A Whetstone, Dragons and Serpents Beneath the Brush!

Xie Yuan swept back into his courtyard with a crowd of servants in tow.

In the Main Estate of Xie Manor, apart from Madam Yuan, there was Madam Zhuge.

Aside from the main residence occupied by Old Madam Xie,

there were two courtyards each to the east and west.

The East Courtyard was the Main Estate.

Madam Zhuge was a devout Buddhist. She had carefully built a shrine in a corner of the East Courtyard. Every morning, monks from Clear-Cool Temple arrived through the dew to light sticks of incense, their chants drifting through the air.

To the shrine's left stood the "dragon position." Beyond its connecting moon gate was a screen wall carved with a richly patterned tiger at rest, meant to bar Killing Intent and keep the household safe.

Madam Zhuge had left out a main gate so that the incense offerings would never cease and their blessings would flow on to Xie Yuan.

Farther in, past a hanging-flower gate, lay Xie Yuan's private courtyard—Shou'an Pavilion.

Steps led up to it, rising with every stride. Only a few courtyards stood higher.

How deep, how deep did the courtyards run?

In a household like Xie Manor, the deeper the courtyard, the harder it was to glimpse what lay within.

Three days remained until the New Year.

Madam Zhuge had been waiting in Xie Yuan's courtyard since early that day, bringing him several new winter outfits for the New Year. Work on them had begun at the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau the previous year, and they had taken a full year to make.

Yet night had fallen, and Xie Yuan still had not returned.

Madam Zhuge wore a winter marten-fur cloak, a pearl-strung ornament around her neck, and a phoenix-headed jade hairpin. Though she had borne two sons and was now