by Qinghan CeCe
He poured himself a cup of tea. “What I’m about to say is very important, so don’t repeat it to Zhou Ziqin. But I think if you want to break this case, you must be aware—this matter has great bearing on the case.”
Huang Zixia nodded and looked at him with bated breath.
He held the teacup with three slender, white fingers, which made the light-green teacup look like jade. “In fact, that silver half ingot—Pang Xun made eight hundred of them. In other words, there was no twelve-piece lost. The one that went missing, I spent.”
Huang Zixia was stunned and she froze, holding the teapot. “Impossible. The Prince of Kui was short on money too?”
Li Shubai tilted his head but didn’t respond. “I found it while raiding Pang Xun’s palace. When I saw the ingot before, I didn’t think of it.”
Huang Zixia listened and poured herself some tea. Then she took a snack off the table and began eating slowly.
It had happened three years ago, but Li Shubai’s memory was so good, he didn’t forget anything.
After Li Shubai killed Pang Xun in the tenth year of Xiantong’s reign, his supporters scattered or surrendered. Within thirty minutes after Xuzhou was sacked, imperial troops began looking for Pang Xun’s followers. Li Shubai ordered them to kill any looters. The soldiers moved quickly, and within two hours, Li Shubai was in Pang Xun’s palace.
“Maybe our troops moved too fast. There were several men still in the palace, trying to make last-ditch efforts to defend it. They were soon killed.” He spoke so casually that Huang Zixia wondered if his rushing into the enemy camp was incredibly brave or incredibly reckless. Maybe he didn’t consider the possibility of dying at all.
But she didn’t dare say anything.
During the rush to hunt down the fleeing rebels, Li Shubai found himself alone in a courtyard with thick walls. He heard a woman scream. He saw a man in a window outside the walls grab a delicate, disheveled girl. He began dragging her, saying, “I’m taking you and some money to the carriage. We’ll go far away from here and live a long, happy life.”
Li Shubai left out some of the vulgar things the man said. “That man was big,” Li Shubai continued, “with a meaty face. He held the girl to his chest. She couldn’t struggle free, just screamed as he dragged her out the door.”
Li Shubai couldn’t find the door to reach them, and the wall was too high to climb. He thought he should go back and order his men to intercept the carriage and kill the man. Then he saw a figure stagger in to save the girl. It was another girl, this one taller. She was also disheveled, her face obscured by dirt. She took a skewer from the grill and shoved it in the man’s back. Unfortunately, the man was so big and the girl was so weak that the skewer didn’t go in far at all. The man didn’t even let go of the girl. He turned and roared at the tall girl and kicked her away. His boot landed on her chest. She flew into the wall and coughed blood.
The brute wasn’t finished. He took a few steps forward to hit the tall girl again. The one he was holding tried desperately to pull him back, but she couldn’t budge him. He lifted his big right fist and smashed it into her belly. Li Shubai drew an arrow and regretted his hesitation. He may have missed his chance to save the girls.
Huang Zixia straightened up. “And then?” she asked urgently.
Li Shubai took a sip of tea and said, “Then I heard the man scream.”
He saw the girl holding a bloody silver ingot. She was collapsed in the corner, shaking. She’d snatched it from the man’s bag and smashed it into his head. The man clutched the back of his head and slapped her in the face. She hit the wall but still clutched the ingot to her chest.
The man grabbed her by her collar and raised his hand to slap her again. Then the tall girl rushed back with the skewer. The bastard heard and turned around, but before he knew it, the iron rammed right into his right eye. At the same time, Li Shubai’s arrow pierced his left eye.
As the man screamed, the small girl with the ingot went into a frenzy and smashed his head again and again. The man kicked and kicked but soon fell to the ground. The tall girl rushed with the skewer and stabbed him all over. His body twitched and finally went still.
The two bloody girls dropped their weapons and huddled together, shivering, looking at the body. Only then did they realize there was an arrow in the man’s left eye. They looked around in terror, then saw Li Shubai outside the window. “Don’t worry,” Li Shubai said. “We’re here to put down the rebellion. Wait there and we’ll come in and sort things out.” The girl with the skewer pointed to Li Shubai’s right. He used his sword to pry open the lock and kicked the door in. When he approached them, they were still so frightened, clutching each other and shivering.
Li Shubai glanced at his clothing. There were only a couple of bloodstains. He didn’t think he could have looked too terrifying, but they looked at him with pure fear. Li Shubai stepped forward gently and asked, “Who are you? How did this bastard catch you?” His gaze was gentle. He squatted down and whispered to soothe them.
After being taken captive, they endured the daily chaos of war, endless bullying, and the sight of the radiant Li Shubai was like stepping into another world. They let their guard down a little. “You came to save us?” The voice of the girl holding the ingot wavered like the wind. Her face was pale.
Li Shubai took an arrow from his quiver; its feather was the same as the one stuck in the body. Li Shubai’s personally engraved arrows had been used up, so these were standard issue. When the girls saw it was the same, they kneeled in thanks and cried. The tall girl was shyer, but the small one was bolder. “Thank you so much for saving us,” she said. “She’s my sister, Little Shi. My parents died, so I came to Xuzhou from Liuzhou to be with my aunt.”
“How did you fall into the hands of the rebels?”
The bold girl, whose surname was Cheng, had trouble speaking her answer. “Pang Xun’s rebellion caused such chaos, my aunt had already fled when I arrived. We were taken captive with a group of women. The day before yesterday, when the imperial siege began, no one was paying attention to us. Today they scrambled to take all the money they could. They said if they ran out of food, they’d eat us!”
Li Shubai put his teacup down with a thoughtful expression.
“And then?” Huang Zixia asked. “What about the other captive women?”
“When I heard that, I was shocked too. I immediately rushed out to save more.”
Li Shubai hurried in the direction the Cheng girl pointed and saw a parked carriage. He jumped on the horse and looked back. Tears ran down the Cheng girl’s face, revealing the crystal white of her skin. Though her tears made her fearful eyes swell, he could make out their beautiful contours. And that Little Shi clinging to her had a wonderful silhouette. Li Shubai thought they must have been captured because they were beautiful. He was determined to help them but was also worried about the other captive women. He hesitated, but luckily, some of his men came in and saluted him. “General!”
“Huh?” Huang Zixia said. “Why did they call you general?”
“Because the court charged to lead the force to put down the rebellion. We weren’t at court, so the soldiers naturally used my military title.”
Li Shubai asked the soldiers to take the money from the carriage and keep a record of it. As they prepared to leave, Li Shubai asked the girls what their plan was.
“We want to go to Yangzhou. My aunt left a message saying she went there,” the Cheng girl said.
Li Shubai asked them whether they needed soldiers to escort them back. They looked afraid, shook their heads desperately, said they didn’t want to travel with soldiers. Li Shubai thought they must be afraid of soldiers, so he didn’t coerce them, just suggested they pick up the ingot and skewer. “These are murder weapons. You don’t want to leave them at the scene. The ingot will be useful as money. Take it.” The silver ingot was covered in blood and brains. Little Shi looked at it and began retching. The Cheng girl ripped a piece of fabric off the body, wrapped it a
round the ingot, and held it loosely in her hands.
Li Shubai flicked the reins, and the carriage began to move. The girls held on to each other tightly during the bumpy ride. There were a lot of people walking along the road to the outskirts of Xuzhou. They had fled the city during the turmoil. Now that they’d heard Pang Xun was dead, they were happily going back.
Li Shubai helped them out and told them to stay on the main road to avoid trouble.
“You made it from Liuzhou to Xuzhou, so I’m sure you’ll have no trouble making it to Yangzhou.”
They just looked at him and nodded silently.
Li Shubai turned to leave.
As he was about to get in his carriage, someone clutched the bridle and shouted. It was the Cheng girl. She looked up at him with her dusty face and shyness in her bright eyes.
“What is it?” he asked.
She removed a silver hairpin from her hair and held it out. “Sir, my father gave this to my mother for their engagement. After I was captured, I lost everything. Bring it to Yangzhou when you visit me. My aunt’s name is Lan Dai.”
Lan Dai, Xuese’s adoptive mother.
The name made Huang Zixia sit up straight in surprise.
Li Shubai looked at her. “What’s wrong?”
“That name! That name is . . .” Huang Zixia was too frantic to be coherent.
“Lan Dai,” Li Shubai said. “This sort of dazzling but old-fashioned name surely belongs to a tramp.”
“But that’s the name of the third woman of the Yunshao Six!”
Li Shubai frowned slightly. “What? That Yunshao Court again?”
“Yes. Go on. What happened next?”
“Of course, I didn’t go visit her, nor did I go to Yangzhou to visit a tramp. So I looked at her and said that saving her was just luck. I told her to keep the hairpin. She kept holding it out to me. The sharp end toward her and the decorative end toward me. It was a leafy hairpin.”
Huang Zixia gasped. “Leafy? How?”
“About four inches long, silver, fine, lifelike lines. The leafy part had two pearls inlaid like drops of dew.”
“It was silver?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t misremember that,” Li Shubai said. “I don’t know women’s jewelry that well, but I think it was similar to the one Wang Ruo was wearing when she went missing. Is it a popular style?”
“No. Hairpins like that typically have the shape of a whole leaf, not thin lines with gaps between them. It was the first time I’d seen such a sophisticated design. If it’s as similar as you think, there must be some connection.”
“It seems the girl I met back then has a lot of connections with what’s going on now.”
“Yes, I think so too,” she said. “Did you take it?”
“The hairpin?” Li Shubai asked. “No. I wasn’t going to take it, so she put it on the carriage shaft and ran off. I picked it up and threw it on the side of the road.”
Huang Zixia looked at him and blinked.
“What?” he said indifferently.
“Why couldn’t you have taken it back to the city and gotten rid of it?”
“Get rid of it then or later, what’s the difference?” Li Shubai said. “Then I saw Little Shi looking at me, so she should have been able to get it and give it back to the Cheng girl.”
“If it were me, I wouldn’t have told my friend. Someone throwing away something you just gave them . . . ,” Huang Zixia said. “It would just make the friend sad.”
“I’m not interested in learning how women get along,” Li Shubai said.
Huang Zixia didn’t want to discuss matters of the heart with such a cold-blooded person either. She pulled the wooden hairpin out of her hair and dipped it in the tea, then drew the leafy hairpin on the table with it.
Li Shubai looked at her. “Not afraid of it falling down?”
She casually held up her hair for a second. “Not really.”
“Luckily, you’re disguised as a little eunuch. If you were trying to look like a Buddhist monk, how would you take out a hairpin to draw?”
“They have wooden fish.” She kept drawing. Before she knew it, she’d drawn that silver half ingot too. “Maybe the girls broke the ingot in half so they could both have part,” she murmured.
“With a murder weapon like that, they probably had it changed into coins pretty quickly.”
“Possibly.” Huang Zixia looked at him. “Do you still remember what they looked like?”
“They were disheveled, covered in mud and blood, and I only met them briefly, so I didn’t get much of an impression. They were only thirteen or fourteen at the time. I’m sure they’ve changed a lot. If they stood before me now, I wouldn’t recognize them.”
“Right.” She nodded and her hair fell down.
Li Shubai instinctively caught it and frowned. “Maybe it’d be better to pretend to be a monk.”
She didn’t answer as she pulled her hair up. A strand hung over her face, and she spun it up with frustration, then put her hat back on.
“Never seen anyone draw while they’re thinking about serious things,” he said disdainfully.
“Old habits die hard,” she said quietly.
He scoffed. “How’d you get such habits?”
“When I used to go out on cases with my father, it was always hard to find pen and paper. I was in girls’ clothing then, so I always had a few hairpins. I’d take one out and draw on the ground to get a sense of the case. Now it helps me arrange my ideas.”
“And then?”
“Then what?”
“The hairpins you drew on the ground with. I care about details.”
Huang Zixia looked at him, puzzled. “I wiped them off and put them back in, of course.”
“Oh,” he said. She was still staring at him. “The first time I met Zhou Ziqin, he had a bag of pine nuts as the mortician did an autopsy, even handing him tools.”
“He was eating during the autopsy?”
“What do you think?” Li Shubai said.
“I got it.”
“So when I heard Zhou Ziqin worshipped Huang Min’s sleuth of a daughter, my first thought was of a girl eating pine nuts at a crime scene.”
Huang Zixia’s eyebrows jumped a little. “And now?”
“Now I’m pleased to know you just scribble, and even wash the hairpins afterward.”
“I’m not Zhou Ziqin.”
“But you’re his idol,” Li Shubai said.
“That’s just his fantasy. In fact, if he knew I was Huang Zixia, his long-held dream might collapse.”
Li Shubai smiled faintly and nodded. “Maybe. So you keep being a eunuch in front of him.”
“Of course. I don’t want to spoil his dream.” Huang Zixia nodded.
They’d talked so long, it was nearly dusk. She left Yubing Hall and retired to her room. She let her sleeves hang, and her hand unconsciously gripped the Prince of Kui’s token. The sight of the sunset stirred a sentimental feeling in her.
It had already been six months since her parents died, and she still hadn’t found the killer. The current case was so confusing. There were so many leads and details, she wasn’t sure she’d ever get to the bottom of the case. It was the first time she’d doubted herself. She asked herself, If things keep going like this, will you ever be able to take off the eunuch’s clothes and proudly tell the world, “I am a woman. My name is Huang Zixia”?
She tossed and turned the whole night but could not figure out where Wang Ruo had disappeared to or where that girl’s body had come from.
When she got up the next morning, she felt unsteady, with a headache and backache. She sat at the table and looked at herself in the mirror—pale as a ghost. It didn’t matter. No one would notice if an insignificant eunuch looked like a ghost. Tiredly, she began getting cleaned up. She went to the kitchen and the cook immediately smiled and gave her a plate of spring rolls. “Congratulations, Mr. Yang. I heard the Prince finally granted you status.”
“Puh.” Huang Zixia suddenly
spit out the food in her mouth. “What status?”
“In the morning discussion, they said you’re officially part of the government staff, a registered eunuch.”
“Oh . . .” She put another spring roll in her mouth. “A junior eunuch?”
“You’ve got quite a bright future!” she said. “A few years ago, during the Suizhou famine, a lot of people cut off their lifeblood to become a eunuch and still couldn’t! I’ve been cooking here for twenty years, and I’m still not an official servant of the royal family. You’re already there after a month or two, along with all the other famous palace eunuchs!”
Huang Zixia was speechless. She didn’t realize how enviable her position was. It was a shame someone else couldn’t have the spot.
There was a shout from outside. “Yang Chonggu! Where’s Yang Chonggu?”
She hurried to take a gulp of milk. “I’m here!”
“The Prince has ordered you to go to Chunyu Hall. Someone is waiting for you there.”
Who would call for her so early?
Huang Zixia walked to Chunyu Hall and was surprised to find Chen Nian with her guqin.
“Chen Nian, why’d you come to see me?”
Chen Nian smiled. “You’ve got to keep up with your studies. It’s been a few days, so I had to come to you.”
“So sorry, Chen Nian,” Huang Zixia said, knowing she was joking. “I’ve been busy recently, and completely forgot about elegant sounds.”
“I heard about the unfortunate Wang girl. Everyone in the capital envied her. Heard her body was in bad shape, such a pity,” Chen Nian said as she adjusted her strings.
Your friend Feng Yi’s body was the same, Huang Zixia thought. She saw the gloom in Chen Nian’s eyes and wanted to take the piece of white jade she found on Feng Yi’s body and tell her she was dead. But seeing the white hairs Chen Nian had recently begun to grow, she couldn’t.
Chen Nian gracefully began playing “Ode to the New Moon,” but only half of the piece. The sound rang out through the room.
“No one can match you, Chen Nian!” Huang Zixia said.
“Not true,” Chen Nian said, looking up, her hands still on the strings. “I can’t hold a candle to Jin Nu.”