The Golden Hairpin

Upon returning to the city, as soon as they entered the street where the military governor's residence was located, they saw the Western River Army arrayed in strict formation, escorting Li Shubai and Fan Yingxi forward.

Huang Ziyao and Zhou Ziqin quickly stepped aside to make way.

Li Shubai was speaking with Fan Yingxi when he glanced up and saw her. Before he could react, his horse, Di’e, had already leaped out of the ranks and rushed toward Nafosha, letting out a low whinny as it nuzzled Nafosha’s neck.

The distance between the two of them became so close that they could feel each other’s breath.

With a faint smile, he looked down at her and, as their bodies nearly brushed past each other, asked softly, "Any progress today?"

Huang Ziyao tilted her head up, nodded, and said, "Just one or two details left. Once they’re clarified, the case can be wrapped up."

Behind him, in the ranks of the procession, Wang Yun couldn’t hear what they were saying and turned his face away, gazing instead at the banners fluttering wildly in the wind.

Meanwhile, Zhou Ziqin, who had reined in his horse behind them, nearly dropped his jaw in shock upon hearing Huang Ziyao’s words. He immediately grabbed Nafosha’s reins and pulled her toward him, shouting uncontrollably, "What what what?! The case is almost done? How did that happen? How is it ending? You’ve got to explain this to me!"

He was so caught up in his outburst that flecks of spit practically sprayed Huang Ziyao’s face. She had to raise a hand to shield herself and said, "No, I said everything is ready except for the final push. The decisive one or two things still depend on you, Chief Constable Zhou. You’re the pillar of strength in this critical moment."

Zhou Ziqin immediately beamed with delight, thumping his chest proudly. "Bring it on! As the Chief Constable of Shu Commandery, whatever needs to be done, I’ll do it without hesitation!"

"Good. Let’s head to the prefectural office and revisit the crime scene. I need to find the murder weapon."

Zhou Ziqin’s eyes widened. "Chonggu, you’re still not giving up? We’ve practically trampled the scene flat—dozens of people have been searching there every day and found nothing. Are you sure you’ll find it just by going there now?"

Huang Ziyao didn’t answer. She simply tugged on the reins, bowed slightly to Fan Yingxi and the others in the distance, and rode straight toward the prefectural office, casually asking Zhou Ziqin, "Don’t you believe me?"

"I do! In this world, the first person I trust is Huang Ziyao, and the second is you, Chonggu!" He cheerfully flicked his whip, urging his horse Xiaoxia to keep up with her.

Li Shubai turned to look at Fan Yingxi, who had caught up, and said, "General Fan, I intend to visit the prefectural office. You may return to the residence first."

"Yes, farewell, Your Highness!" Fan Yingxi quickly led his entourage in a bow.

"Today at the training grounds, I met with the military governors of various garrisons and the officers of the Western River Army—I’ve also selected a few to join my retinue."

On the way to the prefectural office, Li Shubai said this to Huang Ziyao.

She nodded, then glanced at Zhang Xingying.

Zhang Xingying looked slightly uneasy, his expression tense, but then he heard Li Shubai say, "Xingying will remain by my side. Now that Jingyou and Jingyu are gone, and Jingyi and the others haven’t followed, I’m left without even my usual attendants."

Huang Ziyao saw Zhang Xingying exhale in relief before quickly catching up to Li Shubai.

She remained silent, quietly following. Yet for some reason, an inexplicable bitterness welled up in her heart—an overwhelming sense of sorrow she couldn’t suppress.As Zhou Ziqin had said, the scene of Qi Teng's death had indeed been scraped down almost an inch.

On the wide stone-paved dock platform, all the grass had been trampled bare, all the plants and flowers had been stripped of their leaves, the pond had been drained and its mud thoroughly washed away, and even the paint on the pavilion's pillars had been scraped off...

There was no murder weapon. Absolutely none.

The two constables assigned to search the area were utterly exhausted, like defeated roosters, their heads hanging low. Even when they came to report to Prince Kui, their spirits remained crushed: "Your Highness, please forgive our incompetence... We've practically turned this place inside out over the past few days, but still can't find anything."

"Exactly! Forget a weapon an inch wide—even if it were just a poisoned needle, with this kind of search, we should have found it by now!"

Seeing how they had been searching under the scorching sun, their bodies slick with sweat and their backs soaked through, Li Shubai didn't reproach them. Instead, he said, "This matter concerns both the military governor's office and the prefectural office. Your hard work in investigating is commendable. I'm just here for a casual look today. If there's anything, you may discuss it with Constable Zhou and Eunuch Yang."

The two men acknowledged his words and trudged dejectedly over to Zhou Ziqin.

Noticing the youngest and shortest of them, A Zhuo, standing beside him with his little head drooping, Zhou Ziqin reached out and ruffled his hair. Then he turned to Huang Ziguang and said, "Chonggu, can we really find it? Hurry up—look at these two, they're so anxious they're about to lose all their hair!"

Huang Ziguang beckoned him over, signaling for him to follow her along the bushes to the water's edge. Then she turned back to look at the pavilion and asked, "Where was your sister's green gauze cabinet at the time?"

Zhou Ziqin gestured toward a spot near the bushes and said, "Right around here."

"Hmm." Huang Ziguang circled the area once, then fixed her gaze on the ground, carefully examining every inch.

Zhou Ziqin followed behind her, baffled as he watched her step carefully across the stone slabs. "Chonggu, did you find something?" he asked.

"I found... two flies." She pointed at the ground.

Zhou Ziqin followed her finger and indeed saw two flies huddled together on a patch of dirt between two stone slabs, rubbing their front legs.

Utterly confused, he asked, "What about the flies?"

Standing not far from them, Li Shubai overheard the question and remarked, "As the saying goes, flies don't land on an uncracked egg. What do you think?"

Zhou Ziqin was even more bewildered. He opened his mouth, blinked, and after a long pause, turned back to Huang Ziguang.

Meanwhile, Huang Ziguang straightened up, exhaling in the sunlight as she gazed at her elongated shadow. "Alright," she said. "The case of Fu Xinruan is closed."

"..." Zhou Ziqin felt like the most pitiful person in the world. Every time he followed Huang Ziguang around, examining corpses together, reviewing evidence together—why was it always him who was the last to know when the conclusion finally came?

A wave of sorrow rose in his heart as he turned to Li Shubai and asked, "Your Highness, do you... also have an idea of what's going on?"

Li Shubai replied casually, "I have a general understanding, but there are still a few unclear points that Chonggu needs to reveal."Zhou Ziqin squatted on the ground, glancing between the flies and them before letting out an indignant roar, "You're clearly bullying me! Always leaving me out—I won't hang out with you guys anymore!"

Huang Zixiao quickly tried to placate him, "No, no! Look, the crucial clue is still in your hands. We need you to step in and unravel everything!"

Zhou Ziqin looked up at the sky with an inscrutable expression. "You want me, the greatest coroner under heaven, to intervene? Do you think just anyone can summon me at will? Unless..."

Huang Zixiao leaned in closer. "Please instruct us, Deputy Constable Zhou!"

"Unless you stand right here and explain everything to me in detail right now!" Zhou Ziqin pouted, beginning to act shamelessly.

Huang Zixiao could only humor him with a smile. "Alright, fine. Let me give you a hint, Deputy Constable. The key to this case lies in the words 'timing.'"

"Timing?"

"Yes. When Gongsun Yuan was performing that dance, who among all those present could have seized the moment to slip away and kill someone unnoticed?"

Zhou Ziqin immediately fell into deep thought. "Hmm... At that time, it seems like no one had the opportunity..."

"Think carefully. Their testimonies, the scene at the time. There was actually one person who could have easily slipped to the side of the green gauze cabinet to commit murder—right under everyone's noses. While others couldn't have managed it, that person could have created the perfect opportunity."

Zhou Ziqin clutched his head, straining to recall. "Who could have killed someone in plain sight? Everyone's alibi seemed solid... Who would have had the chance..."

Seeing him racking his brains, Li Shubai, rarely condescending, spoke up on Zhou Ziqin's behalf. "Chonggu, don't be too hard on Ziqin. This might not be his strong suit. But I know one thing Ziqin is absolutely unparalleled in—no one can match him."

"That's my forensic skills!" Zhou Ziqin pointed his thumb at himself, boasting without a hint of modesty.

Huang Zixiao nodded in agreement, humoring him until he was in good spirits before pointing to his chest. "There's another key to this case, and I suspect it might be related to the bracelet you're carrying."

Zhou Ziqin froze, quickly reaching into his robe to pull out the bracelet and hand it to her.

"Aside from the timing of the crime, another crucial aspect is the source of the poison—" Huang Zixiao took the bracelet, her expression turning grave as she spoke slowly, "And in both instances of poisoning, this bracelet was present. I don't know if that's a coincidence."

Huang Zixiao fell silent, staring intently at the bracelet in her hand. The intertwined tails of the two small fish, the smooth curves—she had run her fingers over them countless times. Every rise and fall of those lines felt as familiar as her own palm, as if they could meld into her lifeline with just a touch.

She lifted the bracelet into the sunlight. The hollowed-out jade glowed softly under the daylight. On the heads of the two small fish, a line of characters was engraved.

"Even the mightiest of trees may bear slight flaws."

Yu Xuan's handwriting. The words he had painstakingly carved himself made her eyes widen suddenly.A cold, razor-sharp light cleaved through her mind in an instant, making her think of a terrifying possibility.

The setting sun cast a faint bloody hue. Through the variously sized needlepoint, sesame-seed, and rice-grain perforations on the bracelet, fragmented crimson sunlight filtered down, flickering across her face and piercing deep into her eyes.

The jade's color was translucent, making the layered shadows appear illusory, as if they might vanish at any moment.

Huang Zixiao felt a buzzing in her head. The world before her eyes dissolved into overlapping, wavering images that split apart and merged again in a faint, undulating haze.

Sharp, knife-like sensations stabbed into her chest one after another, the pain so intense she could barely breathe. The only thing she could do was grip the bracelet tightly and force it away from her sight.