Shadows at Midnight

After the banquet ended, Song Jiaren led Li Nuo to a room in Song Manor.

In Great Xia, there was a curfew at night, though it started fairly late, at around ten. After that, no one could wander the streets without a legitimate reason.

If the Imperial Guard caught anyone breaking curfew on their patrols, the offender would get a savage beating at best and land in prison at worst.

It wasn't curfew time yet, but some guests lived far away, and others were too drunk to go home, so they had to spend the night at Song Manor. With the guest rooms running short, Li Nuo and Song Jiaren had to make do with sharing a room.

Besides, even if there had been enough rooms tonight, they would still have had to share one. They were a properly married couple, after all. If they slept in separate rooms, people might think they were at odds.

Wouldn't that be a misunderstanding?

It wasn't that Li Nuo and his wife didn't get along. They just weren't close.

The room seemed to belong to Song Jiaren. She knew it well, and took a fresh set of bedding from the cabinet and spread it on the floor beside the bed. Li Nuo said nothing. He missed the big, soft bed in his own room back home, but he used to sleep on cramped folding cots where his head or feet were always left sticking out. A floor with blankets and quilts was already a luxury.

Their marriage was in name only, and Li Nuo didn't think this was a problem.

For now, there was only one thing that mattered to him: staying alive.

As for having a normal marriage...

That was all up to fate.

He certainly didn't mind having a wife who was stunningly beautiful and just as stunningly powerful. If they grew fond of each other over time, there was no reason they couldn't share a life. If they simply failed to spark anything between them, they could part on friendly terms and go their separate ways.

But all that was for the future. Right now, he was new here, had no say in anything, and couldn't change a thing.

It was already late. Li Nuo took off his shoes, socks, and outer robe, planning to read for a while before bed.

He had just lain down on the bedding spread across the floor when Song Jiaren glanced at him and pointed to the bed. "You sleep up there."

Li Nuo paused. As a grown man, how could he take the bed and leave a frail woman to sleep—

Then he remembered that between the two of them, "frail" could only describe him. He didn't argue and obediently climbed onto the bed. They had only known each other for two days, but he already knew that his wife rarely changed her mind once she'd made it up.

He lay on the bed, wrapped in a faint fragrance.

It was his wife's scent. This really was her room.

He sat cross-legged and took a thin book from inside his robes.

Before leaving home, Li Nuo had brought along a book about the Legalist school, planning to read it before bed.

Time was precious to him. He couldn't afford to waste a moment.

But he hadn't even read two pages when moans drifted in from the next room. When he'd come in earlier, he'd seen Song Qian and her husband enter. He hadn't expected his wife's cousin, who looked so composed and proper, to be so different behind closed doors. The things she was crying out made even Li Nuo blush...

Fortunately, she stopped after less than three minutes, and quiet returned to his ears.

Song Jiaren lay on the floor, her pretty face faintly flushed. Her usual coolness had taken on a hint of coquettish charm, but Li Nuo, lying on the bed, couldn't see her.

To ease the awkwardness, Li Nuo spoke up. "Wife, do you and Song Qian have some kind of grudge between you...?"

Song Jiaren was silent for a moment before answering coolly, "She's disliked me since we were little..."

Li Nuo thought it over and understood. They were both women of the Song Family, only a few years apart in age. One was good for nothing, while the other was blessed with both beauty and talent in the Martial Dao. The two of them were bound to be compared all the time. No wonder Song Qian disliked her.

After their brief exchange, the room fell quiet again.

But soon, a head poked over the edge of the bed. Li Nuo pointed to a character in the book and asked, "Wife, what character is this?"

The Shuowen was too thick to bring with him. There were a few characters whose meanings he simply didn't know, and without the surrounding context, he couldn't make sense of the passage. He had no choice but to ask his wife.

Song Jiaren glanced at it. "I don't know."

"What about this one?"

"I don't know."

"This one?"

"I don't know."

"This..."

"..."

Silence. Long, lingering silence.

Li Nuo figured she wouldn't know a character and deliberately refuse to tell him.

He leaned over the side of the bed and looked at her delicate face in surprise. "No way. Wife, can you not read?"

Song Jiaren's gaze drifted coolly toward him.

Li Nuo withdrew onto the bed and smiled. "It's fine. It's no big deal. There's nothing wrong with not being able to read. We each have our strengths—one of us is a scholar, the other a martial artist. As long as we make a good life together, that's all that matters..."

Song Manor.

While Li Nuo was studying, in the room just beyond the wall, Song Qian sat at the head of the bed and cast a dissatisfied glance at her husband, who lay limp across it. A fire burned inside her, with nowhere to vent.

It was both a fire of desire and a fire of frustration.

The fact that Song Jiaren's foolish husband was no longer a fool had already rankled her. Now there wasn't a single thing she could surpass Song Jiaren in. And that wasn't all: the couple had stolen the show at Old Madam's birthday banquet, receiving two rewards from Old Madam in succession. She and her husband had been outdone yet again.

She might have put the whole thing behind her, but then her father had called her over. From the way he spoke, it sounded as if he suspected her of stealing the gift Song Jiaren had prepared for Old Madam.

That made Song Qian both angry and frustrated. No matter how much she disliked Song Jiaren, she would never do something like that at Old Madam's birthday banquet. Those few words she'd muttered under her breath had only been an outlet for her resentment.

Her father said someone had switched the gift Song Jiaren prepared for a pair of stones.

That was why her husband had improvised two poems on the spot, saving face while ensuring Old Madam's birthday banquet ended on a high note.

That Li Nuo wasn't just not a fool. He was clever, too.

And not just clever—handsome!

Thinking of that striking face, then looking at her own useless husband, only made Song Qian angrier.

Why was my life so miserable...

With nowhere to release the fire inside her, she could only take a jade silkworm from beneath her pillow.

In the room next door, Li Nuo had just turned to a new page when his body trembled slightly. He turned his head and said with resignation, "There she goes again..."

Meanwhile, at Song Manor.

Old Madam's sixtieth birthday banquet had ended in perfect fashion. The guests and hosts alike had enjoyed themselves, but the maids and servants of the Song Family still had to clean up the mess, and they were kept especially busy.

During that time, Second Master summoned several more maids and questioned them at length. With their staff numbers depleted, the remaining servants didn't finish cleaning up until midnight. Then they dragged their weary bodies off to bed and fell fast asleep.

In Song Lian's room.

He sat at the table, brow furrowed, muttering, "Who could it have been?"

He had questioned every maid who could have accessed the gift. While they were being questioned, servants had also searched their rooms, but nothing turned up. His instincts told him the culprit wasn't one of the maids in the manor.

They wouldn't have had the nerve, or the ability.

The room where the gifts were stored was heavily guarded. No thief, no matter how skilled, could get in. Even a Martial Dao expert would have struggled to sneak inside. Only a powerhouse in the Object Control Realm or higher could have stolen the gift without a sound by taking it from afar.

But a Fourth Realm martial artist certainly wouldn't be short of money. And there were plenty of gifts more valuable than that pair of Jade Ruyi. Why choose something of relatively little worth? It was obvious the culprit had targeted Jiaren.

Qian'er was highly suspicious, but she was an ordinary person, with neither the time nor the ability to pull this off.

So who could it have been?

A moment later, Song Lian shook his head. Since he had no leads, there was no point dwelling on it. They had only lost a pair of ruyi, after all. What mattered most was that Old Madam's birthday banquet had gone off perfectly.

Come to think of it, they really had Li Nuo to thank tonight.

He had watched Jiaren grow up. He had always been unhappy that she'd been married off to a fool, even if that fool's father was a Powerful Minister of the court.

But tonight had completely changed his impression of Li Nuo. It didn't matter whether he'd been pretending to be foolish or had suddenly come to his senses.

What mattered was that he and Jiaren could live well together.

With one worry finally laid to rest, Song Lian put out the lamp and lay down.

He had spent untold energy preparing for Old Madam's birthday banquet, and it had been many nights since he'd slept well. Now, at last, everything was over. He lay down without even taking off his clothes, and the moment his head touched the pillow, he fell asleep...

As time passed, the lamps in the rooms throughout Song Manor gradually went out.

Only the lanterns hanging along the paths of the manor still gave off a faint glow.

The birthday hall, bustling just two hours earlier, was now empty and pitch-black.

On the roof of the birthday hall, a figure crouched by the eaves, gathered up the pair of Jade Ruyi lying beside them, and gazed out over Song Manor in the darkness. Their lips curled into a charming smile as they murmured, "So he isn't a fool after all. Interesting. Very interesting..."