The long street was empty at night. The carriage wheels crunched over the bluestone pavement, and the sound of Jinwuwei armor clashing still rang in her ears.
The incense in the carriage could not mask the smell of blood, and the once-spacious interior had become cramped with their two bodies entangled.
The indigo cloak draped over Pei Yu had come loose, and Shen Shuangyue was squeezed between his legs, the shackles on her wrists striking his chest with a resounding bang.
Shen Shuangyue had never expected to be yanked inside and collide head-on with Pei Yu. The moment their eyes met, her scalp went numb. She quickly pushed herself up from his chest, desperate to retreat backward, but unexpectedly slammed into the hidden cabinet behind her and toppled sideways.
“Ah!”
With a startled cry, Pei Yu extended his long arm and pulled her back.
Her waist was once again covered by searing heat, and her forehead struck his hard jaw. Both of them groaned in pain at the same time, and as Pei Yu lowered his head, his scorching breath fell almost entirely upon her face.
“Marquis Pei!” Shen Shuangyue was in complete disarray.
“Don’t move.”
The large hand at her waist drew the woman who was trying to rise back, and after she fell into his embrace once more, Pei Yu reached out with his other hand and gripped her wrist.
Shen Shuangyue’s breath went ragged with shock, having no idea what Pei Yu intended to do.
She was about to cry out in rebuke when she felt the grip on her wrist suddenly tighten. She instinctively looked down, only to see his hand close over the shackle and squeeze hard, veins bulging as the shackle snapped apart with a crack.
The man avoided her injury as he removed the shackle, then, supporting her waist with one hand, placed her on the side seat. Before she could speak, he released her and retreated back to the main seat.
Shen Shuangyue’s breathing was somewhat disordered. “Marquis Pei, you—”
“Hm?”
Pei Yu casually tossed the object in his hand into the carriage, bending his long legs, his black boots planted firmly on the floor, as if that fiery intimacy had all been an illusion. “What is it?”
Shen Shuangyue opened her mouth, but meeting his cold, languid gaze, she suddenly felt that if she asked about what had just happened, she might be making a mountain out of a molehill. Besides, apart from accidentally pulling her down and steadying her when she fell, the man before her didn’t seem to have done anything truly offensive.
She could only reply vaguely, “Nothing.”
The carriage fell silent. She shifted awkwardly toward the corner, while Pei Yu looked down at the blood on his fingertips—blood that had come from her when he removed the shackles.
His gaze swept over the woman beside him, full of unease, and his already frigid features grew even darker. “Do you know why this Marquis came to Count Qing’an’s Residence in person?”
Shen Shuangyue froze for a moment, then shook her head.
“The Sunjia was imprisoned at dusk yesterday, and that very night they suffered three waves of attacks. Half an hour before Xie Huaizhi arrived at the Imperial City Department today, someone infiltrated the prison and administered poison. Of the twenty-some members of the Sunjia household, only Sun Yiping and his son survived by luck, having been moved to a different cell at the last moment. Everyone else died suddenly of poison.”
Shen Shuangyue’s face went deathly pale. “Someone was silencing them?”
Pei Yu regarded her with an unnervingly cold expression. “The poisoner took his own life on the spot, and the entire families of two prison attendants were slaughtered. This Marquis had intended to come to Count Qing’an’s Residence personally to retrieve the account books the Sunjia had hidden away, but who could have expected Xie Huaizhi to come knocking first.”
“Among those betrothal gifts he returned, there was no trace of the account books. After this Marquis saw through his switched gift list, he insisted, through clenched teeth, that the Sunjia’s betrothal gifts had been taken by you. Do you understand what that means?”
Shen Shuangyue’s heart pounded like a war drum, her palms slick with cold sweat.
She had only guessed that the Imperial City Department must have some backing to dare barge so boldly into Count Qing’an’s Residence—she never imagined the ledger was this important.
What kind of place was that prison? Heavily guarded, ringed with protection, yet the Sun family members had still been silenced inside it. This meant that in the salt tax embezzlement case, Sun Yiping was not the mastermind—behind him hid someone of even higher status with connections reaching to the heavens.
That ledger concerned the lives and futures of countless people, and the interests entangled within it were likely staggering to contemplate.
If those people learned the ledger had fallen into the hands of Count Qing’an’s Residence—or worse, that she had “taken” it—how could they ever spare her life?
Shen Shuangyue’s breathing quickened. “Marquis Pei, since the Sun family intended to conceal the embezzlement ledger, they would never have written it on the gift list. Before today, neither I nor anyone else in the Xie Jia knew the betrothal gifts contained such a thing. We are being wronged…”
“But the item did enter Count Qing’an’s Residence.”
She was left speechless.
Pei Yu lifted his eyes to look at her. “Sun Yiping confessed with his own mouth that the item is in your hands. So can Lady Xie tell this Houye where that ledger is?”
Shen Shuangyue said, “…I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Weren’t you the one who took the Sun family’s betrothal gifts?”
Shen Shuangyue opened her mouth. She knew she shouldn’t admit to this, but Jinque was still in Old Madame Xie’s hands, and the safety of the Bofu concerned Yi-ge’er’s future.
The ledger’s whereabouts were now unknown—it wasn’t even certain whether it had already fallen into someone else’s hands. If it could be recovered, all would be well; but if it could not, someone would have to bear the blame, and that blame could not fall on Xie Huaizhi or the Bofu.
In an instant, Shen Shuangyue lowered her head. “I did take the item, but only out of momentary greed, to spend as I pleased. I never saw any ledger. I beg the Houye to see the truth.”
Swish—
Her chin was seized and jerked upward. Pei Yu’s gaze was piercing. “You truly took it?”
“Yes.”
Pei Yu stared at her fixedly, his ice-cold eyes seeming to see straight through her.
Seeing that though she was so frightened her lips had lost all color, she still gritted her teeth and admitted to it, he loosened his grip and said, seemingly in mockery, “Lady Xie is certainly devoted to Count Xie.”
He leaned his back against the carriage wall, his brow tightly drawn, his expression gloomy.
“The mastermind of the embezzlement is ruthless and cruel, yet Lady Xie would risk death to take the blame for the Xie Jia. Little does she know that Xie Huaizhi holds not a shred of feeling for her.”
“When he entered the Imperial City Department and heard of the ledger, he knew full well that if it were connected to you, this Houye would surely throw you into the Imperial City Department’s prison. Yet he still dragged you into it without hesitation, washing his own hands completely clean—just like four years ago, when it was he who took every advantage, yet left you covered in disgrace.”
“Barely had his dead wife been laid to rest before he took a beautiful new bride, gaining the Shenjia’s support and drawing all the world’s eyes—yet in that scandalous affair, he hid himself away quite comfortably.”
“It’s been four years. How is it that Lady Xie still hasn’t learned a single bit of sense?”
Shen Shuangyue never imagined Pei Yu would use the events of four years ago to mock her. That phrase “scandalous affair” struck her with such humiliation she could barely hold her spine straight.
“Marquis Pei, the state of my feelings with the Count is not yours to comment upon.”
At these words, Pei Yu’s face turned utterly dark. He looked at her eyes, reddened with anger because he had spoken of Xie Huaizhi. The Xie Jia had treated her this way, and yet she was still shielding Xie Huaizhi.
He pressed his lips tightly together, the joints of his fingers flexing, veins rising on the wrist hidden in his sleeve. Only after a long moment did he let out a scornful laugh.
“This Hou truly cannot concern himself with that.”
“You had best hope the account book is still there, and hope the Xie Jia still holds some affection for you—otherwise…”
Seeming to lose his patience, he gave a cold laugh and kicked the shackles on the ground away with a “bang.” The atmosphere inside the carriage instantly plummeted to rock bottom.