Chapter 6: Wrapping oneself in a cocoon
The explosion occurred at the mill, where rice, flour, and other grains were being stored. While the loud blast woke everyone, the fire was extinguished before it could spread, as it was still far from the servants' quarters. Only a patrolling guard was injured. After a thorough search, the guards could only find the source of the fire: a candle held by the guard. The injured guard recalled hearing a noise inside the mill and opening the door to investigate when the explosion struck. The guards checked the room and found that the doors and windows were indeed not securely closed. Someone had left the flour bags unsealed, and the night wind had blown them away, leaving the entire room covered in dust.
The servants were unaware of the situation, simply thinking it was an accident caused by the dry weather. Those questioned by the Far Wind Guards, though nervous, weren't overly worried—after all, the loss wasn't significant, and at most, they'd be fined a few months' wages. So when summoned to the Far Mountain Retreat, they all bowed their heads and waited, anxious only for the possibility of a few copper coins.
Feng Yanyuan remained seated behind his desk. On the table sat a dish of "dishes," which, upon closer inspection, revealed to be three centipedes, their dark red blood staining the white porcelain dish like a thick soup.
A sachet lay quietly beside the plate.
Feng Jiu picked up the sachet and waved it in front of everyone: "Whose is this?"
Yuzhu glanced timidly at Yunyuan, but said nothing. Feng Jiu walked straight up to Yunyuan and asked, "Is it yours?"
Yun Yuan took a closer look and shook her head: "It's not my servant's."
"Eh? Isn't this what Yuan'er wears every day?" The maidservant beside her interrupted, "Look, your waist is empty now, isn't it?"
Yun Yuan touched his empty waist and said with a wry smile, "I heard about the fire last night, and in my panic I didn't care about these things. I think it fell inside the house."
Yuzhu added at the right moment, "I also remember that Yuan'er did have this sachet. The embroidery was unique and she loved it very much. I think she had a spare one, so it's not a big deal if it was lost." This sounded fair, but it confirmed the ownership of the sachet and also implied that even if another one was found, it would be difficult to prove her innocence.
The maids all agreed, saying that they often saw Yun Yuan wearing it.
Feng Jiu said impatiently: "If it's yours, then admit it. Just tell me how you lost it."
"But this really doesn't belong to me." Yun Yuan said helplessly.
Feng Jiu was about to explode when Ruyue took the sachet and examined it carefully. Suddenly she smiled and said, "It's definitely not Yuan'er's. This is mine."
Yuzhu's heart tightened.
"Yours?" Feng Jiu was stunned.
"Look here," Ruyue pointed to a crescent pattern. "Yuan'er's is feathers, and mine is a crescent. Even the stitches are wrong, they're exactly the same. Yuan'er and I embroidered this together a few days ago." She sniffed again. "The spices are different too. Yuan'er's is plum blossoms, and mine is orchids."
Feng Jiu asked, "If it's yours, do you know where it was lost?"
"That's strange," Ruyue examined it again and again. "I thought the stitching on this sachet was bad, so I never wore it. I don't know where I lost it. Where did you find it?"
Feng Jiu frowned and remained silent.
Ruyue suddenly realized something and said in a trembling voice, "Is this sachet... related to the explosion?"
"Whether it's related to the explosion or not is still unknown," Feng Jiu glanced at everyone coldly, "but it's probably related to the poisoning."
The moment these words were spoken, the entire hall erupted in an uproar. Most of the servants had been so focused on the sachet that they hadn't realized the dish contained a poisonous insect, believing it was a mistake to investigate the explosion. Now, upon hearing that someone had poisoned the dish, they panicked—if that were the case, the explosion wasn't an accident, but rather a long-planned operation. Ruyue, though she had seen the centipede on the dish and had assumed it was some rare find the young master had recently acquired, paled.
"Has anyone entered your house and touched this sachet?" Feng Jiu asked sternly.
Ruyue's lips trembled, and after a long pause she said, "I'm well now, so I haven't asked the sisters to help me clean up these past few days..." Suddenly remembering something, she turned her gaze to Yuzhu, her voice suddenly changing, "I only... I only let Yuzhu come and sit with me occasionally."
Yuzhu fell to her knees and said, "I am innocent! I have never even seen Sister Ruyue's sachet! Every time I go to your room, you are always right in front of me looking at it!"
Ruyue was speechless. It was true that whenever Yuzhu came, she always accompanied her personally, simply inviting her for tea and chat. But if she turned her back to make tea or answer other maids, would Yuzhu... She shuddered at the thought.
Feng Jiu glanced at Master Yuan, who was sitting silently, and continued to ask Ruyue, "I checked the mill tonight and found that the lock was opened with a key. Besides you, who else has the key?"
Ruyue shuddered all over, and her eyes involuntarily fell on Yuzhu again - because she often helped Yunyuan carry grain, she had indeed given her a spare key.
Yuzhu's heart was pounding. The key was clearly tied to her waist; it was impossible for anyone to steal it. She subconsciously touched her belt and found the key was indeed there. But she suddenly realized her mistake.
"Hand it over!" Feng Jiu's voice pierced like an ice knife.
Yuzhu handed the key over with trembling hands, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Please, Lord Wei, please understand... Although I have the key, I am not the only one who has it. Such a coincidence, it's clear that someone has framed me!"
She knew perfectly well in her heart—she had clearly fallen into Yun Yuan's trap. But if she rashly accused him now, not only would it be groundless, it would only lead to the accusation of desperation. These so-called evidence were ultimately circumstantial. In a case as serious as an assassination, a firm denial offered some leeway. Thinking of this, she wept even more bitterly, and the servants who had always sympathized with her couldn't help but plead for mercy.
Suddenly, Yuzhu spun around violently!
Bang!
A short knife was deeply embedded in the door panel, the handle still trembling. The servants screamed and scattered. But Yuzhu stood there frozen, her eyes wide with tears.
Oh no! My martial arts skills have been exposed!
However, what made her even more horrified was the moment she dodged just now. She felt again the pair of cold eyes that pierced her heart that night on the roof of Mulan Pavilion.
Feng Jiu waved his hand to signal the guards to clear the area. After the door was closed, Yuzhu stopped crying and waited for her fate.
Feng Yanyuan walked forward slowly, and a piece of letter fell in front of her knees.
"This should be the last letter she wrote to you."
Yuzhu stared at the letter, her fingertips feeling cold.
"I knew she was sending letters, but out of pity for her longing for her daughter, I never interfered. Except for this one." Feng Yanyuan's voice was as cold as ice. "She has repeatedly invited you to be a maid in the Feng family. Now that you've really come, she must be very happy. This letter... doesn't need to be sent to Jingzhou."
“I… don’t understand…” Yuzhu forced herself to remain calm.
"Still pretending to be confused!" Feng Jiu interrupted sharply, "The portrait from Jingzhou has already verified it! You've been in Jingzhou for many years, without any real livelihood, yet you spend money like water. How can you be the eldest daughter of a poor family? The blade that young master just used would not be able to dodge even the most skilled martial arts master. Where did you get such skills?!"
Yuzhu bit her lower lip until it turned white.
Feng Yanyuan's voice seemed to be steeped in a cold pond. "When I first met the cook, Yu, she was lying on the side of the official road, dying, clutching a portrait of a little girl tightly in her arms. My mother took pity on her obsession and promised to find her daughter for her. Only then did she agree to take the medicine and eat." He paused. "I didn't expect that the person she found would be a ghost who wanted to take my life."
"I'm not!" Yuzhu suddenly screamed, tears streaming down her face. "Martial arts are just a way to survive! Besides, on the day my mother was murdered, everyone in the laundry shop could testify that I was washing clothes! I went through so much hardship to find my biological mother, how could I..."
"You're right." Feng Yanyuan interrupted her: "It wasn't you who killed her, but she did die for you."
Yuzhu's heart trembled slightly, and a smile appeared on the corner of her twitching mouth as she said, "Sir, what do you mean... I don't understand."
"I don't understand?" Feng Yanyuan sneered. "You planned to trap yourself under the surveillance of the Yuanfeng Guards, and then she used your poison powder to murder me. This would completely clear you of suspicion, wouldn't it?"
“How could it be…” Yuzhu’s voice trembled, “Mother has poison powder, I didn’t know about it…” She raised her innocent round face and said, “Every slave who enters the Feng family will be searched, how could I bring poison powder into the Feng family…”
"Although poison cannot be brought into the Feng family, you have already asked the cook to prepare it for you."
Yuzhu was startled, her pale lips moved several times, but no sound came out.
"There aren't many letters left from you. I think the important ones were burned. The remaining ones..." Feng Yanyuan shook out two pages of yellowed paper from his sleeve, "but you can still see some clues."
Yuzhu trembled all over - this foolish woman actually left a letter?
"Since last year, Yu Niang has suddenly developed a fondness for bamboo shoots. I think it's the recipe you taught her, steaming the bamboo shoot cores, purifying them, and drying them into powder—you said it could cure your poison? Only someone as skilled in cooking as her could handle such a potent poison so well. But she seems to have discovered you were deceiving her." He threw the letter in her face. "You sneaked into Yuanfeng Courtyard to see her on your first night at the Feng family, didn't you?"
Yuzhu pursed her lips. The night she first entered the Feng family, she'd ventured into the Yuanfeng courtyard to identify with her family. She still remembered the dim moonlight as the woman claiming to be her mother trembled as she tossed the poison powder to the ground, tears streaming down her face as she declared, "This is lethal." She had no choice but to grab the old woman's throat and recount in her ear the years she'd spent among the dead. She was already under suspicion, and she needed a scapegoat. If she didn't poison the woman, she would lose her daughter once again.
"The day you were locked up in the laundry shop..." Feng Yanyuan's voice seemed to have cooled. "She thought you were truly under suspicion, so she decided to mix poison powder into the midnight snack, then committed suicide with a knife, acting out the 'cook murdered by a shadowless assassin' scene... She used her own life to save you..."
Yuzhu snorted coldly: "Foolish woman..."
Feng Yanyuan's fingertips trembled.
The honest and timid face of the person in front of him suddenly became gloomy and cold.
"Save me? Humph, she's just a foolish servant deceived by your hypocritical masters. The poison she inflicted was not painful at all, yet she still wants to atone for her sins with her own life..."
"She's not atoning for her sins to me." Feng Yanyuan looked at her coldly, "She just knows better than you. If she were alive, she wouldn't be able to deceive me."
Yuzhu's lips trembled slightly, then she pursed them tightly again.
"To welcome you," he held out a white jade hairpin. "She spent half her life savings and had someone make you a safety lock." The hairpin's secret compartment swung open, and the silver lock slipped into his palm. Its edge was lacquered a deep blue, and in its center, a neatly engraved character for "Apricot" was inscribed. He gazed at the blood-red cinnabar inscription, his voice low and sighing, "I didn't want to pursue this matter..."
Yuzhu looked at the lock and suddenly let out a miserable laugh like an owl. "The girl who wore this safety lock was thrown into a mass grave long ago!" She ripped open her collar, revealing the hideous brand on her heart. "The one who's still alive is a blood-drinking, flesh-eating Rakshasa!"
Her eyes turned bloodshot and suddenly she jumped up like thunder!
The moment the palm wind struck her face, Feng Yanyuan flicked his wide sleeves. Yuzhu crashed into the beam like a kite with a broken string, and the blood she vomited bloomed into dazzling flowers on the blue brick floor.
She laughed while vomiting blood: "As expected... the top of the infinite list..."
"Who ordered you?"
"A bounty..." She breathed slowly, then added a sly smile, "It would be even more rewarding to see you, the chosen ones... fall into the mud..." Her bloodied teeth chattered, "The day I crawled out of the pile of corpses... this was all the fun I had left!"
"Who is it..." Feng Yanyuan stepped on her broken wrist bone and asked coldly, "Tell you the opportunity last night?"
The footman suddenly sneered, raised his bloodstained face, and a mocking smile appeared at the corners of his bleeding lips, "It's the evil ghost you are supporting..."
Feng Yanyuan frowned, and suddenly heard a voice outside the door saying, "Sir, the young master is here."
Yuzhu shuddered at the words, her limp body suddenly struggling, her fingers leaving bloody marks on the brick floor. Feng Jiu grabbed her, his iron-like grip motionless, only squeezing her wrist bones until they crackled.
Feng Yanyuan's white sleeves lingered slightly in the candlelight, and he finally raised his hand and pushed open the carved door. As the cold wind rushed in, he saw a tall, dark-robed man standing in the shadows before the steps, his dark cloak fluttering slightly.
"Third brother, you're frightened." The young master's smile was colder than the icicles under the eaves. Before he finished speaking, his eyes fell on the dark red spot on Feng Yanyuan's chest. "At this critical moment, you actually let poisonous insects sneak into the courtyard. It's my fault for not noticing." He raised his finger slightly and pointed it lightly. "Are you okay?"
Two figures confronted each other at the junction of light and darkness in the porch. The warm light in Yuanshanzhai and the cold fog under the corridor tore a blurred boundary between them.
Feng Yanyuan lowered his eyes and chuckled softly: "Everything is fine, thank you for your concern, young master."
"Okay, that's good." The young master kept smiling, but the fingertips hanging in the air moved slightly, as if giving a silent order.
Four Haofeng Guards filed in, their black iron boots crushing the blood-stained ground. Feng Jiu gritted his teeth and refused to let go until his master glanced at him, then he slammed Yuzhu to the ground. The Haofeng Guards picked up the dying woman and dragged her out.
The moment the door closed, Feng Yanyuan suddenly choked on a mouthful of black blood.
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