Everything circled back to the starting point of the matter – the five secret pills made by Prince Lu the Absurd.
Ru Siyao selected two pills, ground them up, removed impurities, absorbed iron filings and magnetic stones and other miscellaneous minerals, then roasted, steamed, and boiled them like a skilled chef preparing a complex dish.
Near dawn, Ru Siyao placed the final remaining powder dregs on an iron plate for roasting. Ghostly streams of white smoke rose up, emitting a strong garlic stench. An iron plate hung above the white smoke, colliding with the iron ceiling. When the white smoke met the cold surface and condensed, after the white smoke finished evaporating, small particles resembling coarse salt with nipple-like shapes condensed on the iron plate.
Ru Siyao carefully scraped off the “coarse salt” with a bamboo knife as if serving ancestors – only one grain condensed. This was the repeatedly purified arsenic.
Ru Siyao put this grain of arsenic into a small porcelain vial and shook it. The coarse salt tumbled in the vial, making a rustling sound that sounded exactly like a venomous snake flicking its tongue.
Just hearing the sound created a bone-chilling sensation.
Having stayed awake all night, Ru Siyao’s eyes were bloodshot. She said: “Though there was some loss during purification, this one grain is enough to make someone half-dead. This is just from two pills – Prince Lu the Absurd swallowed five pills at once, plus most other medicines were dispersing and hot in nature, causing the most vulnerable eyes to be damaged first. After going blind, Princess Lu found doctors to administer antidotes, but how can withered wood return to spring? He died before dawn the next day. Prince Lu the Absurd’s death process was as long as a northern winter, suffering excruciating pain before death.”
Hu Shanwei and Shen Qionglian had taken turns napping briefly while assisting Ru Siyao, so they were in slightly better spirits. Hu Shanwei picked up a hot towel to wipe her face, saying: “So Prince Lu the Absurd definitely died from taking the pills?”
“Yes.” Ru Siyao nodded, but her expression remained puzzled. She took out the pale yellow realgar from the iron container and flipped to the last page of the “Pill-Refining Notes”: “This batch of pills used only two qian of realgar. Moreover, these are medium-to-low grade realgar. Though not yet smelted and purified, from my years of medical experience, two qian of this grade realgar has very limited toxicity – nowhere near lethal dose. Yet from Prince Lu the Absurd’s corpse, he definitely died of arsenic poisoning.”
Shen Qionglian had just awakened and stretched. Hearing this, she said: “From the formula, arsenic’s only source is realgar. But Ru Siyao judges from experience that two qian of low-grade realgar simply can’t poison anyone, not to mention this batch made ten pills and Prince Lu the Absurd only took half before dying. The ingredients and pills’ results contradict each other. There’s only one possibility – the arsenic in the pills wasn’t in the realgar at all, but in other medicinal ingredients.”
Ru Siyao glared coldly: “Court Instructor Shen, I can’t match you in writing palace poetry, but regarding medicinal knowledge, you certainly can’t match me. The formula is right here – five types of stones total, seventeen medicinal ingredients. Besides realgar, none of the others can contain arsenic.”
Shen Qionglian said coldly: “Then how do you explain the contradiction between ingredients and pills?”
Hu Shanwei stood between them: “Alright, alright, did you eat ginger this early morning – so spicy. You’re both right. Actually there’s another possibility – someone wanted to harm Prince Lu the Absurd, wanting him to die legitimately. How to kill him without arousing suspicion?”
Having experienced several major incidents, Hu Shanwei was familiar with palace intrigue and court struggles. Unconsciously putting herself in the murderer’s position: “If it were me, I’d first need to understand my target. But in the vast Prince Lu’s palace, Princess Lu is a formidable character who manages the palace so tightly water can’t penetrate. I’d have no opportunity in the palace and would easily expose myself. So I’d follow Prince Lu the Absurd when he went out, watching him disguise himself and repeatedly visit medicine shops. Over time, I’d note down the medicines he bought. Having experts examine them would reveal they’re for pill-refining.”
“Prince Lu the Absurd’s previous scandals in Nanjing’s Forbidden City all started with pills, so I’d deduce Prince Lu the Absurd’s pill addiction had relapsed and he was tinkering with pill-refining again. In that case, I’d tamper with his medicinal ingredients, making him poison himself – originally seamless. The murderer never imagined Prince Lu the Absurd was serious about pill-refining, writing down ‘Pill-Refining Notes’ and recording realgar weights. The formula and pills contradicting each other actually confirmed Prince Lu the Absurd died from poisoning. So our sleepless night wasn’t wasted – eliminating realgar as the only possibility makes other impossibilities possible.”
Hearing this, Ru Siyao suddenly slammed the table and stood: “Right! This explains everything! If someone tampered with the medicinal ingredients, mixing purified arsenic into other medicines, a half-baked person like Prince Lu the Absurd couldn’t discover anything suspicious during pill-refining.”
“I was wrong – I only knew realgar contains arsenic but neglected to check if other medicines were mixed with… Let’s return to the pill-refining chamber immediately!”
Ru Siyao’s eyes blazed with no sign of fatigue. They dressed in Prince Lu’s palace servants’ clothing and used waist tokens provided by Princess Lu to return through the back door. With everyone wearing coarse hemp mourning clothes for the funeral, their dress was uniform, making it convenient to blend in.
To prevent anyone from tampering with evidence, Haitang had personally guarded the study all night. The two returned to the underground chamber. Following the last formula’s records, Ru Siyao found all the medicinal stones and ingredients used. Given Prince Lu the Absurd’s rigorous attitude toward pill-refining, the arsenic must be hidden among these medicinal ingredients – he absolutely couldn’t have suddenly added other materials on a whim.
Ru Siyao was troubled: “Over twenty types – where do we start testing? I’d need to take them out and distribute them to medicine shop clerks for help. I alone couldn’t finish in three days and nights.”
“Let’s try our luck first. Look at this alum granules – their appearance closely resembles the coarse salt-like arsenic you purified. Let’s start with this.” Hu Shanwei raised an iron hammer and smashed it down on the alum powder before them!
This was the method Ru Siyao had taught her yesterday – arsenic struck with iron tools would emit a garlic stench.
The hammer swung down, and garlic stench rose up, stinking enough, like breath from someone who ate garlic, didn’t brush their teeth, slept, then exhaled the next day.
What big talk!
Ru Siyao said: “This should be it. Alum is a detoxifying medicine. In plague-stricken areas, adding alum to drinking water before boiling can control epidemics. Prince Lu added alum to his pills in later years, thinking it could detoxify. But someone mixed pure arsenic with very similar appearance into the alum, taking his life.”
Truly being too clever for one’s own good.
Alum and arsenic were indistinguishable by appearance. Ru Siyao used the old method of steaming and condensation, condensing semi-transparent arsenic like stalactites on the iron plate.
Ru Siyao scraped off the twice-purified arsenic and weighed it on the Western scale: “About one qian in weight – enough to poison fifty Prince Lu the Absurds. This doesn’t even count losses during refinement.”
Having found the poison’s source, Hu Shanwei wrapped the arsenic in paper: “With evidence, I have something to report to Imperial Consort Guo. Truly mother and son are connected at heart – Prince Lu the Absurd was indeed murdered.”
Ru Siyao rubbed her face, stiff from lack of sleep, asking: “Aren’t you investigating who the murderer is?”
Hu Shanwei said helplessly: “Prince Lu the Absurd is an imperial prince. Imperial family members fall under the Imperial Clan Court’s jurisdiction – the Ministry of Justice can’t intervene, and even the Brocade Guard has no authority over Imperial Clan Court matters. I’m only a sixth-rank Court Lady in the Palace Administration Bureau – no power, no people, no influence. How can I investigate? This concerns a prince’s death. I’ll report this to His Majesty and Imperial Consort Guo – I can’t even tell the Crown Prince.”
Ru Siyao had originally left the palace because she insisted on a physician’s duty to heal and save lives, refusing to participate in palace struggles, and was expelled by Emperor Hongwu. Now encountering such events again, she immediately decided to leave Prince Lu’s palace and stay away from trouble.
“I now have a husband and son – I’m not as carefree as before. I can’t return to the capital with you. However, I’ll write you a detailed record, explaining every detail from beginning to end, signing and sealing it, swearing to heaven with absolute honesty. Take this to report. If on-site questioning is needed, I’ll wait at Prince Zhou’s palace in Kaifeng for summons.”
Truth and the true culprit were different matters. For uncovering the former, Ru Siyao contributed wisdom, Hu Shanwei contributed luck, and Shen Qionglian displayed family financial power.
But pursuing the murderer was a task the three court ladies couldn’t handle. In palace struggles, anyone could be the murderer – last time the informant was Emperor Hongwu himself. If not for remembering past feelings toward Empress Xiaoci, Hu Shanwei’s head would have rolled long ago.
Therefore, Hu Shanwei made no attempt to keep her, seeing her off. She also asked Shen Qionglian to find a reliable escort agency, hiring over forty escort guards to safely escort Ru Siyao back to Kaifeng, paying wages from her salary.
After seeing off Ru Siyao, they returned to Prince Lu’s palace to catch up on sleep in their respective rooms. Before parting ways, Shen Qionglian asked Hu Shanwei: “You’re really not pursuing the murderer, leaving everything to His Majesty and Imperial Consort Guo to decide?”
Hu Shanwei showed fatigue, asking back: “Do you think I have a choice? In the imperial family, truth is neither necessary nor unnecessary. All their fighting and killing are the Zhu family’s domestic affairs – outsiders can’t interfere. Besides Imperial Consort Guo, who cares about truth?”
Shen Qionglian also answered with a question: “Don’t you care about truth?”
Hu Shanwei paused, saying: “I feel tired and want to sleep.”
Shen Qionglian said: “You’ve changed. You’re no longer the passionate eighth-rank Female Historian you once were.”
Recalling the past, Hu Shanwei sighed deeply: “Yes, I’ve changed. Then I was just twenty, in my prime, ambitious, determined to climb up like Fan Gongzheng and Supervisor Cao, achieving great things, not wasting years of studying by candlelight.”
“Now I’m thirty-two, having served in the palace twelve years. Everything has lost its former novelty. I used to think doing this job well, not disappointing generous treatment, being useful – guarding Empress Xiaoci’s tomb for a year with only birds and beasts for company didn’t wear down my fighting spirit.”
“But now I discover that no matter what I do, how I contribute, how I rack my brains to guide Imperial Consort Guo toward becoming a virtuous empress like Empress Xiaoci, the struggles that should exist still exist; things that should come still come. In the Ming palace, innocent people still die, people spouting righteousness still use any means for profit with cruel methods. I gave so much, but in the end, the palace remains the same – nothing has changed…”
Shen Qionglian and Hu Shanwei entered the palace the same year – they were confidantes. With Hu Shanwei in midlife crisis, feeling lost and directionless, while Shen Qionglian retained her teenage genius nature, after Hu Shanwei poured out her troubles, Shen Qionglian patiently listened and said:
“Hearing you say this, I also feel quite meaningless – all empty in the end. Fortunately I still have poetry and want to write more works, so I feel okay. My head is muddled now – I could sleep standing up and can’t advise you. I’ll rest first.”
With that, Shen Qionglian actually went straight to sleep.
Hu Shanwei was also exhausted to the extreme but tossed and turned unable to sleep.
Shen Qionglian still had poetry and distant dreams, while Hu Shanwei experienced one compromise and calculation after another.
Physically tired, more mentally tired, truly weary of endless disputes. Who would use such scheming, deceptive methods to kill Prince Lu the Absurd, creating the illusion of self-poisoning from medicine?
Not the Northern Yuan, because Yanzhou was inland without border defense. Killing a peaceful prince was useless – better to assassinate border-guarding princes like Prince Yan in Beijing.
Also not remnant Han Prince forces like Consort Dading, because if avenging Prince Han, they’d assassinate publicly or publicize after poisoning Prince Lu the Absurd, wanting the whole world to know – that would be true retaliation.
Palace concubines were also impossible, because Prince Lu the Absurd’s death wouldn’t affect Imperial Consort Guo becoming empress but would accelerate it – at least in Hongwu’s Ming Dynasty, not having sons wasn’t a disadvantage for becoming empress but an advantage. Without sons, one could truly treat all nominal sons equally, truly aligning one’s position with the emperor’s – ultimately, it’s all about bound interests.
To comfort Imperial Consort Guo, an empress investiture ceremony would definitely be held this year.
Who was the murderer? Look at who could truly benefit from Prince Lu the Absurd’s death. Actually, the murderer was already obvious…
Thinking this, Hu Shanwei felt bone-chilling cold. Truly knowing people’s faces but not hearts – she had Haitang add another hot water bottle in the bedding before recovering.
Seeing her terrible dark circles like bruises, Haitang quietly added sleep-inducing agarwood to the incense burner, and only then did Hu Shanwei fall asleep.
Only in dreams could she find momentary peace.
She dreamed of the stone cities full of immigrants that Mu Chun described in his letters, with dialects from various places mixed together as they opened new homelands. She rode elephants in such hot weather, barefoot with flower garlands on her head, walking through endless flower seas where there were no lies, no disputes, only Mu Chun…
Meanwhile, thousands of li away, Mu Chun dozed at his desk behind mountains of documents. Shi Qianhu entered to see the young master’s face pressed against an open ledger, making some unknown dream, drool pooling and spreading the ink.
Looking at the urgent report in his hands, Shi Qianhu had to rush over and shake Mu Chun: “Young Master? Wake up! Urgent military report!”
“Earthquake? Sister Shanwei, run!” Mu Chun jerked awake, vision gradually clearing as Sister Shanwei’s beautiful face became Shi Qianhu’s stubbled face.
“What’s wrong?” Mu Chun casually wiped away the spider-silk-like drool line connecting his mouth to the ledger with his sleeve.
Seeing the dignified young master living like a rough man, Shi Qianhu sighed inwardly and presented the military report with both hands: “Luchuan Pacification Commissioner Si Lunfa has rebelled! Duke Qianguo has ordered full alert throughout Yunnan. While protecting immigrant stone cities everywhere, if there’s remaining strength, come support Kunming to quell the rebellion.”
Mu Chun rubbed his eyes as if still not awake: “This Si Lunfa keeps rebelling constantly. My father learned from Zhuge Liang’s seven captures of Meng Huo, catching and releasing repeatedly – which rebellion is this?”
Shi Qianhu counted on his fingers: “The fifth.”
Mu Chun bowed toward Kunming: “Father, two more times makes it complete. Son believes in your abilities – even without son’s support, you can succeed and capture Si Lunfa alive. Son has two million five hundred thousand new immigrants to manage here – really can’t spare time. Father, since ancient times loyalty and filial piety can’t be achieved together – you must solve this yourself.”
Seeing the young master’s excited manner, Shi Qianhu thought this looked less like his father calling for emergency troops and more like celebrating his father’s birthday.
Shi Qianhu pointed at the military report: “Young Master, please read it – this time is different from the past. Si Lunfa has assembled five hundred war elephants. This time Duke Qianguo is struggling. Young Master should support Kunming, otherwise if border lines fall and new immigrants hear news of defeat, won’t they all flee?”