For some reason, from the very first moment Chi You saw this military-clad man, an intense sense of hostility and disgust rose in his heart.
The young master lifted his hand, gloved fingers nudging the brim of his hat, and from beneath its shadow, his deep-set eyes emerged. He noticed Chi You’s gaze but only cast a bland, indifferent glance at him before turning to look at Jiang Luo instead.
The adjutant behind him, on the other hand, seemed intrigued and looked at Chi You a few more times with curiosity.
“Since the Chi family members are here, then tell me about the deaths in your household,” the military young master said as he rolled up the newspaper. He strode toward the Chi residence with long strides, the cloak at his back sweeping with each step. But suddenly, he halted, turned around, and used the rolled-up newspaper to lift Jiang Luo’s chin. His eyes narrowed, “Are you really one of the Chi family? You don’t look like it.”
Forced to lift his head, Jiang Luo was struck by how familiar the aura of this man in military uniform felt—his entire presence, even the subtle, perverse glint in his eyes.
A few seconds later, Jiang Luo couldn’t hold back from raising an eyebrow and nearly laughed.
Could it be… Chi You’s original self has also entered this world?
If that was true, with both the current Chi You and the original in one place—now that would be an interesting show. Jiang Luo almost laughed aloud, but on the surface, he bit his lip and lowered his gaze as if frightened.
The newspaper was slapped away by another hand. The young man stepped to Jiang Luo’s side and draped an arm around his shoulders. Chi You smiled, “Young Master, this is my wife, Jiang Luo. His surname is Jiang. Though he married me, he’s not a true member of the Chi family.”
Jiang Luo said nothing, but secretly used the corner of his eye to observe both the military young master and the younger Chi You’s expressions.
The young master let out a short chuckle. “Your wife?”
Chi You tilted his head to look at Jiang Luo. The faint marks of bites and scratches on his neck were just barely visible. “If you have something to say, say it to me. My wife just married into the Chi family and doesn’t know much about our affairs.”
As he spoke, he gently tucked a lock of Jiang Luo’s hair behind his ear, then dropped a light kiss beside it. “Darling, why don’t you go rest for a bit?”
A dangerous gaze fell right on Jiang Luo’s ear. It felt as if it might burn through his skin. The atmosphere was clearly off—neither the military young master nor the younger Chi You’s affectionate behavior felt right. A strange tension filled the air, a confrontation just below the surface.
Jiang Luo was thoroughly enjoying this drama. He barely restrained the corners of his mouth from curling up and was already itching to add fuel to the fire.
And Jiang Luo never held back when it came to stirring the pot.
Just as Chi You was about to step away, Jiang Luo turned his head. His lips seemed to brush across Chi You’s cheek as he passed. With a smile in his eyes, and that dangerous allure pooling in his raised lashes, he lightly touched his own ear—the one that had just been kissed—and said with a half-smile, “No need to rest.”
He brushed his fingertip across the fleshy lobe of his ear. Two sets of eyes locked subtly onto him.
The military young master stared directly at them, his gaze slowly shifting to the hand Chi You had draped over Jiang Luo’s shoulder. After a long pause, he smiled—but the oppressive aura he exuded seemed ready to tear someone apart.
The man said, “Interesting.”
Jiang Luo was delighted.
He was itching to say, Fight, fight!
The adjutant suddenly interjected, “Young Master, we should check on the dead.”
The young master looked toward the inner courtyard. “You’re right. Let’s handle the official matter first.”
He turned and walked ahead, with Jiang Luo and Chi You following behind. But Jiang Luo had barely taken a few steps when he suddenly stumbled and fell forward without warning.
Chi You, behind him, tensed and instinctively reached out, but the next moment, Jiang Luo had already fallen into the military young master’s arms.
His face hit the hard metal buttons on the man’s chest. The dark-gray cloak fluttered around his face and settled. The man caught him firmly and teased, “What, are you using a honey trap to stop our investigation now?”
Honey trap, my *ss—
Jiang Luo narrowed his eyes and gripped the man’s arm as he turned to glance at the ground. The floor was clean and flat, with no trace of whatever had tripped him.
But he was certain—something had definitely tripped him.
Chi You had used this trick before. When they’d encountered the red-and-white twin evils, he had deliberately slipped a dead branch under Lu Youyi’s foot.
Jiang Luo turned back and suddenly smiled. Hidden beneath the cloak, he stepped down hard on the man’s boot.
“Young Master, sorry. I just lost my footing.”
After stomping, the black-haired youth—looking uneasy—apologized earnestly.
Even with his long hair and pretty face, Jiang Luo was still a tall man over 1.8 meters. A full-strength stomp from him could probably break bones. But the military young master didn’t so much as flinch. Hidden beneath the folds of his cloak, he brazenly traced letters on Jiang Luo’s back with his fingers.
Carefully discerning the motion—it seemed to spell:
“Such a slender waist.”
Just those words instantly brought Jiang Luo’s mind back to that time on the swaying ship, where Chi You had gripped him tightly, sweat beading on his forehead, his voice hoarse and seductive as he whispered in his ear: “Why is it so slim here?”
The place where the words had been written now crawled with an itchy, tingling sensation like a trail of ants.
The black-haired youth’s apologetic expression didn’t change in the slightest, but he suddenly raised his knee and ruthlessly struck at the military young master’s most vulnerable spot.
The young master’s face shifted slightly, and he let go of him.
At the same time, Chi You grabbed Jiang Luo’s hand and forcefully pulled him away from the man’s arms. He spoke gently on the surface: “There’s no need for you to worry about my wife.”
But Jiang Luo deliberately shook him off, as if venting his anger. “Don’t touch me either!”
Chi You froze, then saw Jiang Luo storming ahead, seemingly furious.
In the next moment, Chi You caught on to a word in that sentence that made him especially alert.
“Either”?
What did he mean by “either”?
Obviously, it meant someone else had touched him—only then would he say “either.”
Chi You could no longer maintain his false mask. He retracted his smile and glanced at the military young master with no emotion in his eyes.
The young master noticed his look but seemed unbothered, casually striding forward to catch up with Jiang Luo.
But it was the adjutant standing behind him—none other than the disguised Ge Wuchen—whose face instantly turned pale after being looked at by his master from youth.
Among Chi You’s subordinates, Ge Wuchen, the “Buddha child” with his keen intuition, was undoubtedly the best at reading people. Though he couldn’t truly see through Chi You, he understood very well what certain expressions of his meant.
For instance, the look in Chi You’s eyes just now—he wanted to kill them.
But Chi You quickly looked away, unobtrusively closing the distance to Jiang Luo and positioning himself between him and the military young master.
A tense, storm-brewing silence fell upon the group—but it was broken moments later.
From the backyard came a scream: “A body’s been pulled from the lake!”
Everyone froze for a second, then hurried toward the lakeside.
When they arrived, the corpse had already been placed on the ground near the water. Jiang Luo took one look and his gaze froze.
The fingernails of the corpse laid against the grass, painted a vivid red—impossible to ignore.
Within the entire estate, there was only one woman who used such nail polish.
Jiang Luo quickly stepped forward and crouched down, brushing aside the hair covering the face of the corpse. A familiar face was revealed.
It was Qin Yun.
Her eyes were open—she had died with them wide. Her clothing had been torn, her body was bruised with evidence of struggle, and her mouth and abdomen were swollen. When Jiang Luo pried her lips open, silt and mud poured from her mouth.
It was precisely because her body had been filled with mud that Qin Yun’s corpse had not surfaced. And it was only today, when a servant accidentally fell into the lake, that they discovered Qin Yun beneath the water, eyes wide open like a drowned ghost.
Jiang Luo stood up expressionlessly, slowly wiping his hands with a handkerchief.
Duanzi was dead. Du Ge was dead. Now Qin Yun was dead.
Three people—gone.
And all three were part of the group of four young students.
How interesting. Why these three, exactly?
Jiang Luo didn’t believe for a second that it was a coincidence.
The servant who had discovered Qin Yun was so frightened he could barely function and had already been helped back to his room to rest. The military young master stepped up to Qin Yun’s body and examined it, then spoke with the same tone of sympathy that young Chi You had used in the mortuary over Duanzi: “Truly pitiful.”
Jiang Luo could hear the low murmurs of the gathered maids and servants—equal parts horrified and fascinated.
“Why is there another dead one?”
“Are we next?”
“Could the vengeful ghost really be from the Chi family?”
Jiang Luo suddenly turned and looked at the military young master. “What do you think?”
The young master replied, “Hm?”
“Rather than say she was killed by a ghost, I’d say she was murdered by a person,” Jiang Luo said, staring at the tattered clothing and the obvious signs of abuse on Qin Yun’s body. “She was raped, and then thrown into the lake.”
The young master nodded as if it were only natural. “What a coincidence—that’s exactly what I was thinking.”
Chi You watched the two of them exchanging remarks and found it unbearably grating. He turned back to the crowd and asked coldly, “Who shared a room with this maid?”
Lian Xue, pale-faced and supporting the fainting Li Xiao, stepped out from the crowd. She averted her gaze from Qin Yun’s corpse and said quietly, “Young Master, it was the two of us.”
“Did she leave the room last night?”
Lian Xue hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “We slept very deeply last night. I don’t know if she went out.”
Chi You said, “Housekeeper.”
The housekeeper quickly came forward. “Young Master.”
Chi You was about to give instructions when he suddenly looked toward the crowd.
The crowd parted. A plump, heavily adorned young man—sweaty and terrified—rushed over in a panic. Despite the mild weather, he was drenched, and his sweat, oily and thick, clung disgustingly to his forehead.
The housekeeper looked surprised. “Young Master Chi Tian, what brings you here?”
A servant whispered, “Isn’t this side-branch young master always in bed until noon?”
“Probably heard there was drama and came to enjoy the show.”
Chi Tian forced a stiff smile and stepped forward. When he saw the two men in military uniforms, a flicker of fear crossed his face, but he quickly put on a fawning grin and bowed repeatedly to the military young master. “Sirs, you’re here to investigate the death, right?”
The military young master looked down at him from above, silent.
The adjutant cleared his throat. “What do you know?”
Chi Tian wiped the sweat from his forehead, eyes darting about. Suddenly, he turned toward Chi You, and with a flash in his eyes, put on a pained expression and pointed. “It was you! You’re the murderer! Sirs, look—it was him who killed her and dumped her in the lake. You must take him away immediately!”
A shadow flickered in Chi You’s eyes. He turned his body slightly, dodging Chi Tian’s pointing finger, and said blandly, “It wasn’t me.”
“I say it was you, so it was you!” Chi Tian hadn’t expected Chi You to talk back and, overcome with rage, gave him a shove. “If it wasn’t you, then who was it? Me?!”
“I saw it with my own eyes last night—you raped her and threw her into the lake! You even asked me to help you keep it a secret. But now that there are people investigating the house, I’m not going to help you anymore.” Chi Tian was filled with self-righteous indignation. “I even told you to turn yourself in, but you kept pretending you didn’t know anything. Today, I’m going to do the right thing and turn you in myself. Everyone in the Chi family knows how filthy and despicable you really are. You put on a proper face, but inside, you’re nothing but a hypocrite in human skin. Are you seriously going to say you didn’t do it? I swear on my life—you killed her. Unless you kill me too, I won’t change my story!”
He lunged toward Chi You as he spoke, the words rolling off his tongue like he’d rehearsed them a hundred times.
The crowd’s eyes turned toward Chi You.
Some voiced disbelief. “How could the young master do something like that?”
But an older voice quickly countered, “Young Master Chi really has done a lot of bad things growing up.”
“I heard he even stole money and caused someone’s death before. They say he tried to exorcise a ghost when he was just a kid, but he was too inexperienced and ended up getting an entire family killed.”
“Just awful… you’d never guess from his appearance.”
“And that’s not all. Honestly, the branch family has been too lenient with the main line. The direct-line young master has done so many horrible things but still holds the top position. Every time he causes trouble, it’s the branch family that cleans it up. I heard this isn’t even the first time he’s gotten a woman killed.”
“He looks mild-mannered, but he’s actually terrifying. We all stay away from him.”
“Ugh, who knew he was that kind of person?”
Chi You lowered his head.
Burning with fury.
But more than anger, it was a kind of unspeakable humiliation.
Because Jiang Luo was watching him too.
That military-clad young master was also standing by, watching.
It felt like someone had torn the clothes off him and exposed every grotesque, twisted scar to the world.
What would they think of him now?
His fists clenched tightly at his sides, knuckles popping. The boy stood at the center of the crowd as his past was ripped open again and again by a branch-line cousin.
Chi Tian pressed harder, shouting, “Unless you kill me, everyone’s going to think you did it! You gonna kill me, Chi You? Do you dare?!”
He knew very well that Chi You didn’t dare.
Chi You carried a curse—so long as he wanted to live, he couldn’t harm anyone from the branch family.
Chi Tian was practically giddy. Chi You was still so easy to use.
Ever since they were children, he’d gotten used to pushing every blame onto Chi You. Not just him—everyone from the branch family, from the ninety-year-old elders to the five-year-old kids, all knew: cause trouble, and just blame Chi You.
The one who did wrong? Chi You. The one who caused deaths? Chi You. And now, the one who murdered someone? Also Chi You.
Chi Tian figured he didn’t even need to worry anymore. Time to start thinking about other things—like what to eat for dinner, or whether the girls at the brothel still had their eyes on him.
The military young master stood off to the side, watching it all with a cold gaze.
There was no ripple of emotion in his eyes. It was as if the young Chi You, whose experience mirrored his own past so precisely, was nothing to him at all.
