Di Yuanshin felt a rush of frustration, as if a mouthful of old blood was stuck in his chest.
He wandered about, unconsciously returning to the Kong residence. Now, the estate was desolate, sealed with official notices.
It was mid-autumn, and the neglected courtyard was carpeted with fallen leaves, giving it an especially bleak air.
“Miss, could it be that Kong Wenlang is really going to be the scapegoat?” Tao Chun sighed in regret. Then, as if recalling something, she grew angry:
“Master Han is truly incomprehensible. His own daughter has died, yet he doesn’t seek the real culprit. Instead, he’s worried about tarnishing the family’s reputation and rushed to demand a verdict overnight. There must be something hiding in his heart!”
“Speak cautiously.” Su Yihan gave Tao Chun a calm glance, signaling her to hold her tongue.
Han Ruichu had also been pitiful—cherished while useful, discarded without hesitation once her value was gone. Han Mao’s intentions were clear: Ruichu wasn’t his only daughter, and her death, caused by the stain on her innocence, could affect the marriages of his other daughters. He wanted to suppress it as quickly as possible.
“Ah—”
Di Yuanshin suddenly cried out in pain. Turning to see him, they found him sprawled flat on the ground.
Tao Chun covered her mouth to stifle laughter. “Di Yuanshin, how old are you this year? You fall flat on your back just walking on level ground, and you dare scold me for being clumsy?”
Di Yuanshin got up, dusted himself off, and muttered in annoyance:
“It’s not flat ground! How can a perfectly fine courtyard have a raised plank?”
Following his gaze downward, they saw it—indeed, a plank had lifted slightly.
Even Shen Yu had nearly tripped here before. At the time, they had blamed their own clumsiness, not realizing it was the raised plank.
“Lift the plank and see.” Su Yihan said calmly.
Di Yuanshin carefully removed the plank and discovered that below, there was truly another world.
Beneath the wooden cover, sweeping away the rotting leaves revealed a movable stone slab. He pushed it aside, revealing a passage.
The underground corridor was dark and damp, spiderwebs clinging to the ceiling, ants swarming, with snake skins along the sides.
Tao Chun, frightened, shut her eyes and hurriedly grabbed her mistress’s sleeve. Feeling something off, she opened her eyes—only to realize she had grabbed the wrong person. But she didn’t dare let go, so she continued to pull.
The air inside was foul and strange. They lit a candle.
Ahead, a pair of eerie green eyes met theirs.
Several blood-red snakes flicked their tongues and hissed, staring intently at the intruders.
“Snakes… snakes…” Tao Chun’s legs coiled around Di Yuanshin’s feet in fear.
“Let go, Taozi!” Di Yuanshin panicked, thinking she was endangering their mistress.
Compared to them, Tao Chun’s mistress, Su Yihan, remained calm. She leisurely pulled a pouch of realgar powder from her sleeve and scattered it.
The snakes hesitated for a few seconds, then slithered away.
Di Yuanshin exhaled in relief. “Miss, how did you know to prepare realgar powder?”
Su Yihan answered calmly:
“Prepared it after the autopsy report.”
Knowing the poison in the food contained snake venom, she had brought realgar and antidotes just in case.
With the snakes temporarily driven off, they pressed forward.
The underground network branched into several passages leading to different areas.
Following one path, they seemed to arrive at the owner’s bedroom. There, shoes were arranged neatly by the bed.
Di Yuanshin’s excitement was palpable. “Miss, the shoe size matches that of the Kong family and Han Ruichu’s bedroom!”
He and Di Yuanshi had searched for days, trying to locate the owner of such tiny feet.
“Was the occupant a woman?” Di Yuanshin scanned the room, puzzled.
What woman would dare live here—and keep snakes?
“No,” Su Yihan answered with certainty.
The clothes on the bed were men’s attire. Unless mistaken, this was a small-footed man.
Di Yuanshin’s previous search for a tiny-footed woman had been misguided. The gender was wrong.
Di Yuanshin clicked his tongue. “A man with such tiny feet—who could imagine?”
Searching the room, he easily found a small pouch of powder—the same kind that had been in Han Ruichu’s food.
But…
“Where is he?” The room had clearly been uninhabited for days. Important items were gone, leaving only a pair of shoes and men’s clothes.
“He deliberately led us here,” Su Yihan said, her eyes icy. Being guided step by step by someone else was an unpleasant sensation.
“Why?” Di Yuanshin didn’t understand.
The answer soon became clear. The three collected evidence and returned to the residence. The latest news came from a handwritten letter from Han Ruichu’s maid, Lianqiao, accusing Kong Wenlang.
“Miss’s favorite hairpin went missing. She suspected me and flew into a rage. The sharp hairpin pierced my skin—painful, very painful.”
“Miss had a nightmare, woke up in fright, and grabbed my neck. The suffocating feeling was like falling into an endless abyss, with no one to save me…”
“Miss called me a dog, lying on the ground licking her spit. I only refused to bow, and she pressed me into dog food, calling me a lowly bastard. She was right, but I hate her.”
“When Miss went to the palace for the consort selection, my master said she would be like the Noble Consort, and she was happy, causing me no harm.”
“When she failed in the selection, she was furious and slashed my face—painful, so painful.”
“Kong Wenlang said he would die together with Miss, offered me a generous reward, and I agreed. Miss and Kong Wenlang are well-matched; they should have been laid in the coffin sooner.”
The letter ended abruptly. Judging by the handwriting and paper, it was written at different times, not a last-minute forgery.
The evidence was presented directly to Yun Li.
The proof was irrefutable. The three-day deadline was meaningless. Kong Wenlang’s death sentence was now certain.
Di Yuanshin remained silent for a long moment, understanding the true culprit’s intent.
A simple-minded, vindictive person left evidence and confessed: “I am the real murderer, but justice forces you to watch an innocent die in my place!”
This was the killer’s goal.
Di Yuanshin muttered a few curses in anger.
Yun Li had already drafted the imperial decree: the beheading would occur at noon the next day, supervised by Han Mao.
“Miss, what should we do…”
Su Yihan clenched the paper in her hand, her gaze cold. “Trace the source of the evidence.”
If the execution was tomorrow, there was still a chance. Time had been cut by two-thirds.
“Yes!”
With barely any rest, Di Yuanshin traced the evidence. They located the messenger, who led them to an ordinary citizen—someone used and paid, but who had never met the culprit.
Even with the shoe owner’s gender corrected, the search range remained ridiculously large.