Lin Xiao pondered for a moment, then added: “So I suspect that Lu female official’s death was both a matter of chance and a matter of inevitability. Even if it had not been her, it would have been someone else.”
He turned to look at Qin Yao. “Of course, when choosing a target, a person with no family always causes far less of a stir than one who has people to depend on — far less subsequent trouble as well.”
“Lu female official had no family?” Qin Yao said, slightly puzzled, her eyes widening a little. “But didn’t you just say her body was claimed by a kinsman?”
Lin Xiao frowned. “Lu female official had only one brother. By all accounts he was a man of brilliant talent — one of the foremost scholars in all of Shu — and had been hired by the Duke of Wei’s household as a private tutor to begin the education of the Xia siblings. When he followed the Duke of Wei’s family to Chang’an, however, he caught a chill on the road and died of the illness, leaving only his younger sister behind. Seventh Aunt, taking pity on her for being alone and without support, and seeing that she had spent her years beside her brother soaking up a good deal of learning, recommended her to the academy as a female official, so that she might save up a dowry for herself.”
“So she was a person connected to the Xia family.” Qin Yao suddenly understood. In the next moment she recalled how that female official Lu had once abruptly turned on her — citing some breach of academy rules and refusing to let the matter go until she had logged an infraction against her — pushy and overbearing in a way that was clearly using the excuse to vent some other grievance.
At the time she had been entirely bewildered, unable to think of anything she might have done to offend female official Lu. Who could have imagined she would turn out to be a person connected to the Xia family — which made her conduct at that time perfectly easy to explain.
Lin Xiao continued: “The person behind all this wanted to manufacture an opportunity to shut the academy down temporarily, yet without causing an uproar — so they chose to strike at a female official with no one to depend on. A’Yao, a person who has been strangled is not difficult to make to appear as though they hanged themselves. Even if we were to examine the body it would be pointless. We’d do better to find a way to understand what is actually happening inside the academy, and why the person behind it is so terrified of the truth coming to light.”
Qin Yao thought of the resentful spirits that had appeared in the academy that night, and couldn’t help but ask Lin Xiao: “Could Lu female official not have been killed by one of the resentful spirits?”
She got halfway through the question before realizing it was unnecessary. If it had truly been a low-powered resentful spirit, what would be the point of going to such elaborate lengths to make female official Lu appear to have hanged herself? This kind of cunning, deceptive method of killing could only be the work of a human being.
With that thought, she suddenly remembered Qin Yuan, who had also been found hanged in the dead of night. Her death had nothing to do with female official Lu’s, yet there was some vague, shadowy similarity between the two. Was it possible that Qin Yuan had also been murdered and disguised to look like a suicide?
Yet whether it was the Imperial Guards stationed outside the academy or the Crown Prince’s own bodyguards, none of them were ordinary men. What kind of person could slip past layer upon layer of those defenses and commit murder right beneath their noses?
Lin Xiao led her back toward the hall — she had been outside long enough that her hands had grown a little cold. “I’ve already sent someone to investigate the background of this kinsman of Lu female official’s who appeared out of nowhere. However —” he paused, and gave a sardonic smile, “— if there is truly someone orchestrating all of this, then given how that person operates, they will never leave behind any handle that would allow us to trace our way back to them. Even if we managed to follow a lead halfway, it would be cut off before we could complete it.”
Qin Yao’s heart sank. Ever since the day she had overheard her shifu’s conversation with Yuan Jue at the Azure Cloud Observatory — through to Qin Yuan’s death by hanging at the Jinghai Marquis’s residence — almost every turn of events had defied her expectations, all of it moving in directions that defied common sense.
Though a few days ago she had managed, by examining the formation of the Dipper constellation, to guess that the last of the malevolent stars — the “Girl Lunar Mansion” — had descended upon Yuyin Academy, the academy’s surroundings were now far too clean and still. Any attempt to read the balance of yin and yang and the five elements within the academy walls would have no foothold from which to begin.
The spirit-sealing formation was even more bewildering. Breaking it required a practitioner of deep cultivation and profound Daoist attainment — and she, at the time, had done no more than skim through a few pages, barely retaining the most superficial impressions. She understood nothing of the formation’s essential principles. Moving rashly to break it would only startle the snake in the grass.
Seek out her shifu? Her shifu had not even been willing to see her face these days, keeping a tight lid on every matter she tried to ask about. If pushed too hard, he might very well refuse to receive her altogether. There was simply no use expecting anything from him.
The more she thought about it, the more helpless she felt. Every piece seemed clear and comprehensible in isolation, yet when it came to actually resolving anything, the threads were tangled in every direction — a thousand starting points and nowhere to take hold.
Lin Xiao saw that she was deep in troubled thought, and murmured in a low, comforting voice: “The person I sent to investigate Yuan Jue’s background will be back in Chang’an the day after tomorrow. Yuan Jue is an old acquaintance of the Daoist — why don’t we start with him, and clear things up one matter at a time?”
Qin Yao could think of no better approach, and let out a quiet sigh. “I suppose there’s nothing for it but to take things one step at a time.”
The two of them had just rounded the corner of a corridor pillar when a figure suddenly stepped out from the shadows. They had no time to avoid it, and nearly collided with the person.
Lin Xiao moved Qin Yao behind himself and steadied his footing, then raised his eyes to see who it was — Prince Wu, holding a wine cup in one hand and bracing himself against the corridor pillar with the other, apparently already somewhat the worse for drink. How long he had been standing there was anyone’s guess.
Lin Xiao quietly reviewed what he and Qin Yao had just been saying and determined that their conversation would not have carried to Prince Wu’s ears. He said: “Seventh Brother?”
Hearing Lin Xiao’s voice, Prince Wu lowered his arm from the pillar. As if only now noticing the two of them, he swayed back a step or two, and when he made out that it was Qin Yao and Lin Xiao, he raised an eyebrow with a grin. “Eleventh? So you and your wife were hiding out here — what’s the matter, is your own home not enough for the two of you to share private words?”
Lin Xiao smiled. “The hall was crowded and stuffy, and I was worried she might not be able to bear it, so I brought her out for some fresh air. We were just heading back in.”
Saying so, he took Qin Yao’s hand and prepared to return to the hall.
But Prince Wu’s gaze had fallen on the hairpin at Qin Yao’s temple. He watched, unblinking, as she moved to pass him, his eyes fixed without wavering until he had made out the design of the pin. His expression shifted slightly — and then he gave a performance of pleasantly surprised laughter. “That hairpin of yours, sister-in-law, is really quite exquisite. It looks rather like East Sea cold jade. Might I ask which jewelry shop had it made? I’d like to have one made for Mother as well.”
Spoken at any other time, this would have been a little presumptuous, but just now, hidden behind the excuse of being slightly drunk and using Yi Consort as his stated reason, Prince Wu came across as merely having lost a measure of his usual dignified restraint — not as having caused any offense.
Qin Yao privately found it strange. Prince Wu had left the banquet hall not long after them, and here he was, perfectly placed to intercept them — having clearly drunk a fair amount, yet with not a trace of intoxication in his eyes, as if he had been waiting here specifically to ask about this hairpin. Since the hairpin had been given to her by Lin Xiao before their wedding, she hesitated, uncertain how to answer. Lin Xiao, however, let a glint of quiet irony pass through his ink-dark eyes, and replied with perfect composure: “I’ll let you have a laugh at us, Seventh Brother. This hairpin was a token of love I gave to my A’Yao — bought from Runyu Pavilion, going on half a year ago now. The shop owner told us that the jewelry they make is always one of a kind, and that when they came to possess that particular piece of East Sea cold jade, it was the only stone of that quality they received. If someone wanted another hairpin like it, it could be arranged, but first, the pattern could not be identical, and second, the customer would have to provide their own East Sea cold jade. So if Seventh Brother also wished to give Mother a hairpin made from East Sea cold jade, I’m afraid a different design would have to be chosen.”
Prince Wu heard this, and his expression went still. He fell into a marked silence. After a long moment he gave a somewhat strained laugh. “Eleventh, oh Eleventh — I always thought you the most proper and upright of men, and yet here you are, willing to spend a fortune for the sake of a beauty. Very well — I only mentioned it in passing. East Sea cold jade is hardly easy to come by. I’ll look for a good piece tomorrow and have some jewelry made for Mother then.”
Lin Xiao nodded and said with an expression of courteous concern: “Then we’ll head back in. The wind is strong out here, Seventh Brother — once you’ve cleared your head, you should return to the banquet soon as well.”
With that, he took Qin Yao’s hand and they went back inside.
Qin Yao had taken a few steps when she couldn’t help glancing back — Prince Wu was still standing in place, head slightly bowed, lost in thought, his complexion distinctly unpleasant.
She turned her head back forward, and caught Lin Xiao’s expression — perfectly neutral, with just a trace of the air of someone watching a fire from the opposite bank of the river. She tilted her head and pondered. This evening had truly been peculiar. Prince Wu had brought up her Plum Blossoms in the Snow hairpin entirely out of nowhere; Lin Xiao had, against all his usual habit, gone out of his way to account for the hairpin’s origins in such thorough detail. Both had behaved somewhat unlike themselves, which was genuinely puzzling.
Thinking it through more carefully, she remembered Xia Fen’s apricot blossom hairpin — and dimly began to understand. She stole a glance at Lin Xiao, marveling quietly. He was a man who invariably operated with not a drop of excess. He would always say less rather than more, yet just now, those few words of his had at once served to make his own position clear and also carried an unmistakable, pointed implication directed at another.
Once she worked it out, she found herself trying not to laugh. She had not imagined that this person — so grave and serious in appearance — was a first-rate marksman when it came to loosing arrows from the dark.