The following morning, the Zou Mansion erupted. Even the walls three zhang high could not contain the sharp voice of Zhao Ximei, the mistress of the household.
“A pack of useless fools! So many of you, and you couldn’t even catch two powder-faced thieves!”
The head guard had a stolid face and delivered his words with considerable backbone: “Madam, that is not entirely fair. Last night, my men and I sealed off this garden as tight as an iron barrel — not even an insect could have flown out — and yet those two simply vanished into thin air.”
In other words: the failure had nothing to do with him.
“Exactly right.” The other guards nodded vigorously, affirming that their senior was telling the truth.
Zhao Shi heard this and, rather than growing more agitated, settled back onto the garden stool, tea in hand, and asked with deceptive calm: “You speak very convincingly. Then let me ask you — what color were these two thieves wearing last night?”
“Black.”
“White.”
“Patterned.”
Zhao Shi gave a cold smile. The guards began muttering recriminations at each other in low voices.
“Black? Nonsense — I clearly saw a figure run out from the main building, bright white from head to toe.”
“White? That’s wrong! I distinctly saw someone come from the rockery side — one with a red handkerchief covering their face, one with a green one.”
“Rubbish! I saw a figure all in white and another one with a red handkerchief—”
“Enough!” Zhao Shi hurled her teacup to the ground. The steaming tea splattered across the floor, much like her present mood. “You all look perfectly normal, noses and eyes in the right places — so how is it that the moment you open your mouths, you sound like a pack of blind men?!”
The guards exchanged helpless glances; seeing that their leader had also chosen silence, they held their tongues, reluctant to be the ones to forfeit their pay.
The Zou estate was so vast that not everyone in the household had necessarily known about last night’s intrusion — but with a commotion like this, even the three concubines and every one of the household staff would now be aware of it.
The attendant nanny who stood behind Zhao Shi, Li Guizhen, saw an opening and moved to defuse the situation: “I hear the thieves left a handkerchief behind, and that it has embroidery on it. Tracing it ought to tell us where it came from.”
The head guard seemed to have been waiting for precisely this cue. He presented the jade-green handkerchief to Zhao Shi.
The handkerchief was made of ordinary green silk satin, with a white tuberose embroidered at the corner.
“We sent someone to make inquiries first thing this morning. The handkerchief belongs to A’Yun, one of the women at Wangchen Tower.”
The moment the words “Wangchen Tower” were spoken, Zhao Shi’s face twisted. Yet what the guard said next was enough to send a chill through the heart.
“But that A’Yun died of illness two years ago. This handkerchief had been given to an admirer of hers; after she passed, that person quietly returned it, not wishing to invite trouble.”
Zhao Shi’s brow relaxed — but her face went pale. She dropped the handkerchief as though she had touched something burning.
The entire courtyard fell silent.
After a long moment, Zhao Shi said with distaste: “Burn it.”
Someone came forward, about to strike a light — when Zhao Shi suddenly changed her mind.
“Wait.”
---
Within half a day, word had spread through every corner of the household: just how many romantic entanglements had the master accumulated? There were murmurs that even the late A’Yun had some connection to him, and that last night ghosts and spirits had come calling at the door — perhaps the deer from the swamp had transformed into demons and come to claim the master’s soul.
When Hao Bai arrived at the western annex to conduct his examination, Zhao Shi’s complexion could only be described as “the color of gold paper.”
“You’ve come, Doctor? Could you first prescribe me a pair of calming tonics today?”
Hao Bai did not rush to write any prescription. Instead, he turned back with a somewhat secretive manner and closed the door behind him.
For a moment the room held only the half-dead master and the two of them.
Zhao Shi raised her head, a faint furrow between her brows. “What is the doctor doing?”
Hao Bai said quietly: “Madam, the medicinal catalyst may have been found.”
Zhao Shi first blinked in surprise, then felt a surge of wild joy. All the considerable silver she had spent seeking a physician had not been in vain; the wretched days she had endured seemed finally to be nearing their end.
“But—” Hao Bai’s brow was deeply furrowed; he wore an expression of someone with much to say and no good place to begin. Zhao Shi saw it and grew anxious immediately.
“Has the doctor truly found that Buddha bone relic? What is this hesitation — is there some further difficulty?”
Hao Bai sighed and donned a look of resigned solemnity with masterful precision. “Madam, do you believe in the doctrine of cause and effect?”
At those words, Zhao Shi’s expression shifted unfavorably. The gossip circulating outside recently — how could she not know of it? She had always assumed it was people who could not bear to see her family thriving, taking the opportunity to slander and fabricate. The household staff’s loose tongues were a matter she had long since resolved to address by replacing them entirely. But now even the physician she had hired was producing this sort of talk to vex her — that was genuinely hard to swallow.
“Are you trying to fob me off with talk of spirits and gods?”
Hao Bai showed not the slightest concern at Zhao Shi’s displeasure; his expression remained one of perfect sincerity. “How can the doctrine of cause and effect be equated with talk of spirits? ‘Every cause produces an effect’ is the simplest truth in this world. The master’s illness at present is an effect — and its cause must be carefully sought.”
Zhao Shi’s face still held dissatisfaction, but her heart began to waver. “Things are shaped by human hands; I do not believe in fate or heavenly decree. The master’s illness must have some human connection.”
Hao Bai, seeing this, did not press further; he relaxed his tone. “Madam has her own judgment on the matter. I am merely a physician, and there are things beyond my capacity to remedy. I say this at the outset only in hopes that Madam will see the matter more clearly — I have no other intention.”
With that, he drew from his sleeve a small wooden box. Opening it, he revealed a long, oval-shaped pearl nestled within — lustrous and translucent, seeming to emit its own sacred glow even in the dim light of the room.
Zhao Shi’s eyes were fixed on that priceless rarity, yet she could not stop her thoughts from drifting to the jade-green handkerchief.
---
The rain that had fallen for months finally let up, and today the sun had actually appeared; the streets and lanes of Mu Er He were considerably livelier, people hurrying out to stretch their limbs and air out the musty smell that had settled into their bones.
Wangchen Tower’s daily sweeping and washing began, as always, early in the morning. Today there was a great deal of extra work; Zhou Waiye had started calling out to the servants first thing in the morning to bring out the bedsheets and curtains for airing. Between Wangchen Tower’s high and low terraces, colorful cloth and gauze drifted and billowed as though a festival were underway.
In the side room of Wangchen Tower’s rear courtyard, Bolao had claimed the only bed for herself; Xiao Nanhui was sprawled face-up across the daybed, sleeping as though dead to the world.