Autumn Chrysanthemum Court.
Lu Jinshuang stood in the quiet courtyard, staring at the tightly shut door with a puzzled expression. She glanced at the servants beside her and asked again.
“Are you certain they went to bed at the hour of You last night?”
“Yes, Your Highness. At the hour of You, they dismissed all of us, and after that, they never left the courtyard. Not a single sound came from inside.”
The lead maidservant spoke, and the others nodded in agreement. They could not have been mistaken.
The honored guests of the Seventh Princess—two sworn sisters personally acknowledged by her—were not to be taken lightly. They had been waiting here since early morning, keeping watch all the way until now.
Lu Jinshuang looked up at the sky. It was nearly noon. Even if the two had started resting at the end of the hour of You, sleeping straight through to noon would mean about eight whole shichen.
Yesterday, the two sisters had risen early to practice their martial arts. After just one day, they were already this lazy?
She strode toward the room. Laziness was one thing, but if they had eaten something bad yesterday and fallen ill, that could not be delayed. No child slept this much.
With a creak, Lu Jinshuang pushed open the door. Aside from Dongxue, no one else followed her inside.
She passed through the main hall, crossed the partitioned screen door, and entered the eastern side chamber. At a glance, she saw the two lying sound asleep on the bed.
Xi Qingyue had woken the moment Lu Jinshuang entered the courtyard, but sensing no ill intent, she had drifted back to sleep. Xi Weilan, meanwhile, hugged a little bunny doll, sleeping peacefully with a happy smile on her face and a bit of drool at the corner of her mouth.
Lu Jinshuang stepped forward, felt both their foreheads, then took out a handkerchief to wipe the drool from Xi Weilan’s mouth. She shook her head with a smile and left the room.
She swept her gaze across the maids in the courtyard and finally fixed on a young maidservant in a green skirt standing at the front. “Xiaolian, tell the cook to prepare some pastries and set them aside. Also, have them make plenty of dishes, and bring them up as soon as they wake.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Having confirmed with her own eyes that the two were fine, Lu Jinshuang returned to her own courtyard. There was no rush to practice martial arts—one or two days would not matter.
No sooner had she returned to her courtyard than Lu Shiwan arrived.
“Big Sister, why do you keep running over to my place all day? I’m still under house arrest, you know.”
Lu Shiwan sat down, drank a cup of tea, then glanced at her. “The fact that you got back so quickly is thanks to me. Can’t I come over for a sip of your tea?”
Lu Jinshuang smiled and nodded. “Fine, of course. You’re welcome to come drink tea every single day. Instead of going out to watch the excitement, why sit here with me? It must be so boring. I heard more than a dozen estates were robbed, and all of them pretty badly.”
At the mention of watching the excitement, Lu Shiwan’s expression turned complicated.
“Seventh Sister, you should have seen it. The Tenth Prince’s mansion was stripped bare—not even a single bed left. When I went there, he was lying pitifully on the floor, wailing. Every bone in his body seemed to have been beaten. If it weren’t for his status as a prince allowing him to summon imperial physicians, he wouldn’t even have had the money to see a doctor.”
Lu Jinshuang’s mouth fell open in shock. Her eyes held disbelief and surprise, along with a faint trace of schadenfreude.
Then, she slapped the table excitedly. “Which thief pulled this off? Absolutely brilliant! I thought they’d only stolen from the storerooms.”
She could not leave the estate, and the servants had only heard that morning that more than a dozen residences had been robbed pretty badly—but no one had told her it was this devastating.
Lu Shiwan shook her head with a smile. “Even the chairs were taken. The masters of those households certainly won’t go around spreading that themselves—it’s too shameful to admit. And in times like these, not a single servant in those households would dare utter a word. The details won’t come out until the yamen officials arrive. If you send someone to the government office now to ask around, you’ll definitely hear far more detailed accounts.”
Hearing this, Lu Jinshuang shot a meaningful glance at Dongxue, who immediately slipped out.
She could not help but click her tongue in wonder. “Over a dozen estates robbed in a single night. When did the capital’s security become paper-thin? Are the patrolling imperial guards just for show?”
Lu Shiwan saw her still gloating and could not resist a word of caution. “Don’t celebrate too soon. All those robbed estates share one thing in common: they all had people lingering outside your gates. Don’t let someone splash dirty water on you.”
Lu Jinshuang brushed it off. “I’m under house arrest. Even if I know some martial arts, there’s no way I could empty their estates in one night. If Father Emperor believed such a tale, then he shouldn’t be emperor—he might as well focus on alchemy and refining pills.”
At those words, Lu Shiwan frowned. “Watch your mouth. Don’t you know the walls have ears?”
She paused, then glanced around. “By the way, where are Yueqing and her sister? Consort Qin said you can’t enter the palace while under house arrest, so she asked me to bring them for a visit.”
Lu Jinshuang shook her head immediately. “They’re still asleep. I went to check—they’re sleeping soundly. They went to bed at the hour of You. Also, at this critical moment, don’t let the two of them be seen. I don’t want to bring them any trouble. I’ll send word to Mother later.”
Lu Shiwan first thought that made sense, then paused and wondered if she had heard wrong. “You said they slept at what time?”
“The hour of You. I confirmed it. Eight shichen and they still haven’t woken. Little Lan’er was even drooling. Nothing wrong with them. Anyone might think the two of them went out thieving last night.”
As soon as she said it, Lu Jinshuang realized what she had just uttered. She laughed and lightly tapped her own lips. “Look at my rotten mouth. I really do need to watch what I say. If someone overheard that, it would be trouble.”
Not long after, Dongxue came bustling in, visibly excited.
“Your Highness, I found out! Aside from the Fourth Prince’s bed and rockery, which weren’t stolen, every other residence was cleaned out completely. The yamen officers said walking through those houses was so spacious—no need to weave around anything. The storerooms were spotless, so clean you could see a single mouse. But only the Fourth Prince was poisoned. Many imperial physicians examined him, and none could identify the poison. He’s still unconscious.”
Lu Shiwan was shocked at this as well. She had personally visited the Tenth Prince’s residence, but she had not gone to many of the other estates. She had not expected them all to be in such miserable shape.
What they did not know was that the Fourth Prince’s residence had been the first to be robbed. At first, Xi Qingyue had not planned to take things like the rockery, but later she thought they would make nice decorations in her storage space, so she took everything, without leaving a single item behind.
Meanwhile, at the Duke Anguo’s manor.
The Duke had long been fuming with rage over the devastation, nearly passing out. He had woken at dawn to find himself lying on the floor—his bed gone, his tables and chairs gone, and every vase, painting, and ornament in his room vanished.
When he stepped outside, even the rare flowers, plants, and rockery in the garden were gone.
What infuriated him even more was that not only was the storeroom cleaned out, but all the food in the kitchen had disappeared, the household’s grain reserves were gone, and even the ingredients prepared by the inner kitchen had vanished. There was not a single edible thing left in the entire manor.
And most crucially, they now had no silver left. They could not even go out and rebuy everything.
Song Qian was crying and making a fuss from early in the morning, as he had always been spoiled and behaved willfully, a far cry from the three-year-old Xi Weilan. He had never known hunger before—he only knew that when his stomach growled, he wanted food, but he had no idea that the household was now so poor that all that remained was an empty mansion.
It was only when one of the household guards dug into his own private savings to buy Song Qian something to eat that the crying finally stopped. Not a single smiling face could be seen across the entire Duke Anguo estate.
