The air in the laundry room felt like it was made of lead. I stared at that bloodstain on the white silk, my mind racing through every face I'd seen tonight. Lord Wan's cousin. A man who was shaking before the doors even broke. My throat went airtight as the panic began to claw at my chest.
"Get rid of it," I whispered to Xiao Shi, my voice barely recognizable. "Burn it. Now. Don't let a single thread remain."
"But Miss Ning, the guards—"
"Do it, Xiao Shi! If Yanchi finds this, your life ends before the sun comes up."
I didn't wait for her to nod. I turned on my heel and walked back into the main hall, forcing my face back into that untouchable 'Ice Queen' mask. In my head, I was already judging the entire situation. A corpse. There's a goddamn corpse somewhere in my house and I missed it.
I stepped out onto the veranda, hoping the night air would clear the scent of lye and copper from my nose. But the universe apparently had a very sick sense of humor. Standing at the edge of the peony garden, bathed in the pale, unforgiving moonlight, was Lu Yanchi.
He wasn't surrounded by guards this time. He was alone, his hands clasped behind his back, staring at a cluster of wilted red peonies. He didn't look like a magistrate right then. He looked like a predator waiting for the wind to shift.
"You're still here, Tuan Magistrate," I said, leaning against a lacquered pillar. I tried to make my voice sound bored, but my heart was doing that frantic tap-dance again. "The entertainment is over. Unless you're here for a private performance?"
Yanchi turned his head slowly. His eyes didn't slide down my body the way other men's did. They pinned me to the spot. He wasn't looking at a woman. He was looking at a case file that refused to be closed.
"You have a smudge on your sleeve, Yuening," he said.
I froze. My eyes darted down to my arm. Nothing. Just clean, crimson silk.
"Made you look," he remarked, a ghost of a shadow passing over his lips. It wasn't a smile. It was a victory. "Guilty people always check for stains they think they've hidden."
Bastard. "I'm not guilty, Tuan. I'm just meticulous about my laundry."
He stepped closer, his boots crunching softly on the gravel. The distance between us vanished until I could see the flecks of amber in his dark pupils. "I've spent ten years hunting people who think they're smarter than the law. But then they start to care about things. People. Little things like... a laundry girl who shakes too much."
My breath locked. He saw Xiao Shi. Goddammit, he's good.
"You see a criminal in every shadow, Lu Yanchi," I snapped, dropping the polite facade. "Do you ever just breathe? Or is that against the city ordinances?"
"I'll breathe when Lord Wan's cousin is found," he replied. "A man entered this Pavilion three hours ago. My men watched every exit. He never left. Yet, when we searched, the room was empty."
He reached out, his fingers tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. The gesture was so intimate, so human, that it felt more threatening than a knife to the throat.
"To everyone else, you're the untouchable Ning," he whispered. "But to me? You're just a very clever problem that needs to be solved."
He pulled back, the cold moonlight making his skin look like marble. "Truth has a way of rising to the surface, especially when it's weighted down by a body."
He walked away, his silhouette disappearing into the darkness. I stood there, trembling. He knew. I need to find that body before he does.
I hurried inside, bypassing the main hall and slipping toward the servant's stairs. The air grew damp and smelled of fermented plums. But at the heavy iron door of the cellar, I saw something that stopped me dead. The lock hadn't been picked. It had been melted.
I pushed the door open, the hinges screaming. The cellar was dark, the only light coming from the flickering torch I'd grabbed. I moved past the jars of plums, my eyes searching for the loose brick.
"Xiao Shi?" I called out softly. No answer.
I reached the spot where the Ledger should have been. The brick was already out. I peered into the hollow space—the Ledger of Peony was gone. In its place sat a single, blood-stained coin.
Air refused to enter my chest. It wasn't just a murder. It was a trade. I turned to run, but a shadow blocked the exit.
"Looking for this?"
The voice was deeper, raspy, and it carried that same expensive sandalwood—clean, arrogant, unmistakable.
As the figure stepped into the light, I didn't see a magistrate. I saw the man who was supposed to be dead—Lord Wan's cousin—holding my Ledger in one hand and a dripping blade in the other. His sleeve was spotless. Like blood was something he cleaned for a living.