Power Up, Artist Yang!

Hearing that a new thievery case occurred in the Fifth Miss's villa, Madam Zhang blinked. Then, slowly, she rose up from her chair, an eyebrow cocked. She opened her mouth but bit back the words before they came out. Instead, she chose to say after a pause, "The Fifth Miss is safe?" 

"Indeed, Madam," the servant responded, his voice holding a tremble. 

She continued her interrogation. "And you say that only a set of jade bracelets disappeared?"

"Yes, only a set of bracelets. The Fifth Miss says that she only noticed because that set was precious to her. If it was any other set, she said she might not have even realized, even if there had been a commotion."

"The commotion occurred while that other thief was in this room, being questioned?"

At this, the servant nodded in agreement.

Madam Zhang fell silent. She sat down again. The only sound in the room was the sound of her nails tapping against the arm of the wooden chair.

A long, tense moment passed. 

The madam looked up, eyes fixing on Yujia. She then glanced at the other servants in the room, waving her arm with a swoop. "All of you, exit. Except for you—" She pointed at Yujia. "You stay behind. I still have things to ask you."

Without any objections, all the servants left the room. The moment the doors closed, Madam Zhang beckoned for Yujia to take a seat. Yujia listened.

"Tell me what you're thinking of," the madam ordered.

Yujia looked at the table. "There has to be more than one thief, obviously. And…" 

She paused, thinking about the events that happened during the evening. She thought about her set up, with the pendant. She thought about how she clearly dropped it in a time where only two people should've seen it: Xu Nuo and Lu Biyao. She thought about how the thief from before claimed so fervently that he hadn't been the thief in all the past cases. She thought about the list of items in all the past cases, with some of them being large vases that couldn't be easily stolen away by a single person. She thought about Manyu, stealing necklaces. She even thought about the time where her taels were stolen— the strange scent in the air at the time, the way she blacked out… 

An idea struck her.

"There's a network of thieves," Yujia blurted. "There has to be a network of them. There's no way that all of this is the act of a single thief. Or even two thieves. There has to be many of them." 

Madam Zhang folded her hands together, noting, "I was thinking that as well."

Yujia found her words coming out rushed now. "It would explain why everything in the villa has been happening without end. Even after changing servants, the few thieves that were kept behind could've recruited new thieves. Even after tightening security, there was no purpose if the thieves bribed the security to turn a blind eye."

Yujia agreed to this statement from Madam Zhang.

Following this, Madam Zhang sighed. "I originally thought that you would be done with this, but things were not as simple as I calculated. Keep staying in the villa, I suppose. Keep going undercover. See if there's anything that you can dig up. Tomorrow, before that thief in the shed is sent over to be punished, you may interrogate him for clues if you wish." 

"Alright."

…

In the silence of the night, Yujia made her way back to her room. The candles were all blown out again, but Yujia knew that neither Xie Yufeng or Xin'er were asleep. Unlike before, their breaths were now shallow. The events of this night had been too chaotic to fall asleep easily afterwards.

Just like them, Yujia laid down in the darkness. She went over every single detail that happened today in her thoughts. She also went through so many past details she had memorized. 

Tonight, her pendant was almost stolen. If she was just an ordinary maid, just a clueless Shen Yuling, she probably would've let it happen without noticing. This proved the greedy, merciless nature of the thieves. Instead of stealing from just their masters, they would not spare their fellow servants either. 

Tonight, Yang Xiaoyi also had her bracelets stolen. But there had been a commotion— one that was loud enough to wake her up. Based on the cautious nature of the thieves, they shouldn't have made a commotion loud enough to wake the Fifth Miss. Was the Fifth Miss just a light sleeper? Or did some mistake occur? 

Or, did the thieves possibly plan to wake her up?

Perhaps this was planned. Perhaps the thieves wanted to wake Yang Xiaoyi up, but for what purpose? A distraction?

Sh*t— she completely forgot.

Yujia flinched. She sat up. Her eyes widened.

Cursing under her breath, she pushed the blankets off of her and scrambled out of her bed. Not even bothering to wear her shoes, she dashed to the doors, running outside. 

Shed. The shed that Madam Zhang ordered for that thief who tried stealing Yujia's pendant. The shed that the servant was supposed to be locked in, until tomorrow morning, where he would be escorted to the magistrate to be punished. It was supposed to be a shed in the current courtyard Yujia was in. There were no other sheds in other places.

Grass crumpled underneath Yujia's bare feet as she raced across the courtyard, in the direction of the shed. She didn't have time to think. 

By the time she made it to the shed, the front door was already left swung open— not locked. Yujia looked inside. There was no one in the shadows.

She turned, her heart racing as she made her way to the back doors of the courtyard. The lock that was usually there was gone. There were clear traces that someone opened it and left.

At the sight of this, Yujia's heart sunk. 

The fear that had suddenly stricken her mind came true.

The thievery at the courtyard of the Fifth Miss was planned to be a distraction. Seeing that one of their fellow thieves had been exposed, the team set forth a plan to distract. And so, they caused a commotion. They woke the Fifth Miss up. They organized a servant who ran over to Madam Zhang's room, reporting the case. And while Madam Zhang and everyone else was distracted with this new occurrence, they snuck the thief locked in the shed out of the villa, away from danger. 

Tomorrow morning, no one would be escorted to the magistrate. No one would be punished for their crimes. No one could even be interrogated.

The thief had escaped, and Yujia's elaborate plan tonight could've possibly been for nothing.

Why, just why, hadn't she realized this sooner?

…

After a few more moments standing at the back doors, staring at the opened lock, a chilly night breeze made Yujia shiver. She made her way back to the room, her heart heavy.

Once again lying down, Yujia realized that though it was disappointing that the thief had escaped, her plan definitely hadn't been a waste. At least through doing this, she managed to figure out that there was some sort of network of thieves. The escape of that thief proved her point even further. There was definitely a team working together on all these acts of thievery.

She pondered how to figure out who was in the group of thieves.

Would it be a better solution for Yujia to just tell the Madam to fire all the servants in the villa? Though Yujia could probably discover one thief, she wasn't confident of her skills to find every single person in a group of them.

A strand of cold moonlight filtered through the clouds, beaming through the window. Yujia pulled the pendant in her sleeve out, holding it up to the faint moonlight. The light caught perfectly on the white jade, making it almost glow in the darkness.

What would Yu Zixu do in this situation? What would he plan?

Thinking in that way— in the perspective of Zixu— a strategy began to come together in Yujia's mind.