” Zhu Dachang asked urgently.
“Something that struck at the very core of the killer’s most inviolable boundary.” Lin Sui’an’s tone was measured and deliberate, as though she had witnessed it herself.
Meng Man’s eyes were locked on Lin Sui’an; his lips and teeth trembled violently, as if he were looking at some kind of monster.
“In a sudden frenzy of rage, the killer snatched up the fire-starter and drove it into Luo Shichuan’s left chest. Then he seized whatever it was Luo Shichuan had given him and thrust it into the wind-furnace to burn it — but at that very moment, a sound came from outside. The killer hastily blew out the candles and doused the furnace. The thing inside the furnace had only partially burned.”
“My arrival was entirely beyond the killer’s expectations. In the confusion, the killer had no choice but to knock me unconscious and drag me into the room. And then, at that moment, the killer suddenly conceived a brilliant scheme: create a sealed room and pin the murder on me. So he rapidly tidied the scene, cleared out the ash and residue from the furnace chamber, arranged the tea implements back in their original positions, and wiped away every trace of having shared tea with Luo Shichuan. He pulled the fire-starter from Luo Shichuan’s chest. He took a leather cord from among the bamboo scrolls on the shelf. He filed grooves into the door and the bolt, walked out of the room, pulled the door shut, and created the sealed room from outside.”
“Once the sealed room was complete, the killer realized he still had to deal with the leather cord and fire-starter. He thought of another scheme: in the dark and rain, he slipped around to the rear of Su Chengxian’s quarters and hid the cord and the fire-starter in the weeds beneath the rear window. This served as a double insurance — if he couldn’t conclusively frame me as the killer, he could redirect suspicion toward Su Chengxian.”
Zhu Dachang: “What a vicious, calculating mind!”
Meng Man had gone white to the point of near-transparency. The frenzied, desperate look in his eyes threatened to swallow Lin Sui’an whole. “Even if everything you’ve said is true, anyone inside the Luo compound could be a suspect. How can you prove it was me?!”
“There are three pieces of evidence. First: when the constables were gathering testimony about the case, you stated that Luo Shichuan had asked you to summon Su Chengxian to the inner room, and that the last person to see Luo Shichuan was Su Chengxian. But Su Chengxian was not in the Luo compound that night — so you lied!”
Meng Man: “I lied because I despised Su Chengxian, but that doesn’t mean I killed anyone!”
“Second: there was heavy rain that night, and the osmanthus blossoms were knocked down by the rain. When you left in haste, the soles of your boots would have picked up a great number of fallen osmanthus petals—”
“Are you trying to say you found osmanthus petals on the soles of my boots? Laughable. The master has been dead for days, and I have passed through the inner courtyard every day since — how can you prove they came from that specific night?”
Lin Sui’an gave a quiet inward sigh.
This piece of evidence had always been a bluff. Without modern forensic technology, she had no way to prove it at all. She had hoped to use a chain of evidence to break through his psychological defenses — but Meng Man’s endurance was proving stronger than she had anticipated.
She had, in truth, already reached the limit of what an amateur investigator could manage. If there were any way around it, she truly did not want to speak the last piece of evidence aloud — for both Meng Man and Luo Kou, it would be devastating beyond measure.
But at this juncture, with things as they were, she had no choice but to gamble.
“Third: the strange ring-shaped bloodstain at the crime scene.” Lin Sui’an walked to the tea table and slowly paced along the positions of the bloodstains she remembered from the crime scene. “Luo Shichuan was stabbed in the left chest with the fire-starter at this spot. He fell. Then he made his way around the table to the door.”
Zhu Dachang: “Coroner Ding told us that Luo Shichuan’s heart was positioned on the right side, unlike most people — so although the wound was more than four inches deep, it did not kill him outright. He bled to death. Thinking about it that way, he must have been trying to open the door and call for help?”
Mu Zhong shook his head. “If he were calling for help, the body should have been facing the door, or lying face-down. But the scene was precisely the opposite — Luo Shichuan was found seated with his back against the door, as if he were trying to—” Mu Zhong seemed uncertain, “brace it shut?”
Lin Sui’an walked to the door and ran her fingers along the bolt. She said quietly, “When I tried to reproduce the killer’s method of creating the sealed room, I attempted it ten times and failed ten times. Yet the killer succeeded on the first try, as if aided by divine providence.” She paused, and a profound sadness welled up inside her. “What aided him was not providence. It was the person still inside the room.”
Zhu Dachang sucked in a sharp breath.
“The killer did not know: while he was pulling the bolt from outside, someone inside had regained consciousness. That person understood what the killer intended — and walked to the door and slid the bolt into place from inside, helping the killer complete an impossibly perfect sealed room.”
Zhu Dachang: “So — so — so — so Lin Niangzi and Meng Man are actually co-conspirators—” He hadn’t finished the sentence before Mu Zhong slapped him across the room.
“Not me,” Lin Sui’an turned and looked steadily at Meng Man. “The one who bolted the door from inside and completed your perfect sealed room was Luo Shichuan.”
This was the final strike to shatter the killer’s psychological defenses — everything rested on this moment.
A dead silence fell over the room. Everyone’s expression changed.
Luo Kou’s lips trembled. “Wh… what…”
Meng Man stood rigid as a stone. After a long moment, the words Lin Sui’an had spoken finally reached him, and he shook his head again and again. “Impossible! Impossible!!” The more he said it, the louder his voice grew, until it became a howl. “Impossible, impossible, impossible! Impossible!!”
“Why, faced with the very person who had dealt him such a grievous wound, would he protect him in his final moments?” Lin Sui’an’s eyes were stinging. She advanced on Meng Man step by step. “Because the killer was the person closest to Luo Shichuan. The child he doted on most. The one he regarded as his very own flesh and blood—”
“Impossible! You are making this up!” Meng Man shoved Lin Sui’an violently aside, the tendons in his neck standing out wildly. “He was clearly about to drive me out—” He choked and stopped, his face changing catastrophically. But it was already too late.
Zhu Dachang: “At that time?”
Mu Zhong said coldly: “Which time?”
“When was ‘that time’?” Lin Sui’an’s voice was sharp as a blade, slicing through the last veil of Meng Man’s pretense. “Was it the moment you drove the fire-starter into Luo Shichuan’s chest? Was his blood still warm? Did it spray onto your body? Did he look into your eyes and call your childhood name? Man’er — you killed him! You killed the closest father you ever had!”
Meng Man stumbled backward, his eyes trembling wildly, shaking his head in a frenzy. Then he looked toward Luo Kou. Luo Kou stared at him in shock, her whole body quaking uncontrollably, unable to utter a single word. Tears broke free from her eyes without her willing it.
“He was not my father! He was going to drive me out of the Luo clan! Do you know what I saw?! A document of severance! Luo Shichuan was going to sever the father-and-son bond between us!” Meng Man sank to his knees, hands pressed to his head, half-howling, half-speaking to himself. “I am a child of the Luo clan! I can only be a child of the Luo clan! No one is going to drive me away! Not even Luo Shichuan!”
Zhu Dachang’s face showed pity. Mu Zhong shook his head with a sigh. Luo Kou closed her eyes and wept without making a sound.
Lin Sui’an turned her gaze toward the tall osmanthus tree in the courtyard. She softened her voice as though afraid of startling the fragrance drifting in the air. “There is one final and decisive piece of evidence — buried beneath the osmanthus tree.”
*
Zhu Dachang directed Li Nili to lead the constables in a furious excavation around the base of the osmanthus tree, hoping to unearth the “decisive evidence” Lin Sui’an had spoken of — but so far the results were limited.
Meng Man, bound hand and foot, sat in the tree’s shadow, watched over by two constables. His expression was vacant, his gaze hollow — the great outburst of weeping earlier seemed to have spent every last reserve of his strength.
Luo Kou stood at a distance on the other side. Her eyes, threaded with red, were fixed on the treetop. She had no more tears left to cry. Then, without warning, she laughed — a laugh that made the skin crawl.
“The Luo young lady seems not quite herself,” Mu Zhong said quietly. “When I have worked on cases before, I have seen people like this — a father who killed a mother, a kin who killed a kin. The case is solved, but the victim cannot accept the truth. Add the neighbors’ gossip to that, and they either go mad or die.”
Lin Sui’an said nothing. What Luo Kou needed now was time and a skilled counselor of the mind — and she herself, as a rank amateur, could not provide that. She could only place her hopes in the memory her golden ability had shown her. If her deduction was correct, what the golden ability had shown her would not only save Luo Kou — it might also save Meng Man from the abyss of his madness.
“Found it! There’s a wooden box buried here!” Li Nili shouted.
Mu Zhong gave Lin Sui’an a rather strange look. Zhu Dachang was already running over, wiping the soil from the box with his sleeve. “Hey! Lin Niangzi, you really are something else! There really was something buried under this tree!”
The constables all crowded around, eyes burning with curiosity, urging Lin Sui’an to hurry and open it.
But Lin Sui’an called Luo Kou’s name instead. “Luo young lady, this should be something your father left for you and—” Lin Sui’an paused for a moment, “Meng Man.”
Luo Kou’s whole body shuddered. With trembling fingers she pried open the lid. Inside the wooden box lay several scrolls. Mu Zhong’s keen eye recognized them at once. “These are the property deeds for the shops and the trade permits for the convoys.” He then understood. “No wonder they couldn’t be found — Master Luo had them buried here.”
Lin Sui’an paid no attention to the deeds. “There should be something else underneath.”
Luo Kou looked faintly puzzled but did as she was told and rummaged further. Sure enough, beneath the deeds were two white envelopes — just as Lin Sui’an had seen in her golden ability’s vision — still carrying the faint lingering fragrance of osmanthus. On the back of each, in small characters, were written: “For my daughter” and “For my son.”
Luo Kou’s fingers shook even more violently. She opened the one addressed to her.
Sunlight slid from the osmanthus leaves and flowed across the ink-covered paper, then poured into Luo Kou’s eyes. It became crystal-clear tears that fell one by one, blurring the ink. Luo Kou frantically tried to blot them — but the more she wiped, the more the writing smeared. Her body gave way and she crumpled to the ground, weeping in broken, ragged sobs.
Mu Zhong and the company of weathered men exchanged helpless glances. None of them understood what had happened. None of them dared intervene. They all looked imploringly at Lin Sui’an.
Lin Sui’an had not seen the letter’s contents, but she could more or less guess what Luo Shichuan had written. Her own eyes were stinging. She drew a long breath, picked up the letter addressed to Meng Man, and walked across the courtyard floor carpeted in fallen osmanthus blossoms to stand before him. She crouched down. “These are Luo Shichuan’s last words to you. Do you want to read it yourself, or shall I read it aloud?”
Meng Man kept his eyes fixed on the ground and seemed not to hear Lin Sui’an at all.
Lin Sui’an unsealed the envelope and drew out a single thin sheet of paper. The handwriting was bold and vigorous, the brushstrokes driving through to the reverse of the paper — and yet, beneath the strength, there was an unmistakable warmth.
【My son Meng Man: After much deliberation, I have decided to sever the adoptive father-and-son bond between us and to transfer the two merchant convoys, “Wanli” and “Yangyan,” into your name. From this point forward, you and the convoys will no longer be bound by the Luo clan. Your ambitions reach to the four corners of the world — you should not have to limit yourself to the Luo household. With your abilities, given time, you will certainly achieve great things. Your father has every expectation and every hope for you.】
Meng Man slowly raised his head. The blankness on his face was gradually replaced by an expression — one that was nearly impossible to describe. It was as if grief, regret, release, anguish, and joy had all transformed into sharp splinters driving out through his pores, tearing through his flesh, until only a raw and bleeding ruin was left.
He trembled as he reached out a hand. The instant his fingertips touched the paper, he recoiled as if burned, pulling them back sharply. His hands were still clean and white. But only he knew that the blood staining those hands from that night could never be washed away.
“Father! Father!! Father — Father…” Meng Man threw his head back and cried out to the sky, each word wrung from blood. No answer could ever come. The fallen osmanthus blossoms drifted down in the wind and settled on the crown of his head — gently leaving behind one last lingering sweetness.
*
Before crossing over, Lin Sui’an had been twenty-seven years old. Arriving in this world, she had shed ten years, and was supposed to be a bright seventeen — a flowering age. But right now she had the strange sensation of having aged ten years instead. One phrase came to mind: going gray before one’s time.
“Master Luo truly had remarkable foresight — transferring the shop deeds into the Luo young lady’s name long in advance! Now the Luo clan members have no choice but to swallow their pride and agree to the household division. I imagine they’re cursing in their sleep!” Zhu Dachang clamped a piece of charcoal into the wind-furnace with considerable glee.
Mu Zhong was sprinkling some kind of strange yellow-green seasoning into the boiling kettle. “The two convoys under Meng Man’s name were also transferred to the Luo young lady, so Master Luo’s original plan was probably for the siblings to look out for each other — but now the young lady will have to manage alone. Fortunately, she has grown considerably through all of this; it won’t have been for nothing. As for Meng Man, though…”
“Meng Man seems to have gone mad — he mutters to himself in the prison cell every day. Out of curiosity I went to listen a few times. Do you know what the whole story was with that document of severance? It wasn’t given to him by Master Luo at all — Meng Man found it by secretly rummaging through Master Luo’s things on his own. My guess is that Master Luo was planning to show Meng Man the letter first, and give him the severance document afterward. Alas — one step wrong, every step wrong!” Zhu Dachang scattered a handful of scallion pieces into the kettle. “Killing one’s father is one of the ten worst crimes. By the time the case file is sent up through the layers to the Court of Judicial Review and approved, it will almost certainly be a death sentence. Meng Man will have to live in his half-mad state for several more months while awaiting execution — whether that is a blessing or a misfortune, I cannot say.”
Mu Zhong: “Pitiable, lamentable, unforgivable.”
Zhu Dachang: “Helpless, impermanent — it all turns to nothing.”
Now the two of them were composing lines back and forth in verse, just like that.
The room was filled with a stinging, sour, bizarre smell. Lin Sui’an’s temples were already throbbing painfully. “You two — if you have something to say, please just say it. There is no need to sit here and—” brew poisonous smoke to murder everyone.
“This is the ‘spiced tea’ fashionable in Yangdu,” Mu Zhong leaned over the kettle and took a sniff. “It should be ready. Come, come — don’t be shy. Give it a taste.”
The tea in the bowl was a yellow-brown color, with scallion pieces and flakes of red pepper shell floating on the surface. Lin Sui’an steeled herself, closed her eyes, and took a sip. Good heavens — the tea burned all the way down, and her soul nearly floated right out the top of her head.
All three sat rigid as stone, staring silently at their bowls for quite some time. Then, simultaneously, they made a cheerful decision.
Sir Mu: “Tea is a refined art. We rough sorts are not suited to it.”
Mu Zhong: “Precisely so.”
Lin Sui’an: “…”
“Actually, the reason we came by is that there are still some unclear points in this case we’d like to consult Lin Niangzi about,” Mu Zhong said. “Since Meng Man intended to frame you as the killer, why did he not smear blood onto your hands?”
Lin Sui’an: “…”
It wasn’t as if she were a worm in Meng Man’s stomach who could know his every thought.
Though Lin Sui’an very much wanted to say exactly that, one look at Mu Zhong’s expression — reverent and expectant — and she swallowed the words back down.
She could not allow the image of a brilliant detective she had painstakingly built up to crumble now.
Lin Sui’an made a strategic move to take a sip of tea to buy herself a moment of apparent profundity — then her lips touched the surface and she quickly retracted them. She cleared her throat. “Perhaps Meng Man was too rattled in the moment and forgot. Or perhaps, at the very last, some vestige of conscience surfaced and he chose to leave me a chance at life.” She paused, recalling something Mu Zhong had once said: “The most desperate criminals always have a screw loose somewhere.”
Mu Zhong raised an eyebrow and stroked his beard, pressing further. “Why did the killer insist on using the fire-starter to file down the bolt and the door panel rather than some other tool?”
Lin Sui’an: “…”
Are you ever going to be satisfied?!
“Perhaps he could not find a more convenient tool at the time. Perhaps he wanted Luo Shichuan to die more quickly. Or perhaps…” Lin Sui’an paused, “when he was creating the sealed room, he had already planned to take the fire-starter away afterward and use it to implicate Su Chengxian. The sealed room was only a facade — deliberately mysterious, deliberately leaving flaws, just waiting for a sharp-eyed person to discover those flaws and then redirect all suspicion toward Su Chengxian.”
Mu Zhong suddenly understood. “And Lin Niangzi was precisely that sharp-eyed person the flaws were designed to attract.”
Zhu Dachang also understood. “We thought we had painstakingly unraveled the mystery and found the real killer — but in reality, it was all according to Meng Man’s plan.”
Mu Zhong: “The sealed room was merely bait, left for us supposedly clever people.”
Lin Sui’an nodded without expression. The reading comprehension skills of these two — truly extraordinary.
“There is one more question,” Mu Zhong said. “How did Lin Niangzi know that Master Luo had buried the deeds and the trade permits beneath the osmanthus tree?”
Lin Sui’an stared. Still?!
“That’s also something I want to ask Lin Jiejie.” Luo Kou lifted the hem of her robe and entered the room, bowing her head respectfully. “I have been disrespectful to Lin Jiejie on numerous occasions. Kou’er is ashamed. Please do not take it to heart, and please do explain.”
Lin Sui’an scratched her temple.
From the moment she had discovered her golden ability, she had known this day would come, and had long since prepared a full account.
“On the day the betrothal was dissolved, your father spoke with me at length over tea, and mentioned something about your childhood — he said that one Mid-Autumn night, you gave him a tea kettle.”
Luo Kou’s eyes grew faintly red. “That was the year I turned seven. I hadn’t realized Father still remembered.”
“Your father especially mentioned that your little face was covered in mud at the time. So I deduced that, wanting to give your father a surprise, you had specifically hidden the tea kettle underground first.”
Luo Kou smiled — and then, while still smiling, began to cry again. She nodded vigorously.
“Sir Mu mentioned that you couldn’t find the property deeds and trade permits. At that moment, it suddenly occurred to me — your father had specially mentioned wanting to view the moon with you all at Mid-Autumn, and had even invited me. He must have considered it a significant occasion. So I guessed that perhaps your father wanted to do as you had done that year — let you dig up the treasure yourselves, as a surprise.”
“Father really…” Luo Kou wiped away her tears and let out a long, slow breath. “He was this old, and still as playful as a child…” She then turned and bowed formally to Mu Zhong. “Regarding the matter of cooperation Sir Mu raised before — Kou’er considers it a sound plan. I hope the Mu merchant convoy will continue to look after us going forward.”
Mu Zhong nodded in a satisfied and relieved manner. Lin Sui’an looked at Luo Kou’s bright, spirited little face, and finally felt herself truly relax. She happily reached for her tea bowl and took a sip — and nearly gagged, her eyes rolling back. Good grief — it was even worse cold.