"Huan, did Xiu Wen truly drown?" Lu Yueming asked with difficulty, clutching her arm.
Last night when she left, Xiu Wen was still well. A living person, how could he simply vanish?
She yearned for Huan to give a negative answer.
Yet Qi Huan, facing Constable Yan's piercing gaze, nodded slightly. Sensing the loosened grip on her arm, she swiftly supported the collapsing Lu Yueming.
"Lu Yueming, don't be too upset. I will find you a better tutor. Trust me."
Her eyes conveyed an odd message, but the disheartened Lu Yueming failed to notice it.
With many people around, she dared not reveal Lu Yueming's special feelings for Xiu Wen, so she could only make it seem that Lu Yueming was grieving over her tutor's misfortune.
Lu Yueming bit her lip hard, her eyes swollen red from crying all night, and slapped herself fiercely.
If she hadn't gotten drunk and insulted Xiu Wen last night, would he not have gone to the riverside to drown his sorrows, and thus avoided falling into the water?
At this time, Yan Qinghe, who came with her, paid no heed to grieving, instead clinging to a glimmer of hope and instructing the servants of Lu's Residence to search for the body.
Seeing his determined efforts, Constable Yan finally believed them somewhat.
But after a whole morning passed without finding the corpse, he remained resolute, refusing to let Chief Clerk Liang close the case.
For the living, he needed to see the person; for the dead, he needed to see the body.
Without seeing either, he could not conclude the case.
Constable Yan was a stickler for rules, and after the previous cases, he always felt that anything involving Li Shuchen was never that simple.
If Li Shuchen were still the crown prince, he would not dare cause trouble. But now, as a mere deposed prince, his position as a constable held more authority, so he became defiant again.
Just as he was about to interrogate them on a few more suspicious points, he suddenly felt a tightness around his waist.
Constable Yan's temples throbbed as he angrily shouted, "Chen Jinyou, let go!"
"No, I won't let go!"
Chen Jinyou tightened his grip, exerting all his strength to restrain him. "I just saw it all. Huan was even crying. You must have intimidated her. Come back to the county office with me. Let Chief Clerk Liang handle things here!"
His father said that Constable Yan was a stone in the pit, both foul and stubborn. But he was meticulous in handling cases, which made him a talent. He advised Chen Jinyou to avoid provoking this grim figure unless necessary.
However, Constable Yan had made Huan cry, so Chen Jinyou decided he had to drag this man back to the county office and let the more gentle Chief Clerk Liang take over the search for the drowned person.
Entangled by him, Constable Yan became increasingly flustered, thinking to himself: Nothing more can be accomplished today, so he could only leave in a huff.
Seeing him depart, Qi Huan hurriedly embraced Lu Yueming and whispered in her ear, in a volume only they could hear, "Lu Yueming, I will tell you something now. Stay calm and don't let anyone notice anything unusual... Xiu Wen is not dead."
Upon hearing this, Lu Yueming abruptly looked up, grasping her wrist like a drowning person clinging to a piece of driftwood, her despairing eyes igniting a glimmer of light.
"Really?"
"Really. Believe me. Go home and rest first. After some time, everything will be alright."
Enduring the pain in her wrist, Qi Huan coaxed Lu Yueming back to Lu's Residence and personally fed her a bowl of calming soup.
*
Fourteen days later, at noon.
Finally, a male corpse surfaced ten miles away from the river. After half a month, the body had swollen beyond recognition.
But regardless of clothing or stature, it appeared no different from Xiu Wen.
Combined with Yan Qinghe's relentless searching, Constable Yan gradually dismissed his suspicions.
At the identification scene, Yan Qinghe's eyes were bloodshot, his hair disheveled, and his body covered in grime.
Ignoring the nauseating stench, he collapsed beside the corpse, wailing uncontrollably.
If he hadn't been greedy for alcohol that night, if he had some clarity when Li Shuchen called him home, would he have noticed Xiu Wen's disappearance sooner and been able to save him?
Although Xiu Wen was merely a lowly eunuch, on the journey into exile, when he couldn't eat, it was Xiu Wen who forced open his mouth and stuffed in a piece of steamed bun. When he couldn't walk anymore, it was Xiu Wen who offered to carry him on his back.
Recalling these past events brought them vividly to mind.
With reddened eyes, he cried heart-rendingly.
Compared to him, Qi Huan, Li Shuchen, and Yan Wu were more composed, their eyes downcast, expressions either sorrowful or blank.
Lu Yueming, who had received the news and come, appeared dazed.
Didn't Huan say that Xiu Wen wasn't dead?
These days, she kept having nightmares, sometimes dreaming of Yan Qinghe coming to ask her for help to retrieve Xiu Wen's corpse, and sometimes of Huan telling her that Xiu Wen wasn't dead.
The scenes from dreams and reality intermingled, and she could no longer distinguish truth from falsehood.
Seeing the man in red robes lying on the ground, she completely broke down. These red robes were the ones she had painstakingly sewn stitch by stitch herself.
For some unknown reason, the man's face was the most swollen and disfigured, but he did resemble Xiu Wen.
Had Huan deceived her out of fear of causing her too much grief?
Lu Yueming deeply doubted this as she flung herself beside the corpse, grasping its bloated hand and sobbing.
She and Yan Qinghe knelt on either side, wailing alternately, their tears falling like a broken string of pearls.
Those who witnessed this felt saddened. Even the callous Constable Yan showed a hint of reluctance on his face as he dismissed his last shred of doubt, turning to Chief Clerk Liang and saying, "The person is dead, extinguish the household's registration."
"Alright," Chief Clerk Liang responded.
The stench from the corpse was too overwhelming. After Constable Yan issued the order to leave, the officers swiftly fled while covering their noses.
Behind them, Li Shuchen's eyes flickered briefly.
Once the others had left, he kicked the sole of Yan Qinghe's shoe.
"Stop crying."
Yan Qinghe ignored him and shifted away, continuing to weep.
Looking around to ensure no outsiders were present, Qi Huan squatted down and explained seriously, "Xiu Wen is not dead. This is Dong Geqiu."
Previously, when Li Shuchen had ordered his men to find a dead convict resembling Xiu Wen to serve as a substitute, he didn't expect Dong Geqiu to offer himself.
After selling his residence, Dong Geqiu had been homeless. Hearing that Qi Huan had established some kind of welfare institute to shelter orphaned children, he carefully considered that he too was homeless, merely a 265-month-old child himself.
So Dong Geqiu brazenly approached Qi Huan, demanding that she arrange for him to enter the welfare institute.
Upon being refused, he started running his mouth, slandering Qi Huan's reputation everywhere, claiming she was raising children to eat them, calling her a true demoness.
Although the rumors didn't stir up a storm like the last time, listening to them was still grating.
Coincidentally, he was similar in build and age to Xiu Wen, so Li Shuchen sent him a permanent residence—the Underworld.
They got him drunk and threw him into the river. After he drowned, they fished him out, applied a secret potion to his face, and when he had decayed enough, Yan Qinghe and the others just happened to fish him out.
To prevent escaped convicts, destroying criminal records was handled quite strictly. With a corpse now, coupled with Chen Jinyou's persistent harassment, even if Constable Yan had doubts, he could hardly investigate further.
The former imperial slave, the eunuch Little Wen, was thus crossed out with a stroke of the brush. There was no more Xiu Wen in the world, only Wang Xiu who had gone out on business and never returned.
After hearing the whole story, Yan Qinghe's sobbing stopped abruptly, and he threw away the bloated hand that looked like a white steamed bun in disgust, vomiting.
"You've gone too far, you all knew, and only I was kept in the dark. I won't deal with you anymore!"
After angrily shouting, he ran to the riverside and vigorously scrubbed his hands. He had just held the hand of that bastard Dong Geqiu, he wanted to go chop off his hands and feed them to the black vultures!
On the shore, Lu Yueming, holding the corpse's other hand, remained frozen in place, unable to discern truth from falsehood.
She looked down at the red robe on the corpse, the stitching fine and the seams neat, this was not her handiwork.
In her bewilderment, a servant came to report: "Miss! Two matchmaking parties have arrived at the residence!"
