Chapter 23
Chapter 23: A Thousand-Year Dream (Part 1)
“I lied. I’m a liar.”
“Nian Niang didn’t attack me, and I didn’t fall into Blackwater. I made it up to win sympathy.”
Song Wei Chen kept her head lowered as she forced the words out.
She wasn’t trying to hide the truth for fun. But even if she told it, what then? Gu Cang Yue would never admit it. Worse—he might stop helping her entirely.
In the Dream Realm, she had no one. She needed the big boss at her back.
She knew this would shatter Mo Ting Feng’s trust and deepen the suspicion on her, but between two evils… she chose what she could survive.
“Song Wei Chen!”
Mo Ting Feng advanced step by step. Guilt made her retreat until her back hit the corner wall. Nowhere left to go.
“Gu Cang Yue saved you when the White Robe disappeared,” he said, voice low and severe. “Now he’s the Case Supervisor on this case. Don’t you find that suspicious?”
“Your protection might let the real culprit walk free.”
“Whether or not he was the mastermind,” Mo Ting Feng continued, “he is involved in the White Robe disappearance.”
He braced both hands against the wall, trapping her in the narrow space between his arms.
“If you’re his woman, this kind of protection would make sense. But if he’s involved, you won’t escape either. Covering for him makes you an accomplice—punishment by association.”
“Achoo!”
Song Wei Chen’s face burned. Her throat felt raw and dry. Whether it was fear or fever, she felt cold down to the bone, shivering so hard her teeth nearly clicked.
“I’m not covering for anyone,” she said, voice shaking. “I really… don’t know anything.”
“Fine.”
“I admit she threw me into the water. But when I came to, I was on your bed.”
She lifted her head and met his eyes head-on.
“If you insist on asking who saved me, then there’s only one answer.”
“You.”
Mo Ting Feng stared at her. His eyes looked like a deep, silent abyss.
“So you’re saying… you’re covering for me?”
“I’m saying: don’t force me to confess to something I don’t know.”
“Do you think I’ll still believe you?”
Song Wei Chen shook her heavy, dizzy head. Her bones ached with cold.
“Whatever. Believe me or don’t—that’s your choice.”
“If you have evidence, arrest me. If you don’t… may I leave now?”
Mo Ting Feng hesitated.
He’d been bluffing her all along. With Gu Cang Yue’s temperament, if the White Robe disappearance truly involved him, and if he cared about this girl as much as he seemed to, he would never have left her alone on that boat.
But if it didn’t involve him, then she and Gu Cang Yue were clearly hiding something together. What?
Mo Ting Feng stared at her, expression tangled—then he noticed her face.
“Why are you so red?”
He touched her forehead on instinct.
It was burning hot.
“Boss,” Song Wei Chen murmured, voice fading, “do you have a hospital here? I want to take the afternoon off…”
Before he could respond, her legs gave out. She collapsed into his arms, fever-hot as burning coal.
“Song Wei Chen!”
The “burning coal” didn’t answer.
This mortal woman was fragile as an ant. The moment sickness hit, she fell like a mountain crumbling.
Rely on her to solve a case?
Might as well hope the culprit suddenly grew a conscience and turned themselves in.
A prophesied Wraithspeaker? That sounded like an exaggeration.
Mo Ting Feng gritted his teeth, annoyed—and yet he still carried her back to his residence.
Since she was Gu Cang Yue’s woman, letting her lie on his bed felt inappropriate. After hesitating, he took her instead to the room beside his own bedroom.
The room was called Sunless Residence.
Fine. Like the former master of Sunless Residence, she was a liar who never spoke a full truth. She suited the place.
Resentment simmered in his chest, but his hands were gentle. He laid her on the bed carefully, tucked the blanket around her, and sat at the bedside for a long while before leaving.
He needed to go to the Yellow Springs Bureau.
For a thousand years, there had been no news of that woman’s reincarnation. It had been over twenty years since he last asked. And since he had to go to the Yellow Springs Bureau this afternoon anyway—to check whether there were new death records for the previous White Robe—he might as well ask about that faithless woman too.
Song Wei Chen slept in a fevered haze and dreamed.
It was the same dream—one that always began with an ending she already knew.
She didn’t know how many people had recurring dreams, but since puberty she’d dreamed this one again and again. Like a puzzle, each time she picked up a different piece—yet every piece belonged to the same story, circling the same person.
She dreamed she was in the Imperial Capital, in an estate so refined it felt unreal. More precisely, she stood in the back garden. Night had deepened and lanterns were being lit, mirroring the starry river overhead.
It was beautiful.
But she seemed to be the only one who noticed.
A banquet was underway. Officials and young masters, dressed in finery, gathered in clusters with misses draped over their arms. Scattered tables had been set across the garden; some drank, some bragged, some laughed too loudly, some flirted in half-whispered heat.
The misses wore heavy makeup, their perfume thick, their smiles practiced. In that scene of silk and wine, it hardly felt like the mortal world. No wonder the young masters looked drunk on more than liquor, their minds already far away.
Song Wei Chen stood alone beneath a hidden corridor in the corner, pale moon-white gauze on her body, her makeup light and clean. A simple jade hairpin held her hair; dark strands fell like a waterfall down her back. Beyond that, she wore no ornament at all.
She knew she didn’t belong here. Even standing there felt wrong.
If she could, she would have turned and fled. But she couldn’t.
Since she was a child—since her birth father brought her here in exchange for ten dou of rice—she had never been able to leave.
Tonight, these nobles were, to put it kindly, waiting for her. Waiting for the rumored peerless courtesan to grace them with her beauty.
To put it bluntly, they weren’t waiting for her.
They were waiting for entertainment.
And she had always felt she was the sort of person who ruined entertainment.
What they wanted to see, she couldn’t do.
What they wanted to take, she wouldn’t give.
A servant boy came to the corridor and bowed. “Miss, you’re here. Everyone is waiting for you.”
Song Wei Chen lifted her chin and breathed in the osmanthus scent. She knew that once she stepped forward, the garden would smell only of wine and meat, and the sweet fragrance would hide itself away.
She followed the servant boy to a waterside pavilion at the heart of the garden. Gauze curtains surrounded it, softening everything within. Incense smoke curled from a burner at the side; it separated her from the louder scattered tables outside, giving her a little space to breathe.
Her gaze fell on the guqin.
On a night like this, she should play something fitting—Phoenix Seeks Its Mate, or Longing Ballad. The mood was romantic, and the guests had intentions far beyond the wine.
But when her fingers moved, the piece that poured out was fierce, resolute, burning with revenge.
Guang Ling Lament.
The notes carried the weight of execution and the edge of a blade. Through the gauze curtains, the laughter outside thinned. Someone’s drunkenness sobered; someone’s desire cooled.
This was what happened when you asked a mood-killer to entertain.
Song Wei Chen smiled faintly and leaned back, sipping her Tongbai tea.
The servant boy returned and offered the visiting cards for the night. She glanced over them one by one—praise of beauty, praise of art, words that made their intentions obvious.
Then her gaze stopped.
One card bore four bold characters: “Unrelated to Romance.”
It struck her like a finger to the heart.
“Interesting,” she said softly. “Send him in.”