The night was darkest at the hour of Yin. Even the waning moon had hidden behind the clouds. In the secret chamber behind Tingyu Pavilion, only a single bronze candleholder burned with a faint flame, casting flickering shadows across the walls.
The chamber was small. The western wall was packed yellow earth. Several wooden crates were stacked in the corner, containing intelligence scrolls from the Xiaoyao Pavilion. In the center stood a rough wooden table and two wooden chairs. This place had been specially arranged by Wen Yinyue after returning to the mansion, used for interrogations and confidential discussions. Even the servants of the Hou Mansion did not know of its existence.
With a loud clang, the secret chamber door was pushed open. Lin Feng entered with two Shadow members, escorting Wang Ma inside.
Wang Ma wore a faded blue cotton dress, its hem stained with rural mud. Her hair was messily tied with a gray cloth strip. Her face was filled with terror. Her hands were bound behind her back with coarse hemp rope, and she staggered as she was shoved to the wooden table.
Lin Feng released his grip and stepped back behind Wen Yinyue. The dew on his night clothes had not yet dried, reflecting a cold sheen under the candlelight.
He had rushed back from Li Family Village, traveling swiftly the entire way. A trace of fatigue showed in his eyes, yet he remained vigilant, his gaze locked on Wang Ma to prevent any sudden resistance.
Wen Yinyue sat behind the wooden table, dressed in a pale blue cotton robe. The orchid embroidery on her sleeves flickered faintly in the dim candlelight.
She had waited for two full hours. Her fingertips still bore the thin calluses from flipping through intelligence scrolls. Now she looked calmly at Wang Ma and spoke without the slightest ripple in her voice:
“Wang Ma, five years ago, before the legitimate daughter of the Anyuan Marquis Household, Wen Yinyue, fell from the cliff, you delivered her a bowl of calming tea. Is that correct?”
Wang Ma jerked her head up, panic flashing in her eyes. She forced herself to appear calm and shook her head. “I don’t know! What is the young miss talking about? This old servant has been in the countryside caring for my elderly mother these past five years. I’ve never returned to the mansion. How could I have delivered any tea?”
She clenched her fists, nails digging deep into her palms. Lady Liu’s threat echoed in her ears: If you dare tell the truth, your son working in the capital won’t survive. She didn’t dare gamble, nor dare betray Lady Liu.
“Never delivered it?”
Wen Yinyue raised an eyebrow slightly. She took out an intelligence scroll from beneath the table and placed it in front of Wang Ma. When she unfolded it, a sheet of paper appeared with the words:
“Wang Gouzi, apprentice at a carpenter’s shop in the southern part of the capital. Monthly wages: five hundred copper coins. Residence: woodshed behind the carpenter’s shop.”
Beside it was a simple sketch — clearly Wang Ma’s son.
Wang Ma’s face instantly turned deathly pale. She stared at the paper, her body trembling uncontrollably. “Y-you… how do you know about my son? What have you done to him?”
She had little left in this world — only her bedridden elderly mother and her only son. Her mother had already been relocated by Wen Yinyue, leaving her anxious. Now even her son’s situation had been uncovered. She completely panicked.
“I haven’t done anything to him,”
Wen Yinyue replied calmly, her tone steady yet oppressive. “He is still working at the carpenter’s shop. He even collected his wages yesterday and bought two jin of meat for his master. But if I send someone to the shop right now and accuse him of stealing the owner’s silver, do you think he could keep that job?”
“No!” Wang Ma screamed suddenly, struggling to lunge forward, only to be stopped by Lin Feng. She collapsed onto the floor, tears streaming down her face, her voice choked with sobs. “Young Miss, please don’t harm my son! He’s still young and ignorant — it’s all my fault! Punish me instead, don’t implicate him!”
Wen Yinyue looked at her breakdown without the slightest sympathy. When the original owner had been drugged and pushed off the cliff, Wang Ma had shown no mercy either.
She softened her tone slightly, though her sharpness remained. “I won’t punish you, and I won’t harm your son — as long as you tell the truth. Five years ago, who ordered you to deliver the calming tea? What was added to it? And why?”
Wang Ma fell silent. Tears continued to fall as the last of her resolve crumbled.
On one side was Lady Liu’s threat; on the other was her son’s life. She knew she had no choice. Lady Liu was far away in the mansion and might not truly protect her, but the woman before her — who could uncover her son’s whereabouts so easily — clearly had the power to destroy him.
She took a deep breath, as if making up her mind. Her voice trembled as she spoke. “I-it was Lady Liu who told me to deliver the tea.”
“What was added to it?” Wen Yinyue pressed, leaning forward slightly, unwilling to miss a single detail.
“‘Passion Confusion Powder’ and ‘Thousand Mechanisms Trigger,’” Wang Ma replied with her head lowered, her voice barely audible. “Lady Liu said the young miss was pregnant at the time and refused to marry the Crown Prince. As long as she drank the tea and was sent to the Crown Prince’s room, once things were done, she would have no choice but to marry. Thousand Mechanisms Trigger was a slow-acting poison — even if the young miss resisted afterward, the poison would eventually take effect, and she wouldn’t live long.”
“And then?”
Wen Yinyue’s eyes turned icy. Her fingers clenched the edge of the table, knuckles whitening. Lady Liu and Wen Wanru were far more vicious than she had imagined — they wanted not only to destroy the original owner’s purity, but also her life.
“Then I delivered the tea to the young miss’s courtyard and watched her drink it,” Wang Ma continued fearfully. “Soon after, she said she felt dizzy and wanted to go for a walk. I immediately informed Lady Liu and the Second Miss. The Second Miss said they couldn’t delay any longer and brought two maids, pretending to accompany the young miss on a walk, tricking her to the Crown Prince’s villa outside the city… Later, you escaped. Fearing exposure, the Madam sent people to hunt you down.”
“They chased me and beat me off the cliff?” Wen Yinyue’s voice trembled — not with fear, but with rage. The original owner had been drugged and powerless to resist, hunted down by her own stepmother and “sister” to the edge of a cliff.
“Y-yes,” Wang Ma nodded, crying harder. “They personally saw you being pushed down. Lady Liu waited by the cliff. Only after seeing you fall did she take the Second Miss back to the mansion and announce to the outside world that the young miss had ‘accidentally fallen from the cliff.’ Afterward, Lady Liu gave me fifty taels of silver and sent me to the countryside with my mother, threatening that if I ever spoke of it, she would kill my entire family.”
Wen Yinyue closed her eyes and took a deep breath, forcibly calming the fury inside her.
Fragments of the original owner’s memories flooded her mind — the agony beneath the cliff, the despair of losing the child, and the triumphant smiles of Lady Liu and Wen Wanru. Each image stabbed into her heart, strengthening her resolve for revenge.
“What else do you know?”
Wen Yinyue opened her eyes, her gaze sharp. “Over these five years, what other disgraceful things have Lady Liu and Wen Wanru done? Especially Wen Wanru — how much do you know about her dealings with the Crown Prince?”
Wang Ma froze, hesitated briefly, then spoke. “The Second Miss has been frequently interacting with the Crown Prince’s secondary consort’s maternal family these past few years. Last month, when my distant nephew delivered fabric, he said he saw the Second Miss secretly visiting the secondary consort’s family. She was shut in a room with the consort’s brother, discussing something. He overheard words like ‘deposing the Crown Prince’ and ‘establishing a new heir.’”
“Deposing the Crown Prince? Establishing a new heir?” Wen Yinyue exchanged a glance with Lin Feng. Both saw shock in each other’s eyes.
Wen Wanru dared to involve herself in something this massive. Her ambitions clearly went far beyond simply marrying into royalty.
“I’ve told you everything I know,” Wang Ma pleaded urgently. “Young Miss, please spare my son. I will never have anything to do with Lady Liu again!”
Wen Yinyue looked at her and nodded. “You told the truth. I won’t harm your son. Lin Feng, take her away. Settle her in the small courtyard with her mother. Assign people to watch her — don’t let her escape, and don’t let Lady Liu’s people find her.”
“Yes!” Lin Feng replied, signaling the Shadow members to lift Wang Ma and escort her out of the chamber.
The secret room was left with only Wen Yinyue. The candle still burned, though the darkness felt heavier than before.
She sat at the wooden table, holding Wang Ma’s confession records. Her fingertips traced the words “Passion Confusion Powder,” “Thousand Mechanisms Trigger,” and “pushed off the cliff,” her eyes filled with icy killing intent.
The truth from five years ago had finally surfaced. Lady Liu and Wen Wanru had not only harmed the original owner but sought to ruin her purity — and had even become involved in the struggle for the throne. This was no longer a mere internal conflict within the Hou Mansion; it had entangled matters of the imperial court.
Yet she did not retreat. Instead, her resolve hardened.
She picked up another intelligence scroll and flipped to the section about the Crown Prince’s secondary consort’s family. The consort’s brother was an Assistant Minister of Revenue, controlling part of the court’s finances. Recently, he had grown close to officials opposing the Crown Prince — clearly intending to exploit Wen Wanru’s connections to profit from the succession struggle.
“Wen Wanru, Lady Liu, and the Crown Prince’s secondary consort’s family…” Wen Yinyue murmured softly, gazing into the darkness beyond the chamber door. “Your good days are over.”
Past the middle of the Yin hour, the sky gradually lightened with a hint of pale dawn. The candle in the chamber burned out completely, leaving only a pile of ash. Wen Yinyue stood up and pushed open the door. The cold morning wind rushed toward her, sharp with chill, yet it cleared her mind.
What came next was to collect concrete evidence of Lady Liu’s and Wen Wanru’s crimes and work with officials opposing the secondary consort’s faction to wipe them out in one stroke.
Wang Ma’s testimony was the strongest proof. With this, she could make Lady Liu and Wen Wanru pay the most painful price for what they had done five years ago.
The crabapple tree beside Tingyu Pavilion swayed gently in the morning breeze. Fresh buds tinged with pink dotted the branches, as if heralding new hope.
Wen Yinyue stood beneath the tree, gazing at the brightening sky, silently thinking:
Original owner, do you see this? The truth is about to come to light. I will make everyone who harmed you pay, one by one, and restore justice for you.