Xia, the Chief Secretary, arrived at the government office at three quarters past the hour of Mao to check in for duty. Governor Chi glared at him with profound displeasure, his expression thoroughly disagreeable, and proceeded to scold him over a heap of trivial matters for a full hour. He then shoved a formal invitation card into his hands, instructed him to deliver it personally to Military Advisor Hua, and abruptly declared a unilateral day off for himself before disappearing in a flash back into the inner office.

Xia, the Chief Secretary, was completely bewildered. He hurriedly sought out a clerk to ask what was going on, and only then did he understand the full picture.

It turned out that the previous night, Governor Chi had been arrested by the Fourth Young Master of the Hua Family and subjected to an interrogation that lasted half the night. The governor had not slept a wink, and had built up a belly full of morning ill temper, which he proceeded to dump entirely onto Xia.

Xia then took a look at the invitation Governor Chi had passed him and felt his head splitting in two. It was none other than a banquet invitation from Su Yongfeng, the head of the Su Family of Suizhou, inviting the Fourth Young Master of the Hua Family to a feast at the Su ancestral residence.

Even the dogs in Yidu City knew that the Su Family of Suizhou and the Hua Family of Yangdu were at odds. Especially that Lin Niangzi — it was said she had once been engaged to an outer branch member of the Su Family of Suizhou, though for unknown reasons the engagement was later dissolved, and then somehow she had ended up entangled with the Fourth Young Master of the Hua Family. The loves and grudges wrapped up in all of that were nine times out of ten impossible to untangle. How this cursed invitation had ended up in Governor Chi’s hands, and how he himself had now become the unlucky errand boy — alas, had he known, he would have spent the night at the office yesterday, staying overtime alongside his superior.

Xia, the Chief Secretary, trudged forward with heavy steps and walked into the Office of Justice.

The Yidu government office had six divisions in total: Personnel, Granary, Households, Military, Justice, and Works. Their main offices were all situated in the third courtyard of the Yidu government compound, facing the main hall at the front, connected by covered corridors to the inner hall, the reception pavilion, the study, the records hall, the mortuary, and the guesthouse in the fourth courtyard — all designed for the convenience of colleagues communicating with one another and reporting to their superiors.

The Office of Justice, headed by the Judicial Military Advisor, oversaw statutes, ordinances, regulations and procedures, the adjudication of criminal cases, the apprehension of bandits and thieves, and the investigation and suppression of misconduct. Its staff dealt year-round with the most vicious and hardened criminals, which made it rather unusual, so it had been set apart in its own dedicated courtyard.

In the past, when Wu Zhengqing had held the concurrent post of Judicial Military Advisor, Xia had come here often enough to know his way around. But today, the moment he stepped into the Office of Justice, his first instinct was that he had walked through the wrong door. He confirmed that the plaque on the lintel did indeed read “Office of Justice,” and only then did he proceed with confidence.

In the space of a single day, the Office of Justice had been transformed beyond recognition. Though the basic layout had not changed dramatically, every piece of furniture and furnishing inside had been entirely renewed. What astonished Xia most was that the original floor cushions and armrests had all vanished, replaced by — folding stools?

No, not folding stools. More like a fusion of a folding stool and a leaning armrest — taller than a regular folding stool, with a backrest similar to a leaning armrest at the rear, armrests on both sides, a thick and sumptuously soft cushion on the seat, and another cushion below the backrest, flat and round in shape, like a pillow.

Xia was unbearably curious. He glanced around, saw no one about, lifted his robe and sat down, leaned back — well now, this was comfortable!

The seat beneath him was both wide and soft, the backrest could support the full length of his spine, and the pillow-like pad was evidently meant to support the lower back. Most importantly, his legs could stretch out and his feet could rest flat on the floor. Xia delightedly stretched out a lazy yawn and felt his old aching knees improve by a full three-tenths.

The wood at the armrests was lustrous and smooth, pleasant to the touch — it was, amazingly, precious rosewood. The cushion was the world-renowned Shu brocade. Xia felt it was rather too fine to sit on, and reluctantly got up, only to discover yet another novelty: the regular tables and writing desks had likewise all been replaced with tall-legged versions, perfectly matched in height to these new-style stools.

Unable to resist the temptation, Xia sat down again behind the writing desk to try it out. It was perfect — at last one need not hunch over and cramp one’s legs to write. And then there were the four implements of the scholar’s study laid out on the desk, every one of them worth a considerable sum: premium Shu paper from the Hua Family Paper Workshop, a premium purple-gold jade inkstone from Fengwu Jiangshan Workshop, a premium Spring Mist ink stick from the Hua Family Xisui Workshop, premium wolf-hair writing brushes, a premium red sandalwood brush rack, a premium celadon brush rest, a premium black catalpa wood paperweight. Xia went through them one by one with trembling fingers, so envious he nearly wept.

“What are you doing?!” A cold voice suddenly sounded overhead. Xia gave a violent start and looked up, only to find Fangke holding a small white porcelain bottle, his face as pale as the porcelain, his pair of eyes black as deep abysses, his red robe splashed like blood — no better than a malevolent ghost walking by night.

Xia was so thoroughly startled he nearly did not draw his next breath, and clutched his chest for a long time before he could collect himself.

Fangke let out a disdainful “tsk.”

“Ahem — that is, Xia came to find Military Advisor Hua.” Xia stood up and said.

Fangke turned and walked away.

Xia was dumbfounded and hurriedly followed. “Is Military Advisor Hua not in?”

“Gone out.” Fangke swung his little porcelain bottle, turned, and entered the side room of the Office of Justice. This side room had originally been used as a storage room for odds and ends, but it too had been cleared out and set up with the same tall stools and tables as outside. On the table sat a large black lacquered wooden box, which contained several layers of compartments filled with all manner of strange tools.

Behind the writing desk was a full wall of medicine cabinets. On the left were three rows of tall wooden shelves resembling bookshelves. The first row was packed with strange blades, hammers, saws, more hammers, awls, and the like; the second row held porcelain jars, porcelain bottles, and porcelain pots in every hue imaginable; the last shelf was filled entirely with white porcelain bottles and jars, which in the light filtering through the side window gleamed with a cold pallor.

For some reason, Xia thought of cold white bones. He had been about to step inside, but now withdrew his foot. “Might I ask where Military Advisor Hua has gone?”

Fangke: “Went to fight a mob brawl together with Lin Sui’an.”

“What?!”

Xia stared in astonishment, watching as Fangke sat down behind the writing desk, poured a long stream of liquid from a white porcelain bottle onto a sheet of white paper, and then took up a small brush, dipped it into the powder in the porcelain jars, and applied it stroke by stroke across the liquid on the paper. Miraculously, the colorless liquid began to change — first red, then green, and finally settling into an ink blue.

Fangke’s own complexion darkened to match the ink blue, and he let out another “tsk.”

Xia watched with his heart in his throat, and genuinely could not bear to stay any longer. He reached into his sleeve and produced the scorching-hot invitation. “I would trouble Doctor Fang to pass this card on to Military Advisor Hua —”

Fangke abruptly looked up and said, “Do you embroider?”

Xia: “Eh? Eh? Eh???”

Whether Fangke had heard him wrong or not was unclear, but he proceeded to invite Xia to join him in the side chamber of the side room. Sunlight was sliced into small squares by the latticed window frame and fell across the floor; beneath the window stood an embroidery frame with a half-finished crabapple blossom pattern; beside it were two large black wooden boxes, which also held embroidery of crabapple blossoms.

Xia looked at the large wooden boxes with a sense of familiarity, and then it suddenly struck him — the box used yesterday to contain Lian Xiaoshuang’s body had been exactly this kind of box.

“These are embroidery pieces from Lian Xiaoshuang’s home. These are all her personal effects, and in particular this unfinished piece,” said Fangke, pointing to the crabapple blossom on the embroidery frame, “was most likely being worked on shortly before her death.”

Xia: “Xia knows nothing whatsoever about embroidery —”

Fangke gave another “tsk.” That was the third time.

“Xia is ashamed of himself!” Xia mopped the sweat from his brow. “Xia is truly in the way here, so please, Doctor Fang, do pass this invitation along to —”

Fangke: “Is it from a dead person?”

Xia: “…No.”

“Then don’t come to me. I only deal with the dead.”

Fangke turned and walked back out of the side chamber, sat down on the large stool in the main Office of Justice, and gestured for Xia to sit as well, even displaying rather decent manners by ladling a cup of tea from the steaming tea kettle and handing it over.

Xia had assumed it would be the Hua Family’s world-renowned Hundred Blossoms Tea, but as he lifted the cup and caught the smell, he nearly keeled over. What in heaven’s name was this blackish, viscous substance? Fangke stared at him fixedly with a pressure that was terrifying; Xia could not bear it, steeled himself, and drank it down — and immediately felt his soul leave his body, his eyes rolling back in his head.

This Doctor Fang was truly terrifying. Had he known, he ought to have gone to the Records Hall to find that thick-browed, large-eyed, easy-going Ling, the Judicial Inspector, to ask for help.

After what felt like an eternity of being alone in a room with Fangke for close to half an hour, Military Advisor Hua finally arrived fashionably late. The moment he laid eyes on Hua Yitang and Lin Sui’an, Xia all but burst into tears and flung himself forward. “Military Advisor Hua, you have finally returned! There is an invitation, and Governor Chi instructed Xia to personally —”

“Oh wow!” Lin Sui’an cried out in delighted surprise. “It’s a taishi chair! Hua Yitang, you actually made it!”

She spun around and sat down in the “taishi chair,” running her hands over it with undisguised fondness. “It has a backrest, you can stretch your legs out, there’s a seat cushion, a lumbar support, and armrests — wow —”

Jin Ruo also tried sitting in it, and was very pleased. “This height is just right — I could eat two extra bowls of rice!”

Hua Yitang fanned himself with his folding fan, looking thoroughly self-satisfied. “All credit goes to Mu Xia.”

Mu Xia replied modestly, “It was Four Young Master and Lin Niangzi who drew the excellent design drawings. The craftsmen of the Hua Family all praised this piece as highly practical and comfortable, and said it is certain to sell for a good price on the market in the future.”

Hua Yitang smiled at Xia, the Chief Secretary. “You have been kept waiting long, Chief Secretary Xia. As an apology, how about Hua presents you with a complete set of the chairs and tables?”

Xia was overjoyed beyond his expectations, and the wretched invitation was entirely thrown to the back of his mind as he thanked him profusely.

Fangke sighed. “Hua Yitang, where is the person I asked you to find?”

“Doctor Fang’s words are naturally kept close to Hua’s heart.” Hua Yitang stepped aside to reveal a middle-aged woman. “This is Shen Xiang, the Second Elder of the Yidu branch of the Pure Gate, known throughout the city as the Yidu Oracle. She is most knowledgeable in matters of embroidery.”

Shen Xiang spent a full incense stick of time going through all of the embroidery pieces left behind by Lian Xiaoshuang, then delivered her conclusion. “This is an unfinished screen design. The lower half of the crabapple blossoms was indeed worked by Lian Xiaoshuang, but the upper half —” Shen Xiang pointed to the half-completed crabapple blossoms, “— is not Lian Xiaoshuang’s needlework.”

Lian Xiaoshuang’s crabapple blossoms differed from those of others — they were not a single solitary branch, but a full cluster of blossoms in vivid, lively colors, giving an impression of exuberant festivity. The cluster Shen Xiang indicated featured blossoms nestled among leaves, leaves cradling blossoms, the pattern connected to form a size of roughly two handspans, with highly intricate needlework. At this point only half of the pattern was complete, the other half left blank, as though it had been cut diagonally across by a knife.

Hua Yitang: “Could it be that someone embroidered it after Lian Xiaoshuang’s death?”

Jin Ruo: “Who? When was it done? And why embroider this?”

Lin Sui’an suddenly had a wild thought. “Could it be that the killer embroidered it after murdering Lian Xiaoshuang?”

Jin Ruo rubbed the goosebumps on her arms. “Someone who can embroider after killing a person — what kind of person is that?!”

“No wait, let me look again.” Shen Xiang held the embroidery up to the light and examined it. “This cluster of crabapple blossoms was already completed before, and then unpicked. This half-finished portion has been re-embroidered over the unpicked pattern.”

Everyone: Hm?

Xia: “Wh-why? Why would someone do that?”

No one could answer this question. Everyone was thoroughly baffled.

Only Fangke’s expression remained perfectly composed. He stepped forward and pointed to the half-completed crabapple embroidery. “Something is off about this.”

Shen Xiang startled, pressed the entire embroidery piece against the window paper, and ran her fingers carefully and minutely over it. Her face changed. “Something is hidden inside the flowers.”

Fangke: “Can it be taken apart?”

“It can!” Shen Xiang fished a thin sheet of yellow paper and a charcoal pencil from her carry-pouch, laid the yellow paper over the embroidery pattern and rubbed lightly with the charcoal to make a simple rubbing. She then produced a small pair of scissors and began to pick open the embroidery threads one by one.

“By the way, I’ve identified the medicinal dregs found in Lian Xiaoshuang’s room,” said Fangke. “They were abortion medicine.”

Xia: “What?”

Hua Yitang frowned. “Lian Xiaoshuang had an abortion?”

Fangke: “If more than a month has passed since the abortion, it cannot be determined from the body during postmortem examination — but the possibility cannot be ruled out.”

Lin Sui’an: “If this abortion medicine was indeed Lian Xiaoshuang’s, then who was the father of the child?”

Shen Xiang’s scissors paused for a moment. “When the Pure Gate last investigated, we asked the neighbors. Lian Xiaoshuang rarely went out in her daily life — aside from delivering goods to an embroidery workshop once every half month, she almost never left the house, and she kept little interaction with her neighbors. No one ever saw her with any sort of sweetheart.”

“No, she did go out on occasion,” Hua Yitang said.

“To go to Wu Zhengli’s house to teach Wu Zhengli’s wife embroidery,” Lin Sui’an said.

The two of them turned simultaneously to look at Xia, the Chief Secretary.

Xia drew a breath and raised his voice. “Fetch Wu Zhengli and his wife to the government office immediately for questioning!”

The clerk outside acknowledged the order and ran off.

Jin Ruo: “And the packet of abortion medicine?”

Fangke went to the writing desk and retrieved it. Jin Ruo took it, sniffed it, examined it, then looked at the paper it had been wrapped in. She turned and went out the door. “I’ll go check and see if I can track down the medicine shop that dispensed it.”

Lin Sui’an: “While you’re at it, look into which embroidery workshops Lian Xiaoshuang frequented.”

“On it.”

The crabapple embroidery was delicately crafted, and Shen Xiang picked it apart with corresponding delicacy. Everyone watched for a while, and seeing that it would likely take some time to finish, Hua Yitang and Lin Sui’an invited Xia to wait in the main hall first. Mu Xia brought in tea and refreshments. Xia, still shaken, looked carefully to confirm it was indeed the Hundred Blossoms Tea before drinking a sip with relief, exhaling a long breath, and drawing out the invitation from his sleeve. “Military Advisor Hua, this one is from the head of the Su Family —”

Hua Yitang suddenly widened his eyes. Lin Sui’an made a sound of surprise. They then saw Ling Zhiyan walking in carrying a large bundle, his expression rather grim. He first bowed to Xia, then turned and walked to the writing desk, untied the bundle, and revealed inside a collection of case dossiers and scrolls — seventeen volumes in all.

“These are the seventeen dossiers from the Peach Blossom Killer serial murder case. I have gone through all of them carefully, and I have discovered something extraordinary.”

Xia swallowed. “Wh-what is it?”

“Of the seventeen victims, fourteen have been confirmed as killed by the Peach Blossom Demon. The guilt of the true perpetrator in two of the remaining cases is still disputed as to whether it was the Peach Blossom Demon. Only the final case has been definitively confirmed as having been killed by the butcher Tu Yan.”

Xia inhaled sharply. “Impossible! Tu Yan personally confessed and signed his mark! And his home contained the peach blossom branding iron! I watched it be searched out with my own eyes!”

“Chief Secretary Xia, please do not be hasty. Let us first hear Judicial Inspector Ling’s analysis.” Hua Yitang said steadily.

Ling Zhiyan took a deep breath. “My analysis is that Tu Yan is simply not the Peach Blossom Killer. This is a wrongful conviction. The true Peach Blossom Killer is still at large.”

Skit:

Lin Sui’an: We’re done for. From the sound of things, we’re going to be working overtime again!