The Daoist priestess held the food box’s bottom close to her nose, sniffing intently before shaking her head and extending her right pinky to gently scratch at it. Li Yuanxu opened his mouth to stop her—the writing on the box bottom was already extremely faint, was she trying to destroy evidence with her random scratching?
His mouth opened, then closed. Chai Yingluo wasn’t the type to act rashly and in an argument… Li Yuanxu honestly admitted he couldn’t win against his niece.
After rubbing the box bottom twice with her pinky, Chai Yingluo handed the box to Wei Shubin sitting behind her. She then lightly rubbed her pinky against her left hand’s back, raised it to examine under the lamplight, and turned to ask Wei Shubin:
“Ah Bin, what eyebrow ink do you and your mother use at home?”
“Ah,” Wei Shubin startled slightly, “Our humble home is modest, we just use ordinary ink… Oh, someone once gave Mother some Shixing eyebrow stone, but she couldn’t bear to use it, saying she was saving it for my…”
She swallowed the next word, her face reddening as she lowered her head. But everyone in the room saw her lips had already formed half the word “marriage,” and they all smiled, looking at Li Yuanxu.
This was truly an unexpected predicament…
Chai Yingluo made faces and silently laughed at Li Yuanxu for a long while, seemingly struggling to suppress the urge to tease her young uncle, before finally returning to the main topic:
“These characters on the food box, in my opinion, were written by a noblewoman.”
“A noblewoman?”
Both surprised and delighted, Li Yuanxu quickly asked his niece: “Ying Niang, how can you tell?”
The writing was crude and scattered, like a child’s scribbles. Li Yuanxu had assumed it was done by a servant, and the Pei father and son probably thought the same, which was why they hadn’t put much effort into investigating the writer’s identity. How could Chai Yingluo make such a different conclusion just by looking at it?
The Daoist priestess smiled at him: “Fourteenth Uncle, you and the Pei father and son, along with all the high officials at the Court who investigated and judged the case, are great men who naturally wouldn’t recognize this. If Lawyer Pei had taken this item home for his wife to see or brought it to the palace to show the Empress, the writer might have been found long ago.”
Her tone carried mockery, probably still resentful about yesterday’s comment about “women not being allowed in government offices.” Li Yuanxu pretended not to understand and asked again: “How can you tell?”
“It’s simple. Regular charcoal or powder writing is pure black, or gray-black when faint, but these characters have a blue-green tint that becomes more apparent as the color fades over time. The powder is exceptionally fine, easily adhering to the skin but difficult to wipe off.” Chai Yingluo raised her left hand back as a demonstration. “This wasn’t written with just any charcoal, but with eyebrow stone ink, specifically the most precious and rare ‘Persian Spiral Ink.’ During the Sui Dynasty’s peak, one piece was worth ten gold pieces, and Emperor Yang only awarded it to his most favored consorts with the most beautiful eyebrows.”
“Really?” Li Yuanxu was skeptical. Could she determine all this just from a bit of ink on her fingertip?
Chai Yingluo gave him a sideways glance: “Let me put it another way. If the writer wasn’t using eyebrow ink, what did they use, Fourteenth Uncle? Have you thought about that?”
“Just some charcoal or soot found lying around…” Such things weren’t hard to find, Li Yuanxu unconsciously glanced at the brazier in the room’s corner.
“Wake up, Fourteenth Uncle! What season was it when Pei Ji was ordered to reinvestigate the Eastern Palace poisoned wine case?”
“Uh… summer or autumn of Wude’s ninth year?”
Li Yuanxu remembered it was shortly after the Xuanwu Gate incident when Pei Ji began reinvestigating the case, while the former Crown Prince Qi Wang’s family members were still confined in the Eastern Palace, and the current Emperor’s family still lived in their original Hongyi Palace. The Xuanwu Gate incident happened in early June.
“So you know it was summer or autumn,” Chai Yingluo rolled her eyes, “There were no braziers indoors during summer and autumn, and prisoners weren’t given fire or lamps by rule, even food and water had to be delivered from outside. Where would they get charcoal black? Unless it was servants who could access the kitchens—and they were the first to be strictly interrogated, with nothing found.”
Put that way, it made sense. Li Yuanxu considered that whoever wrote these eight characters must have known the details of the Eastern Palace poisoned wine case. If this person was confined in the compound and living with others, wanting to secretly write on the food box bottom while avoiding others’ notice, eyebrow ink from their cosmetics would have been the easiest writing material to obtain.
During their conversation, the wooden food box had made a round through everyone’s hands, with Yang Xinzhi returning it to Li Yuanxu. Looking down carefully, he indeed saw a distinct blue-green tint in the eight faded characters.
He had seen this black-gray with blue tint eyebrow color in Da’an Palace, where some young consorts who liked to follow “fashionable makeup” had used it to draw various eyebrow styles. However, Li Yuanxu had never paid attention to such things, and if not for Chai Yingluo’s reminder, he might never have made the connection.
“I’ve heard Mother mention that one piece of Spiral Ink cost ten gold pieces,” Wei Shubin suddenly spoke softly, “Why would someone use such precious eyebrow ink for writing?”
“That’s why I say a noblewoman wrote it,” Chai Yingluo smiled faintly. “Such expensive Spiral Ink was just her regular cosmetic item. When Big Uncle and Fourth Uncle’s family members were escorted and confined to the Eastern Palace, there were explicit orders against mistreatment, so they should have been allowed to bring their clothing and cosmetics… After being confined, the writer either couldn’t or didn’t want to find cheaper writing materials. People accustomed to luxury don’t care about such small expenses.”
Put this way, the writer’s identity was almost obvious. Wei Shubin thought for a moment and continued asking:
“But the handwriting is so poor. Yang… noblewomen from great families were educated in reading and writing from childhood, how could they write so badly?”
Her question was naive, making Li Yuanxu smile as he naturally answered:
“That’s not difficult to explain. Since she intentionally wanted to remain anonymous, writing with her left hand would naturally result in crooked, messy characters…”
Before he could finish, Wei Shubin’s bright eyes looked over at him, their gazes met briefly before quickly moving away. Li Yuanxu immediately stopped speaking.
It was too late—the others broke into awkward laughter, with Yang Xinzhi laughing the loudest.
Li Yuanxu suppressed his annoyance, lowered his head to put the food box back in the wooden chest, and picked up the golden pitcher for closer examination.
Note: Regarding “Spiral Ink” and other early Tang Dynasty eyebrow makeup materials and tools, as well as the possible green-blue color effects, refer to Lady Meng Hui’s “Sixteen Sounds Among Flowers” Vol 3 – Chapter on “Ink Eyebrows.”