Fang Shi had long anticipated that Fu Xuanmiao would ask this question.
Even if he did not ask now, sooner or later he would.
Fang Shi had prepared many excuses in her heart, yet she herself had refuted every single one. She understood better than anyone that these clumsy lies might deceive others, but they could never deceive the child she had brought into the world.
This was the child who, at twelve years old, had defeated the Grand Master Juewu of Kongshan Temple at chess, and at sixteen had become the youngest person in all of history to pass the imperial examinations at all three levels.
She had once been proud of his brilliance; now she felt only terror.
Even so, under Fu Xuanmiao’s questioning, she could not help but grasp at a dying struggle.
“This jade piece was part of my dowry from my family home. How would the Princess of Yue come to have it? Are you certain that your people did not mistake what they saw?”
She prayed inwardly — what if, by some chance…
“This jade piece is something I keep close to my person. It is also the highest-level token of authority beyond my own identity, and only my most trusted people know that I possess such a piece. They all say the jade piece in the Princess of Yue’s possession was identical to mine — one person might be mistaken, but could every single one of them have been wrong?” Fu Xuanmiao’s face wore a cold, composed expression.
“Perhaps it was a forgery…”
She could not help but plead — what if, somehow…
“If someone had the time and means to do that, why not simply forge my personal seal, which has a far broader range of use and is far easier to replicate?”
“I don’t know…” Fang Shi faltered in panic, her frail shoulders trembling faintly under Fu Xuanmiao’s relentless questioning.
“You know,” said Fu Xuanmiao. His voice was as still and even as a deep pool — and as bitterly cold. His detached gaze was fixed upon Fang Shi, who looked as small and defenseless as a leaf in the wind.
He said softly:
“Mother — you know.”
Fang Shi swallowed the sob rising in her throat and said in a trembling voice, “This jade piece… there were originally two of them. Shortly after you and the Princess of Yue became engaged, I gave the other piece to the Prin—”
“You are lying.”
This time, before Fang Shi could even finish speaking, Fu Xuanmiao cut her off.
He rose from the black lacquered armchair and took two steps toward Fang Shi, appearing as though he might move to help her up — then stopped at the edge of the desk.
Fu Xuanmiao gently lifted the ginkgo stem from the inkstone and laid it flat on a sheet of writing paper. The ink seeped downward, gradually spreading across the page.
“Has mother forgotten how strenuously she opposed my marriage to the Princess of Yue? You resented Noble Consort Bai, and by extension you also harbored resentment toward the child she had given birth to. You would sooner have seen me wed anyone else rather than Noble Consort Bai’s daughter. How could someone like you have given the jade piece to the Princess of Yue?”
“Furthermore —” Fu Xuanmiao said, “every move you and the Princess of Yue made — how could I have been entirely unaware?”
“That was all in the past… I stopped blaming Noble Consort Bai long ago. I was blinded by my own prejudice back then — it had nothing to do with her to begin with. When it comes down to it, she was nothing more than a pitiable woman…” said Fang Shi. “You are the child I brought into this world through great hardship. Even if it was against my wishes, since you loved the Princess of Yue, I told myself to accept her. After all, she knew nothing of the grievances of the previous generation, and her nature was gentle and kind. You tend to overthink things, and the two of you complement each other — a reasonable match…”
“What mother has said to me today already exceeds everything she has said to me in an entire year of years past,” Fu Xuanmiao said softly. “The more you conceal things on someone’s behalf, the more curious I become — just what kind of person is it that mother would go to such lengths to protect…”
“I have already told you!” Fang Shi’s heart hammered wildly. She balled both hands into fists at the edges of her skirt, forcing a hard exterior to mask her inner fear. “I gave it to the Princess of Yue because you would have no one but her — is it really so inconceivable that I, as your mother, would give a family heirloom jade piece to your betrothed?”
“What is inconceivable is the timing,” Fu Xuanmiao said. “When exactly did mother give the jade piece to the Princess of Yue?”
“Does that matter?”
“It matters greatly.” Fu Xuanmiao finally turned and walked toward Fang Shi.
He crouched down in front of her as she knelt.
“Every move you and the Princess of Yue made — how could I have been entirely unaware?” he said. “To put it in more understandable terms… what you and the Princess of Yue ate and used each day, the people you met, how many times you turned over in the night — I knew it all. If you had truly given the jade piece as a family heirloom, I would not have been completely ignorant of it.”
Fang Shi stared wide-eyed at the blurred figure before her. A bone-deep chill surged up over her heart like a rising tide, drowning her breath.
What she found impossible to believe was not the surveillance — the way her own son had watched her like a suspect under interrogation.
It was the look on his face at this moment — utterly unmoved, perfectly at ease.
“Go on,” he pressed her in that gentle voice. “Whatever other lies you have — say them all at once, every one you can think of.”
Fang Shi’s body trembled. She could not get out a single word.
Fear, incomprehension, grief, despair — multiple overwhelming emotions crashed against one another inside her chest. Her knees were still supported by the floor, yet her soul felt as though it were being torn apart in mid-air into ten thousand shreds.
“Nothing more?” said Fu Xuanmiao. “Nothing — then mother, please return to your room. Whenever you feel ready to speak the truth, come to Yuechan Courtyard then.”
Fu Xuanmiao’s hands slipped beneath Fang Shi’s arms, and regardless of her will, he half-forcibly pulled her up from the floor.
“Ning Yu,” he commanded, and Ning Yu, who had been waiting outside the courtyard, immediately walked in. “Escort Madam back to her room.”
“Understood.”
Ning Yu hurried over and took hold of Fang Shi’s arm, intending to guide her out of the room.
“Don’t touch me!” Fang Shi knocked away Ning Yu’s hand. Her slender frame shook continuously with the force of her agitation.
Fu Xuanmiao looked on without expression at the uncontrollably trembling Fang Shi and was about to speak when Yan Hui walked in from outside. His gaze swept over the tear-streaked face of Fang Shi and the helpless Ning Yu, and he quickly lowered his head, moving to Fu Xuanmiao’s side, where he murmured in his ear:
“Young master, His Majesty has summoned you urgently — it appears he wishes to review today’s memorials.”
Fu Xuanmiao glanced at Fang Shi and said, “Ning Yu, keep watch over Madam.”
After Ning Yu acknowledged the instruction, Fu Xuanmiao selected a portion of the memorials from the desk, had the remainder put away, and then departed from the study carrying the selected memorials.
Once the sound of Fu Xuanmiao and Yan Hui’s footsteps had faded into the distance, the study fell so still that a dropping pin could be heard.
Fang Shi stood like a hollow puppet, rooted to the spot with silent tears flowing down her face.
When Ning Yu again attempted to take her away, Fang Shi kept stepping backward, tears rolling in streams from her vacant eyes:
“Get out! Both of you, get out!”
Ning Yu hesitated for a moment. Knowing Fang Shi’s temperament as she did, she understood there was no forcing her at a moment like this. Ning Yu said helplessly, “This servant will wait just outside the door. Madam, please do wipe your face and return to your room soon… lest the young master return and lose his temper again.”
Ning Yu curtsied and walked with lowered head out the door.
Fang Shi stood in a daze, tears falling without cease. Then suddenly, her vacant gaze fell upon the ginkgo leaf on the writing paper.
The gold was being consumed by the black ink, sinking into a boundless abyss.
She shuffled blankly to the desk, and with fingers drained of all color, she lightly traced the golden edge of the ginkgo leaf.
“Miss, miss… the ginkgo leaves have finally turned yellow, the ones you’ve been waiting for!”
A warm, earnest voice rang out from within her memory, summoning yet more tears.
“These ones, these ones, and these ones too… I climbed the mountain to pick all these ginkgo leaves for you — beautiful and clean, every one. Miss can pick the ones she likes to use as bookmarks — if there aren’t enough, I’ll go pick more!”
Tear after tear fell, one after another, dampening the writing paper.
“Your son… why is he not like you in the slightest…” she murmured, her spirit drained and hollow.
As Fang Shi withdrew her hand, she knocked over the bamboo-lattice brush stand on the desk, sending the brushes clattering to the ground in a cascade. Nearly blind as she was, she fumbled frantically all around, groping for the brushes that had rolled in every direction, staining her fingers and sleeves with ink.
A jade dragon-carved brush rolled off the edge of the desk and landed on the floor with a clatter. Fang Shi hastily bent to pick it up, and in doing so she accidentally bumped against some part of the desk. A soft click followed — and then a strange sound came from behind her.
Fang Shi, the jade brush still in her hand, lifted her head and looked behind her.
The study appeared just as it always had — nothing seemed changed. The two sounds that had come one after another just now seemed, perhaps, to have been a momentary illusion.
Drawn forward by some irresistible pull, Fang Shi rose in a daze and walked toward the painting of orchids, bamboo, and stones that hung on the wall directly ahead of her.
The painting bore no signature. The orchids and bamboo were rendered with vigorous, fluid strokes, full of unrestrained elegance; the rocks were outlined with dry brushwork and textured with rough, dragging strokes, expressing a cold, proud, solitary quality that seemed to emanate from within.
Fang Shi reached out and lifted the painting from the wall.
Behind it appeared a square opening about half an arm’s length deep.
Toward the front of the space lay some letters exchanged with various officials. Fang Shi’s eyesight was poor and she could not make out the characters on them, so she set them to one side. She had no intention of investigating how many partisans Fu Xuanmiao had cultivated within the court, and was just about to hang the painting back up when her gaze was caught by a small wooden box at the very back.
Something beyond her understanding was drawing her to it. Fang Shi, compelled by a force she could not resist, reached in and withdrew the wooden box hidden deepest inside.
The box was not locked. She opened it easily to find it packed full of small wooden carvings of children — each one different in pose and expression, each one charming.
There was a newborn, wrinkled and scrunched; one curled in a cradle, gnawing on a finger; one on all fours in the midst of eager crawling; one with arms outstretched, babbling first words… Fang Shi lifted the wooden children from the box one by one with trembling hands.
Their postures all differed, but their features shared a certain resemblance.
Gradually, the child grew. He became a young man, dressed in wide-sleeved robes, already possessed of an elegant bearing.
Toward the bottom of the box, the young man held a chess piece, already capable of surveying the black-and-white board with the eye of a strategist. A dried and garish dark crimson stain was fixed forever on the young man’s sleeve.
One by one, the exquisitely lifelike wooden figures were lifted from the box, tracing the arc of a child’s growth — and behind them, the silent, profound love of the one who had watched that growth.
This arc of growing up came to an abrupt stop in the young man’s thirteenth year.
She knew the reason. And the boy carved into wood knew as well.
Fang Shi trembled so violently she could barely stand. Tears fell upon her ashen face like a torrential downpour. The wooden box slipped from her hands and fell to the ground, sending the carved figures scattering across the floor. The sound that rose from her throat was part weeping, part laughter, and it echoed through the silent study.
Ning Yu came rushing in from outside. At the sight before her, she felt instinctively that something catastrophic had occurred.
“Madam! Let us go back quickly!” Ning Yu rushed forward and grabbed Fang Shi by the arm, pulling her toward the door.
Fang Shi’s slight frame erupted with unexpected strength. Before Ning Yu could react, she was shoved away and sat down hard on the floor.
Fang Shi stood swaying in place, her expression wild, her tear-streaked face bearing a ghastly smile:
“He knows…”
Ning Yu stared at her in frightened bewilderment. “Madam… what are you saying?”
“He knows… he has always known…”
Fang Shi wept and laughed at once. All the suffering and oppression of a lifetime burst forth in that moment through her frail and sickly body in a hysterical torrent:
“He knew — and still killed him!”
Fang Shi spent every last ounce of strength in that one great cry, and her body crumpled helplessly to the ground, nothing left but tears that poured out without sign of stopping.
In that instant, she understood.
At this pinnacle of despair and grief, she understood with a clarity sharper than any she had ever known.
It was precisely because he had known…
That he had killed, with his own hands, the one who had given him life.