SU TANG (素醣)

  Day 26, 4th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Taishan Province, Tian’an Sect

  “Why are you throwing—stop—what are you doing?!" I shouted, my hand shooting out on instinct and catching An Lingqi’s wrist mid-air. She had a hairpin—her hairpin—angled straight at my face with the same calm precision someone might use to apply eyeliner. Her brows were barely furrowed. She looked more mildly inconvenienced than homicidal.

  My voice wavered, equal parts fear and disbelief. “What are you doing?”

  She retracted her arm with the casual grace of someone used to performing threats as a form of communication. Meanwhile, I folded into myself like a startled animal.

  “I am showing you why you are wrong,” she said, as if we were debating literature and not enacting a live-action murder scene.

  Earlier, I had floated my grand theory: Princess Changping stabbed Chun Li with a hairpin. Maybe by accident, maybe not. The motivations were muddy, but I thought if I could work out how it happened, the why might follow.

  Clearly, I had been deeply and fundamentally incorrect.

  “You’re saying she wasn’t stabbed with a hairpin? But it was covered in blood,” I said like someone trying to keep their sinking hypothesis afloat with duct tape and denial.

  An Lingqi nodded and sat down with the poise of someone who didn’t need their theory to be correct in order to sleep at night.

  I huffed, folding my arms. A small, petty part of me hated that she was so good at making me doubt myself. She had that quiet, intellectual confidence that said, I don’t need to raise my voice to win this argument. I had sarcasm. She had emotionless facts.

  It was extremely unfair.

  “Chun Li’s body had no evidence of a struggle,” she continued, “Other than the bluish bruises—confirmed to be frostbite.”

  Frostbite. Not defence wounds. Not fingerprints. Just... cold. Brutal, heart-stopping cold.

  I picked up my own hairpin and rolled it between my fingers. The simple, harmless little accessory now felt heavier. Fatter. Clumsier. In my memory, Chun Li’s wound had been tiny. A pinprick, almost too neat. And suddenly, the hairpin felt all wrong. Too thick and too blunt. Like trying to thread a needle with a tree branch.

  “And the hairpin wasn’t still in her body either,” I murmured aloud. The coroner’s report said she died immediately from the wound. But there was an exit wound too. A clean and precise one. Not the kind of damage you’d expect from a jagged hairpin stabbed in anger. The more I replayed it, the more the scene crumbled.

  Sure, the killer could have removed the weapon…but why remove it just to toss it into the bushes like yesterday’s laundry? No, something didn’t add up.

  I slumped further into the couch and crossed my arms again, tighter this time. My knuckles went white.

  And here’s the awful part...the thing I didn’t want to admit even to myself: part of me wanted Princess Changping to be the killer. Just so this could be done. So, I could pack this mystery in a box, slap a ribbon on it, and return to more pressing matters.

  Wouldn’t it be easy to make her the scapegoat?

  I looked at An Lingqi. She was waiting patiently, the picture of serenity. Her hair, lazily pinned, had a few strands slipping free, framing her face like an artist had done it on purpose. Her gold-flecked eyes met mine, steady and kind. No judgment. And that…that was worse than any scolding.

  Because she didn’t need to say anything. My own thoughts had already handed down the verdict.

  The part of me that wanted a scapegoat curled back inside me like a shamed dog. But it didn’t leave. It stayed there, licking its wounds, whispering low and slow.

  At least Zhao Lili did something. At least she got her revenge. At least her she made things happen.

  I curled deeper into the cushions and stared down at my own hairpin. It gleamed under the lamplight.

  Could I sit still, like An Lingqi, while the world trampled over us again and again?

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Could I do the right thing…knowing it was the harder thing?

  ***

  It’s her.

  Zhao Lili.

  The name rang in my ears like the shriek of rusted metal. Sharp, grating, and impossible to ignore. I wasn’t thinking about the Alchemist Guild, or my long list of unfinished prescriptions, or even the Crown Prince’s newest assignments. My thoughts were miles away, twisted in the memory of a blood-stained courtyard and the small, broken body I never got to shield.

  Xiao Wu.

  Blood rushed through my ears like a waterfall. Or maybe a stampede. I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I was seconds away from either passing out or lashing out. Neither would end well. Especially not here. Especially not with her.

  She killed him.

  She got her revenge.

  She made things happen.

  And I had stood there like a fool who’d mistaken intellect for control, who thought words could shield me from grief.

  We exchanged pleasantries. It’s so funny how similar the word pleasantry is to peasantry. Both required grovelling.

  “Oh, how surprising for you to be here. I hope you enjoyed my last gift to you,” Zhao Lili purred, her voice sweet as poisoned plum wine. She stepped closer, every movement calculated, the hem of her gown whispering like a threat.

  “Very much so, Your Ladyship,” I said, my tone soaked in sarcasm. Because if I didn’t joke, I might scream.

  She smirked, the kind of smile you see on cobras in storybooks. “I’m glad. Because I have another gift for you.”

  I deepened my bow, each vertebra in my spine protesting the indignity. “This humble servant cannot bear another gift from Your Ladyship.”

  Her voice turned colder than the morning frost on a corpse’s lips. “Yes, you will. You will bear it.”

  I kept my head bowed whilst she launched into a speech about her amazing skincare routine. I had to fight the urge to peek and see if she was reading off a silk scroll. It would’ve been less ridiculous if she had. The servants around us shifted uncomfortably. Everyone knew medicinal ingredients were dwindling, thanks to the recent epidemic and the rumours of war inching closer to the capital. Even the Empress, renowned for her vanity, had reduced her orders.

  But not Zhao Lili. She wanted moon orchid essence and phoenix yolk lotion as if the royal pantry were a fairy tale cauldron. I was surprised that the wise and intelligent Lady Zhao hadn’t been informed of the royal edict on frugality.

  “And I want you,” she suddenly announced, jabbing a lacquered nail in my direction, “to be my foot-washing maid.”

  Ying Yue, ever brave, stepped forward before I could react. “Alchemist Su Tang is bound by her contract to the Crown Prince. She is tasked with producing tier-six medicinal pills for the royal household. She is not available for disposal.”

  Zhao Lili gave her collar a theatrical fluff, smoothing imaginary creases with one hand like she was polishing her pride. “Who are you?”

  Ying Yue curtsied. “I am Ying Yue, personal physician to the Empress, Your Ladyship.”

  “And who am I?”

  “Your Ladyship is—”

  With the speed of a hawk, Zhao Lili’s hand lashed out. Her nails, lacquered and curved like talons, closed around Ying Yue’s throat.

  “I am Lady Zhao,” she hissed. “The soon-to-be Princess Consort of the Crown Prince. That means I am a member of his residence. And everything he owns, I own. She is mine.”

  Princess Consort.

  My stomach twisted into something sharp and hot.

  That phrase echoed like a death bell in my head. Of all the words she said that was the one that pierced deepest.

  Why did it matter?

  Her rhododendron-embroidered shoes appeared in my vision, pristine and ridiculous. “Fetch my things. Fetch them all, you dog,” she laughed, like the world existed solely to amuse her.

  I had so many things I wanted to say. Dozens of thoughts sharpened like knives. But instead, all I could manage was silence. Because I knew better now.

  Uncomposed, childish sarcasm didn’t save people.

  Sometimes it killed.

  Number two. Words are the most powerful weapon.

  I would not forget that.

  Never again.

  I lifted my head. “Yes, Your Ladyship.”

  Click. Click. Click.

  Each step she took away from me was a slap to the face. Perfectly timed, like some twisted dance.

  And then she turned around, her head whipping back as if her neck were spring-loaded. “You can start by filling my bath. Only a hot soak can rid me of that place’s stench.”

  Then she skipped off.

  Her maidservant dropped back to fall into step with me. I flinched as she grabbed my hands, her nails biting deep.

  “It’s your job now,” she said, her eyes gleaming like oil on water.

  “My job?” I blinked. “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “Do you know why my lady’s skin is so radiant?”

  I considered it. Zhao Lili’s skin did look like the surface of a porcelain teacup. Soft, peachy, untouched by sunlight or guilt. How did her skin manage to contain something so hideous?

  “Milk,” the maidservant whispered. “She bathes in milk. Every day. And now, you will draw her bath.”

  When she let go of my hands, red marks bloomed like flowers across my skin.