Song Qingshu blinked — and then registered that the situation did, in fairness, look rather incriminating. He opened his mouth quickly. “You’ve misunderstood — I was—”
He got no further. The group surged in and ringed him completely, sword points levelled at him from every angle, their cold edges catching the candlelight.
Song Qingshu’s eyes moved quickly across the faces. Why are there so many? I was the only escort assigned. He looked more carefully at their clothes. Ship’s guards — the rchant vessel’s own complent.
“The intruder is soone else,” he said rapidly. “I only just entered myself.” His hand closed on the hilt of the blade at his hip, every sense pulled taut. Being hacked apart in this room was not how he intended to go.
A faint sweat had broken at his temples. Without inner energy, facing this many n at once, he could not guarantee walking away clean.
Fortunately, these n saw him as one of the Chancellor’s household guards, and without knowing how hollow that shell now was, they gave him so caution. No one had rushed him yet.
It wouldn’t hold. Song Qingshu understood that once one man moved, the rest would follow. He spoke quickly.
“The young mistress has been given a sleeping drug. Wake her and ask her yourself.”
Taohong’s mouth opened to protest — but the suggestion was reasonable enough that she had nothing to set against it. She snapped at the ring of n: “Keep your eyes on him!” — and went to the bed.
She called Qi Fang’s na several tis without result. Song Qingshu’s brow furrowed. “She’s been drugged — you won’t rouse her like that. Fetch so cold water and splash it on her face.”
Taohong wheeled on him with the expression of soone who has just found ammunition. “Oh? So you already know she’s been drugged. And yet you claim you had nothing to do with it?”
Song Qingshu’s response was cool and contemptuous. “Basic knowledge of the jianghu — sothing any guard worth his posting would know. Hmm. A little learning really is a dangerous thing to be without.” The deliberate ntion of his post as one of the Chancellor’s guards was calculated: let them all rember what it would cost to move against him carelessly.
The jab left Taohong red-faced, but she had no good answer. She sent for water.
A soft moan.
Cold water pressed to her face, Qi Fang stirred and opened her eyes.
“What’s happened?” She looked around blearily at the crowd in her room, still making no sense of it.
Taohong had just drawn breath to put her own colour on events when Qi Fang happened to glance down. What she found beneath the blanket made her gasp — she snatched the covering tight against herself and clutched it there, a look of rigid horror on her face.
“How—” Her mind had gone blank. She could only stare.
“My lady, you need not be alard.” Song Qingshu spoke steadily. “I ca in ti. The intruder had not yet acted before he fled. You should be unhard. In any case, having this many n crowded into my lady’s chamber is hardly appropriate — perhaps they might be asked to wait outside while the matter is sorted.”
“Ah — yes—” Qi Fang was not, under any circumstances, comfortable being surrounded by strange n. That she was currently unclothed beneath the blanket made every additional second feel unendurable. She gripped the bedding harder.
“My lady, do not let this villain deceive you.” Taohong cut in swiftly. “He was the one who broke into your room. We caught him in the very act of — of—”
“It was you?!” Qi Fang turned on Song Qingshu, and the bewildered shock in her face sharpened instantly into fury. To wake from sleep bare as the day she was born, narrowly escaping violation — any woman would find such a brutal reversal more than she could take.
“My lady, please hear .” Song Qingshu did not hurry. In a few clean sentences he reconstructed the sequence of events: the shadow he had seen pass his door, the pursuit along the corridor, the unanswered knocks, the latched door, the open window.
“Hmm.” Qi Fang’s expression shifted. The fine line of her brow drew together uncertainly.
“Pretty speech,” Taohong said, with a sharp, dismissive laugh. “I saw him myself — creeping into your room in the dead of night. I’m only one woman, hardly in a position to stop him alone, and if I’d risked my own life and still failed to save you, what would that have accomplished? So I ran straight down to find Manager Du, and brought his guards up with
— and we found this man standing right beside your ladyship’s bed, on the verge of—”
The Manager Du she nad was the ship’s owner. Travel in these unsettled tis made ard escorts a necessity for any serious comrcial voyage.
Song Qingshu felt a flash of genuine alarm beneath his composure. “You’re lying outright. You said you saw
— with which eye? And I knocked at your door not long ago, with no response. I assud you’d been drugged as well.”
His thoughts moved rapidly. Why would Taohong say she saw ? Did the intruder deliberately dress to resemble Xiong Da? Or — is this a trap laid against
specifically?
But his current identity was Xiong Da. Beyond the friction with Zhang Quan, Xiong Da had no particular enemies. And even Zhang Quan — would he really manufacture sothing this elaborate, dragging the young mistress into it, just to settle a grudge?
Qi Fang’s head still throbbed from the sleeping drug. Faced with two entirely contradictory accounts, her expression was one of genuine bewildernt. “Manager Du — is what Taohong said accurate?”
The heavyset, middle-aged man bowed with careful deference. “To report to my lady — Taohong did indeed co to
in a state of great agitation, saying an intruder had entered my lady’s room. I brought my n up at once, and we found this man — Guard Xiong — standing at my lady’s bedside.”
He was cursing his luck inwardly. He had thought conveying the Chancellor’s young mistress to Lin’an a fine opportunity to establish ties with a powerful household. And on the very first night, this.
Taohong pressed her advantage. “Guard Xiong — you said you saw soone co up the stairs and followed them. Is that right?”
“It is,” Song Qingshu said evenly. He had steadied himself. This was clearly a trap of so kind. He would watch how it was sprung.
“Then it’s very strange indeed.” Taohong turned to the shipowner. “Manager Du’s n have been standing guard at the foot of the stairs the entire evening. Did they see anyone co up?”
“Absolutely not,” Manager Du said, mopping his broad, sweating face. “I had given express instructions — no one was to disturb my lady’s rest. My n would not have let anyone pass.”
Taohong turned next to the two pages. “Sixī, Wang Er — your rooms are right by the staircase. Did either of you see anything suspicious?”
Both pages shook their heads like rattles.
Taohong turned back to Song Qingshu with an expression of perfect satisfaction. “Guard Xiong — when we ca in just now, were you not in the act of lifting the blanket from my lady?”
“What?” Qi Fang stifled a sound of dismay, her eyes going to Song Qingshu in sharp alarm. She was lying here with nothing on — if he had lifted the blanket—
Song Qingshu held her gaze, and after a mont, gave a single nod. “I was.”
Qi Fang nearly fainted.
“And what do you have to say for yourself now?” Taohong regarded him with open triumph.
Song Qingshu dismissed her and addressed Qi Fang directly, keeping his voice calm. “I was concerned my lady had been injured. I lifted the corner of the blanket to check. I had not anticipated—”
“Say no more.” Qi Fang cut him off. Her face had gone the colour of hot coals. She was still wrapped in the blanket, and as long as no further detail was spoken aloud, the others in the room need not know precisely what had been seen. If word spread — she would never live it down.
Taohong had drifted to Manager Du’s elbow and was murmuring to him. The man’s face was damp with perspiration. He murmured back: sothing about a generous expression of gratitude if she would speak well of him to the young mistress.
A small, satisfied curve appeared at the corner of Taohong’s mouth. She pointed at Song Qingshu. “Have this shaless brute dealt with on the spot — as a lesson to the rest of the crew.”
“Yes — yes, of course.” Manager Du steeled himself and waved a hand. “Kill him.”
Song Qingshu tensed, already calculating his options — and then Qi Fang spoke.
“Wait.”
Every person in the room held still. Her rank here was beyond question.
Taohong rushed to her side. “My lady, why spare a creature like this—”
Qi Fang hesitated — but in the end shook her head. “I don’t like killing. I don’t want anyone dying on my account. Lock him up for now. When Third Brother returns after we reach Lin’an, he can deal with it then.”
Song Qingshu seized the opening. “To demonstrate that I have nothing to hide — I am willing to surrender and be bound. Let the full truth be uncovered when we reach the Chancellor’s residence.” He dropped his blade on the floor. The n around him moved in imdiately and lashed his wrists behind his back.
Qi Fang looked at him with a flicker of surprise.
“My lady, don’t be taken in,” Taohong said at once. “He knows he can’t fight his way through this many n. It’s an act.”
Song Qingshu gave a mild smile. “Truth has a way of coming to light in the end.”
Qi Fang’s expression shifted again, and she looked at him with open, quiet surprise. She would not have expected a common guard to carry himself with a quality like that.
Taohong noticed the look and felt a stab of unease. She started to speak — but Qi Fang was already saying, “That will do. Take him away and keep him under guard. And please — everyone else, out.”
She was still sitting here without a stitch on. Having this many pairs of eyes in her room a mont longer was more than she could bear.
“Of course, of course!” Manager Du bowed with trendous energy. “I’ll double the watch — no one will disturb my lady again.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Qi Fang said firmly. The idea of n stationed just outside while she bathed and dressed was equally unacceptable. “Keep your n at the foot of the stairs. That will be enough.”
“As my lady says.” Manager Du waved to his n, who hauled Song Qingshu out. Within a short ti the room had emptied entirely, leaving only Taohong and the two pages.
“Taohong — bring
a clean change of clothes. I’m going to bathe.” After everything that had happened, the only people Qi Fang was prepared to trust were those who had co with her from the Wan household. “Sixi, Wang Er — stand outside the door. Let no one in.”
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