Stepping out of the Prefect’s yamen, we found the light just right. The sun over Luoyan City had already climbed high. Sunbeams slanted in under the curved eaves and spilled across the bluestone steps—so bright they were almost blinding.

  The West Altar Devoy Deputy still wore that far-off, daydreaming expression. He kept chewing his sugar beans, face blank as though he hadn’t understood half the conversation. He muttered, “That Prefect Li talks way too roundabout. I only caught the words ‘fire,’ ‘drought,’ and the former prefect’s name.”

  I couldn’t help raising a hand to my forehead.

  Just then, Hua chuckled softly, his voice low enough to scrape the ground. “Not a single drop spilled.”

  I blinked. “Who?”

  “Why, Prefect Li, of course.” His smile faded, and he narrowed his eyes. “From beginning to end, he never once asked which old case we’re digging into.”

  Lian, walking beside us, said mildly, “Naturally he knows who we’re after. He simply doesn’t want to say it.”

  “Why?” I blurted.

  “He’s still watching,” Hua answered in his stead. “He’s afraid we dig too deep—and afraid we don’t dig deep enough. So he never says Shangguan Fengliu’s name, never comments on motive. He just circles the facts. He answers you, without actually helping you.”

  A thought struck me, and my brow tightened. “He also said that the dream of the dog demon only circulated within the yamen, never among the common folk.”

  “Exactly.” Hua paused, his eyes shifting slightly. “But that dream—you heard it from the cook, didn’t you?”

  I lowered my voice. “Yes. The old cook at the inn.”

  All three fell silent for a moment.

  Lian’s lashes lowered, thoughtful. “Meaning—the secret dream that should’ve been known only to the yamen was deliberately given to us.”

  “Someone fed it out,” Hua said, tone precise. “Just enough, no more, no less. A line dangling in front of us. To see if we’d bite.”

  I remembered my last question before we left and asked Li, “Was that dream… fabricated on purpose?”

  The Prefect only smiled, lifted his teacup, and said, “Are there really demons in this world? If you believe it, then I shall believe it.”

  I had been this close to telling him I really had met a dog demon—shared a meal with it, in fact—and that I’d even scared off a long-legged, short-legged freak before… but the words hit my throat, then sank back down again. Like those stem tips drifting in the tea—rootless, and destined to sink.

  Ahead, the Deputy wandered on, wobbling side to side. As he walked, he counted on his fingers. “So… this Prefect is actually pretty good at acting, huh?”

  No one answered him.

  My mind was full of one name—Wang Zhiyong.

  “We assumed ‘the Wang family at the foot of the mountain’ was just a local gentry clan,” I muttered. “But if it was referring to that Wang family…”

  A sudden spark lit in my mind. “That ‘romantic affair’ back then… that woman, could she have been—”

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  “His daughter,” Hua said, disturbingly calm. “And if her relationship with Shangguan Fengliu involved not only romance but a crime—perhaps an old case still smoldering—then this matter is far more than just ‘romance.’”

  A chill raced up my scalp. “So… the beheaded dog demon, the prophetic dream, the missing pigpen—three completely scattered events—are actually all tied to the Wang family?”

  “Tied, yes,” Lian replied. “But that doesn’t mean they’re the source. Yet now that the threads loop back… if someone really wanted to cover something up—Wang Zhiyong’s daughter may be the thread they tugged first.”

  At that moment, the Deputy suddenly stopped walking. He turned to us with an utterly serious face—despite sugar-bean crumbs still stuck to his mouth. “Hey, why’d you all go quiet? I was gonna treat you to wontons.”

  We all froze.

  “I remember when you first came to Luoyan, you said the one thing you wanted most was the wonton stall on East Street.” He nodded solemnly. “And it’s almost lunchtime. How can we not go?”

  I stared at him—so earnest about buying us food—that I couldn’t tell whether to laugh or cry. “Have you… not kept up with anything we’ve been saying?”

  The Deputy scratched his head. “I did! Isn’t it just that all the key clues point to the former prefect, Wang Zhiyong? It’s just that this ‘Qingyin Tomb’ thing… I still don’t get it.”

  I blinked, my head suddenly throbbing. I rubbed my temples and muttered, “We walked too fast… I connected the clues but didn’t even finish asking questions…”

  “He didn’t chase us out,” Lian said. “Which means he knows more than we do—he simply hasn’t decided whom to tell.”

  “Of course he’s cautious.” Hua shook his head, a hint of regret in his voice. “He’s a court official, not a jianghu wanderer. And we… do not yet have enough chips to make him gamble.”

  We fell silent and walked on through the alley, each lost in our own thoughts. Luoyan City’s streets were warming; cooking smoke rose, and the smell of hot oil drifted from a nearby tea house. My eyelids sagged, and even the soles of my feet felt sweaty.

  Two nights without sleep, and up at dawn to rush to the yamen… My breath had been held taut this whole time, and only now did it collapse. My entire body felt wrung dry.

  “You guys go ahead.” I rubbed my eyes. “I’m going back to the inn for a nap.”

  “Talk later when you wake,” was all Lian said before he and Hua followed the Deputy off toward the West Altar. They still had old records to comb through—whatever traces Shangguan Fengliu left behind might be there.

  I stumbled back to the inn and collapsed onto the bed. The wind murmured outside the window. I closed my eyes—and immediately fell under.

  I didn’t know when exactly I nodded off. Half-dreaming, I found myself back in the capital. Spring sunlight, flowers in bloom. My eldest brother—for once—not scowling, but softly calling, “Little Gong… let’s stop being a disappointment and go home to inherit the family estate…”

  I was so moved I almost burst into tears. In the dream, I swept a sleeve and accepted the entire family business on the spot, already preparing to sit in the patriarch’s grand chair—

  “...Hey.”

  Someone murmured near my ear—buzzing like a mosquito, bubbling like boiling tea.

  “Wake up.”

  “Your deadline is here.”

  I was just dreaming of moving into my own manor, taking a partner, and raising two dog demons as pets—when I jolted upright so hard my soul nearly escaped my body.

  “Who?! Who’s talking?!”

  My head was still somersaulting in the dream when ding—a crisp chime rang out. A painfully familiar blue interface blinked into view.

  【Quest Reminder】

  The five-day term has expired. Please fulfill your promise.

  I stared at the words. My mind went blank, then exploded.

  “FIVE DAYS?! It’s already been FIVE DAYS?!”

  I leapt out of bed on the spot, half barefoot, hair sticking up, panicking as I burst through the screen divider. “No, no, no—my five-day deadline is up!”

  “What are you screaming about this early?” Hua’s voice drifted in, sounding like he’d just finished a cup of tea.

  I froze. Lian was at the window writing. Hua lounged at the door peeling an orange. Even the Deputy was curled up in a corner with a bowl of wontons.

  The room was even calmer than my dream.

  “What are you all doing back?!”

  “We finished,” Lian said without looking up. “You were sleeping like a pig. You didn’t even hear us come in.”

  My knees nearly gave out. I clutched my face. “I wasn’t sleeping like a log—I almost died in that dream… no, forget that—my brother!”

  Lian finally raised her head. “What about your elder brother?”

  “We agreed—if five days passed without news, he’d… send people after me!” I tore through my luggage in despair. “You don’t understand—this is the first time in his life he’s ever given me a final warning!”

  “Where is he?” Lian asked.

  “…Not far.”

  “Which brother are we talking about?” Hua asked lazily.

  I gave a hollow laugh. “The… dangerous one.”

  “Then pray he didn’t take a fast horse.”

  I clutched my head. “He’s probably already storming the gates of Luoyan City!!”