Chapter 7: The Jade

Lu Chen did not sleep that night.

He sat on the edge of his narrow bed in the servants' wing and worked it out.

Six drops of the tincture would have killed the chairman.

Two drops in a bowl of soup would not kill a young man.

They would make him slow and heavy, and willing to sign what anyone put in front of him.

Su Lu had not tried to kill Su Ye.

She had tried to get her paper signed the quick way, because the slow way had failed.

It should have been a relief.

It was worse, because it meant she was still counting on him.

The next evening, at dinner, the chairman's wife's jade was missing.

It was a green pendant the size of a plum, carved into a sleeping fish.

It lived in a glass case in the dining room.

The chairman's cane tapped the floor.

"Who has been in my case?"

The table went still.

Su Ye's mother put down her chopsticks.

"I'm sure it's only been moved," she said weakly.

"It was in its case this morning."

Su Lu stood. "Let me ask the staff, Grandfather. Please, don't upset yourself."

"Ask them," the chairman said. "And have the house searched."

She was already moving toward the door.

Lu Chen watched her go.

He had known this was coming ever since the soup.

In the first life it had been a missing watch, and he had never found out who took it.

Now he understood.

It had been Su Lu all along, testing how far a story could go.

The staff were called in.

The housekeeper, the cook, the gardener, the two maids.

They stood against the wall, pale and bewildered, while Su Lu went gently from room to room with the chairman's steward.

Lu Chen waited at the table with his hands in his lap.

When she came back, her face was grave.

"Grandfather," she said, "I'm so sorry."

In her palm lay the jade pendant.

Beside it was a folded wad of cash, bound in a rubber band.

"We found them in Chen's room," she said. "In the drawer by his bed."

Nobody breathed.

Su Ye's mother put her hand to her mouth.

The chairman's eyes found Lu Chen and stayed there.

"Is it true?" he said.

Lu Chen stood slowly.

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