Tangyuan and Lanchuan settled the two monk masters, then returned to Miss Yan’s courtyard.

In the hall, an enormous nanmu wood coffin.

Beside the coffin, Third Master, Young Master Pei, Miss Li, and the others sat in a circle. You say something, I say something—lively, yet also eerie.

Tangyuan listened quietly for a while, then turned and took Lanchuan’s hand. “Come, let’s go prepare dinner.”

Lanchuan’s voice was timid: “Miss, Miss Yan—can she still wake up?”

“She can!”

Tangyuan walked to the courtyard gate, turned to look back, a trace of tears glinting in her eyes. “As long as Third Master and the others are here.”

Third Master’s head ached terribly right now, about to split open.

Yet Ding Yi remained oblivious, saying on his own:

“For an eight-year-old child, osmanthus has no special meaning. Either it’s osmanthus wine or osmanthus pastries. Could it be… Miss Yan grew to eight years old without ever eating these things?”

You’re the one who didn’t eat osmanthus wine or osmanthus pastries until age eight.

Everyone gave him a disdainful look.

“If you ask me…”

Huang Qi pondered: “Osmanthus can be used as medicine, having effects of transforming phlegm and dispersing stasis. Miss Yan had poor health as a child and often drank medicine. Drinking and drinking, she thought of osmanthus, and thinking of osmanthus, she naturally thought of the osmanthus fragrance.”

Toads can also be used as medicine. If you drank and drank, could you think of toads?

The others gave him an even more disdainful look.

Zhu Qing thought for a moment: “I know a phrase: ‘plucking osmanthus from the moon palace.’ Could Miss Yan have been hoping her twin brother would pass the imperial examinations?”

Big brother, the Zheng family were military officers who led armies and fought battles. Show us you, Zhu Qing, passing the imperial examination?

The others shook their heads after hearing, not even bothering to give him a look.

Li Buyan rubbed her nose: “Could someone have secretly told Sanhe her true identity?”

Pei Xiao: “But that has nothing to do with osmanthus fragrance either.”

Li Buyan: “I don’t know if the deposed Crown Prince’s residence had osmanthus. If so, and she knew her identity, always thinking about it—that could also be a heart demon.”

Pei Xiao glanced at her, then at the coffin. He didn’t dare say anything aloud, but thought: If Yan Sanhe heard you say this, she might just be able to climb out herself.

Why?

From anger!

Coming and going together, eating and sleeping together, yet she hadn’t learned half your cleverness.

“Based on our past experience resolving heart demons, the osmanthus fragrance is just the surface. The deeper thing is hidden beneath the osmanthus fragrance. I estimate it still has to do with a person.”

Pei Xiao coughed: “Xie Fifty, what do you think?”

“Based on past experience, we should first go to the Zheng residence and look carefully again, determining where all the osmanthus at the Zheng residence grows. Did Haitang Courtyard have osmanthus or not?”

Xie Zhifei raised his head toward the roof and shouted: “Lu Da, the coffin is yours to watch. Don’t allow even a fly to enter and disturb her.”

“Third Master, rest assured.”

“Set out!”

…

The Zheng residence’s walls had been rebuilt. The skilled craftsmen from the Ministry of Works used aged bricks and tiles—it looked completely natural.

“Heroine, Zhu Qing, Ding Yi, Huang Qi!”

Xie Zhifei: “You four find all the osmanthus in the Zheng residence.”

“Yes!”

Pei Xiao stuck his head out: “What about me?”

Xie Zhifei: “You come with me to Haitang Courtyard for another careful look.”

If he remembered correctly, Haitang Courtyard truly and indeed didn’t plant osmanthus.

Because it was remote.

Xie Zhifei’s memory served him right. Walking around in a circle, the two found not a single osmanthus tree.

Pei Xiao rubbed his throbbing temples, thinking: How strange.

“Xie Fifty, Yan Sanhe lived from birth to death entirely in Haitang Courtyard. She probably didn’t even know what osmanthus looked like. How could her heart demon be an osmanthus fragrance?”

“Don’t follow me. I need to walk through this courtyard from front to back again.”

“What’s the point of more walking? Walk as much as you like—you still won’t walk out a flower. Better we think carefully… hey… hey…”

Xie Zhifei had already walked far away.

Looking at the courtyard was false—he’d seen this courtyard in dreams countless times. He could be Third Master Xie.

Thinking through the problem was true.

Mingtang had one thing right.

That girl from birth to “death” never left Haitang Courtyard.

The only time, the two of them as siblings sneaked away to Grandfather’s courtyard, got scared half to death, and quickly returned.

This showed that girl’s heart demon was one hundred percent related to Haitang Courtyard.

Mingtang had another thing right too.

He said the osmanthus fragrance was just surface—the deeper thing was hidden beneath the osmanthus fragrance, related to people.

Haitang Courtyard only had four people. In other words, that girl’s heart demon nine times out of ten was related to Father, Mother, or him.

Which of them could it be?

“Xie Fifty, Xie Fifty, they’re back.”

Xie Zhifei’s train of thought was disturbed, his expression somewhat displeased. “Have them all come over.”

“Done!”

A moment later, the five gathered around. Zhu Qing began speaking, describing which corner of the Zheng residence he’d found osmanthus in.

After Zhu Qing finished, Li Buyan continued.

Pei Xiao was listening with great interest when from the corner of his eye he noticed Xie Zhifei with hands behind his back, gaze looking at the distant dusky sky, staring blankly in a daze.

He made a silencing gesture to Li Buyan.

The sound stopped abruptly. Xie Zhifei remained completely unaware.

Pei Xiao angrily slapped his back, cursing furiously: “You damn bastard, you still have the leisure to daydream! Yan Sanhe is lying in a coffin!”

Li Buyan knew Third Master Xie would never daydream.

Just now in the villa, he very firmly said he would resolve this heart demon—that was shouldering Yan Sanhe’s life and death on his own shoulders.

Li Buyan: “Third Master, have you thought of something?”

“I…” Xie Zhifei pondered for a long while but still shook his head.

“I thought of something.”

Zhu Qing glanced at Third Master, his expression grave:

“Excluding Old General Zheng, the Zheng residence had one hundred eighty people. Yet Miss Yan is still alive. So whose corpse was Miss Yan’s? Where did it come from?”

“Right!”

Pei Xiao’s eyes lit up: “Though it seems unrelated to osmanthus, what if there’s a connection?”

Huang Qi touched his nose: “I also thought of something.”

Pei Xiao: “Speak.”

Huang Qi: “Miss Yan coming to the Zheng family was a substitution. Old General Zheng’s true granddaughter—is she dead or alive? Could Miss Yan’s heart demon be related to her?”

“Right, we forgot Old General Zheng still had a biological granddaughter!”

Pei Xiao regretfully slapped his thigh, then beamed with joy.

“Xie Fifty, these are all directions for us to resolve the heart demon. Finally we see a bit of hope.”

Hope?

Xie Zhifei closed his eyes, then opened them, his voice unspeakably dark.

“Speaking of the substitution matter first—with Old General Zheng’s caution and care, the true Zheng Huaiyou only had two paths.”

Pei Xiao: “Which two?”

Xie Zhifei: “One path: at the same time Yan Sanhe was brought to the Zheng family, strangle the true Zheng Huaiyou to death. This method leaves no loose ends—once and for all.”

Pei Xiao shuddered.

“That’s a bit too ruthless and cold-hearted. After all, she was a biological granddaughter. Even if the old general could bear it, her father might not?”