The voices in the room were sometimes clear, as though my lord were whispering right beside his ear, and sometimes vague and muddled. Luan Xin resisted their invasion, his face contorted with pain as he tried to seal off his hearing. But they were everywhere, tenaciously burrowing into the depths of his mind.
Shen Tang teased Gu Chi, "I was thinking that if I won the bet, I'd make you work overtime at the government office for ten days or half a month without pay. I'd take your entire monthly salary. I didn't expect you and I to be so in tune, though—we picked the same answer. Wangchao, did you write that because you heard my thoughts?"
Gu Chi smiled warmly. "No. We're simply in tune."
If the Qiu clan sent the ransom money, Qiu Cheng had to die.
Even if he didn't, he still had to die!
Luan Xin nearly bit through his lower lip.
So they really were in tune. Truly in tune.
How could he keep deceiving himself now? How could he force himself to blame Gu Chi? Qiu Wenyan hadn't been forced to his death by Gu Chi acting on his own. My lord and Gu Wangchao had reached the same understanding and decided to kill him. Years ago, Luan Xin's suspicions at Qiu Wenyan's Mourning Hall had been true!
And yet Gu Chi, who was skilled at reading people's hearts, had fooled him.
Though he knew Gu Chi possessed such a Way of the Scholar, he had still ignored all the many suspicious points, forcing himself to accept an answer he could bear. Who could he blame for all this? Gu Wangchao, for his many schemes? Or himself, for being so foolish as to blunder into the web his wise ruler had spun and obediently