An Artist’s Infiltration, Phase Hiding

Before the door pushed open, Yujia threw herself under the first hiding place she thought of: the bed. 

Her breathing stopped. Crouched under there, her face almost pressed up against the wooden boards of the bed, she didn't dare to make a single sound or to move an inch. The sound of footsteps traveled all around her while someone walked in the room and to a cabinet beside the bed. 

Yujia glanced over, seeing what looked like the shoes of a maid in her peripheral vision. 

She wondered if it was a good choice to throw herself under the bed. But if those shoes belonged to anyone who knew the face of the Fourth Miss, she would be quite screwed too. So maybe throwing herself under the bed was the best solution. 

Regardless, she was under the bed already. It wasn't like she could just crawl back out and act like everything was perfectly normal. 

The maid who stood right by the bed rummaged through the cabinet, similar to what Yujia was doing a few moments ago. This meant that she had to be someone who had plenty of trust from the Madam to do something like this— unless she, too, was trying to infiltrate like Yujia. 

The maid's actions narrowed her identity down to a few individuals. She had to be one of Madam Zhang's personal maids; otherwise, she wouldn't dare to go through the Madam's personal belongings right now. 

This made Yujia a hundred times more assured of her decision to hide. One of Madam Zhang's personal maids who followed her everywhere would know the face of the Fourth Miss, for sure.

She could only hope that whoever it was didn't notice a shadow under the bed. The chances of being discovered weren't too high, so Yujia wasn't too panicked. Nonetheless, at the same time, the longer she spent in the awkward position she was at, the more fear that came up when she wondered what would happen if she was discovered. 

Would they force her to get married again? Would her entire plan fall apart right at this moment? Would Yu Zixu be dragged down with her? 

Why was this maid here anyways? If she was a personal maid of the Madam, shouldn't she be with the Madam, making sure that the meeting with Zixu went well?

What did Zixu do to cause this maid to go into the room now? Why didn't he manage to stop her? 

Too many questions appeared in Yujia's thoughts. 

Yujia glanced away from the shoes and looked up at the dark wooden boards. There were plenty of cobwebs and dust collected under the bed, making Yujia extremely uncomfortable. 

She hated, despised, and dreaded spiders. 

Them and their little legs and disgusting ways always made them one of those things that she couldn't stand to be near. Cockroaches, bees, snakes, ants— she could stand all of them. 

But spiders?

If she saw one right now, she wasn't sure how she would manage to stay still. She wasn't sure how she would manage to not scream. It was already enough to have cobwebs pressing into her hair.

Yujia closed her eyes tightly and mentally prepared herself. She would keep calm. She would keep calm. She would keep calm. She would keep calm. She would keep calm.

Was that a tingling sensation she felt crawling up her hand? Or was she just overreacting and imagining things? 

Her eyes flashed open. They fixed right at the wooden boards above her. There was an odd dark spot on it. 

HeavenswasthataSPIDERnononopleasedon'tbeaSPIDERifthat'saSPIDERshewasreallygoingto—

Yujia blinked. 

It wasn't a spider.

Instead, it seemed like a wooden… notch of some sort? Maybe there was a chip in the wood that was selected to make Madam Zhang's bed.

Part of her filled up with relief that it wasn't a spider. Another part of her wondered when the maid was going to leave. 

Yujia squinted up at the small cut in the planks. 

That was when she noticed that the notch in the wood wasn't any ordinary splinter. Extending from the cut was a thin border, forming what looked like a rectangle slightly larger than Yujia's two hands pieced together. She scrunched her eyes up and stared at the rectangle some more. 

In the darkness, she couldn't see much, but the rectangle still didn't look like it belonged. Proven, she didn't know much about how beds were built in this time period. Yet still, why would someone carve a rectangle at the bottom of a wooden plank which would never be seen, hidden by blankets and mattresses? 

At this moment, the maid seemed to find what she was looking for and left the room. 

Yujia let out a breath that she had been holding, but she didn't scamper out from under the bed yet. Her fear of spiders was momentarily set aside with the new curiosity she gained from this. 

Her hand went up to trace the edges of the rectangle carving and the little notch. 

And then, she discovered that this wooden carving wasn't just a cut in the wood— it was a panel that opened up. 

No innocent person without anything to hide would have a secret panel hidden under their bed.

With wide eyes and new realization, she pried the plank open. The moment she did, a wooden box plunged down, smacking straight on her face. 

"Ah!" Yujia exclaimed with surprise, flinching. 

It didn't hurt that much, considering how close she was to the box. But with that flinching movement, Yujia still rammed the top of her head against the boards on accident, bringing a wave of pain on the top of her skull. She immediately followed that up with rolling away, out from the darkness under the bed. 

Her face all scrunched up, Yujia sat up and rubbed the area that she had slammed on the wooden board. 

That hurt. 

Once the pain from the bump subsided a bit, Yujia blinked twice, then stretched herself out. With her free hand, she reached back under the bed to grab the box.

The box that had fallen out of that suspicious panel was made of a strange material. She thought that it was wooden in the dark, but now that she could see it fully, she realized that this material was definitely not wood. It seemed to be made of silvery metal, with a metallic luster to it that glinted in the light. 

The box was small enough, fitting perfectly in the palm of her hands. And in the center of that box was a keyhole, molded into the metal with extreme precision and detail. 

Yujia observed this carefully. She then reached back under the bed, pushing the panel shut, and pocketing the small box into her sleeve. 

She thought that she would leave the room without any evidence at all. But this box, hidden in such a secret location, had to be something. It wouldn't make sense for it to not hold some sort of confidential information. 

Yujia then went to look for keys in the room, all the while thinking about her new discovery. It was possible that this box that Madam Zhang owned had to do with something completely different, and not the whole case of her poisoning. But there was an equally likely possibility that some sort of poison was inside there as well. 

Thus, Yujia had to figure out what was in it.

Yet moments of searching later, Yujia couldn't find any key in any part of the room. She looked everywhere— and even in other panels of wood to see if there were any secret compartments again. 

It all led to nothing.