Chu Linlang took a large gulp and finally caught her breath.

She raised her head and looked up — the one offering her tea turned out to be Master Situ, whom she had not seen for a long while.

He still wore that washed-pale shirt, carrying an air of unrestrained elegance. He stood calmly beside her table and cupped his hands in a bow toward her: “Madam Chu, it has been a while. I hope you have been well.”

Chu Linlang swallowed and quickly rose to return the courtesy. As she bowed her head, she noticed that this man’s lower garment and shoes were soaking wet.

From the looks of it, he must have jumped off the ship before it had even come to a full stop, and waded through the water to reach the shore.

Now that was something impressive!

Curious, Chu Linlang peered past his shoulder and saw a dazzling young woman in a colorful silk skirt, with slender brows and large eyes, rushing angrily down from the ship in pursuit.

Her stride was quick; the maids and matrons behind her could barely keep up.

When this young miss saw that Situ Sheng had abandoned her and leaped off the ship, and then ran to a tea stall to exchange courtesies with a striking woman, she immediately gave chase, her expression stormy: “Who is she?”

Chu Linlang was equally curious — just what kind of remarkable woman could drive a man of Situ’s depth to abandon ship?

Situ Sheng was not the least bit troubled by being seen in his drenched state. Though water dripped from his hem, he made the introductions with his usual composed elegance.

As it turned out, this somewhat imperious-looking young miss was named Xie Youran, the youngest daughter of fifth-rank General Xie Sheng, and the younger sister-in-law of the Sixth Imperial Prince.

The Sixth Prince’s sister-in-law had come along with her mother to visit her elder sister, and happened to be traveling with Situ Sheng, who was on official business to Jizhou, for the journey from the capital.

As for what had just transpired to drive Situ Sheng to jump ship — neither of these two nobles from the capital seemed to have any intention of explaining.

When Miss Xie learned that Chu Linlang was already married, and that she was the wife of an official newly reassigned by the Sixth Prince, her expression softened slightly, though she still wore a trace of disdain and offered Chu Linlang a politely superficial smile.

Chu Linlang stole a glance at Situ Sheng’s arm and saw him standing at ease with his hands clasped behind his back, seemingly fully recovered from his injury.

Their encounter on the dirt road outside the city that day was a secret shared only between the two of them.

So in this setting, she merely exchanged a few polite pleasantries before finding an excuse to make her way back to where the carriages were waiting by the roadside.

Zhou Sui’an had just woken from a nap in the carriage. Upon hearing that Situ Sheng had also arrived in Jizhou, he quickly straightened his clothes and went to greet him.

Situ Sheng was rather at leisure. He too had changed into dry, fresh clothes, and after chatting briefly with Zhou Sui’an, he first saw off Madam Xie and Xie Youran as they boarded their carriage and entered the city.

He then had his own attendants help the Zhou household unload the boat.

However, when he spotted Hu Shi — wearing a hair bun and walking behind Zhao Shi — Situ Sheng seemed to glance, seemingly casually, toward Chu Linlang.

While the unloading was underway, Zhou Sui’an brought Chu Linlang to sit with Situ Sheng at the tea stall, sharing tea together.

When men meet, conversation always drifts toward matters of state and the people’s livelihood.

After chatting for a while about the local customs and landscape of Jizhou, Zhou Sui’an naturally turned to the sensational series of linked murders that had been the talk of the town these past few days.

“Come to think of it, what a coincidence — the estate owner who was gravely wounded in Liancheng has a son who happens to also be serving as an official here in Jizhou. It is said that over the past few months, five retired officials have been killed one after another. They all once served in Lianzhou, managing the transport of military supplies and handling local military affairs. Interestingly, just some days ago, I had gone to seek out officials who had worked alongside them — truly, what grudge could the killer possibly have against them, to travel such great distances and slay them one by one?”

He spoke without a care in the world, but his words struck at the heart of the listener. Chu Linlang, who had been quietly sipping her tea with her head lowered, had to forcibly suppress a sharp intake of cold breath, slowly lifting her cup to conceal her shocked expression.

She had once gone to great lengths to gather the registry of officials from Lianzhou over the previous few years, and had found a minor official familiar with past affairs — all to assist her husband and give him a point of reference.

And now, so many of those people had died — and the victims bore such a striking resemblance to the names on that very registry she had given her husband!

What she had to remember was that she had also given that same registry, unaltered, to Situ Sheng…

At that thought, she used the moment of drinking her tea to discreetly lift her eyes above the rim of her cup, stealing a glance at Situ Sheng, who sat across from her.

By ill fortune, Situ Sheng was also drinking his tea — and from behind the cup he held in one hand, a pair of sharp, cold phoenix eyes was fixed intently on her…

Their gazes collided. Chu Linlang came off the worse, and dared not hold his stare for long. She immediately looked down and busied herself with the fruit platter.

Before long, the cargo had been fully unloaded, and the tea at the stall had gone cold. Everyone boarded their carriages and set off in a grand procession toward Jizhou city.

The Sixth Prince appeared to be in good health, still as slight and unimposing in build, yet commanding without a trace of anger.

With Zhou the Magistrate and Situ Sheng arriving together, it naturally called for a banquet to be laid out, entertaining these talented men as honored guests.

In addition to the gentlemen, the wives of Jizhou’s officials also came, and it also served as a welcome banquet for the Sixth Prince’s consort’s younger sister.

For a time, the hall was alive with festivity, as cups were raised and exchanged in a warm, merry din.

Those who had been posted to Jizhou were either officials who had lost out in court struggles, or honest, steady men who were not adept at climbing the ranks. The atmosphere here was entirely different from a military stronghold like Lianzhou — it carried the simple, unaffected character unique to Jizhou.

The various gentlemen could speak to one another without needing to hide layers of meaning behind every word, or exercise extreme caution with each syllable.

Zhou Sui’an had only just met these colleagues and already felt a great sense of ease and relief.

The wives of the officials were not especially skilled at adorning themselves, and when they saw the fashionable patterns all over Xie Youran’s attire, they clicked their tongues in admiration, praising the young misses of the capital for knowing how to dress.

And the Madam Chu who had come from Lianzhou was not bad either — though she wore no luxurious fabrics, her beauty was so striking that people could not help but look her up and down.

Miss Xie sat with composed dignity beside her elder sister, the Princess Consort Xie, gazing at these dust-covered officials’ wives, and merely curved her lips in token politeness with no desire to make conversation.

Her eyes swept the room full of men — among a group of short, stocky, old, and rotund turnips, only Situ Sheng shone like the moon amid stars, impossible to overlook.

Aside from him, the rest were all mediocre — oh, though that magistrate surnamed Zhou could just barely catch the eye. She had heard he was originally from Jiangkou, a river-country water town in the south — a southern gentleman fair as jade, with a different kind of warm and refined bearing.

Thinking of how Situ Sheng had abandoned her and jumped ship today just to be rid of her, Xie Youran had been stewing with resentment the whole time, and now took advantage of a quiet moment to complain to her elder sister: “Situ Sheng is truly insufferable. Elder Sister, you must have the Sixth Prince punish him severely!”

The Sixth Princess Consort Xie Dongli had also heard something of the enmity between her younger sister and Magistrate Situ, and understood her sister’s feelings all too well. She could not help but gently remind her in a low voice: “You are grown now, no longer a child. Situ Sheng may be the Sixth Prince’s young mentor, but he is still an outside man — propriety must be observed. You should not have teased him in the first place. What wrong did he do by trying to avoid you?”

Seeing that her elder sister refused to take her side, Xie Youran’s cheeks puffed out with fresh indignation.

With so many people present, the sisters could not have a heart-to-heart, but the Sixth Princess Consort felt it was high time she had a proper talk with her younger sister.

Her sister’s little feelings were plain for all to see — nothing more than having taken a fancy to the exceptionally handsome Situ Sheng.

But Situ Sheng had not even waited for the Xie family to broach the subject before he had sealed the matter with the Sixth Prince, saying only that his mother had just passed away earlier in the year, and that he intended to observe three years of mourning for her. During this period, he did not wish to consider marriage.

If one counted by those years of mourning, by the time he finished, Xie Youran would be nearly twenty — far too old to wait.

Moreover, their father had long deliberated and intended to betroth her to the third son of Censor Wang of the Censorate.

At this time in court, the Crown Prince and the Fourth Prince — backed by Prince Tai — were locked in fierce, covert rivalry. Officials with any foresight dared not take sides, preferring to keep favor with both camps.

General Xie Sheng was exemplary in this regard. Back then, his willingness to marry his eldest daughter Xie Dongli to Liu Ling was a calculated move for stability and peace — a quiet, secure place for his daughter to land.

A prince others had dismissed as unremarkable turned out to be a lifelong haven of peace and security.

As for the Wang family of the Censorate — Censor Wang was known for his integrity, a model of moral uprightness. Father Xie held the Wang family in high regard and had expressed his wish to forge a marriage alliance with them.

Unfortunately, Xie Youran simply refused, flatly declaring that the third son of the Wang family was as ugly as a mud toad from a pond, and that she would sooner die than marry him!

That third young master was, in truth, only somewhat flat of face, somewhat stocky of build, somewhat large of mouth, and had a few red bumps on his face — how was that so terrible?

Besides, if the Wang young master had been handsome, when would it have been the Xie family’s turn?

At that, the Sixth Princess Consort could only shake her head and sigh, not wishing to say more to her stubborn, puffed-up sister. Instead, she turned and began conversing with Chu Linlang.

By the end of the banquet, Chu Linlang and the Sixth Princess Consort were deep in warm conversation, clearly becoming close confidantes.

Xie Youran, sipping her wine, arched her fine brows and smiled: “Madam Chu is truly gifted at winning people over. My elder sister is a slow-to-warm type — I have never seen her take to anyone so readily at first meeting. A stranger watching might think you were my sister’s own blood sister!”

Chu Linlang found those words sharp enough to sting the nose. She couldn’t quite get a read on this Second Miss Xie and didn’t know how to respond, so she simply smiled and served both of them some dishes.

But Miss Xie’s expression soured again, and she took a few more cutting jabs at Chu Linlang.

Fortunately, Chu Linlang was naturally gifted — she sensed a malicious wind blowing past her ears, but as for what Second Miss Xie actually said, she paid it no mind whatsoever.

After the banquet, the Sixth Princess Consort expressed her apologies to Chu Linlang.

After her mother gave birth to her younger sister, she had been chronically ill. A man of great ability had predicted that the infant Xie Youran’s birth characters were in conflict with her mother’s, and that she must be sent to live with a family of a different surname until the age of eight before she could be brought home.

The Xie family believed this and placed Xie Youran in the care of a maternal relative of a different surname in their hometown. Only at the age of eight did this Second Miss Xie return to the household.

Perhaps because the relatives had not dared to be negligent and had always indulged her, Xie Youran had been somewhat spoiled. If she had said anything offensive, the Princess Consort hoped Madam Chu would not take it to heart.

Only then did Chu Linlang understand why a woman of such fine breeding and gentle temperament as the Sixth Princess Consort could have a sister with such a willful disposition.

And yet — that Second Miss Xie had been able to drive a man as deep and guarded as Situ Sheng to abandon ship, which truly showed she had some unusual abilities and talents!

After Zhou Sui’an arrived in Jizhou, his official rank remained unchanged — he was still serving as a Deputy Magistrate. However, the river channel renovation project in Jizhou was immense, and this was no leisurely post. He had to spend his days running back and forth along the waterway.

Chu Linlang had heard Zhou Sui’an complain several times about the food they served at the river site — plain and sparse, sometimes so cold it froze the stomach. He had been pestering her, wanting her to make her hand-crafted braised pork and white broth noodles for him.

So on this particular midday, she brought a large food box along with Xia He and a manservant to deliver a meal to Zhou Sui’an.

But when she arrived with them at the canopy shelter along the river, Zhou Sui’an was nowhere to be found. Only Situ Sheng was there alone, studying the river channel schematics spread across the table.

Seeing her arrive, Situ Sheng informed her that Magistrate Zhou had gone with the Sixth Prince to inspect the river channel at the neighboring county, and should be back shortly.

Interestingly enough, had not Situ Sheng been reassigned to the Ministry of Personnel? Why had he come to Jizhou?

Chu Linlang had the feeling this man carried some kind of destructive force with him, stirring up blood and turmoil wherever he went. Every time she encountered him, she ended up in misfortune.

The meal had already been delivered — there was no reason for her to linger here. Besides, she was now unnerved whenever she saw Situ Sheng and wanted to keep her distance.

Hearing that she was about to leave, Situ Sheng stepped out of the work shelter and spoke to her: “Magistrate Zhou did not tell you — the area around Jizhou has been unsettled of late. There have been several incidents of merchants being robbed of their goods and valuables. With the Magistrate away, allow me to escort you back, Madam.”

Without waiting for Chu Linlang to decline, he waved his hand in invitation and gestured for her to proceed ahead.