The night grew deeper. The wind rattled the lanterns in the alley behind the gambling den, stretching Pi Yanlin’s shadow thin.
He shook the wine jar in his arms, the liquid inside sloshing with a faint, rhythmic sound. His footsteps, however, remained perfectly steady—Xiao Chengyu’s remark earlier about "asking the handyman to look over the muddled accounts" was clearly a ladder extended to him; not climbing it now would be an insult to the man’s kindness.
The wooden door to the accounting office was left ajar. The new lock Gu Qinghuan had mentioned hung on the doorframe, its cylinder so oily and slick it looked like a prop left out for show.
Pi Yanlin knocked his knuckles against the doorframe. Not waiting for an answer, he leaned into the smell of wine and stumbled inside.
"Master Xiao’s accounting office is even damper than my shack." He pulled over a wooden stool and sat down, tossing the wine jar onto the desk with his other hand, though his peripheral vision scanned the mountain of ledgers stacked nearby.
As a notification tone chimed in his ear, his Adam’s apple bobbed—he had spent the last hour leaning against a pillar feigning drunkenness, just enough to trigger the resting requirement.
"Ding—host has met the requirements for a special sign-in. Obtained investigative technique: Lie-Detecting Ears."
His earlobes suddenly flared with heat, as if someone had pressed a steaming towel against them.
Pi Yanlin gripped the wine jar tighter, pretending to bow his head for a drink while actually straining his ears. The ledger on the desk suddenly emitted a soft, friction-filled rustle, as if the pages were tearing at one another.
He narrowed his eyes, activating his "Revealing Vision." The blue cloth cover of the ledger instantly shed its disguise, revealing handwriting inside where cinnabar ink and black ink tangled together.
"Third month of Wuchen, the Minister Li’s son owes three thousand taels; fifth month of Jisi, the Grand Marshal Zhou’s grandson borrowed five thousand using his property deed as collateral..." His fingertip brushed the bottom of the page, where a faint red blur sat, looking like cinnabar dissolved in water. "What a devilish ledger. They use black ink by day to deceive the eye, and cinnabar that appears only at night. Quite the dual-natured trick."
*Thump!*
A heavy sound echoed from the next room, followed by a muffled sob.
Pi Yanlin slammed his wine jar onto the desk, splashing liquid across half the ledger. Muttering about a "need to relieve himself," he stumbled toward the wall and crept along it until he reached the adjacent room.
It was a tiny storage closet, smelling of mold and blood.
Moonlight spilled in through a ventilation window, illuminating a young girl huddled in the corner. The hem of her emerald-green dress was torn, and purple finger marks bruised her wrists. She was trembling, a hand clamped over her mouth.
"Are you... Xiaocui?" Pi Yanlin gave an exaggerated hiccup and bolted the door behind him.
Through his Lie-Detecting Ears, the girl’s sobbing suddenly sharpened, as if ringing directly against his eardrums. "Don't be afraid. I'm with the authorities."
"The authorities?" Xiaocui jerked her head up, the light in her eyes stinging. "They say the authorities are all accomplices! But... but Wang Tiezui said the person who was going to die three days ago really died yesterday! It was a scapegoat!" She lunged at him, her fingernails digging into his wrist. "The real ledger was moved long ago. The secret code is in... in the Red Phoenix Pattern!"
A ball of paper slid into Pi Yanlin’s palm, still warm from Xiaocui’s skin.
He gripped her trembling hands, his Lie-Detecting Ears capturing the thunderous rhythm of her heartbeat—not from fear, but from a desperate, suppressed urgency. "Who locked you in here?"
"Xiao Chengyu’s men." Xiaocui fell silent abruptly; footsteps were approaching outside.
Pi Yanlin retreated to the door, pulling his collar open to release the stench of sweat and alcohol.
The door creaked open. Two guards holding lanterns poked their heads in, saw him slumped against the wall gnawing on a wine jar, cursed him as a "drunken handyman," and slammed the door shut.
"Red Phoenix Pattern..." Pi Yanlin retreated to the office with the paper ball. Under the moonlight, the drawing was a twisted flame, looking remarkably like the tail feathers of the legendary Red Phoenix.
He was about to hide it when a scream erupted outside: "Help! I told you he would die—"
It was Wang Tiezui’s voice!
When Pi Yanlin kicked the door open and rushed out, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. In the alley behind the gambling den, three men in black hoods were beating the ground with wooden clubs. Wang Tiezui’s divination banner was trampled into the mud, and blood flowed from his forehead, masking half his face.
"Stop!" Pi Yanlin grabbed a broom from the corner and charged, but the men acted as if they had predicted his move; they dropped their clubs and fled.
He crouched down and pressed his fingers to Wang Tiezui’s neck—it was gone, cold as ice.
The old man’s eyes were still open, blood smeared across his lips. His half-parted mouth held a final fragment of a sentence: "Red... Phoenix..."
"Red Phoenix Pattern, Red Phoenix..." Pi Yanlin tore the string of copper coins from Wang Tiezui’s waist. A crumpled piece of paper fell out—it was identical to the Red Phoenix drawing Xiaocui had given him.
He tucked the paper away, and as he looked up, he met Gu Qinghuan’s gaze. She stood at the mouth of the alley, her Xiuchun Saber in hand, the scabbard stained with blood. "You arrived just in time."
In the Xuan'an Bureau’s office, a candle sputtered and popped.
Pi Yanlin spread the ledger across the windowsill. As the morning light crawled over the eaves, he held it up to the sun. Within the creases of the blue cover, a line of numbers emerged, appearing like a scrambled row of abacus beads.
"Three thousand taels for Minister Li’s son, five thousand for Grand Marshal Zhou’s grandson..." He tapped his fingers on the desk. "Added together, these figures total exactly the silver the Ministry of Revenue allocated for river defense last month. A fine gambling den indeed—it’s laundering river defense funds."
Gu Qinghuan’s teacup cracked with a sharp *clink*.
She stared at the ghostly numbers on the ledger, her Xiuchun Saber trembling slightly in its sheath. "Are you saying the people behind Xiao Chengyu are using the river defense funds to set a trap and fleece the heirs of noble families?"
"Not just that." Pi Yanlin unfolded the paper ball Xiaocui had given him. "Wang Tiezui was clutching this when he died. The Red Phoenix Pattern... there is only one family in Dajin that uses the Red Phoenix as a crest." He suddenly laughed, slumping into his chair like a man without bones. "Constable Gu, would you be willing to play a part in a play with me tomorrow?"
"What play?"
"You play the role of a down-and-out noble lady who owes a gambling debt to Xiao Chengyu." Pi Yanlin flipped a piece of silver, watching it spin. "I refuse to believe they can resist adding more fuel to this fire."
Gu Qinghuan pressed her hand against her Xiuchun Saber, her knuckles turning white.
The wind outside the window surged in with the morning mist, rustling the ledger pages. The line written in cinnabar—"River Defense Silver: 30,000 Taels"—stared directly back into her eyes.