Lan Dai—

Huang Zixia straightened up at hearing this name, her face full of astonishment.

Li Shubai glanced at her and asked: “What is it?”

“This name… this name is…” Huang Zixia was so excited she could barely speak coherently.

Li Shubai said: “Lan Dai. Such a beautiful name with a hint of worldliness naturally belongs to a woman from the pleasure quarters.”

Huang Zixia excitedly said: “But… but this is the name of Third Sister, one of the Six Ladies of Yun Shao!”

Li Shubai raised his eyebrows slightly: “Oh? Connected to that Yun Shao Garden in Yangzhou again?”

“Yes, please continue, what happened next?” Huang Zixia urged.

“Naturally, I wouldn’t go looking for her, much less seek out a courtesan in Yangzhou. So I looked down at her and said, I saved you only by chance. I won’t come looking for you in the future, nor do I want to accept your things. If this hairpin is important to you, then keep it safe.

“But she stubbornly refused to lower her hand, holding the hairpin before me, the pointed end toward herself, the other end toward me. It was a leaf-vein hairpin.”

Huang Zixia made another surprised sound, asking: “A leaf-vein hairpin? What kind?”

“About four inches long, with the head shaped like a leaf vein wrapped in silver wire, the veins intricate and lifelike. Above the leaf veins were inlaid two small pearls, like drops of dew.”

“Was it silver?”

“Yes, my memory wouldn’t be wrong about this.” Li Shubai said, then asked, “I don’t know much about women’s ornaments, but I felt that silver leaf-vein hairpin was quite similar to the golden leaf-vein hairpin left behind when Wang Ruo disappeared. Are these leaf-vein styled hairpins very popular?”

“Not at all. Normal hairpins, even if made of gold or silver in the shape of leaves, are usually solid leaf shapes, not hollow and transparent like these veins. I’ve never seen such an ingenious and unique hairpin design before. If they’re as similar as you say, there must be some internal connection.”

“It seems those two young women I met back then might have a significant connection to this matter.”

“Yes, I think so too.” She agreed, then asked, “Did you accept it?”

“The silver hairpin?” Li Shubai said flatly, “No. Seeing I wouldn’t reach for it, she placed the hairpin on the carriage shaft and ran away. The setting sun cast a golden light on the hairpin, irritating my eyes. So I picked up the hairpin and casually threw it into the dust of the official road.”

Huang Zixia rested her chin in her hand, staring at him unblinkingly.

He glanced at her indifferently: “What is it?”

“Would it have mattered if you had waited until returning to the city to throw it away?”

“Early or late, throwing it away is throwing it away,” Li Shubai said calmly. “Besides, I saw that girl called Xiao Shi watching me. So after I threw away the hairpin, she would probably pick it up and return it to Miss Cheng.”

“If it were me, I definitely wouldn’t tell my good friend that something she gave to someone was immediately thrown away,” Huang Zixia commented casually. “Otherwise, how embarrassing and pitiful would my friend feel.”

“I have no interest in studying how women interact,” Li Shubai sneered.

Huang Zixia didn’t want to discuss such profound issues with someone so cold-hearted and ruthless. She pulled out her hairpin and drew the shape of the leaf-vein hairpin on the table.

Li Shubai looked at her gauze cap now unsecured without the hairpin and asked: “Aren’t you afraid it will fall off?”

She casually raised her hand to adjust it, saying: “It’s fine.”

“Fortunately you’re pretending to be a small eunuch now. If you were pretending to be a Buddhist novice, how would you use hairpins to draw?”

“I could use a wooden fish,” she said offhandedly, her eyes staring vacantly at a point in the air, lost in thought, while her hand unconsciously used the hairpin to scribble on the table, now drawing the shape of the half-silver ingot. As she drew, she muttered to herself, “Was the silver ingot taken by that young woman later split in half because there were two of them?”

“Such a thing that was used as a murder weapon, generally speaking, they probably exchanged it for loose silver long ago.”

“That’s possible…” Huang Zixia said, finally looking at him and asking, “Do you remember what those two women looked like?”

“They both deliberately made themselves look disheveled with dirty faces and were covered in mud and blood. I only met them briefly, so I don’t have much impression. Besides, they were only thirteen or fourteen at the time, and women change considerably as they mature. Even if they stood before me today, I might not recognize them.”

“Hmm…” she nodded, but unexpectedly her gauze cap shifted and suddenly fell off.

Li Shubai quickly caught it, frowning slightly as he tossed it back to her: “I said you should just pretend to be a monk.”

She silently pressed down her hair, a strand falling in front of her eyes. Somewhat annoyed and embarrassed, she grabbed it, twisted it twice around her hair bun, and then readjusted the gauze cap.

Li Shubai looked at her with slight disdain: “I’ve never seen someone who can’t think without scribbling.”

“Mountains may be moved, but nature is hard to change…” she could only say softly.

He snorted: “How could anyone develop such a nature?”

“Can’t help it… Before, when I went out to solve cases with my father, there was often no paper or brush when we needed to work things out. Back then I wore women’s clothes, so I always had a hairpin or two. Pull one out to draw on the ground a few times, and the case would become clear. Later I couldn’t break this habit, always feeling I needed to draw a bit to organize my thoughts.”

“Then what?”

“What then?”

“The hairpins you drew within the dirt,” he was very concerned with these details.

Huang Zixia looked at him in confusion: “Just wash and dry them before putting them back in my hair.”

Li Shubai made a sound of acknowledgment, and seeing her still staring at him for explanation, said: “The first time I met Zhou Ziqin, he was hugging a package of pine nut and peanut candy, crouching with great interest beside a corpse in the morgue watching the coroner perform an autopsy, even helping hand over tools.”

Huang Zixia asked: “When you say ‘with great interest,’ do you mean eating or watching the autopsy?”

Li Shubai glanced at her: “What do you think?”

“I get the idea,” she said quietly.

“So when I heard that Huang Min’s daughter was skilled at solving cases and was someone Zhou Ziqin admired, the first scene that came to mind was of a woman crouching beside a corpse-eating pine nut and peanut candy.”

Huang Zixia’s eyebrow twitched involuntarily: “And now?”

“I’m relieved that you only like to scribble, and even know to wash your gold hairpins after drawing on the ground with them.”

Huang Zixia said gloomily: “Don’t lump me together with Zhou Ziqin.”

Li Shubai said lightly: “But you seem to be his goal to follow.”

“That’s just his fantasy about something he’s never seen, like how people always think distant scenery is more beautiful, always think childhood dreams were the most wonderful -, if he knew I was Huang Zixia, he would feel awkward and unable to accept it, maybe even his years of dreams would collapse.”

Li Shubai listened to her words, a faint trace of a smile appearing at the corner of his lips. He nodded and said: “Perhaps. So you should remain that small eunuch in front of him.”

“Yes… better not to let his aspirations shatter.” Huang Zixia nodded, feeling a glare of light flash before her eyes. She shielded them with her hand, realizing it was the slanting rays of the setting sun in her eyes.

They had talked for a long time, and it was nearly dusk. She took her leave from the Yubing Pavilion, walking the path back to her room.

Through winding corridors and grand halls. She lowered her sleeve, unconsciously gripping the Prince of Kui’s token in her hand, raising her head to look at the evening sun’s remaining light, suddenly feeling a trace of melancholy in her heart.

Half a year had passed since her parents’ and family’s deaths, yet the killer remained untraceable, and the case before her was bewildering, with countless threads to unravel, not knowing when everything would become clear.

For the first time, she doubted herself. She asked herself in her heart: Huang Zixia, if things continue like this, will you ever have the chance in this life to take off these eunuch’s clothes, put on women’s clothes again, and proudly tell everyone in the world – my surname is Huang, I am a woman, I am Huang Zixia?

All night she tossed and turned, working through various possibilities, but could not explain where Wang Ruo had disappeared to, or where that unidentified female corpse had come from.

So, when she got up the next day, Huang Zixia was stumbling and unsteady, plus her head was splitting and her back ached. Sitting at the table looking in the mirror, she found herself completely pale, as white as a ghost.

But who cares, after all, she was now a small eunuch, and who cares if a small eunuch looks like a ghost? She resignedly washed up and went to the kitchen to look around. The cook broke into a smile upon seeing her and stuffed seventeen or eighteen spring rolls into her hands, saying: “Eunuch Yang, congratulations! I heard the Prince finally gave you official status!”

“Pfft—” The spring roll Huang Zixia was chewing suddenly sprayed out, “What… status?”

“What everyone in the mansion was discussing early this morning, saying you’ve now been officially incorporated into the mansion’s personnel, becoming a registered eunuch!”

“Oh…” she silently took another spring roll and stuffed it in her mouth, mumbling, “You mean that lowest-rank eunuch?”

“Ah, what do you mean the lowest rank? This is entry-level, your future is limitless!” the cook said animatedly. “A few years ago during the famine in Sui Prefecture, many people had no way to live, and even cutting off their roots to seek a position as a eunuch couldn’t get one! And look at me, I’ve been in the kitchen for twenty years, but I’m still a temporary worker, unable to enter the mansion’s household registry. But you’ve only been here a month or two, and you’re already a registered official eunuch of the prince’s mansion with a name and position!”

Huang Zixia was truly speechless, realizing that even being a mansion eunuch was something many people envied, making her feel it was really a waste to take up such a precious position.

While she was dealing with the cook and eating breakfast, someone called from outside: “Yang Chonggu, where is Yang Chonggu?”

She quickly took a drink of milk curd and responded: “I’m here!”

“The Prince commands you to hurry to the Chunyu Hall, someone is waiting for you there.”