“Last night in the middle of the night, he climbed over a wall to sneak into a brothel, but picked the wrong door and plunged straight into Matchmaker Alley in the west of the city!”
Everyone froze for a moment, then burst into thunderous laughter, slapping the tables as they roared. “Hahaha!
Picked the wrong door?
Was that heir drunk out of his mind?”
“Drunk?
I think he was blinded by lust!”
The bearded man laughed until his face turned red, then gulped down another mouthful of wine. “And it gets even more ridiculous after that!
He climbed into a matchmaker’s house in pitch darkness and actually mistook that pockmarked old matchmaker for the brothel’s top courtesan. He went right up, hugged her waist, and called her ‘beauty’!”
“That matchmaker was over fifty! She screamed on the spot, grabbed a feather duster, and chased him down three streets while beating him!”
“My heavens!
If this gets out, where will Duke Zhenguo’s dignity go?”
“What dignity is there to save!”
A pale-faced scholar at another table fanned himself leisurely and joined in. “I heard from a steward in the mansion that early this morning, Duke Zhenguo hung that heir in the ancestral hall and beat him. Three whips snapped from the force!”
“They say the heir cried for his father and mother until his voice went hoarse. The entire noble circle of Capital City has heard about it, and everyone is just waiting to laugh at Duke Zhenguo’s Mansion!”
“And there’s more!”
A woman in a red dress cracked melon seeds, her voice sharp. “I also heard that Madam of Duke Zhenguo’s Mansion tried to save her son’s reputation by insisting he had gone out at night to investigate the people’s conditions and accidentally stumbled into Matchmaker Alley!”
“But the moment she said that, people dug up the truth — right next door to the matchmaker’s house is a gambling den. The heir had lost thousands of taels of silver there not long ago!”
Another wave of laughter erupted. People chattered over one another, discussing how the heir of Duke Zhenguo’s Mansion squandered the family fortune on cockfighting and hunting dogs, how Madam treated a concubine-born daughter harshly until her maternal family came to confront them, and how Duke Zhenguo deducted military rations to curry favor with the Crown Prince. Story after story poured out, dazzling and chaotic.
Shen Qinghuan’s hand holding the wine cup swayed slightly, a hint of amusement curling at the corner of her lips.
This farce at Duke Zhenguo’s Mansion was far more interesting than Shen Cong’an’s petty filth.
It seemed the waters of Capital City were murkier than she had imagined.
She was listening intently when Xiao Sanzi suddenly leaned closer and whispered, “Guest, don’t listen to their nonsense!
What’s happening at Duke Zhenguo’s Mansion isn’t something to joke about. I heard Duke Zhenguo was so furious today that he fell ill. Security in the mansion has been tripled. Anyone caught spreading rumors will probably regret it!”
Shen Qinghuan glanced at him and said calmly, “Thank you for the reminder.”
Xiao Sanzi grinned, about to say more, but a shout from the other end of the main hall summoned him away.
Shen Qinghuan set down her wine cup, her gaze falling into the heavy night outside the window.
In the distance, the direction of the Ministry of Personnel Minister’s Residence lay hidden among scattered lights like a dormant beast.
She lifted her hand to gauge the hour. The faint sound of the third night watch drum echoed in the distance.
The night had deepened. The real show was about to begin.
She extinguished the last flicker of candlelight at the corner of the table with her fingertips. As she stood, the hem of her dark-blue fitted robe brushed the stool without making a sound.
She walked back to the private room on the second floor, bolted the door behind her, and braced it with a wooden stool. Only then did she release the tension she had been carrying.
A single dim oil lamp lit the room. Sitting cross-legged by the bed, she sank her consciousness into her space.
Beside the spirit spring, a century-old lingzhi mushroom glowed with a soft luster. Drops of spiritual dew rolled off its leaves, falling onto the bluestone below and scattering tiny halos of light.
The storage compartments held soft armor, silver needles, and other items neatly sorted. Even the flint she had casually collected earlier was arranged by size.
Her fingertips brushed over the cold gleam of the hidden weapons — triangular darts, bone-piercing spikes, sleeve arrows — each one treated with anesthetic refined by the spirit spring. The chill in her eyes gradually deepened.
The exhaustion from days of travel faded under the nourishment of spiritual energy, replaced by a sharp readiness, even the calluses on her fingers tingling with pent-up strength.
Outside, the sky shifted from dark blue to pitch black, like spilled ink enveloping all of Capital City in dense night.
The noise from the inn’s main hall gradually died down — the shouting from drinking games, the waiters’ calls — until only the watchman’s wooden clapper echoed through the alleys, slow and lonely.
“Dong — dong —”
It was the third watch.
Shen Qinghuan suddenly opened her eyes. The cold light in them was sharper than the moon outside.
She rose briskly, tied her long hair into a high ponytail with a black ribbon, and fastened a concealed pouch of hidden weapons at her waist. The drawstring tightened with a faint hiss. Finally, she checked the soft armor gloves on her hands, running her fingers across the anti-slip texture to ensure everything was secure.
With a light push from the bed, her body sprang to the window like a cat. She opened half the lattice. Night wind carrying the fragrance of gardenias rushed in, but she only tilted her head slightly before leaping out.
The darkness was the best cover. Her fitted outfit blended into the ink-black night. With a light touch of her toes on the roof tiles, she shot forward several yards, reaching the back wall of the Minister’s Residence in just a few bounds.
The top of the wall was lined with dense iron caltrops, like dormant poisonous spikes gleaming coldly in the moonlight. An ordinary person would need a ladder or a risky climb to get past them.
Shen Qinghuan merely focused her thoughts. A pair of thin, cicada-wing-like soft armor gloves appeared in her hands. The inner lining was silk soaked in spirit spring water; the outer layer was made of special anti-slip material. Not even blades could cut through them, let alone iron spikes.
She pressed her palm onto the caltrops. The metal felt cool, but did not scratch her at all. She could even clearly feel the ridges of the spikes.
Before landing inside, she took out a palm-sized sachet and scattered its contents lightly around the wall.
It was a special powder from her space called “Drunken Spring Breeze.” Colorless and odorless, blending with the scent of gardenias, it could instantly put anyone within ten paces into a deep sleep that would last until dawn.
Sure enough, the two night guards at the base of the wall — one yawning and scratching himself, the other idly kicking pebbles — collapsed without a sound, stiff as felled logs.
The lantern in one guard’s hand hit the ground with a clang. The flame flickered twice in the night wind, shrank, and went out, leaving only a wisp of smoke that quickly vanished.
Shen Qinghuan landed silently, crouching low. Her pant leg brushed the gardenia bushes by the wall, dew from the petals clinging to her clothes and wrapping her in a sweet fragrance completely at odds with her icy aura.
She did not even raise an eyebrow. Following the fragmented memories left by the original owner, she first headed toward the path the patrolling guards would inevitably pass.