Wu Cai said awkwardly, “Lower your voice. I… my mind was thrown into confusion by everything you said just now. Stop making noise and let me think.”
Hearing that Wu Cai had led them the wrong way and was still blaming him, Mu Xueshi’s anger instantly flared. He raised his small fist and waved it threateningly in front of Wu Cai.
“And who exactly are you calling noisy? Hm?”
Wu Cai merely frowned and said nothing, though inwardly he felt deeply uncomfortable. At first he had only wanted to create a misunderstanding between Mu Xueshi and the Third Prince. Who would have thought he would end up making a fool of himself in front of Mu Xueshi instead?
Mu Xueshi, on the other hand, felt thoroughly satisfied by his counterattack. It might have been kicking someone when they were down, but giving Wu Cai a little lesson felt well deserved. After all, the man always carried himself with such arrogant pride—yet after all that fuss, he turned out to be nothing more than someone who couldn’t even tell directions.
Suddenly, Mu Xueshi seemed to think of something.
“Then tell me—can you at least tell left from right?”
Wu Cai’s face instantly turned bright red. Biting his lip, he said stiffly, “Mu Xueshi, don’t push your luck. If I couldn’t even tell left from right, that would truly be pathetic.”
Mu Xueshi nodded as though enlightened. He began circling around Wu Cai again and again, watching him with a smug little smile.
Then he suddenly hopped in front of him, turning his back to Wu Cai. He raised his left hand.
“Is this the left hand or the right?”
Wu Cai glanced at his own hand for comparison before answering, “Left.”
Mu Xueshi spun around to face him and again extended his left hand.
“And this one—is it left or right?”
Wu Cai checked his own hands again and replied, “Right.”
“Hahahaha—!”
Mu Xueshi burst into uncontrollable laughter, nearly doubling over as he clutched his stomach. He laughed so hard he could barely breathe. People along the street all turned to stare, clearly thinking he had gone mad.
Wu Cai immediately realized he had judged incorrectly. Flushing with anger, he stepped forward.
“I only misspoke just now. It’s the left hand! If you keep deliberately making a fool of me like this, I’ll leave you here and go by myself.”
With that, he turned and strode quickly ahead.
“Hey! Go on then! I bet you’ll have to come right back in a moment! Hahaha!” Mu Xueshi shouted from behind, still laughing until his stomach hurt.
Wu Cai walked a few steps before pausing briefly at Mu Xueshi’s words, then continued onward.
Rage churned inside him, yet he had nowhere to release it. This was a public street; he dared not damage his carefully cultivated image. Instead, he suppressed his anger and decided that when they returned, he would subtly reveal today’s events to the Third Prince so that the prince could properly punish this insolent fellow.
“Stop!”
Suddenly Mu Xueshi shouted sharply.
Wu Cai froze for a moment—and, without realizing it, actually stopped.
Mu Xueshi’s expression had changed completely. The rosy flush left by laughter still lingered on his cheeks, yet his face had grown unmistakably serious.
Before Wu Cai could even turn around, Mu Xueshi grabbed him and pulled him into a small alley beside the street.
“Why did you impersonate my mother?” Mu Xueshi asked calmly.
Wu Cai was stunned.
His face drained of color. His lips trembled as he struggled to speak.
“I… I… I don’t know… what you’re… talking about…”
“Enough,” Mu Xueshi said, clasping his hands behind his back and puffing out his chest with quiet certainty.
“You can blame your own sense of direction. I paid special attention these past few days—my mother wears her hairpin on the left side. But the shadow I saw that day had it on the right. From my angle, though, it looked like the left.”
He looked straight at Wu Cai.
“That kind of mistake—who else but you would make it? Don’t tell me everyone in the manor is directionally challenged.”
Mu Xueshi’s deduction left Wu Cai completely speechless.
He had never expected someone who seemed so foolish on the surface to possess such keen judgment.
He had brought Mu Xueshi out for amusement, only to become the butt of the joke himself—and worse still, had unintentionally revealed his own scheme.
Thinking this, the anger on Wu Cai’s face gradually faded, replaced by a weary resignation.
“It’s true,” he admitted. “I impersonated your mother to confuse your judgment. But I wasn’t trying to frame her for murder. I simply resent how she constantly targets me, going to the Master again and again to complain about me, always trying to suppress me.”
He lowered his head slightly.
“In truth, I am not as dissolute as she claims. I merely enjoy making friends. I have never crossed any real boundaries. Those rumors about my debauchery—most of them come from the Madam herself.”
He looked earnestly at Mu Xueshi.
“She may be your mother, and you may not believe me. You may even report what I did to the Third Prince. But every word I’ve spoken today comes from the bottom of my heart. If the young master does not believe me, he may investigate further.”
With that, Wu Cai suddenly knelt before him.
The usual arrogance and pride had vanished from his face, replaced by sincere humility.
Mu Xueshi had originally intended to curse him for hypocrisy—after all, he had personally witnessed Wu Cai tangled naked with another man in the grass not long ago.
But when he heard Wu Cai say, “Those rumors mostly come from the Madam,” Mu Xueshi’s mind began turning.
The sounds he had heard from the grass…
The parrot that later flew past, capable of perfectly mimicking human voices…
That same bird flying into the Madam’s room and never coming out again…
And Wu Cai appearing afterward as if nothing had happened…
Even more importantly—
The Madam had said something.
“Xue’er, didn’t you used to dislike these noisy creatures? How did you end up chasing my bird all the way from the back mountain to here?”
How did she know I had gone to the back mountain?
At the time, Mu Xueshi had only paid attention to the first part of the sentence. He had been too busy trying to conceal his identity to notice the rest.
Now, thinking it through, it seemed entirely possible that the Madam had staged everything that morning.
First she had the parrot imitate Wu Cai’s voice, letting Mu Xueshi overhear it. Then the performance led him to suspect that Wu Cai was secretly colluding with outsiders.
If that were the case, then the Madam’s deliberate framing was no different from Wu Cai impersonating her.
Both were attempts to strike at one another—each hoping to pin the Grand Tutor’s death upon the other.
Which meant all the clues Mu Xueshi had painstakingly gathered these past few days were nothing more than the petty intrigue between a wife and a concubine-like favorite, locked in a quiet power struggle.
None of it had anything to do with the Grand Tutor’s murder.
The triumphant expression on Mu Xueshi’s face instantly collapsed. His once-straight posture sagged as well. With a gloomy sigh, he sat down heavily on a nearby stone stool.
He had been planning to proudly report his new discovery to the Third Prince.
Now he could not even bring himself to speak of it.
These past few days of effort had all been wasted. After all that running around and racking his brain, he had only uncovered the hostility between the Madam and Wu Cai. As for the true murderer—there was still not the slightest clue.
Still…
That bird was truly remarkable, Mu Xueshi thought with a shiver.
When it had mimicked his voice earlier, he had not recognized it at all. It could even reproduce those kinds of sounds. In this ancient world, it was practically a living messenger and voice actor combined.
The thought of such a bird perching outside his window made the hairs on Mu Xueshi’s neck stand on end.
Futile Devices Scans 
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