A Fish for the Detective

It was late. The candles were all blown out, and only the barest bit of light could be seen from a sliver of moonlight escaping from clouds. Yujia raised her hand in the darkness, faintly capable of seeing the outline of her hand amongst the shadows. 

In one hand, she clutched Zixu's pendant. She laid on her side, her eyes wide open. Even though there was nothing to see, she wanted to be sure that she wasn't going to fall asleep tonight. She had to stay awake, to see if the fish would take the bait.

All around her, she could hear as the breathing of Xie Yufeng and Xin'er grew softer and softer, until they sounded like they were fast asleep. 

It was getting later and later, and in the darkness, doing nothing but staring at the pendant in her hand, Yujia felt like she was about to doze off too. She pinched herself, then dug her fingernails into her palm, preventing herself from doing so. 

She hoped that someone would come to steal her pendant soon. It would be horrible to stay awake the entire night, only to find that her efforts were in vain.

In the darkness of the night, she began to doubt her plan. What if the fish decided to take the bait another day? What if the fish didn't even take the bait in the first place? 

But then, right in the middle of her doubts, she heard footsteps. 

At first, Yujia thought she heard wrong, and that it was only the rustling of wind. The sound of footsteps was just so slow and muffled. But as the sound grew closer and closer, along with the slight creaking of wood, Yujia was sure that someone was coming.

She bit down her smiler and forced her face to fall slack. Simultaneously, she closed her eyes and steadied her breath, mimicking the rhythm of the other sleeping people. 

Her ear twitched. Yujia focused more on what she could hear, envisioning the things that were happening. 

The person walked closer and closer to the place where Yujia slept. There was the sound— a rustling of fabric— signifying that they leaned forward. At this point, Yujia no longer relied on her ears. She could feel their hands leaning forward, shuffling in the darkness. 

They touched her arm, and she had to do her best not to flinch. She was a stone. A cold, lifeless stone. Being still was all she ever knew how to do. The god of rocks was watching over her tonight— she would not move, she would not move, she would not move.

While Yujia pretended to be a rock, the person's hands patted down Yujia's entire arm, at last landing on the pendant. Their skin brushed against her hand, and Yujia found that it was warm.

The moment they grabbed onto her pendant, leaning back forward, Yujia broke out of her boulder-state. Her hand whipped out, latching onto the person's wrist. She could hear a startled, but deep, yelp from this person.

Deep?

At the moment, Yujia could not care to examine the voice of the person. She immediately launched into the second part of her plan.

She shrieked.

She shrieked as loud and long as she could, making her voice shrill and high-pitched. The scream pierced through the night, making even Yujia jump a little from her screech.

Along with her screech, she leapt out of her bed and practically tackled the person. She grabbed onto both of their arms. They struggled, flailing their limbs to push her off, but Yujia wasn't going to let go. Even if she had no muscles, she would hold on. 

In retrospect, Yujia wasn't sure how she managed to hold on. Maybe it was the adrenaline rushing through her, giving her muscles that she didn't know she had.

Regardless, the eardrum-bursting screaming seemed to do its job. Both Yufeng and Xin'er woke up. Soon enough, the room became a mess of shrieks, screams, and shouts. 

Yujia wasn't sure how long she held on for. She wasn't sure how long she screamed either. But by the time she was pulled off this person, someone had already lit a few candles and lanterns. A crowd was drawn over, people squeezing into the room to see what happened in the middle of the night for sounds of a pig being slaughtered to echo from the old room of the Fourth Miss. 

Two people had dragged the person Yujia was clutched onto away from her. She fell to the floor on her knees, looking at the pendant which the person had dropped in the chaos. Hastily, she threw herself forward to grab it, dusting the pendant off. 

Then, she looked up, taking a look for the first time at who the thief was. Their face was masked before, and in the mess, she hadn't been able to focus on their face. Now, someone had pulled off the black fabric covering their face.

She expected to see the face of Xu Nuo or Lu Biyao.

Instead, she saw the face of some unfamiliar man.

What?