Wen Wan looked at her and suddenly asked, “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?”
“Whenever something happens, you rush straight toward it.”
Shen Chenbi thought seriously for a moment. “Not really. I’ve just been cooped up at home for too long today.”
“Your sister locked you up?”
“Mm.” Shen Chenbi nodded. “But Older Sister is doing it for my own good.”
Wen Wan did not reply. She looked at Shen Chenbi’s eyes—clear, forthright, and utterly undefended, like a shallow stream whose bottom could be seen at a glance. Of all the people she had ever met, not one had eyes like that.
She suddenly understood a little why the Eldest Miss Shen had locked this younger sister inside the house.
If she did not keep her locked up, someone would spirit her away within three days.
“Let’s go.” Wen Wan turned around and dragged the man toward the mouth of the alley. “Until next time.”
She walked very quickly. Dragging a person did not affect her speed in the slightest, and after a few steps, she disappeared around the corner at the alley’s entrance. The man being dragged away let out a string of muffled, indistinct cries, then seemed to have his mouth blocked by something, because he fell completely silent.
Shen Chenbi stood at the doorway, feeling that this afternoon had been more exciting than the previous three days combined.
She pushed at the door twice and, after confirming that it would not budge, climbed back over the wall along the same route and returned to her little courtyard.
Before she had even managed to steady herself, Qingzao’s furious voice came crashing down on her head.
“Miss! You climbed over the wall again!”
Shen Chenbi patted the dirt from her skirt and gave Qingzao an obedient smile. “I just went to sit in the garden for a while.”
“Look at what you’ve done to your hair! Is that what sitting for a while looks like, or did you crawl through a hole?”
“I crawled through…” Shen Chenbi thought about it, realized she could not find an excuse, and honestly fell silent. She obediently sat down and let Qingzao redo her hair.
As Qingzao dismantled her crooked, lopsided hairstyle, she nagged on and on. “Your hair takes nearly half an hour to arrange, and yet you go and scatter it all just by climbing over a wall. Such beautiful hair—other young ladies would practically worship it, while you use it like a rope…”
Shen Chenbi listened until she grew drowsy, her head nodding lower and lower.
“Miss!”
“I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t sleeping.” Shen Chenbi jerked upright. “I just closed my eyes for a moment.”
Qingzao sighed and redid her hair, securing it with the wooden hairpin. Finally, she stepped back to look her over. Her hair was neatly arranged, but her clothes were streaked gray and white from the dirt, and a small section of her sleeve had snagged and torn. She looked exactly as though she had gotten into a fight.
“Miss,” Qingzao could not help asking, “what on earth were you doing in the garden just now?”
Shen Chenbi seriously recalled everything that had happened that afternoon. Climbing over the wall, crawling through the dog hole, encountering a girl with a knife in the back alley, watching that girl beat three burly men to the ground, then having that girl repair the latch on the back door before climbing back over the wall herself.
“Nothing much,” she said. “I just made a new friend.”
Qingzao asked warily, “What kind of friend? A man or a woman? What’s her surname? How old is she? Where does she live?”
Shen Chenbi was stunned by the barrage of questions.
“A woman,” she answered only the first question. “Her name is Wen Wan. She’s a very good person.”
Qingzao relaxed. A woman was fine. The Eldest Miss only kept an eye out for men; she had never said that Miss was forbidden to make female friends.
“What does Miss Wen do?”
Shen Chenbi opened her mouth, only to realize that she actually knew nothing. She did not know what Wen Wan did, where she lived, why she had been surrounded by three men, or where that short blade had come from. She knew none of it.
She only knew that the girl wielded a blade beautifully, had a lovely name, could repair door latches, and was ruthless and sparing with words.
“She is…” Shen Chenbi struggled to organize her thoughts. “Someone very capable.”
Qingzao: “…”
How was that any different from saying nothing?
When Shen Wenyu returned that evening, Qingzao secretly reported the matter to her.
“Second Young Miss said she met a new friend in the garden today. Her surname is Wen, and her given name is the character Wan. This servant couldn’t find out anything else. Second Young Miss only said that the young lady was ‘very capable.’”
After hearing this, Shen Wenyu frowned and thought for a long while. She had never heard of any prominent Wen family in the capital.
She had Uncle Zhou investigate. When he returned, he brought back some news.
“There’s a young woman surnamed Wen, a little over twenty years old, who uses a short blade. Today, she beat three thugs in a back alley, dragged them straight to Jingzhao Prefecture, and reported the incident.”
Shen Wenyu had some idea now. To dare attack someone in the streets of the capital—and then take the initiative to report it afterward—meant she was no ordinary person.
“What did Jingzhao Prefecture say?”
“They didn’t detain her. They even sent her out quite courteously.” Uncle Zhou lowered his voice. “I asked a yamen runner I know. He said that young woman works at Dali Temple.”
The hand holding Shen Wenyu’s teacup paused slightly.
“Dali Temple?”
“Yes. She’s a constable there, specializing in criminal cases and major investigations.” Uncle Zhou paused. “Her master is a veteran constable of Dali Temple who has served under Lord Pei for more than ten years.”
Shen Wenyu set the teacup down on the table.
One of Pei Zhuo’s people. Why was it Pei Zhuo again?
She closed her eyes, feeling that something about this matter was wrong, though she could not say precisely what.
A Dali Temple constable had appeared in the back alley, encountered some thugs while carrying out official business, and her younger sister had happened to climb over the wall and run into her—it all sounded like coincidence. But weren’t there too many coincidences lately?
“That young woman also did one other thing,” Uncle Zhou added. “She repaired the broken latch on our back door—the one that’s been broken for more than half a year.”
Shen Wenyu opened her eyes, her gaze sharp. “How did she know the back door was broken?”
“Second Young Miss mentioned it when she opened the door. The young woman probably overheard her. After repairing it, she even reminded Second Young Miss not to open the door carelessly again. Second Young Miss said she was a good person and said she wanted to invite her over to the house to play.”
Shen Wenyu was silent for a while.
At last, she said, “Investigate this Wen Wan.”
“Does Eldest Miss suspect her…”
“It isn’t suspicion.” Shen Wenyu rubbed her brow. “If she is one of Pei Zhuo’s people, there’s no harm in learning more about her.”
She no longer believed in the word “coincidence.”
As for her younger sister saying she wanted to invite Wen Wan over to the house to play—that could wait.
As she said this, Shen Wenyu glanced out the window. The lamp in her younger sister’s window was still lit. Yellow candlelight shone through the paper, and a small figure could vaguely be seen sitting by the window, moving something back and forth in her hand.
She was probably drawing her eyebrows again.
Shen Wenyu sighed and rose to knock on Shen Chenbi’s door.
The door opened a crack, revealing half a face. Shen Chenbi had an eyebrow pencil clenched between her teeth and was holding another one in her hand. She called out indistinctly, “Sis.”
“Put the pencil down and come eat.”
“Mmph.”
Shen Chenbi obediently put down the eyebrow pencil and followed her sister toward the dining room. After walking a few steps, she suddenly seemed to remember something and tugged at Shen Wenyu’s sleeve.
“Sis, I met someone today.”
“I heard.” Shen Wenyu kept her expression unreadable. “What was her name?”
“Wen Wan. The Wan from ‘At dusk, with snow about to fall.’ Does it sound nice?”
“It’s all right. What did she say to you?”
“She said…” Shen Chenbi thought about it. “She asked me how I’d managed to live until now.”
Shen Wenyu stopped in her tracks.
“What did you say?”
“I said I listened to Older Sister.” Shen Chenbi stated it as a matter of course. Then, as though she had remembered something else, she tugged at Shen Wenyu’s sleeve. “Sis, can I invite her over to our house to play?”
“We’ll see.”
“Oh.” Shen Chenbi did not press her. When her sister said “we’ll see,” it meant there was a possibility. She was very satisfied with her progress.
Braised fish was served at dinner, and Shen Chenbi devoted herself to picking out the bones. Shen Wenyu watched her younger sister transfer the fish meat into her bowl, chopstick by chopstick. Candlelight illuminated her face, and contentment filled her features.
Shen Wenyu suddenly felt a little envious of her.
Those who knew nothing at all found it easiest to be happy.