Upon returning to the city, just as they entered the street where the Military Commissioner’s residence was located, they saw the Sichuan army lined up in formation, escorting Li Shubai and Fan Yingxi.

Huang Zixia and Zhou Ziqin quickly moved to the side of the road. While Li Shubai was speaking with Fan Yingxi, he looked up and saw her. Before he could react, his horse Diyu had already leaped out of formation and rushed toward her horse Fusha, letting out a soft neigh and nuzzling Fusha’s neck.

The distance between them became close enough that they could hear each other’s breathing. He looked down at her with a smile, and as their bodies barely brushed past each other, he asked softly, “Did you make any progress today?”

Huang Zixia looked up at him, nodded once, and said, “There are just one or two details left. Once those are cleared up, we can wrap this up.”

Wang Yun, who was in formation behind him, couldn’t hear what they were saying and turned his face away to look at the flags fluttering in the wind.

Zhou Ziqin, who was holding his horse back, heard Huang Zixia’s words and his jaw nearly dropped in shock. He quickly grabbed Fusha’s reins, pulled her towards himself, and shouted uncontrollably, “What what what? Only one or two details left in this case? What’s going on? How did it end? Give me an explanation!”

He was so caught up in his shouting that he practically sprayed Huang Zixia’s face with spittle. She had to raise her hand to shield her face and said, “No, what I meant was that everything is ready, we’re just waiting for the right moment. These final decisive matters still depend on Junior Constable Zhou – you’re our crucial pillar at this critical moment.”

Zhou Ziqin immediately bloomed with joy, pounding his chest thunderously: “Bring it on! As the Chief Constable of Shu Prefecture, whatever needs to be done, I’ll do it without hesitation!”

“Very well, let’s go to the Prefect’s mansion to look at the crime scene. I want to search for the murder weapon.”

Zhou Ziqin widened his eyes and asked, “Chonggu, you still haven’t given up? The scene has been trampled down nearly a foot by us, and dozens of people searching daily haven’t found anything. Are you sure you’ll find it just by going there?”

Huang Zixia said nothing, just pulled her reins, bowed distantly to Fan Yingxi and the others behind them, and headed straight for the Prefect’s mansion, only casually asking Zhou Ziqin, “You don’t believe me?”

“I believe! In all the world, I trust Huang Zixia first, and you, Chonggu, second!” He cheerfully cracked his whip and urged his horse forward, hurrying Xiao Xia to follow her.

Li Shubai turned to Fan Yingxi, who had caught up and said, “General Fan, I wish to visit the Prefect’s mansion. The General may return first.”

“Yes, respectfully seeing Your Highness off!” Fan Yingxi quickly led the group behind him in a bow.

“Today at the training grounds, I met with the various Military Commissioners and the different units of the Sichuan army – and selected several people to join my side,” Li Shubai said to Huang Zixia on the way to the Prefect’s mansion.

Huang Zixia nodded and looked toward Zhang Xingying.

Zhang Xingying’s face showed slight fear and anxiety, but then heard Li Shubai say, “Xingying will remain by my side. Now that Jingyou and Jingyu are gone, and Jingyi and others didn’t come, I find myself without even my usual attendants.”

Huang Zixia saw Zhang Xingying breathe a sigh of relief and quickly caught up with Li Shubai.

She remained silent, just quietly following. But for some reason, a strange bitterness welled up in her heart, feeling an uncontrollable sadness.

As Zhou Ziqin had said, the scene of Qi Teng’s death had indeed been scraped nearly an inch lower.

On the dock platform paved with large blue stones, all the grass had been trampled bare, all the flowers and trees had been manhandled until they had no leaves left, the pond had been drained, the silt washed completely clean, and the paint had been scraped off the pavilion pillars…

There was no murder weapon, truly none.

The two constables ordered to stay and search were beyond miserable, hanging their heads like defeated roosters. Even when they came to pay respects to the Prince of Kui, they remained dejected: “Please forgive our incompetence, Your Highness… we’ve practically turned this place upside down these past few days, but still can’t find anything.”

“Indeed, forget about a weapon one inch wide, even if it were a poison needle, searching like this, we should have found it by now!”

Seeing them searching for the murder weapon under the scorching sun, their bodies drenched in sweat with large wet patches on their backs, Li Shubai didn’t criticize them, only saying, “This matter concerns both the Military Commissioner’s office and the Prefect’s mansion. You two have worked so hard investigating the case, it’s been difficult. I’m just here for a casual look today. Whatever matters arise, you can discuss them with Constable Zhou and Eunuch Yang.”

The two responded and walked dejectedly to Zhou Ziqin’s side.

Zhou Ziqin saw A-Zhuo, the shortest and youngest, beside him with his head hanging low, and reached out to rub his head, then turned to look at Huang Zixia: “Chonggu, can you find it? Hurry up, look at these two, they’re so anxious their hair is about to fall out!”

Huang Zixia beckoned to him, indicating that he should follow her along the shrubs to the water’s edge, then turned back to look at the waterside pavilion and asked, “Where was your sister’s gauze screen at the time?”

Zhou Ziqin gestured, pointing to a spot near the shrubs, saying, “Right here.”

“Mm.” Huang Zixia followed that spot, made a circle, and then focused on the ground, examining it carefully.

Zhou Ziqin followed behind her, watching her step on the blue stones one by one, and couldn’t help but ask puzzled, “Chonggu, have you discovered something?”

“Yes… two flies,” Huang Zixia pointed at the ground.

Zhou Ziqin followed her finger and indeed saw two flies huddled together, squatting in the dirt between two blue stones, rubbing their front legs.

He was puzzled and asked, “What about the flies?”

Li Shubai, standing not far from the two, heard him ask this and said, “As the saying goes, flies don’t land on seamless eggs, what do you think?”

Zhou Ziqin was even more confused, opened and closed his mouth, blinked his eyes, and after a long while, turned back to look at Huang Zixia.

Huang Zixia straightened up, took a breath in the sunlight, looked at her long-drawn shadow, and said, “Alright, Fu Xinruan’s case is finished.”

“…” Zhou Ziqin felt he must be the most pitiful person in the world. Every time he ran back and forth following Huang Zixia, examining corpses together, looking at evidence together, why was he always the last to know when the results came out?

A sadness welled up in his heart, and he turned to ask Li Shubai, “Your Highness, do you also understand what’s going on?”

Li Shubai casually said, “I generally know, but there are still some unclear points that need Chonggu to reveal.”

Zhou Ziqin squatted on the ground, looked at the flies, then at them, and then cried out in anger: “You’re bullying me! Always leaving me out, I won’t hang around with you anymore!”

Huang Zixia quickly comforted and placated him: “Not at all! Look, the key clues are still in your hands, we still need you to step forward to unravel everything!”

Zhou Ziqin looked up at the sky with a profound expression: “You need the world’s number one coroner to take action? Do you think anyone can just casually ask me to come out of retirement? Unless…”

Huang Zixia quickly moved closer to him: “Please instruct us, Junior Constable Zhou!”

“Unless you stand right here and tell me everything clearly, one by one!” Zhou Ziqin pursed his lips and started being unreasonable.

Huang Zixia could only smile and say: “Ah, alright then, let me give Junior Constable a hint. The key to this case lies in the word ‘timing.'”

“Timing?”

“Yes, when Gong Sun Yuan was dancing, who among all the people present could find the time to slip around to the back and kill someone?”

Zhou Ziqin immediately fell into deep thought: “Well… it seems like no one had time then…”

“Think carefully? Their testimonies, the scene at the time. There was one person who could completely kill someone in front of everyone by going around to the gauze screen – when others had no way, that person could completely create a method.”

Zhou Ziqin held his head and began to think hard: “Who could kill someone in front of everyone? Everyone’s testimony seemed fine at the time, who would have time to kill…”

Seeing him squatting there wracking his brains, Li Shubai rarely condescended to speak up and plead for Zhou Ziqin, saying: “Chonggu, don’t make it difficult for Ziqin, perhaps this isn’t Ziqin’s strong suit. But I know there’s one thing at which Ziqin is unmatched, with no equal under heaven.”

“That would be my examination skills!” Zhou Ziqin pointed at his nose with his thumb, praising himself without any modesty.

Huang Zixia also nodded in agreement, entertaining this great one, and seeing him happy, then pointed at his chest and said, “There’s another key to this case, I think it might be related to the bracelet in your chest.”

Zhou Ziqin started, quickly reached into his chest to take out the bracelet and give it to her.

“Besides the timing of the crime, another important key to this case lies in the source of the poison -” Huang Zixia reached out to take this bracelet, her face becoming solemn, slowly saying, “And this crucial poison, this bracelet was present during both poisoning murders, I don’t know if this is a coincidence.”

As Huang Zixia spoke, she silently gazed at the bracelet in her hand. The small fish bodies biting each other’s tails, those flowing curves, how many times had she gently traced them with her fingertips, every rise and fall of the curves as familiar as her palm lines, as if just by lightly touching those lines, they could grow onto her palm lines, into her destiny.

She raised the bracelet, holding it up to the sunlight, the hollow jade soft and luminous in the current sunlight. At the heads of the two small fish, there was a line of characters carved on each.

“The longest of woods, what harm a small flaw.”

Yuxuan’s handwriting. These words he had personally carved stroke by stroke suddenly made her eyes widen.

A cold and sharp ray of light split through her mind in an instant, making her think of a possibility too terrible in a moment.

The sun slanted westward, carrying a hint of blood red. Through the various sized hollows in the bracelet – needle-tip sized, sesame-seed sized, grain-sized – bits of blood-red sunlight filtered through, hazily reflecting on her face, piercing deep into her eyes.

The jade’s color was thin and transparent, so the deep and shallow shadows also appeared illusory, seeming both present and absent.

Huang Zixia felt her mind buzz, the world before her eyes transformed into layer upon layer of shadows, wavering unstably before her, splitting and merging, rippling faintly.

The sharp and cutting things in her heart, stabbing into her chest one by one, made her hurt so much she couldn’t breathe. And all she could do was grip the bracelet tightly, forcefully moving it away from before her eyes.