Lin Sui’an leaned back against the armrest, one arm resting on the cushion, eyes gently narrowed, savoring the rare luxury of a quiet, unhurried moment.

Jin Ruo had returned to the Pure Gate headquarters in the Eastern Capital to manage the aftermath. Wan Lin was escorting the few frightened clan young masters home. Hua Yitang, of course, could not miss an opportunity to ingratiate himself, and had volunteered to escort Jiang Seventh Lady back. Ling Zhiyan went along as a protective escort. And so, inevitably, Lin Sui’an had once again become the bodyguard weighting down the ship.

The breeze off the Cloudy Water River drifted gently across her cheeks. Sunlight occasionally vanished behind passing clouds, then slipped back out again, as though a great invisible brush were painting stroke after stroke of hazy yet luminous golden light across the sky. The pleasure boat’s graceful hull glittered and gleamed, its high, upswept stern tracing an unhurried wake across the surface of the water.

Fangke was tending to the wounds on her body. It had to be said — the craftsmanship of a true medical professional was in a class of its own. His movements were deft and efficient. The only minor issue was that it was — hiss — quite a bit painful.

Jiang Seventh Lady’s laughter drifted over at intervals, with Hua Yitang’s complementary commentary woven through at regular intervals, naturally.

“I wouldn’t have thought that you, a young lad, would manage to think of using the cargo ships at the Cloudy Water River dock as a bluff to intimidate your enemies — borrowing the tiger’s might to your own ends.”

“It was only a modest scheme of preparation against contingencies. To receive such gracious praise from Jiang Seventh Lady, the entire Hua clan, from the eldest to the youngest, is deeply honored!”

“You truly are Hua Yihuan’s younger brother — just like him, born with eight hundred schemes and stratagems rattling around in your head.”

“Jiang Seventh Lady is absolutely right! Tomorrow I will go and commission a golden plaque, inscribed with the words ‘Eight Hundred Schemes and Stratagems,’ to hang in the main hall of the villa — in gratitude for Jiang Seventh Lady’s kind words!”

“……You, young man, have an absolutely breathtaking thickness of face.”

“Jiang Seventh Lady truly has eyes that see through all pretense! A thick face is a skill I was born with right out of the womb!”

“Pfft!”

Fangke gave a low exhale through his nose, and the hand administering the medication promptly became three degrees more brutal. Lin Sui’an sucked in a sharp breath. “Brother Fang — easy there, easy.”

Fangke: “Where is the intact corpse of Yun Zhong Yue that you promised me?”

Lin Sui’an: “Cough — he slipped away, unfortunately.”

Fangke rolled his eyes. With three quick, no-nonsense movements he finished the bandaging, then yanked both ends of the dressing tight with a ferocious tug. Lin Sui’an nearly had her eyeballs knocked clear out of her head from the pain. Beside her, Ling Zhiyan quietly pressed a hand to the wound on his arm and began quietly scooting his backside sideways, apparently attempting to flee. He hadn’t managed to edge even two feet before Fangke reached out and hauled him back with a single grab, ripped his sleeve open in two swift strokes, seized the wound salve, and proceeded to apply it with a technique that bore every hallmark of a Western Market barbarian restaurant chef’s method for seasoning a whole roasted lamb — in terms of force, frequency, and speed.

Ling Zhiyan’s mouth had gone white with pain. He sent beseeching distress signals with his eyes toward Lin Sui’an. Lin Sui’an calmly looked away — she could only pretend she hadn’t noticed. At this particular moment, Fangke was a powder keg with the fuse already lit; the slightest provocation would set him off. She had just barely survived those black-clad fighters in one piece — she had absolutely no intention of perishing for an inexplicable reason right here.

Based on Itta’s account, Lin Sui’an pieced together, through a combination of inference and guesswork, the complete picture of Fangke’s day — and from Fangke’s perspective, today had truly been a day of trials and tribulations.

At the si hour and three quarters, Fangke had risen, discovered the villa empty, everyone vanished without a trace, leaving only Itta behind. After two rounds of an animated game of charades, Fangke had grasped the general situation.

This group of people had left him behind and gone off together to attend the Pure Gate’s gathering in the Eastern Capital, without anyone so much as knocking on his door to wake him.

Very well. One had to suppose that this was bound to be a fierce battle, and he had no martial arts ability to speak of, so going along would serve little purpose. He might as well stay home and watch the estate. But then Itta had started gesticulating again beside him, and after three more rounds of charades, Fangke understood.

Hua Yitang had instructed Itta before leaving that Fangke had been working tirelessly day after day, rendering meritorious service with great effort, and had therefore extended a special invitation for him to take a leisurely boat ride along the Cloudy Water River — the Hua clan’s pleasure boat was already waiting — and he could conveniently pick everyone up on the way back.

Such a gracious invitation was difficult to refuse, and so Fangke went. But the pleasure boat had barely entered the waterway of the Cloudy Water River when several hundred cargo ships came bearing down on them in full, bristling force. Every crewman aboard was seething with righteous indignation, face red and fuming, mouths full of curses.

Fangke had been entirely at a loss. After listening for a good while, he finally made sense of the situation: Hua Yitang had purchased one hundred and seventy-eight ships’ worth of goods the day before, paying only a deposit, and had declared that by the chen hour and three quarters today, he would have someone come to the dock at the Cloudy Water River to pay the remainder. But the crewmen had waited the entire morning, and not only had the payment never materialized — they had watched, with their own eyes, the Hua clan’s party openly strolling along the embankment without a care in the world. They had set sail to chase them down and shout for their money for quite some time, but the Hua clan had paid absolutely no attention whatsoever. (Lin Sui’an suddenly understood: those crewmen earlier hadn’t been joining in the excitement for a spectacle — they had been there to collect a debt.) Then, right in the midst of their furious outrage, they had spotted Fangke and Itta arriving by Hua clan pleasure boat, and in that instant all past grievances and present resentments were channeled directly onto Fangke.

Fangke had come expecting a pleasant holiday, and instead found himself inexplicably cast as the unwilling scapegoat. He naturally had no way to produce several thousand gold in cargo payments, and no one would listen to his explanations. He had nearly been taken apart plank by plank by a mob of hot-tempered crewmen and thrown into the river to feed the fish. His only option had been to make a desperate gamble and flee in the direction of White Heron Island, chasing down Hua Yitang to pay the bill. By pure misfortune, he had thus become the involuntary leader of a vast and thunderous debt-collection fleet — and by pure coincidence, had arrived at precisely the right moment to relieve Lin Sui’an and the others from their desperate situation.

“So then — was what Fourth Young Master did a fortuitous accident, or—” Ling Zhiyan, his bandaging complete, cast a glance at Fangke and dropped his voice to ask Lin Sui’an. “Was it premeditated?”

Lin Sui’an: “……”

A man’s heart — as deep and unfathomable as the sea floor. For now, the wisest course was to say as little as possible and keep herself out of harm’s way.

Fangke gave a snort, picked up his medicine chest, and strode with long steps to sit beside Hua Yitang. Hua Yitang had been in the thick of lavishing compliments on Jiang Seventh Lady and was rather absorbed in his task; seeing Fangke’s bearing, he couldn’t help but pause. “Doctor Fang, you are—”

Before he could finish the sentence, Fangke grabbed Hua Yitang’s right hand without ceremony, stripped away the silk cloth Hua Yitang had tied around his wound, and poured approximately half a bottle of wound salve directly onto it.

“AHHH—!”

Hua Yitang’s utterly unprepared scream was like a great bristling broom, sweeping every waterbird from the surface of the Cloudy Water River into the sky. The thunderous flapping of wings that followed sounded precisely like someone being given a series of resounding slaps across the face.

Lin Sui’an and Ling Zhiyan had retreated to a safe distance far away and sat there hunching their shoulders, wearing expressions of identical wretchedness.

The expressionless Fangke proceeded to lash Hua Yitang’s hand into the shape of a rice dumpling. Constrained by Jiang Seventh Lady’s presence, Hua Yitang dared only to permit himself the one initial cry; all subsequent screams were swallowed stubbornly back down. The suppression made his eyes go thoroughly teary and pitifully forlorn.

Even Jiang Seventh Lady was beginning to feel rather sorry for him. “Hua Fourth Young Master, the technique of your household’s medical officer seems somewhat… rough…”

“I’m not a physician. I’m a coroner.” Fangke glanced up, his dark, cavernous eyes meeting Hua Yitang’s thoroughly reddened rims. “All the ones who come through my hands are dead.”

Those words brought the temperature of the surrounding air plummeting in a straight line. Lin Sui’an felt a chill raise every hair on her body. Hua Yitang went rigid and attempted a dry laugh, on the verge of easing the mood — when at that very moment, a thud sounded from the stern of the pleasure boat, as though it had collided with something.

Immediately after, the stern boatman let out a shriek: “Trouble! We’ve hit someone!”

To be precise — it was not a living person they had hit, but a dead one.

Lin Sui’an tipped her head back and let out a long, resigned sigh. She felt a profound helplessness settle over her: Hua Yitang’s detective-constitution buff had truly activated once again.

The figure lying on the deck was a waterlogged female corpse. She was barefoot, wearing a brownish-yellow short jacket on top and a bright red pomegranate skirt below — the most fashionable combination among Eastern Capital women. By her appearance she seemed to be around seventeen or eighteen years of age. Her hair bun had partially come undone, and no hairpins or ornaments were visible.

The body had not been submerged long enough for swelling to have set in. The sunlight slid over the bare skin exposed on the corpse, casting a faint blush of peach-pink luminescence — which gave one a peculiar feeling: this corpse was beautiful.

Lin Sui’an immediately thought of the strange case Ling Zhiyan had mentioned earlier — a body discovered in the Yi Waterway, its condition so uncanny that rumors of demonic disturbances had begun to spread through the Eastern Capital.

Ling Zhiyan had clearly thought of it too. He swept his robe aside, crouched for a careful examination of the body, frowned, stood back, and gestured for Fangke to come forward.

After a full day of chaos and exhaustion, he had finally encountered a proper corpse. Fangke’s funerary expression brightened visibly by three degrees. He set to work examining the body: he first had it laid out on a bamboo mat, put on white cloth gloves, and then systematically worked through his examination — the crown of the head, the fontanelle, the hair bun, both temples, both brows, both eyes; he pried the mouth open to check the oral cavity; examined the throat, the sternum, the ribs, the upper limbs and both arms, the lower limbs and thighs, the knees, both calves, both feet. Having made his way through the last bone, Fangke finally reached the end of his patience and looked up. “Miss Lin, what exactly do you want?”

Lin Sui’an swept her robe aside and crouched down. Lowering her voice, she said: “Doctor Fang, would it be possible for me to look at her eyes?”

Fangke frowned. “Why?”

“Well… because—”

Before she could finish, Hua Yitang appeared at her side in a flash, gripping her wrist, and said in a sharp, low voice: “Don’t do anything rash!”

Lin Sui’an blinked at him in surprise. What was this rascal playing at? She’d told him about her golden ability so that he would help cover for her — so why had he now become the obstacle himself?

Hua Yitang activated his motor-mouth attribute and launched into a torrent of words: “You’ve just come through a great battle, you’re wounded and have lost blood, your vitality is severely depleted and your spirit is weak… this matter need not be rushed… besides, what if it goes like that time at Feng’s private school, and you fall into a sleep lasting several days, frightening everyone half to death… blah blah blah blah blah blah…”

Lin Sui’an let it go in one ear and out the other. On the surface she maintained the pose of a dutiful listener enduring the lecture; the moment Hua Yitang was off his guard, she abruptly pried open the female corpse’s eyelids. Murky, dead pupils — like a layer of mist smeared directly across her eyeballs—

White light blazed, like a bolt of lightning tearing open the sky. A new image materialized before her.

An overcast sky pressed low overhead. A flash of a black-tiled, upswept eave — gone in an instant. A half-visible shop signboard, black background with yellow characters, inscribed with the words “**Textile Shop.”

“Lin Sui’an!” Hua Yitang’s voice snapped at her like a taut spring, hauling her violently out of the vision. Everything before her eyes went dark. Something settled over her eyelids — warm and carrying a thick medicinal smell. Something that felt like a breathing, rising-and-falling cushion materialized at her back. Lin Sui’an was disoriented for a moment before her senses reassembled themselves: she was leaning against Hua Yitang, her body having somehow ended up against his without her noticing. What was covering her eyes was Hua Yitang’s bandaged palm.

“What has happened to Miss Lin?”

“Why did she suddenly faint?”

Ling Zhiyan and Fangke’s voices rang out simultaneously. Hua Yitang said nothing for a long time. Because her eyes were covered, Lin Sui’an’s other senses had sharpened to unusual acuity. Her shoulder blade could actually hear Hua Yitang’s violent heartbeat — it drummed against her back, sending a tingling numbness radiating outward, as though countless soft, fuzzy little creatures were crawling across her skin, itching all the way down to her very core.

Lin Sui’an jolted herself upright, pulled Hua Yitang’s hand away, and let her gaze sweep past the anxious Ling Zhiyan, the frowning Fangke, and Jiang Seventh Lady — whose eyebrows had practically soared off her face — then turned her head, and found Hua Yitang’s face.

His complexion was heavy and somber. Both lips had gone white. His eyes had erupted into an intense, vivid red — like two burning coals on the verge of detonation. Being stared at like that, Lin Sui’an felt an unaccountable guilt rise within her for no apparent reason.

“Cough — I’m a little tired…” Lin Sui’an said. “It’s nothing.”

Ling Zhiyan exhaled in relief. Fangke gave Lin Sui’an a contemplative look and said, “It seems that Miss Lin is actually the one who needs to be drinking bone broth to replenish her strength.”

Lin Sui’an gave a dry laugh and changed the subject. “What did Doctor Fang find?”

“The identity of the body is unknown. Sex: female. Approximate age: sixteen to seventeen. She was dead before being placed in the water. Based on the water temperature and the degree of rigor, time of death was approximately twelve hours ago. The body was submerged for approximately two hours. As for the specific cause of death — a further autopsy would be necessary to determine that—”

Jiang Seventh Lady: “Can it be conducted here?”

Fangke glared at her. “No.”

Jiang Seventh Lady was visibly taken aback. Ling Zhiyan quickly said: “The sunlight here is too strong and the humidity too high — conditions unsuitable for preserving the body. Furthermore, a formal autopsy requires procedural approval.”

Jiang Seventh Lady nodded, and was just about to ask something further when a commotion arose from the shore. They had arrived at a dock. Two columns of sharp-looking, impressively attired soft-armored soldiers stood in formation to receive them. At their head was a female official of graceful bearing, her face dark as the bottom of a pot, glaring ferociously at Jiang Seventh Lady aboard the pleasure boat.

For the first time, a flash of guilt crossed Jiang Seventh Lady’s face. She covered half her face with her hand and muttered: “Done for, done for — caught red-handed.”

The moment the pleasure boat docked, the female official led the soft-armored soldiers and boarded in a forceful, sweeping charge. Her appearance was delicate and slight, but her voice was anything but — her opening line came from the very depths of her lungs, ringing and resonant enough to rattle the walls: “Jiang Seventh Lady, have you had a pleasant time today?!”

Jiang Seventh Lady said with a smile: “Passable, passable.”

“And has Jiang Seventh Lady finished reviewing today’s ledgers?”

“Getting right to it, getting right to it.”

“The household has been waiting for six full hours! Their eyes are worn out from watching the horizon!”

“Heading back right now, heading back right now.”

The female official’s expression had just begun to soften when her gaze swept sideways and landed squarely on the corpse lying on the deck. She was instantly shocked. “Who is this person?!”

Jiang Seventh Lady hurried to reassure her: “Nothing, nothing — a body we happened to pick up along the way.”

The female official’s face went even darker.

Ling Zhiyan clasped his fist in salute. “Jiang Seventh Lady may rest at ease. This official will investigate this matter until the truth is brought fully to light.”

Jiang Seventh Lady blinked. “Alone?”

Ling Zhiyan: “With Jiang Seventh Lady’s blessing, this official would like to investigate alongside Hua Family Fourth Young Master.”

“Granted,” said Jiang Seventh Lady. “If the old man Chen at the Court of Judicial Review causes any obstruction, tell him it was I who said so.”

Ling Zhiyan gave thanks. Hua Yitang accepted the assignment with a cupped-fist salute.

Jiang Seventh Lady departed in a brisk flurry. Half an hour later, Ling Zhiyan led the court officials from the Court of Judicial Review away with the female corpse. The pleasure boat set off again, heading east along the Luo River.

Fangke had apparently surmised Jiang Seventh Lady’s true identity, but showed little particular reaction. Itta and Mu Xia were talking over the harrowing experiences of the day, occasionally punctuating the conversation with exclamations in words that made no sense to anyone else.

Hua Yitang stood at the prow of the boat, allowing the river wind to whip at his flower-petal robes. At the boundary where water and sky merged, the light was slowly darkening. Vast shadows of deep blue-black clouds spread across the river’s surface, and on the wind came something that seemed to drift along with it — heavy, and sorrowful.

From the moment Jiang Seventh Lady had disembarked — no, to be precise, from the moment Lin Sui’an had gone ahead and used her golden ability on her own — Hua Yitang had gone silent in a way that was almost frightening, leaving Lin Sui’an only a rigid, unyielding back.

Lin Sui’an scratched at her forehead. The situation felt rather tricky.

This rascal — he seemed to be genuinely upset.

I’ve crawled my way back.

My family member has been discharged and is home. They’ll need continued care.

My little one still hasn’t gone back to school yet (cue the tears — when will school ever start?).

For now, I’ll be updating every other day. (I bow in apology.)