Late at night, in the rear courtyard of the Fang family estate.
No lamps were lit in Lan Yi's courtyard.
She sat alone by the window, gazing at the distant temple, the moonlight filtering through the lattice to illuminate her beautiful face.
“Eldest Miss.”
A low male voice suddenly came from outside the door, hushed as if afraid of disturbing anyone.
Lan Yi's fingers, clutching her handkerchief, suddenly tightened.
Then, she slowly let go.
Without standing up, she simply said, “Come in.”
The door was gently pushed open.
A young man slipped inside.
He turned to close the door, bolted it, and swept his gaze across every corner of the room in one smooth, fluid motion.
It was clearly an instinct honed through countless training sessions.
He appeared to be in his early twenties, with proper features, wearing an unremarkable set of black martial arts attire.
Lan Yi looked at him. “A'han, didn't I tell you never to show your face in the Fang estate again?”
The man in black, named A'han, walked up to Lan Yi and fell to his knees at her feet, looking up at her. “Eldest Miss, let's go confess our sins to the Divine Lady, alright?”
He was an orphan adopted by the Lan family.
Trained as a hidden guard from childhood, he began practicing with the blade at five and was brought to Lan Yi's side at fourteen, becoming her shadow.
The Eldest Miss was his sole reason for living.
“What did you say?” Lan Yi's gaze turned cold.
For the first time, A'han actively crossed the line. He gripped Lan Yi's hand tightly, his eyes red. “Eldest Miss, let us confess to the Divine Lady and beg for Her forgiveness. I know better than anyone how much suffering you endured to reach this point. But She is a goddess, not someone a mortal can fool...”
“Enough!”
Lan Yi sharply cut A'han off. “My life was placed on the gambling table long ago. How could there be any way back?”
“Are you afraid? Coward!”
She violently flung A'han's hand away.
Her strength was surprisingly great.
A'han remained kneeling, his hand still frozen in mid-air, holding the posture from when he had grasped her hand just moments before.
Only after a long silence did he speak. “Eldest Miss, I am not afraid of death. I am only afraid that you will be utterly destroyed.”
“Do you think I'm not afraid?”
Lan Yi's fingers gripped the window lattice so hard her knuckles turned white.
“Ever since I married into the Fang family, I have been afraid every single day.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “Afraid of exposure, afraid that the fool Fang Shuo would suddenly smarten up one day, afraid that Xu Miao would notice something amiss, and even more afraid that the child in my womb wouldn't survive to be born...”
“I have far more things to fear than you do.”
“But what good does fear do? Confess? Plead guilty? And then be cast aside by the Lan family to become their scapegoat?”
A'han crawled forward on his knees.
He grabbed the hem of Lan Yi's skirt, his voice urgent and hoarse, carrying a tone that bordered on begging. “Eldest Miss, the Divine Lady will surely show mercy in light of our confession and spare our lives. As long as we live, we will have a chance to rise again. Please, believe me!”
“I don't believe it. If the gods were truly fair, why would there be so much injustice in this world?” Lan Yi leaned down, cupping A'han's face and wiping away the tear stains at the corner of his eyes with her thumb.
“A'han, didn't you repeatedly say you loved me? That you wanted to be with me forever, never to be parted?”
“I will give you two choices.”
“Either live and die with me, taking one last gamble to pull the wool over their eyes and secure everything we want.”
“Or I will kill you right now, burying you and that secret together in a place that will never see the light of day.”
“There is no third path.”
The night wind swept in through the window.
It blew against the candle flame on the table, making it flicker precariously.
In the flickering light,
their shadows overlapped and separated on the floor.
*
On the other side.
Fang Shuo and the others had been busy all day.
Since they could not exhume the body to perform an autopsy and determine the cause of death, they could only go around questioning the servants of the Fang estate.
At the moment.
They were in Fang Shuo's courtyard, painstakingly unraveling the clues.
Chen Zhi said, “I questioned three servants, and their accounts all differ. Some said the Master was in decent spirits a few days ago, some said he was already bedridden, and some claimed to know nothing at all...”
Remembering how simple-minded Fang Shuo was, he paused slightly and made his point even clearer.
“I suspect some of them have been bribed.”
Yet Fang Shuo still looked bewildered. “Senior Brother Chen, someone in our estate was bribed? Who could possibly bribe them?”
“Dummy.” Cui He cast a sidelong glance at him. “Governor Fang was gravely ill, and you weren't even in the estate. Isn't everything in this household run by your stepmother, Madam Lan, and the butler, Uncle Fu?”
“If we look at it from the perspective of who benefits, your childhood tutor, Chief Administrator Xu Miao, is also a suspect...”
The more Fang Shuo listened, the more reasonable it sounded. “Then should we investigate all of them?”
“Yes.”
Cui He lowered her head in thought, then added, “But we can only investigate them one by one. Doing it all at once might alert the enemy.”
Just then, a female student walked in.
“I found something.”
She placed an account book on the table. “Looking at the records of medicinal herb purchases here, it is highly likely that Governor Fang fell ill four months ago, rather than suffering a sudden onset of disease just a month ago.”
Having said this, she paused.
Noticing that Cui He beside her was still young, she reached out to cover the girl's ears before continuing, “I carefully studied the medicinal herbs listed. One of them cannot be taken if one is engaging in sexual intercourse. Yet, Madam Lan is only a little over three months pregnant.”
All suspicion pointed toward Madam Lan.
Fang Shuo, however, was somewhat conflicted. “If Madam Lan did all this, and she witnessed the Divine Lady's divine powers, shouldn't she confess her sins to the Divine Lady and beg for Her forgiveness?”
Although Cui He hadn't heard what the female student said, she could guess the gist of it. She looked at Fang Shuo. “A desperate and utterly wicked person does not fear ghosts or gods.”
Chen Zhi added, “Junior Brother Fang, Governor Fang protected you very well. You have never experienced the feeling of desperately wanting something but being unable to get it. Naturally, you cannot comprehend sacrificing everything just to obtain what you desire.”
“The human heart is far more terrifying than ghosts or gods.”
Hearing this, Fang Shuo stared at them blankly.
*
Inside the temple, Yun Shu sat on the sofa, watching everyone's every move on the system monitor.
The little fox squatted to the side, eating ice cream. “Host, why are they all only suspecting Lan Yi? Should we give them a hint so they can find the real culprit sooner?”
“Suspecting Lan Yi isn't wrong. After all, she is a key figure in Governor Fang's case.”
Yun Shu's eyes narrowed slightly. “An investigation requires following one clue at a time to bring the truth to light.”
The little fox nodded half-understandingly. “So we're just going to do nothing and watch them investigate?”
After asking, it felt a bit of regret.
Why did it have to open its big mouth? It had finally gotten two days of peace and quiet!
“Of course we can't just watch the show forever.” Yun Shu stood up. “It's time to add some fuel to the fire and up the intensity.”
She had to blow this matter completely out of proportion.
It had to escalate to the point where it threatened both the immortal and mortal realms.
Otherwise, she wouldn't even be able to unleash the ultimate move she had painstakingly prepared to uproot those pests.
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