Huang Zixia was momentarily stunned. Xiao Shi silently knelt, bowing to them in greeting, her soft skirt brushing soundlessly across the floor, as quiet as a flower falling without wind.
“Xiao Shi thanks Prince Kui for saving my life back then.”
Li Shubai nodded slightly, saying nothing.
Xiao Shi remained kneeling, looking at him with calm but sorrowful eyes, her gaze seemingly filled with countless thoughts that could not be expressed.
After a long while, she finally spoke in a hoarse voice: “I’ve been staying in Taiji Palace… it’s been abandoned, almost no outsiders pass through, and no one knows who I am… until today when Empress Wang came to tell me that if it weren’t for me, Xue Se might not have died.”
Xiao Shi spoke quietly, head bowed as she knelt on the ground, so still, she seemed to barely breathe.
Huang Zixia slowly said: “Everything was a misunderstanding. Xue Se’s death… you’re not the murderer.”
On Xiao Shi’s pale face, devoid of rouge, floated a layer of icy whiteness. She looked at her with lifeless, weak eyes and said softly: “But I think Her Majesty the Empress is right. If it weren’t for me, Xue Se wouldn’t have died…”
Huang Zixia said: “However if it weren’t for you, Xue Se would have been gone three years ago.”
But Xiao Shi wasn’t comforted. Her head drooped lower and lower until she was almost prostrate on the ground. She pressed her forehead against the back of her hand on the floor, her voice choked and muffled: “If it weren’t for Xue Se, I wouldn’t be in this world either… We relied on each other amid the chaos, then went to Yangzhou together, then to Puzhou… Aunt Landai treated us like her own children, and like Xue Se, I learned the zither and dance from her. Though we weren’t very good at either, these three years, we lived well. If… if Madam Feng hadn’t appeared before us, we would still be living that good life until now…”
Li Shubai watched coldly from the side, saying nothing.
“The Empress berated me today, saying that because of my vanity, I wrongfully took Xue Se’s place, leading to this great mistake… But, neither Xue Se nor I knew of her current status, even when Madam Feng came to get us, she didn’t know…” Xiao Shi covered her face, speaking tremulously, tears flowing uncontrollably through her fingers, “At that time, Aunt Landai and Uncle had gone to Zhangye… Xue Se heard from the doorkeeper that her mother had sent someone to bring her to the capital for an arranged marriage, and she discussed it with me, saying she had no intention of marrying now. Moreover, years ago, it was her mother who abandoned her and her father in pursuit of glory, and her father became ill with grief because of this, passing away in his early thirties… So she didn’t want to see her mother! But I persuaded her, saying that although we were staying with Aunt Landai, and she was anxious to help us, with our background, finding good matches wouldn’t be easy. If her mother could truly find her a good marriage, it wouldn’t be a bad thing…
“But Xue Se grabbed my hand and said, why don’t we do this: anyway, my mother abandoned me when I was five, and Madam Feng only saw us once in Yangzhou when we were thirteen or fourteen and covered in dirt, who knows what I look like now? You pretend to be me and go to the capital with Madam Feng. If there is something good, you might be lucky enough to marry into a good family. Then… then…
“Then she took out the silver ingot that Prince Kui had let us take away back then, split it in half, and gave it to me, saying, use this as proof, hoping you can help me inquire about that person in the capital, see where he is now. It’s been three years, why hasn’t he come to find me with the hairpin? Even if he went to Yangzhou, the people at Yunyao Garden would have told him Aunt Landai was in Puzhou…”
“I wanted so much to tell her that her leaf-veined hairpin was thrown away right after she gave it away. I had secretly kept it for her for three years, planning to return it to her when she got married. But I knew if I said this, Xue Se would certainly be very embarrassed, so I thought, better not tell her, just take it to the capital and return it to her mother instead.”
At this point, Xiao Shi fell into a long daze before biting her lower lip and continuing: “However, when I arrived at the Wang family and saw Empress Wang, I knew that Xue Se and I had probably made a terrible mistake. We didn’t know her mother was now someone in the highest heavens; we thought… we thought she had only married a wealthy merchant or minor official… But, but I didn’t dare speak up! After learning of her status and this major palace secret, if I were to say I was just an impostor, wouldn’t that be asking for death? I gave Empress Wang the leaf-veined hairpin, and she had no doubts about my identity, so she told me that Prince Kui was looking to choose a consort, and since the Wang clan currently had no outstanding young ladies, I could participate in the selection as the fourth branch’s daughter. At that time I was overjoyed, thinking that if I became the princess consort, not only would I have glory and wealth, but I could certainly use the prince’s mansion’s power to find our benefactor, Xue Se’s love. However, when I was led to the back hall and saw Prince Kui standing before me…”
Her lips trembled violently, her throat constricted, unable to speak for a long time. After a while, she covered her face and sobbed: “I knew then that fate was cruel, and everything was over.”
Her voice struggled to emerge from her throat, sounding particularly miserable in the quiet night. The night wind suddenly grew fierce, and the palace lanterns’ light swayed dramatically, rippling across her face in waves, giving her features an eerie distortion that was unsettling.
“I couldn’t reveal the secret I carried, I had nightmares every night, dreaming that I, who had stolen Xue Se’s love, would die a horrible death… Yet I couldn’t control myself from guiltily fantasizing about suddenly rising to prominence, becoming the envied Princess Kui… She lay on the ground, her fingernails digging into the blue brick floor until they broke, yet she seemed to feel nothing, “I had also thought that after marrying Prince Kui, I just wouldn’t let Xue Se and Prince Kui meet, and then I would find her the best man in the world…”
Huang Zixia looked at Li Shubai’s profile, seeing him only watching the palace lanterns spinning in the wind under the corridor, his face expressionless.
She couldn’t help but think, was there any meaning to such torment, pain, and attachment being wasted on a man who felt absolutely nothing for you?
Just like the near and far lanterns in the garden now, no matter how brilliant and dazzling they were, who would know which beautiful flower blooming in the deep night they had once illuminated?
“Those few days I could neither eat nor sleep, and finally revealed the secret in my sleep-talking. I don’t know if Madam Feng truly noticed, but she must have become suspicious. And I knew that once this matter was exposed, my life… would certainly end here in Chang’an. And at this time, Empress Wang privately had someone ask me if Madam Feng seemed reliable. I… I don’t even know why I inexplicably shook my head…”
Sure enough, it was Empress Wang who had someone poison Madam Feng, killed her and then abandoned her body among the refugees in Youzhou, disguising it as a death from the plague.
“Then, Empress Wang helped you poison Madam Feng and disposed of the body?”
Xiao Shi cried until she almost fainted, unable to speak, only managing to barely nod.
Huang Zixia secretly sighed in her heart, stepped forward to help up the sobbing Xiao Shi, and said softly: “Get up, it’s already your great fortune that the Empress spared your life.”
Li Shubai finally spoke: “How did she tell you to handle yourself from now on?”
Xiao Shi opened the package beside her and with trembling hands took out a small urn. She held the urn in her arms, gently caressing it for a long time before looking up at them and saying: “These are Xue Se’s ashes. I want to take her back to Liuzhou and bury her beside her father. From now on, I will guard her grave until death, tending to it daily, never to be separated.”
Huang Zixia stood before her, seeing her loosened hair by her cheeks trembling slightly in the night wind coming through the window, like rootless duckweed, unable to return and with no path forward.
Li Shubai took two silver ingots from the drawer beside him, placed them before her, and said: “Take them back.”
Xiao Shi looked at the two similarly sized silver ingots and said softly: “Xue Se often told me that if one day she could see you again when you took out that leaf-veined dewdrop hairpin, she would take out this silver ingot, as… your token of love. At Yongshun Hall, when I knew I could never be with you anymore, and even Xue Se… probably never could either. So I left it there, thinking that if you truly remembered us and saw it, perhaps it could leave a faint trace in your heart…”
Huang Zixia sighed, picking up the other half, and said: “And this half was evidence that the woman who came to the outer courtyard was Xue Se. Perhaps she was suddenly attacked in that room, and by the time I rushed over, though only moments had passed, I still missed her.”
“All of this is fate,” Xiao Shi clutched the silver ingot, murmuring, “My fate, her fate, was determined twelve years ago.”
Because one woman altered her own fate, from that moment, the deviated life paths changed many people’s destinies.
After seeing Xiao Shi off, Huang Zixia watched the palace carriage heading toward the outskirts of Chang’an in the silent night after curfew, toward an unknown future.
She turned back to the mansion gate, only to find Yongji and Chang Qing, who had accompanied Xiao Shi, standing at the entrance, gesturing for her to get in the carriage: “Master Yang, the Empress said that regardless of how late it is, whatever your condition, whether or not you caught a cold from falling in the water, she must see you.”
Here it came, the sign that they were about to make their move.
Empress Wang knew that Xiao Shi, the key person in this case, had come to seek an audience, and she would certainly meet with her, so this was the trap laid here!
She made a bitter face and instinctively looked toward Li Shubai.
Li Shubai calmly nodded once, indicating she should go with them.
She widened her eyes slightly, looking at him speechlessly, using her gaze to signal him—Empress Wang was going to make me disappear from this world!
He only returned a “stay quiet, stay calm” look, leaving Huang Zixia utterly speechless and helpless. Such misfortune in life, such fickleness of the world—she had just helped him resolve the difficult case of the princess consort, and now he was abandoning her after crossing the river, actually going to watch Empress Wang deal with her?
Yongji and Chang Qing were still watching her. She could only steel herself, let go of Xiao Shi, and walk out.
Just as she passed by Li Shubai, she heard his lowered voice say: “True form.”
Huh? She thought she had misheard and turned her head to look at him, but he remained unmoved, not even glancing at her again, only casually saying: “The night is deep and the dew is heavy, be careful not to catch cold.”