“That is what Prince Jin said.” Tingyuan stood by the study desk, finishing a brief summary of the contents of the letter.
“If Zhu Han had the slightest realization of ‘learning a lesson from every mishap,’ he wouldn’t give anyone another chance to cut off his arm.” Zhu Hexing put down his brush and said with a melancholic sigh, “With a brain like his, it seems our main Zhu family branch is destined to have its lineage cut off.”
Tingyuan didn’t dare to respond to that. Just then, Yanchao walked in holding an envelope and said, “Master, retrieved from the Riding Wind Pavilion, the Ninth Master’s reply.”
“So fast,” Tingyuan said in surprise. “Could this person be right here in Xuandu?”
Zhu Hexing took the letter. It also had a cloud-brocade cover with emerald wisps and falling rain, but the scent was very faint, as if it had rubbed off from somewhere else. After opening it and flattening a piece of silver stationery, a single character—”Fortunate” flew out like a graceful crane.
This character: the first time Zhu Hexing saw it, it was beautiful; the second time he saw it, it was also beautiful. Looking further down to the end of the stationery, a peony was outlined in ink, in a half-open, half-closed shape.
Tingyuan accidentally caught a glimpse of it and couldn’t help saying, “This flower… is quite hesitant yet full of unspoken meaning, and isn’t this peony branch drawn incorrectly? No matter how you look at it—horizontally, vertically, or upside down—it looks much more like bamboo.”
“To see the writer’s characters is to see the writer’s heart. Not seeing the writer’s appearance, yet seeing the writer’s heart. To say you see them, but you do not fully see them; to say you do not see them, yet you have already seen their innermost core,” Zhu Hexing raised an eyebrow and said, “Like a half-hidden pipa player holding the instrument to veil her face.”
Listening from the side, Yanchao was completely lost and couldn’t help saying, “Pardon this subordinate for not understanding, but if you didn’t understand it, wouldn’t the other person’s effort go to waste?”
“If I didn’t understand it, this correspondence wouldn’t be able to continue.” Zhu Hexing felt that this Ninth Master was quite interesting. Raising his head and seeing two blockheads standing there rigidly, he lifted the tip of his brush and gave each of them a rap on the head.
Rubbing his forehead with a chuckle, Tingyuan said, “Master, please explain it to us.”
“My use of the cloud-crane stationery already revealed five parts of my identity. Even if he couldn’t guess the specifics, he should know I am not some carefree hermit. If he didn’t wish to be entangled with high-ranking noble families in the imperial court, he wouldn’t have replied to this letter, and by then, my ties with him would naturally come to an end,” Zhu Hexing explained while dropping a line of poetry, “He guessed that I am a person from Xuandu, or that I have personal connections within Xuandu, so he drew this bamboo and peony. If I understood it, future correspondence won’t need to pass through the hands of the Riding Wind Pavilion.”
“You two really are particular,” Yanchao commented, and then asked, “Then does this bamboo and peony refer to a specific place?”
Tingyuan let out a thoughtful hiss and said, “Within Xuandu, there are only two places where peonies leaning against bamboo can be seen: one is in the imperial palace, and the other is the Cold Green Temple on Liujing Mountain. While anyone can visit the Cold Green Temple, the scenery inside the palace is only known to those who have actually been there. Could this Ninth Master have some lingering ties with the palace?”
Yanchao remarked, “Regardless of whether he does or not, he is certainly no ordinary person. Drunken Cloud Pavilion deals with both black and white markets, and he is able to move freely between the imperial court and the common realm.”
At the mention of Drunken Cloud Pavilion, Tingyuan thought of the person sleeping so soundly in the next room, and couldn’t help asking, “Master, why did Shen… Young Master help Young Marquis Meng win against Young Lord Zhu?”
Zhu Hexing put down his brush. “If you want to know the reason, you only need to look at what he is doing.”
What did Shen Quebai do today?
He won the gambling match for Meng Jiaze, thereby offending Zhu Han. In other words, by doing this, he traded a favor to the Marquis Ning’an Residence while offending the Prince Jin Residence.
After the Marquis of Ning’an passed away, the Marquisate gradually declined, leaving only the little prodigal Meng to hold up the family name. However, it was ultimately the Empress’s maternal family, with the Second Prince backing them up behind the scenes. Although the Prince Jin Residence was not close to Zhu Hexing, Zhu Han was on good terms with the Fifth Prince.
Tingyuan slapped his palms together and said, “The Young Master is selling a favor to the Second Prince while slapping the Fifth Prince in the face? But the Fifth Prince is the Young Master’s cousin, and Imperial Noble Consort Qi is his aunt. The Young Master treats His Highness Mingxuan with such affectionate intimacy, yet why does he act as if he intentionally treats his own aunt as an enemy? Could it be… that the events of twelve years ago are related to Imperial Consort Qi?”
He paused for a moment, feeling that this logic didn’t quite hold up. “Yet why would Imperial Consort Qi travel thousands of miles to kill her own elder brother’s son?”
“As long as we know why the former Marquis of Yongding sent his newborn son to Chaotian City back then, many things will become clear. We must investigate further back, starting with the Young Master’s mother—the concubine née Qiu.” There was no way to investigate this all at once, and Yanchao harbored other doubts in his heart as he said, “On that day in Chaotian City, when the Young Master made a move to kill the master, what was his actual objective?”
Hearing this, Tingyuan glanced at Zhu Hexing. He had also been puzzled by this, but judging by his master’s attitude, he cared not a whit and had no desire to pursue it further.
Looking at the letter before him, Zhu Hexing had never pointed out one thing: the one who offended the Fifth Prince today was Shen Quebai, the forever-neutral Prince Consort of Mingxuan. Those who had never seen Shen Quebai’s true face might not imagine an abandoned son who had just returned to Xuandu so deeply, but some matters didn’t require absolute certainty—a mere hint and rumor were already enough.
Amid the chatter around him, Zhu Hexing looked at the words on the paper as a brush of rouge drifted across his mind’s eye: Shen Quebai’s eyes, concealing sharp blades.
This cunning white magpie had utilized him, and he would have to go collect some silver coins.
Settling the letters, Zhu Hexing bypassed the desk and screen, walking slowly out of the study. The sound of the door creaking (“creak”) was masked by the night wind, and sandalwood-painted gold square lanterns hung every three steps along the corridor, keeping the deep night at bay in the distance.
Walking up to the bedroom window, Zhu Hexing cast a glance sideways. Several weak, delirious murmurs from inside the window reached his ears.
Hoarse, desperate, and frantic.
As it turned out, the wild magpie that professed to fear nothing in the world had also lost its composure tonight.
Zhu Hexing considered himself quite harsh and cynical; by rights, he should walk inside and stand by the bedside, openly watching this wild magpie’s crazed state, stroking his genuine tears, listening to his unadorned lamentations, observing his posture of a shattered soul and broken bones, and then stripping away that false exterior to coerce him into either opening up completely or becoming hysterical—how magnificent that would be.
This was a prime opportunity to strike while vulnerability presented itself.
Yet standing by the window, Zhu Hexing ultimately stopped and went no further.
So be it, he thought.
It was better to leave behind a benevolent, “unspoken yet lingering” sentiment so that when this wild magpie woke up, he would have no reason to blame him while simultaneously feeling unsatisfied that he couldn’t blame him for eavesdropping along the way. He would simply have to sit in agitation and lie down in restlessness, flapping his trembling wings of pride in futile frustration.
Jiaojiao was watching Zhu Hexing from not far away. Seeing that he only focused on the “new love” and didn’t spare a single glance for itself, his “old flame,” the white eagle couldn’t help feeling sour and indignant, making a motion to kick up a fuss.
Seeming to sense this, Zhu Hexing raised a finger to make a “shh” gesture, then walked over and reached out to press against the eagle’s beak, forbidding Jiaojiao from squawking. Glaring sideways at the white eagle—which dared to be angry but didn’t dare to speak he offered a helpless smile and said pointedly, “Who told you to fly into my nest? Be a good bird, alright?”
The bed curtains obscured the figure within. Shen Quebai pressed his profile deep into the pillow as the hazy night wind brushed his ears, plunging him completely into a terrifying nightmare.