Absolutely unbelievable!

Lin Sui’an held the drawing up against the Zhu Hu Fabric Shop’s signboard for comparison, and felt a deep admiration for Hua Yitang — should he ever fall on hard times, he could absolutely make a living with this supernaturally accurate draftsmanship.

Not only was it identical to her memory — it matched reality to the last detail.

Jin Ruo’s gaze traveled back and forth between the drawing and the signboard twice. “Are you two sure that Feng Er Niang came here?”

“No harm in asking.” Hua Yitang walked straight in through the fabric shop’s main door.

The fabric shop was a mid-sized establishment, roughly six hundred square feet in area. On the left was a long stretch of red lacquered counter. The shelves above and below were split into two tiers: the upper shelves held brightly colored bolts of fabric, while the lower ones were more subdued — mostly black, white, and grey. The bolts laid out on the counter itself were more of the coarse and hemp variety. On the right was another counter, its surface holding a three-inch-square wooden compartmentalized box that organized silk thread, hemp thread, velvet flowers, trimmings, and cloth buttons by type. Above it hung a few hemp ropes, from which small square swatches of fabric — large as a palm — were clipped with long wooden clothespins. Multi-colored, swaying gently, they looked like the little bunting flags hung for a shop’s grand opening, and there were a great many of them — likely all samples for customers to touch and feel.

Directly ahead of the main entrance stood a three-panel folding screen made of unadorned silk, painted with the Eastern Capital’s fashionable lotus motif. Behind the screen, a faint glow of light was visible — clearly there was a door connecting to the inner residence.

Just past noon, the Southern Market was at its liveliest. Customers flowed in and out of the shop — some measuring cloth, some fitting garments, some selecting thread, some ordering velvet flowers. Two attendants and one shopkeeper were so busy their feet barely touched the ground. Hua Yitang’s appearance and attire stood out from the crowd the instant he arrived. The shopkeeper immediately bowed and bustled over. “What can I do for you, honored customer?”

Hua Yitang’s eyes swept briefly over the room. He plucked a piece of blue-green fabric from one of the wooden clips, turned it over between his fingers, and asked, “What is the price of this sky blue? And how much stock do you have?”

The shopkeeper’s eyes lit up. “Honored guest, right this way, please.”

The shopkeeper led the three of them around the folding screen into the inner residence. The courtyard was also quite well-appointed. Following a small covered walkway to its end, they entered a small tea room — low tables, soft cushions, incense gently rising, perfectly secluded.

The shopkeeper ladled a bowl of tea for Hua Yitang first, then invited Lin Sui’an and Jin Ruo to sit, bowed to all three, and said: “This gentleman has excellent taste. This sky blue is a new product from Yidu, made using the latest weaving technique. The color is fast — it won’t fade when washed. Though not as supple and luxurious as silk and satin, it more than makes up for it in comfort and durability. And most importantly, excellent value for money. Only seven hundred coins per bolt.”

Hua Yitang nodded. “Bring some out to have a look.”

The shopkeeper agreed readily, stepped outside to call out a few instructions, and hurried off to the storeroom with one of the attendants.

Jin Ruo looked sideways at Hua Yitang: “Aren’t we here to question people about the case? Why are you buying cloth?”

Hua Yitang: “If you want a merchant to tell you the truth, you have to do business with them.”

“Then couldn’t you just hand over the money directly?”

“This you don’t understand. Merchants may appear mercenary on the surface, but they have their own sense of honor. Even if gold ingots were to fall from the sky, if they haven’t earned it through their own efforts, they wouldn’t deign to take it. If you simply throw money at them, that’s a profound insult — it would breed resentment in their hearts. How could you expect to hear the truth then?”

Lin Sui’an: “…”

I don’t believe a word of that!

Jin Ruo stared. “You’re just making that up, aren’t you?”

Hua Yitang smiled and said nothing.

Before long, the shopkeeper led two attendants in, shouldering two bolts of blue cloth into the tea room. Hua Yitang inspected the quality of the cloth at a leisurely pace and expressed his satisfaction. “How much stock is there in total?”

The shopkeeper beamed. “There are still three hundred bolts in the storeroom. If that isn’t enough, I can arrange for more.”

“How many people do you have on your side?” Hua Yitang suddenly asked Jin Ruo.

Jin Ruo froze: “Hm?”

Hua Yitang clicked his tongue, wearing a look of exasperated disdain — this useless kid, why is he so slow on the uptake? — “As a boss, you’d need to have some welcome gifts ready, wouldn’t you? Look at how shabby your lot are dressed — if word got out, where would my face go? This sky blue is tough and long-wearing, and the color isn’t garish — perfect for all of you.”

This time, Jin Ruo was genuinely flabbergasted, staring for a long moment before he came back to his senses. “You — you’re saying you’re buying all this cloth to give to me?”

Hua Yitang waved dismissively. “It’s only natural for an elder to give gifts to a younger one. This is nothing valuable anyway — no need to be so moved.”

“Who’s moved?! Hold on —” Jin Ruo leaped to his feet. “You make it clear right now — who is whose elder?!”

Hua Yitang looked surprised. “What? So you’re not planning to take Lin Sui’an as your teacher after all?”

Right, of course. Lin Sui’an immediately brightened up — had Hua Yitang not mentioned it, she herself had nearly forgotten. She promptly straightened her posture and gave Jin Ruo a dignified, venerable look.

Jin Ruo’s face flushed scarlet. He stammered: “We’ll — we’ll talk about it when we get home, when we get home…”

Lin Sui’an and Hua Yitang exchanged a glance: Oh ho! Looks promising.

The shopkeeper listened in total confusion. “Three honored customers — how many bolts will it be, in the end?”

Hua Yitang: “State the number.”

Jin Ruo: “…Fewer than six hundred people.”

“Three hundred bolts — we’ll take them all.” Hua Yitang tossed the shopkeeper a gold leaf. “This is the deposit. Someone will come later to settle the balance and collect the goods.”

The shopkeeper was overjoyed. “Much obliged, much obliged!”

“Oh, and by the way, shopkeeper — there’s something else I’d like to ask you.” Hua Yitang slipped the portrait of Feng Er Niang out from his sleeve. “Have you ever seen this young woman?”

The shopkeeper was still riding high on his delight, but the instant his gaze landed on the face in the portrait, his expression changed abruptly. “Why does this customer ask about her?”

Lin Sui’an: “You recognize her?”

The shopkeeper lowered his voice. “She’s been posted on the market supervisors’ notice board for seven or eight days now. It started as a Jingzhao Prefecture missing person notice, and later became a Court of Judicial Review identification notice — clearly it means this young woman is dead!”

Lin Sui’an quickly glanced at Hua Yitang. Hua Yitang’s brow and eyes shifted slightly. He too lowered his voice conspiratorially: “Truth be told, I also saw it on the market supervisors’ notice board. And moreover, I heard from someone that this young woman had visited several fabric shops before she died — yours among them. I also heard that the Court of Judicial Review is taking this case very seriously and will likely be making inquiries soon — so I wanted to get the cloth purchased before the court’s constables arrive.”

The shopkeeper was alarmed: “By heaven and earth, I have never seen this young woman! What does her death have to do with me?!”

Lin Sui’an: “Your shop sees so many people coming and going every day — perhaps you’ve simply forgotten?”

“Oh my, oh my, my dear customer — we merchants make our living by reading people and goods. No matter how many customers come through, as long as they’ve set foot in my shop, I will have an impression of them. But this young woman —” The shopkeeper stared at the portrait and shook his head repeatedly. “— I truly have no memory of her.”

“Judging by that shopkeeper’s expression, it doesn’t seem like he was lying.” Hua Yitang stood at the fabric shop’s entrance, slowly waving his fan, observing the surrounding streets and shops.

The Southern Market’s main roads ran in a grid formation — east-west were the streets, north-south the avenues. The two main streets were named “Five Mausoleums” and “Fragrant Dust,” and the two main avenues were “Cloud Depths” and “Golden Jade.” Together they divided the entire Southern Market into nine sectors arranged in a grid, with countless small lanes and alleys branching out like a spider’s web throughout.

The market supervisors’ office sat in the central sector. Each of the surrounding eight sectors had its own character — the northwest sector, for instance, was dominated by fresh produce stalls, fruit sellers, and pepper-and-bamboo-shoot traders; the due east sector was mainly goldsmiths, general goods shops, hat shops, and ironmongers; fabric shops, silk merchants, and dye houses were all clustered in the southwest sector.

Guo Chun Alley was short, with only seven shop fronts. The Zhu Hu Fabric Shop had on its left a dye house called “Tian Family Dye Works” and on its right the “Li Family Silk Shop.” Across the alley were a flatbread stall and three more fabric shops — small storefronts, but in an excellent location, right at the junction where the Wuling Street and Cloud Depths Avenue crossed. The flow of people was like a river.

Jin Ruo crouched on the ground and yawned. “Don’t bother. This area sees at least ten thousand people through it every day. Trying to find an eyewitness from more than ten days ago is like looking for a needle in the ocean.”

“I keep feeling like we’ve overlooked some important clue.” Lin Sui’an held up the drawing for comparison and squinted into the distance, racking her brain — then suddenly a flash of inspiration struck. “The angle of the eave is wrong!”

Hua Yitang snapped his fan shut with a crack. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The eave should be higher — more like it’s stabbing upward into the sky —” Lin Sui’an passed the drawing to Hua Yitang, then formed two “eight” shapes with her hands to make a frame, tilted her body left, then right, adjusting her angle several times, then slowly leaned backward, further and further back, her spine nearly parallel to the ground — and suddenly let out a startled cry: “Oh ho!”

But as she called out, she inadvertently released her core breath, her abdominal muscles relaxed, and she toppled straight backward toward the ground — in that instant, Hua Yitang reached out and caught her by the waist, holding her steady.

Lin Sui’an froze. She could feel the arm behind her, solid as a rock, and the warmth of Hua Yitang’s palm against her back. The lingering fragrance of fruit wood washed over her in wave after wave, enough to make the head swim.

This kid’s strength is greater than I imagined. Lin Sui’an thought.

Hua Yitang’s face had gone crimson. He said quietly, “What are you staring at — get up quickly!”

“Don’t move, hold still!” Lin Sui’an’s makeshift frame slowly shifted upward. “A little higher — a little to the left — too much, too much — a little to the right — yes yes yes — hold it! A bit more downward — that’s it, perfect — steady!”

Every muscle in Hua Yitang’s body went stiff. His arm cradled the full weight of Lin Sui’an’s body — it wasn’t heavy, but this posture reminded him of the night before, when he had carried Lin Sui’an back to her room. Then, she had been sleeping, and he had been free to look at her without restraint. But now she was awake, her bright and animated eyes blinking rapidly, and each blink made his heart stagger with an unsteady beat.

“That’s it — this is exactly the right angle!” Lin Sui’an finally found the image she had been searching for and let out a breath. “Hua Yitang, it’s here —” In the frame formed by her hands appeared a face of flushed, handsome features, as though peach blossoms had bloomed across his face.

“Oh my, young people today really are bold and spirited!”

“Look at this young man — he seems soft and delicate, but he’s got some strength to him.”

“Well, of course — holding a young lady gives you strength.”

“Young lady, give this poor young man a break — his face has turned the color of a monkey’s backside!”

Laughter rang out in all directions. Without anyone noticing, a whole crowd of onlookers had gathered around them. Lin Sui’an bounced upright and stepped two paces aside. Hua Yitang flung his sleeve open and fanned it furiously.

The onlookers chuckled and, covering their mouths, wandered off in good humor.

“You two —” Jin Ruo’s mouth dropped open wide enough to fit an entire steamed bun. “What exactly were you doing?!”

“W-we were naturally investigating the case.” Hua Yitang said with forced composure. “Ahem! Lin Sui’an — what did you find?”

Lin Sui’an let out a long breath, pressed her hand to her chest, and waited for the violent pounding of her heart to subside a little before pointing at where she had just been standing. “It was right here.”

Hua Yitang stepped onto Lin Sui’an’s footprint and looked around. They were in the middle of the Guo Chun Alley roadway, and the ground was covered in cart track marks.

“Her posture was similar to mine just now,” Lin Sui’an gestured to demonstrate, “she should have been reclining at a half-lying angle — and the position should have been somewhat higher —”

At that, both of them looked at each other simultaneously and said in unison: “She was half-lying in a carriage!”

Lin Sui’an: “No wonder the name of the fabric shop couldn’t be seen clearly — she must have been looking out through a carriage window, so her field of view was limited.”

Hua Yitang: “She was only passing by in the carriage and never got out — which is why the fabric shop owner never saw her.”

“Her family was poor and had no carriage to travel in.”

“It was the killer’s carriage. At that moment, she was already under the killer’s control!”

The two of them finished speaking rapid-fire, then simultaneously fell into silence.

Even being able to deduce Feng Er Niang’s state at the time, it was still of little use. The number of carriages entering and leaving the Southern Market every day was terrifyingly large. Feng Er Niang hadn’t shown her face, making it impossible to find any eyewitness. More than ten days had already passed — even a hundred Jin Ruos combined couldn’t uncover any trace from that day. And they had absolutely no knowledge of the carriage’s distinguishing features, leaving them with nowhere to even begin an investigation.

“You two —” Jin Ruo stared at the pair of them as though they had lost their minds. “What exactly are you trying to do?! Who is this ‘she’ you keep talking about? Feng Er Niang? How do you know she came here? And that she was in a carriage? Are you two —” He paused, lowered his voice cautiously. “— actually human?”

Lin Sui’an’s palm connected with the back of Jin Ruo’s head. “If we’re not human, are we ghosts?”

Jin Ruo cradled his head. “You’re scarier than a ghost.”

“I told you about this already, didn’t I?” Hua Yitang shook his fan with self-satisfied flair. “Hua is versed in the Eight Trigrams, geomancy, and the compass of fate — there is nothing I do not understand, nothing I do not know. I can divine the fates of the living and the dead alike. Wherever Feng Er Niang went in life, whatever she did — a single count of my fingers is enough to know it all in an instant.”

Jin Ruo rolled his eyes. “Hua Yitang, even oxen are being talked to death by you!”

“Little brother, is what you said all true?” Suddenly, a small dirty hand grabbed at Hua Yitang’s robe hem, followed by a small dirty face peering around from below — a child of about five or six years old, dressed in rags, barefoot, but with a pair of clean, thick black cloth shoes tucked at his waist. “Can you tell me where my sister Xue’er went?”

Hua Yitang: “Hm?”

“Fourth Young Master! Lin Niangzi! Something’s wrong!” Ling Zhiyan came striding quickly toward them, covered in sweat. “A message just came from the Jingzhao Prefecture — a young girl by the name of Zhong Xue has gone missing.”

Side Story

Lin Sui’an: Oh ho!

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! It’s a holiday! Confetti!