Chapter 1
Chapter 1
My name is Yu Chaolan, and I am a fortune-teller on Chang’an Street.
Though I am a woman, I have a quick tongue and a knack for reading people, so my business is quite good.
Whenever the young ladies and wives of the city run into troubles, they like to come to me for a reading, and I can always give them an answer that satisfies them.
But never in my wildest dreams did I expect a seven-year-old girl to suddenly appear before my stall.
Her name was Linglong, the illegitimate daughter of Yuanyang, a prostitute from Jinlan Courtyard.
Jinlan Courtyard is a well-known brothel in the city, with more than twenty girls inside.
Half a month ago, a prostitute named Yuanyang was murdered on her embroidered bed.
They said her death was horrific. Blood covered the bed, and her entire body was bare, without a stitch of clothing.
The yamen sealed Jinlan Courtyard for ten days and searched it from top to bottom, yet they found no leads at all.
Some said Yuanyang had been killed by her secret lover, and that this lover was a notorious outlaw.
Others said she had accidentally learned some great person’s secret and was quietly silenced.
There was not the slightest clue as to who the suspect might be, but the city’s storytellers had already gone through two or three rounds of lurid tales about the beautiful corpse and the vengeful beauty’s ghost.
I was just lamenting the miserable fate of prostitutes when Yuanyang’s daughter, Linglong, came to my door.
The little girl placed the only five copper coins she had on my stall.
“Master Yu, please, find out who killed my mother!”
I looked at Linglong in distress. “Little girl, don’t cry. I’m only a fortune-teller…”
But no matter how I explained, Linglong saw me as her last lifeline.
Sobbing, she said, “Master Yu, I know you’re amazing. The girls in the house all say your divinations are uncanny, that you can commune with ghosts and gods. Please help me, all right?”
In the past, when I helped young ladies and wives find rings and necklaces or read their sweethearts’ birth characters, I relied on common sense and deduction.
But a murder case-could that be solved by deduction too?
The little girl’s eyes were swollen like walnuts. “This is all the money I have. Please do a reading for me. My mother can’t have died for nothing!”
Watching tears the size of beans fall one by one from her eyes, I suddenly thought of another little girl from more than ten years ago.
She had knelt helplessly by the roadside, beside a corpse covered with white cloth.
“Kind uncles and aunties passing by, please have mercy. Please buy me…”
That little girl’s cries seemed to still be ringing in my ears.
The two thin, frail figures gradually overlapped…
I took a deep breath and picked up Linglong’s copper coins.
“I’ll take this job.”
After that, I began investigating Yuanyang’s case.
No one would pay any mind to a fortune-teller wandering through the streets and alleys.
And no one knew just how many secrets a fortune-teller might know.
Seven days later, at dusk.
Holding Linglong’s hand, I strolled into Jinlan Courtyard.
“I already know who killed Miss Yuanyang.”
The moment those words left my mouth, it was like one stone raising a thousand ripples.
Everyone stared at me in shock.
I slowly swept my gaze over every brothel attendant, patron, and prostitute before me, then said softly,
“The killer is among the seven of you!”