The Golden Hairpin

by Qinghan CeCe

  “Such wonderful pipa, a shame to interrupt,” Li Run said as he stopped outside to listen. Huang Zixia waited quietly behind him, and when the song ended, they went in together.

  Inside was the Prince of Kui, Li Shubai; the ninth-ranked Prince of Chao, Li Rui; and the youngest, the Prince of Kang, Li Wen. There was also a pretty woman in yellow. She had brilliant begonia flowers tucked beside her temple and held the pipa as she sat opposite.

  Prince Li Rui saw the Prince of E and said, “Brother, come quick. I found an incredible pipa player in the conservatory!” Prince Li Rui was a rich idler. He was eighteen or nineteen but still liked to play like a boy. “I just listened to part of a song, really heavenly,” Li Run said. He sat to Li Shubai’s left. “Brother, where’s the Emperor?” Li Run asked.

  “The Emperor had a headache this morning. He’s seeing the doctor and should be here soon.” As Li Shubai spoke, he glanced at Huang Zixia and said nothing. Huang Zixia bit her lip and quickly walked behind him and stood bowing like a loyal eunuch.

  The Prince of Kang, Li Wen, was young. He watched her curiously as he listened.

  Li Rui chuckled. “Speaking of which, isn’t the Emperor worried about Shubai?”

  Li Wen immediately turned his head and asked Li Rui, “What’s going on?”

  Li Shubai heard him but only smiled faintly.

  “Heh, look at Shubai, acting like he doesn’t know!” Li Rui laughed again. “What else but our Prince’s wedding? You’ve been twenty years without a wife, which is so rare. You can’t go on being an ascetic; it’s terrible!”

  Huang Zixia stood motionless with her eyes on Shubai’s back. She couldn’t imagine him with a wife.

  “Shubai, I heard the Emperor intends to appoint Minister Zhou Xiang to Chengdu Prefecture. What do you think?” someone asked.

  Li Shubai said casually, “Minister Zhou sounds like a good choice, but I don’t have any relationship with him outside official duties. I do like his son Zhou Ziqin a lot, though.”

  Li Rui laughed. “Right. Minister Zhou has a good temper. If he gets angry, Zhou Ziqin is surely responsible. I also like him a lot!”

  “I’ve seen Zhou Ziqin. He didn’t look like a rebellious son!” Li Run said.

  “He’s not rebellious; he’s just brought a lot of shame to his family’s house! Minister Zhou knows how to raise children. His first three or four sons are quite capable. Who would’ve thought the next would be a good-for-nothing? He doesn’t study or read, fight cocks or race dogs; he just runs off to the mortuary. It’s become a running joke in the capital.”

  “Mortuary?” Li Wen said with a smile.

  Zhou Ziqin had always wanted to be a medical examiner. He enjoyed studying bodies and doing detective work. His family didn’t approve.

  Li Rui laughed. “Exactly. Minister Zhou knocked some sense into him; he had to change paths.”

  Li Wen laughed and said to Li Shubai, “Brother, it’d be good for you to speak with the Emperor and give some advice. When Minister Zhou takes office in Chengdu, the Emperor should personally direct his son to follow him and become constable there and fulfill his silly wish!”

  “Right, right!” Li Rui laughed. “The Emperor’s so wise. When Zhou Ziqin’s appointed constable, what’ll Minister Zhou do?”

  “I wonder how former Chengdu Civil Governor Huang Min’s case is coming along,” Li Run said, referencing the murder of Huang Zixia’s family.

  “I’m afraid Huang Zixia ran off in disguise. It’s a big world. If someone takes up in the backcountry, it’s not easy to catch them,” said Li Rui.

  Huang Zixia listened to them talk about her family’s murder. She looked calm, almost cold, but a suffocating pain rose in her chest like a strap slowly tightening around her heart.

  Li Shubai didn’t look behind him and see her. He just said, “Maybe she’s audacious enough to have gone to the capital.”

  “That’d be suicide,” Li Rui said.

  “I remember when Huang Zixia was known as a child prodigy. I really didn’t expect things to turn out the way they did. What a tragedy!” Li Run sighed.

  Among those present, Li Wen was the youngest and didn’t know the stories from back then. “What did Huang Min’s daughter do that made everyone take notice?”

  Li Rui laughed. “She helped her father break several cases. Traveling storytellers still relish it!”

  “I’ve never heard of it. Tell me about it, Rui. Let’s see if you can do better than the storyteller,” said Li Wen.

  Amid everyone’s laughter, Li Rui sat back. He cleared his throat and said, “Okay, then I’ll start from the beginning. Five or six years ago, I received a message late one evening from the Board of Punishments saying a woman in Xingde Square had hanged herself. The examiner rushed to the scene. Turns out, she was a young woman who’d been married less than a month. People said she had a disagreement with her husband the day before. He spent half the day outside sulking, and when he went back at night, he found the suicide.”

  Jin Nu covered her mouth and her eyes widened. “Women always take things so hard. What a shame!”

  “Yes. The examination showed she really died from hanging, so the Board of Punishments closed the case. When Minister Huang reviewed the case, Huang Zixia, who was twelve at the time, was outside, waiting with her brother to go home. People in Changan love a scene, so lots of people were coming and going because of the death. There was a cloth merchant who said when the woman married, she didn’t buy wedding dress material from him. This tragedy wouldn’t have happened if her dress had been proper. There was a jeweler who said the woman bought a pair of silver hairpins that afternoon and was wondering if her husband still wanted them. A fortune-teller said he’d long known disaster would strike the family this year; shame they hadn’t consulted him earlier. Anyway, it was a commotion. Just when Huang Min was finishing up, Huang Zixia suddenly called, “Daddy!”

  When Li Rui got to this point, he paused and looked at everyone like a true storyteller. “So, gentlemen, who can guess what Huang Zixia wanted to tell her daddy?”

  Li Run laughed. “You just said the beginning. We have no clues. How would we know?”

  Li Rui said, “It’s just the beginning, but Huang Zixia already knew the cause of death and the bride’s murderer, and I already gave you the clues.”

  Huang Zixia remembered that day. It had seemed so obvious to her.

  Everyone looked at one another. Li Wen spoke first. “In my opinion, the fortune-teller is suspicious. Could he have caused harm to get the reputation of a prophet?”

  Li Rui laughed hard and asked Li Run, “What do you think?”

  Li Run thought it over for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe the cloth merchant hated her because of the wedding dress dispute? Or the jeweler had some disagreement with her when she bought jewelry and took action?”

  Li Rui smiled, revealing nothing. “What do you think, Shubai?”

  “The husband did it,” Li Shubai said casually.

  Li Rui had a look of shocked admiration. “How’d you guess, brother?”

  “I saw the files at the Board of Punishments, so I know the basic details of the case,” he said plainly.

  Li Rui sighed. “Right. Huang Min was about to sign off when he heard Huang Zixia call to him. Huang Zixia was pointing at the jeweler. ‘Daddy, did you hear what he said? So the lady didn’t commit suicide; it was just made up like one—she was murdered!’ That’s what Huang Zixia said to her father.”

  Li Wen wore a look of disbelief. “Brother, you said she was twelve. Who would believe her?”

  “Exactly. Huang Min also felt it was ridiculous for a girl to say such a thing. He dismissed her. But, sure enough, she was right.”

  After Li Rui spoke, the hall went silent.

  On that day, Huang Zixia had put her hand on her father’s file and said, “Daddy, talking at home with colleagues, you said people on the brink of death were often empty inside. Why would she go to the jeweler’s and buy custom-made
hairpins if she was about to commit suicide?” Huang Zixia would never forget the look on her father’s face when she said that. She wished he were here now, still alive.

  Li Shubai tapped the table as a signal to Huang Zixia behind him. She slowly knelt down, lifted the jug, and filled his wineglass. He turned slightly and looked at her profile—long eyelashes, thick and curled, covered her eyes deep as lakes. Sunlight coming through the window made them faintly glow.

  Li Rui continued his story. “Huang Min was shocked to realize his daughter was right and immediately called for the examiner to take another look at the corpse. After careful examination, he found the rope marks showed a subtle shift that could have only been formed if the rope was moved after the original injury. So they deduced that she was first strangled and then hanged to cover it up. And, naturally, the one who had done it was the first to discover her body and report the suicide—her husband.”

  Li Wen’s eyes widened. “Did he confess?”

  Li Rui nodded. “When he saw the examiner had detected those flaws, he was scared out of his wits and kneeled for mercy, confessed his guilt.”

  The murderer suspected his wife had had relations with someone on their street before their marriage. When she left after fighting with him, he thought she was going to her lover. His anger burned, and when she got home, he grabbed a rope and strangled her. When he calmed down, he quickly hung her on the beam to make it look like a suicide.

  “He almost got away with it. Maybe God put the words in the little girl’s mouth not to let him,” Li Run said.

  “Exactly. From then on, everyone in the capital praised her genius. Sometimes, if the Board of Punishments had trouble solving a case, Huang Zixia would help Huang Min figure it out. He never thought his daughter would betray him and become a murderer herself.”

  Li Shubai saw Huang Zixia’s sun-dappled eyelashes twitch. She lowered her head and quivered like a flowering branch in the wind. Li Shubai couldn’t believe such a slender and beautiful girl could stay so calm while they talked about her family.

  “If Huang Zixia is in the capital, I wonder if she could solve the case,” Li Run questioned.

  Li Rui asked, “Are you talking about the awful Four Directions Case?”

  Li Run nodded. Li Wen asked, “What Four Directions Case? Why don’t I know about it?”

  “It’s a new one in the capital—bloody, strange, and cruel. No one wanted to mention it in front of you because of your age.” Li Rui laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Listen to your Imperial Academy lectures instead.”

  “Come on, brother, you speak much better than them. Tell me what it is, please!” Li Wen stood and ran to Li Rui’s side and sat next to him. The boy looked at him like a hungry chick would its mother.

  Li Run smiled. “Go ahead, brother. I heard about this thing but don’t know much. I know you like to go to restaurants and tearooms to hear stories. What’s the word?”

  Li Rui looked at Li Shubai. “Brother, you are close with the Central Court and Board of Punishments. Have you heard about any new clues?”

  Li Shubai slowly shook his head. “No. They’re looking but haven’t made any progress.”

  “Then I’ll just tell you what I’ve heard.” Li Rui motioned for Jin Nu to refill his wine, then asked Li Wen, “You know eastern Changan is in a panic?”

  “Really? No wonder there hasn’t been much activity in the east. When I last went shopping, many businesses were closed.” Li Wen looked more curious. “What’s going on? What happened in the East City?”

  “Well, we’d have to start three months ago,” Li Rui began. He told the details of the Four Directions Case.

  On the seventeenth day of the first month, a guard at the North City’s Taiji Palace out on early patrol found a sixty-year-old man had been killed at the base of the wall. The word peace was written on it. A month later, the twenty-first day of the second month, a thirtysomething blacksmith was killed outside the clinic in South City’s Anyi Square. The word bliss was written on the wall. On the ninth day of the third month, the body of a four-year-old boy was found in the West City’s Nanchang Square, along with the word self. The Central Court confirmed the handwriting was the same, so the crimes were likely committed by the same person.

  “It says in the Mahaparninirvana Sutra that the Bodhi tree’s four sides represent peace, bliss, self, and eternal. North is peace, south is bliss, west is self, and east is eternal. Panic in the capital gave way to a rumor that the people were killed by evil spirits, because during the puja ceremony at the beginning of the year, Master Zhuang Zhen read from the Mahaparninirvana Sutra; but he said release instead of reign, causing evil spirits to stay in the mortal world. They won’t leave until they’ve killed in the four quadrants of the capital,” Li Rui finished.

  “I remember Master Zhuang Zhen! He’s a monk at the Jianfu temple, right?” Li Wen asked curiously, “I heard he passed away a few days ago. Could it be related?”

  Li Rui nodded. “When Master Zhuang Zhen heard the rumors, he blamed himself. He died of worry after a few days. But more rumors spread in the capital, saying that the Jianfu Temple is in the middle of the city, and Master Zhuang Zhen’s death is related to the Bodhi tree. Since the north, south, and west all had murders, all that was left was the east, eternal, death.”

  Li Run let out a gentle sigh and asked Shubai, “Three people are already dead. Is there really nothing the Central Court and Board of Punishments can do?”

  “This murderer is ruthless and skilled. Changan’s population is almost a million; finding such a person is nearly impossible. The Central Court and Board of Punishments have made their best effort but so far have no leads. Since the murderer seems to strike every month, he’s probably ready to do so again. So the Central Court and Board of Punishments are out in full force, but that’s all they can do,” said Li Shubai.

  Li Run sighed. “Peace, bliss, self, eternal. Buddhist verse as a murderous message. This case is truely horrible.”

  Li Rui laughed. “Zhou Ziqin always said Huang Zixia was a genius, that there was no case that could stump her, but I don’t believe that. She wouldn’t be able to do anything with this case.”

  “Shame she is now a wanted murderer and public enemy,” Li Shubai said with a touch of scorn.

  Behind him, Huang Zixia was silent and still.

  There was a collective sigh. Li Run said, “I think there must be more to this Huang family killing. It’s not as simple as it seems.”

  “But the evidence and witnesses all agree that Huang Zixia was the perpetrator. It couldn’t be reversed now.” Li Rui shook his head. “Does brother know more details?”

  “I don’t, but Wang Yun is a good friend. I can’t believe it.”

  Li Wen was curious. “What Wang Yun?”

  Li Run said, “The Empress’s brother’s only child, Wang Yun of the Langya Wangs.”

  “Of course. Wang Yun was engaged to Huang Zixia.” Li Rui looked mysterious. “Rumor has it, Huang Zixia didn’t want to marry Wang Yun, had another lover, so she poisoned the whole family to elope.”

  Huang Zixia still stood silently. For some reason, Li Shubai chuckled.

  Li Rui looked at him. “What do you think, brother?”

  Li Shubai laughed. “Nothing. I was curious if Run saw Huang Zixia when he was with Wang Yun.”

  “I’ve seen her,” Li Run said with a nod. “Three years ago, after Huang Zixia helped her father break several cases. The Empress called her in for an award. Wang Yun came that day and told me Huang Zixia was his fiancée. We got to steal a look at Huang Zixia.”

  “So you’re sure you saw her? What does Huang Zixia look like?” Li Wen asked.

  “I did. We just saw her from a distance, in the veranda. She was in a silver-and-red robe. She had black hair and white skin. She was thin and had a light step like a blossoming flower.”

  “Beautiful?” Li Rui asked.

  Li Run nodded. “The wanted poster captured her features but not her charm. She
’s truly beautiful.”

  “Poor Wang Yun,” Li Wen said with a laugh.

  There was finally news from the palace. The Emperor, suffering from a headache, wasn’t coming. Li Shubai got up to get a look at the completed palace. Of course, it wasn’t as luxurious as Daming Palace, nor as vast as Jiucheng, but it took about an hour to tour the whole thing.

  Huang Zixia naturally stayed close by. Her lithe body looked even more slender in the eunuch garb. Though she did nothing but silently bow, she looked very good.

  Li Rui watched her and laughed. “Shubai, did you switch attendants? I don’t think I’ve seen this eunuch.”

  Li Shubai acted as if it was of no importance. “Jing Yang and Jing Yu, I don’t know who got who sick, but they both have colds.”

  Li Run kept looking at her face. Something about her was familiar.

  Li Rui asked again, “What’s the eunuch’s name? How old?”

  Li Shubai smiled. “It seems the Prince has taken a liking to you. I can’t stand your clumsiness. Why don’t you go with him?” Li Shubai said to Huang Zixia.

  Huang Zixia froze a moment. Seeing all eyes on her body, she slowly knelt and softly said, “Your servant heard that it’s hard for a bird to perch on two branches and to serve two masters. It’s hard to move a tea tree after it blooms. Your servant is clumsy and afraid it will be hard to adapt after leaving the Prince of Kui and will make a mistake.”

  Li Rui laughed. “Shubai really is a good master. If I insist, I’m afraid I’ll dash your eunuch’s hopes.”

  Li Shubai smiled faintly. “Eloquent.”

  Luckily, Li Wen said he was tired, and everyone turned his or her attention away from Huang Zixia.

  In the garden surrounded by thick walls, Li Shubai eased his pace. Before a fern, it was now only him and Huang Zixia. He turned to her coldly. “Why are you following me, Huang Zixia?”

  “Good birds nest in good forests. I want to stay with the Prince and do what little I can to help.”