The fire at Bright Moon Palace was not finally extinguished until dawn the next day. Everyone in the Imperial Palace had long since grown accustomed to the endless calamities at Bright Moon Palace and no longer found them surprising. Ever since Lady Wen had moved in, one stroke of ill fortune had followed another. Almost everyone's first reaction upon hearing that Bright Moon Palace had burned down was a long sigh of relief. Perhaps its run of bad luck would finally end.
After the fire, they began inspecting the scene. Apart from Hu Xiaotian, who had escaped disaster, everyone at Bright Moon Palace, including Wen Ya, was missing. The blaze had been so fierce that only fragments of bone remained. Pieced together, they could be identified as seven sets of remains. Compared against the missing persons-Wen Ya and the three palace maids and three eunuchs recently assigned there-the preliminary conclusion was that all seven had died in the fire.
Hu Xiaotian refused to believe Wen Ya was dead. Although his memories of the previous night were confused, he still remembered scattered fragments. Putting them together, he could roughly deduce what had happened. Of one thing he was certain: he could never have walked back to his room himself. Someone must have carried him back, then set Bright Moon Palace ablaze. What he could not determine was exactly what had happened between him and Wen Ya. Were those images in his mind and those soul-stirring sounds echoing in his ears hallucinations or reality? Still, the rascal had secretly examined himself while taking a piss. His precious equipment, kept hidden for so long, seemed to show signs of use. He knew his own goods well enough.
The dead could give no testimony, and every witness and piece of evidence had gone up