The night was dark and silent, with the tree shadows casting mysterious shapes. The moonlight outside the window was fragmented by the lattice, casting the face in front of her in half light and half darkness, making it appear even more eerie and terrifying.
The Queen Consort suddenly woke from her sleep, her extreme fear making her want to scream, but her throat seemed to be tightly choked, only able to timidly retreat to the corner of the bed with her hair disheveled. The face still grinned eerily, its voice seeming to float in the air, “I’m looking for my child. Have you seen my child?”
Tears welled up in the Queen Consort’s eyes as she desperately shook her head, raising a pillow in front of her eyes, trembling in the corner of the bed. She finally cried out in fear, “Who are you? I don’t know you!”
The woman sighed softly and suddenly reached out, her crimson nails touching the Queen Consort’s neck. Terrified, the Queen Consort cried and begged for mercy, suddenly feeling something sticky on her neck. As she lifted her head, she saw blood seeping from the woman’s wrist, dripping down her neck and staining her clothes.
The Queen Consort felt icy cold all over, her abdomen cramping with fear, feeling nauseous. Luckily, at this moment, lights were lit in the courtyard, and the maids rushed to the door upon hearing the Queen Consort’s cries, knocking and shouting, “Your Highness, what happened?” The Queen Consort, spurred on by this voice, summoned the courage to push away the figure in front of her and ran barefoot towards the door. Just then, the door opened, and she collided with a nanny rushing in.
She clung to the warm body in front of her like a drowning person finding driftwood, crying hysterically, “There’s a ghost in my room!” The others were startled, and they quickly lifted lanterns to shine into the room, only to see the bed in disarray, the curtains tangled, with no sign of any person.
A stewardess cautiously asked, “There’s nothing inside. Did Your Highness have a nightmare?” The Queen Consort sat up straight, her mind spinning: Was it just a nightmare? But the smiling face in the moonlight, the icy nails, and the blood dripping on her neck, that kind of terrifying and suffocating fear, how could it be fake?
“Blood, there’s blood!” A maid suddenly exclaimed, and the others then noticed the crimson blood stains on the Queen Consort’s neck and chest. They quickly surrounded her, checking if she had any wounds. The Queen Consort’s gaze fell straight under her bed, saying, “That shoe is not mine…”
A nanny quickly picked up a lamp to look, indeed finding a blue silk shoe under the bed. But where did the person who wore the shoe go? How could they disappear at the moment when they pushed open the door? Or was the one wearing the shoe not human at all?
The Queen Consort was helped to sit on the bed by the maids, still in a daze. Suddenly, she heard someone else exclaim, “What’s that?” She quickly turned her head to see a ghostly face glowing blue hanging outside her window, without a body underneath, its eyes staring straight at her, its lips curling evilly.
Unable to bear the shock any longer, the Queen Consort finally fainted.
The next day, the Queen Consort woke up still in a daze, only incessantly muttering about ghosts in her room, unwilling to stay in the mansion any longer. The Prince of Qing immediately sent someone to bring her back, and upon hearing this, the Princess felt both guilty and anxious, quickly instructing Yuanxi to fetch many precious medicinal herbs from the treasury to comfort and apologize to the Queen Consort.
The masters each had their calculations, and the servants were terrified by this news. Listening to the maids in the Queen Consort’s room discussing the situation that night, it was evident that the ghostly figure was Zui Er. Her soul unexpectedly still lingered in the mansion, and who knew how many people she would harm before stopping. With the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching, the atmosphere in the mansion was tense, and there was no longer any mood for celebration.
Early that morning, Yuanxi sat under a flowering tree, frowning at the stack of papers in her hand, lost in thought. Xiaodu walked over and sat beside her, sighing with mock resentment, “You finally remembered me.”
Yuanxi, however, had no hint of jest in her eyes, only raising her head seriously, “Don’t you find it strange, the incident with the ghost in the Queen Consort’s room?”
Xiaodu, seeing her solemn expression, also gradually stopped joking. He had also carefully questioned people about the incident in the mansion, and the servants’ accounts were all the same: Zui Er’s soul had returned for revenge and accidentally entered the Queen Consort’s room. He had also suspected someone manipulating things behind the scenes, but the servants claimed that ghostly faces had been appearing in the mansion for half a month, and that night’s appearance in the Queen Consort’s courtyard was probably just a coincidence. Besides, the Prince of the Qing usually stayed in his residence and held no real power. He had returned to the capital this time with caution, and there was no reason to antagonize the Marquis’ Mansion over this matter.
He simply couldn’t figure out what the purpose would be if someone were manipulating things behind the scenes. Since it didn’t harm the mansion in any way, he treated it as a haunting and prepared to have Zhou Jingyuan arrange a ritual to reassure the servants. He also went to his mother to comfort her, calming the situation.
Now, hearing Yuanxi’s summons to discuss, he knew she must have discovered something, so he focused his gaze on her, asking, “What do you find suspicious?”
Yuanxi said, “The night the Queen Consort was in danger, they found a shoe under her bed that didn’t belong to her. That shoe should have belonged to Zui Er, but if she came back to haunt it, why would she bother to change her shoes?”
Xiaodu furrowed his brows, “Are you saying…”
Yuanxi nodded, “I’ve seen that shoe, and I remember very clearly that it wasn’t the one she was wearing when she fell into the water.”
Xiaodu hurriedly asked, “So you suspect she didn’t die?” After all, only a living person would need to change shoes.
But Yuanxi’s eyes were full of confusion as she said, “But so many people saw her drown that day, and later her body disappeared. And if she was just playing tricks, how did she escape from that room?” All the maids who entered the Queen Consort’s room that night claimed they didn’t see anyone inside. If it was a living person, how could they disappear in such a short time, under everyone’s eyes?
The two fell silent for a moment, both feeling somewhat stumped. Yuanxi looked at the stack of papers in her hand and said, “And then there’s that ghostly face hanging in the tree. I had Steward Zhou ask all the servants who had seen the face and noted down where they encountered it. It turns out that all those places are around Qixia Court, and they’re all in wooded areas, very similar to the environment where the Queen Consort saw the face appear.”
Xiaodu followed her train of thought and suddenly understood her meaning. “You suspect that the ghostly face was seen before, as a cover-up for this time.”
Yuanxi nodded. “I think the appearance of that face before was just to deliberately find some people to verify if this trick could succeed.”
Xiaodu pondered for a moment. “What kind of trick can make a ghostly face hang in the air alone?”
Yuanxi shook her head. “I can’t figure it out either. That’s why I think we should go there and see for ourselves to understand what’s going on.”
Inside Qixia Court, the flowers and trees were still lush, but due to the rumors of haunting, it had become desolate, with no one daring to approach.
Yuanxi sighed helplessly at the scene before her, feeling somewhat uncomfortable at the thought of the effort and investment she had put into renovating this courtyard. Yet, she also felt stubborn, determined to uncover the truth of this matter.
The two walked to the large tree facing the Queen Consort’s window. Yuanxi looked up at the dense branches and murmured, “It seems we need to go up and take a look.” Then she glanced at Xiaodu.
Xiaodu immediately understood her meaning and widened his eyes. “As the Marquis of Xuanyuan, you want me to climb a tree?”
Yuanxi hooked her arm around his, speaking softly, “You’ve been on military campaigns for many years; you must be good at tracking. Others can’t compare to you.”
At these words, a smile tugged at the corners of Xiaodu’s mouth. So, he rolled up his sleeves, leaped onto the treetop, and carefully searched for any traces that might have been left behind.
Finally, he found some strange blue powder on a few branches. He quickly plucked them and jumped down to Yuanxi, examining them together. Yuanxi looked at them for a long time, then brought them to her nose for a sniff, carefully recalling before saying, “Doesn’t this look like phosphorus powder?”
Xiaodu’s eyes lit up. “Indeed, it does look like phosphorus powder.”
Yuanxi quickly recalled, “Wasn’t the ghostly face only seen at night?” Then a faint smile appeared on her face as she said, “I think I understand his trick now.”