For all his humble acting skills, the girl's undaunted and earnest attempt at solving this mystery nearly scatters the ominous and foreboding air he's been cultivating here. He keeps it together, of course, but his eyes curve into pleased crescents with a delighted smile for a moment before he gets back to the story. It's just that she doesn't even know how close she's gotten to the truth on her first try. Smart girl. He's going to have to watch out for this one.

"Oh it was quite tight, quite tight. Heavy, too, with all that silver. But it had been in the Guo family for generations, you understand, a treasured heirloom. No one would dare make any alterations to it, to make it a little easier to bear for the young brides. So every few years, a promising and hopeful young lady such as yourself," he nods to his cleverest audience member, "would come to the manor to marry into the family. And every dawn of the wedding day would find the bride drowned in the manor's lotus lake, still wearing the cursed dress." He delivers these lines with a gravity that befits the tragedy, though with enough dramatic flourish to hopefully avoid it sounding a little too real. Once again he glances at the girl, to see if she's got any further guesses on the cause of death or the true culprit, at this point.