by Qinghan CeCe
“Yes.”
“A beautiful girl?”
“Well . . . probably.”
“I know!” Zhou Ziqin pulled her sleeve. “Is it Huang Zixia?”
“Huh?” She was stunned.
“A sixteen- or seventeen-year-old, beautiful girl who will quickly solve this case!”
Li Shubai ignored them, but Huang Zixia noticed a twitch of his shoulders like he was trying to keep from laughing.
She kept riding, silently looking at the sky.
She couldn’t imagine how many tears would stream down his face if he found out Huang Zixia was right next to him. When they neared Taiji Palace, they dismounted and walked to a secluded alley.
Zhou Ziqin glanced back at their horses. “They’ll be okay?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Huang Zixia said as she walked ahead with Li Shubai. “Di’e’s there. Anyone who tried to steal him would lose a leg.”
Zhou Ziqin looked envious. “Wow, the Prince of Kui’s horse is theft-proof.”
Huang Zixia led them to Guangzhai Square, to the right of the academy.
Zhou Ziqin tugged on the clothing he borrowed from the gardener as they walked along the channel. “Chonggu . . . this seems a bit far from the place where the beggars died.”
“Don’t call attention to us. Let me see.” From outside Taiji Palace in Guangzhai Square, Huang Zixia saw the wall of Yuanwang Palace and the entrance of the academy. She estimated the shortest route and turned to some shrubs next to them, found signs of upturned stones, then pointed at the channel. “Jump in.”
Zhou Ziqin was stunned. “Chonggu, first, it’s not swimming weather yet. Second, I’m not very good in water . . .”
“You don’t have to be. It’s not deep here. You just need to go down and pick something up,” she said.
Li Shubai didn’t seem to hear them as he admired the scenery all around.
“What thing, Chonggu? I’ll call someone to help you.”
“I want to find evidence related to the deaths of the beggars.”
Zhou Ziqin began to undress.
Huang Zixia looked up at the sky. Li Shubai said, “Why do you have to take off those clothes?”
“Oh, right . . .” Zhou Ziqin put his clothes back on. “Prince, Chonggu, tell me earlier next time you want me to go in water. I’ll borrow a suit.”
“Come on, this has to be a secret. No one can know.” Huang Zixia held her hands out and apart to about the length of a pipa. “It should be about this big, wrapped. Find what you can.”
“Okay.” Zhou Ziqin jumped in the water with a crash.
Li Shubai stood on the ground, looking at the blue sky, white clouds, and lush elms. “Bright sun, a few clouds. The fog’s cleared. Very nice.”
Huang Zixia found a relatively flat blue stone and sat down. She’d become more like Li Shubai by being demanding with Zhou Ziqin and felt sad.
Before long, Zhou Ziqin stuck his head out of the water and took a deep breath. “This ditch is really deep, and the water’s really dirty. It’s all mud and weeds on the bottom. Hard to find anything. Why not call some people to come do a thorough search?”
“Can’t,” Huang Zixia said seriously, squatting on the bank. “I already told you, we have to do it ourselves or we might arouse suspicion.”
Zhou Ziqin grimaced and pulled himself ashore. “But me searching this big channel for I don’t even know what is hopeless!”
“Don’t worry. Based on the distance, direction, marks, and other factors, I think this would be the killer’s first choice of location.”
“But this is so far from the Xingqing Palace where the beggars died, there’s no way,” Zhou Ziqin muttered. Huang Zixia pushed his head back down underwater.
Zhou Ziqin struggled out angrily. “Chonggu, you bastard. Give me some warning. My foot got caught on a plant.”
“Huh? No way! Sorry. Come on; I’ll help you out.”
“It’s tangled pretty tight, pulling me down . . .” He shook his leg as Huang Zixia pulled his hand as hard as she could. Eventually, Li Shubai couldn’t even bear it anymore and lent a hand.
They pulled and pulled for a long time before he finally got his foot free.
Huang Zixia and Zhou Ziqin sat down to catch their breath.
“What weed would be tough enough to grip a person so tight?”
“Forget it. I’m so tired. It wrapped around my foot like a bandage. When I was under, it looked like a black mass.” He held out his hands to show how big. “It wrapped around my foot, and I couldn’t get it off.”
In return, Huang Zixia unconsciously gestured the size of the thing she wanted to find.
Zhou Ziqin was stunned.
They looked at each other for a long time. Then, Zhou Ziqin finally stood up and dove in the canal.
When Huang Zixia started getting impatient, he suddenly burst out of the water. “Hurry! Hurry up! Found something!”
“What?” Huang Zixia glanced at Li Shubai, wondering what the chances were he’d go in to help.
“The water was so cloudy, it just looked like a shadow, but now I can tell. There’s not just a parcel. Also a body!”
Even Li Shubai was surprised. “A body?”
“Yes! And it’s headless. I’m sure!”
The thing that caught Zhou Ziqin’s foot was a package. Inside was a pipa, two outfits, a jewelry box, and a large stone.
And the body of a headless woman. She’d been weighed down by a stone too. Zhou Ziqin cut the rope attaching the stone and dragged it ashore.
“I’m so tired.” Zhou Ziqin climbed out and collapsed on the shore, panting.
“The stone isn’t very heavy. How did it make it sink?” The other two began examining the body.
The headless woman had obviously not been in the water for long. The skin had become paler but not too swollen. She wore a thin, soft robe and had a thin waist and slender limbs.
“Ziqin, you know bodies best. Tell us about this one,” Li Shubai said.
“You should have told me there’d be a body,” he said regretfully from the ground. “I didn’t bring tools.”
“I didn’t know there was going to be a body either. Just thought there was a package.”
Zhou Ziqin got up and gave it a look. “The deceased was about five foot three, body type . . . very good, about the best I’ve examined. Good shape. Inch taller, too tall; inch shorter, too short.”
“Get serious,” Li Shubai said.
“Okay. She was thrown in the channel after the killer cut her head off. The scene shouldn’t be far from here, and the killer was experienced. The wound across the neck is very clean, which took a lot of skill. It won’t be easy to find evidence, since they probably cleaned it up, especially with all this grass and weeds around.”
“Yes, a headless body will certainly be harder to identify,” Huang Zixia said as she took the pipa from the parcel and looked at it. The strings were broken, but its inlaid peony mosaic was intact and shone brightly in the sun.
“Makes sense . . .”
“So the killer just took some clothes, trying to make it seem like Jin Nu eloped.”
“And this body?”
“Jin Nu was five foot five. You said this body is five three. Can’t be Jin Nu.”
Zhou Ziqin was still confused. “Then how could it show up here so coincidentally?”
Huang Zixia looked at him. “You tell me.”
Zhou Ziqin looked at her, then at Li Shubai. “Ah,” he said, “the killer wanted it to look like Jin Nu.”
“Right. The real Jin Nu,” Huang Zixia said, “is lying in Wang Ruo’s coffin.”
Zhou Ziqin jumped. “Wh-what? You mean—”
“Yes. Someone disguised Jin Nu’s body as Wang Ruo’s and used this body to cover up the Princess’s disappearance.”
“How awful!” Zhou Ziqin’s eyes widened. “Why would the killer want to hurt Jin Nu?”
“’Cause their bodies have similarities, I guess. Wang Ruo’s pretty tall, about a hea
d above average. This body doesn’t have a head, but we can still estimate its height. And the body of a pipa player isn’t as important as a Princess’s. The authorities won’t examine it too closely. And after a few days in the water, it would have bloated more, making figuring out its height much more difficult.” She put the pipa back and signaled for Zhou Ziqin to take it away. “Keep the evidence at your place. Too inconvenient to have it at ours.”
“Oh, okay,” Zhou Ziqin said, ignoring the muddy water dripping off as he picked up the package. “What about this body?”
Huang Zixia sighed. “Can you take it to your house?”
“You think it’s possible?” Zhou Ziqin asked.
“Tell Cui Chunzhan straightaway,” Li Shubai said. “Say you found a parcel and a headless, female body here. Don’t interfere with the Central Court’s identification process. Also, keep all of the evidence safe. When we call for it, you bring it.”
“All right,” he said with a bitter face, waiting for Huang Zixia to go tell Cui Chunzhan while he stayed with the package and body.
Huang Zixia and Li Shubai walked through the bushes next to the channel to a path that led to a neighborhood where a few people sat, chatting in the shade.
“We found a body in the water there!” Huang Zixia shouted.
Suddenly, some of them got up quickly. Others rushed over to see what the commotion was about. Still others went to inform the local authorities. All bases were covered.
Li Shubai and Huang Zixia walked to the empty alley. Di’e and Nafusha were gingerly eating grass. The bridle made it very hard for them to eat much, but they scrounged a little out of boredom.
They mounted their horses and realized Li Shubai, despite having stood off to the side almost the whole time, had gotten his clothes dirty. They didn’t worry about it, though, just rode off slowly.
“Did Jing Xu send news from Xuzhou yet?” Huang Zixia asked.
“Yes. The arrowhead disappeared when Pang Xun’s defeated followers were fleeing Xuzhou.”
“It’s said that when the arrowhead went missing, the lock of the crystal box that contained it was untouched. Is that true?”
“Yes. Jing Xu looked into it thoroughly and asked all the soldiers who were guarding the tower at that time and found out Pang Xun had bribed them to steal it and blame spirits.”
“And news of what happened in Xuzhou instantly spread to the capital,” Huang Zixia said thoughtfully. “Spirits. Seems someone is deliberately using Pang Xun as cover.”
“But they may be trying too hard and wind up fooling only themselves.”
“Yes, it seems like we’re close.”
They continued talking as they rode through the squares of Changan.
Under the blue sky, the seventy-two squares of Changan stood firmly amid the wind and dust. The early summer sun was warm, making some sweat appear on Huang Zixia’s neck in spite of her thin clothing. She used her sleeve to wipe it as she slowly rode under the shade of the Sophora trees lining the streets, pondering the case’s mysteries.
Li Shubai gave her a white handkerchief. She took it and used it before she turned to look at him.
The May sun flowed through the trees and onto his face like strands of gold. His body took on a faint glow. In the hazy light, his usual look of indifference seemed to carry something else, flowing through the air between them.
Huang Zixia bowed and silently rode on with him. When they neared Yongjia Square, she suddenly turned to lead Nafusha to the north.
“Are we going to Daming Palace’s Yongchun Hall?”
“Yes. Need to check one last thing. We’ll get to the bottom of this mess.”
“You already have it?” He looked at her with some surprise. The shade of the locusts thinned, and the golden sun sprinkled down on them. The light in Huang Zixia’s eyes seemed to come from within.
He looked slightly hurt. She went straight through the gate and along the brick road to the rock garden, then dismounted and squatted down at a point near the hall. “This is where I found Wang Ruo’s hairpin.”
Li Shubai nodded and watched her take the inner pin out of her own hair and touch it to the ground.
“The rock garden between the front and rear halls. Here . . .” She used the hairpin to draw a circle and tapped its uppermost point. “Right where Wang Ruo lost her hairpin.”
Li Shubai pointed at the ground. “Where we’re standing.”
“Right. The guards in the corridor were looking at the hall door, and the guards in the rock garden were watching the window.” She picked up her hairpin, wiped it off, and put it back in. Smiling, she said, “This case is closed.”
Li Shubai stood and looked around. Twilight had begun to fall.
They left Yongchun Hall through a side door. When they were approaching Kui Palace, Li Shubai suddenly spoke. “So you’re sure the body in Yongchun Hall was Jin Nu’s?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sure.”
“What about this new body?”
“I have a pretty good idea.” She looked at him. “This is all because you saved those girls three years ago in Xuzhou.”
Li Shubai stopped Di’e and thought awhile.
Sometime later, he raised his eyebrows and looked at her. “Could it really be?”
Huang Zixia nodded. “No one else had the chance.”
Li Shubai frowned. “If that’s the case, it will cause a storm in the Tang court.”
“Oh well, the dynasty has been pretty lenient, no?” Huang Zixia sighed.
Li Shubai thought it over. “What if I ask you to give up?”
Huang Zixia bit her lower lip. “This started from you. If you want to give up, I have nothing to say.”
“But . . . could it really be that simple?” He sat on Di’e’s back, looked at the sky, and exhaled deeply. His gaze was deep and distant, as if looking far, far away. “You wouldn’t be content for such a secret to stay hidden, would you?”
“It’s not about secrecy,” Huang Zixia said, following his gaze to the sky. “I just want to speak the truth for Feng Yi, Jin Nu, and the beggars who died in Chongren Square.”
Li Shubai looked up without speaking. He noticed the light between the leaves changing. It would soon be dusk.
“In fact,” he said slowly, “if the person behind all this is whom you think, it could be a great opportunity for you.”
Huang Zixia looked at him in shock. He turned to look at her, gentle and forlorn. “I can help you bring this about, but I need you to tell me everything you know. At least I can guarantee your life.”
She looked up at him slightly. It was sunset. Di’e and Nafusha, arriving back at their familiar Kui Palace, rubbed their necks together. Meanwhile, the two riders seemed closer than ever, close enough to feel the other’s breath.
Huang Zixia unconsciously turned Nafusha, now a foot away from him. Quietly she said, “Thank you, my Prince.”
The sun began to set, and their shadows stretched out long—near to each other but with a distance that was hard to close.
Fifteen
FALSE TRUTH
When Li Shubai and Huang Zixia arrived, the ceremony had already begun. The white mourning banner hung in the rain. Paper money fell in the courtyard like snowflakes. Daoists chanted. Xian Yun and others cried. Wang Ruo’s spirit tablet had been placed in the center of the mourning hall with incense.
Li Shubai brought Huang Zixia to the center, and the Wang family saluted him in thanks.
“It was so sudden; you’ve had to do a lot,” he said to Wang Yun. Though Wang Ruo’s death was sudden, Wang Yun organized the services efficiently.
Wang Yun was wearing a simple silk robe with a layer of linen on top. He seemed concerned but not sad. “It’s my duty.”
Li Shubai walked with him outside under the veranda. “Her parents haven’t arrived yet?”
“It was so sudden. We just had someone go to Langya to tell them she’s on her way.”
Li Shubai turned and looked back at the coffin in t
he hall. It was closed; clearly no one was prepared to look at the body.
Huang Zixia could tell he was wondering how to broach the subject of keeping the remains in the capital. As he opened his mouth to speak, a porter ran out and interrupted his thought. “My Prince, the Emperor and Empress have come to pay their respects.”
Huang Zixia and Li Shubai were shocked. The Empress was part of the Wang family, so that made sense, but not the Emperor. Wang Yun was unfazed. Apparently, he already knew they’d be coming.
The Emperor was known to have a gentle demeanor. The Empress was more dignified in comparison. He always agreed to what she wanted. So the Empress getting the Emperor to come to her Wang family funeral probably didn’t take more than asking.
They entered the hall, and the Empress lit incense for Wang Ruo. They came with a small entourage of about a dozen people. They both had on plain white clothing. The Emperor had on a white cap too, while the Empress wore a hairpin with pink beads. Her plain dress made her dark eyes and red lips stand out. She was so beautiful that it was hard to see anything else.
The Emperor found Wang Lin and asked about progress on the case, though he would have known there were no major leads. When Wang Lin confirmed that no progress had been made, the Emperor nodded and turned to leave. Li Shubai asked him to walk outside with him. Huang Zixia followed them to the front hall and felt relieved to be away from all the smoke.
“Brother, what do you think about this Wang girl business?” the Emperor said.
“Fate often surprises,” Li Shubai said.
The Emperor sighed. “Even from the palace, I’ve heard rumors this is related to Pang Xun. What do you think?”
Li Shubai shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
“Oh? You already have a handle on the case?”
“I’m so busy and mourning that I haven’t been able to really think it through. Yang Chonggu here has some thoughts, though.” Li Shubai turned toward her, and she quickly bowed to the Emperor.
“Yang Chonggu must be the eunuch who solved the Four Directions Case. Just using some stray words to solve such a mystery takes true talent! What has he found now?”
“He believes it started sixteen years ago in Yangzhou. Not something I could sum up in a few words.”