“What exactly happened? Tell me everything in detail!” The Emperor turned directly to Huang Zixia, swept his sleeve, and pointed at her while shouting.
“Yes, I believe this matter should be explained from ten years ago,” Huang Zixa said, seeing Qian Guansuo’s bewilderment and helplessness, and Chuizhu prostrating herself on the ground, crying almost to the point of fainting. With the Emperor standing before her waiting for answers, she could only continue: “At that time, Qian Guansuo, due to extreme poverty, sold his daughter Xing’er. After entering the palace, Xing’er was renamed Chuizhu and assigned to the Princess’s palace. Chuizhu was intelligent and diligent, and after ten years of experience, she became indispensable to the Princess—and it was at this time that she discovered her father had appeared. Just as she was about to marry a promising young official through the Princess’s help, this father who had abandoned her since childhood appeared. Although in our dynasty, marriages between officials and merchant families have become more common, between a merchant’s daughter and a palace maid whose slave status was personally removed by the Princess and who was personally matched for marriage by her—which would the husband’s family consider better?”
Everyone remained silent, only watching Chuizhu who was trembling as she lay prostrate on the ground.
Finally, Chuizhu raised her head, tears streaming uncontrollably. She tried to open her eyes wide to see her father Qian Guansuo, but her vision was completely blurred by tears.
She could only murmur: “Yes… I endured for ten years, finally about to see better days, but why… why did you suddenly have to appear, why did you have to ruin the bright future the Princess had arranged for me? Do you know that if I had truly acknowledged you, my wonderful marriage prospects would have been ruined? Even if they didn’t cancel the engagement, as a merchant’s daughter, how could I ever hold my head up in my husband’s family?”
Huang Zixa watched her silently before saying softly: “However, your father had been eagerly awaiting reunion with you.”
“Yes, his sold daughter hadn’t died but was living such a good life in the Princess’s residence. He happily took that golden toad home, bragging to everyone about how successful his daughter was, not knowing I was worried sick all night, so afraid… so afraid that my identity as a merchant’s daughter would be discovered.” Chuizhu collapsed onto the ground, and from the onlookers’ perspective, her expression and movements of despair were almost identical to those of her father Qian Guansuo.
Qian Guansuo finally stammered in a low voice: “But… but when we met, you readily showed me the birthmark, I even heard your laughter… and, and that golden toad, you gave it to me yourself, I didn’t ask for it…”
Chuizhu froze for a moment, staring blankly without speaking.
Huang Zixa then asked: “Master Qian, don’t you think the voice of ‘your daughter’ who spoke with you sounds different from Chuizhu’s voice now?”
Qian Guansuo nodded dejectedly: “Yes… it’s not quite the same.”
“The person who talked to you showed you the birthmark, and gave you the golden toad wasn’t me.” Chuizhu finally spoke with a trembling voice, fearfully glancing toward the Emperor and Consort Guo. “She… she was…”
“It was Princess Tongchang, wasn’t it?” Seeing that she still didn’t dare say it, Huang Zixa helped her finish: “Although I don’t know why the Princess would impersonate Qian Guansuo’s daughter, in the Princess’s residence, we once saw a small porcelain dog by her side. Such porcelain dogs were the only common toys in the marketplace, completely out of place in those surroundings. I found it strange at the time because the Princess had once cut her wrist on broken porcelain as a child, and Your Majesty cherished her so much that he ordered no porcelain items be kept near her. So where did this small porcelain dog come from, and who shattered it after the Princess’s death in an attempt to hide it?”
Chuizhu breathed rapidly, tears falling one by one, but said nothing.
“Thinking about it now, that must have been the small porcelain dog Master Qian gave her in exchange for the golden toad. And after the Princess passed away, someone close to her—presumably you—destroyed the porcelain dog to hide the truth. The simplest method would be to drop it from a high place, then casually walk to the Sophora tree and step the porcelain shards into the mud, without anyone knowing.” Huang Zixa shook her head and continued, “Moreover, besides the porcelain dog, I think only the Princess could make the kitchen maid Changpu and you try so hard to hide the truth even at the risk of punishment, and only she could give away items bestowed by the Emperor so freely.”
“Yes…” Chuizhu finally spoke, not daring to look at those before her, her head hanging extremely low as she murmured almost inaudibly: “Who would have thought? I heard Changpu mention that Master Qian was looking for his daughter with a birthmark on her hand, and since I no longer had my birthmark due to burns, I just pretended not to know. Who knew the Princess happened to wake up in the inner room and heard about this? She said she was extremely bored with nothing to do all day, so she had me help draw a birthmark on her wrist with eyebrow ink and discussed with me how to deceive him. Seeing her so enthusiastic, I had no choice but to agree, drawing the birthmark I remembered having on my hand for her, and suggested she speak from behind a screen, thinking to just let her have this one bit of fun. Who knew that during their conversation they would mention the porcelain dog and Master Qian… Master Qian eagerly went to find one to give her, and as things progressed, the Princess became completely captivated by this game…”
A princess most favored by the court impersonated an orphaned girl who had been sold as a child, and this girl happened to be her maid. As everyone listened to this almost unbelievable tale, the hall fell completely silent.
Qian Guansuo knelt numbly in the hall. At this moment, even his body’s trembling had stopped, as if he could no longer feel the pain of his injuries. He just knelt there, dazed, unable to understand, confused and sorrowful.
“I knew things couldn’t go on like this. The Princess and Qian Guansuo got along very well. Although she never called him father, at first she privately called him ‘shorty fatty,’ then it became ‘fatty,’ and gradually changed to ‘old fatty’… I heard that Qian Guansuo had repeatedly bragged to others about his golden toad and his daughter in the Princess’s residence. The more excited he became, the more worried I grew… worried that my true identity would be exposed and my imminent marriage would be ruined in an instant… Even if they didn’t cancel the engagement, how could I, as a merchant’s daughter, ever hold my head up in my husband’s family?” Chuizhu stared at the floor tiles fitted together without gaps, murmuring: “Just then, the Princess had that dream, that dream about Pan Yu’er coming to claim the Nine-Phoenix Hairpin. Then, Wei Ximin died, the Prince Consort met with misfortune, and the Princess fell ill with worry. I couldn’t sleep night after night, watching over the Princess, terrified of making any mistake—then one day, as usual, I went to the Imperial Medical Office to fetch the Princess’s medicine. When I got down from the carriage, someone stared at my wrist and asked: ‘Are you Chuizhu?'”
Everyone’s gaze fell on her wrist.
Wearing white hemp clothing, she revealed faint scars beneath her sleeve. She pulled up her sleeve, exposing the arm covered in hideous burn scars, and said with a lowered head: “I think he recognized my identity from seeing my hand. When I turned to look at him, he… I didn’t know who he was. He wore a tattered cloak with the hood covering half his face, and the lower half was covered with a black cloth. On such a hot day, he was completely covered up. I didn’t want to pay attention to him, but he stopped me saying, ‘Xing’er, your father is about to die.'”
Her gaze wandered vacantly over Lü Zhiyuan and fell on Qian Guansuo, her voice distant and weak: “I… when I heard him say this, I almost jumped in fright. I was afraid people would discover my identity, but he said he would only speak two sentences and leave, so I had no choice but to leave the carriage and follow him to the other side of the alley where no one was around, to hear what he had to say. He said… I know you’re Xing’er, Qian Guansuo’s daughter. Wei Ximin was killed by your father because Wei Ximin demanded Zero Ridge Incense from him, and when they argued, your father set fire to him in Jianfu Temple; and the Prince Consort’s horse—your father damaged its horseshoe when he was carelessly checking the horses he sold to the Capital Defense Office, unfortunately causing harm to the Prince Consort; Sun Laizi was killed when your father broke into his house… Moreover, he asked me, do you know what will happen to your identity if your father is arrested by the authorities? What will become of your future?”
Qian Guansuo’s mouth gaped, the fat on his face trembling constantly. He shakily raised his hand, seeming to want to touch his daughter’s scarred wrist, but Chuizhu withdrew her hand as if burned, hiding it behind her back.
Qian Guansuo’s hand stopped at his chest, remaining there for a long time. His crying expression, combined with that fat face, was so ugly that one didn’t know whether to feel sympathy or disgust.
Chuizhu’s voice choked with sobs, almost incoherent: “He… he told me, did I think I could hide my situation from others? But he was my father’s friend, he had to help my father, and help me too. I was terrified and could only ask him what I should do?”
“So, he told you to steal the Nine-Phoenix Hairpin, is that right?”
“Yes… he said that for the previous two murders and the Prince Consort’s accident, Master Qian had alibis and evidence of being elsewhere, so he wanted me to… help my father create evidence of something that would have been impossible for him to do.”
Prince Consort Wei Baoheng stared at her, asking in disbelief: “So… you killed the Princess?”
“No! I didn’t!” Chuizhu bit her lip, her voice trembling, “I, how could I do anything to harm the Princess… That man said it would be simple since the Princess had dreamed about losing her Nine-Phoenix Hairpin, this could be connected to the case, and… everyone knows Master Qian would have absolutely no way to get the Nine-Phoenix Hairpin… I still refused, saying the Nine-Phoenix Hairpin had been put away in the box by the Princess herself, and I had no way to get it. But he… he taught me this method, showing me how I could steal the hairpin while taking other things. I… I had no choice…”
Consort Guo interrupted her with a shrill voice: “So the Nine-Phoenix Hairpin was indeed in your hands? You’ve been going round and round with your story for so long, quickly confess the truth, how exactly did you use it to kill the Princess?”
“Consort Guo, I understand your feelings, but we must still start from the beginning, otherwise how can we reveal the truth?” Huang Zixa said, then sighed: “The Princess died instantly from being stabbed in the heart, this kind of death involves very little struggle. And, strangely, a jade hairpin-like the Nine-Phoenix Hairpin would break when stabbed into the heart. So perhaps, although Chuizhu had already laid cloth underneath, the Nine-Phoenix Hairpin still broke when it slid off the box lid, separating into head and tail, breaking into two pieces, isn’t that right?”
Chuizhu sobbed uncontrollably, nodding heavily, and after a long while, continued: “I hadn’t expected the Princess to be so concerned about the missing Nine-Phoenix Hairpin. Her old illness flared up and became uncontrollable. So when things weren’t so tense, I quickly went to retrieve the hairpin from behind the box, planning to make it mysteriously reappear by the Princess’s side. But who knew… who knew when I took out the Nine-Phoenix Hairpin and looked at it, it had already broken in the fall!”
Her gaze passed over everyone in the hall and fell on the collapsed Qian Guansuo, confused and fearful: “I… I was so scared then that my heart almost stopped, holding the broken Nine-Phoenix Hairpin felt like holding a noose around my neck… Following that person’s arrangement, I brought the hairpin to the side gate of the Princess’s residence at night, but just as I was handing over the hairpin, I suddenly became afraid, feeling like this would drag me into an abyss. For some reason… I, I clutched the hairpin head tightly and asked, who are you?”
But that man who had covered his face said nothing, only snatched at the hairpin in her hand, not expecting the Nine-Phoenix Hairpin to be broken. He grabbed the tail of the pin, while the head remained in Chuizhu’s hand. Chuizhu, holding the hairpin head, turned and ran, rushing through the side gate, while the man, not daring to enter, gave chase for two steps before hurriedly leaving through the other end of the alley.