Yun Xi arrived at the Jingzhao Prefecture jail, and the two guards outside said, “Constable Yun, you’re finally here. The prisoner who came to confess this morning just had quite a fit of madness in there.”

Feeling somewhat uneasy, Yun Xi asked, “Has anyone come by the jail just now?”

“No one except Fool Seven, who came to deliver food,” one of the guards said. “Don’t worry, Constable Yun, Old Ke gave instructions before he left—no unfamiliar faces are to be let in before you arrive.”

Yun Xi nodded. “Thank you for your trouble.” She led Ke Yong through the jail gate.

They had just descended a stretch of stone steps when they heard a guard call out behind them, “Lord Censor.”

Yun Xi also heard Tian Si exchanging a few words with the guards, and turning back, she saw that Tian Si had already arrived with Cheng Chang and two servant boys.

It was midday, but inside the Jingzhao Prefecture jail, aside from a bit of light seeping in through the entrance, everything was dim. Cheng Chang wore a set of ink-blue official robes, his dark hair neatly bound into a topknot, secured with a white jade hairpin. His features were hard to make out in the gloom, but his gaze, caught by the flickering candlelight, seemed to shimmer in and out, like the fleeting shadow of a startled swan.

There was something quiet about him, something cold and detached, something inexplicably unsettling.

Yun Xi was startled for a moment before offering a greeting. “Third Young Master.”

Cheng Chang nodded and asked, “I heard the boatman’s been found?”

“He has,” Yun Xi answered. “This humble officer will take the Third Young Master to see him now.”

Past the stone steps was a long corridor lined with cells on both sides. Yun Xi led Cheng Chang to the very last cell door, where the boatman sat huddled in the corner, muttering to himself. The moment he caught sight of them, he lunged forward, gripping the iron bars and screaming hoarsely, “Young Prince, save me! My lord, save me—”

Yun Xi glanced at Ke Yong, who understood at once, fetched the key, unlocked the cell door, and brought in a clean stool for Cheng Chang to sit on. Half comforting, half commanding, he said, “Don’t worry. As long as you honestly confess why you tried to harm the Third Young Master on the night of the Flower Festival, and who put you up to it, the Third Young Master and the Jingzhao Prefecture will spare your life.”

“Yes, yes.” The boatman kowtowed.

Having been hunted for days on end, his mind was no longer entirely clear, and his words came out jumbled and disjointed. Yun Xi listened for a while and finally managed to piece together the gist of it.

It matched roughly with what she had already found out.

The boatman had a daughter who, just last year upon coming of age, had been arranged a good marriage match. One day while she was selling flowers by the river, a drunken Cheng Chang passing by had made a few crude remarks to her, frightening her badly, though nothing more had happened. Unfortunately, when the prospective in-laws heard of this, they had suddenly insisted on calling off the engagement, even spreading rumors that the boatman’s daughter was impure, that she was simple-minded, demanding the boatman return the betrothal gifts already received.

With his daughter’s reputation ruined and her chances of ever marrying now slim, the boatman, consumed by fury, had turned his hatred toward Cheng Chang.

“Just for that?” Ke Yong said. “You tried to murder the Third Young Master over something like this?”

“That’s not… entirely it either…” the boatman stammered. “This lowly one… has a bit of a gambling habit. If I were merely poor, that would be one thing, but any silver that comes into my hands never stays long. By the time the in-laws came demanding the betrothal gifts back, I’d already gambled away more than half of it. Desperate, I went to borrow from an underground moneylender. But I couldn’t repay it, and the moneylender’s boss said he’d have my hands as payment instead. I’m just a boatman—without my hands, I’d lose my livelihood entirely. Just as I was at my wit’s end, someone came looking for me…”

“Who?”

“He kept his face covered—I couldn’t see him clearly. He said that if I did one thing for him, he’d pay off my debt to the moneylender, and give me another hundred taels of silver besides.”

Yun Xi asked, “And it was he who told you to slip the gold bars into the Third Young Master’s sleeve pouch?”

The boatman nodded. “The Third Young Master is, after all, the Young Prince of Prince Cong’s illustrious household—this lowly one wouldn’t normally have dared. But… without someone to pay off my debt, I’d lose my hands, and then my life besides. That man told me it was simple—just slip the gold bars into the Third Young Master’s sleeve. Someone as poor as me, who would ever suspect it was my doing? Most would assume the Third Young Master had simply fallen in on his own. This lowly one believed him.”

“Besides, my skill in the water is second to none on the entire Qinhuai River. Even if it did come to light and the authorities investigated, I could take the silver and swim off downriver—who could possibly catch me?”

“But I never expected—” the boatman’s eyes reddened, his voice choking, “after the Third Young Master’s incident, the first ones to come after my life weren’t the officials at all, but that man’s own people. Every single one of them was a skilled fighter. Knowing I’d brought disaster upon myself, and fearing my little fish girl would be dragged in too, I slipped past them while they weren’t looking and went home, taking her with me to flee…”

Little Fish Girl was the boatman’s daughter.

Yun Xi already knew this—she had planted watchers around the boatman’s home, and the first time she’d caught wind of his whereabouts had been the very day he returned home to find his daughter.

“Those people were truly vicious—they wouldn’t even spare a young girl. My fish girl couldn’t swim as well as I could, and they caught up to her. Even underwater, they just cut her down, one blow after another—took her life right there!”

The boatman’s eyes bulged with fury, and he wiped roughly at the tears spilling from them. After calming himself somewhat, he said, “I knew there was no escaping it for me. I did wrong, my life is worthless, dying is no great loss. But my fish girl mustn’t have died for nothing—I had to make those people pay for her life with their own! That’s why I came back to Jinling by water and turned myself in at the prefecture.”

Having said this, overwhelmed by grief and rage, the boatman glanced around, spotted a bowl of clear water on the small table, and took a sip.

Yun Xi asked, “Both officials and assassins were after you—how did you tell them apart?”

The constables she’d sent to find the boatman had mostly worn plain clothes. Pursuing someone in official uniform would only announce to the target that they should flee at once, wouldn’t it?

“The officials didn’t want my life, but those others were utterly ruthless. And they all wore black, their faces covered—probably afraid of being recognized.”

Dressed in black, faces covered, and every one of them a skilled fighter?

Such a setup sounded like the private shadow guards kept by some powerful, prominent household.

It seemed the true mastermind hiding behind all this really was someone formidable.

Yun Xi asked further, “Among those men in black, could you make out any of them individually, or is there anything particular you noticed?”

“I couldn’t tell them apart,” the boatman said, then thought for a moment and added, “But the one who first contacted me—when he handed me the two gold bars, I noticed… there was a scar on his right palm, from a blade.”

“This long, this deep, as if someone had nearly sliced his right hand clean in half with a knife, and it had later been stitched back together.”

“As for other clues…” the boatman frowned, straining to remember, then suddenly looked up, eyes widening as though recalling something terrifying. “There—there was—”

He seemed too frightened to continue, and picked up the bowl of water again, gulping it down in one go.

“When the man with the scarred right hand first came to me, I was worried too, at first—after all, the person he wanted me to harm was the Young Prince. One misstep, and both my fish girl and I would pay with our lives. So I asked him who exactly wanted this done.”

“He said, he said—” the boatman’s face turned pale, sweat beading on his forehead, as though the words were becoming difficult to force out. He reached up to clutch at his throat. “He said, don’t ask questions you shouldn’t ask—anyway, the Young Prince, he, he—”

The boatman’s voice grew more and more strained, and by the last word he could no longer speak at all. One hand at his throat wasn’t enough—he raised both hands and clamped them tightly around his own neck.

“Something’s wrong!” Yun Xi, seeing this, reacted at once, calling out loudly, “Fetch water, quickly, clean water!”

But it was already too late.

It all happened in an instant—blood suddenly gushed from the boatman’s mouth, and his whole body stiffened and collapsed to the ground, slowly losing all signs of life.

Everyone in the cell looked at one another, and for a moment, no one spoke.

Just moments ago he had been perfectly fine—how could he have suddenly died right in front of them like this?

After a while, a cool, clear voice spoke: “It was that bowl of water.”

It was Cheng Chang who said this.

His face had gone somewhat pale, his eyes fixed on the empty bowl on the small table—the bowl that had held water, water the boatman, consumed by anguish, had drained in one gulp.

Tian Si, sharp-witted, upon hearing Cheng Chang’s words, hurried out of the cell and soon returned carrying a rat.

The rat licked up the last few drops remaining in the bowl, and before long, it too died.

From the moment the boatman had come to confess to the moment he was placed in this cell, only about two hours had passed in total. Yun Xi had already asked upon arrival—during those two hours, no one had come in except Fool Seven, who had delivered the meal.

Fool Seven was truly simple-minded, his mind having been impaired since birth. If it weren’t for the fact that his father, a former constable captain, had died in the line of duty, the Jingzhao Prefecture would never have given him the job of delivering meals to the prisoners.

Because of this, every time Fool Seven delivered food or water, each bowl was marked with a number, clearly indicating which cell it belonged to—if even one bowl were mixed up, he would become hopelessly confused.

Given how simple-minded Fool Seven was, the boatman’s death couldn’t possibly have been his doing.

But the jail guards had clearly said that no one had entered during the time the boatman had been held there.

So either the guards had lied, or the bowl of water Fool Seven had brought had been tampered with somewhere along the way.

Tian Si said, “I-I-I’ll go ask Li Daping.”

Li Daping was one of the guards.

“No need.” Yun Xi shook her head. “They weren’t lying.” She explained further, “If they had lied, and let someone else into the cell besides Fool Seven, that person, having the time to poison the water, could just as easily have killed the boatman outright with a blade—wouldn’t that have been far simpler?”

The reason those people wanted the boatman dead was to silence him. But poisoning a bowl of water was a gamble—who could say when he’d drink it? If he confessed everything he knew before drinking it, wouldn’t the effort be entirely wasted?

Therefore, aside from Fool Seven, no one could possibly have come to this cell beforehand.

The guards hadn’t lied.

The water must have been tampered with sometime while Fool Seven was bringing it over.

Cheng Chang recalled something and asked Yun Xi, “The person who wanted the boatman dead never entered this jail—so how did he know which cell the boatman was being held in?”

Before Yun Xi could answer, Ke Yong spoke up. “Third Young Master may not know this, but in our yamen, every constable with an active case has their own designated cell. Any suspect they bring in is first held in that constable’s own cell, so that when the officials need to interrogate a case, the runners know exactly which cell to fetch the prisoner from.”

Cheng Chang nodded, then fell into deep thought.

After a moment, he glanced at Yun Xi, as though hesitating to speak. “You…”

Yun Xi was startled for a moment before quickly catching on, and said to those behind her, “Tian Si, Ke Yong, take the two servant boys and wait outside for now.”

Once everyone had withdrawn from the cell, Yun Xi said to Cheng Chang, “Third Young Master, please speak freely.”

Cheng Chang nodded, but his question seemed to be about something entirely unrelated. “I heard you were on night duty last night, and that this morning when the boatman came to confess, you were actually at home, and a yamen runner had to come fetch you before you rushed over?”

“Yes.”

Cheng Chang continued, “When the runner told you the boatman had been found, how many people at your home overheard this?”

Yun Xi paused, thinking it over—quite a few, actually. Luo Shu had come to visit her mansion that morning, Physician Wu had come to treat Uncle Bai’s leg, and when Ke Yong had come to tell her about the boatman’s confession, it had happened just as Fang Fulan and Luo Shu were about to leave for the pharmacy. Uncle Bai had been seeing Physician Wu off, and in the front courtyard, A’Ling, Zhao Wu, and two other servants had also been present, along with Luo Shu’s maid, the driver harnessing the carriage, and Tian Si.

All of these people had likely overheard Ke Yong say “the boatman has come to confess.”

Yun Xi said, “Does the Third Young Master mean to suggest that someone close to this humble officer is the problem—otherwise, whoever tampered with the water wouldn’t have known the boatman was being held in my particular cell?”

Cheng Chang shook his head. “It’s more than that.”

“If the true culprit holds real power, and wanted the boatman dead, he could have done it long before now—why wait until he came to confess? That suggests the boatman’s arrival at the Jingzhao Prefecture caught the culprit off guard, unexpected.”

“But even if it was unexpected, once the true culprit learned the boatman was in the Jingzhao Prefecture jail, he could simply have sent someone to kill him outright—why hold back so cautiously? Given his power, would he really fear two mere guards, not daring to enter the cell?”

Yun Xi thought it over—right, after all, this was someone bold enough to target even the Young Prince of Prince Cong’s household.

“There’s only one explanation,” Cheng Chang continued. “By the time he wanted to send someone in to silence the boatman, it was already too late to do so directly.”

“You and I both arrived right at noon, just after Fool Seven had delivered the meal. So think about it the other way—why would the culprit’s man have been too late? Because he knew, or saw, that you and I were about to arrive, and didn’t dare risk exposing himself. That’s why he didn’t enter the cell, and instead chose to tamper with the water Fool Seven was carrying.”

“This tells us that whoever the culprit sent to silence him only arrived a short while before you and I did.”

“Why only a short while before?”

“Because, like you and me, he had only just received word of the boatman’s confession. Ke Yong was the one who went to the marquis’s mansion to inform you—if he’d let the news slip somewhere along the way, the true culprit would have had ample time to arrange for someone to silence the boatman. So it couldn’t have been him, and the same logic applies to the two guards.”

“So this information could only have leaked at one of two points in time.”

Yun Xi suddenly understood. “When Ke Yong told me the news, or when Tian Si went to find the Third Young Master and told you?”

Cheng Chang nodded, then hesitated before saying, “But I don’t think the problem lies on my end. When Tian Si came to find me, he was vague about the details, and at the time, aside from two of my servant boys, no one else was around me. The moment I heard, I rode here at once, without delay.”

So the point where the information most likely leaked was in front of the marquis’s mansion this morning.

Right, Yun Xi thought—she had come to the Jingzhao Prefecture on foot. No matter how fast she walked, she could never outpace someone riding hard on horseback.

If, this morning at the mansion gate, someone had learned of the boatman’s confession and rushed to inform the true culprit, who then dispatched someone on horseback to the Jingzhao Prefecture, that person could easily have arrived at roughly the same time as she had.

“And what’s more…” Cheng Chang added, “this person also knew precisely which cell was yours.”

But who could this person possibly be?

Everyone who had been at the gate of the Marquis of Loyalty and Valor’s mansion this morning was someone Yun Xi knew all too well.

Yun Xi stood in silence, lips pressed together, her hands slowly clenching into fists, filled with self-reproach. Why hadn’t she been more alert when Ke Yong had come to find her this morning? All these days, Ke Yong had been helping her track down the boatman—why hadn’t she thought to pull him aside before he spoke, rather than letting him speak in front of everyone?

A chill of fear crept over her as well—whoever had leaked the news of the boatman’s confession was someone she knew well.

Among the people around her, there was actually someone who knew the true culprit trying to murder the Third Young Master, and who, knowingly or not, was helping that villain along.

Seeing Yun Xi’s self-reproachful, anxious expression, Cheng Chang said, “You needn’t take it too much to heart. This is only my own reasoning—it might not even be correct. There could well be details I’ve overlooked.”

But Yun Xi shook her head. “It’s all my fault, for being so careless. The boatman finally managed to come forward and confess, and yet he didn’t get to say the one crucial sentence—now the trail’s gone cold again.”

The candlelight in the cell flickered. Yun Xi lowered her eyes, her long lashes casting deep shadows beneath her lids, her teeth biting down hard on her lips, a bright red mark left behind.

Cheng Chang watched her in silence for a moment, and then a spark of insight lit up in his eyes.

“Who said the trail’s gone cold?” he said. “I have an idea.”