Chapter 5

Shen Qing uncorked the medicine bottle and dabbed ointment onto her fingertip. The cool salve touched the raw skin, and a scorching pain flared up immediately, like fire licking along the wound.
She sucked in a sharp breath, tears pricking the corners of her eyes.
Liu Jiyue was used to her delicate nature, but he still couldn’t help saying, “So now you know it hurts. When you were drawing talismans with your blood, you were so bold I thought you felt nothing at all.”
Shen Qing protested, aggrieved, “That was an emergency. I couldn’t find cinnabar, so I had no choice. I only did it so you could subdue it faster, if it had escaped the estate and harmed others, wouldn’t that have been worse?”
He knew he couldn’t win an argument with her. After a few muttered “Forget it”, he ruffled her hair helplessly. “Blood talismans damage your health. Don’t do that again.”
She answered with a guilty little “Mm.”
Not just next time, likely the time after that, and the time after that as well.
Blood talismans did harm the body, yes, but their power was tremendous. And tremendous power was exactly what a weak cultivator like Shen Qing needed.
The suffocating helplessness she’d felt under the yellow weasel’s fangs still lingered. If not for the Xuanji Pavilion signal flare she happened to have, and if Liu Jiyue hadn’t been nearby, she might have died again tonight.
While they spoke, Liu Jiyue was already inspecting the area. Only then did Shen Qing realize that after all that noise, not a single servant had come.
The courtyard remained utterly silent.
Calmer now, she saw what was wrong. The yellow weasel had set up a formation over the estate, isolating her courtyard from the rest of the world. She had no idea how Liu Jiyue had forced his way in.
Thankfully, Xuanji Pavilion’s flares were special. No matter what space they were fired from, anyone carrying a matching flare would sense it and rush over. Otherwise, tonight really might have been her last.
Moonlight fell in shimmering sheets, illuminating the courtyard.
Shen Qing paced along the edges, scanning every corner, until her gaze locked onto the swing beneath the tree.
Green vines twined around the ropes, running straight up the thick trunk. The tree’s broad canopy should have cast the swing in complete shade, yet moonlight still bathed the seat.
Every formation had a core. With weaker formations, that “eye” was especially obvious. If someone trapped inside wanted to escape, all they needed to do was find the spot that seemed out of place and destroy it.
Liu Jiyue had clearly noticed the weak point as well. He drew his blade and sliced cleanly through the base of the swing.
For a moment, everything seemed to change, and yet not change at all. Shen Qing’s vision swam; when it cleared, light suddenly flooded her eyes. Looking closely, she realized it was candlelight from inside the house.
“Miss! Miss, where did you go?”
Cuizhi, seeing Shen Qing, rushed over in a panic. “I just turned away to light the lamps and in that moment you vanished right in front of me! No matter where I looked, I couldn’t find you!”
In the span of a single day, her poor maid had been frightened half to death twice. Even someone as thick-skinned as Shen Qing felt a rare pang of guilt. She cleared her throat. “I’m fine. I just, ”
“Just now encountered an evil spirit. It has already been exorcised,” a clear, gentle male voice finished for her. “Your lady is safe.”
Cuizhi started, looking up in surprise. “Deputy Liu?”
Liu Jiyue inclined his head with a mild smile that never quite reached his eyes. He turned to her and asked, “Did anything else happen to your mistress today?”
Suspicion stirred in Shen Qing’s heart. Why was Senior Brother suddenly asking that? Had he seen something at the restaurant earlier?
While she was spinning wild guesses, Liu Jiyue tapped lightly in the air, just at the height of her neck.
Her heart lurched. She hurriedly reached up. The ribbon was still tied around her throat, but after everything that had happened, it had loosened just enough to expose the sword mark beneath, plain as day in Liu Jiyue’s eyes.
Shen Qing immediately turned toward him and blurted, “Maybe it was when that yellow weasel demon clawed me,”
Liu Jiyue’s lips pressed together. “Demon claws don’t leave cuts this clean. And there’s no demonic taint on the wound. To me, it looks very much like a sword injury.”
A thin line of anger gathered between his brows. “Yuan,” he said quietly, “tell your senior brother. Who hurt you?”
Shen Qing’s thoughts whirled as she tried to find a way around the question.
She couldn’t exactly admit that she’d schemed against a peacock demon and Li Daoxuan at the same time for the sake of a single jade pendant, and that the cut on her neck came from a bit of “acting” gone wrong.
If Senior Brother found out who had done it, even if the culprit was the Emperor’s favorite fourth son, the Prince of Cang, he would still risk punishment for offending a prince to seek justice for her.
That was just the kind of person he was, and that was precisely what left Shen Qing speechless.
When she stayed silent, Liu Jiyue turned to Cuizhi instead. “Cuizhi,” he said, “your mistress has been wronged. There’s no way you don’t know who hurt her.”
Cuizhi’s eyes went red at once. She stared at her lady in disbelief. “Miss, you said that wound came from subduing a demon! How could it be a sword injury?”
Liu Jiyue’s gaze locked onto the maid, his usually gentle tone laced now with unfamiliar steel. “Please,” he said, “tell me exactly what happened today.”
Cuizhi swallowed. “Miss went to Youjian Restaurant this afternoon, ”
“Cuizhi!” Shen Qing cut in sharply.
The maid fell silent, eyes reddening further, torn in two.
On one side was her lady’s direct order; on the other, the injustice her lady had suffered. She wanted nothing more than to split herself in half, one half obeying, the other telling the whole truth.
Fortunately, Shen Qing moved quickly. She seized Cuizhi’s arm, dragged her to the courtyard gate, and pushed her out. “All of you, out!” she snapped to the other servants. “No one comes in without my permission!”
“Miss! You mustn’t”
“And another thing!” Shen Qing added, voice hard. “No one is to disturb Father and Mother. If anyone alarms them, I’ll see they regret it.”
With that, the courtyard held only the Assistant Envoy and the young lady.
Outside, Cuizhi paced in anxious circles.
Yes, Deputy Liu had practically half-raised her mistress. Everyone knew he was like an older brother to her. But an unmarried man and woman alone in a courtyard at night, if rumors spread, they would still hurt Shen Qing’s reputation.
People repeated what they heard; slander accumulated like dust. In the end, it would be her lady who suffered.
The thought steeled Cuizhi’s expression.
She turned to the other maids who’d been shooed out. “You should all know who your master is,” she said coldly. “Your contracts are in the master’s hands. If any of you dare run your mouths about tonight, if anyone dares to bite the hand that feeds her, you’re basically saying you don’t want your life anymore.”
The little maids dropped their heads. “Cuizhi, we know nothing of tonight,” they chorused.
While Cuizhi was warning the others outside, Shen Qing was inside racking her brain for how to handle Liu Jiyue.
He simply watched her, waiting.
Shen Qing grabbed his sleeve, pulling a pitiful face. “Senior Brother, I’m really fine. I just… hurt myself by accident.”
“One moment it’s a wound from demon-slaying; the next, it’s an accident,” he replied. “Some ‘accident’, to carve that long a gash into your own neck.”
He added, unflinching, “I know exactly how much skill you have. Forget demons, you’d struggle against an ordinary street thief.”
The more he listed her shortcomings, the lower Shen Qing’s head drooped. She wished she could burrow straight into the ground.
At last, she wailed, “Senior Brother…”
He was unmoved. “Will you tell me who hurt you or not?”
She snapped her mouth shut and played dead, a turtle retreating into its shell.
Liu Jiyue let out a short, humorless laugh. “If you won’t, it’s fine. I’ll find out myself.”
Then he actually began laying out his reasoning, calm and methodical. “Just now, Cuizhi mentioned Youjian Restaurant. I assume the wound came from there. Commoners in Chang’an aren’t allowed to carry weapons, but cultivators are an exception.”
Shen Qing’s eyes flew up to his.
He lowered his gaze and continued, “Today, there were two demon disturbances, one in the East Market, one in Pingkang Ward. The East Market incident happened near Youjian Restaurant. The demon-hunting assignment His Majesty issued today went to disciples of Dongshan Temple.”
“There are many rules at Dongshan Temple. Its disciples are well-known for being gentle and proper, never harming innocents. Only one man is an exception, His Highness the Prince of Cang, Li Daoxuan, disciple of Master You Daozi.”
“And this afternoon, many witnesses saw His Highness Li Daoxuan crash out of a guest room window at Youjian Restaurant and chase a demon along the rooftops, sword in hand.”
Shen Qing’s heart went from shock to numb resignation.
The rules at Dongshan Temple were more than “many”, they were suffocating. Even the cups used for drinking water had regulations. Those rules could drive a man mad. If a disciple injured someone, the punishment would be severe, at the very least, confinement and corporal discipline.
“From what I’ve heard,” Liu Jiyue went on, “His Highness the Prince of Cang is arrogant and unruly. He treats rules and laws as nothing, and ordinary people even less so. Doing as he pleases is his nature. If he was the one who hurt you, everything fits.”
“Senior Brother, just listen to my explanation,” Shen Qing pleaded. She’d lost count of how many “explanations” she’d begged for by now, and yet it was all she had.
“Based on your habits,” Liu Jiyue said coolly, “if it weren’t him, you would have refuted it on the spot instead of standing here asking me to listen. So it seems, without a doubt, it was the Prince of Cang.”
Her senior brother’s pressure was suffocating.
Since childhood, Shen Qing had never once managed to lie under Liu Jiyue’s nose. Nothing had changed now that she was grown.
His expression shifted. He strode to the gate, yanked it open, and addressed Cuizhi directly. “Tell me, aside from her neck, where else was she… out of sorts?”
Cuizhi still felt small under his presence. In the end, she couldn’t withstand his sharp gaze and answered honestly, “This afternoon, I saw Miss with her hair all loose and her clothes in disarray…” Her eyes reddened again. “Has someone really harmed her? Deputy Liu, please, you must get justice for my lady!”
Before Shen Qing could rush out, Cuizhi had already spilled everything.
Hearing her description, Shen Qing sucked in a sharp breath. Put that way, anyone would misunderstand!
Liu Jiyue’s eyes darkened until they were nearly red. Without another word, he drew his blade and headed out.
Shen Qing clung to his arm. “Senior Brother! Where are you going?!”
“To settle accounts,” he said coldly.
“It’s not like that! Calm down and let me explain!”
He halted and whipped around. “Explain what? You were bullied, and now you can’t speak because he threatened you?”
He thought it through. Li Daoxuan was the Emperor’s most favored son, with power like the tide. Even the highly ranked Shen family had to bow their heads before him. For the family’s sake, his junior sister might swallow her grievances rather than speak out.
The more he considered it, the more plausible it seemed.
He immediately turned to go, blade in hand.
Shen Qing couldn’t hold him back. In desperation, she shouted, “He didn’t bully me! I like him!”
Liu Jiyue’s footsteps froze.