Chapter 67

Chapter 67

Several black-clad men immediately stepped forward and roughly yanked the three cart drivers up.

The drivers' legs turned to jelly, trembling as they were shoved to a nearby tree. The men tied the three to the tree in no time, the ropes cutting into their wrists, but the drivers dared not make a sound.

Chu Qi's gaze swept over the men bound to the tree. "I ask, you answer."

He slowly drew his gem-studded longsword, walked to the first driver, and rested the blade silently against his neck. The cold touch instantly froze the driver stiff.

"Whose kiln is this?" His voice was cold and soft, enough to send a chill through one's heart.

The driver's teeth chattered, his eyes darting away as he stammered, "I... I don't know... this little one... doesn't know whose kiln—"

Before he could finish, Chu Qi flicked his wrist. The blade slashed across the driver's neck, and blood gushed out in a jet, splattering onto the nearby grass, dyeing it red.

The driver's eyes were still wide open when his head rolled to Chu Qi's feet.

The other two drivers were terrified out of their wits; one of them wet his pants.

Chu Qi didn't even lift an eyelid. He wiped the blood off his sword on the clothes of the first driver's corpse, still bound to the tree, then walked slowly to the second driver.

He placed the longsword against his neck again.

"Whose kiln is this?"

The second driver's tears burst forth instantly, his voice choked with sobs: "It's... it's the Luan family's! It's the Luan family's! I wouldn't dare deceive you, sir! This kiln was rented by the Luan family last year just for storing things!"

"What did they store?" Chu Qi pressed slightly, the blade leaving a red mark on the driver's neck.

The driver cried even louder, shaking his head vigorously: "I don't know! I really don't know! The master only told me to pick up the goods; he didn't say what it was... please spare me! I have elders to support and young ones to raise—I can't die!"

Chu Qi watched his wailing without a flicker of emotion in his eyes. He raised his wrist again and brought the sword down.

The second driver's cries caught in his throat. His head hit the ground heavily, face to face with the first driver.

The smell of blood spread through the air. The third driver was too scared to speak, his face as pale as paper. As Chu Qi approached him, before the sword was even raised, the driver cried out frantically:

"I'll talk! I'll tell you everything! Please don't kill me!" His voice was hoarse, tears mixed with splattered blood smearing his face. "This kiln belongs to the Luan family, and the smuggled salt inside is also from the Luan family! The Luan family has me transport it once a month—to shops in various prefectural cities. The Prefect knows about this too; the Luan family sends him silver every month to keep it quiet... Please spare me! I've told you everything! I'll never work for the Luan family again!"

Chu Qi stared at him for a moment before slowly withdrawing his sword. "Keep him."

The black-clad men obeyed, immediately untying that driver from the tree.

Just then, Yin Qianfeng emerged from the old kiln with her people, clutching something that looked like an account book. She showed no surprise at the two heads on the ground, only stepped forward and said, "Chief, the smuggled salt from the kiln has been loaded onto the carts. We also found this ledger."

Chu Qi took the ledger, flipping through the yellowed pages. After a moment, he turned and walked toward the carts.

"Let's go. Back to the city. Time to send the Luan family on their final journey."

***

Chao Cheyun pushed open the window of Qi Yanqing's study. Outside, willow catkins swirled in the dark night, just like the crabapple blossoms that had swirled years ago.

"That night four years ago, when the Wen Pavilion caught fire, you arrived so quickly," Chao Cheyun broke the stagnant atmosphere, deliberately slowing his speech. "What were you planning to do? You weren't the first to notice the fire, were you?"

Qi Yanqing's thoughts jolted sharply, as if these words had struck some deep-seated fear she didn't want to touch. Her shoulders trembled involuntarily.

A thin mist covered her eyes. She looked down, avoiding Chao Cheyun's gaze, staring at the cracks in the floor tiles. "I... I was going to bring Brother Su some snacks. He always studied late in the Wen Pavilion. My mother told me to cook some lotus seed soup, so I put it in a food box and brought it to him..."

Her voice caught suddenly, as if something was stuck in her throat.

Chao Cheyun didn't press her. He just watched. After a long while, Qi Yanqing continued, her voice trembling noticeably: "Before I even reached the pavilion gate, I heard the servants shouting 'Fire!' The food box in my hand fell to the ground. The lotus seed soup spilled everywhere. I didn't bother to pick it up—I just ran toward the Wen Pavilion..."

"When you ran over, what did you see?" Chao Cheyun pressed, his gaze locked on her face, not missing any subtle expression.

Qi Yanqing's tears finally gave way, streaming down her cheeks. She wiped at them, but they only came faster. Her voice became fragmented: "I... the fire was too big... The doors and windows of the Wen Pavilion were all burning. I saw the servants throwing buckets of water into the flames, but the water turned to white steam as soon as it touched the fire. It was useless..."

"And then?" Chao Cheyun took a step closer to her, pressing on. "Did you see anyone?"

Qi Yanqing suddenly clutched her chest, crying even harder. Her shoulders shook violently. She couldn't even speak in full sentences: "I... my mind went blank at that moment. I didn't see anything... I really don't know anything. I don't know why the fire spread so fast..."

Chao Cheyun watched her collapse, and it pained him. When they were young, he had always treated Qi Yanqing like a little sister—handing her a handkerchief when she cried, stepping in when she was bullied. But now, separated by four years and so many things, that closeness had eroded into nothing but distance.

He paused for a moment, then hardened his heart, his voice growing colder: "You don't know? Or you're not supposed to know?"

He paused again. "But the Su family deserves to know. Shuying deserves to know."

At these words, Qi Yanqing felt as if she had been stabbed—with a blunt blade, the edge laced with salt. She couldn't bear to hear "Shuying," couldn't bear to hear "the Su family."

"He was supposed to enter officialdom. Do you remember?" Chao Cheyun said.

Qi Yanqing remembered. How could she not? Her tears wouldn't stop. At his question, it was as if she could hear the laughter and vows of four young men from years ago, as if she could once again see the clear, slender figure that had haunted her dreams for four years.

She lowered her head, tears streaming down. She couldn't speak. She only shook her head—not in answer to whether she remembered, but in a plea for him not to go on.

"Now he hides in his study all day long, never mentioning entering officialdom again. He won't even see people."

Chao Cheyun pressed on relentlessly. He knew Qi Yanqing too well. He knew exactly how to pull from her fears the one she feared most.

"Do you really think it's just because of his elder brother's death?"

Qi Yanqing's sobs stopped abruptly, as if someone had gripped her throat. She looked up, her tear-filled eyes meeting Chao Cheyun's, panic and helplessness written all over her face. Her lips trembled: "Brother Shuyuan... I beg you... don't say any more... please don't... please..."

"He feels 'tainted,' unworthy of the court. Do you really think he's forgotten that night at the birthday banquet? A man so proud—how could he allow himself to do such a thing? He hides from everyone, buries himself in books, but really he's hiding from himself. Hiding from 'the Su Zhanyu who may have wronged you and wronged himself.'"

"No! That's not it!" Qi Yanqing suddenly collapsed to the ground, shaking her head desperately. Tears poured down again. "I just... I was really drunk. I didn't... I didn't mean to ruin him..."

Chao Cheyun looked at her reddened eyes, and the coldness in his heart softened a little. He knew Qi Yanqing was just afraid, without malice. They had grown up together. With three older brothers guiding her step by step, and Elder Su imparting his wisdom generously, how could she be a bad person? They should understand each other best, shouldn't they?

But some wounds, once inflicted, can never be healed.

Qi Yanqing's voice grew lower and lower, until it became a choked sob: "Brother Shuyuan... has Brother Shuying been... well these four years?"

She looked up, grabbing the hem of Chao Cheyun's robe, looking at him pleadingly. "Did he... ever hate me? Hmm...? Did he hate me?"

Chao Cheyun was silent for a moment before slowly speaking: "He hasn't been well. After Brother Su died, he grew even more silent. Every day, he just reads or stares at the clouds in the sky. He has never forgiven himself."

He paused. "But he has never hated you. Don't you know him?"

Didn't she know him? She knew him too well.

That man, pure as deep water and bright as fine jade, clear as a gentle breeze and radiant as the moon—his heart was like an unstained snowfield, always reflecting the suffering of the world, yet never willing to let frost and snow fall on others' shoulders. He would only turn all the blades toward himself, silently, stubbornly bearing everything. Then he would tell himself: You are nothing but a weed.

How could he hate her? A man like him wouldn't even resent.

Qi Yanqing could no longer hold back. She covered her face and burst into heart-wrenching sobs. Once again, she saw the Wen Pavilion engulfed in flames; the collapsing roof pressed down on her heart once more. All the guilt, regret, and longing she had buried deep inside erupted at that moment. She cried as if her heart would break.

The youthful infatuation that had once consumed Qi Yanqing had become an invisible cage. That cage imprisoned not only the girl full of hope from years ago but also locked away her truest feelings, her clumsiest courage. As time passed, her soul remained trapped under that old eaves, never truly stepping out of the moonlight soaked in regret and tenderness.

She was terrified. Genuinely terrified.

Chao Cheyun gazed at her, finally softening his tone—though heavy with reluctant pain, he forced himself to ask: "Yuhuan, the fire in the Wen Pavilion and Brother Su's death... can't just be brushed aside. Think carefully again—that night, aside from the fire, did you notice anything unusual? No matter how small."

Qi Yanqing's sobs gradually quieted. She lifted her head, wiping tears with her sleeve, her eyes filled with exhaustion and pain.

After a long moment, she seemed to have made up her mind. "I... smelled oil."

Her gaze was dazed, as if she were being pulled back to that night once more. "It wasn't the usual lamp oil... more choking, more pungent... like tung oil."

She paused, as if recalling that acrid smell. "When I ran to the door, I also found... the door was locked from outside with a padlock I'd never seen in the manor before..."

Her voice shook and her breath quickened. "The servants desperately rammed the door, but behind the door bolt... a wooden stake was propped against it, impossible to break open..."

"The door was locked?" Chao Cheyun's voice trembled as he subtly clenched his fist.

Qi Yanqing nodded, tears breaking through again. "I tried desperately to yank that lock open, but... I couldn't—no matter how hard I tried..."

She was incoherent, on the verge of collapse. "I couldn't open it... Why couldn't I open it... Why was it locked that day... Why..."

Chao Cheyun's heart tightened. He did not want to see her suffer so, but this trip had to mean something—the truth had to come out. He pressed on: "And then? What happened next?"

At this moment, Qi Yanqing had already collapsed, as if she had no strength left to fight. She answered mechanically. "Then... the roof came crashing down with a 'boom'... The servants dragged me from the sea of fire desperately..."

She lifted her head, her eyes reflecting a hopeless red glow. "But before I escaped... I looked back at the second floor. There was nothing at the window... only fire... fire everywhere, blazing everywhere, sky and ground alike..."

She covered her face with both hands, her shoulders shaking violently as she sobbed brokenly: "For four years... I haven't had a single day without thinking... if I had arrived one step earlier... if I had smashed that lock at all costs... could I have saved Brother Su? How could I forget the smell of tung oil? That fire was no accident! I've thought about it countless times...! Someone must have deliberately poured tung oil, otherwise the fire wouldn't have spread so fast... so fiercely..."

Chao Cheyun fell silent. Of course, he knew it was no accident—Ji Zhou's small maneuvers over the years, the sudden close ties between the Ji and Luan families with the Qi family following the fire, and even the East Sea cargo ship that happened to sink shortly before the fire... every detail was too coincidental, each one hinting that the two fires four years ago were not as simple as they seemed.

Qi Yanqing's words only confirmed this—the newly replaced lock, the propped-up wooden stake, the pungent smell of tung oil—every detail indicated that the fire at the Qi manor was a meticulously planned murder.

Chao Cheyun's voice softened somewhat, his gaze falling on Qi Yanqing's reddened eyes, a complex emotion flickering in his heart.

He pushed down his welling emotions and asked hoarsely: "These... did you ever mention them to the authorities?"

Qi Yanqing lowered her hands. "I did. But the authorities said tung oil was stored in the Wen Pavilion for book preservation and pest control... They said a workman might have accidentally swapped the lock during repairs, and a lazy servant probably left that wooden stake propping the door... In the end, everything was ruled an 'accident.'"

Accident.

What a convenient accident.

What a blatant cover-up.