The Golden Hairpin

by Qinghan CeCe

  “My arm survived after six months of treatment, and the circle around diseased has gradually been disappearing. But my left arm is weak. I can do daily stuff like write and draw, but can no longer use a sword or bow.” He pulled his left hand out and moved the fingers in front of her eyes. “I used to be left-handed.”

  She thought of how he skillfully got down from the carriage and felt a sense of admiration. She certainly couldn’t start over and make her nondominant hand dominant after hardly using it for twenty years.

  “Originally, I thought that after I dismissed those people, the thing was over, so I put this paper in a secret place, still hoping to make the circle fade. But when the Emperor mentioned my marriage a few days ago, I thought of its widowed and took it out to have a look. I saw there was now a red circle around widowed.” He took the paper out and put his finger on it with a mocking smile. “It seems me getting married may have unanticipated results.”

  Huang Zixia took the paper from him and looked at it carefully. The scarlet circle around widowed looked newer than the one around lonely. The scarlet seemed fiercer.

  “Incredible. It seems like some spirit mischief, determined by fate. Three or four years later, another red circle flourishes on the paper,” Li Shubai said slowly. “I’ve changed the people around me several times, and I’ve hidden this paper as carefully as our military plans. I can’t believe something like this, which no one could have had contact with, would send another omen.”

  Huang Zixia put it down. “It seems this paper might be more complicated than we thought.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. He paused, then said, “I think someone will try to disrupt my marriage.” He looked at her, a faint smile on his face. “I just remembered you are Wang Yun’s betrothed. You’d poison your whole family to avoid it, which is the biggest disgrace imaginable for him.”

  “I didn’t kill my family,” she said, clenching her teeth. “If you want to help me, don’t say that again.”

  He looked at her curiously. “Just relaying common sense. Wouldn’t it be foolish of me to collaborate with a murderess?”

  She bit her lip, then whispered, “Do you really believe I didn’t kill my family?”

  He didn’t answer as he began to walk along the winding bridge.

  They walked along the dimly lit path toward the pavilion. The horizon was turning blue as dawn came in earnest.

  “Yes, because I read your palm. It didn’t look like you killed anyone,” he finally said.

  “The last time you looked at my hand, you said it was obvious I’d poisoned my family, which was how you knew who I was!”

  “I lied.”

  “Then how did you know who I was last time?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said definitively. “You just need to help me unravel the mystery behind this paper.”

  “So you can’t just read everyone’s palm and figure it all out?” she pressed.

  “Nah,” he said without looking at her, “I prefer watching you playing a eunuch.”

  So the Prince of Kui’s eunuch Huang Zixia, or, rather, Yang Chonggu, followed His Highness to Penglai Palace to attend the selection of his Princess.

  Though it was already the fourth month, the royal garden blooming with peaches and plums couldn’t dispel the cold.

  “The ladies have likely all arrived; why doesn’t the Prince go inside to see what they’re saying?” Huang Zixia asked.

  Li Shubai glanced at her. “What’s the rush?”

  Huang Zixia had to suppress her eagerness to see the capital beauties and wait for him to speak.

  He asked, “Is the gift suitable?”

  “Yes.” She opened the box and looked inside. The whole palace was wondering what jade or treasure the Prince would give his Princess, but none knew that Huang Zixia held it. It was a lucky and rare peony.

  Huang Zixia gazed at the incomparable crimson flower. “This morning, I followed the Prince’s instructions and cut it down as soon as it bloomed. Gardener Liu didn’t know about it and yelled at me! He said it took two months of tunneling and charcoal burning to get it to bloom like that. With this flower cut, there won’t be any others like it this year.”

  “I’ll console him a bit later,” Li Shubai said indifferently.

  “The peony is a really elegant choice for a gift,” Huang Zixia said, closing the box.

  Li Shubai’s expression was blank; he seemed to take no pleasure in pleasing the Princess. Huang Zixia thought that good flowers don’t bloom often, and when they do, they wither quickly. Being a smart person, how could he not have thought of that?

  She held the peony in her arms, thinking about that cursed paper she learned about a few days ago, unable to feel deep sympathy for whomever was to be Li Shubai’s wife.

  Soon the Empress’s attendant came to say that everyone had arrived and the Prince should come at his leisure.

  Li Shubai signaled for Huang Zixia to follow him into the hall.

  Traditionally, Princes chose their Princesses from among ministers’ daughters or aristocratic women. They naturally didn’t line up for the picking. Even though everyone knew what was happening, they just had them eat at a banquet, with the Prince looking on from behind a screen. If he found one suitable, she would be asked to come to him and receive the gift, be asked her name but nothing else, because it was all set ahead of time.

  Huang Zixia went into the hall’s side entrance with Li Shubai. She saw an elaborately embroidered silk screen separating the front and back. She could clearly see everyone in the front of the hall, but they could likely make out only a vague outline of her.

  They probably felt him standing there watching, because the ladies’ movements were all a little unnatural. Only one, to the Empress’s right, seemed at ease. Huang Zixia looked at the Empress. She had a beautiful face and wore red clothing decorated with clouds. Her eyes were smart and clear, as if glowing with an inner radiance.

  She was the second royal Empress from the Langya Wang family. When her older sister died, she entered Yun Palace and became the Prince of Yun’s wife. After he ascended the throne, she was named Empress. She was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight but looked like she was only in her early twenties.

  The crowd of women in their silk outfits arranged like flowers around the table couldn’t detract from her beauty at all. Huang Zixia admired her, thinking that when she entered the palace and saw the Empress three years ago, she didn’t understand what it meant for someone to be beautiful enough to topple cities. Now, a little older, she understood how beautiful someone could be.

  The girl next to the Empress must have been her younger cousin, another girl from the Langya Wang family named Wang Ruo. Huang Zixia could see that, though they were related, they didn’t look alike at all. In fact, their names suited them. The Empress’s given name was Shao, a kind of peony, and she looked incredibly beautiful in her red clothing. Wang Ruo, who was wearing a purple jacket, was more charming and delicate like a peach or a plum. Though she couldn’t match the queen, she had a naive charm.

  Though the other women weren’t bad, they were eclipsed by those two. Huang Zixia focused on a girl wearing a wide, light-pink skirt. Her cheeks were plump, and she had beautiful, almond-shaped eyes, but her chin was always slightly raised, which made her seem a little arrogant. Huang Zixia thought it must be Princess Qi Le, who everyone in the capital knew wanted to marry Li Shubai more than anything.

  Princess Qi Le was from Shu. She had little royal blood, but her father’s success at court granted him the title Prince of Yi. This made her a Princess. Lady Zhao was then in charge of palace affairs, and it was said that Princess Qi Le bribed palace officials to let her copy scripture for her in order to try to get a good word put in on her behalf to be chosen as Li Shubai’s wife. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, and she became the butt of jokes.

  Li Shubai waved the attendant Zhang Ling over and, pointing at Wang Ruo, said, “Her.”

  Huang Zixia was surprised. How could he cho
ose his wife at a glance?

  But she could only ask, “The Prince wouldn’t like to think a little longer?”

  “What consideration would go into choosing to spend your life with someone from a group of people you don’t know?”

  “But the woman the Prince chooses must have unique characteristics.”

  He looked at her sideways, his lips curving slightly into a smile, but there was no joy in his eyes. “Yes,” he said, “out of all the candidates, she’s the most beautiful.”

  Huang Zixia was stunned at his brazenness. After a while she said, “Perhaps the Prince should be a little cautious?”

  “This is the most cautious choice. Their moral character and family backgrounds have already gone through the selection process. All I have to do is choose the one most pleasing to the eye, don’t you think?”

  All she could say was, “Congratulations on finding your sweetheart.”

  He reached toward her face.

  She didn’t know what he wanted. Then she turned and saw Wang Ruo coming with the attendant.

  From the front of the hall came a burst of noise. Princess Qi Le realized that Li Shubai had chosen someone else, and she spilled her soup on the woman next to her.

  Qi Le quickly used her veil to wipe it off. “Goodness, how careless . . .” Before she could finish her sentence, her eyes welled up. She bit her lip and turned to the maid behind her and pretended to rinse her mouth in a bowl as she cried.

  Huang Zixia had no time to pay attention to her. She hurried and opened the box and put the flower in Li Shubai’s hand.

  Wang Ruo lowered her head with slightly flushed cheeks as she walked up to Li Shubai.

  She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old, slender, and more than half a head taller than the other women. Her dress was embroidered with plump begonias and an intricate gold silk pattern. She had six hairpins in her hair and a wonderful jade-pearl necklace that rocked as she walked. In contrast with this magnificent outfit, she seemed innocent and cautious. She kept her head bowed as she walked, too shy to look directly at people.

  Li Shubai waited until she was before him and handed her the flower before speaking gently, “You’re Wang Ruo?”

  She started as if struck by lightning.

  She made a fist, then looked excitedly at Li Shubai. Her eyes suddenly became moist, and she seemed to fall into a trance, as if remembering a distant memory. She trembled and clutched her collar, unable to speak.

  Huang Zixia watched her.

  Li Shubai noticed Wang Ruo’s strange response too but didn’t say anything.

  Wang Ruo finally calmed herself and lifted her hands to her lips. “The Prince of Kui . . . it’s really . . . really you,” she said.

  Li Shubai raised his eyebrows slightly but didn’t speak.

  “I . . . I never thought I would be so lucky, so, so, I’m acting foolish. Please forgive me.” She was helpless. He didn’t respond, and she was on the brink of tears.

  Li Shubai’s expression became gentler. He gave her the peony and said, “You must be used to being at home, not in a setting like this. I startled you.”

  Wang Ruo nodded tearfully and smiled with a deep curtsy in thanks for the gift. Then she reached out and took the flower tightly into her arms, her face as flush as the begonias on her blouse.

  Only Huang Zixia saw the tear fall on the peony flower, gently shaking its petal in a splash before it disappeared into a fine mist.

  “What do you think of that Wang Ruo?” Li Shubai asked Huang Zixia on the carriage ride home.

  Huang Zixia hesitated and said, “I’m just a palace eunuch; I wouldn’t dare comment on the Princess-to-be.”

  Li Shubai ignored her and picked up the glass bottle, gazing at the red fish swimming inside.

  “There seems to be a problem,” Huang Zixia finally said.

  “Seems?” he said flatly as he flicked the bottle. “Before she saw me, she was calm and serene because she didn’t care if I chose her or not.”

  “But when the attendant brought her to you and she saw your face, her look completely changed. Her shock and joy were too strong, almost suspicious. Like she was experiencing déjà vu.”

  “Yes,” Li Shubai said with a nod, his eyes going from the fish to her. “And, when it was time to leave the hall, we exchanged notes. I found something interesting on hers.”

  He opened a drawer and took out a small red note and put it on the table, then pushed it toward Huang Zixia.

  She picked it up and looked at the writing on it.

  The Langya Wang Family’s fourth daughter, Wang Ruo, born in the second hour of the thirtieth day of the tenth month during the sixth leap year of our Emperor’s reign.

  She looked, counted to herself, and gave the red paper back to him. “This note is false.”

  He nodded slightly. “You can tell too?”

  “Yes, the tenth month of the sixth year didn’t have a thirtieth, only a twenty-ninth.”

  “Right.” Li Shubai finally gave a slight smile. “Do you have the calendar of every year memorized like me?”

  “I certainly don’t have as good a memory as the Prince, but I have the ability to count leap years. It’s a crude attempt at deception.” She looked at the note again. “And the ‘leap year’ was obviously added later. Usually there’s more space between the words on this kind of note. I don’t get it.”

  “Must be because the thirtieth of the tenth month is the anniversary of my mother’s death,” he said.

  She nodded. “So to avoid this, they modified it a bit and tried to get away with it.”

  “That could be, but there’s more.” He put a finger on the note. “Their birthdays had to be given to the lady ahead of time so they can make projections. If they saw the thirtieth, they certainly would have noted it was the anniversary of my mother’s death, and she wouldn’t have been chosen. If someone helped her forge this, it wouldn’t have been done so hastily and look this bad. If the lady saw this date, she’d know it didn’t exist, and this paper would have never reached me.”

  “So this Wang Ruo may not have been an original candidate who went through the process before you saw her,” Huang Zixia guessed. “Maybe it’s because she’s the Empress’s cousin, and she made a special request to get her through.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t have any worries about Wang Ruo herself; she’s just a pawn. What I am worried about is who sent her to me and what they’re hiding.” He thought it over. “Maybe there’s some correlation with that cursed paper.”

  Huang Zixia nodded and thought of the shocked look on Wang Ruo’s face when she saw Li Shubai. As a woman, she felt that emotion was not one a pawn would have. But the specifics were still lost on her.

  “It seems picking my Princess has caused you to confront a situation much more complex than we thought.”

  “The more complex the core of the matter is, the harder it is to keep clues from leaking out, so complexity isn’t bad.”

  Li Shubai examined her. Her face wasn’t hesitant but quiet, calm, and confident. He felt something stir in his heart, which made him turn away from her to the world outside the carriage window.

  The process of selecting his wife was over. The ladies were all on their way home in carriages from Daming Palace to Changan City. The weeds from last year still lined the road. This year’s grass was still only two or three inches long, yellow with patches of green. When the wind blew, the yellow and green shifted slowly. Behind them was the Langya Wangs’ family carriage; an old servant unhurriedly drove two robust, mottled horses.

  Li Shubai closed the curtain and said, “The Wang family carriage is right behind us.”

  Huang Zixia thought it over, then stood and opened the door. “When we get to the next intersection, I’ll get out.”

  “What’s the rush? There’s no time limit for figuring this out.”

  “Of course I’m in a rush; the sooner I can get back to Shu, the better.” The carriage soon reached the intersection.
She jumped out.

  Li Shubai watched her stumble to a halt, then looked down at the little red fish in his hands.

  Huang Zixia watched the Prince of Kui’s carriage until it reached Yongjia Square, then turned and walked toward Anxing Square. The Wangs’ carriage slowed and stopped by her side. A middle-aged woman looked out the window and said, “Aren’t you the Prince of Kui’s eunuch? Where are you going?”

  Huang Zixia smiled. “Thank you for your concern, ma’am. I’m going to the West City to buy some things.”

  The woman smiled. “We’re going to Guangde Square, right in the West City. If my little man doesn’t mind, we can take you that way. What do you think?”

  “I don’t think so; how could I ride with a lady?”

  “Come on; we’ll be family soon. You’re one of the Prince’s people. We’ll see each other a lot.” The woman smiled, causing her eyebrows to rise in a friendly manner. She opened the door to ask Huang Zixia inside.

  Once Huang Zixia got in the carriage, she saw Wang Ruo was there too. She thanked the woman, who looked over forty but had a tactful charm, which her wrinkles only added to. When she was young, she must have been a beauty. Huang Zixia sat by the door with her head bowed, glancing at Wang Ruo. Ruo’s posture was wonderful, her hands gently folded on her left leg. The wide sleeves of her lotus-colored silk blouse revealed two soft, pale, slender hands with perfectly shaped pink nails. Huang Zixia looked at those hands and remembered her life in Shu, where even though her family was prominent, she still went riding with her brother and Yu Xuan. She even loved polo and soccer more than the men did. How could she have kept her hands like that?

  The voice of the woman brought her back to reality. “Has the eunuch always been at the Prince’s side?”

  “Just a few days. Before it was another eunuch, but unfortunately, several of them got sick, so I’ve been transferred temporarily.”

  “That means you’re a good worker and earned the Prince’s trust,” she said. “You must have an intimate understanding of his daily life, no?”