The Candle Burns Red - Chapter 4

The sun was high when I finally left the ancestral hall the next day. Pei Xiuwen had left me a squad of men and his extraordinary horse, said to cover a thousand li in a day. Zhao De’s hometown was Qingfeng Town. If we rode quickly, we could return that same evening.

Just outside the city gate, we passed a tea stall where travelers rested. Two children played around it, the little boy calling “Sister! Sister!”

I suddenly understood. I wheeled my horse around and told Pei Xiuwen’s deputy, Canglu, “Take the men to the Zhao house in Qingfeng Town. I have to go back to the city!”

“My lord ordered me to protect the Divine Maiden,” Canglu refused stiffly.

“I’ll explain to him later!” I galloped toward the capital.

I arrived just as Pei Xiuwen left court. Among the officials, I spotted his dark figure at once, handsome and straight as a pine. A colleague beside him laughed. “So that’s why Brother Pei walked to court today. You lent your mount to your little wife.”

Pei Xiuwen was startled to see me. He drew me aside. “What’s happened?”

“My lord, take me to the opera.”

He studied me suspiciously. “It seems you’ve found the killer.”

The sight of those two children had made it clear. A person who looked like Zhao De need not be his twin brother. He might have a twin sister. That explained why I had not found anyone else in the genealogy. Women had never been allowed into those records.

“A woman with nowhere to go has few choices: the theater, a brothel, or servitude. Since she can fight, she’s probably with a troupe.”

There were more than twenty theaters in the capital. Searching each one would warn her. Pei Xiuwen considered my concern, then swung into the saddle and extended a hand. “Come. I know where she is.”

I took his hand. He closed his fingers around mine and caught me by the waist. Heat rose to my ears, and I shifted awkwardly. “Don’t move,” came his low voice above my head.

Gongs and drums thundered at Manyin Theater. A performance had just begun. Its owner, Li Dai, was a remarkable woman. Rumor said she had served as a court official under the previous dynasty. After that dynasty fell, she opened a theater in the capital and took in homeless women.

Pei Xiuwen and I entered disguised as an ordinary married couple. He wore white everyday clothes and carried a folding fan painted with peonies. Without his usual fierceness, he looked like an idle young master from a wealthy family.

“Husband, I want to sit right in front.” I curled my fingers in a coquettish pose, pouted, and played the spoiled wife. His mouth twitched. He tossed the usher a gold ingot. “Find my wife a seat.”

I happily led Pei Xiuwen to the front row. I could feel someone watching the audience from backstage. As if unaware, I picked up a pastry and held it to his lips. He leaned forward.

“My master taught me a spell to expose monsters,” I murmured with a smile. “Watch me reveal this one’s true form.”

He took a bite from my fingers and said, in a voice gentler than he seemed to realize, “All right. Show me.”

Painted performers came onstage, singing in drawn-out notes. My gaze moved among them until it settled on the woman playing a *qingyi* role. Her makeup was unusually heavy, but it could not hide the bloodshot whites of her eyes. Going out to murder people every night must be exhausting.

I was about to tell Pei Xiuwen when she lifted her costume, drew a flexible sword from her boot, and rushed straight at us. He seized a teacup and flung it. She twisted aside, murderous fury on her face. The audience dissolved into chaos.

Pei Xiuwen dragged me behind him. “Stay out of the way.” His fan sprang open, releasing several flying blades. Some buried themselves in her body. She spat a mouthful of black blood and fell.

“Western Depot cur!” she cursed through gritted teeth.

So it was Pei Xiuwen she had come for. His face remained impassive. He seemed used to being called that.