The town was not large. Nestled against the mountains and beside the water, it had rather pleasant scenery. Shi Huai decided to stay the night and continue on his journey tomorrow.
By the time the carriage stopped outside the only inn in town, dusk had already deepened.
Twilight surged in from every direction, dyeing the entire town a dusky blue-gray.
The innkeeper was a woman in her thirties. She wore an indigo beizi, her hair secured with a silver hairpin. Her features were delicate and refined, and she spoke in a soft, gentle voice. At first glance, she looked almost like someone who had received a proper education.
When she saw Shi Huai jump down from the carriage, the handkerchief in her hand slipped to the ground. She bent to pick it up, only for it to fall again. It took her several attempts before she finally managed to retrieve it.
“How many guests, sir? Will you be staying the night, or just stopping for a meal?”
The woman’s voice sounded strangely unsteady. Her gaze lingered on Shi Huai’s face for a moment before darting away.
“Three of us. We’ll be staying the night.”
Shi Huai took the bundle from Qinghe and walked into the inn.
The woman hurriedly answered him, then fumbled behind the counter for the register. She opened it, but the tip of her brush hovered over the paper for a long while before finally writing a single character: “Shi.”
The handwriting was crooked and awkward, as flustered as the woman herself.
The coachman went to tend to the horses.
Qinghe followed Shi Huai upstairs, while Tangerine brought up the rear, its tail held high as it swayed elegantly along, taking three graceful steps at a time.
Behind the counter, the woman watched Shi Huai’s back disappear around the bend in the staircase. She spun the brush between her fingers several times before finally slamming it onto the counter with a sharp crack.
Late that night, Qingyang Town sank into silence.
Shi Huai lay on the bed, breathing evenly. Moonlight slipped through the gap in the curtains and fell across his face, coating his nearly translucent features in a layer of silvery-white radiance.
Tangerine was curled up at his feet, its tail wrapped around his ankle, sleeping soundly.
The window was pushed open from outside with a faint creak.
Two men in black climbed through. They moved as lightly as cats, their feet making scarcely a sound against the floorboards.
Tangerine’s eyes flew open. Its ears stood straight up, and a low growl rumbled in its throat.
It was just about to cry out when one of the men reached down and gripped it by the neck.
The force was not great—just enough to keep it from making a sound.
The other man walked to the bedside and looked down at Shi Huai’s sleeping face. In the moonlight, that face was so beautiful it seemed almost unreal.
The man froze for a moment. His outstretched hand hung suspended in the air for quite some time before finally descending. A handkerchief soaked in soporific was pressed over Shi Huai’s mouth and nose.
At the very last moment before losing consciousness, Shi Huai opened his eyes. He saw a pair of cold, emotionless eyes staring fixedly at him.
He wanted to struggle, to shout, to grab hold of something—but his body had already ceased to obey him.
His consciousness receded like the tide, while darkness surged in from every direction and swallowed him whole.
Tangerine was thrown to the floor with a dull thud.
Ignoring the pain, it scrambled to the bedside and clawed at Shi Huai’s arm.
When he failed to respond after two scratches, it began meowing frantically.
The men in black lifted Shi Huai from the bed, stuffed him from head to toe into a black cloth sack, slung him over one shoulder, and climbed back out through the window.
The entire movement was executed seamlessly, taking less than a quarter of an hour.
Tangerine leapt out the window and chased the two men across the rooftops for quite some time.
But a cat’s legs were too short, while a man’s were too long. Before long, the men had shaken it off.
It ran around the alleys several times, unable to find their trail, spinning anxiously in place.
“Meow! Meow!”
Its cries echoed through the empty alley, sounding utterly heartrending.
Qinghe was awakened by Tangerine.
The cat was frantically scratching at her door.
It scratched for so long that several deep marks were gouged into the wooden panel.
It clawed and cried at the same time, its voice loud enough to carry throughout the entire corridor.
The moment Qinghe opened the door, Tangerine darted inside, seized her trouser leg, and tugged her toward the outside.
Qinghe staggered from the force and had to catch herself against the doorframe.
“Tangerine? What’s wrong? Where’s Young Master Shi?”
Tangerine released her trouser leg and raced toward Shi Huai’s room. After two steps, it turned back to look at her, as if saying, “Are you coming or not?”
Qinghe followed Tangerine to Shi Huai’s door.
The door was half-open. When she pushed it wider, she found the bed empty.
The covers had been thrown back, and the pillow lay crookedly to one side.
The window stood wide open. Night wind poured through it, whipping the curtains with a loud rustling.
Qinghe’s legs gave way.
Clutching the doorframe, she slid down onto the floor. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Tears streamed down her face like beads from a broken string.
Tangerine leapt onto the windowsill and cried toward the outside, its meows sharp and frantic, as though saying, “They went out this way!”
Qinghe pulled herself up from the floor and stumbled downstairs, then pounded on the innkeeper’s door.
The innkeeper came out with a robe thrown over her shoulders. She was startled by the sight of Qinghe’s tear-streaked face. But after hearing Qinghe’s broken, halting account, her own face went white.
“You’re saying that Young Master Shi has been kidnapped?”
Qinghe nodded vigorously. She could not even form the words and could only gesture desperately.
The woman hurried behind the counter and took a bamboo tube from a drawer. Inside was a homing pigeon.
She slipped a small note into the tiny tube attached to the pigeon’s leg, then opened the window and released it.
The pigeon beat its wings and flew into the night. Before long, it vanished into the vast darkness.
Qinghe stood by the window, trembling all over as she watched the direction in which it had disappeared.
“Who did you send the message to?”
The woman glanced at her and lowered her voice. “To the person who needs to receive it.”
Qinghe parted her lips, intending to ask who that person was, but swallowed the question.
Because she had noticed that the woman’s expression was completely different from before.
The gentle innkeeper who had spoken so softly a moment earlier seemed to have become an entirely different person. In her place stood a stranger with keen eyes and brisk, decisive movements.
Tangerine crouched on the windowsill, its round eyes fixed on the pitch-black sky outside.
When Shi Huai awoke, he found himself lying in a pitch-dark room.
The room was small and had no windows. There was only an iron door, with a small square opening in it. A faint sliver of light filtered in through the opening.
His hands had been bound behind his back, the rope pulled so tightly that his wrists burned painfully.
A piece of cloth had also been stuffed into his mouth.
Shi Huai closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and forced himself to calm down.
His mind raced as he analyzed his current predicament.
Who would kidnap him?
Ransom?
Although the Yongning Marquis’s Residence had fallen into decline, it still bore the name of a marquis. He was also the residence’s only male heir. Kidnapping him for ransom sounded perfectly plausible.
But if they were after money, why not act in the capital?
The entrance to the Yongning Marquis’s Residence in the capital was busy every day, with carriages coming and going and people constantly passing by. Where could they have hidden a captive?
Instead, they had chosen to strike after he left the capital, when he had only one maid and one cat by his side. That meant the kidnappers knew his movements intimately.
They might even have been following him since the capital.
At the thought, a chill ran down Shi Huai’s back.
If the kidnappers had been tracking him from the capital, then their purpose could not be ransom.
There would have been no need to follow him for so long merely to demand money. They could have chosen any place along the road and made their move.
Their goal was to make him “disappear”—to erase the only male heir of the Marquis of Yongning’s household from this world entirely.
A name suddenly flashed through Shi Huai’s mind.
Shi Lingyi.
