Shen Yi finished the question and continued looking at the Gaunt Monk with the same unhurried expression — as if genuinely waiting for an answer.

It took the Monk a moment to understand he wasn’t going to get a response. Then the fury arrived.

His gaze darkened. His breathing came faster. Since arriving in Baiyun County, no one had dared to provoke him like this.

Five fingers closed into a fist, nails cutting into his palm.

Every part of him wanted to bring his palm down on that skull with full force.

But something about those still, deep eyes unsettled him in a way he couldn’t explain. His hand wouldn’t rise. Had the comfort of the magistrate’s residence softened him? Had he lost the edge for real confrontation?

No — it simply wasn’t worth engaging with a dead man. Once the Beiya fox clan heard what had happened today, this fool’s fate was sealed. No need to dirty his own hands.

The Gaunt Monk found his cold smile again, though it had lost some of its certainty. “One can only admire the boldness of an official. Constable Shen makes even the county magistrate look modest. The fault was mine for speaking out of turn.”

Shen Yi nodded, turned to leave, then appeared to remember something. He looked back with an expression of mild concern.

“At your age — try not to keep your mouth twisted like that. Leads to facial paralysis.”

“Pfh—“

The Gaunt Monk corrected the angle of his mouth before he’d consciously decided to, then felt his eyelid begin to twitch uncontrollably.

He watched the leisurely figure disappear down the path and felt something press against the inside of his chest. The taste of copper touched the back of his throat.

Zhang Tuhu drifted past his elder brother, spared him one mildly pitying glance, and walked out of the Lin estate.

“There was a tiger demon hiding in this house this whole time!”

Master Lin arrived somewhat belatedly, eyes wide, watching Chen Ji lash the enormous tiger carcass to the flatbed cart.

He shot a quick glance at the Gaunt Monk standing motionless in the courtyard, produced two small placating laughs, and trotted after Shen Yi.

“Constable Shen — a moment, please!”

His soft frame and elaborate layered clothing were not made for jogging. He resorted to calling after him.

Shen Yi stopped, puzzled.

“I’ve come to apologize.”

Master Lin bent forward, hands on knees, genuinely abashed. “You returned my daughter safely, and I suspected you of working with the demons to take her memory. I thought you’d brought her home to borrow money for the gambling dens…”

Shen Yi’s expression went slightly rigid.

“I’m a merchant who’s too used to judging people by what they can do for him.” Master Lin shook his head in self-reproach, apparently unaware that the man he was apologizing to had turned to look at something in a completely different direction.

“You’re a good person. Baixi was deceived by that demon. If not for you today, the tiger would have eaten through the whole Lin household.”

“…”

The name again. Shen Yi was quiet.

Of all the complications the predecessor had left him, this one was the most lethal. Either he killed the fox demon and silenced it permanently — or he removed the real Lin Baixi from the equation and became the Beiya foxes’ permanent collaborator.

There was almost no third path.

The clean, decisive cut that had taken the tiger demon’s head had also taken his last exit from this situation.

Shen Yi considered himself an ordinary person. He worried about things. He weighed costs.

Better, then, to stop deliberating and simply move. No more dithering like a child who couldn’t be weaned — reluctant to give up this, unable to let go of that.

“No need for that. Drawing a government salary means doing the work. It’s what’s expected.”

He gathered himself and nodded a farewell to Master Lin as Chen Ji brought the cart around.

“What’s expected…” Master Lin nodded along, though his expression carried a faint bitterness. If that were true, all that silver I’ve been sending to the magistrate’s residence should have bought me the Gaunt Monk doing his job.

“Constable Shen — when Baixi returns, would you like to come for tea? She trained under a sect and has some knowledge of martial arts. You’re close in age — I imagine you’d have things to talk about.”

Chen Ji’s brow creased involuntarily.

The Lin family’s only daughter had a reputation throughout Baiyun County. Half the eligible men in town had quietly admired her from a distance. Compared to her, his own sister was accomplished in her own way, but the difference in circumstances and worldly experience was considerable.

Wait — why was he comparing his sister to the Lin girl at all.

Chen Ji knocked himself on the head. And besides, given Shen Yi’s current martial standing, he might not be interested in someone who’d been entangled with demons—

“If you’d like?” Master Lin ventured carefully.

Shen Yi looked down at the saber at his hip for a moment.

“Sure.”

Master Lin’s face lit up. The reply had been a bit strange in delivery, but young people were like that — give it some time, let them spend time together, who knew what might follow.

Chen Ji rolled his eyes. Some things, apparently, didn’t change.

At that moment, the steward waddled out in a fresh set of clothes, hauling a large silk sack with considerable effort, and deposited it on the cart with a grunt.

Chen Ji identified the contents by sound alone.

From the way the cart shifted, at least eight hundred taels. Around thirty years of a constable’s salary.

“Please don’t refuse — I can’t rest easy otherwise. And everyone knows the court tacitly permits demon-slaying rewards.”

Master Lin clasped his hands together.

“I know you enjoy spending freely, sir — copper coins are too inconvenient, and paper notes too undignified, so it’s all in silver.” The steward announced this with the pride of someone who’d solved a difficult problem.

Shen Yi walked to the cart, lifted the silk wrapping, and looked at the gleaming silver underneath. Something that could almost be called envy made a brief and barely perceptible pass through his eyes.

Obscene amount of money. Someone ought to hang these people from a lamp post.

Two egg flatbreads cost ten copper cash. This pile of silver could wrap the vendor’s entire family inside flatbreads and have change left over.

“There is that tradition,” Chen Ji said with a sigh. One casual gesture from these people was more than he’d ever save for his sister’s dowry in a lifetime.

Shen Yi reached in and picked out two ten-tael ingots. He tossed one to Chen Ji. “That’ll do.”

He wasn’t going to let the Lin family house someone for free indefinitely. A reasonable contribution to food expenses.

The rest he pushed off the cart.

Without giving anyone time to protest, he left Master Lin standing there open-mouthed and walked out of the Lin estate.

Chen Ji stared at the ingot in his hand with wide eyes, then grabbed the cart handle and hurried after him.

“Sir.”

Once they’d reached the street, Chen Ji finally let himself ask about what had just happened inside.

He genuinely hadn’t expected Shen Yi to turn on the Gaunt Monk that easily.

“Think before you act next time. Your life isn’t something you found lying in the road.”

Shen Yi stretched his arms overhead and veered toward a wine shop on the corner, scanning the wooden menu boards on the wall. “A pot of huadiao. Roasted goose leg — left leg specifically. Steamed fish—”

Chen Ji watched his back as he placed the order and pressed a hand to his own stomach.

For someone to talk about other people’s lives not being found in the road… Even if his were borrowed time — on what grounds did borrowed time go out of its way for strangers?

And then buy them food on top of it.

Shen Yi picked up a clay jar and a wrapped lotus leaf package and turned to leave.

“Aren’t we eating here?” Chen Ji asked, mildly confused.

“When did this become we?”

Shen Yi looked back with a peculiar expression. “Buy your own food.”

Some of us earn two taels and four qian a month. Treating people to dinner — absolutely out of the question.

“…”

Chen Ji turned the ten-tael ingot over in his hand. Looked at the silver. Looked at the retreating figure.

“What a strange man,” he said, to no one in particular.

(End of Chapter)