One.
Two.
Three…
Ci’er counted her own heartbeats.
The window was pushed open, and a dark shadow vaulted inside.
Ci’er’s blade thrust forward violently.
The movement was crisp, tearing through the air.
The figure dodged sideways and forcefully clamped down on her wrist.
“It’s me.” The deep voice carried a lazy smile.
It was Xie Yunjin.
His robes were slightly damp, and his ink-black hair was dotted with rain.
He stood there with absolute composure, as if he had just taken a leisurely stroll through his own garden.
“In broad daylight, why does this little lady have such heavy killing intent?”
Expressionless, Ci’er retracted her blade and stuffed it back under her pillow.
“Why has the Second Master come?”
“A Tao said you were feeling unwell.” Xie Yunjin closed the window.
Retrieving a small, white-glazed porcelain bottle decorated with lotus patterns from his robes, he tapped out a vermilion pill and pressed it directly between her lips.
“It was my negligence.
I lost track of the days and should have brought you the medicine a few days earlier.”
As the pill entered her mouth, a familiar metallic sweetness mingled with the bitterness.
It was the taste of the Fever Relief Pill.
“Take one pill every month to suppress the restlessness of the scarlet poison,” Xie Yunjin said in a calm tone, entirely devoid of warmth.
“The Elixir Recipe requires your thousand gold blood as the primer.
As long as you live, I can refine the medicine.
Only if I refine the medicine can you continue to live.”
Ci’er did not swallow, instead pressing the pill under her tongue.
Xie Yunjin raised his eyes and cast a sidelong glance at her.
“What?
Afraid I’ll poison you to death?”
“Could the Second Master bear to part with me?” Ci’er slowly swallowed the pill and turned her face slightly.
Her breath, carrying a faint tremble from the lingering scarlet poison, brushed almost directly against his ear.
“If this servant girl dies, where will the Second Master find another lunatic willing to jump into a fire pit?”
Xie Yunjin’s jawline suddenly tightened.
“Wei Yinzhao.”
“It is Shen Ci’er.
The Second Master’s memory is truly poor.” Her lips curved upward.
Her voice was husky and languid, as if rolling straight from the back of her throat.
“The Second Master ordered this servant girl to seduce a man, yet you cannot even withstand this tiny bit of testing.
If I botch the performance in front of the Princely Heir in the future, will you blame this servant girl for being useless, or blame yourself for not teaching me well?”
Xie Yunjin stared at her.
His gaze slid from her brows and eyes down to the corners of her lips, paused for a moment, and then shifted away.
The look was neither long nor short, as if he had set some emotion down only to pick it back up again.
“The scarlet poison in your body has already seeped into your bones and blood, entangling your meridians.
It is absolutely not something that can be eradicated overnight.” Straightening his posture, he took a half-step back.
“Take it slowly.”
Xie Yunjin turned and pushed open the window.
A cold wind wrapped in rain swept inside, blowing away the remaining warmth in the room.
“Do not let my efforts go to waste.”
The window closed, and everything returned to silence.
Ci’er sat alone on the couch.
Only after her mood had settled did she fish a charcoal pencil and a small booklet from her bundle, scrawling crookedly by the dim light.
“Sixth Year of Yongxing, seventeenth day of the eleventh month, scarlet poison flared up.
Twenty-five days since the last time.
Itched deep in the bones, like the biting of ants.”
From the very first day she was trapped in the Stone Prison, those people had planted the scarlet poison in her.
Over the past five years, it had flared up every month without fail, subjecting her to endless torment.
Although Xie Yunjin had saved her, he unfortunately possessed no cure.
Moreover, the scarlet poison was scorching hot and could only be suppressed by items of a cold and chilling nature.
The blood of the legitimate daughter of the Wei family was called thousand gold blood.
Legend had it that it was an item of ultimate Yin.
Thus, she was her own cure, and also her own poison primer.
The Prince Heir of Nine-Bestowments’ courtyard.
The lanterns in the study burned brightly throughout the night.
Xie Chen sat upright before his desk as his guard, Qing Yan, entered and bowed to report.
“Young Master, the investigation is clear.
The first three deceased all had an All-Yin Destiny and had lived in the Wei Family Workshop in the southern part of the city during their youth.
The fourth victim’s birth chart is unknown.
The Embroidery Bureau must have grasped these key clues early on, but they deliberately suppressed them instead of making them public.”
Seeing his master had no reaction, Qing Yan continued his report, “That area in the south was originally the incense making workshop of the wealthy Wei family in the past.
After the incident with the Wei family, the government sealed and sold off the workshop.
It changed hands several times and is now rented out to refugees.
It is far from what it used to be…”
Mentioning the unsolved extermination case of the Wei family, Qing Yan subconsciously sneaked a glance at the Princely Heir’s expression, lowering his voice even further.
“This subordinate is bold enough to guess: the victims of the Painted Skin Case had an All-Yin Birth Chart, and the Prince Mansion’s maid selection also requires an All-Yin Destiny.
How could there be such a coincidence in this world?
Could it be…
someone is using the maid selection to stir up trouble?”
Xie Chen’s fingertips lightly pressed against the case file, his brows and eyes freezing into a mask of coldness.
Qing Yan dared not speak any further.
Rumors had long circulated in the Prince Mansion that the claim of the Princely Heir having a malignant destiny—requiring a Yin-Fated Woman to harmonize Yin and Yang to prolong his life—was merely a deliberate stalling tactic so he wouldn’t have to marry the daughter of the Minister of War.
Yet the Princely Heir had always strictly adhered to the rules and acted uprightly; he would absolutely never treat his own life or the Prince Mansion’s heirs as a trifling matter.
There had to be a hidden motive behind all this.
“That woman, how did the investigation go?” Xie Chen suddenly spoke.
“Replying to the Young Master, we have news.” Qing Yan handed over a small portrait of a woman.
Her father, Shen Da, worked as a castrator and died of illness three years ago.
Her mother didn’t survive the winter and followed him soon after.
That year, she was only thirteen or fourteen, yet she took up her father’s knife and sustained the family business herself.
Later, her uncles in the clan coveted the family property.
Not only did they divide the ancestral estate, but they also sold her to human traffickers.
She was passed around until she fell into the hands of Aunt Cui at the maid selection office, who kept her for service.”
He paused for a moment.
“There are no flaws to be found in her background or history.
However, it’s too clean, which made this subordinate suspicious.
Digging deeper along the subtle clues, I discovered things truly weren’t that simple…”
Xie Chen looked up.
Qing Yan spoke hesitantly, “The Second Master has had his eyes on her for a long time, and even secretly visited the maid selection office.”
Xie Chen’s fingertips paused slightly.
“Xie Yunjin touched her?”
Qing Yan’s eyelids twitched violently as he thought, “Touched?
What kind of touch?” Yama Xie acted perversely, and his reputation stank to high heaven.
Having a secret rendezvous with a candidate maid late at night—anyone with half a brain could figure out that it was nothing proper.
But the Princely Heir had ordered him not to improperly discuss the Second Master.
He could only lower his head and choose what was safe to say.
“The Second Master is surrounded by dense hidden posts.
This subordinate dared not get close to eavesdrop.”
Xie Chen sat in absolute silence.
The candlelight reflected his handsome profile, casting a shadow on the landscape screen behind him—as elegant and upright as a green pine, his brilliance restrained.
Taking this in, Qing Yan suddenly felt a bit uncomfortable.
“Since the Princely Heir suspects that young lady, it would be better to emulate the methods of the Embroidery Bureau and detain her first before—”
“No,” Xie Chen said.
His voice was light, but brokered no question.
“The Embroidery Bureau is the Embroidery Bureau, and I am me.
Without proof or evidence, she cannot be touched.”
“But Young Master—”
“Rules are rules,” Xie Chen said.
“If I capture someone based on intuition today, tomorrow someone else will use the same excuse to frame the innocent and fabricate charges.
This floodgate cannot be opened.”
Knowing the Princely Heir’s temperament, Qing Yan opened his mouth, but ultimately swallowed his words back down.
Xie Chen waved his hand.
“Investigate further.”
“Understood.”
Qing Yan bowed and retreated.
The study was left with only the quiet flickering of the candlelight.
Xie Chen stood up and walked to the window, gazing at the pitch-black courtyard.
The rain had stopped at some unknown point, but water still dripped from the eaves, hitting the stone steps one by one.
He wondered why Xie Yunjin, who never did anything useless, would set his sights on a maid from the maid selection office.
After pondering for a moment, he walked back to the Duo Bao Pavilion against the wall.
His finger lightly pressed against a seemingly ordinary carved wooden grid.
With a CLICK, a hidden compartment popped open.