Do You Like Me That Much? Miss Villainess

At the end of October, the not-so-intense sun still stood guard.

Chiliarch Huang Gang, who had rested in his office all day, leaned back in his reclining chair, took a bite of sweet cake, and quietly waited for the evening drums that signaled the end of work.

He was a veteran of the Divine Guards. Being high-ranking, he didn't have much to do.

The drums sounded.

By rights, he should have gotten off work.

But... there were always those who didn't know their place and liked to occupy his off-duty time.

Huang Gang was displeased in his heart. Looking at his subordinate who came rushing to report, he finished his cake in two or three bites, drank some tea to moisten his throat, then looked up.

"What is it?" he asked unhappily.

His subordinate respectfully handed over a letter, explaining: "This was found at the entrance of the office. The envelope says it's for you. We didn't dare open it and rushed to deliver it as soon as we found it."

Huang Gang looked at the letter, fell silent for a moment, then waved to dismiss the person.

After the person left, he carefully opened the envelope through a handkerchief, took out the letter inside, and spread it open.

The handwriting was a bit ugly. Huang Gang frowned.

Patiently scanning through it, Huang Gang stood up, stone-faced and hands behind his back, pacing back and forth in the room.

After a moment, he called in his trusted aide, another centurion: "Old Li, sit."

"Boss Huang."

The subordinate greeted him: "You called for me?"

"Someone sent me a letter saying Feng Qi seems dissatisfied with our contribution rankings recently and is making small moves." Huang Gang sighed as he spoke: "They've investigated everything clearly—the complaint came right to our door."

"Isn't this a good thing?"

Old Li smiled and smacked his lips: "That boy Feng Qi is very cautious. Now he's finally caught."

"By the way, Boss Huang, who caught him?"

As Chiliarch Huang Gang's trusted aide, Old Li naturally disliked Feng Qi in various ways, feeling he occupied resources that should be his. Seeing him stumble, he could only think 'serves him right!'

Huang Gang shook his head: "I don't know who it was either. Look at this handwriting—deliberately written like a turtle crawling. Can't guess."

Mu Qinglan: I never practiced calligraphy, don't expose me.

Old Li peeked at the letter and shook his head with clicking sounds: "Most likely done by those three families Feng Qi was watching."

"Not necessarily," Huang Gang put away the letter, unfolded it, and held it over the candle flame before saying, "Could also be a third party wanting to use this matter to drag me into the water."

Fire tongues rolled up, burning the letter to ash, leaving only a wisp of blue smoke.

Which was then scattered by the wind.

Old Li nodded and listened to instructions.

As a subordinate, offering some thoughts would make the superior chat with you more, but if you tried to dominate the thinking, the superior would let you know what being a superior meant.

"I'll also write a few letters. Help me deliver them to those three families mentioned in the letter."

"Mm... won't be anonymous. Since Feng Qi got caught anyway, we'll clear our relationship and make some good connections."

"As for being dragged into the water... anyway, he's my subordinate. I can't stay out of it completely, right?"

Old Li took the letters, put on his coat, and went out.

The evening drums were slow.

The footsteps were quick.

Listening to the sounds outside, the chiliarch sighed deeply.

He certainly knew that whoever sent him this letter probably had intentions beyond just giving a tip-off. But knowing was one thing—what could he do about it? No matter how much he disliked Feng Qi, he was still a member of the Divine Guards. In the end, he couldn't completely disassociate himself.

Better to sell a favor.

Even if this played right into someone else's hands, there was no helping it.

Giving advance notice and drawing clear boundaries was much better than being implicated after a major incident occurred.

○

At the entrance of Prince Qi's mansion, the gatekeeper received the letter from Old Li, nodded, then ran into the mansion to hand it to specialists for inspection.

After confirming the letter was neither poisoned nor abnormal in any way.

This letter made its rounds and ended up back in Mu Qinglan's hands.

"Look, he's even thanking us!"

Mu Qinglan waved the letter with a grin.

Zhu Yan nodded, her voice slightly cool: "He probably didn't guess who sent him this letter."

"How could he guess?" Mu Qinglan's voice was casual.

Just judging from motives, many people would have reason to send such a letter after discovering this matter. Impossible to guess.

"Look, he even signed his name," Mu Qinglan's expression was half-smile, half-serious. "Quite a clever man. By revealing his identity, he directly extracted himself from this matter, sold everyone a favor, and deliberately didn't mention why Feng Qi was watching us or who else he was watching..."

"Originally, we told about all the families Feng Qi was watching, right?" Mu Qinglan asked.

Zhu Yan recalled for two seconds and replied:

"Except for the reason why he was watching our three families, you wrote everything clearly."

"Not simple at all, not simple..."

Mu Qinglan smiled and shook her head, waved for Zhu Yan to withdraw, then looked out the window and muttered to herself:

"If I hadn't prepared more, this Chiliarch Huang might really have been able to extract himself from most of this matter."

"That would be no fun..."

In her plan, Feng Qi—that murderer who had indirectly formed a great enmity with her back then—definitely had to die.

But killing was simple. How to utilize his identity as a Divine Guards centurion was quite a problem.

He was a person of some standing after all.

In the capital, unless you were a rat living in gutters that couldn't see light, every sixth-rank was a person of fame and reputation. Don't look at how Mu Qinglan now saw fifth and sixth-ranks everywhere and had personally killed three—this was only because she stood too high.

If not for her sensitive identity, she wouldn't have had opportunities to interact with so many fifth-ranks.

An imperial palace sixth-rank guard was indeed someone Six Bureaus would investigate thoroughly.

He couldn't just die randomly.

At least, he had to die with value, worthy of the layers of arrangements and traps Mu Qinglan had set for him these past few days.

The sky grew darker, and candles quietly ignited.

The doors and windows weren't tightly closed, and October's cold wind squeezed in whistling, making the candlelight flicker unsteadily.

When the wind blew, even the shadows swayed.

Ah Qi emerged from the shadows in displeasure, slapped the young lady's thigh hard with her paws, making pat-pat flesh-slapping sounds, then curled into a ball and nestled in her arms to continue sleeping.

Mu Qinglan ignored her and just slowly stroked her fur.

She knew why Ah Qi was sulking—she had just exposed half her body outside the shadows while lying down sleeping. When the firelight flickered, it woke her up immediately.

How sinful, how sinful.

Shortly after, Miss Shadow One, whose status had declined somewhat, knocked on the door and entered quietly like a cat. Seeing Mu Qinglan was still awake, she took out flint and lit the lamps placed around the room.

In an instant, the boudoir was brilliantly lit with candles.

Shadow One bowed and was about to withdraw when Mu Qinglan suddenly called out to her.

"Can you copy books?" she asked.

Shadow One was stunned for a moment, then nodded. When learning to read, she had indeed been punished by her teacher to copy texts.

Mu Qinglan nodded with satisfaction and handed over the letter: "Take a look. This is a letter someone sent me. See if you can write a few characters following this handwriting."

"..."

Shadow One opened her mouth, looking at the expectant pretty face across from her, falling into obvious confusion.

"I can only copy books. There are characters I don't recognize. I can't do this kind of..." she said embarrassedly, not even daring to say that back then copying books was punishment—she was actually a hopeless illiterate.

Mu Qinglan thought for a moment: "Do you know anyone who can do this kind of thing?"

"I know someone."

"Can they be trusted?"

"Mm... we have someone in our mansion. An old teacher of over ten years who can be trusted." Shadow One understood Mu Qinglan's meaning. Having stayed in Prince Qi's mansion for over ten years, she had a good measure of who could do what.

It was precisely for this reason that Mu Qinglan didn't seek out her new personal maid, Miss Zhu Yan, for this kind of matter.

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This made Shadow One breathe a sigh of relief.

It seemed she still had some use to the young miss! She thought she was about to be laid off.

Mu Qinglan had no intention of making small talk and said directly: "Not asleep yet, right? If not, bring the person over."

"Yes."

Shadow One went out quietly. Before Mu Qinglan could pet her cat enough, she brought in the old teacher she had mentioned.

Though called an old teacher, she was actually a woman of about sixty-something.

Half-white hair, kind smile, and deep crow's feet.

Her pale blue robe was a bit old but very clean.

"Qinglan?"

After the old woman entered, a flood of memories instantly surfaced in Mu Qinglan's mind—being punished to copy for ugly handwriting, being punished to copy for not memorizing books, being punished to copy for being playful...

This teacher had brought tremendous psychological trauma to young Miss Mu Qinglan.

She was like seeing a natural enemy, unconsciously shrinking her neck and straightening her back, like a refined young lady—serene and well-behaved:

"Teacher."

Shadow One looked at her expression and found it inexplicably amusing.

Having seen too much of the young miss's everything-under-control expression, seeing her current well-behaved and cowering appearance was somewhat comically contrasting.

That expression was just like when she used to be punished by the teacher to copy texts—bitter and pitiful.

The teacher cleared her throat lightly, breaking through Mu Qinglan's well-behaved facade.

She got straight to the point:

"I heard from Shadow One that you want me to help you imitate someone's handwriting? I can do it and won't ask why. Let me see the original."

Mu Qinglan smiled faintly and pushed the letter over.

The teacher looked at it twice, then lightly sniffed:

"The handwriting is fine, quite easy to imitate, but this paper is specially made, and the ink is tung oil soot ink. To perfectly imitate it, we'd need to find these two items."

"Shadow One?" Mu Qinglan raised her eyebrows.

"I'll go to the storeroom."

With a bang of the door, Shadow One turned and left.

Only Mu Qinglan and the teacher remained in the room. The flickering candlelight involuntarily reminded Mu Qinglan of painful memories of copying books as a child. Her hands unconsciously went behind her back with a finger-pinching gesture.

The teacher noticed and smiled gently but didn't examine her studies anymore.

After all, she was a grown child now.

"While we have time, let me see the content you want transcribed. I see it's getting late, and in the past, Qinglan, you would be sleepy by now."

Mu Qinglan explained: "After entering the transcendent realm, my health improved somewhat."

"Good that it's better, good that it's better."

The teacher breathed a sigh of relief. The Prince Qi family had shown her great kindness, which was why she stayed at Prince Qi's mansion to educate the children. Since they were her benefactor's children, she naturally hoped Mu Qinglan's health would improve.

Mu Qinglan moved the paperweight and showed her the prepared letter.

However.

The moment she handed it over, Mu Qinglan's heart skipped a beat, just like when you're secretly playing with your phone in high school and the homeroom teacher is standing behind you with a dark expression—her spider sense exploded strongly.

Oh no!!

The white-haired girl shrank her neck and carefully raised her head.

Sure enough, the previously kind and amiable teacher grandmother now had her face instantly become much gloomier, the weather in her heart directly turning from sunny to cloudy to overcast.

The teacher stared hard at the letter for a long time before breathing a sigh.

In a tone as if she was about to call her parents, she said with heavy heart:

"Qinglan..."

"Teacher, please speak." Mu Qinglan looked completely well-behaved, her attitude of admitting fault extremely good.

"Your handwriting..." The teacher gripped the letter, looking left and right, seeming to find it somewhat inappropriate. Finally, she sighed deeply: "How is it so ugly?"

She remembered that when Mu Qinglan was little, her handwriting wasn't this bad.

Mu Qinglan said sheepishly: "I haven't practiced for a long time."

She had never learned calligraphy! It was deadly difficult to write. She had written with brush twice in elementary school, but it was also crooked and twisted.

Not much different from now.

"Not practicing doesn't make it this ugly. It's really unworthy of all the books you copied before!" the teacher criticized.

"I'm sorry."

Mu Qinglan actively admitted fault. In front of elderly, highly respected teachers—this type of creature—she found it very difficult to bring out her clever and mischievous side.

Young masters were another matter.

"You... forget it, I won't make you copy books. You're a grown child now, but you're still a princess. At least make your handwriting a bit prettier." The teacher was speechless.

"I'll listen to you."

Mu Qinglan obediently agreed. Seeing the teacher's unhappy expression, she tentatively asked: "Otherwise, shall I study calligraphy with you?"

The little white girl had also complained about her handwriting when passing messages before.

She wanted to make her look at her with new eyes.

Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river—don't look down on my ugly handwriting!

"In the mornings then. I see you often wandering around the back garden in the morning, not looking like you're practicing spells. Spend half an hour each day practicing calligraphy with me—it'll be beneficial."

The teacher sighed.

"Even sitting down, it shouldn't be written like that."

"Mm-hmm."

After chatting about her recent situation for a bit, Miss Shadow One finally returned with suitable letter paper and ink.

Mu Qinglan's eyes were teary—Miss Shadow One, I waited for you so painfully!

With the materials in hand.

After trying a few strokes on white paper, the teacher stood up and carefully transcribed the letter's content, then checked it twice. After confirming it was correct, she nodded with satisfaction.

Mu Qinglan quickly saw the guest out.

At the end, the teacher smiled warmly: "Remember to report tomorrow morning."

Mu Qinglan made a bitter face. It wasn't that she disliked practicing calligraphy—after all, even she couldn't stand her own brush handwriting.

It was just...

She really didn't want to attend classes!

○

In Li Wang's faction, the high-ranking official responsible for liaising with the Crown Prince was named Wu Zhong. With fifth-rank strength, he was the general of White Bird Guard, one of Heyang's sixteen guards.

In simple terms, he was a head of city management.

One of them.

Compared to the Divine Guards stationed in the imperial city, the White Bird Guard was much weaker. His subordinates didn't have nine sixth-ranks—only three centurions of seventh-rank strength, and their abilities were generally weak.

But this wasn't reason to look down on him.

The sixteen guards were stationed in Heyang's four city districts. As one of the four major guard armies controlling the city, White Bird Guard had considerable influence in this urban territory, and the profits were quite substantial.

Therefore, guests visiting Wu Zhong's mansion were endless every day, all seeking convenience.

Bang!!

A huge sound exploded from inside the room.

At the White Bird Guard office, Wu Zhong looked at the secret letter in his hands and slammed his palm down, cracking the desk. He angrily stood up, his face purple with rage, eyes wide open, cursing:

"What audacity, truly what audacity!!"

"I've lived this long and have never been threatened like this!"

"Someone come! Prepare the carriage! To the Crown Prince's mansion!"

Towering rage boarded the carriage and charged mightily toward the Crown Prince's mansion.

Upon reaching the study, Wu Zhong furiously threw the secret letter in front of the Crown Prince and angrily said: "You must give me an explanation for this matter!"

The Crown Prince was bewildered. After receiving the letter, his face also turned purple:

"This... wasn't information I leaked!"

"Qingzhou, Cangzhou, Chizhou—we've been cooperating on affairs in these states," Wu Zhong said with a red face and aggressive manner. "If it wasn't leaked by you, could it have been us?"

"We've been cooperating for over two years. I have no reason to leak either!" the Crown Prince cried bitterly.

"Secretly transferring military supplies, privately raising death warriors—if this gets out, even if it's not execution, it's still devastating! Why would I joke about such things?!!"

Perhaps the Crown Prince's sincere expression moved him.

Or perhaps Wu Zhong finally calmed down.

In any case, Wu Zhong finally stopped his aggressive shouting and quieted down, his face gloomy and ugly as if someone owed him money.

After a moment, he asked: "What do we do? We should each investigate how the information leaked to that old yellow dog in the Divine Guards."

"Divine Guards?" The Crown Prince frowned.

Wu Zhong had come too quickly and cursed too harshly—he hadn't noticed anything abnormal about the handwriting.

"The handwriting on this threatening letter is the same as that old yellow dog's. I received the old yellow dog's letter not long ago, then this second one arrived right after."

Wu Zhong gritted his teeth: "What a fine move of courtesy before force..."

"You also received Huang Gang's letter?" The Crown Prince was surprised—the letter hadn't mentioned these things.

"Isn't that normal for that old yellow dog?"

Wu Zhong glanced at him. As Li Wang's messenger, he didn't show the usual respect a fifth-rank should have toward the Crown Prince.

"It is indeed the same handwriting, and they were sent at about the same time..." The Crown Prince was speechless, his eyes flickering twice before asking: "What does General Wu plan to do?"

"What else can we do?"

Wu Zhong's expression was cold: "Probably Feng Qi discovered our secret and told him. The old yellow dog felt he couldn't handle this matter, and Feng Qi wanted to earn merit, so he sold him out—sold him to us."

"Before, we all thought he and Feng Qi didn't get along, but now it seems it was all an act. Coming from the Secret Investigation Bureau, truly devious!"

The Crown Prince also nodded in agreement.

This was indeed quite a reasonable deduction.

As for the second letter not being written by Huang Gang? Neither had considered that possibility.

After all, the two letters arrived within an hour of each other, with identical handwriting, paper, and ink, and used secrets both sides valued highly as leverage.

How could this be forged?

As for the threat in the letter demanding they kill Feng Qi...

"When I came over, I didn't show myself," Wu Zhong breathed steadily, his eyes cold as frost. "If Feng Qi is really watching outside, then we'll have to eliminate this witness first..."

"After that, we'll deal with that yellow dog..."

"Lord Li Wang will teach him how to keep his mouth shut..."