“What does the Young Lord think he is doing?” At the sight of Linglong kneeling bound in the center of the room, Cui Shi was both shocked and furious. “Why are you humiliating Linglong like this for no reason? If you wish to make trouble, at least do so within limits!”
Prince Lan’s drowsiness had vanished entirely. He turned to the Nanny Li and the other attendants behind Cui Shi: “What are you all standing there gaping for? Untie the young lady at once.”
Lin Xiao gave an unhurried glance at the Nanny Li and the others as they surged forward. Nanny Li, cowed by the cold intent in Lin Xiao’s eyes, faltered and hesitated.
“Father.” Lin Xiao bowed to Prince Lan with perfect composure. “Your son never stirs up trouble without cause. It is simply that an evil and deceitful person has found their way into Prince Lan’s household. If this person is not removed promptly, I fear harm may come to Father’s person. I beg Father to allow your son to explain everything.”
Prince Lan’s expression wavered with uncertainty. Cui Shi’s voice rose sharply: “Is the Young Lord implying that my niece is an evil and deceitful person?”
Lin Xiao did not so much as deign to glance at Cui Shi. He walked to the table, opened the bundle Qin Yao had brought in, and Linglong snuck a look — as she had expected, inside were half a cup of wine and several pastries from the Zuixiang Pavilion. She inwardly allowed herself a small, silent smile, and her tense shoulders eased a fraction.
“Do you recognize these foods and drinks?” Lin Xiao had not missed the change in Linglong’s expression. The amusement in his eyes deepened — like a hunter, savoring with deliberate cruelty the quarry’s futile struggle.
Linglong’s eyes brimmed with tears on the verge of falling: “Your Highness, Aunt — today Linglong went out with the Young Lord to watch the lanterns, and along the way we met Sister A’Yao. Afterward, Cousin brought us to the Zuixiang Pavilion to listen to a ballad-play. The crabapple wine was very fragrant and the pastries were delicious. It was a pity that Sister A’Yao felt unwell, and we had not even finished one act before we each returned home.” She turned and looked directly at Qin Yao. “Sister A’Yao, you said at the time that you had a headache and wished to return to the Duke of Lu’s residence — why are you now here together with Cousin?”
It was only then that Prince Lan and Cui Shi noticed the unfamiliar young Daoist in the room. Cui Shi looked her up and down with suspicion: “Who are you? Why are you here?”
Qin Yao smiled quietly. This Linglong was truly no ordinary person — with just a few words, she had successfully shifted the target to her.
She unhurriedly straightened her Daoist robe, stepped forward, and bowed respectfully to Prince Lan and Cui Shi: “This humble practitioner’s Daoist name is Yuanzhen, a lay disciple of Daoist Master Qing Xuzi of Qingyun Abbey. Some days ago, the Young Lord mentioned that there was something amiss in the household and wished to invite our master to come and examine it. As our master is not in Chang’an at present, and affairs at the abbey are temporarily in this humble one’s care, I accompanied the Young Lord here. Given the urgency of the matter, there was no opportunity to seek prior permission from Your Highnesses — I ask that the Prince and Princess Consort not hold it against me.”
Prince Lan had grown up inside the imperial palace and, while he was not as keen on monks and Daoist practitioners as some of Chang’an’s other noble houses, he had heard the name of Qing Xuzi before. Seeing that this young Daoist spoke in a measured, orderly manner and conducted herself with composure and propriety, more than half of his suspicion dissolved.
Lin Xiao let a subtle admiration for Qin Yao show through, and followed up with an address to Prince Lan: “This evening at the Zuixiang Pavilion, while your son was momentarily inattentive, Linglong placed Gu Poison separately in your son’s wine cup and in that of Daoist Yuanzhen’s drink. Fortunately, Daoist Yuanzhen had already detected it beforehand, and so Linglong did not manage to succeed.” As he spoke, he made a gesture of invitation toward Qin Yao.
Qin Yao nodded and took the pastries from the bundle, placing them into the small cage containing the mouse.
The mouse was a large one — it finished off the small morsel of pastry in just a few bites.
Everyone held their breath and watched the mouse tensely. At first the mouse showed no abnormal signs at all — it even seemed full of energy, playing cheerfully with its own tail. Half an incense stick of time passed, and then the mouse suddenly grew agitated. First it pawed at its own ears, then began squeaking and thrashing, clawing frantically at its own chest and belly. After a few convulsions, its plump body rapidly shriveled and collapsed, and in the blink of an eye, nothing remained but a dry, withered husk.
What had just played out before their eyes was unlike anything anyone had ever heard of. Cui Shi was so horrified she pressed her handkerchief to her mouth and retched. Prince Lan too looked at Qin Yao in stunned alarm: “What—”
Qin Yao bowed: “Your Highness, this Gu Poison is called Everlasting Yearning — it is a dual-natured poison. The bewitching strand can enchant and ensnare a man whom the wielder wishes to captivate; the toxic strand can poison and kill someone the wielder wishes to eliminate. It is an exceptionally vicious and rare marvel among all Gu Poisons in the world. As you have witnessed, the pastries contained the toxic strand, while the Young Lord’s wine cup contained the bewitching strand. The mouse is small in body, so the Gu Poison acted quickly — if administered to a person, it would take a full day and night to take effect.”
Prince Lan had grown up in the imperial harem and was no stranger to the ways women used their charms to beguile and control men. But he had never imagined that such methods would one day be turned against his own son. He erupted in fury, his sympathy for Linglong instantly curdling into revulsion: “You dared use Gu Poison to bewitch the Young Lord — you have such audacity!”
“Your Highness, please calm your anger,” Cui Shi hastily spoke up in Linglong’s defense. “How can we take only this Daoist’s word for it? There is something altogether strange about a perfectly respectable young woman disguising herself as a Daoist — she may well be some fraud who has appeared out of nowhere!”
She glared at Qin Yao: “Can you prove that it was Linglong who placed the Gu Poison? If not, why are you making baseless accusations against her?”
Linglong sobbed behind her sleeve, a picture of pitiful distress: “I do not know what offense I could have given this Daoist that she would pour such filth on my name. I have never so much as heard of Gu Poison this vicious — I absolutely cannot accept this charge!”
Truly, she would not shed a tear until she saw the coffin! Lin Xiao exchanged a glance with Chang Rong, and Chang Rong, understanding at once, stepped away and together with Wei Bo moved the black-cloth-wrapped object to a brighter area of the room.
When the cloth was pulled away, the faint, rotten odour that had been hovering in the air suddenly grew overpowering. Beneath the wrapping was a corpse — so far gone that its face was unrecognizable. Every part of the body was swollen and festering; the nose and mouth had even rotted away into black cavities, from which corpse fluid was seeping.
Prince Lan’s face changed drastically. Cui Shi and Nanny Li and the others were so terrified that their souls seemed to scatter — people scrambled away in all directions, and the sound of retching rose up again and again throughout the room.
Lin Xiao waited until the worst of it had passed, then accepted a letter from Wei Bo, unfolded it, and spread it open. Inside was a portrait of a young woman — her features delicate, her appearance no more than middling.
“You should recognize the woman in this portrait.” Lin Xiao fixed Linglong in a cold stare.
From the moment that cloth-wrapped corpse had been revealed to the room, Linglong had known that the game was lost. At the sight of this portrait, the last color drained from her face, and her body went limp as she crumpled to the ground.
Lin Xiao withdrew his gaze and presented the portrait to Prince Lan: “From the moment Linglong first entered the household, your son had a portrait made from her likeness and sent Wei Bo with it to make inquiries in Youzhou. Naturally, nothing useful was to be had from the Cui family household itself. It was only after circuitous inquiry reached a distant relative of the Cui clan that the truth finally began to come to light.”
He spoke on, and cast a sidelong glance at Cui Shi, whose complexion had gone iron-grey: “That relative is the full brother of the Cui household patriarch’s uncle — a man named Cui Jingsheng, of a collateral branch, whose family circumstances were strained. Both his parents had passed away early, leaving him with only one younger sister — the girl known as Cui Linglong. After Cui Jingsheng married, his wife and his sister were at odds with each other, and before long Cui Jingsheng himself began to look on his sister with increasing disfavor. The husband and wife treated her with petty cruelty and neglect.”
“Living next door to Cui Jingsheng was a family with the surname Zhu. A plague had taken the lives of the Zhu couple, leaving behind only a pair of grandchildren — the grandmother, aged and muddled in mind, was left to scrape by alone with her granddaughter, Zhu Qi’er, on a meager inheritance. The household was even harder off than the Cuis — one could truly call it bare walls and empty rafters.”
“Zhu Qi’er and Cui Linglong were of similar age, and they crossed paths often. Finding their characters well-matched, the two girls had sworn themselves as sisters.”
“One day, word arrived from a noble personage in Chang’an that a girl from the Cui clan who had not yet come of age was to be selected and summoned to the capital as a favored concubine for the Young Lord of Prince Lan’s household. Cui Jingsheng received the news and set his sights on his own sister, repeatedly recommending Cui Linglong to the Cui patriarch.”
“That noble personage, under the pretext of a return visit to her family, made a special trip back to Youzhou from Chang’an. With the assistance of her own brother — the Cui patriarch — she personally selected suitable-aged girls from among the Cui clan, looking one by one, and found that only Cui Linglong was still under the age of majority, with looks that could just about meet with approval—”
At this point Prince Lan, with a meaning that was impossible to decipher, turned his head and looked at Cui Shi. Cui Shi had already looked wretched — this glance made her feel as though she were sitting on a bed of needles.
“Just as the Cui family was busily drilling the girl in music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, Cui Linglong suddenly died overnight, without warning. Cui Jingsheng’s scheme to attach himself to wealth and power came to nothing in an instant. Rather than grieving for his sister, he resented only the loss of his chance at sudden riches — he spent his days sighing and lamenting, a shallowness of feeling that was truly chilling.”
“Just as Cui Jingsheng was sinking into dejection and loss of hope, Zhu Qi’er suddenly volunteered herself, saying that if Cui Jingsheng did not mind, she was willing to impersonate Cui Linglong and go to Chang’an in her place. Zhu Qi’er was naturally prettier than Cui Linglong — if she went to Chang’an, there was every chance she would win the Young Lord’s favor. Cui Jingsheng was overjoyed, and immediately brought Zhu Qi’er to meet the noble personage from Chang’an.”
“The Chang’an noble personage, upon seeing Zhu Qi’er’s extraordinary beauty, was already captivated, and hearing that Zhu Qi’er was willing to play the role of Cui Linglong, what reason was there to refuse? She had people train Zhu Qi’er for several months, then sent for her to come to Chang’an. In hindsight, perhaps all that personage ever wanted was a beautiful young woman willing to do as she was told — whether she was truly surnamed Cui, she could not have cared less.”
“This is preposterous!” Prince Lan’s fury mounted, and he brought his palm down hard on the table with a crack. He turned blazing eyes on Cui Shi. The room fell into terrified silence. Cui Shi, her face ashen, bit down hard on her lower lip, twisting a gauze handkerchief over and over between her fingers, unable to get out a single word.
Qin Yao snuck a glance at Lin Xiao, whose expression was entirely composed. What a scheme this had been, laid out over such a long time. It appeared on the surface to be an investigation of Zhu Qi’er — but in truth it had been a deliberate, step-by-step maneuver directed squarely at Cui Shi. This was the first time she had ever witnessed the inner feuds of a great household at first hand, rather than merely hearing about them. Tonight, Lin Xiao had fought without a single drop of blood and left Cui Shi without the means to strike back — it was a genuine eye-opener.
“One pities that Cui Linglong — in life she was used as a tool by her family, and even her death went uninvestigated. Her killer slipped away and believed she could replace Cui Linglong and enjoy a life of luxury and ease. But Heaven’s net, though vast, lets nothing fall through it. At last, someone with the will to know has uncovered the truth of that day.”
As he spoke, Lin Xiao walked slowly to the side of the corpse and instructed Wei Bo to carefully draw out a long silver needle from the back of the neck.
The needle was about half a foot in length. Its shaft was steeped in blackened blood, and it cast a dim, sinister gleam in the amber lamplight — a sight impossible to describe without a chill.
Lin Xiao held the needle with a cloth, stood up, and fixed Linglong — now utterly drained of color — in a cold gaze: “Zhu Qi’er — do you recognize this silver needle?”
As the needle was brought near, a thread of Linglong’s most beloved osmanthus fragrance wafted into her nostrils. Zhu Qi’er felt the shock shake her to her very core, and she turned her face frantically to one side, unable to bear looking at it.
“In all of Youzhou city there are three ironworks, large and small. You deliberately chose the one farthest from your home, drew a picture of the needle, and sent your grandmother to place the order. The blacksmith still remembers your aged, hard-of-hearing grandmother and has himself drawn a portrait of her.” He took another scroll from Wei Bo, gave it a light shake, and unrolled it — the portrait clearly depicted a silver-haired old woman.
“At this point, is there anything more you wish to say?”
Lin Xiao lowered his eyes to look at Zhu Qi’er. His gaze was one of contempt — as though he were looking at a puddle of mud beneath his feet.