The expressions of everyone present turned grim. Aunt Li was almost ashen-faced, seeing that they had indeed kept the matter a secret, and had not even reported it when Dugu Leng came to check the accounts.
"The goods from Prince Yan's mansion were burned? Aunt Li, what exactly happened?"
Aunt Li's legs went weak and she knelt down with a thud, tears streaming down her face: "Seventh Young Master, since it can't be hidden any longer, this old servant will tell you the truth. Our master didn't die suddenly; he atones for his sins with his death!"
"Isn't the warehouse supposed to be guarded? Especially the valuable fabrics are handled with extra care, so how could it have caught fire?"
Li Yu, who had been silent all along, suddenly said, "Seventh Young Master, don't blame my father and mother. This is all my fault. I was the one watching the warehouse that night. It's all my fault for drinking too much. If my elder brother hadn't carried me out of the fire, I probably would have burned to death inside. If the Prince Yan's mansion blames us, then they can take my life."
Aunt Li cried even harder: "My child, your father has already atoned with his death. If you die too, how will your mother live?"
"How can you be sure that Manager Li atoned for his sins with his death? If it was suicide, what method did he use? And who was the first to discover the warehouse fire?"
Li Kuan smiled憨厚ly: "It was I who discovered it. My uncle said he saw Li Yu and Xiao Hu go out in the evening, so he asked me to keep an eye on them tonight."
"Who is Xiao Hu?" Dugu asked coldly.
"He was a servant from Prince Yan's mansion. That servant always took my son out drinking. He wasn't a good drinker, but since he was from Prince Yan's mansion, we had to give him some face, and the master let him be. But the warehouse caught fire, and the master had already scolded my son and almost sent him to Prince Yan's mansion to report him. He was so reckless and stupid, and the master hadn't even had a chance to hand over the business to Kuan'er before he passed away—" Aunt Li started crying again as she spoke of her sorrow.
Dugu Leng and I exchanged a glance and fell silent. The situation had taken a turn for the better. Li Yu, who was guarding the warehouse, caused the fire, and Li Kuan was the first to discover it. It's possible that Li Kuan set the fire while Li Yu was drunk and unconscious, just to make him guilty. And since Manager Li was utterly disappointed in Li Yu and handed the business over to Li Kuan, Li Yu harbored resentment and thus had a motive to kill.
But Steward Li couldn't find the cause of death. More importantly, the weather that day was gloomy and rainy. In such damp weather, unless it was arson, it was impossible for everything to be destroyed as cleanly as they claimed.
4
Prince Yan's mansion was indeed as magnificent as the legends described. Prince Yan Min hadn't expected our sudden visit. This reunion was a pleasant surprise. Years ago, I had saved his daughter, Princess Zhiyu, and we had sworn brotherhood through three kneelings and nine kowtows. I had also recognized his daughter as my goddaughter. Steward Li probably never dreamed that what he was so anxious about that he was willing to risk his life for was nothing serious at all.
Speaking of Manager Li, I sighed: "I never imagined that a few bolts of cloth could lead to someone's death."
Prince Yan Min frowned: "That's strange. The steward clearly said that the clothes for the birthday celebration had already been cut and could be tried on in the next couple of days. Since the fabric was burned, where did this fabric come from?"
A messenger was sent to fetch the steward for questioning. The old steward, thinking the prince wanted to try on the new clothes, had even brought the tailor along. The fabric was indeed the persimmon-red, floral-patterned Song brocade that Aunt Li had described, with opulent peonies blooming beautifully on the hem. The steward curtsied and said, "Your Highness, this brocade was delivered by Manager Li from the fabric shop a few days ago. It's exactly the kind the Princess Consort ordered. Please take a look—"
"What happened? Wasn't the cloth burned?" I rushed forward to take a look. Sure enough, it was the persimmon-red brocade with floral patterns, a unique fabric sold by the Dugu family's cloth shop.
"The cloth shop did catch fire, but the cloth wasn't burned. Manager Li said something very strange. He said that he had traded his life for this cloth, but after saying that, Manager Li went home and died."
Manager Li safely delivered the cloth to Prince Yan's residence. He died after returning home, and no one knew why the cloth hadn't burned, nor why Manager Li had died. A simple matter suddenly became shrouded in mystery. When Dugu Leng and I returned to the cloth shop, Aunt Li was offering sacrifices to him. A cup of tea sat before the memorial tablet, its steam rising gently. She muttered, "My lord, rest in peace. Manager Lan sent your favorite tea. If you can't drink it, at least smell the aroma. The tea got cold the day you died, and you didn't even get a sip. Don't worry. Young Master Qi has already handed the business over to Kuan'er, and he hasn't blamed you. Rest in peace."
Dugu Leng and I exchanged a glance and left the mourning hall.
Li Yu was exchanging pleasantries with a young man outside the door. Judging from the young man's attire, he seemed to have seen the style of the young man's clothes at Prince Yan's residence.
"Little Tiger!" I called out.
The young man turned around, saw me run into the shop, and asked with a grin, "How do you know my name, young lady? You're so beautiful, I wonder if you're betrothed?"
What a lecherous little rascal! He's even started staring at girls' faces with such lustful eyes. Li Yu hurriedly grabbed him in a panic, saying, "Little Tiger, this Miss Liu is Prince Yan's cousin! How dare you be so disrespectful! Slap yourself right now!"
Upon hearing this, Xiao Hu's face turned pale, and he promptly slapped himself twice: "Miss Liu, please forgive me, I was truly blind and ignorant, I have offended you—"
"Li Yu, you go ahead and do your work. I need to have a good talk with this little tiger brother."
After sending Li Yu away, Xiao Hu and I went to Pengyuan Inn and ordered some side dishes and a pot of wine. Xiao Hu was quite reserved at first, but after a few drinks, he became bolder knowing I wasn't angry. Actually, what I wanted to know was what happened between Xiao Hu and Li Yu after they drank that day.
“That day, I had just received my monthly salary and invited Li Yu out for drinks. The guy looked preoccupied and said that his older brother was unhappy with him.”
"Dissatisfied? Haven't they always had a good relationship?"
Xiao Hu laughed heartily: "Miss Liu, do you think we'd put our feelings on display for you to see? Although Li Yu is Steward Li's adopted son, he's still his son after all. No matter how capable Li Kuan is, he's not going to hand over the business to him. Besides, Li Yu doesn't have much of a business sense and he's soft-hearted. There's no way Li Kuan would be satisfied with him."
"He told you that himself?" I smiled and poured him another drink.
“Anyone could tell. That night, after we finished drinking, Li Yu went home, but I stayed at the restaurant for a while longer before leaving. When I left, I passed by the cloth shop and saw that it was on fire, and Li Kuan was moving things out.”
"Moving things? Did you even see clearly what you were moving?"
"It looks like cloth. Didn't our Prince's Mansion order cloth from the cloth shop?" Xiao Hu's eyes were red from drinking. "Miss Liu, you mustn't tell anyone about this. As long as it doesn't concern me, Xiao Hu, I won't interfere. You asked me, Miss, but I didn't even tell the head constable of the yamen."
5
In the hall, I sat facing Dugu Leng and the people from the cloth shop. The atmosphere was somewhat tense. Aunt Li kept rubbing her hands, Li Kuan looked very anxious, and Li Yu looked completely bewildered. Dugu Leng laughed twice and said, "Everyone, don't worry. Manager Li from Prince Yan's mansion delivered the cloth to the mansion a few days ago."
"Wasn't it burned?" Li Yu looked up.
"You'll have to ask your elder brother. He rescued this cloth from the fire." Dugu Leng turned to Li Kuan, whose face was deathly pale. He lowered his head for a long time before saying, "I did take the cloth out of the warehouse, but it was gone. I thought someone passing by had taken it. I was afraid my uncle would be angry, so I just said it was burned. Since my uncle has already handed it over to Prince Yan's mansion, then it should be fine."
"How could this happen?" Aunt Li clenched her fists. "Kuan'er, what else are you hiding from us?"
“Li Kuan, you set fire to the warehouse while Li Yu was drunk and took the cloth out. Your purpose was nothing more than to make Manager Li blame him and take over the business, because you knew that Manager Li was going to hand the business over to Li Yu. After you took the cloth out, you secretly gave it to your uncle, and your uncle, in order to punish his son's conscience, concealed the fact that the cloth was not burned, right?”
Li Kuan's lips trembled. His bad deeds had been exposed, and his legs went weak as he knelt on the ground: "I set the fire, and I was the one who carried the cloth out. I just wanted my uncle to understand that I was the most suitable person, but why has my uncle never seen my efforts?"
Aunt Li lunged at him like a madwoman, crying and shouting, "Your uncle has already handed the business over to you, you've got what you wanted, why did you still kill him?"
“Aunt, I know I was wrong. Please take me to see the authorities. I killed my uncle with scorpion venom. That kind of venom is deadly, and once a person is dead, the poison dissipates and the cause of death is impossible to detect. People will just think he died suddenly. I am so sorry to my uncle. I am willing to atone with my death!”
In the main hall, Aunt Li and Li Yu hugged each other, crying. No one expected that Li Kuan would kill his own uncle. Everything was cleared up, and the result was chilling.
6
Pengyuan Inn.
It is a great joy to have friends coming from afar.
After washing up early in the morning, I returned to the lobby where the thoughtful Lan Chengyu had already prepared breakfast: lotus seed paste cake, candied fruit, and plum-scented cakes. I didn't stand on ceremony and ate my fill before letting out a satisfied burp.
"When will Miss Liu return to Fulong Town?" Lan Chengyu clicked his tongue: "If we never see each other again once you go back, I really want to keep you by my side forever, to spend my days drinking tea with you, without having to go anywhere else."
"Manager Lan, all good things must come to an end. Things here are settled, and I'll probably be heading back in two or three days." I avoided his burning gaze, a gaze that always felt oppressive, as if I were a delicious cherry held firmly in his hand. But the one I love is Dugu Leng, and we can only ever be confidants.
"I thought you would change your mind and stay by my side, because Dugu Leng is not your best choice."
"Maybe he wasn't the best choice, but life doesn't offer many opportunities to make choices. Once you've made a choice, you have to bear the consequences, whether it's right or wrong."
“That’s very well said.” Lan Chengyu’s eyes became affectionate and deep. “Then, Miss Liu, you should know how much I want to keep you by my side, because there is no one else in this world who is more like me than you. But it doesn’t matter, you will always stay in my heart, this is your choice.”
I left Pengyuan Inn and went back to the cloth shop. I had barely sat down when a constable from the yamen came running over with a serious expression and said, "Li Kuan committed suicide in prison. Go and collect his body."
That uneasy feeling returned. Ever since Li Kuan went to prison, I'd felt something was off, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. He committed arson and murder; he had a motive and even confessed to using scorpion venom to kill. Everything seemed to make sense, yet something still felt off. Aunt Li's hair seemed to turn white overnight. Li Yu went to the coffin shop and bought a thin coffin. Dugu Leng and I squatted beside Li Kuan's body, stunned, for a long time. He died from scorpion venom. There was nothing suspicious about that, but shouldn't that be the most suspicious thing?
Scorpion venom is a weapon used by some villains in the martial arts world to assassinate others. Where did an ordinary person like Li Kuan get it?
Even if Li Kuan was able to bring the scorpion venom incense into the prison, where did he get the flint and steel from?
Li Kuan admitted to arson, but he didn't confess to murder. He only said his uncle died from scorpion poison. Assuming Li Kuan didn't kill anyone, then he was definitely protecting the murderer. Dugu Leng and I sat in the cloth shop, watching the people coming and going, completely baffled. If Li Kuan wasn't the murderer, then Steward Li had said something at Prince Yan's mansion: these cloths were obtained with his life.
Sigh. I sighed, and to my surprise, I heard a sigh coming from the doorway as well. It was Lan Chengyu.
Dugu Leng already disliked this man, so he simply said he was going to Prince Yan's residence to catch up with old friends and left. Aunt Li came out from the inner hall to greet him; she was terribly haggard and cried as soon as she saw Lan Chengyu: "Now look what's happened! Our master is dead, and Kuan'er is dead too. Manager Lan, how am I supposed to live?"
“Aunt Li, the dead are dead, but the living must live on. Let’s mourn while we’re at it.” Lan Chengyu handed a packet of tea to Aunt Li. “This is the tea that Manager Li loved to drink most when he was alive. You should brew it the way you used to and place it in front of Manager Li’s memorial tablet so that he can smell the aroma of the tea.”
"Let me do it." I took the tea bag from Lan Chengyu's hand. "I can brew this kind of tea too."
The tea set was in Li Yu's room. Aunt Li said that Li Yu was very filial from a young age. His father liked to drink tea, so he learned to brew tea. I took the teapot off the cabinet, brewed the tea step by step, and brought the tea to the memorial tablet, saying, "Manager Li, this is your favorite tea. Please smell the aroma."
The aroma of tea?
I took a careful sniff, and sure enough, there was a faint, unusual tea aroma. But this aroma wasn't that of tea leaves; it was—the scent of scorpion venom.
7
In the hazy light, I seemed to hear faint conversations.
What are you planning to do to her?
That's my business.
"You promised you wouldn't tell anyone."
"Of course."
"..."
"Aren't you leaving yet? Are you waiting for Dugu Leng to become suspicious of you?"
The footsteps outside the door faded into the distance, and I felt nauseous, utterly powerless. I had been poisoned by scorpion venom, albeit in small amounts, but it was enough to kill me. I should have suspected someone was behind all this, but I never doubted him. Now, thinking back, he had given himself away far too many times. For example, I had never told him I was from Fulong Town, and I had only told him I was pursuing Dugu Leng, nothing more. Lan Chengyu sat smugly in the chair opposite me, while I lay on the cherry wood bed, like a fish out of water.
"Everyone says that the seventh young mistress of Dugu Manor is exceptionally clever, but that's all there is to it."
"Why do this? They have done you no wrong."
“But you do.” Lan Chengyu poured the tea into a cup three times before taking a sip. “You killed the ghost. His life is mine. Only I can kill him. I originally thought of keeping you by my side because you are so much like me, but you made the wrong choice. I will keep you by my side, this time forever.”
"How did you know I would come to Hangzhou just because Steward Li is dead?"
"Just a guess." Lan Chengyu chuckled softly. "I love riddles the most, because curiosity killed the cat. Those constables are all so stupid. You sensed something was wrong from so far away, but they didn't notice anything. They're so stupid. I don't like stupid people."
Lan Chengyu walked over step by step, and I suddenly thought of the incomplete appearance of that person called Ghost. He was missing an arm, a leg, an eye, and an ear. He was a disabled person, even his heart was incomplete, which is why he was so ruthless and did all sorts of evil.
"I'll cut off your arms and legs, and then you'll stay with me forever." Lan Chengyu smiled so alluringly, and I felt a cold sweat pour down my back. This was the first time I'd ever felt so afraid, because death itself wasn't scary; what was terrifying was that the person in front of me was a madman.
"Before I die, I want to know what happened—"
"Manager Li? You're about to die, why are you still worrying about so much?" Lan Chengyu's handsome face was contorted with excitement, the veins on his hands bulging, and the knife in his hand looked like it could tear me apart at any moment.
"This is my choice."
“Then I’ll tell you, actually, Manager Li wasn’t killed by Li Kuan. He just set a fire, and he stupidly brought out those bolts of cloth and gave them to Manager Li. Manager Li was killed by Aunt Li; I only provided the tea bags and scorpion incense—”
"That Manager Li is really stupid. Li Kuan wanted to take over the business, so he handed it over to him. But even if Li Yu agreed, Aunt Li disagreed. She always thought Manager Li was upset that she hadn't given the Li family a son or daughter, so I gave her Manager Li's favorite tea bag. Aunt Li killed him, and as long as she killed him, her son Li Yu could take over the business. That Li Kuan is stupid too. He clearly found out that Aunt Li killed Manager Li, but he still tried to take all the blame. He's so stupid. She won't be grateful to him. I hate stupid people."
Cold sweat nearly soaked my clothes. I forced a cold laugh, suppressing my fear: "Actually, they're not stupid. Even Steward Li was only trying to protect Aunt Li. Steward Li has been in the Dugu family for decades; he knows poison better than anyone because he tests everything the entire Dugu family eats for poison. He knew perfectly well that the tea bag contained scorpion venom, but he pretended not to know. Li Kuan felt he had betrayed his uncle's trust. Even he knew Steward Li was poisoned by scorpion venom, so he naturally knew Steward Li knew too. Since his uncle wanted to protect Aunt Li, he did the same. If I'm not mistaken, it was Li Yu who killed Li Kuan with the scorpion venom from the tea bag when he delivered food to the prison, because he was afraid Li Kuan would identify his mother. Scorpion venom evaporates and disappears. You only exploited their familial bond—"
"How can you be as stupid as them?" Lan Chengyu raised his knife, his expression as if he were admiring a disobedient work of art.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to see my blood splattered everywhere. But suddenly, I felt an unusual calm; I knew I wouldn't let him destroy me like this. When Dugu Leng burst through the door, we both breathed a sigh of relief.
He arrived just in time, and I survived.
Prince Yan Min had already surrounded the inn with his personal guards. Lan Chengyu knew he couldn't escape with me, or rather, he was simply dissatisfied with this guessing game. He felt his opponent hadn't performed at their best. He removed the knife from my neck, his eyes alluring yet chilling: "Liu Ruyan, this isn't fun at all. I'll give you one chance, but next time, you won't be so lucky."
The wooden planks beneath Lan Chengyu's feet suddenly opened, and he vanished from everyone's sight. By the time Dugu Leng shouted and gave chase, he had already disappeared without a trace.
8