She saw that what he held in his hand was a letter. The letter paper was a faint crimson, with occasional flashes of sunlight revealing traces of golden patterns at the edges, exceptionally beautiful—clearly something from a lady’s chambers. But what was written on it, Huang Zixia was too far away to see clearly.

When they reached Xingtang Temple in Daning District, he finally stopped before the incense burner and opened the letter in his hand, taking a look.

After just one glance, he pressed his perfectly contoured lips together and slowly raised his hand to tear up the letter.

Then, he placed the fragments of letter paper into the incense burner, standing before it and watching until the pieces of paper completely turned to ash, before turning away and heading toward Wuben District where the Imperial Academy was located, without looking back.

After Yu Xuan disappeared around the corner, into the empty street, Huang Zixia ran to the incense burner and looked inside. The letter paper was very thick and had gold-traced patterns, so even as ash, it wasn’t completely light, only drifting slightly with the flow of incense smoke.

For some reason, Huang Zixia raised both hands, as if catching butterflies, and gathered the largest piece into her palm.

The paper fragment still held a slight warmth, and she carefully pulled down her sleeve to cushion her hands, isolating them from palm sweat, then closed her sleeve-covered hands together.

She held this warm secret wrapped in thin crimson gauze in her palms, not daring to move her hands, afraid that even the slightest movement would destroy the integrity of the paper ash.

She kept her hands closed, cradling this unknown secret and ran frantically through the streets toward Chongren District.

The doorkeeper at the Zhou mansion was already familiar with her, so he let her indirectly.

Zhou Ziqin, who was still examining bones in the secluded courtyard today, was startled when he saw Huang Zixia running in with closed hands: “Chonggu, what’s wrong with your hands? Were they nailed together?”

She carefully opened her palms, revealing the paper fragment inside: “Help me with something.”

“…Paper ash?” Zhou Ziqin asked puzzled, “Where did this come from?”

“From the incense burner at Xingtang Temple.”

Zhou Ziqin put on a serious expression and said to her: “Chonggu, let me tell you something. If you’re sick, you should see a doctor. Weren’t you always skeptical of supernatural things? Absurd practices like scooping up incense ash and drinking it with water when you’re ill—you absolutely must not do such things! If you do, I’ll look down on you!”

“This is a letter,” Huang Zixia helplessly held the paper ash in front of him, “It contains clues I urgently need to know. If you can reveal the characters on it, I’ll… treat you to a meal.”

“Who hasn’t eaten meals before?” Zhou Ziqin looked disdainful as he gently slipped a piece of paper between her palm and the ash, then carefully lifted it, moving the ash onto the paper.

“Then you tell me what you want.”

“From now on, you can’t abandon me like you did at noon today and go investigate cases by yourself!” He stated his condition.

Huang Zixia explained: “At noon I went to the Princess’s mansion. Without the Princess’s word, how could I bring others along?”

“Hmph, couldn’t you say I was the assistant assigned to you by the Court of Judicial Review?” He glared at her.

Huang Zixia sighed: “Alright… unless there are special circumstances, I’ll bring you along.”

“Great!” Zhou Ziqin immediately beamed with joy, vigorously patting Huang Zixia’s shoulder, “I love following you around, Chonggu! Following you means there are corpses!”

Huang Zixia pretended not to hear: “About the characters on the paper ash…”

“Don’t worry, leave it to me!”

Zhou Ziqin brought a basin of water, gently placed the paper on the surface, and then with the most delicate movement pulled the paper out from under the water.

The paper ash floated lightly on the water’s surface, and Zhou Ziqin rummaged through a nearby shelf for a while, finding a small bottle. He carefully poured the light green liquid inside around the edges of the paper ash, saying: “This is something I refined according to ancient methods, using hundreds of jin of spinach repeatedly boiled and filtered. I usually can’t bear to use it.”

The liquid gradually spread out, seeping into the paper ash. Under the invasion of the liquid, characters suddenly began appearing on the black ash as the ink traces remaining on the paper ash rapidly disappeared, slightly faster than the ash itself, showing faint traces.

The characters disappeared in an instant, as if the gray color on the black characters flashed by, and though not clear, they were barely discernible.

“Moon… splendor… flowing… shine… ruler…”

Zhou Ziqin carefully looked at the characters above, trying hard to recognize them: “What does it mean?”

Huang Zixia stared blankly as these five whitish characters quickly disappeared from the paper ash, and the entire piece finally dissolved in the water.

Slowly, with difficulty, she said in a low voice: “I think the third character is ‘flow’ with half torn off, and the fifth character should be ‘you’ with half torn off…”

“Moon splendor flowing shine you…” Zhou Ziqin suddenly realized, “It’s a line from Zhang Ruoxu!”

‘Though we gaze at the same moment, we cannot speak; I wish to follow the moon’s splendor flowing to shine upon you.’

He looked up at her and asked: “A love letter?”

Huang Zixia nodded, then shook her head. She couldn’t speak, only sitting down bewildered, staring at the ashen traces.

Under the erosion of the green liquid, the entire piece of paper ash had turned to ashes, half-sinking and half-floating as it dispersed.

The few remaining characters finally disappeared forever.

Zhou Ziqin was still pleased with himself: “Not bad, right? I discovered that spinach juice can remove ink stains from clothes, then found the method for extracting the juice in ancient texts. After using this specially prepared juice, the ink marks on the paper ash will lose their color a moment before the ash dissolves—though there’s only such a tiny time difference, it’s enough for us to see the characters. I’m amazing, aren’t I?”

Huang Zixia forced herself to nod, saying: “Yes.”

Only then did Zhou Ziqin notice something was wrong with her, and hurriedly asked: “Chonggu, what’s wrong? Your face looks… terrible.”

“It’s… nothing.” She said softly, glancing at the basin of now grayish-green dirty water, taking a long deep breath to force herself to calm down.

Zhou Ziqin was still looking at her with concern. She avoided his gaze, looked at the sky outside, stood up, and said: “Thank you for your help, I… need to go now.”

“Stay for dinner before you leave, you’re running around all day, have you been eating properly?”

“No time, I need to hurry back to look at that painting from Zhang Xingying’s house, I remember His Highness said he wanted to borrow it from the Court of Judicial Review.”

Returning to Prince Kui’s mansion, Huang Zixia felt exhausted in body and mind.

She forced herself to stay alert and, as usual, went to see Li Shubai first, informing him of the contents of that letter.

Li Shubai listened carelessly, playing with the crystal cup in his hand. The small fish in the crystal cup floated back and forth with the gently rippling water, helpless, only able to futilely wave its tail to maintain balance.

“It confirms the rumors in the district, doesn’t it?” Li Shubai watched the fish in the water, his voice like the water in the cup now, raising only slight, gentle ripples.

“Yes…” she responded softly.

He finally turned his gaze to look at her, showing hesitation and contemplation in his eyes for the first time, as if wanting to say something, but after a long while, he finally moved his gaze away, seemingly both consoling her and muttering to himself: “Rumors often only reflect part of the truth, or are simply false smoke.”

Huang Zixia didn’t understand his meaning, and after standing before him for a long while without clearing her thoughts, she could only change the subject, asking: “Has the Court of Judicial Review obtained that painting from Zhang Xingying?”

“No.”

She looked up at Li Shubai in surprise.

“When the Court of Judicial Review went to check, Zhang Xingying opened the cabinet but found the painting was gone.”

“Gone?” She recalled the scene of Zhang Xingying carefully putting away the scroll and returning it, slightly frowning, “Zhang’s father treasured this painting greatly and only took it out to hang for important ceremonial worship, usually keeping it locked in the cabinet… how did it suddenly go missing?”

“The Court of Judicial Review’s people believe he’s deliberately refusing to hand it over, obstructing the investigation, so they searched his house but didn’t find it,” Li Shubai said flatly, “Originally, it could have been a coincidence, but now it seems there might be an issue.”

Huang Zixia felt a trace of unease pass through her heart and asked: “How does the Court of Judicial Review plan to handle this?”

Li Shubai glanced at her and said: “Today the Court of Judicial Review already went directly to the Capital Defense Commission to summon Zhang Xingying. He was probably called away first thing in the morning, and there must be quite a few rumors within the Defense Commission. Now the Capital Defense Commission has said he must first find that painting before going to the office. In my view, if he can’t produce the painting in the next few days, he’ll likely have some trouble.”

Huang Zixia sighed internally and said: “Yes, I will pay attention to this matter.”

Li Shubai then picked up a stack of papers beside him and handed them to her, saying: “This is from the Court of Judicial Review for you, reportedly about what you asked them to investigate last time.”

Huang Zixia took them, naturally knowing it was about what she had discussed with Zhou Ziqin before—when Zhang Xingying learned about Dicui’s connection to the Princess’s mansion.

At the time, he said he didn’t know about this matter and didn’t know Wei Ximin.

But the Court of Judicial Review’s investigation, in black and white, completely overturned Zhang Xingying’s statement.

Huang Zixia pressed her lips tightly together, put away the investigation document, and said: “In that case, I’m afraid I need to go to the Zhang residence right away.”

Li Shubai waved his hand and said: “Go ahead, I expect the Defense Commission people all know you by now, you won’t need my written note.”

“If necessary, there’s still the Prince’s mansion’s credential,” she forced a smile, but as she stood to leave, suddenly felt a wave of darkness sweep over her vision, and involuntarily collapsed back down.

Li Shubai, sitting opposite her, moved quickly, pushing aside the table in front of him with one hand while catching her with the other as she fainted, supporting her half-sitting on the carpet on the floor, preventing her from hitting the table.

Huang Zixia waited for the darkness before her eyes to gradually recede, looking at Li Shubai who was supporting her, moved her hand slightly, wanting to stand up from his embrace, but helplessly had no strength in her body at all, and could only say softly: “Thank you, Your Highness… I might be tired, I’ll be fine after resting a bit.”

Li Shubai looked down at her pale yet still stubborn face, wordlessly picked her up horizontally, strode to the couch, and gently placed her on it.

Huang Zixia saw him continuing to look down at her, with such deep eyes, gazing at her in such a way that she couldn’t help feeling nervous and awkward, could only turn her eyes aside and say softly: “I’m really sorry… for being discourteous in front of Your Highness…”

“It’s my fault,” his voice was deep as he interrupted her words.

Huang Zixia heard many things she couldn’t quite discern in his voice, and looked up at his face in surprise.

And he spoke slowly, saying softly: “I forgot… you are a woman.”

She stared at him in astonishment, and after a long while, finally said quietly: “It’s fine, even I myself had long forgotten about this matter.”