Mr. Harris was stunned for a moment and said, “A month ago, three maids in the household saved up enough money to buy their freedom and wanted to leave. Master once said he wouldn’t make things difficult for the servants who wished to go, so I gave them their contracts and let them go. With three maids gone, we were short-handed, so I hired three more from outside. I didn’t expect that the female assassin would sneak in among them. She had no martial arts background, so I wasn’t on guard…”

The middle-aged man stroked his long beard and asked, “Did you personally go to hire them?”

Mr. Harris shook his head and said, “At the time, I was with the young master catching crickets, so I asked Mrs. Bennett to pick them out at the agency.”

“How long had the maids who left been in the household?”

“Let me think… I believe two of them had been here three years, and one for four years.”

The middle-aged man said slowly, “When the maids entered the household, they had nothing. Their monthly wage was one tael of silver, twelve taels a year. Expenses in the household are minimal. Aside from cosmetics, and occasionally buying some pastries or candied fruit as a treat, they hardly spent anything. Even if they saved ten taels a year, that’s thirty taels in three years, forty in four, but the redemption fee is a hundred taels… Have you ever thought about where they got the money to buy their freedom?”

Mr. Harris was taken aback, scratched his head, and said, “I really hadn’t thought about it that much…”

The middle-aged man shook his head and asked again, “What about Mrs. Bennett?”

Mr. Harris said, “She should be asleep by now. Speaking of Mrs. Bennett, I don’t think I’ve seen much of her today…”

The middle-aged man sighed softly, “Mrs. Bennett…”

Mr. Harris finally realized something, suddenly looked up, and exclaimed in shock, “Master, do you mean someone gave those three maids the money to buy their freedom, just to create a shortage of staff in the household, and then took the opportunity to have Mrs. Bennett bring in that assassin to assassinate the young master…”

He slapped his thigh and belatedly said, “Damn Mrs. Bennett, I was wondering why she was so attentive that day—turns out she’d been plotting all along, the ungrateful traitor! I’ll go find her!”

With that, he dashed out like the wind.

The middle-aged man stood at the table, picked up another piece of pastry, and unhurriedly put it in his mouth.

A moment later, Mr. Harris returned, muttering, “Mrs. Bennett is gone. That damn woman, she ran away…”

The middle-aged man’s expression didn’t change at all, as if he wasn’t surprised by this outcome.

He paced slowly, took three sticks of incense from the cabinet beside the desk, lit them with the candle, and placed them in the incense burner. With some emotion and a hint of regret, he said, “If I remember correctly, Mrs. Bennett has been with the family for ten years now, hasn’t she?”

Mr. Harris said angrily, “A full ten years! Ten years raising a thankless wolf—raising a dog would have been better than her!”

The middle-aged man shook his head slightly and said, “In life, there are many things beyond our control.”

Watching the three sticks of incense slowly burn in the incense burner, he bent down and bowed to it.

Mr. Harris asked curiously, “Three sticks of incense, Master, who are you honoring?”

The middle-aged man didn’t explain, only said, “It’s getting late. Go get some rest.”

…

That night.

Outside Chang’an, by a certain riverside.

A small boat rocked gently, sending ripples across the water, spreading into the distance.

A plump middle-aged woman carried a trunk into the cabin. A man who had been waiting there couldn’t help but open the trunk. Moonlight shone into the box, reflecting golden rays that made his eyes look golden as well.

A greedy look appeared on the middle-aged woman’s face as she said, “With this much money, we can enjoy the rest of our lives…”

The man said fearfully, “What if your master finds out? If we get caught and taken back, we’ll be skinned alive…”

At the mention of her master, the woman’s face turned pale, but she forced herself to stay calm and said, “What’s there to be afraid of? As long as he doesn’t catch us. Tonight we’ll leave Chang’an, leave Great Xia, go to Great Chu, go to Great Qi—his reach can’t extend that far… You—what are you doing?”

Before she could finish, her voice suddenly turned sharp and pained. She looked down in disbelief at the dagger plunged into her chest, then struggled to look up at the man across from her.

The man pressed his palm against the hilt and drove the dagger deeper into her heart until the blade was fully buried. Then he grinned and said, “Who wants to spend the rest of their life with you? With all this gold, I can find any beautiful woman I want—why stick with someone old and withered…”

The woman’s eyes widened, filled with unwillingness, and her hands gradually fell limp.

Just as the man was hiding the trunk and preparing to push the woman’s body into the water, a voice suddenly sounded in his ear.

“Men really are all the same. She risked her life to earn all that gold just to elope with you, and you actually had the heart to kill her. Are you even human…”

“Who’s there!”

The man was startled, spun around, and only then realized that at some point, a slender figure was standing at the bow of the boat.

In the hazy moonlight, he couldn’t make out the person’s face, only felt that the voice was soft and androgynous, but probably not a woman.

The man’s throat moved as he was about to speak, when suddenly a flash of white light appeared. He felt the world spin—he saw the moon above, then below, then to the left, then to the right…

Splash!

It seemed something fell into the water, and then he knew nothing more.