Jin Xiangshi originally served in the Ministry of Rites, but because his painting skills were exceptional, after the winter examination he was transferred to the Hanlin Academy Bureau of Painting to serve as an Academician-in-Waiting. Two months ago he went to Wanning to paint maps. After returning a few days ago to report on his mission, he had been claiming illness at home ever since.

Because they suspected the involvement of court officials and the case’s origin was unclear, the Yinye Bureau had temporarily not formally memorialized Emperor Zhengyuan about the winter examination case. Therefore, when questioning various officials from the Examination Hall, they could only probe indirectly.

During these days when Ni Su was recovering from her injuries and couldn’t get up, the Yinye Bureau hadn’t failed to investigate several sealing officials. But there wasn’t much they could ask at the Examination Hall, and Jin Xiangshi, having returned and received praise from His Majesty along with a reward of one catty of first-grade tribute tea, had requested leave upon returning home and wouldn’t come out.

The Yinye Bureau temporarily had no reason to visit his door to inquire.

Ni Su had originally wanted to inquire through Lady Sun, but the affair at the Ruqing Poetry Society had already demonstrated that Lady Sun was very concerned about Ni Su’s status and would absolutely not associate with her again.

“Does the incense and candles I lit during the day really work? You don’t hurt, do you?” Ni Su crouched low, hiding behind a lush flower bed in the Jin family’s courtyard, reaching out to pull Xu Hexue’s sleeve.

“It doesn’t hurt.”

Xu Hexue drew his sleeve close and shook his head.

“Then may I hold onto your sleeve? You can’t see, so I need to pull you along.” Ni Su asked him in a small voice.

At present, they were breaking into someone else’s residence at night. She couldn’t very well carry a lamp in her hand.

“Mm.”

Xu Hexue nodded, tentatively raising his hand toward where her voice came from, offering his sleeve for her to hold.

Feeling the force of her grasping his sleeve, Xu Hexue’s eyelashes flickered slightly.

“Let’s go this way.”

Ni Su observed the courtyard for quite a while. Seeing no servants approaching that room with its lamp lit—the study—she only then led Xu Hexue with light hands and feet to move behind the study to the latticed window.

The latticed window was propped half-open with a bamboo pole. Ni Su took advantage of this to peer inside.

In the brightly lit study, Jin Xiangshi was absentmindedly chewing sauced beef, then poured himself a mouthful of wine. “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t well? Can our household not afford to hire a medical worker? Now that those ladies in the poetry society know about you seeking out a medicine woman, you come crying to me.”

“Is this something I can easily speak of? It’s not that I didn’t hire medical workers, but they also couldn’t examine carefully. I took the prescriptions they gave me, but never improved. I had abdominal pain every day. You saw it—didn’t you even ask me about it?” Lady Sun spoke resentfully, sitting with her back to him, using a handkerchief to wipe tears as she spoke. “If I hadn’t been hurting so unbearably that day, I wouldn’t have listened to Lady Cai and sought treatment from that young lady.”

“Weren’t you afraid she’d kill you with her treatment? Don’t you know what medicine women are? How many have proper methods? Plenty treat people to death. How many truly have the ability to save people?”

Jin Xiangshi didn’t even lift his eyes, stuffing another piece of sauced beef into his mouth. “If there really are any, it’s nothing more than a blind cat stumbling upon a dead rat.”

“But I really did get better.”

Lady Sun covered her face with her handkerchief.

“Now all those other official wives know about you seeking out a medicine woman. Do you think when they go home they won’t tell their own husbands? Will those men allow you to lead their wives astray?” Jin Xiangshi gave a cold snort. “I told you long ago to stay peacefully at home and not start any poetry society with people. Now look—you’ve also made me eat the bitter fruit. Those officials—who knows how they’ll talk behind my back about how I don’t manage my household strictly.”

“I think you needn’t go to the poetry society anymore either. No need to let people laugh at us.”

“Why should I? Lady Cai still openly associates with that young lady. If she dares to stay at the poetry society, why can’t I go?” Lady Sun turned her head around, the hairpin ornament at her temples swaying directly.

“How is Lady Cai the same as you? Although her father was a proper civil official before retirement, he also served as an army supervisor in the northern border in his early years. He inevitably picked up some of the military men’s rough and careless habits. Now she’s married into the Grand Commandant’s residence—isn’t that still a pile of military men? Her husband is the only civil official. Isn’t her husband’s elder brother still a military position as Palace Command Vice Commissioner? Even before the Palace Attendants Bureau’s Chief Supervisor, he must speak softly and carefully… Their family is coarse and unrestrained—do you want to learn that too? Perhaps after today’s affair, those ladies won’t tolerate her continuing to stay at the poetry society either.”

Jin Xiangshi, having just received His Majesty’s praise, couldn’t help being somewhat smug. “Let’s settle it like this today. You needn’t go to that poetry society anymore. It’s nothing more than some young ladies gathering together. Minister Meng’s wife, Lady Jiang, and Minister Pei’s wife, Lady Zhao, haven’t shown their faces much. Even if you go, what use is it? You can’t get yourself known before them.”

“Husband…”

Lady Sun wanted to say more, but Jin Xiangshi grew impatient and waved at her. “Go out. Tonight I’m going to Xing’er’s room.”

Not only blocking her path to go out and socialize with women, but actually mentioning that concubine called Xing’er before her—Lady Sun’s eyes reddened even more. Yet she didn’t dare say anything further, suppressing her frustration as she withdrew from the room.

With Lady Sun gone, only Jin Xiangshi remained in the room.

Sitting alone at the table, he couldn’t help but reveal some weighty worried thoughts. He stopped eating the sauced beef, but the wine continued one mouthful after another.

Suddenly, a cold wind assaulted his back, so cold he nearly couldn’t hold the cup in his hand steady. The lamp candle before the table extinguished in an instant. For a moment, the room had only faint moonlight barely providing illumination. Smoke scattered from behind him. Jin Xiangshi’s spine stiffened, the muscles of his cheeks twitching. He slowly turned around. In the floating mist, he vaguely glimpsed a half-real, half-illusory white-clothed figure.

He startled and fell from his chair. The wine cup shattered.

“Xu Ziling.”

Ni Su, peering inside through the window crack, reminded him in a small voice, “He’s on your right.”

Xu Hexue paused and turned to the right as instructed.

“Jin Xiangshi.”

Beneath a gauze veil and hat that concealed the face, not knowing if it was man or ghost, the shadow dwelt in moonlight, faint as mist, accurately calling out his name.

“You, who are you?”

The muscles of Jin Xiangshi’s cheeks twitched even more severely. Mist and wind intertwined, coming toward him. He barely managed to block with his sleeve, his eyes stinging.

“Ni Qinglan.”

This voice was wrapped in ice and snow.

Jin Xiangshi’s eyes widened. His complexion suddenly became even more unsightly.

“You know me.”

Though Xu Hexue couldn’t see, he keenly heard clearly his sharp intake of breath.

“No, I don’t know, I don’t know anything…” Jin Xiangshi’s knees were weak. Instinctively, he moved backward.

Little did he know, the more he acted like this, the more certain Xu Hexue became of his inner suspicions.

“Administrator Jin.”

Beneath the plain gauze veil and hat, Xu Hexue’s eyes were spiritless. “I am now a lonely soul in the wilderness. If I cannot remember how I died, I cannot enter the Yellow Springs.”

Jin Xiangshi watched that ghostly figure transform into mist, then in a flash reconstitute its form several steps away. Frightened, he wanted to cry out, but felt the mist wrap around his neck like silk.

Jin Xiangshi covered his neck in terror, then heard that cold and calm voice speak slowly: “What exactly does Administrator Jin know? Please tell me truthfully.”

He watched that pure white shadow emit faint luminous light from around its body.

Ni Su, outside the window, saw this scene and knew Xu Hexue had used his mystical arts again. Worried in her heart, she looked again at Jin Xiangshi trembling like chaff in a sieve and immediately spoke up: “Administrator Jin, why don’t you speak quickly! Do you want to become like us?”

Suddenly another woman’s voice came. Jin Xiangshi looked around in alarm but didn’t see any woman’s form. The mist grew thicker. Frightened, his lips trembled: “You, who are you?”

“I’m a female ghost who drowned in a dry well. Administrator Jin, do you want to come play in the well with me?”

Ni Su deliberately drew out her voice.

“Ah?” Jin Xiangshi’s hands pressed on the ground. He kowtowed desperately: “I didn’t harm you,举人 Ni! I wasn’t the only one responsible for covering names and transcribing…”

“If so, why did you pretend to be sick and not come out after returning from Wanning?” Xu Hexue asked.

“I, I did see Candidate Ni’s examination paper. Because the essay was truly well-written and the calligraphy was also excellent, I had an impression of it. After I finished transcribing, I handed the paper to others and didn’t look after it again. Only later, when a colleague was about to submit all the papers with covered names, he had stomach trouble and asked me to submit them in his place…” Jin Xiangshi was covered in sweat from head to back and didn’t dare raise his head at all. “I just have a somewhat too good memory. On the way to submit the papers, I casually flipped through them and saw that essay again. Only the calligraphy was no longer the copy I had transcribed!”

Jin Xiangshi had many doubts in his heart but had kept them hidden without revealing them. Later, when he went to serve at the Hanlin Academy Bureau of Painting, he cast this matter from his mind and hurried to Wanning to paint maps.

Only after finishing the maps and returning did Jin Xiangshi hear that Guangning Prefecture had discovered a corpse in the mud Bodhisattva temple on Qingyuan Mountain—it was the winter examination candidate Ni Qinglan. He also heard from old friends at the Examination Hall that people from the Yinye Bureau had recently been to the Examination Hall. Jin Xiangshi’s heart filled with worry and fear. Taking advantage of Emperor Zhengyuan’s good mood upon receiving the maps, he brought up taking leave.

He had shut himself in his residence these days precisely because he feared the Yinye Bureau’s interrogation and also feared being implicated in something unpleasant.

This matter—he had originally planned to rot in his belly.

Drip, drip.

Jin Xiangshi felt cold, moist droplets falling from above his head, running down his forehead, then to the bridge of his nose, finally dripping to the ground. Only then did he see clearly they were crimson blood droplets.

And the blood droplets instantly transformed into luminous dust, floating and dispersing before his eyes.

The taut string in Jin Xiangshi’s mind snapped. He collapsed to the ground, actually frightened into unconsciousness.

The moon was bright, the wind clear, the long alley silent.

“Didn’t I tell you? Don’t use your mystical arts. You only need to stand there and he’ll already be very afraid.” Ni Su led someone by the sleeve, walking very slowly.

Xu Hexue didn’t speak at first, only following her step by step. But after a moment, remembering how at the Jin residence she had pretended to be a female ghost and drawn out her voice, he suddenly said, “He should have been more afraid of you.”

Ni Su felt somewhat uncomfortable. “You’re too proper and well-mannered. You don’t know how to scare people at all. I acted that way because I wanted him to tell the truth quickly.”

He was clearly the ghost.

“Your brother’s examination paper should have been switched.”

Xu Hexue said.

Speaking of her brother, Ni Su lowered her eyes and nodded lightly. “Mm. But while he doesn’t dare hide things from ghosts, he won’t necessarily tell the Yinye Bureau.”

“Didn’t you leave a note?”

Cold, pale moonlight illuminated Xu Hexue’s pale face in profile. “If Jin Xiangshi fears being haunted by malicious ghosts, he will certainly take the initiative to report this matter to the Yinye Bureau.”

His words had just fallen when he sensed Ni Su’s form seemed unsteady. He immediately grasped her wrist and pulled her back.

Ni Su unprepared crashed into his chest.

Spring flowers buried beneath accumulated snow—it was a kind of austere, faint fragrance.

Her body’s warmth made Xu Hexue seem even more like eternally withered severe winter. He clearly rejected her warmth, clearly resisted this moment of such close proximity between them.

But Xu Hexue blinked his eyelashes lightly. Like a snowman randomly piled up by someone, he didn’t move at all. He didn’t dare easily release her hand, only lifting his chin that her hair ornament had lightly brushed, calling to her: “Ni Su?”

“Mm.”

Fine cold sweat covered Ni Su’s temples. She shook her head and explained: “It’s nothing. Just when I climbed through the window to get in earlier, I accidentally bumped my wound.”