The autumn wind sweeping through Cangqian brought a chill that seeped into the bones, but it was nothing compared to the cold suspicion that now gripped the Ge household.
Liu Zihe, the Magistrate's son, sat in the upper room of the Hall of Loving Benevolence, nursing a cup of wine and a bruised ego. He had fled Peace Alley in disgrace, hiding in the straw bed of the village idiot, and now he was exiled from the paradise he had bought with gold and poison.
"It is impossible," Qian Baosheng muttered, pacing the room. The apothecary's ruined face was twisted in frustration. "The Dwarf watches her like a hawk. He comes home for lunch. He comes home for dinner. He sleeps with one eye open. The door is barred."
Zihe slammed his cup down. "I don't care about the Dwarf! I want her! I want Little Cabbage!"
Baosheng sighed. He had squeezed Zihe for thousands of taels already, but the well was far from dry. The problem was access. Without access, the flow of money would stop.
"Young Master," Baosheng said, adopting a soothing tone. "The fruit is not ripe. You must let it hang. Go back to Yuhang. Spend a week with your wife. Let the Dwarf relax. Let him think the danger has passed. When the cat sleeps, the mice will play."
Zihe scoffed. "My wife? That wooden plank? I would rather sleep with a corpse."
But he knew Baosheng was right. His presence in Cangqian was becoming dangerous. Gossip was like smoke; it drifted. If his father, the Magistrate, heard rumors of his son's obsession with a tofu maker's wife, the consequences would be severe.
"Fine," Zihe spat. "I will go back. But only for a week. And when I return, Baosheng... if you haven't found a way in, I will burn this shop to the ground."
Zihe returned to the Yamen in Yuhang, greeted by his mother, Madam Lin, with the lavish affection reserved for the only son of a dynasty.
"My treasure!" she cried, stroking his face. "You look thin! Did the country air not agree with you?"
Zihe forced a smile. "I missed your cooking, Mother."
He spent the next ten days in a purgatory of boredom. His wife, the virtuous Lady Li, tried to please him, but her modesty only reminded him of Little Cabbage's wild, drugged surrender. He visited the local brothels, but the painted faces of the courtesans seemed grotesque compared to the natural, luminous beauty of the woman in Peace Alley.
He was a man possessed. He dreamed of her. He dreamed of the way she looked at him with those dark, tragic eyes—eyes that held a mixture of loathing and resignation that he mistook for passion.
On the tenth day, he could stand it no longer. He took a heavy purse of gold from his mother's vault and hired a boat back to Cangqian.
He arrived at the pharmacy in a foul mood.
"Well?" he demanded, throwing his cloak onto the counter. "Has the Dwarf died?"
Baosheng winced. "Not yet. But he is... distracted."
"Distracted?"
"Tomorrow," Baosheng whispered, leaning close. "Tomorrow is the birthday of his stepfather, Shen Tiren. The Dwarf must go to the village to pay his respects. He will be gone all day. He will eat noodles, drink wine, and return late."
Zihe's eyes lit up. "All day?"
"From sunrise to sunset," Baosheng confirmed. "The house will be empty. Except for the Cabbage."
III. The Golden Cage
The next morning, the sky was a bruised purple as the sun struggled to rise. Zihe and Baosheng sat in the teahouse opposite Number Five, watching the door like vultures.
At dawn, Ge Pinlian emerged. He was dressed in his best clothes—a clean but threadbare tunic. He looked tired, his shoulders slumped under the weight of his life. He locked the door and trudged down the alley, heading for the village.
Zihe waited until he was out of sight. Then, he stood up.
"Now," he said.
They crossed the alley. Baosheng knocked—a specific rhythm they had established with Third Girl.
The door opened. Third Girl stood there, grinning.
"Rich Brother!" she squealed. "You came back!"
Zihe pushed past her, tossing a handful of copper coins onto the floor to distract her. He ran up the stairs, his heart pounding.
He found Little Cabbage sitting on the edge of the bed. She looked paler than he remembered. There were dark circles under her eyes. She did not look up when he entered.
"You came back," she said softly. It wasn't a question. It was a statement of defeat.
Zihe sat beside her. He didn't touch her immediately. He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a packet of gold leaf. He laid it on the bedspread. The yellow metal glowed in the dim light.
"I told you I would take care of you," Zihe said. "Look. Five taels. Enough for a year of rice."
He pulled a ring from his finger—a piece of glass-green jade worth a small fortune. He slipped it onto her finger. It was too big, but she didn't pull away.
"Why?" she whispered, looking at the ring. "Why do you do this? You have a wife. You have money. Why torment me?"
"Because you are mine," Zihe said, his voice thick with obsession. "I will marry you. I will divorce that wooden woman in Yuhang. I will make you the Young Mistress of the Liu family. You will wear silk every day. You will never sew another stitch."
It was a lie, and they both knew it. A Magistrate's son could never marry a tofu maker's widow as a primary wife. At best, she would be a concubine, a plaything discarded when her beauty faded.
But for a moment, the fantasy hung in the air, glittering and poisonous.
Little Cabbage looked at him. She thought of Pinlian, who worked himself to death for pennies. She thought of Yang Naiwu, who had abandoned her to save his reputation. And she thought of the gold on the bedspread.
"I cannot marry you," she said, her voice trembling. "I am married to Pinlian. He is a good man. He does not beat me. He does not starve me."
"He is a dwarf!" Zihe spat. "He is a bug! How can you stand his touch?"
"He is my husband," she said simply. "And I have betrayed him enough."
Zihe's face darkened. He didn't want to hear about her morality. He wanted surrender.
He grabbed her shoulders, pulling her close. "Forget him. Forget everything. Just remember this."
He kissed her. It was not a gentle kiss. It was a claim.
Little Cabbage didn't fight him. She had no fight left. She let him push her back onto the pillows. She let him take what he wanted. She closed her eyes and floated away, detaching her mind from her body, becoming a spectator to her own ruin.
While Zihe and Little Cabbage were entangled in their desperate, joyless passion upstairs, the house was not as secure as they thought.
Third Girl was downstairs, counting her coins. But outside, in the alley, a figure was watching.
It was Liu Zihan, the thief.
He had seen Pinlian leave. He had seen Zihe enter. And now, he was waiting.
He knew that the affair had rekindled. And he knew that the stakes were getting higher.
He crept around to the back of the house, where a small window looked into the kitchen. He peered inside. Empty.
He looked up at the bedroom window. The curtains were drawn, but he could hear movement.
He smiled. He didn't need to see. He knew enough.
He walked back to the Hall of Loving Benevolence. He would wait for Baosheng there. The price of silence was about to go up again.
Upstairs, the passion had spent itself. Zihe lay beside Little Cabbage, tracing the line of her jaw with his finger.
"I have to go," he said. "The Dwarf might come back early."
Little Cabbage nodded, pulling her robe closed. She felt cold, despite the heat of the room.
"Go," she whispered.
Zihe dressed quickly. He kissed her forehead—a gesture of possessiveness, not affection—and headed for the door.
He walked down the stairs, stepping over Third Girl's collection of coins.
"Goodbye, Rich Brother," she called out.
Zihe didn't answer. He slipped out the front door and into the alley.
But as he turned the corner, he collided with someone.
A man carrying a basket of eggs.
It was Old Man Shen, Ge Pinlian's stepfather.
Shen stumbled, dropping the basket. Eggs shattered on the cobblestones.
"Watch where you're going!" Shen shouted.
Then he looked up. He saw the young man in the expensive purple robe. He saw the flushed face, the disheveled hair.
He recognized him. It was the Magistrate's son. The one everyone whispered about.
"Young Master Liu?" Shen asked, squinting. "What are you doing here? In Peace Alley? Coming from... my son's house?"
Zihe froze. His mind raced.
"I... I was looking for the pharmacy," Zihe stammered. "I took a wrong turn."
"The pharmacy is that way," Shen said, pointing. He looked at the broken eggs. He looked at Zihe. "You owe me for the eggs."
Zihe fumbled in his purse and threw a silver dollar at the old man. "Keep the change," he gasped, and ran.
Shen watched him go. He picked up the silver dollar. Then he looked at the house his stepson lived in.
He walked to the door and knocked.
Third Girl opened it.
"Grandfather!" she said.
"Where is your brother?" Shen asked.
"Gone to see you," Third Girl said.
"And where is your sister-in-law?"
"Upstairs," Third Girl said. "Sleeping."
Shen narrowed his eyes. "Was anyone else here?"
Third Girl hesitated. She looked at the silver dollar in Shen's hand. She looked at the coins in her pocket.
"No," she said. "Just the wind."
Shen didn't believe her. He walked into the house. He climbed the stairs.
He found Little Cabbage sitting on the bed, staring at the wall. The room smelled of musk.
"Daughter-in-law," Shen said slowly. "I just saw a ghost in the alley. A rich ghost. Did he visit you?"
Little Cabbage looked at him. She saw the suspicion in his eyes. She knew that if she admitted it, she was dead.
"I don't know what you mean," she said, her voice steady. "I have been here alone all day."
Shen looked at the bed. He looked at the gold ring on her finger—the one she hadn't had time to hide.
"Nice ring," Shen said.
He turned and walked out.
He didn't go to Pinlian. Not yet. He went to the teahouse. He ordered a pot of wine.
He sat there, drinking and thinking. He realized that the Green Hat on his stepson's head was made of gold. And Old Man Shen, despite his grumbling, liked gold very much.
He decided to wait. If the Magistrate's son was paying for the milk, maybe he would pay for the cow, too.
The web of complicity had just snagged another fly.
To see how the secret spreads, read the next chapter.