[To Become a River of Stars] Dong Xiange - Chapter 15

Before three o’clock.

Under the cover of darkness, Shiliu entered the small courtyard of the side compound. Halfway there, she looked back and saw that Lord Li Xuanci was indeed standing at the entrance, unwilling to set foot inside. She had no choice but to turn back and drag him along.

Li Xuanci stopped her eagerly outstretched hand with a single glance. The moon in the sky wasn’t as cold and pale as the look in his eyes.

Shiliu sighed inwardly. Summoning the patience she usually reserved for coaxing the younger junior brothers in her sect, she persuaded, “Your Highness, don’t you want to know who’s behind this?”

“No.” His reply was crisp and decisive.

Shiliu was momentarily stunned. After finally adjusting her mindset, she continued coaxing him like a child, “But this might be related to that spirit. To break the Fate Link curse, we must capture the escaped male bird to truly fulfill the pact. This is at least a clue.”

Mentioning the Fate Link curse made the air around Li Xuanci even colder. He shot her a glance, then stepped into the courtyard ahead of her, stirring a night breeze that brushed against Shiliu’s face. She rubbed her nose behind his back and followed him inside.

Once inside the room, Shiliu headed straight for the bed. After she had drawn all the bed curtains and settled in, she noticed the other person was still standing outside, unmoving.

She poked her head out from behind the curtains, eyes wide like a dumbstruck turtle, and whispered, “Your Highness, why aren’t you hiding up here?”

Li Xuanci gave her a faint glance before looking away, not even bothering to reply. His aloofness was practically overflowing, making it abundantly clear he had no desire to get onto someone else’s bed.

Shiliu, who could eat and sleep anywhere, didn’t understand such fastidiousness born of supreme privilege. Thinking he simply hadn’t grasped her meaning, she clumsily leaned half her body out—like a turtle emerging from its shell—and tried to pull Li Xuanci towards her. Caught off guard, he stumbled backward and fell onto the bed.

He immediately tried to get up, his eyes sharp as poisoned daggers. But Shiliu, still oblivious, foolishly reached to cover his mouth, afraid he would make too much noise.

That small, soft hand pressed against his mouth and nose. She thought she was using force, but it was utterly feeble. Instead, his hot breath sprayed through her fingers, spreading imperiously across her palm.

Shiliu unconsciously wanted to curl her fingers.

It’s so itchy. She desperately wanted to scratch her palm. That bone-deep itch made her tailbone tingle.

But the eyes above that hand were as bright as fireworks in a white night, dark brows pressing down over star-like pupils, sharp as the edge of a blade.

In an instant, he flipped over, pinning Shiliu beneath him. A bloodthirsty madness surged in his eyes, like a raging fire intent on consuming everything.

His long, pale fingers climbed towards her vulnerable neck and mercilessly tightened.

Shiliu, still seeing stars from the fall, suddenly found herself being choked. Her windpipe was slowly crushed, the air growing thin. Trapped blood rushed to her eyeballs, and the already dim world in her vision began to swirl with bizarre colors.

Belatedly, Shiliu began to struggle as her consciousness started to fade.

In her perception, nothing remained but that hand—the hand controlling her fate. So hot, so powerful.

So cruel.

Just as her blood surged violently, the hand suddenly released her. Fresh air rushed in. Shiliu gasped for breath, tears welling in her eyes from the physiological reaction, unable to calm down for a long time.

She wasn’t the only one panting; Li Xuanci’s chest was also heaving violently, though he bit his lip hard, refusing to make a sound.

When Shiliu finally recovered, rage welled up inside her. She was about to unleash her fury regardless of the consequences when a noise came from outside the window. She could only swallow her anger bitterly and quietly hide behind the curtains.

Her patience was not in vain. Finally, the person they had expected arrived.

“So it’s you.”

Shiliu lit the fire starter, her eyes filled with a confident certainty. Though it was the middle of the night, she still wore her hair tied up and was dressed in Daoist robes, her gaze bright and sharp. Only her hair was slightly disheveled, and her robe was somewhat wrinkled, making her look less than neat.

She lit the candlestick beside her, and the room suddenly brightened. The flame shone through the hazy, gauzy lampshade, clearly illuminating the face of the person who had just climbed in through the window.

It was Wang Qi.

His eyes, which were gentle and amorous during the day, were now fixed intently on them. In such dim light, the malice in his gaze seemed almost ready to burst forth like spewing magma.

Jealousy is like the flickering tongue of a snake—just a sudden flash is enough to make one’s hair stand on end.

Shiliu felt a chill under his stare and glanced toward Li Xuanci, who was rising from the bed, as if understanding something.

When Li Xuanci’s gaze also turned toward Wang Qi, the latter’s resentment vanished instantly. His eyes suddenly seemed veiled by mountain rain, misty yet with a faint light shining through, like a sun stubbornly refusing to set, making one’s heart feel heavy.

Unfortunately, Prince Ding’s heart was as cold as iron, and Shiliu was utterly oblivious to romantic subtleties. That gaze, filled with boundless melancholy, fell on deaf ears with the two of them—one busy lighting the lamp, the other disdainfully brushing the wrinkles from his clothes.

“Wang Qi, you came here in the middle of the night. Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Shiliu asked after lighting the lamp.

“Aren’t you here as well? You’re an outsider and a Daoist who specializes in unorthodox methods. Isn’t that suspicious?” Wang Qi had calmed down and spoke with composure.

“I have a witness,” Shiliu said bluntly, pulling Li Xuanci over by the sleeve.

Li Xuanci looked at the tips of Shiliu’s fingers gripping his sleeve, stained with oil from the fire starter, dirtying the embroidered dark pattern of the azure dragon on the cuff. His expression grew even darker. He pinched her wrist bone with two fingers, gripping so hard that her knuckles turned pale, then abruptly shook her off.

Shiliu clutched her wrist and saw two red marks already forming.

She shot a resentful glare at Li Xuanci, noticing a flash of red marks in the gap of his displaced sleeve.

It seemed the Fate Link curse truly meant sharing both suffering and hardship.

Shiliu inwardly rolled her eyes again. He brought this on himself.

Ignoring this tyrant, she turned back to Wang Qi. “You came here in the middle of the night for this clay figurine, didn’t you?”

She raised the clay figurine she had found by the bed during the day. Wang Qi stared intently at it, his throat drying up. He argued, “This is the first time I’ve seen this clay figurine. How can you say I came for it?”

“Is that so?” Shiliu chuckled lightly.

“The coloring on this figurine is darker on the left and lighter on the right, and the right eyebrow tail flares upward. This means that when the figurine was painted, the brush started from the left each time, and by the time it reached the right, the pigment had faded.”

“The flaring right eyebrow is because the figurine’s face is round, and the eyebrow tail follows the curve. If the painter held the brush in their left hand, when reaching the curved part of the eyebrow tail, it would be difficult to control the brush, causing it to flare. This indicates that the person who made this figurine is left-handed.”

“Your jade hairpin is inserted with the tail facing left, meaning you used your left hand to put it in. When you entered the room, you stepped in with your left foot first. Clearly, you are left-handed.”

Wang Qi’s left hand twitched involuntarily, but he forced it to stop. He raised his head and looked at Shiliu. “So what? There’s more than one left-handed person in this mansion.”

“But you’re the only one sneaking around in the middle of the night,” Shiliu said with certainty.

Wang Qi sneered coldly and was about to continue arguing when Li Xuanci, who had been watching coldly all this time, spoke up, “I’ve listened to this nonsense for half the night. Since it has nothing to do with that spirit, just drag him out and beat him to death.”

He couldn’t even be bothered to ask for a reason, didn’t even glance at Wang Qi standing before him—in fact, his words were directed at Shiliu.

Li Xuanci’s indifference was sharper than any blade, shattering all of Wang Qi’s defenses. His entire being seemed to wither instantly, the light in his eyes extinguished—no more brightness, no more mist, only a grey, desolate silence.

He let out a low laugh, filled with piercing self-mockery, as if he had given up on everything. He admitted recklessly, “It was me.”

Then he raised his head to look at Shiliu, his eyes venomous like a snake’s poison, chillingly sinister. “How did you suspect me? Just because I’m left-handed?”

“Today, when we entered the courtyard, neither His Highness nor I expected the ground to be sunken, and we nearly stumbled. But you, walking ahead, were completely unaffected. However, the steward said men are not allowed to enter this place, so you must have come here secretly before. That’s when I first grew suspicious.”

“Afterward, I deliberately had everyone split up to search the rooms for me. Even though there were maids present, and given the recent scandal involving illicit affairs, men and women should have been separated, you voluntarily went to the inner chamber.”

“This clay figurine on the bed clearly bears some resemblance to His Highness. Even if you didn’t notice, the box at the foot of the bed contained plant ash, which women use during their menstrual cycles, spread inside cloth pads. I had instructed everyone to report anything unusual. A box of ash hidden in the bed is hardly normal. Most men in this world are arrogant and consider women’s menstruation inauspicious, often avoiding the topic. An ordinary man wouldn’t even know what this was, yet you didn’t report it.”

“You plotted to frame Qiu Xin for pregnancy, so naturally, you would have researched matters related to women’s cycles. Moreover, this plant ash was recently burned. If Qiu Xin had truly been involved in an illicit affair, she wouldn’t have failed to notice a pregnancy after two missed periods, nor would she have newly burned plant ash for menstrual pads. The only explanation is that she had not been intimate with anyone and merely thought her period was irregular, so she prepared the ash in advance to avoid soiling the bedding.”

“Therefore, not only did you know what this was, but you also knew it could exonerate Qiu Xin, which is why you deliberately didn’t report it.”

“At that point, I was certain, but I had no evidence. I could only set a trap and wait for you to fall into it.”

“This object is crucial, so you didn’t dare to handle it openly, afraid of arousing suspicion. That’s why you came secretly to retrieve it. Unfortunately, your cleverness was your undoing, and it ended up sealing your fate.”

The more she spoke, the fainter Wang Qi’s smile became. By the end, his face was completely wooden. The harmonious, spring-breeze-like smile that had always adorned his face had finally vanished completely.

“What is this thing for?” Li Xuanci asked. His gaze had been fixed on Shiliu the entire time. It was the first time he realized that this usually silent, cold-faced, and shabby-looking little Daoist could actually talk so much.

“This is called a ‘clay figurine spirit.’ In the past, some commoners would buy clay dolls to place under their quilts. Then, in the middle of the night, they would see the clay figure transform into a man who would pleasure a woman and gift her a gold bracelet. The next day, they would find the bracelet had turned into soil, and the gold bracelet on the left arm of the clay doll was gone. Thus, they knew the clay figure had become a spirit.”

“To break the spell is simple: smash the clay figure and throw it into a river, and everything will return to normal.”

“You probably learned of this method somewhere and made the clay figure. This courtyard has a pagoda tree—when people lean against it, it becomes a ‘ghost leaning on wood,’ an ominous formation that easily attracts spirits. By placing this strangely crafted clay figure here, evil spirits and monsters would naturally attach themselves to it. Any woman sleeping with this clay figure would experience symptoms like erotic dreams and false pregnancies.”

“The previous maid, Lü Ru, was also framed by you in this way, wasn’t she? And it led to her death.” Shiliu’s gaze was sharp, firmly pinning Wang Qi down, leaving him no room for further excuses.

But Wang Qi’s eyes weren’t on her at all. Instead, he stared obsessively at Li Xuanci, as if trying to imprint his image upon himself one last time, to his heart’s content.