The wick of the lamp in the Xuan'an Bureau duty room crackled under the pressure of Gu Qinghuan’s fingertips.
She stared at the ball of paper bearing the Red Phoenix Pattern spread out on the table. The bloodstains on the scabbard of her Xiuchun Saber had not yet dried—splattered against a bluestone slab during her pursuit of a suspect earlier, they now looked like a solidified scar, pointing directly at the vermilion characters in the ledger that read: "Thirty thousand taels of river defense silver."
"Playing the part of a noble young lady?" She suddenly looked up, her Xiuchun Saber trembling slightly within its sheath. "When my entire Gu family was slaughtered, those noble scions were holding their teacups and saying, 'The daughter of a military house is nothing more than this.'"
Pi Yanlin sat half-slumped in his chair, spinning a piece of silver between his fingertips. He had long since noticed the veins bulging on the back of her hand as she gripped the saber, just as he had heard the faint sound of teeth grinding in her throat—this woman always ground her emotions into a sharp blade inside her scabbard, yet he was the only one who could glimpse the truth through the tiniest of cracks.
"Xiao Chengyu isn't looking for a person; he's looking for bait," he said, tossing the silver coin into the air and catching it again. "You owe him three thousand taels in gambling debts. If you weep and beg for an extension, he’ll believe this scheme can hook a bigger fish."
Gu Qinghuan’s gaze swept over the names of the noble scions listed in the ledger. The legitimate son of Minister Li had struck a vegetable seller in her jurisdiction just last month, and the eldest grandson of Grand Marshal Zhou had led a group to burn down the orphanage in the south of the city last year—every tael of silver these people lost was soaked in the blood of the commoners.
She suddenly pulled the silver hairpin from her hair, and as her dark locks fell, they stirred a breeze that flipped the page of the Red Phoenix Pattern paper Pi Yanlin had spread out. "Midnight, the back alley of the Wanhua Brothel."
"Got it," Pi Yanlin replied lazily, fishing a wax-paper parcel from his sleeve and tossing it over. "Disguise powder—better than the stuff the Xuan'an Bureau uses." Watching Gu Qinghuan nimbly open the paper, he added, "Don't overdo the crying. You need to keep that tear mole at the corner of your eye. Xiao Chengyu, that bastard, loves to stare at a woman's moles."
Gu Qinghuan’s fingers paused on the wax paper. She remembered seeing Xiao Chengyu three years ago while investigating a salt merchant case in a den of vice—he had been teasing a top-tier courtesan while holding a teacup, his gaze like a venomous snake, sweeping from her brow to her ankles before settling on the rouge mole on her left cheek.
*This menial...* As she looked up, she caught the half-smiling, half-mocking gaze of Pi Yanlin and swallowed the words that had reached her throat.
When the watchman’s clapper struck the third watch in the back alley of the Wanhua Brothel, Pi Yanlin was crouched at the base of a wall, gnawing on a roasted sweet potato. Watching the figure wrapped in a plain gown at the mouth of the alley, he nearly laughed aloud—Gu Qinghuan had flattened her eyebrows by a fraction, added a rice-grain-sized tear mole at the corner of her eye, and walked with a slight tremble in her waist; she truly resembled a noble daughter driven to a dead end by gambling debts.
"Young Master, have mercy..." she stepped forward unsteadily, clutching a handkerchief with a piece of broken porcelain tucked into the corner. "My father is gravely ill, and I truly cannot scrape together these three thousand taels..."
Xiao Chengyu’s ivory fan snapped open. He leaned against the vermilion doorframe of the gambling den, his moon-white brocade robe embroidered with gold-threaded lotus vines, though a smudge of ink stained his cuff—Pi Yanlin narrowed his eyes; the position of that ink stain was identical to the blurred mark on the "river defense silver" entry in the ledger.
"Miss Gu?" Xiao Chengyu asked, fanning himself with a smile. "Isn't your father recuperating in Jiangnan?"
Gu Qinghuan’s fingertips tightened on the handkerchief, the jagged porcelain biting into her palm. Recalling Pi Yanlin’s instruction to "shake, make him see the flaw," she let a sob roll through her throat: "He... he coughed up blood last month, and the doctor said he needs ginseng to hang on to life..."
Xiao Chengyu’s fan paused in mid-air. He stared at the tear mole at the corner of her eye and suddenly reached out to lift her chin.
Pi Yanlin’s molars ached—the bastard’s nails were trimmed to sharp points, and they were digging into an old scar on Gu Qinghuan’s jaw.
"Come inside," Xiao Chengyu withdrew his hand, his brocade robe brushing against the hem of Gu Qinghuan’s skirt. "Perhaps this young master can grant you an extension."
The incense inside the gambling den made Pi Yanlin wrinkle his nose. He huddled behind a wine jar in the corner, feigning a drunken stupor while using his "turn-the-tide eyes" to watch the central gaming table. The dealer’s hands flew over the dice cup, but Pi Yanlin saw the hidden pattern at the bottom—a magnet as thin as a cicada's wing, using the tremor of the dealer’s wrist to pull the mercury inside the dice toward the "six" side.
"Miss Gu, your luck is quite good," Xiao Chengyu said, sitting in the seat of honor with a teacup, though his gaze was glued to the ten taels of silver Gu Qinghuan had just won. "Another round?"
Gu Qinghuan pinched her palm beneath the table. Remembering Pi Yanlin’s instruction to "lose until the third round," she bit her lip and pushed forward her last remaining coins: "I... I only have this much left."
The moment the dice cup was slammed down, Pi Yanlin’s "turn-the-tide eyes" suddenly burned. He saw the silver ring on the dealer’s pinky tap the edge of the table—the signal to activate the magnet.
Amidst the sound of a wine jar crashing to the floor, he stumbled forward and slapped his palm heavily onto the dice cup: "Wait!"
The noise in the room died instantly. Xiao Chengyu’s teacup cracked, tea leaking between his fingers. Gu Qinghuan looked at the tips of Pi Yanlin’s ears, which were flushed red—the lazy bum was even committed to the full performance of being drunk.
"Is this gentleman drunk?" The dealer asked with a forced smile, reaching to pull him away, only to have his wrist gripped in return.
Pi Yanlin used his other hand to pry open the dice cup. Seven dice rolled out; two had split in half, with wet mercury still clinging to their hollowed-out centers. "The dice are hollow, and there’s a magnet underneath," he said, looking up with a lift of his eyes. "Master Xiao, the rules of your gambling den are even more deceptive than the petitions I write."
Taking the opportunity, Gu Qinghuan whipped out a copy of the ledger and slammed it onto the table: "The three thousand taels from Minister Li’s son, the five thousand from Grand Marshal Zhou’s grandson... put together, it is exactly the river defense silver. Master Xiao, you aren't laundering gambling debts; you’re laundering the lives of the people."
Xiao Chengyu’s face turned white as a sheet. He stood up abruptly, the jade pendant at his waist clattering against the corner of the table. "Throw them out!" he roared, only to realize that the gambling den doors had been completely blocked by patrolling constables.
Gu Qinghuan’s Xiuchun Saber was already drawn, its light reflecting off Xiao Chengyu’s trembling fingertips—the ink-stained silver ring was pointed straight at the accounting office.
When the lock on the accounting office was smashed, Pi Yanlin was crouched in the corner checking in. As the System notification exploded in his mind, he felt a "Xuan Pattern Chip" in his palm. The handwriting on the back was slightly blurred; he moved closer to the candlelight to read it: "The heavenly secret must not be revealed; retreat immediately." The hair on the back of his neck stood up as he looked up and saw a shadow flash across the high wall—the silhouette looked exactly like the "Red Phoenix" that Wang Tiezui had mentioned just before dying yesterday.
"Menial Pi!" Gu Qinghuan’s voice echoed from the accounting office. "There are forged river defense warrants here, and half a bottle of crane-top poison!"
Pi Yanlin tucked the chip into his sleeve, his expression returning to its usual languor as he looked up: "Master Xiao, this round... you’ve lost."
When the night watch of the Xuan'an Bureau knocked on the door of the duty room, Pi Yanlin was using a teacup to warm the chip. Gu Qinghuan paused in her task of wiping her saber—the knock was three parts more urgent than usual, carrying an indescribable chill.
"Granny Sun in the south of the city is dead," the night watch said, wiping sweat from his brow. "She died in her own house, her lips blue, as if... she’d been struck by some evil."
Pi Yanlin pressed his finger lightly against the chip. The moonlight outside the window was suddenly obscured by clouds, casting the bloodstains on Gu Qinghuan’s scabbard to look like a Red Phoenix flower in full bloom.