Caiwei tossed and turned, her mind tangled in turmoil, unable to sleep. Just before dawn, a heavy rain began to fall, and the rhythmic patter of raindrops on the roof tiles finally lulled her into a fitful slumber.
Her rest was far from peaceful, filled with incessant dreams.
At times, she dreamed of her past life with her late husband, their intimate moments in bed. Though Eunuch Wang had been castrated, his desires and emotions remained intact.
Well-versed in medicine and human anatomy, having studied various illustrated manuals, she had taught herself ways to help him find release. Both were skilled and attentive, knowing how to please each other, indulging in passionate lovemaking.
They were a remarkably adept Eunuch and Maid Pairing, worldly beings reveling in earthly pleasures. In the realm of human desires, eunuchs excelled at using tools—castration did not sever the mind, so how could they truly be incapable?
Thus, what ordinary couples struggled to sustain into middle age, they continued until old age and death. A devoted pair, they would willingly die for each other and bring each other joy.
She had learned the Zhezhi Dance with Consort Shangshou, and after mastering it, she would close the door and perform only for her late husband.
She learned to dance for her own pleasure and to delight him.
But before a single dance could conclude, her flimsy dance attire would be nearly torn off by her late husband...
Outside the mandarin duck curtains, red candles flickered. As she cupped her late husband’s face, she noticed something different—his gaze was innocent yet fervent, clear as a polished mirror, without a trace of shadow. He said to her, "I truly adore you. I think I’ve fallen for you."
What?
This wasn’t her late husband—this was her half-grown husband!
He was only fourteen, his heart and mind still unsteady. How could he be in her bed? She was truly despicable...
Wei Caiwei jolted awake, a fine layer of cold sweat beading on her forehead.
Unwilling to dwell on the absurd dream, she slipped on her shoes, pushed open the window, and reached out to catch a handful of cool rainwater, splashing it on her face to clear her mind.
The chilly summer rain slapped her face haphazardly, driving away the remnants of the dream.
Wei Caiwei sat at her dressing table and lifted the red mirror cloth covering the bronze mirror—ancient people believed mirrors could capture souls, so they covered them with cloth when not in use, calling it a mirror cloth.
In the reflection, dark circles shadowed her eyes, evidence of a restless night and an appearance of excessive indulgence.
The raindrops carried a chill, and she felt cold. Checking the calendar, she realized it was the Beginning of Autumn—this summer was coming to an end.
Summer, summer, quietly passes by, leaving little secrets buried deep in the heart, buried deep, unable to tell you. So sweet, so sweet, how could I forget (Note 1).
Wei Caiwei began her makeup at the mirror but couldn’t help glancing out the window from time to time.
Usually around this hour, Wang Daxia would ride his horse around the front of the building, whistling, rain or shine. She would lean out the window and wave to him.
But today, he didn’t come.
Had he been assigned a new task and was busy, or had he stayed up all night and was catching up on sleep?
Distracted, Wei Caiwei even skewed her hair bun. She had to undo it and re-tie her long tresses.
As she redid her hair, her arms ached as if soaked in a vat of vinegar.
In her past life, they would sometimes help each other with their hair. Wang Daxia would use shaving flower water to sleek her bun perfectly, every stray hair tamed and orderly, so smooth even a fly’s leg would slip on it.His dreadful taste would have him adorn her hair with all sorts of gem-encrusted hairpins and lifelike silk flowers. He would fret over a box of earrings, holding each one up to her earlobes for comparison, thinking this one was nice, that one was beautiful, wishing he could pierce a dozen holes in her ears to wear them all...
I can't forget you, my heart still thinks of you.
Wei Caiwei had just finished styling her hair when the sudden sound of galloping hooves came from downstairs.
Had Wang Daxia come after all?
In that instant, Wei Caiwei forgot all her inner turmoil. Without regard for the heavy rain outside, she leaned out the window. A person wearing a bamboo hat and rain cape dismounted and knocked on the door, "Sister Banxia, it's me, open up."
It was Ding Wu.
Wei Caiwei hurriedly applied some powder to cover the dark circles under her eyes before going down to open the door.
When Ding Wu removed his bamboo hat, Wei Caiwei was startled: his dark circles were even darker than hers!
"Brother Ding, didn't you sleep last night?"
"Time is tight. It's not just me—none of us slept." Ding Wu took off his wet rain cape and hung it on the clothes rack to dry. "I came back to find you for an important matter. I need your help preparing some medicine..."
Ding Wu explained Wang Daxia's plan. "...The kitchen of the Myriad Goods Trading Company is in the backyard, which we can't access. We can only tamper with the drinking water. We need something as colorless and tasteless as possible, with moderate potency—not something that knocks people out immediately, just something to help them sleep deeply."
Wei Caiwei looked toward the door, "Since this is Wang Daxia's idea... where is he?"
Could it be that after being rejected last night, he was so hurt that he didn't dare show up anymore?
Did I speak too harshly? Did I hurt his feelings?
"Commander Lu assigned him an important task. He left to work on it immediately after receiving the assignment." Ding Wu took out an oil-paper package. "I brought you breakfast—two plum vegetable and pork buns, one radish greens bun, and one tofu skin bun. Here, eat while they're hot. You can start working after you finish."
They were all her usual favorites.
Ding Wu even pulled a gourd from his robe, uncorked it, and poured out thick soy milk.
Wei Caiwei looked at the gourd, finding it familiar. During the hot summer, Wang Daxia would often fill a gourd with cooled tea and hang it from his saddle to drink while riding.
"Is this... Wang Daxia's gourd water bottle?"
Ding Wu said, "We had breakfast together before splitting up to work. I bought the buns, and he bought the soy milk and put it in the gourd, saying it was for you."
That half-grown husband was learning to be considerate. What did this mean? Was he... still persisting after being rejected?
Wei Caiwei finished every last bit of the breakfast, feeling quite full. Ding Wu lay down on the Arhat bed to rest his eyes. Unlike Lu Ying and Wang Daxia, who were both martial artists with strong constitutions that could handle staying up all night, he was a frail scholar and couldn't endure it as well.
Originally, Ding Wu had only intended to rest his eyes briefly before getting up to help Wei Caiwei prepare the medicine. But as soon as she finished her breakfast, he couldn't help but fall asleep.
After the beginning of autumn, the weather had turned cooler. Wei Caiwei tiptoed over to cover him with a thin blanket, then went alone to the medicine room. She opened her "secret" treasure trove and began preparing the sleeping medicine.
They had come to the right person. Wei Caiwei never forgot her desire for revenge. Ever since learning medicine from Wei Nanshan and his wife in Tieling, she had been paying attention to various medicinal ingredients—highly toxic ones, hypnotic ones, eye-irritating ones, coma-inducing ones, and more.As early as her time in Tieling, she had prepared the pills, sealing them inside hard-shell capsules made of beeswax and white wax. These were then placed in a medicine chest labeled "Black Chicken and White Phoenix Pills," with discreet marks on the wax shells to distinguish them from the genuine articles.
Thus, when Lu Ying previously brought the Embroidered Uniform Guard to search her home for poisons, they failed to detect the deception, allowing her to slip through unnoticed.
Wei Caiwei lit a lamp and examined the hidden marks on the wax pills under its glow, selecting five.
This was derived from a blue fungus found in Xiangya Mountain. Locals who accidentally consumed it would sleep for three days and nights, waking with uncoordinated limbs and speech resembling the incoherent babbling of a stroke victim—though their minds remained clear. Full recovery took several days.
Wei Caiwei had gathered this blue fungus, dried and ground it into powder, then sealed it in wax pills, naming it "Lanke Dream."
Based on her experience in Tieling's Xiangya Mountain, while assisting her adoptive father Wei Nanshan and hunters in eliminating a frequently aggressive black bear, she had dissolved one pill into a bean bun. The bear collapsed within five steps of consuming it.
When "Lanke Dream" was diluted in a large vat of water, it became virtually colorless and odorless, unlikely to arouse suspicion. However, it had only been tested on bears, leaving its effects on humans uncertain.
If the dosage was miscalculated, diners might fall asleep mid-meal.
Wei Caiwei brought the five wax pills to the Imperial Guard Office, requesting Lu Ying to assign her a dozen temporarily idle personnel. She dissolved one pill in a water vat, instructing the cook to use this water to prepare a meal matching the standards of the Myriad Goods Trading Company: one meat dish, one vegetable dish, two side dishes, and soup, with unlimited rice and flatbreads. Boiled water infused with coarse large-leaf tea was served as beverage. They observed when the subjects began yawning incessantly and dozing off.
The first test group of five individuals grew overwhelmingly drowsy immediately after putting down their chopsticks, slumping over the dining table in slumber.
Witnessing this, Lu Ying was deeply astonished but deliberately avoided addressing the underlying truth. She refrained from questioning the substance's origin or nature, remarking instead, "This medicine is too potent. Halve the dosage directly."
Wei Caiwei nodded and reduced the amount by half for the next trial. Still, the five subjects succumbed within half an hour, their eyelids growing heavy with fatigue.
It wasn't until the third attempt, with the dosage cut to one-third, that they lasted a full hour—coinciding with the typical closing time for shops when employees would retire for the night.
After laboring the entire day, Wei Caiwei meticulously recorded the dosages and corresponding durations, then handed the remaining "Lanke Dream" wax pills to Lu Ying. "This should suffice. While not perfectly precise, it ensures those who dine in the evening won't be disturbed through the night."
Lu Ying relayed all details to Lu Bing, adding, "This medicine is formidable. The first test subjects from this morning remain unconscious even now—they didn't stir when I stood outside beating a gong."
Lu Bing examined the wax pills. "I grow increasingly convinced that Wei Caiwei is the missing Miss He Er. She never suffered amnesia; she has always remembered her quest for vengeance and ceased killing immediately after achieving it. Fortunately, we transformed her from a murderer into an ally—otherwise, she would have been a formidable adversary."
Lu Ying interjected, "Father, let's not dredge up Doctor Wei's past. That Old Woman Wang and Thousand Household Chen and his son deserved death by a thousand cuts—their swift deaths were a mercy they scarcely merited."
Lu Ying possessed a character that abhorred evil, fundamentally differing from Lu Bing."Alright, let's not mention it anymore. We'll pretend we don't know." Lu Bing stood up, "Take me to see those test subjects."
Lu Bing went over and pinched their ears, tickled the soles of their feet—none of them woke up. Even when they occasionally opened their eyes, their pupils were dilated as if sleepwalking, performing some unconscious movements.
Lu Bing was quite satisfied with this and asked Wei Caiwei, "You've done well. What do you want?"
Wei Caiwei said, "Can Ding Wu's status as an exile be changed to that of a commoner? I want to restore his freedom."
Lu Bing rubbed his nose, "This... I'm afraid it's not possible. Yan Shifan would oppose it, and it's best not to provoke him for now. Make a more practical request."
Wei Caiwei said, "Then please allow Ding Wu and Ding Rukui to meet again."
This was Wei Caiwei's strategy. Of course, she knew the first request was absolutely impossible and didn't expect Lu Bing to agree. But once Lu Bing refused her first request, he would be much more lenient with the second one, driven by a sense of compensation.
Sure enough, Lu Bing nodded and said, "That can be arranged. When autumn comes, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, I'll have someone bring Ding Rukui to my courtyard. The father and son can spend the entire day together."
Author's note: They're all cunning old foxes, full of tricks.
Note 1: From the song "Pink Memories," a hugely popular hit from my childhood, as universally known as "Little Apple." It strangely matches Wei Caiwei's current mood. Coincidentally, it also contains the character for "summer."
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