Unveil: Jadewind

A gilded dragon-horse patterned double-heart pot.

Li Yuangui frowned, vaguely recalling having heard of this "double-heart pot" before—and it wasn't associated with anything good.

Pei Lvshi patiently explained: "That's a device commonly used for poisoning in recent times. The wine pot has two inner chambers—one holds good wine, the other poisoned wine. Controlled by two air holes on the handle, what appears to be wine poured from the same pot is actually completely different between two cups. This type of pot requires exceptionally fine craftsmanship, making it far more concealed and harder to detect than a 'revolving-heart pot.'"

"How so?" Li Yuangui asked while imagining the internal structures of both types of double-layered pots. Pei Lvshi elaborated: "The 'revolving-heart pot' also has two inner chambers, but the pourer must rotate the pot body to switch the outlet of the desired chamber to the spout, making the action more noticeable. Back then, Prince Qin's attendants at the banquet were all highly vigilant against poisoning attempts. If the Crown Prince's Palace had used a revolving-heart pot, it might not have escaped their watchful eyes..."

"That's it!" Li Yuangui slapped his thigh. "That night, the Crown Prince's eldest princess first toasted Prince Consort Chai and others, who drank without issue. But when she later toasted Prince Qin with what appeared to be wine from the same pot, he nearly died. The secret lay in this double-heart pot!"

Pei Lvshi nodded in agreement: "Exactly. Thus, when this pot was retrieved from the well, it irrefutably proved the Crown Prince's Palace had poisoned Prince Qin. Even if the mastermind and handlers couldn't be identified, this case could be considered resolved and recorded in history."

The phrase "recorded in history" carried a hint of sarcasm and pointed criticism, but it wasn't entirely unjustified. Li Yuangui silently mocked the current Emperor, suspecting that his brother's urgency to reopen the case had this very purpose in mind. After some thought, he asked:

"From the incident to when you, Pei Erlang, had someone retrieve the double-heart pot from the well, over a year had passed. How can we be sure it was the same pot used at the Crown Prince's betrothal banquet? Couldn't someone from the Crown Prince's Palace, fearing indiscriminate punishment during the reinvestigation, have tossed a suitable pot into the well afterward and tipped off your investigative team?"

"My late father and I considered that possibility," Pei Lvshi replied, stroking his beard. "But when the golden pot was retrieved from the well, it was coated with a thin layer of silt, overgrown with algae. It couldn't have been thrown in just days prior—it had clearly lain underwater for a long time. My father deliberately preserved some of the algae and silt on the pot, presenting it during the case report. None of the attending dignitaries—including former Crown Prince officials like Wei Zheng and Wang Gui—raised any objections."

Still skeptical, Li Yuangui pressed, "Can this golden pot still be examined? Given the case's significance, wouldn't the records be preserved longer?"

Pei Lvshi pondered before answering: "This case still has unresolved points, and since it involved the Crown Prince's Palace and endangered His Majesty, I believe the records and key evidence like the golden pot and food box wouldn't have been easily destroyed. They're likely still sealed in the Dali Temple archives. If Prince Wu wishes to reinvestigate, you might try searching there."

The thought of requesting evidence from Dali Temple's Deputy Minister Sun Fu-jia—a man as unyielding as Wei Zheng, known for clashing with Emperor Li Shimin over legal matters—immediately gave Li Yuangui a headache. Changing tack, he asked:"That wine pot, though exquisitely crafted, still required someone to use it in order to successfully poison Prince Qin. Did Lord Pei ever find out who poured the poisoned wine?"

"No," Pei Lvshi shook his head with a sigh. "Precisely because it couldn’t be traced, I say this case was never truly solved."

"That night, the one who offered the wine cup to Prince Qin was the eldest princess of the Crown Prince's Palace," Li Yuangui pondered. "She was only six or seven years old—certainly incapable of orchestrating such a meticulous and sinister plot. The poisoner must have been the attendant behind her, the one who poured the wine..."

"Exactly. In the eighth year of the WuDe Era, Chief Minister of the Court of Judicial Review Cui Shan-wei personally led an investigation at the Crown Prince's Palace’s catering bureau, interrogating on-site to determine who had poured the wine for the eldest princess that night. At the time, two servants stood behind the princess—one holding the cup was her lifelong wet nurse, HeBa, who was easy to identify. But the eunuch who poured the wine had mysteriously vanished..."

"How could a eunuch from the Crown Prince's Palace just disappear?" Li Yuangui frowned. "Even if he vanished, someone should have remembered his name, appearance, or background!"

"That’s the strangest part," Pei Lvshi replied. "Later, I questioned Cui Shan-wei and others directly. They said none of the kitchen staff in the Crown Prince's Palace’s catering bureau or the servants in the inner service bureau knew—or even heard—who had been assigned to pour wine for the eldest princess that night. When they questioned HeBa, the wet nurse, she said she had accompanied the princess from the rear hall’s banquet for noblewomen to the front hall. At the entrance stood a eunuch in a tall hat and wide sleeves, with a long beard, holding a tray with a wine pot and golden cup, waiting to follow them inside. The wet nurse assumed he had been arranged by the catering bureau. Though he seemed unfamiliar, given the grand banquet and the shortage of attendants, it wasn’t unusual for temporary help to be brought in from elsewhere. Besides, her focus was entirely on the princess, so she didn’t suspect anything and led the princess inside. The eunuch handed her the tray but kept the wine pot to pour the wine himself. HeBa then guided the princess on whom to toast, how to address them, and what to say..."

"She never noticed anything unusual about the way the eunuch poured the wine?" Li Yuangui asked.

"Of course not. She insisted she was solely focused on the princess and hadn’t even gotten a clear look at the eunuch’s face—remember how dim the lighting was where they stood? After the princess finished toasting, the wet nurse returned the tray to the eunuch and took the princess back to the rear hall. From then on, she never saw that eunuch again."

Li Yuangui frowned. "So, the poisoner was clearly that eunuch. The Crown Prince's Palace insists they found no trace of him, claiming he must have slipped in from outside?"

"Exactly. From start to finish, the Crown Prince's Palace maintained that explanation. That night, both the inner and outer halls of the palace were hosting banquets, with many noble guests and their entourages—so it was possible. When the Court of Judicial Review first investigated, they did put some effort into tracking this eunuch down. But within days, they received an imperial decree to close the case, attributing it to Prince Qin falling ill. Thus, the eunuch’s true identity was hastily dismissed and left unresolved. After my father and I uncovered the truth in the ninth year of WuDe, the officials of the Court of Judicial Review were reprimanded for dereliction of duty."

This was to be expected. The Court of Judicial Review was responsible for investigating cases, and under imperial pressure, they had hastily closed the case. Once the truth came to light, those in charge at the time were bound to face consequences. But Li Yuangui thought of how, not long ago, Empress Zhangsun had personally ordered him to close Princess Linfen’s case as a "suicide"... In matters like these, no one was in a position to judge.The two fell silent for a while, each drinking another cup of tea. Li Yuangui redirected his thoughts, focusing his mind on the suspicious incidents during the Pei family's investigation in the latter half of the ninth year of WuDe Era:

"After the sixth month of the ninth year, when Lord Pei entered the Crown Prince's Palace to reinvestigate the case, he obtained that food container with the clue written on it—the key to solving the case. Was it ever determined who wrote those characters at the bottom of the food box?"

"No," Pei Lvshi replied with a bitter smile. "I repeatedly pursued the identity of the writer at the time. That particular food box was mixed among a large number of used utensils awaiting cleaning, collected from various halls and courtyards after lunch that day. It was difficult to determine exactly which palace courtyard it came from."

"Were there many people living in the Crown Prince's Palace at that time who received meals from the central kitchen?" Li Yuangui asked.

"Many. Apart from the former Crown Prince's wives, daughters, and servants who were confined to Yiqiu Hall and not allowed to move about freely, the wives and daughters of Prince Qi, as well as the families of executed officials from both palaces, were temporarily detained within the Crown Prince's Palace, housed in separate courtyards without freedom of movement. These people all received daily meals from the kitchen, and the food containers all looked similar. Three meals a day were delivered—the masters would eat first, and the leftovers would be given to the servants. After an hour, household servants would collect the empty containers... Besides these families of the condemned, many of the palace's original servants also had opportunities to handle these containers, making the investigation extremely difficult."

"At that time... Prince Qi's wives and daughters were also detained in the Crown Prince's Palace?" Li Yuangui murmured to himself, an image of a radiantly beautiful face flashing through his mind. "Was Consort Yang among them?"

"Yes. Yangshi had recently given birth, so it was inconvenient for male outsiders to enter her chambers. During our several interrogations, we spoke to her through curtains and screens, but nothing unusual stood out—Fourteenth Young Master suspects Consort Yang?"

Li Yuangui pondered without answering. Given that Prince Qi Li Yuan-ji was highly suspected of the poisoning, and the couple had always been harmonious and close, it was very likely that Consort Yang knew of her husband's actions and thus the whereabouts of the poisoned wine vessel. When the case was reinvestigated, it was entirely possible that she, for reasons unknown, took the initiative to provide clues to the investigators...

"Did Lord Pei never suspect Yangshi?" he asked Pei Lvshi. "As mentioned earlier, Prince Qi's behavior was unusual at the time of the poisoning."

"Suspicion... there was suspicion, but it wasn't deeply considered." Pei Lvshi sighed. "Fourteenth Young Master didn't see that food box in person. The eight characters at the bottom—'Eastern Palace Poisoning, Throw the Vessel into the Well'—were crudely written. We all assumed it was the work of a servant with rudimentary literacy. Yangshi came from the prestigious Hongnong family, was raised by her talented uncle the Fifth Imperial Son-in-Law, and was a noble consort—her calligraphy would have been far more refined."

"That reasoning makes sense, but forging handwriting isn't impossible..." Li Yuangui mused. "It seems I'll have to find time to retrieve the old records from the Dali Temple and examine the evidence."

For the rest of the day, he discussed and pondered the Crown Prince's poisoned wine case with Pei Lvshi. Later, he called Yang Xinzhi upstairs, and the three of them debated back and forth, but no new insights emerged.Li Yuangui should have taken the imperial edict appointing him to investigate the case and gone to the Dali Temple to requisition old records, but he dared not leave the Pei family estate at present—if Zhang Zhuangtou found any leads regarding his seventeenth sister and came to report, he didn’t want to waste even a moment in rescuing her. Similarly, sending Yang Xinzhi back to Chang’an to retrieve the records was also out of the question. Who knew how many accomplices the Hu men who had abducted his seventeenth sister had? His own forces were already limited, and Yang Rou-ta was his strongest fighter.

Moreover, the situation in Chang’an was unclear. When he had fled from the Great Peace Palace the other day, the forbidden garden was in chaos over the investigation of the "assassination attempt on the Supreme Emperor." The Crown Prince Li Chengqian was leading the charge, desperate to shift blame, and with Li Yuangui’s escape, it was all too likely he would seize the opportunity to frame his fourteenth uncle as a traitor colluding with the enemy. If the Son of Heaven believed one-sided accusations and issued an order to apprehend Prince Wu at the city gates, then Li Yuangui and his attendant Yang Xinzhi would likely be seized and delivered to the palace the moment they showed their faces—forget about retrieving records or gathering evidence.

So Li Yuangui had no choice but to wait patiently at the Pei estate north of the Wei River. He had already sent his two young servants, A-Chen, back to the Great Peace Palace to gather information, instructing them to act cautiously. But the journey from Xianyang Crossing to the forbidden garden was not short, and after a full day and night, only A-Chen returned with a report. He brought a jumble of news, tangled and confusing. Li Yuangui and Yang Xinzhi spent half the day questioning him in the hall before finally piecing together a coherent picture.

"How is the Supreme Emperor’s health at the Great Peace Palace?"

A-Chen reported: The seventy-year-old man had suffered greatly, his body weakened further, and for a time, everyone feared he might not recover. But the founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty was blessed by heaven. Under the care of Consort Yuwen and other imperial consorts day and night, the imperial physicians said his pulse had stabilized—at least no worse than before the incident. However, servants from the Great Peace Hall revealed that when the old man occasionally regained consciousness, he would open his eyes and call for "A-Yin." If he didn’t see his beloved Consort Yin, he would weep and sigh. If this continued, the situation would likely worsen...

"What about the investigation into the night assault? Were any assassins captured alive? Who is currently suspected of masterminding it?"

Over a dozen corpses of black-clad assassins had been identified, most found inside the Great Peace Hall and around the watchtowers—no word of any survivors. The bodies were all robust Hu men, with no mention of any teenage boys. The bodies of Consort Yin and her brother Yin Tuo had also been found, and for now, they were being blamed for colluding with outsiders in treason. Bribes had been discovered on Yin Tuo’s person and in his quarters, and his relatives in the capital had been arrested. However, it was said the palace and the Crown Prince’s Palace were dissatisfied with this conclusion. The Son of Heaven had reprimanded both the Crown Prince and Right Garrison Guard Grand General Zhang Shigui. Rumors suggested Zhang Shigui might be demoted and exiled from the capital for failing to secure the palace, with the emperor planning to appoint a more capable general to oversee the imperial guards.

As for the Crown Prince’s Palace, the Crown Prince must have said something about Li Yuangui, as guards now surrounded the Seventeenth Prince’s Residence—Prince Wu’s estate—and were pressuring the servants to search places Li Yuangui frequented. The officials in charge hadn’t outright accused "Prince Wu of treason," only claiming they wanted to question him, but their tone and demeanor were far from respectful, leaving Chen Changshi and others on edge. A-Chen had sneaked into the estate by climbing the wall at night to gather this information and had nearly been caught by people from the Great Peace Hall...

"And the High Truth Master...""...What about the daughter of Chancellor Wei Zheng who was temporarily staying at Purple Void Monastery? How are they?" Yang Xinzhi smilingly finished the question for his lord, earning a glare from Li Yuangui.

On the morning after the incident, shortly after Fourteenth Young Master left the city, High Truth Master and Wei Niangzi had visited Prince Wu's residence—even taking in Liu Jia-amu who had fled there—before disappearing. Investigators couldn't find the two women at Purple Void Monastery, Prince Consort Chai's residence, or Chancellor Wei's mansion, and were reportedly intensifying their search.

"Disappeared?" Li Yuangui asked in shock. Had they voluntarily avoided official searches like he had, or... had they been forcibly taken by someone? After all, two young beauties suddenly vanishing usually meant nothing good.

"Don't worry, Fourteenth Young Master," Yang Xinzhi comforted him. "Wei Niangzi might be somewhat naive, but High Truth Master has always been shrewd and capable. Together, they should be fine."

Li Yuangui frowned, still uneasy, and asked A-Chen: "Did High Truth Master leave any messages or people at the residence, Purple Void Monastery, or the Chai residence? Anything meant only for me, hidden from officials?"

"Aiya!" A-Chen lightly slapped his own cheek. "Look at this slave's terrible memory! If Fourteenth Young Master hadn't mentioned it, I might have forgotten completely! Chen Changshi secretly whispered to me that High Truth Master instructed him to tell only Fourteenth Young Master... what was it again... ah, why can't I remember..."

Watching the muddle-headed servant scratch his head and mutter to himself, unable to recall after much deliberation, Li Yuangui felt anger rising and reached for the knife at his waist: "A good beating will refresh your memory, you fool!"

"No... spare me, Your Highness... ah, I remember now!" A-Chen clapped his head. "Yes yes, Chen Changshi said High Truth Master and the others went to start a fire!"

"Start a fire?" Li Yuangui and Yang Xinzhi exchanged bewildered looks. "Where? What were they burning?"

"No no, that's not quite right..." The servant gritted his teeth, twisting his mouth in concentration. "He said High Truth Master and the others... were going to some residence... to make fire!"