Chapter 4: The Return

Any normal person, suddenly encountering a stunning beauty adorned in pearls and silks in a wild, secluded grove, would be so terrified as to feel their very soul scatter, suspecting they had stumbled upon a demon. Even if the beauty were truly human, how could one explain the two bloodied, mangled orange trees standing beside her?

Yet, evidently, Yun Chuan was no ordinary person; she hadn’t thought a single normal thing.

“Looking at the moon,” she answered simply.

Moonlight poured gently along the side of the beauty’s face. The woman curled her lips in a faint, sardonic smile and asked, “Looking at the moon? And before that?”

“Planting orange trees.”

The beauty turned her gaze toward the two corpses, fused with the orange trees beside them. After a long silence, she snorted coldly, “Planting orange trees… You weren’t satisfied with dying quickly, were you?”

She showed no surprise at Yun Chuan’s absurd reply—in fact, she even engaged in a back-and-forth with her, clearly no ordinary figure.

Yun Chuan looked at this unfamiliar face and asked, “Do you know me? Who are you?”

The beauty’s fingers, entwined in Yun Chuan’s red coral hairpin, froze instantly. Her eyes darkened deeply, wrath churning beneath that blackness in rising waves. It was as if the words were sharp blades, flying from Yun Chuan’s mouth and slicing through her throat.

Yun Chuan saw the stranger stand, her features and expression blurring, but her voice remained clear.

“I don’t know you.”

This time, Yun Chuan heard it distinctly—a man’s voice, clear and bright, like the tinkling wind chimes hanging under the eaves of the wooden hut on Mount Kunwu when the breeze passes.

Yun Chuan stretched out her hand desperately. “Give me a pull.”

The beauty looked down at her from above, silent for a long moment before sneering. “Better for you to just fall and die!”

With that, she turned and left, her layered garments fluttering in the air like a brushstroke across the moonlight, vanishing from Yun Chuan’s sight.

Yun Chuan’s hand hung suspended in midair for a long time until the golden ring on her wrist rapidly contracted, enveloping the blue stone within and turning back into an ordinary gold bracelet. She seemed to awaken from a trance.

She had been unable to move moments before, yet now, as if summoned by unknown strength, she suddenly sat up, grass and debris falling from her body.

Yun Chuan scanned her surroundings; the moonlight was bright, the trees lush, but the beauty was gone.

“She knows me,” Yun Chuan muttered to herself, her tone resolute, eyes shining like moonlight.

At that moment, her bracelet clicked sharply—an unforeseen malfunction—and two links fell off, leaving the bracelet hanging loosely like an armlet on her wrist.

Yun Chuan raised her wrist to her eyes, frowned, and sighed: “Broken again.”

The night had been anything but peaceful. At dawn, Xie Yuzhu paced nervously in her room, whose window had lost a pane, letting cold wind whistle inside. Uncle Zhuang followed, pale and sweating, saying, “Last night was truly perilous. Fortunately, the kidnappers took Yun Chuan. If they had taken you, Miss, how could I face Master?”

The two men in black had used an illusion spell that wore off shortly after they left. The guards patrolling downstairs rushed up upon discovering the missing window and the disorder inside the room, finding it empty. Alarmed, they reported to Uncle Zhuang. The entire Moonlit Pavilion was thrown into chaos. After much searching, they finally found Xie Yuzhu mingling in the crowd, watching the dreamweaver’s spectacle.

Xie Yuzhu was bewildered. When she compared the two situations, she realized the kidnappers had intended to capture her but had mistakenly taken the disguised Yun Chuan instead.

“What do you mean by fortunately? Yun Chuan…” Xie Yuzhu pointed at Uncle Zhuang, furious and ready to curse, but then her gaze caught a dirty, grass-streaked hand extending outside the broken window frame, a broken bracelet hanging from its wrist.

Her words halted abruptly. She slowly turned her head to see the hand clutching the window frame, pulling up a similarly grimy face.

Yun Chuan clung to the frame, staring at the throng inside the room. A group of people stared back silently, wide-eyed.

She calmly extended her hand. “Can someone pull me up?”

The silence shattered into a clamor. Servants rushed over, tugging her in from outside. Yun Chuan was covered in grass and dust, her clothes stained with fresh blood—a pitiful sight.

The timing and manner of her appearance were utterly unexpected. Uncle Zhuang scrutinized her, shocked. “The Moonlit Pavilion’s gates were tightly guarded, and no one raised the alarm. How did you get in?”

Yun Chuan dusted herself off, pointing behind. “There’s a wall in the backyard infested with termites. It was already rotten. I threw a couple of stones at it, and it collapsed.”

Her words froze the room once more. Uncle Zhuang’s face turned ashen and he trembled, “Termites?”

He immediately ordered repairs and a thorough inspection of the building’s walls for termite nests. A thousand-mile dam can be destroyed by an ant’s nest; this was a grave matter that required extermination of the pests. After giving orders, he turned to Yun Chuan with fury: “You knew about the termites but didn’t report it?”

“Why should I?”

Yun Chuan’s expression was sincere.

“You… you even dared to break the wall and sneak into Miss’s room through the window?”

Yun Chuan pointed at the door. “Xie Yuzhu told me not to leave the room. There was a shadow on the door… oh, now it’s gone. If I can’t use the door, the window is the only way.”

“Yun Chuan! How dare you call Miss by her name? Such disrespect! You even exchanged clothes with her in secret. With so many eyes around, Miss traveling alone… if anything happened—”

Uncle Zhuang’s anger boiled over, eyes bulging with fury.

“Yun Chuan! You’re utterly useless, making a simple task like sitting in my room into such a mess!”

Suddenly, Xie Yuzhu cut in sharply, standing between Uncle Zhuang and Yun Chuan, hands on hips, her voice rising above his.

“I ask you, how did you escape? Do they know they took the wrong person?”

Yun Chuan nodded. “They know.”

Xie Yuzhu glanced at Yun Chuan, signaling her to cooperate and stage a self-sacrificing act to save her from Uncle Zhuang’s wrath.

“They’ll definitely come after me again! You—”

“No, they’re dead.”

The room fell into stunned silence. Xie Yuzhu’s expression faltered, unable to signal further. Uncle Zhuang exclaimed, “The villains are dead? How did they die?”

Under all eyes, Yun Chuan gestured vaguely in the air: “They hung themselves from the orange trees. After they died, I fell to the ground, had a headache, couldn’t get up, and was just looking at the moon when a beauty came to talk to me.”

Her story was scattered and disjointed, the cause and effect unclear, leaving everyone more confused than ever. Xie Yuzhu asked bewilderedly, “So that… beauty saved you?”

“No, she said I might as well just fall and die.”

Silence engulfed the room again. Everyone exchanged glances filled with pity.

The servant Awang whispered to Uncle Zhuang, “Yun Chuan’s always been a bit odd in the head. Now, scared and injured, she’s probably hallucinating.”

Uncle Zhuang nodded in agreement.

Xie Yuzhu then resumed the act, reluctantly taking center stage in this self-pitying drama: “Yun Chuan, what nonsense are you spouting? Do you think that excuses you? Kneel down! Don’t get up without my permission!”

After scolding Yun Chuan, she turned to Uncle Zhuang. “Why are you just standing around? Anyone could enter my room! What good are you? Go check immediately!”

An hour later, seven guards stood watch outside Xie Yuzhu’s room. Outside the window, patrolling attendants walked anxiously, on high alert. Two protective talismans hung on the door, blessings brought by Fu Guangzong. A slender shadow knelt by the window, hands raised, poised and upright.

Passing servants whispered amongst themselves that Yun Chuan was still kneeling. Though forced to change her clothes and disguise herself, narrowly escaping a kidnap attempt, she had done the Miss a favor, yet the Miss treated her harshly.

Poor Yun Chuan.

Behind the folding screen in the adjacent room, Yun Chuan sat upright on a stool while Xie Yuzhu plucked grass debris from her hair.

Nearby, by the cabinet, a dummy made of a stool, pillow, broom, and clothes stood crooked yet complete with head, arms, and legs. Its shadow cast on the window was strikingly lifelike—Xie Yuzhu, a battle-hardened veteran, was naturally talented at crafting such things.

After cleaning the grass from Yun Chuan’s hair, Xie Yuzhu clapped her hands and sighed, “Glad you’re back safe. No need to guess—these people came for money. With me around, no matter how high the price, my parents would pay. I told them long ago, I wouldn’t reveal my identity when I went out. Even if captured, if I can’t escape within three days, I’d rather kill myself than have them pay ransom.”

“So, did they let you go out afterward?”

“No, they’re watching me even more closely.”

Xie Yuzhu flopped onto the bed, arms spread wide, sighing, “Now that Uncle Zhuang knows I sneaked into the building and there’s been a kidnapping, I guess I’m locked in here for good. No chance for the alliance business anymore, no way to escape.”

From her sprawled figure came a weary declaration: “The eighth failed escape.”

Silence fell over the room.

This young woman lying on the bed was bound by countless threads tied to her parents, siblings, household staff, and the family fortune. Even a slight loosening would be pulled back by the others. She felt suffocated and anguished.

In stark contrast, the seated girl was unbound by any thread, free to a fault. It was as if, having lost herself, no one in this world could pull her back.

Yun Chuan rested her chin on her hand, watching the shadows passing by the window, then suddenly said, “I want to find someone.”

“Find someone?” The figure on the bed lifted her head. Xie Yuzhu, accustomed to Yun Chuan’s flights of fancy, asked, “Who do you want to find?”

“I don’t know their name.”

“...There must be some feature?”

“Very pale, very tall, very beautiful.”

“Pale, tall, and beautiful...”

Xie Yuzhu thought for a moment, then pointed outside the window, “Could you be talking about Wen Ci?”