In Qiu Chan’s room, the scent of blood and medicinal herbs mingled, pungent and eerie.
Wen Yan was not asleep.
She sat at the table, toying with a silver needle she had just used. At its tip clung a trace of dried, blackened blood.
“Bai Wanyin.”
She uttered the name softly to the empty room, as if delivering the most precise autopsy report.
A pure, delicate white flower of Jingwang Mansion, so frail she might be toppled by a breeze.
A high-level sorceress capable of manipulating minds and casting lethal curses from afar.
These two identities were like oil and water, forcibly blended yet fundamentally illogical.
Unless, like Qiu Chan, she too was a puppet—a more advanced one, closer to the center of power, and disguised more perfectly.
Once this line of thought clicked into place, the next tactical steps became clear.
She needed to dismantle this high-level puppet through Bai Wanyin.
Early the next morning, Wen Yan headed straight to Dali Temple.
When Mo Xingchuan saw her, the redness in his eyes had yet to fade.
Clearly, the successive sudden deaths of Wang Fu and Shopkeeper Qian had left him overwhelmed.
“New leads?” He dismissed his attendants and got straight to the point.
“The leads are dead ends.”
Wen Yan’s reply was even more direct,
“But we’ve found another key.”
She concisely recounted everything from the previous night, including Qiu Chan’s “instant-death curse” and the name she had finally uttered.
Upon hearing the name “Bai Wanyin,” Mo Xingchuan’s brows furrowed into a tight knot.
“Her? That sickly woman who blushes if she speaks too loudly?”
“The best hunters often appear as prey.” Wen Yan tapped the table. “I need to see her. Not at Jingwang Mansion, but on your turf. You must formally summon her in the name of Dali Temple.”
“On what grounds?” Mo Xingchuan asked.
“The grounds don’t matter. Excuses are everywhere.”
A nearly ruthless calculation flickered in Wen Yan’s eyes.
“Say that the ‘Wang Fu case’ involves the inner quarters of Jingwang Mansion and requires the assistance of the prince’s closest ‘pillow companion.’ That’s a reason Prince Jing will have to accept, even if it chokes him.”
Mo Xingchuan understood. This wasn’t an interrogation; it was a “trap.”
“I need a room.”
Wen Yan continued laying out her plan.
“The lighting must be dim, with no unnecessary furnishings—only one table and two chairs.
I want her to feel stripped of all identities the moment she steps into the room, leaving only the role of ‘witness.’”
“Also,”
she pulled a new blueprint from her robe, “have a chair made for me according to this.”
Mo Xingchuan took the blueprint, his expression turning subtle.
It was an unremarkable wooden chair, its only secret lying in the armrests—two grooves perfectly sized to secure wrists, with fine patterns carved at the base to increase friction.
“What kind of torture device is this?”
“It’s called a ‘pulse chair.’”
Wen Yan’s tone was devoid of emotion. “People can lie, but their blood cannot.”
She looked up, her gaze landing on Mo Xingchuan’s face like a scalpel.
“I don’t need to hear a single word from her. I only need to watch.”
“Watch how her pulse, in place of her mouth, tells me the truth.”
These words, cold as ice, struck Mo Xingchuan with profound shock.
He suddenly felt that it wasn’t Bai Wanyin being interrogated, but all the lies hidden beneath the skin of this world.
And the woman before him was the ultimate nemesis of all lies.
“I’ll handle it right away.” Mo Xingchuan asked no further questions.
Working with this woman, he had grown accustomed to merely carrying out orders.
…
Half an hour later.
In the backyard of Dali Temple, the sound of wheels echoed outside the temporarily converted “interrogation room.”
Mo Xingchuan personally escorted a frail-looking woman inside.
Even in a place as austere and forbidding as Dali Temple,
Bai Wanyin still carried that perfectly measured fragility and apprehension, like a lamb that had mistakenly wandered into a tiger’s den,
enough to stir any man’s protective instincts.
She stepped into the deliberately arranged “interrogation room.”
The room was dim, lit only by a solitary lamp as faint as a bean.
Wen Yan sat beneath the lamp, half her face hidden in shadow, revealing only a pair of startlingly bright eyes.
“Bai Guniang, please have a seat.”
Wen Yan gestured toward the specially designed chair opposite her.
A flicker of wariness passed through Bai Wanyin’s eyes, but she maintained her fragile persona and obediently sat down, her hands naturally settling into the grooves on the armrests.
Click. Her wrists were locked in place, perfectly ensnared.
Wen Yan was in no hurry to speak.
She simply watched her quietly, like a patient hunter observing prey caught in a trap.
This was the first step in psychological warfare: applying pressure.
For a full quarter of an hour, the dead silence weighed heavily, making it hard to breathe. Bai Wanyin’s breathing rhythm faltered.
Wen Yan caught that moment. The defense had cracked; it was time to advance.
Wen Yan knew that the first fissure had appeared in the other’s psychological defenses.
“Let’s begin.”
Wen Yan finally spoke, her voice calm and devoid of any ripple.
“Name, age, place of origin.”
“Bai Wanyin, seventeen, a native of the capital. My parents passed away early, and I am alone.”
The answer was flawless, as if rehearsed countless times.
“When did you meet Prince Jing?”
“Three months ago, during the Lantern Festival. I accidentally fell into the water and was rescued by His Highness. It was love at first sight.”
Wen Yan activated the Truth-Seeking Eye while glancing at her wrist out of the corner of her eye.
Lie.
Her pulse showed no change when she mentioned “love at first sight.” That wasn’t affection; it was reciting lines.
“Do you know Wang Fu, the steward of the prince’s residence?”
“I do. Steward Wang is a longtime servant of the residence. He treats the servants well and… has also been very kind to me.”
Wen Yan abruptly switched topics, her pace suddenly accelerating:
“Are you aware that Wang Fu died in a fire? Do you know about Qiu Chan, the maid from Guogongfu who brews my medicine daily? Have you heard that Shopkeeper Qian of Jishi Tang was arrested for selling illicit drugs?”
Three rapid-fire questions, allowing no chance to catch a breath.
Bai Wanyin’s face instantly turned deathly pale. The pulse in her wrist, resting in the groove, began to beat violently.
She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, her voice still fragile:
“These matters… I am merely a sheltered and delicate woman, I have never heard of them. I only know to stay by His Highness’s side daily, sharing his burdens…”
Wen Yan smiled, a chilling, bone-piercing smile in the dim lamplight.
“You don’t know? Then what is this on your hand!”
Wen Yan suddenly stood up, swift as lightning, grabbing Bai Wanyin’s left hand as she tried to pull it back, and yanked her sleeve up to the elbow!
On her moon-white wrist, there was clearly a tattoo!
But it wasn’t a lotus.
It was a vivid, lifelike, and seemingly about to take flight… blood-red butterfly.
[Current Target: Bai Wanyin]
[Status: Puppet (Blood Butterfly Curse · Core Layer)]
[Residual Autonomous Consciousness: 3%]
The moment the tattoo was exposed, the fragility in Bai Wanyin’s eyes instantly crumbled, replaced by sheer terror.
It was as if she had seen hell itself, desperately trying to wrench her hand back.
But Wen Yan’s grip was like an iron clamp, unmoving.
“Bai Wanyin, look at me!”
Wen Yan’s voice carried a mental shockwave that pierced straight to the soul: “If I can save Qiu Chan, I can save you. Tell me, who planted this thing on you!”
Bai Wanyin trembled violently, her lips quivering, tears flowing uncontrollably.
She opened her mouth, the name right at the tip of her tongue—
Suddenly.
Like a puppet whose strings were cut being taken over again, the terror, struggle, and will to live in her eyes extinguished in an instant.
That familiar, lifeless emptiness once again covered her pupils.
But, just before she was “formatted,” Wen Yan’s other hand had already covered the blood butterfly tattoo!
The “Truth-Seeking Eye” activated at full power. A cold, sucking force followed her fingertips, brutally probing into the core of the Blood Butterfly Curse!
[Warning: High-level mental link detected. Proceed with information interception?]
[Intercepting… Link severed. Successfully intercepted 0.1-second mental fragment…]
Bai Wanyin slowly withdrew her hand, stiffly yet elegantly straightened her sleeve, sat up straight, and a perfect, pitifully charming smile appeared on her face.
She looked at Wen Yan and spoke in a sickly sweet, intimate tone that sent chills down the spine:
“Miss Gu, what are you talking about? This butterfly was personally drawn for me by His Highness the Prince.”
“His Highness said I am the only butterfly in his life that makes him feel free.”
“He also said that ten days from now, at the ‘Thousand Elders Banquet’ in the palace, he will ask His Majesty to grant us a marriage decree before the eyes of the world. By then, I’m afraid you… won’t be able to return.”
Each word of this sentence was coated in honey, yet its core was the most venomous arsenic.
It was a declaration of war, and also a provocation from the mastermind behind the scenes.
Wen Yan looked at this exquisitely performed Puppet before her, yet her heart remained utterly calm.
In her mind, she was replaying that intercepted 0.1-second mental fragment—
It was a dim, secret chamber filled with eerie sacrificial offerings, and the fleeting profile of a man wearing a golden mask!
Though it was only for an instant, it was enough.
“Very well.”
Wen Yan also smiled, a light, breezy smile.
“Then I shall prepare a congratulatory gift at the Guogongfu and wait to see with my own eyes in ten days whether it will be a butterfly spreading its wings, or… a moth flying into the flame.”