The wind roared past her ears. Xiao Nanhui looked down at Mu Er He city in the night below, and at the waters of the Hunhe River winding into the distance, and suddenly understood why those poets and scholars were always so fond of climbing high places to compose verses. The view from up here shifted from moment to moment, changing with the hour and the weather — truly, not a single instant looked the same.

“Brother Yao has worked hard today.”

Xiao Nanhui turned around sharply. Zhong Li Jing was seated on the only intact ridge of the Pinxiao Pagoda, dressed in black from head to toe — clean and composed, watching her with something like serenity.

That impression might have held, if not for Ding Weixiang directly behind him, covered head to toe in blood and in the middle of wiping down a blade.

“Was it you who tampered with the lamp oil?”

Zhong Li Jing lowered his eyelids. Below the tall pagoda, the Youyin Altar could no longer sustain any great blaze — only a few scattered points of light moved about here and there, the torches of those working to clear the scene.

“It wasn’t oil. It was water.”

“How did water burn?”

The man rose to his feet and dusted off his clothes. “What was burning was the layer of oil floating on top of the water. Once the oil was used up, the fire went out on its own.”

Xiao Nanhui felt a wave of grievance rise in her chest: “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? When the fire went out, I was nearly convinced I was going to die.”

Zhong Li Jing gathered his hem and walked toward Xiao Nanhui. The tiles beneath his feet creaked and crackled with every step, as though the next moment a section of the roof might give way beneath him. Just watching made Xiao Nanhui’s heart clench — and yet this man, who had no martial foundation whatsoever, seemed entirely unbothered.

He came close enough that Xiao Nanhui felt if she moved back so much as a step, she would fall off the edge. Then he stopped at last, and said in a low voice: “You don’t trust me?”

The one clearly in the wrong was him — yet Xiao Nanhui found herself going uncertain under that question: “That’s not it—”

“Wipe your face.” Before she could finish saying anything more, a half-damp handkerchief was pressed directly over her face, carrying a familiar scent. His voice came from close beside her ear: “Once today is past, those within Mu Er He who share our aims will certainly be on guard for a time. Let us use this interval to settle the remaining matters as quickly as we can. What do you say, Brother Yao?”

“You’ve arranged everything so clearly — why bother asking me?” Xiao Nanhui pulled the handkerchief away. It had picked up some bloodstains — that was from what the priest had painted on her face. She had actually been hoping for a mirror to see what had been drawn on her forehead, but showing up somewhere wearing a face like this would not be a good idea. After a moment’s thought, she scrubbed at it vigorously.

Not far away, Ding Weixiang had been bent over something on the crossbeam for a while. He seemed to have finished now, and stood up to make a gesture toward Zhong Li Jing. Xiao Nanhui narrowed her eyes at this pair of master and servant, and thought she had better keep something in reserve.

“This—” Xiao Nanhui produced the box she had been gripping tightly in her hand and gave it a shake. “I’ll keep this in my possession for safekeeping. No objections?”

Ding Weixiang said nothing, only looked to Zhong Li Jing. The latter’s face showed not a flicker of emotion. To her genuine surprise, he simply nodded: “That’s fine.”

Fine. Fine. Fine.

You certainly take things in stride — everything is fine with you.

Xiao Nanhui had no interest in guessing what this man had up his sleeve. She looked around. During the day, climbing to this height had taken her roughly half an hour. Yet just now, when Ding Weixiang had brought her up here, it had taken only a few blinks of an eye.

Just as she was thinking about this, a finely crafted chain-link apparatus snapped shut around her waist with a click.

Xiao Nanhui looked up, and found herself looking directly into Ding Weixiang’s expressionless face.

So this was what Ding Weixiang had used to bring her up earlier? That explained it — she had thought it couldn’t possibly be qinggong powerful enough to leap five stories straight up from ground level. External assistance, of course.

“The flying shuttle chain is one of a kind — I’ve given you mine. I’m taking my lord down from the other side.”

With that, the man turned and walked toward Zhong Li Jing. The latter glanced at her — a look that seemed to carry the trace of a smile — but before she could read it clearly, the two leapt away together and vanished entirely into the thick of the night.

Xiao Nanhui stood there motionless for a moment, and then lifted the chain at her waist and looked it over from both sides.

Now how did this thing work, exactly?

??*

The third watch had passed; the fourth had not yet come. The darkest part of the night was the time just before it began to end.

This year’s Zhuming Festival had truly been unlike any other. Not only had two “officiants” appeared on stage together in open combat, but the grand final ceremony had ended in bloodshed. The watching crowd had gone home earlier than any year before. The children, carefree as always, had played until they were tired and fallen fast asleep, leaving only the anxious adults awake with their candles burning, whispering their way through everything that had just happened.

Across a stone bridge, on the other side, the old district of Mu Er He was utterly silent.

Among the darkness of the run-down buildings, the scattered points of light here and there looked like will-o’-the-wisps.

Xiao Nanhui trimmed off the moldy section of the lamp wick, refilled the oil, and managed at last to light the single lamp in the room.

She held it up and looked around. Aside from a bed in the corner that looked on the verge of falling apart, the place was almost completely bare. The man had said this used to be a teahouse, but she could not see a single sign of it.

Hao Bai, on the other hand, seemed to have been waiting there for some time already. There was not even a chair in the room — he was sitting on a stone block he had dragged in, rubbing his hands together.

“Where is Bolao? Not here yet?”

Hao Bai answered cheerfully: “I asked her to take care of something for me — she may be delayed a little, but should be here soon. So? Did you get the item?”

Zhong Li Jing gave Ding Weixiang a look; the latter understood, went out the door, and kept watch. Xiao Nanhui moved with deliberate calm to produce the box, and indicated to Hao Bai that he should make room on the only available “surface” in the room.

Hao Bai had apparently been warming that spot with a particular investment of time and body heat, and was extremely reluctant to give it up.

Xiao Nanhui walked over and lifted him aside. After the ordeal of the day, what remained of her patience was entirely spent — she couldn’t even be bothered to say a word.

The day seemed to have been especially long. Everyone fell into unusual quiet. The three of them gathered around the stone block, eyes fixed on the square box atop it, and for a moment no one moved.

None of them were fools. The cautionary example of Old Mister Zou, still half-dead, was right before them. No one knew whether the box had a mechanism inside it, or where such a mechanism might be.

After a long silence, it was Zhong Li Jing who spoke first.

“If neither of you object, allow me.”

Hao Bai swallowed. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Zhong Li Jing’s expression was unruffled: “It will be fine.”

Fine? This too was fine?

“Wait.” Xiao Nanhui’s hand shot out on instinct and caught Zhong Li Jing’s wrist.

His wrist was somewhat cool to the touch, the skin beneath her fingers exceptionally smooth — which made her release her grip the very next second.

Zhong Li Jing raised an eyebrow at her. Xiao Nanhui hedged a little before speaking: “I know you can obtain the relic. But this poison is genuinely strange. I can see that Young Master Hao is working from a medicinal formula that has been handed down through his family, and that may not guarantee full recovery in every case. Look how badly Zou Sifang suffered — if, hypothetically speaking, the treatment doesn’t work, you’d be risking your life.”

She didn’t know herself why she had blurted all that out. This man knew her true identity, and was possibly a threat — but she simply felt that no one should take a human life so lightly.

Hao Bai beside her was uncharacteristically silent, yet he was, in effect, agreeing with what Xiao Nanhui had said.

A moment of quiet settled over the room. Zhong Li Jing gave Xiao Nanhui a look with something different in it, and only after a pause did he withdraw it: “When Brother Yao went to pluck the flower today, I did not see you treating your life as particularly precious. Why speak of it now?”

Xiao Nanhui was left with nothing to say. Without paying her any further attention, he reached toward the plain-looking box.

The copper clasp clicked open. The lid let out a faint creak as it lifted.

Xiao Nanhui held her breath — nothing happened.

Inside the box, a square jade seal lay perfectly still, white and radiant.

A jade seal — it was genuinely a jade seal.

Zhong Li Jing’s pale hand lifted the jade seal and turned it over once between his fingers.

“It seems we are, after all, one step behind.”

Xiao Nanhui stared, somewhat at a loss: “One step behind in what?”

Hao Bai leaned his cheek on his hand — he seemed unsurprised — and added: “One step behind someone else in getting our hands on this box.”

Xiao Nanhui stared hard at the flawless piece of jade in the other man’s hand, unable to look away: “You mean — this is—”

Zhong Li Jing’s tone remained even, betraying no trace of dismay at being outmaneuvered.

“Correct. This one is a fake.”

Xiao Nanhui snatched up the box from the stone block and turned it over in her hands, examining it from every angle: “Impossible! I took it directly from Zou Sifang’s hands myself. From that moment until Ding Weixiang came to find me — I never once let go of this box—” The thought of everything she had been through for this little box made her face crumble with distress. Unless—

“Unless the jade seal that Zou Sifang handed me in the first place was already a fake!”

Xiao Nanhui was stunned by her own conclusion. So Old Mister Zou still hadn’t thought things through after all — he had been hiding his own private agenda all along, and they had very nearly been played for fools.

Zhong Li Jing, however, turned to look at Hao Bai, who had been drifting slightly into his own thoughts. “And what does Young Master Hao think?”

Hao Bai seemed not to have expected to be called on, and answered vaguely: “With so many people around at the ceremony, something like this could have happened in any number of ways.”

“I am not asking how the switch was made. I am asking whether you also believe this seal to be a counterfeit.” Zhong Li Jing paused, and then lowered his gaze. “In any case, looking at things now — Young Master Hao knew this from the very start.”

Hao Bai startled, then realized he had walked into that, and thought it over. Deciding that saying it outright would cause less suspicion than staying silent, he spoke up.

“I did know the jade seal was not this form, which is why the moment the box was opened, I could tell this one was a fake.”

As those words landed in Xiao Nanhui’s ears, they sounded distinctly like someone claiming to see something that no one ought to have been able to see. “You’re so young — even your great-great-grandfather may never have laid eyes on that jade seal, let alone you.”

That familiar look of conflicted struggle appeared on Hao Bai’s face again: “It’s a long story. I have never seen the actual object in person, but someone in my family’s earlier generations did, and I have seen a written description of the jade seal’s appearance — and several of the details don’t match what we see here, so—”

An ancestor of his had seen it? But he was a traveling jianghu physician. Why would a traveling physician’s ancestor have ever seen the imperial jade seal?

Xiao Nanhui was just finding this rather peculiar when a sound came from the doorway. Ding Weixiang stepped inside, followed by another figure — Bolao had returned.