Lin Yonghong and Lin Yongrui

"You know perfectly well what I mean, heir."

Lin Yonghong thought he was deliberately trying to bluff him. He gave a derisive laugh. "Hmph, impossible."

His father would never abandon him.

Lu Jingsi wasted no more words on him. "Then, heir, you may wait a few more days and see whether you can still walk out of this prison in one piece."

Lin Yonghong's heart pounded, but he would not be so easily frightened. He twisted his face away, refusing to meet Lu Jingsi's eyes again.

Lu Jingsi sneered and swept out, his sleeves billowing.

Once outside the torture chamber, he gave Chengying a few instructions in a low voice. Chengying received his orders and immediately turned to make the arrangements.

Lin Yonghong believed Prince Jin could not possibly abandon him, but after waiting several days in confident expectation, he received no news at all.

Instead, the conditions in the prison were so dreadful that he was close to breaking.

Not only did the food grow worse by the day, but the candlelight was dim, and the cell grew ever colder and gloomier.

He had no idea what crimes the prisoners held near him had committed, but for the past few days, someone was always being tortured in the middle of the night. Their unending wails kept him from sleeping, and the stench of blood grew stronger and stronger.

From time to time, prisoners with broken arms and legs and festering, rotting wounds were dragged past his cell.

After only three or four days, Lin Yonghong's hair was disheveled, his eyes vacant, and his spirits utterly depleted.

Lu Jingsi judged the time right. When he returned to the prison's torture chamber, Lin Yonghong was no longer in the mood to lock eyes with him.

Lu Jingsi sat upright behind the table and raised his eyelids slightly. "Well, Heir Lin, have you thought it over?" he asked in a deep voice.

Lin Yonghong sat slumped against the wall, dejected, and did not answer.

He was unsure of himself and dared not speak, afraid Lu Jingsi would find something to use against him.

But to Lu Jingsi, his appearance was a signal.

He rested his long fingers on the tabletop and tapped them lightly back and forth.

In the eerily silent, bitterly cold torture chamber, there was only the tap, tap, tap.

After a long while.

Lu Jingsi spoke. "Prince Jin brought only you with him when he returned to the capital to report on his duties this time. You must have been secretly pleased."

Prince Jin had two legitimate sons, his eldest, Lin Yonghong, and his second, Lin Yongrui, but the two sons were not born of the same wife.

Lin Yonghong's mother had died in a difficult childbirth while giving birth to him. A year later, Prince Jin married Lin Yongrui's mother, and another year after that, Lin Yongrui was born.

To outsiders, Lin Yonghong got along well with his stepmother and younger half-brother, but in truth...

Lin Yonghong had been ignorant and idle since childhood, indulging in wine and women, while Lin Yongrui was clear-headed, talented, and virtuous.

For the moment, it did not matter whether Lin Yongrui was putting on an act or was truly that way.

At least for now, in the fief, Lin Yongrui was clearly more popular and more highly valued by Prince Jin.

On this trip to the capital, Prince Jin had brought Lin Yonghong, while Lin Yongrui had remained in the fief to manage all affairs in his stead.

There was no way Lin Yonghong did not feel wary of Lin Yongrui.

Now he was trapped deep in the prison and could only rely on Prince Jin to rescue him, but even without him, Prince Jin still had a son in Lin Yongrui.

In the torture chamber, the tap, tap, tap of long fingers abruptly stopped.

Lu Jingsi's voice was cold and deep, yet clear. "Tell me, is Prince Jin more satisfied with you? Or with Lin Yongrui?"

"You can keep waiting, but you should think carefully about whether you can afford to."

The moment those words fell, Lin Yonghong completely lost his composure.

There was no other reason.

Every word Lu Jingsi had spoken had struck him where it hurt.

"Impossible. My father wouldn't abandon me."

"Then tell me, what has your waiting brought you these past few days?"

Lu Jingsi's voice was as cold as an icy arrow, piercing his mental defenses without mercy.

Normally, once a prisoner entered the prison, relatives and friends had no opportunity to visit.

But the final verdict in the female corpse case had yet to be reached, and Lin Yonghong's status was unusual, after all. If Prince Jin truly made a request of His Majesty, even the emperor would have to grant him some consideration.

Yet these past few days, Prince Jin had not so much as sent someone with a message, let alone visited.

Lin Yonghong's defenses had utterly collapsed. Unable to find any more excuses to deceive himself, he could only shake his head and repeat, "It's impossible... impossible..."

"Heh." Lu Jingsi sneered. "Lin Yonghong, if you confess truthfully, I will spare you the agony of the most severe torture. But if you insist on resisting to the bitter end, this prison has all manner of methods to keep you company to the very end."

Without Prince Jin's protection, even if he lost an arm or a leg in this prison, he could only cling to life.

The images of those bloodied, mangled prisoners dragged past his cell over the past few days flashed through Lin Yonghong's mind again and again. Unable to hold out any longer, he fell to his knees with a thud.

"I'll talk... I'll talk..."

For the past few days, Lu Jingsi had been leaving early and returning late, and Su Luoqian had grown accustomed to it.

Since the two had met at the residence gates that day, her mind had settled somewhat.

Talk of the female corpse case was now in an uproar throughout the streets. Since Lin Yonghong had been arrested, it would be difficult for him to be released unharmed, if only because of public opinion.

Su Luoqian knew this was one of Lu Jingsi's strategies and warned herself not to hold him back at a time like this.

Summer weather was unpredictable: one moment the sun shone brilliantly, and the next came thunder and a downpour.

In that downpour, a young servant ran up the steps before Prince Cheng'an's residence and spoke in a low voice to the servants there. Someone went inside to report his arrival.

A moment later, the servant was invited in and brought to the main hall. "This servant pays his respects to Princess Consort Cheng'an."

Su Luoqian sat in the seat of honor, her slender, graceful figure clad in a pale-blue satin dress.

The servant continued, "The second young lady of our residence will soon come of age. His Grace the Duke has prepared a coming-of-age banquet for her and has sent this invitation to respectfully request that Your Highness attend the banquet at our residence in two days."

With that, he took an invitation wrapped in red cloth from his robes. Zelan unwrapped it, accepted it, and presented it to Su Luoqian.

Su Luoqian held the invitation lightly between her slender fingers and lowered her eyes to glance at it. "Please thank the duke's residence for the invitation. I will certainly come with a gift in two days."

After the servant left, Zelan asked in puzzlement, "We don't seem to have much contact with the second young lady of the duke's residence, do we?"

Su Luoqian was not surprised. "Social obligations, etiquette and propriety—there will be plenty more of these things in the future."

Whether she knew them or not, as long as she spent a day in Yujing, as long as she remained Princess Consort Cheng'an for a day, there would be no shortage of such matters.

Fortunately, she had previously familiarized herself in general with the notable young noblewomen and titled ladies of Yujing. Though she could not claim to know everything about them, at least she was not completely in the dark.

As for the residence of Duke Xu, it stood on Ankang Street, the same street as Prince Cheng'an's residence, not very far away.

The second young lady the servant had mentioned was named Xu Yin, the daughter of Duke Xu's co-wife, Lady Xu Liu.

The eldest young lady, Xu Jia, was born to Duke Xu's principal wife, Lady Xu Wang.

Xu Jia had come of age two years ago, but she was not yet married.

At Xu Yin's coming-of-age ceremony, there would likely be no shortage of ladies who came hoping to assess the two sisters.

However, Duke Xu held no post apart from his title, so he had recently been seeking connections to secure a good position at court for his legitimate son.

The coming-of-age ceremony would likely be quite lively.

Su Luoqian thought for a moment, then said softly, "Zelan, choose a set of jade hair ornaments from the storeroom. We'll take it with us."