I Was In The Wrong

After the last ray of sunlight disappeared beneath the horizon and the evening skies darkened, everything turned dark. The candle flame flickered as it made the room glow a dim yellow. At this very moment, the atmosphere seemed to change all of a sudden. It went from a serious discussion about the case to something much more heartwarming.

Wen Yuansi put his teacup down and looked quietly at Song Caitang, “You seem a lot thinner. Is it because of work?”

Song Caitang looked down at herself. Had she become thinner?

She hadn’t noticed at all.

She shook her head, “I’m enjoying the process of examining bodies and investigating cases, and I’m happy to help the authorities. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“If you’re feeling unwell, don’t be afraid to tell us.”

After a short pause, Wen Yuansi went on, “My grandmother asked for your help because she actually wanted to help me, but she never intended for your health to be affected negatively.” He pulled a piece of paper out from his sleeve and placed it on the table in front of Song Caitang, “Here’s the new menu my grandmother and I have come up with. All the dishes contain ingredients beneficial for the body. Take a look and let me know if there are any ingredients you don’t like. We can always make changes.”

Song Caitang was actually a very easy person to feed. She wasn’t picky about her food and didn’t have anything she really hated to eat. When she read through the menu, she saw that the ingredients were all pretty generic and there was nothing with especially strange tastes on it…

“The dishes look great, I’m very happy with them. Old Madam Li has really spent so much time and effort on this – I’m very grateful.”

This menu was very comprehensive. One had to put it a lot of thought to come up with something like this.

Wen Yuansi picked up his teacup with one hand and smiled warmly at her with an elegant look in his eyes, “It didn’t take that much time and effort. As long as you like it, it’s a good menu.”

Since he was done with official business and he had let her take a look at the menu already, he did not stay much longer and took his leave soon after.

Qingqiao saw him out, then returned to clear the table. When she touched the teapot, she realized that the temperature was just right, “Young Mistress, you’ve drunk very little water today, and your lips are a little dry. The tea is just right now, do you want some?”

Song Caitang paused for a moment. The tea was just right?

The temperature would fall in the evening, and the stove on the table was a small mud stove with charcoal below, so it needed someone to boil the water and steep the tea. But after Wen Yuansi arrived, she boiled the water once after he sat down, then became too engrossed in the case and didn’t add more water or boil it. How could the tea be just right? Shouldn’t it be cold by now?

She took the tea from Qingqiao and sipped it. Not only was the temperature just right, the tea tasted just right too. It didn’t taste like it had been steeping for too long, and there was a sweetness to it. This wasn’t the sort of tea she was capable of making.

So, when they were talking about the case and thinking very quickly about the various details, Wen Yuansi was also making tea for her by the side? Not only did he make the tea, but he also took note of the temperature. Once the tea turned cold, he would give her another cup…

“Young Mistress, it’s getting late. Do you want to go to bed?”

Actually, it wasn’t late at all. But because Song Caitang had a habit of waking up in the middle of the night, she wouldn’t have enough sleep if she didn’t go to bed earlier.

Song Caitang nodded, “Sure.”

“I’ll help you get changed.”

Qingqiao fetched her pajamas and helped her to change into them. As she did so, she suddenly frowned, “Young Mistress, I think you’ve become a little thinner. Your clothes seem wider than before.” She even put her hand against the clothing to take new measurements and reminded herself to reduce the measurements the next time she made clothes for Song Caitang.

I’ve really grown thinner? Song Caitang didn’t look at herself this time. The corners of her eyes turned upward, and there was a twinkle in her eyes.

Wen Yuansi…was very interesting indeed.

Before this, from the way Wen Yuansi and Old Madam Li interacted, she could already see that Wen Yuansi was someone who was extremely detailed and gentle, as though caring for his grandmother for so long had become a part of him. His instinct was to take care of women, regardless of their age, and did it without any other intention.

But she didn’t expect him to be able to do this to such an extent. He could even tell when a woman’s weight had changed slightly.

No wonder the young ladies liked him so much.

There were probably a ton of other young women like Fu Xiuxiu.

She lay on the bed and blew out her candle. The room was silent.

Song Caitang closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep while thinking about what happened during the day and whether she might have missed anything out…

After thinking through everything, she found herself most curious about two things.

What did Yun Nianyao lose? What could have been placed on that tiny three-legged round table?

And what role did An Pengyi, the youngest of the three sworn brothers, play in the two cases?

Her eyelids grew heavy as sleep came over her. She stopped thinking about these things and fell asleep.

She fell asleep for some time before she woke up again groggily. She suddenly felt like something wasn’t quite right and opened her eyes.

Unlike other nights, she seemed to have woken up earlier than usual. Also, she felt a slight chill down her back and felt like someone was watching her. It was not a good feeling.

They had moved into the second half of February and the moon rose very late. There was only a little bit of moonlight now, so it wasn’t very bright and visibility was still quite poor.

Song Caitang did not light a lantern and just slowly got out of bed. She moved in silence and came to the window.

Because of her irritating habit of waking up in the night, her window was normally not shut fast. It wasn’t wide open either, but the gap was quite wide.

She stood by the window and secretly looked out…

But the night was too dark and she couldn’t see anything.

Yet, she continued to have that uneasy feeling. Her heart was palpitating anxiously like the night she was attacked by those balls of fire.

She frowned slightly and was ready to yell for someone…

Just then, there was a swoosh as something sliced through the air and came toward her!

Song Caitang immediately shifted her body and hid herself in the corner next to the window.

She couldn’t see it, but she knew from the sound that this was an arrow.

Someone was shooting arrows into her room!

She didn’t know martial arts, and she couldn’t see well in such poor lighting, so she had no idea where this arrow was being shot from, or what sort of path this arrow was going to take. It was only when it had come close enough for her to see the glint of the arrow that she noticed the arrow was shot at a rather odd angle. It flew diagonally upward toward the ceiling beams…

Before she could really give it any thought, she heard a rustling noise outside her window. The noise was very close by, as though it was right next to her.

Song Caitang grabbed hold of the wooden stick used to hold up the window and gripped it tightly. When she felt like the rustling noise had come closer and was about to come into the room, she immediately spun around and swung the stick hard toward the window.

She used a lot of strength and moved extremely quickly, so it certainly wasn’t a light knock.

“Oof!”

She heard a muffled man’s voice.

It sounded kinda familiar.

“Ow! Stop hitting me! That hurts!”

Oops…

She heard his voice clearly now. That was Zhao Zhi.

Song Caitang looked outside a little hesitantly.

In the pale moonlight, two pairs of eyes met. One bright and intelligent, one dark and icy.

“It’s you?”

“Why are you awake again?!”

Zhao Zhi used his tongue to hold up his cheek that hurt from getting hit and his voice cracked a little, “What the hell is wrong with you? Instead of sleeping at night, you choose to guard your room against thieves every day?!”

As he spoke, he glanced regretfully into the distance. After such a commotion, the archer must have left. He had lost the chance to catch him.

Song Caitang was a little awkward, “I didn’t know you were such a kind person who always does good deeds in the middle of the night instead of sleeping.”

His face really hurt from how hard she had hit him, and there was a bruise too.

Zhao Zhi winced and glared at Song Caitang, “Next time, watch what you’re hitting first!”

Song Caitang moved aside to let him in, then lit a candle, and even poured a cold cup of tea for Zhao Zhi to calm his nerves, “You…were the one who saved me earlier?”

Since that person actually shot at her room, they were obviously not playing around and wanted to kill her.

And if they wanted to kill her, the arrow would have flown toward the blanket on the bed and not the ceiling beams. But the arrow flew straight for the ceiling, which meant it had clearly been intercepted along the way.

Zhao Zhi leaped in from the window, sat down at the table and drank the icy cold tea in one gulp.

He was really thirsty.

He also drank the cold tea without any complaint. Just like Song Caitang, the temperature of the tea and all that didn’t bother him.

After he had finished his tea, his face felt a little less painful. He folded his arms and raised an eyebrow, “I’ve helped you twice and you’ve whacked me twice. Excellent job, Song Caitang.”

Song Caitang didn’t know how to respond to that. If you counted the last time this happened, it was true that she had hit him twice now.

“I was in the wrong,” she admitted her mistake very quickly with a serious look on her face, “I’m sorry. If there’s anything I can do to make up for the pain you’ve suffered and I am able to do it, please let me know.”

If she had tried to defend herself by saying that she didn’t know he was outside and hadn’t hit him on purpose, Zhao Zhi had plenty of sarcastic responses lined up for her. But she had admitted her mistake so readily…

He felt like he had thrown a punch into cotton wads.

As a grown man, surely he shouldn’t take issue with a woman over such a small matter, right?

But if he didn’t do that, he would feel so indignant inside too…

He ground his teeth and glared at Song Caitang before scoffing, “Women are just so troublesome.”

The candle flickered gently and cast a shadow. The dark night was silent.

The atmosphere had become…a little awkward.

Song Caitang was about to say something to break the tension when Zhao Zhi suddenly frowned very hard at her, “Go and get dressed.”

She blinked in surprise. She was wearing clothes for crying out loud!

They were pajamas and they were a little loose, but they weren’t revealing in any way and it even had a high collar that covered her neck. She wasn’t being inappropriate at all so why did he say those words with such contempt?!

When discussing business, Zhao Zhi wasn’t too bad to talk to. He was clever and his thoughts moved very quickly. But outside of business, his EQ…

She concluded that he didn’t have any.

For the sake of having a proper conversation with him, she turned to walk behind her screen, put on a blouse she would normally wear in the day, then sat at the table again.

Happy now?!!

“This is already the second time you’ve run into danger.” Zhao Zhi didn’t seem to have noticed the displeased look on Song Caitang’s face. He rapped the table with his knuckles, “Any thoughts?”

Song Caitang asked, “Did you manage to find anything after the last incident?”

“No…” Zhao Zhi paused and glared at her, “How did you know I went to investigate the matter?”

Song Caitang replied, “You’re not an idiot. It could be connected to the case – you would have suspected so.”

Zhao Zhi shut his eyes and sighed in defeat. This woman was really too clever!

“Someone laid a trap the last time. The light outside your yard had been tampered with. This person was very clever and didn’t leave any traces behind. They never appeared again, so I couldn’t find out who did it. As for just now…”

He secretly gnashed his teeth, “If you hadn’t done anything, I would have been able to confirm that I had successfully deflected the arrow and I would turn back to find the person who did it. But you turned around and whacked me with a stick!”

She had created such a commotion! There was no way that could have ended well!

“I’m sorry,” Song Caitang sighed, “It’s all my fault.”

The more she pushed the blame on herself, the unhappier it made Zhao Zhi. It made him seem like a very petty man! Two veins bulged from his forehead, “I was at fault too, alright? Happy?”

Song Caitang smiled, “Then let’s come to a truce and talk business?”

Zhao Zhi was speechless.

There was no point getting angry with this woman. It only made him angrier.

He switched the topic, “You’re from here, so do you have any…”

“No, I don’t have any enemies here,” Song Caitang finished his sentence steadily, “If your information network were a little wider, you would know that I had hit my head and was basically an idiot for nearly a year, regaining my senses only very recently. The only relatives I have in Luanze are the Guan family, who are my mother’s relatives. I haven’t had the time to start a feud with anyone else.”

“The ones trying to attack me are definitely doing it because…”

Zhao Zhi narrowed his eyes and tapped the table with his fingers, “…because of the case.”

Song Caitang had proven to be too much of an expert when it came to conducting autopsies. Regardless of what the body looked like, once she had examined it, she would be able to glean a huge amount of information from it. The clues she found were incredibly helpful to the investigation.

Not only was she talented at examining bodies, but she was also excellent at making conjectures. The two murder cases in Tianhua Temple would be major cases that were difficult to solve, regardless of where they happened. But because of her, the investigation had made tremendous and significant progress in just a few days. They hadn’t cracked the case yet, but it was a matter of time.

Such a person was the favorite of the authorities, but an enemy of a killer.

The murderer wouldn’t want the case to be resolved, so they would try to stop the investigation. Targeting Song Caitang wasn’t difficult.

But the question now was, which case’s investigation was the archer trying to thwart?

Was it the Ximen Gang case? Or the Yun Nianyao case?

If Zhao Zhi could think of it, Song Caitang could too, “Also, is this person doing this purely because they’re afraid that I would help to crack the case? Or are they afraid that…I might find something?”

Like the item that was missing from Yun Nianyao’s room, for example.

Zhao Zhi shook his head, “I don’t know.”

He hadn’t been able to catch the archer, so he didn’t have a sure answer. Anything was possible.

He leaped lightly into the air like a leopard and reached out to pull out the arrow stuck in the ceiling beams. He brought it close to the candlelight to take a closer look.

“The steel isn’t very high quality, it’s not military issued and there are no special markings on it. It’s a generic arrow you can find in the marketplace.”

In other words, it was hard to find out where this arrow had come from. This arrow alone was not enough for them to find out who did this.

Song Caitang remarked, “Looks like the archer is very clever.”

It was hard to say how long this person had taken to prepare this shot.

“You’d better be careful,” Zhao Zhi reminded her, “I happened to be here the last two times, but you won’t be so lucky all the time.”

Song Caitang looked at him with a faint, knowing smile on her face, “Is that so?”

Zhao Zhi looked like he didn’t know what Song Caitang was implying and kept the arrow calmly with the intention of studying it more closely in the morning.

“Let’s talk about your secret shall we?” Song Caitang tapped her fingers on the table like he often did, “You promised me earlier today that you would tell me the secrets behind the Yun Nianyao case.”