“Then who is it?”

“Based on the current reports, he should be your subordinate.”

“I’ve never heard of him, and I don’t recognize him.”

Here came the key question: “If it wasn’t your crime, who forced you to confess?”

“I was thrown into prison, and on the second day, someone came in. He brought my son’s toys and used them to force me to admit guilt,” said Fu Songhua. “If I didn’t confess, my son would die. I made those toys with my own hands. I recognized them the moment I saw them.” He then let out a long breath, utterly dejected. “Assassinating Zhang Guangyi was a capital crime to begin with. A few more charges on top, what difference does it make? One life can’t be chopped into pieces and paid out in installments, can it? As long as they don’t hurt my boy.”

He Lingchuan soothed him in time. “Your son is in my hands now. He’s safe.” ...Uh. That came out sounding a little wrong.

Fu Songhua’s face twitched.

“So it wasn’t Zhongsun Mou?”

“No!” Fu Songhua shook his head. “I don’t know him.”

Just as expected.

“And then that man coached me through the testimony,” he continued. “He said I’d be taken to Lingxu City for trial, and I had to memorize the confession until it rolled off my tongue. Not one detail could be wrong.”

“Was there no one else in the prison at the time? The jailer? Other inmates?”

“No. It was the death cell. It was only me in there. After I’d memorized everything, he left. I didn’t hear him speak to anyone, but I heard keys at the door, like a whole ring of keys clinking together. Someone must’ve opened the door for him. Then about half a day later, the Touring Commissioner hauled me out and kept me under guard at the inn.”

“So he wanted you to claim you were a spy and take the blame for killing the courier?”

“Yes. He even fabricated all kinds of details for me.” Fu Songhua gave a bitter laugh. “Honestly, if your memory’s even a little worse, you can’t memorize something that long. It was ridiculous. There were way too many pieces.”

He Lingchuan pulled out paper and brush from his storage ring, things he had prepared in advance. “Write the confession down.”

He personally ground the ink for Fu Songhua.

At this point, Fu Songhua did not refuse. He wrote with swift strokes.

A little over fifteen minutes later, he finally stopped. “Done.”

Six full sheets of paper were now packed solid with tiny characters.

“Now write down what happened to you these past few days.”

Fu Songhua wrote another half page.

Then he bit his fingertip and pressed a blood seal on each page as his signature.

He Lingchuan raised a thumb. “Your memory is genuinely impressive.” He blew the ink dry, tucked the pages into his robe. “Remember, don’t tell anyone we did this.”

That was exactly why he had rented this room ahead of time.

“Also, you know I’m here to investigate the Lingxu City courier murder. You may have nothing to do with that eastern imperial eagle, but you might still have some connection with the real mastermind behind it.”

Fu Songhua’s expression shifted. He sighed. “After all that, you still don’t believe me.”

“This has nothing to do with belief,” He Lingchuan said. “The connection might be something you don’t even realize yourself. Otherwise, Baishajue is full of people hiding their identities. Why would they choose you?”

“I...”

“We gathered information elsewhere, and the trail points straight to the northwest of Baishajue. In other words, the real culprit may be living right around you.”

Fu Songhua finally caught the meaning. “You’re saying that the mastermind lives in the northwest district too, but all the evidence was tailor-made for me?”

“They must’ve recognized long ago that you were a wanted fugitive and didn’t report you, because they were saving you, in the sense of saving you for later. They were waiting for the day something blew up, so they could dump it all on you and use you as a scapegoat!”

He Lingchuan had read Fu Songhua’s confession too. The hidden hand’s supporting evidence was so meticulous that it made even him break out in a cold sweat. In the confession, every single thread, in the end, pointed unerringly at Fu Songhua.

If He Lingchuan had not personally lived through this, he would have believed it just from the paperwork.

With the culprit and the physical evidence sent north together, even the chief examiner in the capital would struggle to find any holes.

And Fu Songhua already had a record. He had a background as a spy. It would be absurdly easy to nail him as the principal offender.

He Lingchuan understood this well. To make one lie look airtight, you often need a hundred more lies to prop it up.

That kind of system does not spring up overnight. It costs time, effort, and sometimes lives.

So naming Fu Songhua as the fall guy was not a whim. It was a long-planned, carefully laid strategy.

“The powerful and the wealthy living in the northwest district, do you know them all?”

“I do.” Fu Songhua was a fugitive; understanding his surroundings was basic survival. “There are seventeen powerful households, mostly retired Chiyan officials, but also notables from other vassal monster states, and even prominent figures from Lingxu City. The wealthy are more numerous: forty-seven households scattered all over. Some are ordinary merchants like me, some are big official merchants.”

Where the “top tier” gathered, local officials and merchants naturally clustered too. It made connections easier. It made things easier to get done.

Besides, living in the rich district was itself a symbol of status.

“There are too many suspects. Can you help me cut it down?” He Lingchuan asked. “Who do you think it is?”

Fu Songhua thought for a long time, then shook his head. “I don’t have deep dealings with any of them.”

“Fine, then—”

Fu Songhua suddenly remembered a detail. “But the man who came to coach me had a square face, thick eyebrows, and was in his early thirties.”

He Lingchuan said bluntly, “Half of Baishajue looks like that.”

“That face really was plain, but I noticed pollen on the brim of his hat. A mouse jumped in by the window and startled him. He adjusted his hat, and a few grains fell to the ground. Later, I went and picked them up.”

He Lingchuan waited, knowing Fu Songhua was not speaking for nothing.

“It was oleander[1] pollen,” Fu Songhua said slowly. “There’s plenty of oleander in Baishajue, but it all grows on the eastern bank of Lan Lake.”

“Lan Lake is in the northwest corner of Baishajue?”

“Yes.”

He Lingchuan nodded. “Write down the noble households living on the lake’s eastern bank too. Better yet, draw me a map and mark them clearly.”

Fu Songhua did as told.

His drawing skills were on par with He Lingchuan’s. Both were true “soul painters.” In his sketch, “Lan Lake” was a flattened oval with a bite missing from its upper left; the estates around it were circles, each labeled with a surname.

What matters is direction—direction. There’s no need to sweat the details

“Not bad,” He Lingchuan said with a grin. “More than sixty suspect households, and you might’ve just cut it down to twenty-two.”

“You’ve still got twenty-two,” Fu Songhua said. “How are you going to check them?”

“We’ll talk about that later.”

Fu Songhua dropped the brush. “My son, he...”

He Lingchuan reassured him. “Once your spy charge is cleared, you’ll see him.”

Fu Songhua stared at him suspiciously. “You didn’t pick a fight with the Touring Commissioner just to help clear me, did you?”

“Of course not.” He Lingchuan patted his shoulder. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“By the way, why did you assassinate Zhang Guangyi?” At least that major crime was solid; Fu Songhua had never denied it. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

“When he was an official in my hometown, he wiped out an entire village—my parents, my uncles, everyone.” Fu Songhua’s expression twisted. “And someone like that still climbed higher and higher. If Heaven wouldn’t take him, I would! I thought I’d run as long as I could, but the authorities never even caught up to me. Instead, General Hong Chenglue got dragged down because of me. Then, by accident, I ended up with a son. Sigh...”

He looked at He Lingchuan, curiosity surfacing. “How did you find my boy?”

“You kept using ‘buying lacquer’ as an excuse to go to Shalun Town, and you always stayed at the same inn.” He Lingchuan said casually. “So I sent people to ask around near the inn whether, within a kilometer or so, there was a widow who was pretty, well-off, and had a boy under nine. You weren’t married when you first went on the run.”

“Those conditions are specific. It’s easy to filter down fast.”

Fu Songhua asked curiously, “How did you know his mother was pretty and a widow?”

“If she wasn’t pretty, would you want her?” He Lingchuan snorted. “And besides, women with money generally don’t end up ugly.”

“...”

“And would you tolerate her raising your kid, spending your money, and sleeping with another man?” He Lingchuan smiled. “Then she must be a widow, at least on the surface.”

“...”

“And why did she have to have money?”

“What kind of life could a young, poor widow in a small town live? She’d almost definitely run into all kinds of filth if that were the case.” He Lingchuan lifted an eyebrow. “You’re from the countryside. Don’t tell me you don’t know. Money is the best, simplest shield.”

Fu Songhua stared blankly for a long time, then sighed quietly. “Impressive... I did hire a few monsters as guards for her, but they can only block the rough men in town. They can’t stop people like you who come with intent.”

* * *

With the State of Chiyan’s special envoy having already gone with the wind, Commander Lu also clasped his fists to Zhongsun Mou and said, “Our apologies. We are acting under official orders.”

Then he led the Chiyan soldiers out of the inn, charging off toward the county yamen in a hurry.

The Baishajue magistrate did not dare stay behind. He left with them.

In the blink of an eye, the courtyard emptied out. Only a smashed door trampled into splinters, churned mud, and broken branches remained, along with other lodgers outside craning their necks to peek in.

Zhongsun Mou’s face was iron-blue. The anger in his eyes looked ready to erupt.

Where had Fushan Yue found such a subordinate? A shameless rabble-rouser, barreling in and wrecking the entire plan.

He ordered his guards to seal the door. Then he went into the inner room, shut the windows tight, walked to the washstand, and tossed a pale-blue crystal into the basin.

The crystal dissolved the instant it touched water, dyeing the whole basin a clear blue.

Zhongsun Mou murmured a short spell and stirred the water with his hand.

When the surface went still again, the water turned colorless, but the reflection in the basin was no longer Zhongsun Mou’s face.

It was someone else’s.

This Water-Mirror Spell allowed Zhongsun Mou to speak briefly with someone within about five kilometers. It had many restrictions, and it only lasted thirty breaths, but it was safe and discreet.

Outside, on a high branch in the distance, a goshawk perched, eyes bright and unblinking as it watched the inn, yet Zhongsun Mou never stepped out the door.

To the person in the mirror, he said, “Fushan Yue’s special envoy showed up out of nowhere. He convinced Fu Songhua to flip his testimony and then snatched him away. Now he’s sending him to the county yamen for a retrial. He wants to investigate the courier case all the way to the end.”

Time was precious, so he spoke fast.

The person in the mirror blanched. “How could you let him?!”

“He borrowed nearby troops. This won’t be easy anymore.”

If this were Lingxu City, Zhongsun Mou could make that little bastard die a hundred times over.

But in Baishajue, he had only a dozen guards with him. In raw force, he was simply outmuscled.

As for his status as a touring commissioner, if the other side was willing to gamble on the consequences afterward, then they could simply refuse to acknowledge it.

1. Also commonly known as rosebay. ☜