Neither Huo Qilang nor Xu Baozhen was skilled at interrogation. They slapped the Lu couple a couple of times and knocked them unconscious before getting anything out of them. In their haste, they had no idea who their trusted henchmen were, or who had carried out the plot to wipe out the family.
From the mad ravings of Lu's wife just now, Baozhu guessed that Xiao Ran's life was already hanging by a thread. They could not delay any longer.
Huo Qilang said, "The old man's wearing mourning clothes. Could he have killed Miss Xiao?"
"Elders don't wear mourning for their descendants. That's against the rites, and besides, his family bears a bitter grudge against Xiao Ran," Baozhu said anxiously. A thought struck her, and she seized a wounded household servant. "Who is Lu Tingfang mourning?"
The man sobbed, "Our master's elder brother died in Chang'an two months ago. The whole family is mourning him."
Something stirred in Baozhu's mind. The cut and color of Lu Tingfang's hemmed hemp mourning robe accorded with the rites of deepest mourning. Could Lu Songzhi have died?
But that had no direct connection to Xiao Ran's disappearance. She paced anxiously back and forth, reciting the entire "Draft Funeral Elegy" under her breath: "How boundless the wild grasses, how mournfully the white poplars sigh. Amid September's bitter frost, they bear me far beyond the outskirts. No dwellings stand on any side; the lofty graves rise steep and high. The horses lift their heads and neigh to heaven; the wind itself blows bleak and desolate. Once the dark chamber closes, a thousand years will bring no dawn. A thousand years will bring no dawn; even the wise and worthy can do nothing. Those who came to see me off return each to their own home. My