The Golden Hairpin

"Sister, why are you standing here with Yang Chonggu without moving?"

Someone called out to them from behind. It was Wang Yun, who had been waiting for them at the foot of the mountain. Seeing that they hadn’t returned for a long time, he had come up to find them himself.

Noticing an empty birdcage on the ground, he asked, "Why would someone leave something like this here?"

Huang Ziyao glanced at Wang Ruo, and only then did he sense something amiss. He quickly asked, "What’s wrong, sister?"

"Bro... brother," Wang Ruo’s voice trembled as she looked up at him, her eyes brimming with fearful tears.

Wang Yun frowned slightly. "What happened?"

"Just now... there was a strange man. He... he said..." Wang Ruo’s voice was shaky and incoherent.

Huang Ziyao took over, explaining, "Just before you arrived, a man appeared here carrying a birdcage. He did something to make the bird inside disappear and claimed that the princess consort might vanish just like the bird in the cage."

"A man?" Wang Yun looked around in astonishment. "The temple was cleared earlier, and since you entered, I’ve been stationed below with soldiers from the prince’s residence. No one should have been able to enter. How could a man have slipped in?"

"That person must still be here in Xianyou Temple. If you send men to search, you’ll find him," Wang Ruo said, her voice still trembling.

Wang Yun nodded. Seeing how frightened she was, he comforted her, "It’s just some baseless words from an unknown person. Why take them seriously? Don’t worry, how could the daughter of the Langya Wang family, the princess consort of the Kui Prince’s household, vanish into thin air? Don’t believe such nonsense."

"Yes," she nodded tearfully, then added timidly, "Perhaps... perhaps I’ve been overthinking things. As the wedding approaches, I feel restless and uneasy. I..."

Wang Yun nodded understandingly and smiled. "I know. I’ve heard that women often feel this way before marriage. Though I don’t fully understand, perhaps it’s anxiety about the life-changing event ahead."

Wang Ruo nodded slightly, biting her lower lip gently.

"Silly sister, with someone as wonderful as Prince Kui, how could you fear unhappiness in the future?" Wang Yun said, patting her shoulder. "Come on, let’s go. Don’t believe such absurd talk."

Wang Ruo lowered her head and followed Wang Yun down the steps toward the Great Buddha Hall halfway up the mountain. Huang Ziyao trailed a step behind her and heard her whisper, "Chonggu."

"Yes," she responded.

"Do you also think... I’ve been acting very anxious and tense lately?" Wang Ruo asked uneasily.

Huang Ziyao thought for a moment and said, "Your Highness cares deeply for His Highness, which is why you’re so nervous. If you didn’t care, would you feel this way?"

Wang Ruo pursed her lips, looking at her with tearful eyes, and murmured, "Perhaps."

The monks’ evening chants continued, the sound of bells and sutras lingering around them. Listening to the Buddhist verses, Huang Ziyao suddenly recalled a line her grandmother had once recited:

"All love and joy are fleeting, nothing lasts forever. From love comes sorrow, from love comes fear."

She repeated it silently in her heart, then turned to look at Wang Ruo’s downcast face, wondering—was it truly for love of Li Shubai that she felt this way?Wang Yun was an extremely meticulous person. After discussing with Xu Zhiwei, the Wang family's guard captain, he immediately divided the soldiers into two groups. One group was sent to search every hall, meditation room, and corner of the temple, while the other was tasked with investigating the monks. However, at the time of the incident, everyone had been attending evening prayers, and not a single monk was missing—all were gathered in the main hall. No one could have possibly been in the rear Lamp-Lighting Ancient Buddha Hall.

By dusk, the search teams reported back one by one. They had divided the temple into fifty sections, with ten people per team conducting thorough searches. Even if a louse had been hiding in the temple, it would have been found under such repeated combing—yet there was nothing. No trace of anyone was discovered. Aside from Huang Zixia and Su Qi, who had accompanied Wang Ruo, there were only the Wang family's maids and servants in the temple. No one else.

The only notable discovery was a rusted arrowhead found in front of the Buddha statue in the Lamp-Lighting Ancient Buddha Hall.

On the arrowhead, four faintly discernible characters were engraved: "Prince Kui of Tang."

When Huang Zixia returned to Prince Kui's residence, Li Shubai was dining alone in the flower hall. Seeing her arrive, he gestured for the maids to leave and then pointed to a chair beside him.

Understanding his meaning, Huang Zixia pulled over the chair and sat down. Li Shubai handed her a pair of ivory chopsticks and pushed a small bowl toward her.

She glanced around, seeing only the swaying shadows of flowers beyond the walls, with no one else in sight, before picking up a golden milk pastry and adding some spiced minced meat to her bowl to eat.

Li Shubai asked casually, "I heard someone performed a rather spectacular magic trick in front of you all during today's temple visit?"

It was said that Prince Kui Li Shubai had the most reliable sources of information, and since it was his own guards who had escorted them, he naturally knew everything.

So Huang Zixia wasn't surprised and simply replied, "Yes, it was quite spectacular. But personally, I found the princess consort's reaction even more so."

"Future princess consort," Li Shubai corrected, adding two words before the title.

Huang Zixia continued nonchalantly, "With the Emperor personally arranging the marriage and her being the Empress's cousin, what could possibly go wrong?"

"Whatever the reason, presenting a forged birth chart is deceiving the sovereign and merits only eternal damnation," Li Shubai said before changing the subject. "Was she worried her identity would be exposed?"

"Seems like more than that. Her past seems to hide some unspeakable secret. The man who suddenly appeared vaguely mentioned it, and she was so terrified she couldn't hide it."

"Did you notice how that man appeared and disappeared?"

"Not at all. And how he entered under the heavy guard of the Wang family, then vanished without a trace—I couldn't find any clues." Huang Zixia bit her ivory chopsticks, frowning. "After he disappeared, Wang Yun led a group to search the temple thoroughly but found nothing. It was as if he had turned into a bird and flown over the walls."

Li Shubai asked leisurely, "Have you read Huangfu's works?"

Huang Zixia shook her head. "What works?""It's a book that records an extraordinary skill called 'Jiaxing Rope Technique.' It tells of a time during the Kaiyuan era of Emperor Xuanzong's reign when a grand celebration was decreed. The Jiaxing County competed with the prison officials in acrobatics, so the prison officials searched among the prisoners for those with unique talents. One prisoner claimed he could perform rope tricks. The jailers took him to an open space and gave him a hundred-foot-long coil of rope. He took it, threw one end into the sky, and the rope shot straight upward as if someone above was pulling it. As he released more rope, it continued to climb until the end disappeared from sight. Then he climbed up the rope and vanished into the air, escaping just like that."

"No matter how you look at it, no matter how you imagine it..." Huang Zixiang pondered for a long time before saying, "That's impossible."

"Why impossible? Aren’t there countless unbelievable things in this world?" Li Shubai's lips curled slightly. "For example, it's said that my future princess consort will vanish before everyone's eyes."

"It seems Your Highness also cares about that person's words?"

"I believe there's no smoke without fire." Li Shubai leaned back in his chair, gazing at the swaying flower shadows cast through the latticed window. Suddenly, he asked, "Huang Zixiang, when you were young in Chang'an, what was your favorite place?"

"Ah?" Caught off guard, Huang Zixiang still had a piece of golden milk pastry in her mouth. She widened her eyes at Li Shubai and mumbled, "Probably... the West Market."

"Hmm, the West Market. I liked it best as a child too." He spoke slowly, as if lost in thought. "Who wouldn’t love it? The liveliest place in the capital, even in the entire realm."

Chang'an's West Market.

Persian jewels, Indian spices, Ferghana horses, Jiangnan tea, Shu brocade, northern furs...

Shops of every trade bustled with activity—fish stalls, brush shops, taverns, teahouses, and the like—all clamoring with noise. Shoulder-to-shoulder merchants and travelers, roaming snack vendors, flower girls adorned in colorful blooms, and slender-waisted Hu dancers in the winehouses painted a scene of unparalleled liveliness.

This was Chang'an's West Market, a place so vibrant not even the curfew could suppress it. Since the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras, its prosperity had only grown, spilling over into the neighboring Chongren District, where revelry and clamor lasted late into the night every evening.

The late spring and early summer sunlight filtered through the locust and elm trees lining the streets, their newly sprouted leaves a tender jade green. Li Shubai and Huang Zixiang walked one after another under the shade. Since Li Shubai was dressed in plain clothes, Huang Zixiang had also changed out of her young eunuch's attire into male robes, looking like a somewhat underdeveloped youth.

They wandered freely through the West Market, browsing the wares in the shops. Unfortunately, Li Shubai, having been raised in luxury, found the crude market goods unappealing, while Huang Zixiang was penniless—Li Shubai hadn't yet paid her salary, so she could only look without buying anything.

Only at a shop selling koi did Li Shubai buy a small bag of fish food. He then examined a rather uniquely shaped porcelain fishbowl, seemingly deep in thought.

Unable to buy anything herself, Huang Zixiang naturally encouraged someone else: "It's quite nice. And the fish would have more room to move around in a porcelain bowl."

He picked up the bowl, examined it, then set it back down. "Once they’ve grown accustomed to swimming freely in a larger space, they won’t adapt well to a smaller one."Huang Zixiang murmured to herself, "Can't we just let it have one carefree day?"

"Easier to go from frugality to luxury than the reverse. Since it's bound to end up in hardship anyway, why let it be overly happy in the first place?"

"..." Huang Zixiang was truly speechless at this man who applied grand principles to a mere fish.

It was still early, and the street performers hadn't come out yet. After asking some passersby, Huang Zixiang learned that the performers usually only appeared after noon, when the streets were at their busiest.

As noon approached, Li Shubai finally took pity on Huang Zixiang and led her into a roadside tavern. They settled into a private booth and ordered several local dishes not commonly found in the prince's residence.

The tavern was quite elegant, though the crowd of diners made it rather noisy. Just as Li Shubai began to frown slightly, the sharp rap of a storyteller's gavel suddenly quieted the room.

A storyteller had set up in the tavern, accompanied by a small drum. He tapped and sang a brief folk tune before setting aside his drumsticks, clearing his throat, and announcing, "Ladies and gentlemen, today this humble old man will share some of the most bizarre tales from across the nine provinces."

At the sound of his voice, Huang Zixiang recognized him—he was the same storyteller they'd encountered in the pavilion outside Chang'an city, where a group had gathered to escape the rain. It was he who had spoken of her family's case. A storyteller of local legends was indeed most fitting here.

True to form, he began: "In Chang'an city stands the Daming Palace, where the emperor sits upon his throne. Beyond the palace reside the princes, among them Prince Kui, whose great name is Li Zi, also called Li Shubai."

Someone in the crowd shouted, "I love hearing about Prince Kui! Start with the tale of how he led six military governors to defeat Pang Xun!"

"Patience, good patron! Let me first speak of current events—for what's happening now is deeply connected to Prince Kui's legendary feat of shooting down Pang Xun amidst ten thousand soldiers!"

Amidst the clamor outside, Li Shubai sat calmly in the ornately carved booth, seemingly deaf to the noise. He ate slowly, his gaze resting on the passersby outside the window, his expression serene.

Huang Zixiang rested her chin in her hand, listening to the voices outside—"Ah, do you all know that Prince Kui has been quite busy lately? Why, just now, I hear he's encountered a new trouble."

"Prince Kui just solved the Four Directions case in the capital and is about to welcome his princess consort. At the peak of his success, how could he possibly have any troubles?" It was the same patron again, playing along.

"Do you know what happened yesterday afternoon, when the Langya Wang family's young lady—Prince Kui's betrothed—went to offer incense at Xianyou Temple?"