“We’re late, and taking a carriage would be too slow. I need to ride horseback to Ganye Temple. Can you manage that, Shufen?”
“Uh… the journey isn’t far, I shouldn’t fall off…”
Wei Shubin certainly knew how to ride, but as she mounted her horse with Jinxuan’s assistance using the stirrup and saddle, she caught sight of Chai Yinglu mounting without even using the mounting stone or servants’ help – just raising her left leg and hooking with her right hand, she flew onto the horse’s back, her wide-sleeved Taoist robes not hindering her movements at all. Wei Shubin couldn’t help but worry whether she could keep up with such horsemanship.
Fortunately, the distance from Zixu Temple to Ganye Temple was indeed short. The two women, accompanied by several maids, galloped their horses and within the time it took to eat a meal, they could see Ganye Temple’s black-topped gate in the distance. Just days ago, that gate had been decorated with red silk and festive ornaments for a bride’s wedding, but now it was all replaced with white hemp cloth – a celebration turned directly into a funeral.
The temple’s Buddha Hall and wing rooms naturally appeared even more desolate. On First Lady’s wedding night, three large bonfires had been lit in front of the Buddha Hall, and much of the charred wood and ashes hadn’t been cleared away yet, just roughly pushed aside to make way for the coffin. The temple seemed to have far fewer servants now, and except for the guards still standing watch in the corner tower outside the gate, Wei Shubin followed Chai Yinglu from the temple entrance to the west wing compound, seeing only one or two maids opening doors and sweeping.
In the west wing compound where the former Crown Prince Li Jiancheng’s wives and daughters resided, there were quite a few people. Led by Zheng Guanyin, the primary consort of Prince Xixin, the remaining four young ladies were all dressed in mourning clothes to receive them, along with their serving maids and women – a somber crowd filling the courtyard. Lady Zheng made a deep curtsey:
“This guilty one respectfully welcomes the Empress’s envoy. My daughters and all servants are here, please let the Venerable Master search as you see fit. If there are any suspicious items, I alone will bear the responsibility.”
With a wave of her sleeve, all the doors of the main hall and east and west wings were simultaneously pulled open by maids with a thunderous creaking. Startled, Wei Shubin saw that all four County Ladies looked terrified, with the youngest, who was only about ten years old, hiding behind Lady Zheng. Chai Yinglu also started slightly, then hurriedly said:
“Aunt, please don’t misunderstand. I haven’t come with imperial orders to search. I’m only here to see if the First Lady had any cherished personal belongings to take with her – just to comfort the deceased. I naturally wouldn’t presume to enter others’ bedrooms. Please close all the doors, it’s quite cold.”
As she spoke, her maids hurried to close the main hall doors. Lady Zheng watched coldly without interference, only saying:
“First Lady usually shared the east wing with her fourth sister, her remaining belongings are all in that room. Venerable Master, please proceed as you wish.”
She turned to return to the main chamber but paused and turned back to ask:
“Has the First Lady’s burial date been set? Will she be interred at Yin Mausoleum?”
In the ninth year of Wude, after the current Emperor executed his brothers, he posthumously titled his eldest brother Jiancheng Prince Xi, with the posthumous name “Yin,” and his fourth brother Prince Hailing Yuanji was given the posthumous name “Li.” The two of them and their ten executed sons were all buried at Gaoyang Plains west of Chang’an, forming a burial ground with memorial temples in the city that exceeded normal regulations. People commonly called that burial ground “Yin Mausoleum.” Lady Zheng was asking if the First Lady would, like her murdered brothers, be buried beside her father’s tomb.
“My father has already submitted a memorial and received imperial permission for the First Lady to be buried in our Chai family ancestral tomb at Xianyang Plains, as the bride of a Chai legitimate son,” Chai Yinglu replied.
“First Lady was granted the title of County Lady, though not high-ranking, she was still of royal lineage…”
“My late mother is also buried in the Chai family tomb. She was a princess born to the founding Empress, was virtuous and meritorious, and was granted the posthumous title ‘Zhao,’ with front and rear feather banners, drums and pipes, grand carriages, pennants and standards, forty honor guard sword-bearers for the funeral procession, and tiger warriors carrying the coffin,” Chai Yinglu raised her eyebrows at her aunt. “First Lady was the bride of my late mother’s eldest son – she will be buried beside my mother, and all funeral rites will follow County Lady protocols. Our family will not treat her poorly.”
These words were irrefutable. Lady Zheng had no counter-argument and, with a cold face, gave another curtsey before turning to lead her daughters back to her chambers.
Letting out a long sigh, Chai Yinglu and Wei Shubin entered the First Lady’s former bedroom in the east wing. As they looked around, the female Taoist complained:
“Great Aunt has truly lost her mind. Everything was fine before this happened – I was busy running around this compound for so long, lost several rounds of weight from exhaustion, and her expression had improved somewhat, she even started calling me ‘Young Lady Ying’ to my face. Now with this incident, she’s taking her anger out on me, but I didn’t kill anyone! Besides, when First Lady was alive, she as the primary mother didn’t treat her step-daughters particularly well, what use is there in finding fault after death?”
Perhaps Lady Zheng was triggered by the First Lady’s death, reminded of her three sons who had been successively betrothed to Chai Yinglu, especially her son Prince Chenzhong of Taiyuan, and therefore particularly resented this female Taoist who had almost become her daughter-in-law… Wei Shubin thought to herself, casually comforting Chai Yinglu while carefully examining the First Lady’s maiden chamber.
This young lady’s bedroom… was truly desolate.
Wei Shubin had been in First Lady’s bridal chamber in the main compound, and while that room wasn’t luxurious, with exposed ceiling beams, at least it had newly oiled doors, windows, and walls, with thick new carpets, bed curtains, braziers, and screens. The flower-patterned red brocade bedding gave it a festive atmosphere.
But this bedroom where the First Lady had lived before… how to put it? The windows had been newly papered, the bed, seats, writing desk, and shelves were all sturdy and complete, and there was even a large bronze brazier on the floor – no furniture was missing, but everything looked crude and neglected, lacking the warmth of daily life. Lady Zheng had just said that the First Lady’s fourth sister also lived here, naturally with her nurse and maids, yet the room remained so desolate.
“Her sisters are also pitiful. Last winter when I first came to this temple, the rooms in both compounds had windows that hadn’t had new paper in two or three years – when the holes got too big, they just stuffed them with straw and old cloth,” Chai Yinglu sighed. “Great Aunt’s bed had a broken leg, with no way to repair it, so they just propped it up with some bricks. I couldn’t bear to see it, so under the pretense of preparing for the wedding, I had people from the Palace Service Bureau come and fix everything that needed repair or replacement.”
“Sister Ying is truly kind and righteous,” Wei Shubin praised.
“The Second Consort and Eleventh County Lady have their stipends, and the Empress provides care each year – they don’t lack for major necessities like grain, meat, vegetables, sewing materials, cloth, and winter fuel. But human nature is selfish, and it’s too much to ask the palace officials to carefully look after this place hidden from daylight,” Chai Yinglu sighed. “I can’t manage everything either. Take burning incense, for example, something we do routinely. On the First Lady’s wedding day afternoon, when the Empress was coming to visit, I told the First Lady to light some incense to freshen the room, but she just stared at me blankly, not understanding what I meant. When I asked, it turned out that in nine years, no one had ever sent incense to Ganye Temple! She was young when she entered the temple and had forgotten what burning incense was like. Fortunately, her Hebal nurse still remembered, and we ended up using the lily fragrance balls from my sachet…”
She had mentioned this before but sighed again at the memory. Wei Shubin murmured in agreement as she noticed a bookshelf in the room. There were several dozen scattered volumes on the shelves, and when she pulled one out to look, it was a text of the Lingbao Scripture. She pulled out one or two more volumes, finding they were all mixed divination and physiognomy texts.
She found this slightly strange. The popular books for young ladies’ education at the time were “Admonitions for Women,” “Biographies of Exemplary Women,” and such. If it was just for literacy, some classics, histories, elementary studies, or “Quick Primer” and “Thousand Character Classic” would be normal – but why would the sisters of royal blood be reading these Taoist registers and divination texts?
Chai Yinglu also walked over and bent down to pull out a book wrapper from the bottom shelf, seeing it was labeled “Ascending Mystery Scripture.” She shook her head and smiled as she opened the cloth wrapper to take out the scrolls: “Could it be that the First Lady and her sisters also wanted to join Zixu Temple and become Taoist priestesses with me…”
Before she could finish speaking, the text on the scroll caught her eye, and she immediately fell silent, bending to examine it closely. Wei Shubin also moved to her side to look and saw that while the scroll was labeled as a Taoist scripture, it contained Qi-Liang palace-style poems from “New Songs from a Jade Terrace,” with Emperor Jianwen’s “Thoughts from the Golden Chamber” as the first entry:
“The wanderer has not returned for long,
How shall this humble wife carry on?
As the sun moves, my lonely shadow shifts,
Ashamed to watch paired swallows in flight.”
Chai Yinglu let out a sigh, raised her head to shake it at Wei Shubin, and said with a smile:
“Young lady, you shouldn’t read such books too closely – there are even more explicit ones further on. Your father, Minister Wei, particularly despises the sensuous Qi-Liang style. I’ve read his traditional-style poetry expressing his thoughts – the imagery is broad and the tone unadorned. Though not mainstream, it shows the backbone of a remonstrating official, and I greatly admire it. If your father knew I showed you these, he’d probably storm into my temple tomorrow and burn down the Three Pure Ones’ statues to snatch you back home.”
Wei Shubin laughed out loud: “Sister Ying speaks truly. When my parents mention Emperor Jianwen and other palace-style poets, they always shake their heads and forbid my siblings and me from reading them. But I wonder how First Lady and Fourth Young Lady… where did they get this poetry collection?”
She pulled out several more book wrappers from the bottom shelf and opened them one by one, finding indeed more scattered volumes of “New Songs from a Jade Terrace,” “Collected Works of Emperor Jianwen of Liang,” and other Qi-Liang palace-style poetry, all hidden under serious-looking labels. Chai Yinglu flipped through the books with a slight smile:
“That Lady Hebal insisted First Lady was a pure-hearted maiden as still as water, but I doubt it. She was already eighteen, confined in this restricted temple year after year – how could she not feel the pangs of spring melancholy? — Oh my, this handwriting!”
At Chai Yinglu’s sudden exclamation, Wei Shubin hurried to look. The female Taoist was holding an old paper scroll that contained more romantic poetry from “New Songs from a Jade Terrace”:
“Lofty palace towers high and deep,
Vast halls are cold and cheerless keep.
A gentle breeze stirs the maiden’s gate,
Setting sun lights courtyard straight.
Hesitating ‘neath clouded eaves,
Singing, leaning on pillars with leaves…”
The calligraphy was far from excellent, with childish straight strokes, though neat and clear – obviously without proper training. Wei Shubin found the handwriting somewhat familiar, and upon reflection, she also exclaimed:
“Isn’t this the same handwriting as the First Lady’s suicide note?”
“Shufen, please look for more writing like this. If we can confirm this is the First Lady’s handwriting, we can take some samples and ask famous calligraphers to verify whether the suicide note was truly written by the First Lady or forged by the murderer.”
This made sense, and Wei Shubin grew excited. The two women searched thoroughly and found several more scrolls with similar handwriting, all containing romantic poetry.
First Lady’s nurse Lady Hebal was still confined in the woodshed in the back courtyard. Chai Yinglu thought for a moment and said, “That woman would never admit these love poems were copied by the First Lady,” so she called for the former Crown Prince’s Fourth Daughter, who had shared a bedroom with her eldest sister.
Fourth Lady was only an eleven-year-old girl, quite timid, who entered the room with a shy “Sister Ying” before burying herself in the female Taoist’s embrace. Chai Yinglu held her and questioned her half-coaxingly, and without much effort, she admitted “These poems were all secretly copied by Elder Sister at night, and she told me not to tell anyone, especially not to let Lady Hebal know.”
“Then where did she get the original books to copy from?” Wei Shubin interjected.
Fourth Lady looked up thoughtfully for a moment, then pointing at the scroll with “Lofty palace towers” said: “After finishing this paper, I saw Elder Sister return a book to Fourth Aunt in the east compound…”
Could she have borrowed it from Prince Hailing’s widow, Lady Yang?
Chai Yinglu slapped her forehead:
“I’ve got it! That must be it!”
“What?”
“Wasn’t this Ganye Temple originally Prince Qi’s mansion during the Wude era? These books in the First Lady’s chamber must have been left behind by my improper Fourth Uncle. Right, after the sixth month of the ninth year, all the household property was granted to General Yuchi, and his family came to move things out – they probably took all the valuable and useful books. These unwanted ones were only discovered when Great Aunt, Fourth Aunt, and First Lady moved in…”
After asking the Fourth Lady a few more questions to confirm these love poems were in the First Lady’s handwriting, Chai Yinglu had the girl’s nurse take her away. The two women then carefully packed those scrolls into book wrappers, with Chai Yinglu looking satisfied: “When I have some free time these days, I’ll personally visit calligraphy masters for verification.”
“Which calligraphy masters does Sister Ying plan to consult?” Wei Shubin asked.
“Now that you ask… there aren’t many choices, are there?” The female Taoist pondered. “The Director of the Palace Library Ouyang Xun, Supervisor of the Imperial Library Yu Shinan, Head of the Imperial Library Chu Suiliang – just these few should suffice.”
Ouyang Xun, Yu Shinan, Chu Suiliang’s calligraphy… calling them “authoritative masters” was certainly fitting, but having them examine these childish characters copying romantic poetry – the masters would probably cry out that their eyes couldn’t take it…
Chai Yinglu seemed to be thinking the same thing, a smile playing on her lips:
“First Lady appeared obedient on the surface, but she had her mind. It’s understandable – their lives were so boring when they saw these poems with a touch of human feeling, they became lost in fantasy. Ah, I don’t think it’s anything serious – if she had successfully married into my family and my elder brother treated her well, the young couple would surely have lived in harmony…”
Wei Shubin didn’t think a sequestered maiden copying some romantic poems and songs was a big deal either – she had secretly read many such forbidden books herself, and this female Taoist had read even more. Li Wanxi had her little secrets, but overall she was still a shy, fragile girl, wasn’t she? That pale, bloodless face, nervous stuttering speech, those constantly trembling slender fingers… fingers?
“Sister Ying, that jade ring we found,” Wei Shubin paused, correcting herself, “the men’s jade ring that Prince Wu found in First Lady’s dowry – could it be related to these love poems?”
“Oh,” Chai Yinglu seemed to just remember that matter, “I haven’t seen that ring. What did it look like? What color? Was it just an ordinary white jade ring? Rather large?”
Wei Shubin shook her head and described to Chai Yinglu the strange ancient style of the ring – its pale green bloodstone jade with taotie patterns, one side rising at an angle with notches carved below, and the other side pierced for threading silk cord. Yesterday before Empress Zhangsun in Lizheng Hall, time had been too pressing for such a detailed description.
The female Taoist listened quietly, her crescent eyebrows furrowing deeper:
“It sounds… truly suspicious. I’m somewhat inclined to believe Lady Hebal when she said the ring didn’t belong to First Lady…”
Before she could finish, footsteps sounded at the door. Wei Shubin turned to look – it was Taoist Jinxuan entering. She walked to Chai Yinglu’s side and reported in a low voice:
“This servant just questioned some of the servants. Young Lady’s guess was right – last evening, people came from Da’an Palace…”
Chai Yinglu snorted with a light, cold laugh: “I suppose they were Consort Yin’s people?”
“The people here didn’t recognize which palace ladies and eunuchs they were,” Jinxuan replied. “They came to deliver funeral contributions, but some had private words with Lady Zheng, not letting others hear – exactly as Young Lady guessed.”
No wonder Lady Zheng was so hostile toward Chai Yinglu today – it must be related to last night’s visitors from Da’an Palace. Wei Shubin recalled Chai Yinglu saying that Da’an Palace was controlled by Consort Yin, who used the Retired Emperor to command others, and her heart tightened. What vicious scheme had that scheming woman devised now?
More footsteps came from outside the window, this time urgent and loud, thundering right up to the door. Li Yuangui’s voice came through, somewhat hoarse and sharp:
“Ying’er? Is the Venerable Master in this room? Ying’er? I have an urgent business!”
Vol 1 – Chapter 17 Notes:
From “Old Tang History, Biography Section 8, Princess Pingyang”:
“In the sixth year, she passed away. When it came time for burial, an imperial edict granted her front and rear feather canopies, drums and pipes, grand carriages, banners, and standards, forty sword-bearing guards, and tiger warriors in armor. The Court of Imperial Sacrifices submitted a memorial stating that according to ritual, women should not have drums and pipes. Emperor Gaozu said: ‘Drums and pipes are military music. Previously, the Princess raised troops at Sizhu to support the righteous banner, personally wielding the golden drum – she has the merit of helping establish the empire. King Wen’s mother is listed among the Ten Disruptions; the Princess’s achievements in assisting the founding mandate are not comparable to ordinary women. How could she not have drums and pipes!’ Thus he specially granted them to mark her extraordinary achievements; furthermore, he ordered the officials to follow the rule that ‘clarity in virtue and merit is called Zhao’ from the Rules for Posthumous Names, and bestowed upon the Princess the posthumous title ‘Zhao.'”
This historical material should be quite well-known. Here’s an explanation of what “front and rear feather canopies, drums and pipes, grand carriages, banners and standards, forty sword-bearing guards, and tiger warriors in armor” represent. Generally speaking, these were all high-ranking funeral ceremonial implements and honor guards.
Feather canopies (Yu Bao): Long poles with bird feathers clustered like umbrellas at the top, carried in the funeral procession.
Drums and pipes (Gu Chui): A band primarily playing stirring music (such as military music).
Grand carriages (Da Lu): Generally refers to the emperor’s ceremonial carriage; its use in funeral processions indicated the deceased’s noble status.
Banners and standards (Hui Zhuang): Another type of decorative element consisting of flags and canopies mounted on poles.
Forty sword-bearing guards (Ban Jian Si Shi Ren): This can be understood as forty ceremonial guards carrying ritual swords.
Tiger warriors in armor (Hu Ben Jia Zu): Soldiers wearing ceremonial armor.