A Turn of Fortune

"I can't say." Chen Ye glanced at the Feng Family guard outside the cell, then lowered his voice. "But if she comes, we'll live."

Zuo Dongxi looked him up and down, as if reassessing a stranger.

He had never expected an unremarkable carriage hand to be so calm. It was almost unnatural.

"What if she doesn't come?"

"If she's smart, she'll come as soon as she gets the news."

Zuo Dongxi was groping in the dark, without a single clue.

That unquestioning certainty in Chen Ye's voice was like a straw suddenly tossed to a drowning man. In his despair, Zuo Dongxi seemed to glimpse a thread of hope.

"There's one thing we have to stick to from here on." Chen Ye's expression turned grave. "No matter what torture they use, we cannot give an inch. We know nothing. That's our story."

"Don't worry," Zuo Dongxi said. "I can hold out."

Clang.

The iron cover on the cell door was wrenched open.

A Feng Family steward entered the dungeon with several guards, escorting a middle-aged man.

The man wore a pale cream silk robe. He was neither tall nor imposing, and even looked somewhat lean. More than half the hair at his temples had gone gray.

Yet he carried the authority of a man accustomed to looking down on others, commanding respect without a trace of anger.

He looked at no one as he entered. His gaze settled on an oil lamp on the wall, and only after he sat down did he look away.

"Begin," the middle-aged man said mildly, without a hint of emotion.

"Yes."

Feng Yanwu's personal guards were questioned first.

There was none of the torture they had expected, only ordinary questions. Each was told to recount what he had seen along the way.

Su Guang, one of Third Young Master Feng's personal guards, was soon called out as well.

At the sight of the middle-aged man, his eyes remained steady. He bowed calmly. "Family Head!"

"Tell me what you saw and experienced along the way," the Feng Family Head said evenly.

"Yes."

Su Guang recounted everything that had happened that day in minute detail, including Feng Yanwu getting out of the carriage to brew tea and everyone testing it for poison.

Then he remembered what Chen Ye had said about the teacup. He glanced up at the Family Head, but just as the words reached his lips, Chen Ye's warning came back to him.

He kept his wits about him, changed what he had been about to say, and swallowed the matter of the teacup.

When Su Guang finished, the Feng Family Head waved a hand for the next person.

Zuo Dongxi was a man of the Jianghu, unskilled in twists and turns. He simply protested his innocence, starting from when the Feng Family's chief steward had ordered him to arrange the carriage. His account was much the same as everyone else's.

The Feng Family Head had looked impatient from the moment he saw him. Before Zuo Dongxi could finish, he waved him away.

Chen Ye was questioned last.

That was because his standing was the lowest of them all, so low that he had neither the motive nor the means to do such a thing.

Even if he was implicated, he could only have been an accomplice at most.

Chen Ye's account was much the same as the others'. Once the Feng Family Head had heard enough, he interrupted. "I hear you inspected the carriage and horses at the end. Did you find anything amiss?"

Chen Ye lowered his head. "My lord, this matter involves the carriage company, so I only inspected the harness and horses. I know nothing about the rest and couldn't tell if anything was wrong... I only thought..."

"Thought what?"

"The young master's death... was terribly gruesome."

At last, a ripple crossed the Feng Family Head's placid face. His gaze moved from the wall to Chen Ye.

He abruptly seemed to lose interest. With a wave of his hand, he had Chen Ye taken back to his cell.

The questioning over, the Feng Family Head rose, unwilling to linger in that dark, foul place.

Before leaving, he calmly instructed the attendant beside him, "Get me an answer as soon as possible."

The attendant saw the Family Head off, then returned to the dungeon and sat on the same bench. His face was cold as frost. "Torture them!"

Eager to get the answer he wanted, the attendant's methods turned brutal.

Screams erupted throughout the dungeon, enough to make the scalp crawl.

From the darkness came muffled sobs and cries of innocence.

But the attendant felt no pity. Deaf to what he took for excuses, he only increased the torture.

One prisoner could not endure it and died on the spot.

"One's dead. Drag him out and feed him to the dogs."

"Keep going!"

Su Guang, despite being a personal guard, was subjected to the finger press as well.

His ten fingers were nearly ruined. When he was dragged back to his cell, he glanced instinctively at Chen Ye, yet still said nothing about the teacup.

Zuo Dongxi held fast to his claim of innocence, and naturally fared no better.

He was covered in blood when they dragged him back to the cell.

Leaning against the wall, his face crusted with dried blood, Zuo Dongxi said weakly to Chen Ye, "The Feng Family won't let outsiders leave alive... Whatever move you have left, make it now. Any later... and it may be too late."

"When will your person arrive?" Chen Ye asked.

"Soon... I think..." Zuo Dongxi sounded uncertain.

The Feng Family's punishments were far harsher than expected. Even a Martial Master was hard-pressed to withstand them.

But after a full day of questioning, with most of the prisoners put through the wringer, the attendant had gained no useful information.

So he had no choice but to intensify his methods again.

For a time, screams and wails rang through the dungeon without cease.

Around midnight, after the attendant had temporarily left, a figure in deep crimson walked in with measured steps.

She was a beautiful woman in a long crimson dress, full-breasted and curvaceous, utterly out of place in the cold, gloomy dungeon.

She murmured a few words to the guards and was led to a cell.

At the sight of Zuo Dongxi collapsed on the floor, pity welled in her eyes. "Brother Dong, Brother Dong," she called softly.

Hearing her voice, Zuo Dongxi raised his bloodstained face. "Xing'er... you came..."

"Why did you have to get mixed up in the Feng Family's affairs? Now you're trapped here, I'm afraid..." The beautiful woman's voice caught, and she quietly wiped away a tear.

"Xing'er, I need you to do something for me." Zuo Dongxi looked toward Chen Ye and remembered his instructions. Struggling, he dragged himself to the cell door.

"Don't expect me to save you... I don't have that kind of power. The Family Head is watching this himself. No one can get out of it."

"No, no. I'm not asking you to save me. Just pass on a message."

"What message?"

Zuo Dongxi glanced to either side and beckoned her closer.

Understanding, she bent down and leaned in.

Zuo Dongxi whispered in her ear, "Go to the Third Young Master's widow. Tell her... tell her I know who the killer is."

The woman shuddered. "You don't mean..."

"Shh! Just tell her exactly that. Don't ask anything else."

Uncertainty flickered in her eyes. Coming to the dungeon today had already been a risk; carrying a message for him would be riskier still.

But she knew how much was at stake. After a moment's thought, she nodded and agreed.

The two spoke quietly for a little longer, their grief growing harder to contain.

The woman wiped away her tears. "I can't stay... I have to go..."

With that, she turned and left without hesitation.

Only Zuo Dongxi's long sigh remained in the cell.

Chen Ye looked out at the empty space beyond the cell door. "Who was that woman?"

"The Gao Family Head's concubine." Zuo Dongxi closed his eyes for a moment. "My former wife..."