“Old Madam, it’s already getting late. I wonder if I might borrow lodging at your residence for the night? Would that be convenient?”

“Yusang, escort the young master to the guest quarters.” Old Madam Wang didn’t even hesitate before instructing Yusang, calling over a maid who was passing through the corridor to help her leave. She seemed extremely unwilling to linger here for even a moment longer.

“Yes, Old Madam,” Yusang responded to the old madam who had already walked some distance away, then looked up at the sun hanging high in the sky, silently cursing Yan Qige in her heart. It was high noon, and he dared to fabricate such a shameless excuse.

“I’m guessing you don’t have anything nice to say about me right now,” Yan Qige said, fanning himself as he turned to leave.

Yusang followed him with a smile on her face and said, “Young Master is truly clever. Why don’t you guess what I’m cursing?”

“Do you take me for a fool like you? If I said it out loud, wouldn’t I be cursing myself?”

“You’re the fool, your whole family is are fool.”

“Little demon, don’t provoke me, or I’ll have reason to capture you,” Yan Qige reminded her in a slow voice without looking sideways.

Yusang opened her mouth but had to swallow the crude words that were about to spill out, putting on a meek and submissive appearance as she led the way.

Upon reaching the guest quarters, before Yusang could speak, Yan Qige had already chosen a room facing the West Garden and pushed the door open. The room had an outer and inner chamber. The outer room was furnished with a writing desk and chess table, with landscape paintings hanging on the walls. The inner chamber was separated by a pearl curtain and served as the bedroom. The carved wooden bed had not yet been made up with bedding, but fortunately, the room appeared to have been cleaned by servants in the past two days and was reasonably tidy. The tea set on the table was complete.

…

…

“I don’t like purple things,” Yan Qige said as he walked to the window, pushing it open to look toward the West Garden while giving what seemed like an instruction to Yusang.

Yusang walked to the wall and opened the cabinet, finding one azure and one purple set of bedding inside. Without thinking, she took out the purple set and went to the bed to arrange it. By the time Yan Qige turned back to look, she had already completed everything properly.

Yan Qige approached the bedside and used his fan to lift a corner of the purple bedding to examine it, but showed no displeasure at all. Instead, he smiled almost imperceptibly. Seeing his expression, Yusang immediately had a flash of understanding, realizing she had fallen for his little scheme, and immediately ground her teeth in internal injury.

“I knew you would choose contrary to my wishes. Purple is quite nice.”

“Young Master, it’s getting late. You should rest early,” Yusang used Yan Qige’s own words to deliver a cold retort, then left.

After the evening meal, Magistrate Wang came to the East Garden. He had barely exchanged a few words with Old Madam Wang before she became irritated. The magistrate already had a worried expression due to the case troubles, and after hearing his mother’s scolding, his face became even more gloomy. When he left, he kept his head lowered the entire time without saying a single word. Using the excuse of changing the tea water, Yusang followed behind Magistrate Wang out the door, only to discover he hadn’t returned to his study but had left the residence entirely. Fearing she might attract attention, Yusang had no choice but to give up and stop following.

After changing the tea water for the old madam, Yusang was eager to go explore Magistrate Wang’s study to see if she could discover anything. However, the old madam seemed to be in exceptionally high spirits today, showing no signs of sleepiness even after the sky had turned completely dark. Yusang had no choice but to use some magic to make her drowsy and fall asleep.

Yusang called Huayi to help keep watch outside Magistrate Wang’s study while she entered the study herself, quietly closing the door behind her. She had just taken out a fire starter and lit it when she was startled out of her wits. Hanging from the beam in the room was a corpse, eyes wide open, mouth agape, with blood stains trickling down the arms and dripping to the floor.

“You’re a demon, yet you’re still so frightened by a dead person.” Yan Qige’s voice came through, startling Yusang once again.

Turning her head to look, she saw Yan Qige seated behind the writing desk, using the moonlight streaming through the window to examine a ledger with his head lowered. The moonlight outlined his profile, adding several degrees of mysterious handsomeness.

“Did you kill him?” Yusang asked.

“Find your brain first before talking to me,” Yan Qige said without lifting his head from the ledger.

Yusang gritted her teeth, then had to take a deep breath to suppress her anger, saying, “What are you doing here?”

“Whatever you came to do, I came to do the same. Do you need to ask such a thing? You’re truly stupid enough.”

“Yan Qige!” Yusang glared at him with slight anger.

Hearing such a thunderous shout, even Huayi, standing guard outside, felt her heart shake several times. She quickly cast a spell to summon a breeze that made the trees outside rustle, covering the sounds from within the room. Yan Qige remained quite calm, slowly raising his head to light the candle on the desk, saying, “With cases occurring one after another in the city, even if Magistrate Wang is incompetent, he should have collected considerable materials related to the cases and discovered some clues. When I saw him yesterday at the residence, I noticed his worried and somewhat helpless expression.

Today I went to Huakui Tower and learned some things, which led me to suspect that Magistrate Wang is concealing something about this matter.”

“Concealing what?”

“I disdain to answer such questions from you.” Yan Qige lowered his head again to look at the ledger in his hands.

“Young Master Yan, do you believe that if I shout right now, people will immediately come to bind you and take you to see the authorities?”

“I told you not to threaten me with such things. You demon has a poor memory.”

Yusang nearly ground her teeth to powder, her five fingers clenched until they almost made sounds, glaring fiercely at that handsome face behind the desk. She truly wished she could strike him down right now and make him kneel and beg for mercy.

“Tomorrow should be fine weather. At noon, outside the West Garden, you’ll be able to learn what Magistrate Wang is concealing.” Yan Qige closed the ledger in his hands and stood up, walking out casually with his hands behind his back as if the corpse hanging in the center of the room didn’t exist at all. When he saw Huayi standing in the shadows, he looked at her for an extra moment, taking out something pearl-like from his sleeve and tossing it to her, saying, “At dawn tomorrow, bury this in the bamboo grove, and you can avoid being implicated.”

Before Huayi could ask more questions, Yan Qige had already departed gracefully.

As expected, the next morning before dawn, a piercing scream came from the rear courtyard of the county yamen, frightening awake all those in the residence who were still asleep, and causing those already awake to jump three times in fright.

Yusang followed behind the other servants to the outside of the study, where she saw the servant responsible for the daily cleaning of the study sitting collapsed at the doorway, tears and snot covering his face, his body shaking like chaff. The other servants who weren’t fully awake were also speaking in frightened whispers, not daring to look inside the room, until a constable chief from the yamen arrived hurriedly with several constables, followed by Magistrate Wang in civilian clothes.

The constables entered the room and took down the hanging corpse. Only then could everyone see clearly that the dead body with twisted features was Steward Wang. The corpse had wounds on the shoulders and neck from blunt force trauma and sharp object cuts, as if deliberately mimicking the fatal wounds from previous murder cases, though both Yusang and Yan Qige could tell at a glance that they weren’t the same.

“Everyone disperses. Don’t interfere with the investigation,” the magistrate said in a somewhat hoarse voice, waving his hand at the servants before stepping into the room.

Everyone dispersed, and Yusang couldn’t be too conspicuous by staying behind, so she followed the crowd in leaving. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a corner of water-blue fabric flashing behind the flowering trees on the left side.