The Golden Hairpin

Wang Ruo, who had just walked into the left chamber under the gaze of so many people, vanished without a trace in the blink of an eye, as if a wisp of smoke had dissipated into the air.

While the crowd behind her stood frozen in shock, Huang Zixiang swiftly stepped forward. She checked inside the wardrobe, bent down to look under the bed, then moved behind the couch to open the tightly shut window. Outside, she saw two guards standing rigidly at attention.

She looked up and noticed Li Shubai in the front hall, speaking with someone beside him. Seemingly catching her movement from the corner of his eye, his gaze shifted toward her, meeting hers briefly.

She waved at him, signaling that something was wrong.

Li Shubai quickly crossed the courtyard and approached. After a glance at the empty chamber, he immediately directed everyone to search the main hall and side chambers. Yet Yongchun Hall was not large, and within moments every corner had been scoured—Wang Ruo was nowhere to be found.

Hurried footsteps sounded outside as Yanling, the palace maid serving the Empress, rushed in with Su Qi and asked, "What happened?"

Upon seeing Li Shubai in the hall, she hastily bowed, then turned an inquiring look toward Su Qi, who whispered, "The Princess Consort... we don’t know where she went."

Yanling gasped. "I was just sent by Her Majesty to deliver hair ornaments and robes to the Princess Consort with Su Qi. How could... in such a short time, with so many people around, how could she..."

Li Shubai said, "You should report this to the Empress first. We’ll continue searching the hall. If we find her, we’ll inform Her Majesty immediately."

"Leave a few of you here to help search. I must return to Penglai Hall at once." Yanling gestured for the attendants carrying the clothes to set them down, then hurried back with only two or three in tow.

Under Li Shubai’s orders, the crowd in Yongchun Hall combed through every inch of grass, every brick, and every beam over a dozen times—yet not a single trace was found.

Just as the prophecy had foretold, Wang Ruo had vanished before the wedding. And she had disappeared under heavy guard, within the Daming Palace itself.

Soon, Yongji, one of the Empress’s chief eunuchs, arrived. The hall became so packed with eunuchs, maids, imperial guards, and the prince’s retinue that it was nearly impossible to move. Li Shubai, exasperated, motioned for everyone to leave, retaining only Wang Yun and a dozen others to meticulously examine the inner chamber for clues.

Li Shubai and Huang Zixiang walked to the entrance of the hall, carefully surveying the surroundings.

Now restored to silence, Yongchun Hall looked no different from any other palace under the night sky. Its solemn, somewhat rigid structure consisted of seven outer halls and seven inner halls, connected by covered corridors on either side, forming a standard square layout. To break the monotony, craftsmen had laid a brick path through the central courtyard, flanked by rockeries. But the rock formations were not tall—only one or two stones rose above head height, while the rest were arranged in an artful scattering of medium and small rocks. Thus, from the front hall, one could clearly see straight through to the rear.

"We were standing under the eaves of the outer hall, near the corridor, watching Wang Ruo walk along the brick path toward the inner hall. Since she was staying in the left chamber, she veered around the rockery about a quarter of the way in—but we could still see her figure from the outer hall. We watched her enter the left chamber with our own eyes, and she never came out."

Li Shubai nodded in confirmation."Then, after entering the palace gate, Xianyun immediately took the food box to the kitchen. Shortly after, Suqi and Ranyun came out with lanterns to search for the Leaf Vein Dew Hairpin."

"There's a question here that needs to be asked. At such a tense and fearful time, why would Aunt Suqi and Ranyun both come out together? Why didn't they think to leave someone by Wang Ruo's side?"

Huang Zixiang spoke as she walked to the desk and sat down, habitually raising her hand to pull out the hairpin from her head to mark something. But when she touched the eunuch's gauze cap on her head instead, her hand paused involuntarily. She then grabbed the Leaf Vein Dew Hairpin on the table and began sketching the layout of Yongchun Palace's front hall on the desk.

Watching her casual scribbles, Li Shubai frowned slightly. Huang Zixiang ignored him and calmly continued recounting the events: "Then I called out to ask, and they mentioned searching for the hairpin. I went behind the rockery and found it, bringing it to them. Just then, Xianyun returned with the walnut cakes."

She drew another line on the faint marks on the table, this time from the inner hall to the corner kitchen: "The small kitchen of Yongchun Palace is in the southwest corner, near the wall. For safety reasons, the cooks and others had already been dismissed. Xianyun was visiting the palace for the first time, yet she managed to find the pastries so quickly in an empty kitchen. Was it just good luck, or does she have a special sense for food?"

Li Shubai glanced at the hairpin she was unconsciously dragging across the table and asked impassively, "I assume your deductions include more than this?"

"Also, the inner hall consists of three sections: the left chamber, main hall, and right chamber from left to right. Essentially, it's a seven-bay hall, with the two leftmost and rightmost bays converted into chambers, leaving the middle three bays as the main hall. The left chamber is designed as a warm room with thick walls and only one window, on the same side as the main hall's entrance, facing the central courtyard and outer hall. So, to enter or exit the left chamber, the only path is through the main hall. When Suqi, Xianyun, Ranyun, and I were all standing at the main hall's entrance, unless she could walk through walls, the only way out would be climbing through the window."

"But not only were two people keeping watch outside the window, there were also people constantly monitoring the outer hall's corridor. I was standing right there myself—if that window had opened, I and the others would have noticed immediately."

"Another possibility is that there's a secret passage inside the hall." Huang Zixiang tossed aside the hairpin and returned to the left chamber with Li Shubai. Looking at this small room with only one door and one window, there was clearly no place to hide anyone.

"A tunnel is possible," Li Shubai said as he sat down at the low table and poured himself a cup of tea. Seeing that this lord had no intention of helping, Huang Zixiang resigned herself to tapping every inch of the wall, even moving the wardrobe aside to knock on the wall behind it for a long time.

Li Shubai sat at ease, sipping tea and watching her as if observing an unrelated performance. Huang Zixiang felt her fingers swelling from all the tapping and was about to rub them when Li Shubai tossed something to her.

She caught it and saw it was half a silver ingot, square and thick, weighing about ten taels—as if someone had sliced a full ingot in half.She lay on the floor, casually tapping the floor tiles with the silver ingot and listening intently to the sounds beneath, but found nothing. She even lifted the carpet to knock on the blue bricks underneath, one by one.

Li Shubai remained indifferent. When she crawled under his feet, he simply picked up his teacup and moved to sit on the opposite brocade cushion, ignoring her completely.

Exhausted and still empty-handed, Huang Zixiao had no choice but to stand up and sit down in front of Li Shubai. She placed the half-piece of silver ingot back on the table and asked, "Why would Your Highness carry a silver ingot—and a broken half at that—when going out?"

"Of course I wouldn’t," Li Shubai replied casually, pointing to the three overturned teacups on the table. "It was placed on the low table, covered by the teacups. I found it when I lifted one to drink."

"Strange. Who would leave half a silver ingot on the table?" She turned the ingot over in her hands. On its back, as was customary, were inscribed characters: "Deputy Envoy Liang Weidong… Treasury Envoy Zhang Junyi, cast silver two," among others.

Li Shubai took the ingot and turned the side with the casters’ names toward her. "To prevent skimping on materials or insufficient weight, it’s standard practice for one envoy and three deputy envoys to inscribe their names on the ingot during casting, ensuring accountability."

"I know. So the missing half should bear the names of the other two deputy envoys and the words 'ten taels.' This must be a twenty-tael silver ingot cast by the imperial treasury." Huang Zixiao weighed the ingot in her hand and added.

Li Shubai tapped the two names with his finger. "Yet these two names don’t belong to any of the officials responsible for casting gold and silver ingots in the imperial court."

"There are so many officials overseeing the imperial treasury’s casting. How could you possibly know them all?"

"Coincidentally, there was a corruption case in the treasury before. I was ordered to lead dozens of accountants from the Ministry of Revenue into the palace to audit the imperial accounts over the years. I also reviewed all records of gold, silver, and coin casting since the founding of this dynasty. I remember every name on the list of casters, even the local treasury supervisors."

She was well aware of his terrifyingly perfect memory. Holding the half-ingot, she examined it and muttered to herself, "Could this be a privately cast silver ingot?"

But she quickly shook her head, dismissing the idea. "If it were privately cast, the owner’s name would surely be inscribed, not impersonating imperial envoys—unless this is one of those lead-filled counterfeit ingots from the market."

"It’s not. This ingot was split cleanly in half, and the break is pure silver. The weight is also accurate." Watching her puzzled expression, Li Shubai raised four fingers. "It seems this is another detail worth noting—a mysterious half-piece of silver ingot."

"Why only half?" Huang Zixiao murmured to herself, feeling that this lead was still too vague for now. She set the ingot down beside the golden leaf hairpin and looked up at him. "So, what’s your next move?""Speaking of which, there is something I need to prepare for. Tomorrow, a delegation from Tibet will arrive in the capital, and the Ministry of Rites has asked me to assist in receiving them." He stood up, casually brushing off his sleeves. "From the very beginning, I said this matter would be entirely left to you. Now we’ve indeed reached the worst-case scenario we anticipated. You must take responsibility for resolving this properly—at the very least, we need to know how she disappeared."

Huang Zixiang stood up as well. "Just me alone?"

"The Inner Court and the Dali Temple will undoubtedly intervene. When the time comes, I’ll arrange for you to be involved at every step. Oh, and if you come across any... bodies, go find Zhou Ziqin."

Huang Zixiang’s lips twitched involuntarily—his future bride, set to marry him in seven days, had vanished right before his eyes, and his first concern was the possibility of finding a corpse. What kind of person was he?

What lay before her seemed like a tangled mess of threads—countless leads, yet each one as impenetrable as a sheet of iron, leaving her with no place to start.

Returning to Yongchun Hall, Huang Zixiang searched every corner and considered countless ways someone might have slipped out unnoticed through the windows or doors. She went over the sequence of events again and again, but still found nothing.

The cousin of the Empress and the future Princess of Kui had mysteriously disappeared within the palace, leaving the Inner Court at a loss. Under Empress Wang’s orders, the palace guards conducted a thorough search not only of Yongchun Hall but the entire Daming Palace. Yet, as expected, they found nothing. Dismantling Yongchun Hall was naturally out of the question, but even after removing all the furniture and decorations and combing through every inch, the result remained the same. Soon, the Vice Minister of the Dali Temple, Cui Chunzhan, arrived with a team of investigators and clerks to begin a full-scale inquiry.

Following Li Shubai’s instructions, Huang Zixiang went to meet with Vice Minister Cui Chunzhan.

She had encountered Cui Chunzhan before during the Four Directions case. In his early thirties, he hailed from the prestigious Boling Cui family—a scion of nobility, accomplished at a young age, and exuding an air of confidence. The moment Huang Zixiang saw him, she couldn’t help but think of Wang Yun, sensing a faint resemblance between the two.

Since she was from the Prince of Kui’s household and had previously solved a difficult case, Cui Chunzhan treated her with considerable courtesy, even inviting her to sit. With a smile, he said, "Though you are young, your deductive abilities are truly impressive. His Highness the Prince of Kui has requested your involvement in this case, and I hope you will lend us your full assistance."

Huang Zixiang quickly replied, "If there is any way I can be of service, I will certainly do my utmost."