"This matter, to be honest, is indeed my fault."
Chai Yingluo looked directly at Wei Shufen, her expression calm and unruffled, as if she had seen through the vanity of life and no longer cared about anything. Wei Shufen, on the other hand, felt uneasy, both fearful and anxious. She wanted to know the truth and obtain the results of her long efforts, yet she dreaded Chai Yingluo's confession... After all, this was someone who had always treated her with immense kindness, like family.
"He left this jade thumb ring with me as a keepsake. If I had simply stored it somewhere in my room, there wouldn’t have been so much trouble afterward. Tell me, why did I have to put it in my personal leather pouch... Ah, that day when Yi Niang was getting married, I was in her room when I suddenly heard the Empress was coming to visit. I thought the room smelled unpleasant and told her to burn some incense to freshen it up. Yi Niang didn’t have any incense, and I was in a hurry to attend to other matters, so I casually took off my pouch and gave it to Yi Niang’s nursemaid, telling her to take the scented pills inside to burn..."
Wei Shufen remembered this incident—HeBa had mentioned it too. So, the nursemaid had taken Chai Yingluo’s personal leather pouch, opened it to look for the scented pills, and instead saw the blood jade thumb ring inside. And the nursemaid knew the origins of that item.
"The jade thumb ring involves such complex and secretive affairs, Sister Ying... and you just let outsiders see it so casually?" Wei Shufen asked doubtfully.
Chai Yingluo let out a long sigh and clenched her palm:
"At the time, how was I to know this thing was so significant? I thought it was just an ordinary trinket, something the Crown Prince liked and left with me... By the day of the wedding, it had been with me for nearly a month, and I’d almost forgotten about it. That day was also incredibly hectic—when I handed the pouch to HeBa, it never crossed my mind that there was anything inside besides the scented pills. Even if I had remembered, I wouldn’t have thought it improper. It’s just a jade ornament—who doesn’t have a couple of those? I’m not a mind reader—how could I have guessed that HeBa and Yi Niang, who seemed so honest, would dare to secretly take my jewelry?"
Right, Wei Shufen realized. At the time, Chai Yingluo hadn’t known the history of the blood jade thumb ring circulating among the Li brothers, spouses, and mother and son. Li Chengqian hadn’t explained it to her, but HeBa and Li Wanxi knew. In her haste, Chai Yingluo had accidentally let them discover the item, and to commemorate her late father, the former Crown Prince, Li Wanxi—or her nursemaid—had stolen the thumb ring and hidden it...
Was it really just to remember her father? Wei Shufen suddenly grew alert.
"If HeBa or Yi Niang secretly took the jewelry from your pouch and then returned it to you, Sister Ying, didn’t you notice anything unusual?" She looked at the female Taoist and asked slowly. "This jade thumb ring is quite heavy. After it was taken, the weight of the pouch would have been noticeably different, wouldn’t it? When you tied it back to your waist, didn’t you feel it was much lighter?"
Chai Yingluo replied somewhat irritably, "Of course I noticed."
"It was so much lighter—didn’t you open the pouch to check if anything was missing?"“Do you think I wasn’t busy enough that day?” The Master of the Purple Void Monastery rolled her eyes skyward. “The leather pouch felt lighter—how normal is that! Did you forget I specifically told them to take the scented pills inside to scent the rooms? I’m not some human scale—just passing it along, how could I tell whether the pouch only had the pills missing or the pills plus a ring? To be honest, it wasn’t until the third day of the investigation, when you and I were searching Yi Niang’s boudoir letters and you described the jade thumb ring in detail, that I realized it was ‘this one.’ Only then did I think to check my own pouch and found it gone… Sigh, I told you back then that thing wasn’t Yi Niang’s, but none of you believed me…”
“You didn’t say it was yours either,” Wei Shufen retorted.
“Of course I didn’t! What was the situation then? The Son of Heaven and the Empress had already ordered the chancellor and imperial princes to lead the investigation. If I revealed the origin of the jade thumb ring, wouldn’t that be openly admitting my affair with the Crown Prince? Letting the Empress know this ‘white tiger demon’ had gone after her own son again?”
Every word she spoke made sense, yet the more Wei Shufen listened, the heavier the chill in her heart grew.
Unsure how to respond, the eldest daughter of Chancellor Wei silently watched the beautiful female Taoist before her, frowning without a word. The plump hunting leopard that had been lying on the brick floor beneath the bamboo bed seemed to sense something. With a soft whimper, it suddenly stood and nuzzled Chai Yingluo with its furry head and round ears.
The Taoist patted her pet, seeming to relax slightly, and gave Wei Shufen a bitter smile:
“Don’t dwell on it. I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering if Yi Niang and HeBa saw the jade thumb ring in my pouch, realized it was from the Crown Prince, and deduced I might be having an affair with him. Then they took it to blackmail me for favors. Cornered, I killed Yi Niang to silence her and found a way to force HeBa to keep quiet. Maybe I even had a hand in HeBa’s death. Am I right?”
…You’ve laid it out clearer than I could have myself. Wei Shufen was left speechless.
“Fine, then answer me two questions.” Chai Yingluo propped herself up, looking earnestly at Wei Shufen. “First, HeBa’s entire family was dead—Yi Niang was the only relative she had left in this world. If I killed Yi Niang, what could I possibly offer or threaten her with to make her not expose me on the spot and even help cover it up afterward?”
Well… Given Ying-jie’s vast connections, maybe she suddenly discovered some long-lost child of HeBa’s still alive and used that as leverage. It’s not impossible…
“Second, this mess between me and the Crown Prince—even if exposed, is it worth killing over? Even if murdering a helpless orphan like Yi Niang means nothing, how deranged would I have to be to drag the Empress and Crown Prince into it? And after killing her, wouldn’t I hide the damning jade thumb ring instead of leaving it for investigators to find?”
Wei Shufen exhaled deeply, feeling an unexpected lightness in her chest.
This question, she truly couldn’t explain.
Chai Yingluo, bearing the stigma of the “white tiger demon,” refused to reveal her affair with the Crown Prince, even at the cost of her life. Yet if the truth came out and reached the Emperor and Empress, it likely wouldn’t escalate to murder.
Given her background, talents, and beauty—plus Li Chengqian’s feelings for her—if exposed, the Emperor and Empress would probably scold them both before allowing their son to formally bring his cousin into the Crown Prince’s Palace…“When the Crown Prince went to the Hall of Established Governance, was it to seek the Empress’s permission to take you as his concubine?” Wei Shufen couldn’t help but ask. Chai Yingluo gave a soft snort. “What else could it be?”
So even now, Li Chengqian still hadn’t given up his infatuation with his elder cousin. Half a year ago, before all this chaos, his parents would have been far more likely to consent, and Chai Yingluo would have had even less reason to resort to murder. Even if the Son of Heaven and the Empress were deeply wary of that “White Tiger demon” nonsense and adamantly opposed their son’s entanglement with Chai Yingluo, they wouldn’t have gone so far as to kill their own niece.
Her birth mother was a founding princess of the Tang dynasty, the Son of Heaven’s only full sister, and her father was a distinguished general and duke from the original Taiyuan supporters. Half a year ago, her grandfather, the Supreme Emperor, was still alive—another layer of invisible protection. As far as Wei Shufen knew, Chai Yingluo had grown up under the care of her uncle and aunt, the Emperor and Empress, and had always been dearly loved by them. Even if the imperial couple prioritized the heir’s safety and resolved to separate the young lovers, they could have demoted, exiled, or forced her to take monastic vows—there were plenty of methods. It was nearly unthinkable that they would resort to killing a close relative and invite scandal.
So Chai Yingluo truly had no reason to kill to cover up an affair—let alone implicate the Empress and her son afterward, as if eager to stir up trouble. It made no sense.
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