The Jade Temptress. Jeannie Lin

He was a blunt instrument, no finely honed edge, no finesse. Not at all like the men she was accustomed to dealing with.

      Whatever Wu revealed of himself, she could believe. As fearsome as most found him, he never used his physical presence to intimidate her outside of that one time when he was performing his duties in the interrogation room. Not the way Deng had.

      “Did General Deng typically have servants with him when he was here?” he asked.

      An odd feeling crept down her spine. “Yes. At least one attendant and always bodyguards. I noticed there was something unusual when I arrived yesterday, but I couldn’t place what it was. And then everything became confused.”

      “So no one was here when you arrived.”

      She frowned. How had she failed to recognize that? “The place seemed empty, but the general would send his attendants away when he wanted more privacy.”

      “Then he must have been eager to see you after such a long time away.”

      Her face heated. Such a thing shouldn’t make her blush. Mingyu was an experienced courtesan, but Wu had no sense of what should be spoken and what must remain unspoken.

      “The bodyguards would never be far away,” she pointed out. “A man like Deng has to always be watchful of enemies.”

      Kaifeng nodded. “Violence begets violence. Did anyone else know where he would be waiting for you that morning?”

      “Madame Sun knew of it. And I assume Deng’s servants must have known, as well.”

      “The household is in mourning. I am forbidden to question his wife or son,” Wu said with a scowl.

      Mingyu went still. “His family is here, as well?”

      “Deng’s wife returned to the Changan along with her husband. She had the unfortunate duty of identifying her husband’s body. His head is still missing.”

      Wu took two steps toward the house before he noticed she wasn’t following beside him. He looked back over his shoulder. “Have I offended you? I tend to ask my questions directly.”

      “I was surprised the general would have summoned me while his wife was present in the city.”

      “Explain.”

      “Deng’s wife was not happy when he wanted to make me his concubine.”

      “But you didn’t become his concubine.”

      “I did not.”

      “Why not?” he asked.

      She shot him a warning look, but Wu continued to wait for her answer.

      One would have thought with time among the society of the capital, Constable Wu’s manners would smooth out, but his rough conduct was apparently not due to his low birth nor being from the provinces. Her own peasant upbringing had been scrubbed away by Madame’s training. In Changan, if one had a way with words and mastered the social graces, one could be reborn. But Wu had no interest in being anything other than what he was.

      “Deng Furen is one of those women who very much has a say in what happens in the household. She comes from a very wealthy and powerful family.”

      “You are not telling me everything,” Wu insisted.

      Mingyu sighed. “These are women’s matters. A courtesan’s role is different than that of a concubine. If I were to leave the Lotus to disappear into Deng’s household, I would have been completely under his wife’s rule.”

      He took a moment to consider her explanation. His curiosity must have been satisfied, because he gestured toward the door. “Come inside.”

      She went still. They were at the entrance to the study. “I can’t—”

      “I need you to see something.”

      Without waiting for her, he pushed the door open. If Mingyu turned and fled now, things would be even worse for her. She had no choice but to follow his lead.

      It wasn’t as bad inside with Deng’s body removed, yet in a way it was also worse. Bloodstains surrounded the desk and chair, the only clean area being where the corpse had sat.

      “You should know that the evidence indicates the general was killed very close to the time that you arrived at the house,” Wu said. “You may have even been in the house at the same time, with the killer leaving through the rear exit.”

      She swallowed and her hand flew to her throat. “I could have walked in at the wrong moment—”

      “Did you see anyone out in the street when you arrived?”

      Mingyu shook her head. “No... I don’t know.”

      “There are a few details I left off of the official report. I need you to speak to them now.”

      Her chest tightened until she could hardly breathe. She had told him everything, hadn’t she?

      “There was blood on the hem of your robe yesterday. Also on your sleeve.”

      Every muscle within her tensed. “Impossible.”

      “There was also blood on your hands, Lady Mingyu.”

      She vaguely remembered stepping toward the corpse. She remembered backing away, stumbling to the gate. Calling to the boy who was loitering outside.

      “You were studying my hands in the interrogation room,” she said dully.

      “Beneath your fingernails. When I came back here last night, I found the washbasin had been used. You can still see it now.”

      In a trance, she walked to the table in the corner where the basin had been set. The water was tinged pink. Mingyu looked down at her hands next. They were clean now, but she’d scrubbed them for an hour the night before, not understanding why she’d felt the need to.

      “You know things about me that I don’t even know myself,” she murmured. The memory seemed like it was there and it wasn’t, as if there were a fog over her eyes. “I must have gone to him when I saw him. I was so confused, I must have touched my hand to his chest to see if his heart was still beating. I don’t even know why I did it. I already knew he was dead. I didn’t remember any of this until now, I swear to heaven.”

      Wu regarded her with a keen eye and she could feel her cheeks heating under his scrutiny. Her heart was hammering inside her. She didn’t like how it felt to have to plead for her life.

      “People react to death in unpredictable ways,” he began slowly. “With anger, with tears, sometimes even laughter and any number of small madnesses.”

      It was the sort of assurance one said to the bereaved, but there seemed to be something else behind his words. Something hidden deep.

      “You didn’t bring me here to condemn me, then?”

      “I don’t aim to condemn anyone. I just want answers.” Wu walked over to the desk next, to the last place on this earth Mingyu wanted to go. “There is one more thing I need you to see.”

      Laid across the desk were Deng’s personal items—a chop carved from soapstone and a stack of letters. He must have been reading correspondences that morning.

      But Wu’s gaze was directed, not onto the desk, but beneath it. A scroll had fallen to the floor where it remained open, partially hidden.

      “Is this you, Lady Mingyu?”

      She ventured closer, avoiding the bloodstains on the floor and chair. At the first sight of the scroll, she gasped. It was a brush painting of a courtesan rendered in graceful, elegant strokes. A line of poetry had been inscribed down the right-hand side, comparing the lady to an orchid. There were hundreds like this floating around the pleasure quarter, but this one was unmistakably her.

      “I didn’t even know the general owned this.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I didn’t even