Huang Zixia really didn’t know how to deal with this guy anymore, she involuntarily turned her head away and looked into another direction, and asked, “What has she done to make you express admiration for her so much?”
“Well, let me start from five years ago! At that time, I was fifteen and she was twelve. When I was fifteen; I didn’t have any idea on what to do with my life; I thought I would end up like my older brothers, either to become a government official in ministries or being an accountant and drafting official documents every day in Shangshu Province. Everyone said that my brothers had promising careers, but I don’t think so. Life is beautiful, and why should I waste all my good times in officialdom? What is the point of living? Do you agree with me? At that point of time, where I was most hesitant and confused about my life, then Huang Zixia appeared!”
(source:https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1054264594002209711/ )
As he was talking, Huang Zixia could see his eyes sparkled as he gazed affectionately at the moon. In that minute, she had the urge to tear off a chicken wing and took a large bite on it, hoping that would bring some comfort to her.
Zhou Ziqin’s voice had increasingly filled with excitement as he said, “Ever since then, I had found the aim of my life! Huang Zixia is only twelve-years-old, and moreover she is a girl. She has already started to help the Ministry of Criminal Justice by solving the mystery cases and venturing around all places, but what about me? What was I doing when I was twelve-years-old? What have I been doing for the past many years of my life? The moment I heard about her accomplishments, I found the purpose of my future life! The road ahead of me suddenly became so clear and broad in front of me! It’s a road to the journey of glory!”
Huang Zixia annoyingly interrupted him, “Haven’t you heard the rumors that Huang Zixia fled after killing her family?”
“That’s impossible!” He sputtered as he waggled his chicken drumstick in his hand; his tone was filled with determination.
Since that tragic day, it was the first time for her to meet someone who firmly believed in herself. He may be a little careless sometimes, but honestly his words slightly touched Huang Zixia’s heart, and her curious eyes fell on his face, “Why?”
“ah?”
“Why… why would you trust her?”
“Oh, it’s because, I think a person like Huang Zixia who was a genius in solving mystery cases, if she really wanted to kill someone, she would’ve devised a method that is completely imperceptible. How would it make sense that she killed her family members so easily and abruptly? This is really detrimental to her reputation!”
When these words entered Huang Zixia’s ears, she slowly looked up to the sky in disbelief, if she knew it earlier this was going to happen, she wouldn’t have wasted too much emotion on him.
By the time Zhou Ziqin had finished eating the roast chicken, one hour had passed. He took out another bag of melon seeds and shared half with her. This time she didn’t refuse, and silently cracked a handful of it. Please read original from cloudmanor and stop supporting theft.
The moon is setting to the west, and it seemed that it was almost the fourth geng (2.32a.m).
Zhou Ziqin took out the silver discs from the mouths of the three corpses, and found that only the silver disc taken out from the corpse suspected to be Madam Feng Yi had turned black. He wiped it carefully with the tip of a cloth, and then looked at the dark blue-grayish surface that could not be wiped off, and he said, “Poisoned to death, that’s right.”
“hmm.” Huang Zixia replied faintly.
Madam Feng Yi, the zither player of Yunshao Garden in Yangzhou was placed beside the future prince consort as a tutor had died among the refugees in Youzhou, and the cause of death was poisoning. On the contrary, the prospective prince consort who is about to marry Prince Kui said that the momo has gone back to Yangzhou.
She was in deep thought when Zhou Ziqin had already started to examine the internal organs, “For the sake of prudence, let’s do the test on the stomach,” he said.
The intestines and stomach were cut open, although the bodies were burnt, but it was still disgusting. Zhou Ziqin, whose nerves were as thick as chopsticks, could only scrunch his face and force himself to look at it from the corner of his eye.
When he searched the stomach, he suddenly let out a surpriese huh and felt that his fingers touched something cold and hard, so he took it out to see; and he called out excitedly, “Hey, Chonggu, come here quick and take a look at this!”
Sitting in his palm, there was a small thing; it was cold and glossy under the moonlight. Huang Zixia put on the gloves, took it over to have a closer look.
It’s a small white jade ring; the jade is translucent with the ring size of a small fingernail. She wiped off the blood stains and dirt on it, the moonlight glimmered on the ring, she saw a small Chinese character “念” (nian) engraved on it.
Her visions on the white jade ring looked blurry; Huang Zixia couldn’t focus well with the insufficient amount of light as if her eyes were immersed underwater. However, she gave a deep look at the character ‘nian’ for a long time.
The white jade ring was placed on the table in front of Li Shubai. Li Shubai looked at the ring with engraving on it, he didn’t move his eyes away nor reached out to take it, he calmly asked instead, “What is this?”
“Pick it up and take a look, you’ll know,” she said.
Li Shubai didn’t touch the little piece of jade, he extended his hands to take the glass fish bottle on the desk instead, and looked at the small red fish swimming leisurely inside, he said, “Want me to touch this kind of thing? What if it comes from a dead person’s mouth?”
She assuredly told him, “It’s not; it really wasn’t taken out from a dead person’s mouth.”
Right after her words, only then he stretched out his beautiful hands and picked up the piece of jade with his thumb and forefinger, put it in front of his eyes and looked at it. He immediately recognized the character ‘nian’.
“The ‘nian’ refers to Madam Chen Nian,” she explained.
He put the jade down, thought for a while, and asked, “Are you going to give this jade to Madam Chen Nian?”
“Then we have no choice but to tell her that Madam Feng Yi is dead. At that time, Madam Chen Nian will definitely cause more trouble and startle the snake.”
“Well, you should put it away first.” He handed her the piece of jade, she took the cloth on the table, wrapped it up, and kept it in her sleeve pocket.
Li Shubai knitted his brows and said, “I’m totally baffled, such important personal belongings, how could they be so careless and leave it behind on Madam Feng Yi’s body.”
“It’s because before Madam Feng Yi was poisoned to death, she swallowed it into her stomach.”
Huang Zixia was looking at him as she spoke, and as expected, she saw his lashes flutter in her shocking revelation. There was an indescribable joy in her heart, and she added, “Madam Feng Yi’s body is half-scorched, but the internal organs were still basically there when we dug it out from her stomach.”
Li Shubai looked at his two fingers, then looked up and stared at Huang Zixia who was standing in front of him. There was a slight change on his usual expressionless face.
Huang Zixia, on the other hand, showed nothing on her face, and she continued, “Thankfully, our accomplishment lived up to my highness’s expectations. Zhou Ziqin and I finished everything before dawn, restored it back to as it is and I guaranteed that all traces were gone by now.”
When Li Shubai saw her spoke in a nonchalant manner, he looked down at his hands again, he couldn’t held on his cool demeanor anymore, quickly grabbed the porcelain brush on the basin, and began to wash his hands vigorously and hard as he bellowed out his order, “Huang Zixia, you get out of my sight, now!”
Despite the hard works inspecting the corpses the whole night, it’s all worthwhile now when she saw Li Shubai lost his composure. She turned around and ran away happily, “Yes, Your Highness! This subordinate obeys the order!”, and in a split second, she was gone running back to her chamber to get some sleep.
Prince Kui, Li Shubai’s wedding date is scheduled for May 16th.
As a custom, on the sixth day of May, ten days before the wedding, Wang Ruo planned to go to Xianyou Temple in the suburbs of the city to pray for blessings.
The scenery of Xianyou Temple was very beautiful, and it’s well known for being efficacious in fulfilling wishes for many imperial consorts, concubines and noble wives in this dynasty who came here offering incense at Xianyou Temple. Even though there was many Buddhist temples in the city, Xianyou Temple it’s a most popular place to offer incense by official courtiers and noble female worshippers.
After Wang Yun visited the prince’s mansion a few days ago, he has prepared ahead for today’s prayer at Xianyou Temple. The temple was instructed to close for public offerings, even the Buddhist monk was not allowed to leave his meditation room if he had nothing to do. By the time around 3 to 5 p.m. the temple had been cleared and no other peoples were around.
Huang Zixia, senior maid Suqi and a dozen more servant girls from Wang Yun’s family accompanied her to offer incense.
Xianyou Temple has a vast building place and it was built on the mountainside. The front hall in the foothill of the mountain, there was a smiling face of Maitreya Buddha statue, and the Venerable Wei Tuo shrine at the back. The main hall was on the mountainside, it’s dedicated to the Deity of Tathagata, Manjusri and Samantabhadra. In the western temple, there were statues of Gautama Buddha, Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva, and Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva. In the eastern temple, there were statues of Medicine Buddha, Sunlight Bodhisattva, Moonlight Bodhisattva, and the Eighteen Luohans (Arhats). Moreover, there was a Five Hundred Arhats Hall as well.
(source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/663506957624075362/)
They walked into the main hall to burn incense, and said prayers to express gratitude as they knelt down bowing one after another. After worshiping in the main hall on the mountainside was done, senior maid Suqi and the other servants were already exhausted, and just by looking at the shrine sitting on top of the mountain, their legs turned to jelly.
Senior maid Suqi said, “I really can’t go on anymore, and today, there was nobody else in the temple anyway, Yang Chonggu, you can go ahead with Her Highness.”
Huang Zixia nodded obediently, afterwards the two walked up the steps, holding incense in their hands, and climbed the mountain all the way up.
Moss grew on the pebble stone stairs at the slope, two of them slowed down their steps and they carefully walked on it, the temple was really quiet, only heard some birds chirping from time to time, and a white bird flew past in the sky.
The white bird flew across the sky and dived into the mountains and forests right in front of where they were standing, their eyes following the flying little bird before shifting their sight to the inner temple, and suddenly out of nowhere, there was a man standing in front of the temple gate above the stairs.
Both of them didn’t know when he was there because he just appeared so abruptly, as if he was the human that transformed from that white bird, and appeared without a sound.
Wang Ruo took a step back but Huang Zixia tugged gently at her sleeve and said, “Young Master Wang and all the bodyguards are nearby; don’t worry.”
Wang Ruo hmm lightly, and the two walked up the remaining ten or more steps to the temple shrine, worshiped and offered the incense at the altar. Inside the shrine were decorated with lamps, flowers and precious candles placed in front of the Buddha statue.
Wang Ruo knelt in front of the Buddha and muttered prayers. Huang Zixia looked behind and saw the man standing outside at the door. The outside scenery was like a painting of pale green distant mountains and blue sky, and he was wearing a light green colored attire that almost blended together with the background, it seemed erratic and far away.
He seemed to notice that she was staring at him; naturally he looked back at her at where she stood, with some burning incense smoke visible behind her, his mouth involuntarily curved into a smile. His facial features were plain, he was just an ordinary young man, but his smile was gentle and peaceful with a soft countenance that gave Huang Zixia a slightly kind of familiar feeling.
Huang Zixia bowed her head slightly, as a salute in return, but when she lowered her eyes, she saw that he was holding a birdcage in his hand. It was the bird they had seen a while ago, in pure white color and standing at the center of the cage. The bird seemed to understand humans, and when it saw her gaze, it chirped and jumped a few times in the cage, appearing extremely lively.
When Wang Ruo finished praying, she stood up and turned her head to look at Huang Zixia and then followed her line of gaze that led to the little bird.
There was nobody around both inside and outside of the empty hall, besides three of them. The man lifted the birdcage, and the sun in the west shone brightly on his back, with his tall black shadow covering two of them just like a huge bat in the dark night, spreading its wings.
He smiled gently and asked, “What do you think about this little bird?”
“Did you raise it? It looks very cute.” Wang Ruo looked at it curiously.
The little bird seemed to understand her praise, and danced happily in the cage, as if unwilling to stop for a moment.
“Yeah, it’s well-behaved. Even if I open the cage and it goes out to the mountains and forests, it will fly back as soon as it hears my whistle.” He reached out and lovingly stroked the little bird’s head with his two fingers, and the little bird rubbed its little head against it.
Huang Zixia wants to stay out of trouble, hence she brings Wang Ruo and ready to leave the place, but when they walked past him, she heard him say, “After all, no matter what is going on now, everything you have done and experienced before will be deeply imprinted in your heart, even if you have deceived the whole world, but you can’t deceived yourself.”
Huang Zixia noticed Wang Ruo’s body stiffened and abruptly stopped in her footsteps.
He spoke in a clear and soft voice, “As if, there is an invisible rope around the neck, a greater desire to break away from it, the greater strength it will constrict.” The man clearly saw Wang Ruo’s reaction, but he only smiled, “What I said , it’s this little bird.”
Huang Zixia turned around and glared at him, “Do you know who the person standing in front of you is? How dare you, speak so rudely!”
“Of course I know,” his voice remained calm in a composed manner; he said, “If nothing bad happens; she will become Princess Consort of Kui within ten days.”
“If that’s the case, please don’t disturb Her Highness, and cause us a lot of trouble here.”
“I don’t want to disturb Her Highness, but I just want to show her something interesting.” He approached slowly and bowed before swaying his long sleeve over the birdcage and then lifted it up to show them, he smiled, “It’s just a little trick to make the prince consort’s smile.”
In a blink of an eye, the little bird that was jumping happily just now in the birdcage was gone. What was left in front of them was the forty-eight weave purple bamboo birdcage, and it’s empty.
Wang Ruo’s eyes widened and then she looked at Huang Zixia in bewilderment. Huang Zixia stared at the man and didn’t say a word.
“Your Highness, please be careful on these few days, otherwise, you will inevitably end up like a bird in a cage. No matter how narrow the cage bar spacing is woven, it will disappear in an instant.” The man smiled at them, turned and walked into the hall, they heard him chanting aloud:
“As a bird in a cage, it will vanish without trace. Wealth is like floating clouds, and as one who wouldn’t want to be awakened in the realms of fantasy!”
In the setting sun, the temple bell rang from afar, and the monks were having their evening lessons on Buddhism verses. Both the sound of chanting Sanskrit scripts and the bright evening sunlight was blanketed on them. The shadow of the birdcage and their body figures on the ground were stretched far until it reached deep into the hall.
Huang Zixia immediately gave chase and entered the hall, but it’s empty with no one there. When she looked back over her shoulder, she saw Wang Ruo’s face was as pale as a withered flower.
“My little sister, why are you standing here with Yang Chonggu?”
Someone was calling behind them. It was Wang Yun who was waiting for them at the foot of the mountain. Seeing that they hadn’t come back for a long time, he went up to look for them himself.
Wang Yun just came up from the stairs and walked towards them, there was a gentle breeze blowing and the corner of his long white robe fluttered slightly as he walked, just like a drifting white cloud in the sky.
Seeing an empty birdcage on the ground, he wondered, “Why did someone put such a thing here?”
Huang Zixia looked at Wang Ruo, and Wang Yun sensed something was amiss, and worriedly asked, “My little sister, what’s wrong?”
“Brother…brother.” Wang Ruo’s voice trembled, and she looked up at him with tears of terror in her eyes.
His forehead creased and asked, “What happened?”
“Just now… there was a strange man, he, he said…” Wang Ruo started stammering.
Huang Zixia began to explain, “Just before young lord, you came up, a man appeared here with a birdcage. I didn’t know what kind of trick he used to make the bird in the cage disappears, and said that Her Highness might also disappears out of thin air like the bird in the cage. .”
“A man?” Wang Yun’s bewildered eyes swiped through the place, “I had cleared out the people in the temple earlier, and since you entered, the Wang’s bodyguards were stationed at the entrance and other areas of the temple. How could it still possible have a man in the temple?”
“That person has yet to escape and he would’ve still been inside Xianyou Temple. Brother, please send someone to search, then you must’ve found him.” Wang Ruo’s body trembled as she spoke.
Wang Yun nodded, and seeing her like a frightened child, he comforted her and said, “It’s just a random word from some stranger, why do you take it seriously? Don’t worry, the daughter of the Langxie Wang royal family, and also the Prince Consort of Kui, how could she possibly disappear? Don’t believe such nonsense.”
“Yeah,” she nodded with tears in her eyes, and then timidly said, “Maybe, maybe I’m overthinking, and as the wedding is approaching, I always feel that I can’t sleep or eat, I…”
Wang Yun nodded knowingly, and said with a smile, “I know, I heard that women often have such thoughts before they get married. Although I don’t understand it well, maybe it’s a big step and it changes one’s fate in the future, therefore women get easily nervous.”
Wang Ruo nodded slightly, and she bit her lower lip worriedly.
“Silly sister, for such a good person as Prince Kui, are you still afraid that you will be unhappy in the future?” Wang Yun tried to find ways to alleviate her worries, and then he said, “Let’s go home, and don’t believe that kind of nonsense. “
Wang Ruo lowered her head and followed Wang Yun down the steps, walked to the Daxiong Hall on the mountainside. Huang Zixia was one step behind her, and heard a soft and low voice, “Chonggu.”
“Yes, I’m here,” she responded.
“Do you also feel…am I really, really anxious and nervous recently?” she asked worriedly.
Huang Zixia thought for a second, and said, “Your Highness cares for the prince in a way that is too much, hence Your Highness becomes more and more nervous. If you couldn’t care much about the prince, do you think all this will happen?”
Wang Ruo pursed her lips, in her innocent teary eyes, she blinked; “Maybe.”
While the monks’ evening lessons were still on going, the sound of bells and the Sanskrit chanting lingered around them. Huang Zixia listened to those Buddhist verses, and remembered the sentence that her grandmother once recited——
“All kindness and love are impermanent and it’s hard to come after a long wait. From love there comes sorrow, and from love there comes fear.”
She recited the verse in her heart, turned her head to look at Wang Ruo’s drooping face, and wondered to herself; did she do this because she truly loved Li Shubai?
Wang Yun is a very meticulous person. He discussed with Xu Zhiwei, the head of the bodyguards in the Wang’s family, and immediately divided the bodyguards into two batches. The first batch of bodyguards went to search in various halls, meditation rooms and every corner of the temple, and the other batch of bodyguards went to investigate the monks in the temple. However, when the incident happened, everyone was having the evening classes, and there were no missing headcounts. All the monks were gathered in the main hall, and there shouldn’t be anyone else in the Dipankara Buddha Hall.
The sky had already turned dark by the time the batches of bodyguards who went out for the search came back and reported one by one. They have divided the area into 50 smaller areas and searched it thoroughly in a group of ten peoples. Even if there is a mouse hiding in the temple, with this kind of searching method, it must not have been missed – but no, no trace of anyone was found. Apart from Huang Zixia and Suqi who followed Wang Ruo, the others were the girls and servants of the Wang family; there was no one else in the temple.
The only clue that they discovered was in the Dipankara Buddha Hall, where someone picked up a rusty arrow that was placed in front of the Buddha statue.
There were four characters engraved on the arrow:
Prince Kui of the Tang Dynasty.
Hazel’s thought: I apologized for not translating in a very long time, but I am picking up the story and in a fast pace to finished Book 1 before end of the year.
Cloud Manor 