Su Residence · Side Courtyard
"Haa…"
Iris sank deep into the steaming wooden tub and let out a long breath.
Four days after transmigrating, this was the first time she had felt remotely relaxed.
Hot water eased the ache in her limbs.
It washed away the morgue's stench, the marsh mud, and the blood that still clung to her senses.
"No shower."
"No heater."
"Not even soap."
She flicked water up with one hand, eyeing the rough bathing bean in her palm with open disgust.
"But it's the only comfort I've got right now."
Yesterday's Hundred Gods Procession surfaced in her mind.
So did that nearly frozen conversation inside the cramped carriage with Prince Chen.
Only now, she realized something.
What stood between them wasn't just status, or time, or worlds.
It was the definition of life itself.
In Iris's world, life came first.
Saving someone was never a calculation.
A heartbeat carried an entire universe.
No one should be reduced to ash for the sake of a "bigger picture."
Even a corpse deserved respect.
Her work was to speak for the dead.
To close the loop.
In Prince Chen's world, even living people were weights on a scale.
As long as the scale stayed balanced, and the outcome stayed controlled, everything could be priced.
Life.
Pain.
Organs rotted through by cinnabar.
All of it fell under what the powerful called "worth it."
He was solving a problem of rule.
She couldn't forget his look in the carriage.
It wasn't hatred.
It wasn't cruelty.
That was what made it worse.
She understood it.
And she was grateful he'd protected her yesterday.
But that calm of his still sent a chill through her.
She could understand why he had to weigh things and the pressure he lived under.
But she couldn't accept the logic of turning lives into tools.
That realization left Iris with a loneliness she had never felt before.
It made her want to go back.
"Looks like solving cases alone won't get me to one hundred percent."
Iris wiped the water from her face.
"The real core is the power network behind them."
[Current Main Quest Progress: 18%]
A translucent blue panel appeared in the mist.
Iris stared at the number, irritation rising.
"System."
"Come out and run the numbers with me."
"Explain how this eighteen percent is calculated."
[Progress Breakdown: 1) Resolved Su Residence murder case and confirmed identity (1%).]
[2) Identified and assisted target Prince Chen with an autopsy (4%).]
[3) Destroyed the Red Clay Bone Domino production line (8%).]
[4) Treated Prince Chen and saved his life (5%).]
"Heh."
Iris let out a cold laugh.
"All that near-death pressure and brutal workload."
"And it's worth eighteen percent?"
She closed her eyes.
Her mind started sorting through everything at high speed.
Su Mo's memories covered twenty years.
In those memories, the Crown Prince had already been named.
The Emperor's legitimate eldest son.
"How powerful do I have to be…"
"to make the Emperor depose the Crown Prince and choose someone else?"
Iris complained under her breath.
"And why me?"
"Why was I chosen to transmigrate?"
"And why into Su Mo?"
She opened her eyes and looked at her reflection on the water's surface.
The face resembled her modern one by seventy percent.
But it was younger.
Softer.
Was it random?
Or was it fate?
In Su Mo's memory, Su Mo was the only daughter of the Su family.
Her birth mother died early.
Her stepmother loved picking fights.
And that so-called father, Master Su, was a wealthy merchant who rarely came home.
A face full of arrogance.
A body soaked in money.
A man who never cared about his daughter.
Her thoughts tangled into a mess.
When the bath was over, Iris decided to walk around the estate.
If there were clues, they would be here.
Late Night · Fallen Plum Court
The night was ink-black.
The Su family's night patrol had just passed.
At the edge of the estate sat a ruined room.
It looked abandoned for years.
Iris pushed the door open.
Musty air rushed out.
Under pale moonlight, Iris studied the so-called "forbidden place" in Su Mo's memory.
The room was bare.
Anything valuable had been cleared out long ago.
Only heavy rosewood furniture remained, buried under thick dust.
She pulled on gloves and began a methodical search.
Not for money.
For the wrongness.
As a forensic pathologist, she was trained to spot what didn't belong.
Under the bed?
Empty.
The wardrobe?
Empty.
Behind the walls?
Nothing.
Finally, Iris stopped in front of a dusty dressing table.
The bronze mirror was fogged with age.
A few shriveled rouge boxes lay scattered across the surface.
Everything looked ordinary.
Then her hand paused on the edge.
The grain was wrong.
On the carved pattern along the side, one small section was worn smoother than the rest.
Someone had touched it over and over.
"A mechanism?"
Iris's eyes sharpened.
She pressed that spot.
Nothing.
Tried twisting left and right.
Nothing.
It needed a specific rhythm.
Or a sequence.
Iris closed her eyes and tapped lightly along the wood.
Tap.
Tap-tap.
Tap…
The sound was hollow.
The inside was empty.
She stopped trying to "solve" it.
Instead, Iris pulled out the Ghost Scalpel.
A blade sharp enough to cut iron like paper.
She drove it straight into the seam.
Crack.
The panel split open.
A small hidden compartment was revealed.
Inside sat a rusted tin box.
Iris took a slow breath.
Then she lifted the lid with the tip of the blade.
No secret martial manual.
No treasure map.
Only a neatly folded sheet of paper.
The paper was yellowed.
The edges were brittle.
Iris unfolded it carefully.
And in that instant, her breathing stopped.
This wasn't an ancient ink painting.
It was a charcoal sketch.
The lines were strong.
The shading was precise.
The perspective was perfect.
It was modern technique.
A style that didn't belong in this era.
A man and a woman stood in the drawing.
The woman wore Great Yan clothing, gentle and beautiful.
There were traces of Su Mo in her features.
It was Su Mo's mother.
And the man beside her…
Iris's heart missed a beat.
Her fingers trembled as she traced the man's face.
Her eyes burned red in seconds.
It was her father.
Wei Xingzhi.
Dr. Wei.
The man who had vanished from her modern world five years ago.
…
Time stopped.
"Get home early after work."
"I'll make your favorite Dongpo pork."
That was the last thing her father had ever said to Iris.
"Dad… Dad…"
The name jammed in her throat.
No sound came out.
Tears fell without warning, splashing onto the back of her hand.
Scalding hot.
The man in the sketch wore a teal robe.
His long hair was tied beneath a crown.
A scroll rested in his hand.
He was turned slightly, looking at the woman beside him with warmth.
Even dressed like someone from the past, he looked only in his twenties.
Bright.
Alive.
Iris stared at his brow bone.
A faint scar ran across it, broken and shallow.
That scar was real.
It came from when Iris was five.
Her father had taken a blade for her.
It was the mark she had searched for, for five years.
The obsession she never let go of, no matter how many morgues she walked into.
Wei Xingzhi.
Dr. Wei.
The medical genius who disappeared into thin air.
Her biological father.
Why?
Why was her father here?
Had he transmigrated too?
And this sketch…
The paper was yellowed and brittle, like an object from nearly twenty years ago.
But her father had only been missing for five years.
So why did this drawing look like it had been here so long?
She wiped her tears hard.
She didn't understand the time gap.
But she couldn't collapse here.
On the back of the paper, there was only one line.
"The fire in Crimsonfire City is going to burn."
"Ah Shen, wait for me."
"If I don't return…"
"pretend you never met me."
No signature.
No explanation.
Just a sentence with no beginning and no end.
"What was Dad's relationship with Su Mo's pregnant mother?"
"Was Su Mo…"
"their daughter in this world?"
"Is that why I became Su Mo?"
"Crimsonfire City…"
Iris stared at the words.
Her fingers whitened as they clenched the paper.
So hard it nearly tore.
She didn't know what kind of place it was.
But she knew one thing.
This was the clue she had been looking for.