The woman lay twitching slightly on the ground. The originally faint smell of blood grew stronger, indicating she had been injured before attempting to take Jiang Si hostage. Yu Jin’s throw had caused her wound to tear open further.
The carriage had stopped right at Song Zi Lane.
Song Zi Lane was quiet and still. A bird suddenly took flight from a tree, brushing against a lantern hanging under someone’s eaves, causing it to swing wildly.
The woman’s face alternated between light and shadow with the swaying lantern, her expression unreadable.
A long, powerful hand reached out and lifted the woman. Cold Shadow stood silently before Yu Jin, awaiting orders.
Yu Jin’s facial features were as hard as if carved from stone, frost gathering in his eyes: “Take her back and watch her carefully. Don’t let her die.”
“Yes.” Cold Shadow turned to leave, holding the woman.
The woman struggled: “Let go! You bastards, how have I offended you that you follow me like parasites?”
“Gag her,” Yu Jin said coolly.
Cold Shadow wasn’t one to show mercy to women – he immediately freed one hand to cover her mouth.
The woman’s cursing quickly turned to low whimpers, looking utterly wretched.
Jiang Si finally spoke: “Perhaps we should bring her inside first.”
Cold Shadow looked to Yu Jin.
Yu Jin pondered briefly, then nodded.
The small residence suddenly became lively.
“Let her wait here first,” Yu Jin instructed, pulling Jiang Si into the room.
As the lights came on, Yu Jin pulled Jiang Si into his arms, saying fearfully: “I offered to escort you, but you refused. What if something had happened just now?”
Jiang Si hadn’t been very afraid.
Perhaps due to a woman’s intuition, she hadn’t felt the other woman would truly harm her.
A woman who asks her hostage to help find shelter usually harbors no deep suspicions of others. Such people have rarely experienced true evil and typically lack the courage to harm innocents.
This was why Jiang Si had decided to wait and see what would happen.
“How did you notice something was wrong?” She pulled away from Yu Jin’s arms, creating distance between them.
“The carriage told me.”
Jiang Si looked up at him.
Yu Jin explained: “The depth of the wheel tracks can roughly indicate the carriage’s weight. But that’s not the main point – your behavior was what mattered.”
“How did I behave?”
Yu Jin smiled and tapped her nose: “You’re not the type of girl who gets shy. If you saw me coming, even if you wanted to scold me, you would have lifted the curtain to do it properly. Why would you hide so secretively? I thought to myself, could there be another man in there…”
Jiang Si glared at him.
Yu Jin ignored her glare and continued: “So I signaled A Fei and the others to find an excuse to stop the carriage. That’s when the person inside would most likely be distracted, making it convenient for me to slip in through the back door… Instead of finding another man, I found a woman.”
At this point, Yu Jin sighed heavily: “A Si, perhaps you should stop dressing as a man.”
“At a time like this, stop joking around.” Jiang Si glanced at him, gently rubbing her lower back where she could still feel the cold hardness of the dagger.
“What exactly happened?”
“A Fei hired the carriage. I suspect the lady hid inside when he wasn’t paying attention.”
After hesitating, she added: “I’ve met this lady before.”
Yu Jin’s playful expression vanished: “So she deliberately targeted you?”
Jiang Si shook her head: “I don’t think so. She seemed quite surprised to discover I was a woman.”
“Where did you meet her?”
Jiang Si briefly recounted the incident from their return from White Cloud Temple: “She has a kind heart, or she wouldn’t have saved someone from being trampled by horses.”
“Let’s question her first.”
Yu Jin went to the door and gestured for Cold Shadow to bring the woman in.
Under Cold Shadow’s restraint, the woman had no strength to resist, but her expression remained defiant. Meeting Yu Jin’s probing gaze, she turned her head and sneered: “Just my bad luck to somehow provoke you mad dogs. Kill me or torture me, do whatever you want.”
Yu Jin raised his hand, and Cold Shadow released the woman, quickly disappearing from the doorway.
The woman fell sitting to the ground.
A pair of feet appeared before her, and looking up, she saw the man’s ice-carved face.
“You mysteriously appeared in my fiancée’s carriage, took her hostage, and now call us mad dogs. Miss, with such skill at turning things around, aren’t you the mad dog?”
“Pah!” The woman angrily spat on the ground.
Yu Jin sat in a chair and said coldly: “I am an investigating official. Recently, several flower girls have been killed around Jin Shui River, and I suspect you’re the killer.”
The woman trembled with anger: “I haven’t killed any flower girls! You’ve been watching me constantly because of baseless suspicions, sending wave after wave of people to hunt me down. Let me ask you – were the victims just flower girls? With such attention, I suspect they must have been noble ladies instead.”
Yu Jin gave a light laugh, lazily leaning back in his chair: “Miss, one shouldn’t just grow tall without growing wise. With your martial skills, would I need to send waves of people to hunt you down? Do you take my men for useless rice bags?”
The woman paused, frowning deeply: “You mean… you’re not the ones hunting me?”
“We certainly are not. However, if you don’t explain who you are clearly, I’ll have to take you to the magistrate’s office first.”
The woman hugged her knees, looking from Yu Jin’s face to Jiang Si’s, her eyes gradually brightening.
If they weren’t her pursuers, perhaps she wouldn’t die confused after all.
Thinking of her recent experiences, the woman felt as if she’d been in a nightmare, one without any apparent cause.
“Your name.”
“Chu Chu.” The woman replied, then realized her mistake and glared at Yu Jin.
Yu Jin maintained his unruffled tone: “I’m an official, with the authority to arrest criminals.”
“I’m not a criminal!”
Yu Jin smiled: “I have the authority to detain suspects. Come now, explain yourself clearly. If I find no cause for suspicion, we’ll let you go.”
Chu Chu pressed her lips together and angrily recounted her recent misfortunes.
“When did it start?”
“That day I visited White Cloud Temple, I think it was the twenty-eighth of last month… Yes, August 28th. From that day on, people have been randomly attacking me…”
Yu Jin couldn’t help looking at Jiang Si.
Jiang Si was somewhat surprised.
What a coincidence – on August 28th, Miss Chu Chu had been even more unfortunate than her, inexplicably becoming the target of assassins.
Jiang Si had a vague, strange notion but couldn’t quite grasp it. Her instinct told her the woman wasn’t lying, so she said: “Let her go.”
Yu Jin naturally wouldn’t refuse Jiang Si’s request and gestured that the woman could leave.
Chu Chu didn’t move.
“What is it?” Yu Jin raised his eyebrows impatiently.
Chu Chu turned to Jiang Si: “Since I’m already here, could I possibly stay for a while?”