PFC Chapter 535
Chapter 535
The late spring wind swirled willow catkins against the carved window frames. When Dongfang Wan'er rushed into Xiefang Courtyard, her skirt still stained with moss she had brought back from the old house, her footsteps scattering fallen petals. Madam Dongfang was embroidering a "Fish Playing Among Lotus Leaves" design on the embroidery frame. The needle had just pierced the moon-white satin when she noticed a gray stain on the exposed part of her daughter's neck. The embroidery frame fell with a "thud" onto the Xiangfei bamboo chair, the silk threads stretching into delicate silver arcs in the sunlight.
"Wan'er?" Her mother's voice mingled with the soft ringing of the copper bells under the eaves. Her fingertips brushed against the unkempt stray hairs at her temples, touching the dried bloodstains on the tassel of the Qing Shuang sword. Suddenly, a tiny crack appeared in the jade bracelet on her wrist. Dongfang Wan'er placed the bronze bell and the double-fish jade pendant on the mother-of-pearl inlaid table. The "Admonitions for Women," which was pressed down by a jade paperweight, was blown open by the wind. The two characters "Chastity and Tranquility" fell precisely into the shadow of the jade pendant, like an old scar.
The bronze bell gleamed a pale green in the sunlight, and the withered leaf in the double-fish pattern, moistened by the morning dew, revealed its dark brown veins. Lady Dongfang gazed at the leaf, and suddenly the crimson handkerchief she was twisting in her hand tore open. “This bell…” her voice trembled, her gaze sweeping over the vermilion birthmark on her daughter’s wrist, “Your father always said that the camel bells of the Western caravans concealed the glint of swords.” The gold-threaded koi on the embroidery frame twisted and contorted in the flickering candlelight, appearing as if bloodied hands were about to leap from the water.
Dongfang Wan'er pressed her mother's cold hand, feeling the thin calluses on her palm from years of embroidery. Memories suddenly flooded back: on her eighth birthday, her father touched her brow with his ink-scented fingers, "Wan'er, do you know why I named you 'Wan'er'?" Behind him, on an antique shelf, stood a pair of gilded bells, tributes from the Western Regions. "'Wan' means compliant, but also implies subtlety." Now, the bells were long gone, only this one before her, under her mother's trembling gaze, emitted a soft, tinkling sound.
“It’s a double fish holding its tail…” Madam Dongfang suddenly grabbed the jade pendant, her fingertips tracing the four characters “Eternal Silence of Mountains and Rivers,” her eyes welling up with an unnatural redness. “In the third hidden compartment of your father’s study, there’s an account book written in Sogdian script…” Before she could finish speaking, hurried footsteps suddenly came from the corridor. Ye Jiuchen’s jade pendant clattered against the door knocker, making a clear, melodious sound. His shoulders were still covered with the lingering morning mist, and the gilded wine pot he was holding clattered to the ground when he saw the object on the table.
"The mechanism in the secret room..." His voice was cold and stern as his fingertips traced the edge of the bronze bell, "...exactly the same as the 'Nine-Linked Rings' that was lost in the early years of our dynasty's Divine Machine Battalion." Dongfang Wan'er noticed the bits of grass stuck to his cuff, the very seedlings of the datura unique to the back alley of the old house. Ye Jiuchen met her gaze and suddenly took out half a piece of charred silk from his sleeve. On it were the remaining characters "Shuangyu Fang at the third quarter of the hour of You" (5:45 PM), the ink blurred by water, like a clump of blood that could not be dissolved.
The candlelight in the dungeon flickered in the draft, and Dongfang Wan'er, stepping on the damp blue bricks, heard her own heartbeat mingling with the clanking of her chains. The man in black lay curled up on the stone bed, his shackles deeply embedded in his wrists, but when he saw the cinnabar birthmark on her wrist, his cloudy eyes suddenly lit up. They were eyes weathered by time, the lines at the corners of his eyes as sharp as if carved by a knife, strikingly similar to the portrait of the Western Region merchants in her father's study.
"Your surname is An?" Dongfang Wan'er's voice startled the bats on the beams, and the scabbard of her Qing Shuang sword lightly tapped the stone wall. "In the twentieth year of Zhenguan, An Shitong, the tribute envoy from the Kingdom of Kucha..." Before she could finish speaking, the man in black suddenly coughed violently, the blood and saliva spilling from the corner of his mouth mixed with black medicinal residue. As Ye Jiuchen rushed over, his withered fingers suddenly grabbed Dongfang Wan'er's sleeve, half a piece of indigo cloth embedded in his fingernails—the very color that had appeared on the wall the night before.
“Ring…there’s something in the bell…” He made a hoarse, bellowing sound, his eyes fixed on the bell in her hand. Dongfang Wan’er immediately brought the bell closer, but at that moment she smelled a sweet, cloying scent—the scent of datura flowers! When she realized something was wrong, the man in black’s pupils were already dilated, his fingers slipped limply, and the character “An” was clearly etched in his palm, the old and new knife wounds overlapping, as if it had been carved more than ten times.
On the way back, Ye Jiuchen's cloak enveloped her as they crossed the winding bridge, the water lilies on the lake glistening with dew. Dongfang Wan'er, clutching the bell, suddenly noticed a tiny indentation at the mouth of the two fish. Turning it in the moonlight, it revealed the inscription "Yonghui Fourth Year"—the year her father was ordered to investigate a smuggling case involving merchants from the Western Regions. Ye Jiuchen took a sandalwood box from his sleeve, inside which was half a broken hairpin, the character "An" faintly visible on the jade fragments at the tip.
“This was found in the collar of the man in black.” His voice was low as he ran his fingertips over the broken hairpin. “It’s the one your mother lost back then…” His voice trailed off as the watchman’s gong sounded in the distance. “Second watch, beware of thieves and robbers!” Suddenly, all the lanterns in Xiefang Courtyard went out, except for the one by your mother’s window, which still shone with a flickering candlelight, much like the last flickering candle in the old mansion’s dungeon.
Dongfang Wan'er gazed at the bell in her hand, suddenly recalling the note her father had given her before his death, the back of which faintly bore traces of Sogdian script. Ye Jiuchen had lit the candlestick on the table at some point; in the warm yellow light, he fiddled with the bell for her. Suddenly, the indentation at the mouth of the twin fish caught his fingertip, causing a tiny silver disc to pop out—engraved with a Western Region-style pavilion, nine bells hanging from the eaves, and the words "Twin Fish Pavilion" faintly visible on the corner of the eaves.
"Go to the Ghost Market in the west of the city tomorrow." Ye Jiuchen put the silver piece into his sleeve, then suddenly grasped her hand, his fingertips touching the thin calluses on her palm from holding a sword. "Remember to bring your father's Green Frost Sword." Outside the window, spring thunder rumbled faintly, and as the first raindrop hit the banana leaf, Dongfang Wan'er heard her mother cough softly in the next room, accompanied by the sound of rummaging through things—the sound of a hidden compartment being opened.
She turned to look out the window. In the rain, the Taihu stone in Xiefang Courtyard resembled the broken stele of the old house. The words "chastity" were washed away by the rain, revealing faint engravings beneath. Ye Jiuchen draped an outer robe over her shoulders. The silver thread patterns embroidered on the dark fabric gleamed faintly in the candlelight; they were the royal patterns she had seen on the marriage certificate last night.