The Detective Strikes Some Small Talk

A splash of cold water over her face woke her up. 

Yujia's eyes flinched open, shock setting in as she stared at the group of people surrounding her. Water dripped down from her face, and she reached to wipe it off, only to find that her hands were tied behind her back. In fact, she was tied to a chair, rendered incapable of moving.

Before she could say anything, a man spoke up. "That's definitely her. The one who sold Big Bro out."

Big Bro?

"Who did I sell out?" Yujia asked, completely confused at the situation she was in.

"You don't know?" the man scoffed. "Were you not the one who kept crying 'thief'? If it wasn't for some quick planning on our side, he would've had his hands cut off because of you!"

Oh— so they were talking about the first bait Yujia threw, with the pendant and the thief who stole the pendant. He sadly escaped, so Yujia's plan had failed there.

"I was merely reacting like any normal person would. The pendant means a lot to me," Yuia retorted.

The man rolled his eyes, clearly unwilling to see her viewpoint.

Yujia's eyes slid over, analyzing every one of their faces and memorizing them. The lighting was dim, but she could make out their faces well enough. Among them, she saw the head maid Lu Biyao and Zhu'er, who nervously looked away. 

Zhu'er's face was the one that pieced it together for Yujia. It all made sense now. Yujia was supposed to infiltrate the group of thieves, yet they seemed to want to take revenge on her for ruining their plans before. Thus, they intended to let Zhu'er convince her to meet up late at night. Then, they would knock Yujia out and carry out whatever sort of revenge they wanted.

Even if she intended to infiltrate as a thief, originally, Yujia didn't mind the current predicament she was in all too much. Her end goal, to get into the thief base, was essentially accomplished. The only thing that made her wary was the possibility of being harmed by this group.

"Where am I?" Yujia asked, trying to strike conversation to delay a potentially dangerous fate of hers.

"Why does it matter?" Another man spoke up. He then turned to the man who spoke to Yujia earlier, saying, "When is he arriving?" 

"Soon, he said," the man replied.

They seemed to not want to do anything until this mysterious person arrived. Yujia guessed that he was probably the leader of some sort. 

In the meantime, she looked at her surroundings more. It seemed to be a circular room, with torches hanging by the walls to illuminate the dim area. When she looked up, there was only darkness above her. The lack of a visible ceiling and the circular shape of the room made her realize that this was probably the bottom of the well, acting as a secret room for the servants to store things and to meet up.

Her theory was further proved when a few moments later, a shuffling noise came from behind her. Yujia tried to turn around to look, but it was difficult. However, it did sound like someone climbing down. 

Just like that, a man from behind, in the shadows, walked out in front of her, arms crossed.

She registered her face the same time that he registered hers.

He was Steward Liu— the steward of the household— and a person who definitely knew Yujia's face. 

"The Fourth Miss!" he exclaimed, eyes widening and mouth parting.

Yujia inwardly cursed. She didn't expect this to happen. This wasn't a part of her plans, so now, she was a bit put off by what to do. However, thinking about it now, it did make sense for the manager of all the servants to be involved in all of the thievery business. That was how things could happen right under the masters' eyes, and how the thieves were always well coordinated.

"Steward Liu," Yujia ended up saying with gritted teeth, "I didn't expect to see you here."

The servants— thieves— were all whispering amongst themselves. Fourth Miss?

"Neither did I," he replied, a deep frown now tracing his lips. "Shen Yuling… that… is you?"

"My cover is blown," Yujia relented with a sigh. 

He continued, wringing his hands together. "You were supposed to be married over to the Yu Villa."

She replied, "And here I am now, busting a group of thieves."

Assured that no one was standing behind her, Yujia's hands fumbled a little bit with the ropes around her hands. They were tied, but not too tight. If she pressed her wrists together, she could wiggle out of them, bit by bit. She just needed to be subtle about it, along with a healthy dose of time.

"Which, by the way," she added on, "I would like to thank you all for stealing my five gold taels. You nearly ruined my future there for me, but thankfully, I managed to escape the marriage without paying off the taels."

Steward Liu said, "The ones… that stole your taels… those servants are not present right now."

"Ah, interesting. Mind telling me who it was, then? So I can take revenge later, of course," Yujia replied, passing a charming grin.

"Nice try," the steward chuckled, "but you won't be able to take any revenge."

A quiet sound of a night watchman's gong sounded in the distance. Yujia took note of that. She just needed to carry on the conversation a little more now.

"Why do you think so?" Yujia questioned.

"Well, Fourth Miss, I'd hate to break it to you, but you must die."

"Die?" Yujia feigned terror. "Steward, how could you say that?"

Steward Liu clasped his hands together. "You may forget that you are not the status of a Fourth Miss anymore. I am not your servant. Therefore, in order to maintain the lovely business going on in the villa, you must die. I can't have you leaking my secrets."

"What if I swear to never tell anyone?" Yujia hastily added, forcing an edge of panic into her voice. "Please don't kill me. I'll do anything." She hoped that she sounded earnest enough.

"I'm not quite sure if I can trust you," he mused, "since you have been going under this false identity for so long, and so successfully. Who are you doing this for?" 

She replied effortlessly. "Myself. I wanted to figure out who stole my taels." Biting her lip, Yujia continued, "Steward, I don't care if things in the villa go missing. I just want my taels back. You can believe me when I say that I won't expose this group. There's no benefit in doing that."

The steward laughed now, again. "Why, I don't think I can believe that. It is under my impression that you have met with the Madam, have you not? On the evening where that unlucky servant tried to steal from the person who we all thought to be Shen Yuling. If you have had a face-to-face discussion with her, she surely recognized your face. How do we know that you do not work for her?"

Damn. Yujia had to admit the logic in that. She didn't think so far about her lie. 

"I am a… woman of my word. I truly won't tell anyone. I swear on it."

Steward Liu simply shook his head. 

Yujia grimaced. She didn't know how much longer she could maintain this conversation. It wasn't like she could incite an evil monologue out of the steward. 

When was her backup plan going to come into play? It should happen anytime now. Yujia prayed that it would come in and save her life. 

The moment this prayer passed her mind, shouts came from above. At first, they were blurry shouts, but the shouts grew more clear.

"Fire!" one of them cried out.

Just like how Yujia heard this shout, the others in the well with her heard it as well. They tensed up, glancing amongst each other.

Fire? How did that happen? What were they supposed to do now? 

A deep scowl crossed the stewards face. He glanced at Yujia, then back at the top of the well. "I need to go up. You all should too. Why is there a fire now, out of all times?" 

"What about her?" a servant called out.

"Leave her, for now. She's not important. Keep one person behind, but otherwise, everyone else needs to go up," the steward commanded.

They listened, leaving Zhu'er and Yujia behind. A small smirk traced Yujia's lips.

The fire had been planned.

This was Yujia's backup plan. Earlier that evening, when she returned from the situation with Shen Li and the acting, she had a conversation with Yang Xiaoyi. In that conversation, they talked about normal things, but at the end, Yujia asked one last thing of Xiaoyi.

If by the time that the night watchmen strikes the gong late in the night, and Yujia still hadn't returned, Xiaoyi was supposed to light up a stack of hay in her courtyard on fire.

The moment her younger sister heard the plan, she had immediately winced."What? You want me to… burn the courtyard down?" Xiaoyi had asked.

Yujia simply replied that she needed enough of a fire to draw attention away from her. It was the backup plan anyways— if all things went wrong.

She hoped that the backup plan would not have to come to reality. Yet looking at this situation now, Yujia was thankful for the existence of this backup plan.

Everyone else had left through the rope ladder to the top of the well. Yujia stared at the girl in front of her— Zhu'er— for a few, long moments.

Then, mustering the brightest smile she could, she asked, "So, how's it going?"

What a wonderful evening for striking up small talk— when a part of the villa was burning, when a section of the servants wanted to kill Yujia, and when she was stuck at the bottom of a well, tied to a chair.