The moonlight reaches to the middle of the courtyard. Zhi Wei looks up at the sky, sighs yet again and pushes open her door. 

A very unique looking gift basket sits quietly in the middle of the room. The basket is pearl white with light gold and black edges. This style sort of reminds her of a certain someone. Zhi Wei stood by the door in silence for a long time before finally slowly walking over to the basket. She didn’t try to open the basket but instead reached down to pick the whole thing up. Surprised when the basket didn’t budge, Zhi Wei looked down to discover that someone had glued the basket to the floor. Zhi Wei raised an eyebrow– he told Chun Yu to glue the basket to the floor? I can’t throw it away just because it is glued to the floor? Exerting a bit of force, the basket rises into the air only to drop a letter to the floor. It can’t be called a letter exactly. It’s a note made out of stiff paper with only a few words on it. “Feng Hao’s birthdate is inside. To find out the details, please look inside.” (Mama Feng would not have told anyone Feng Hao’s real birthdate which would allow others too many ways to dig into his background. Zhi Wei would’ve been very interested in finding out Feng Hao’s real birthdate since it would be an important piece of information if she was interested in finding out more on Mama Feng’s backstory.) 

Zhi Wei frowns as she stares at the note, a hint of exasperation creeping into her expression. That guy, Ning Yi, really does possess an extraordinary meticulous mind. He can always find your weakest point and block every escape route. He had calculated that there is no chance she would be willing to accept the gift and would simply throw it away, thus gluing the basket to the floor. He knew she would try to use force to pull the basket which is why he made the little trap mechanism. He knew that once she saw the note, then she would have no choice but to open the basket. 

Zhi Wei crumbles the note until it shreds into pieces then reaches her hand to unhook the small knotted button on top of the basket. Per the tradition in the Capital, the button will usually have some small trinkets such as a gold colored bell hanging on it…but the trinket in front of her is quite unique. It is a small golden broom made in the exact replica like the commonly seen long broom used to sweep up the snow. Even the wooden knots on the handle and the individual wooden strips at the broom ends seem so realistic. Wooden broom. On their first meeting by the frozen pond in Qiu manor, she was dragging a wooden broom to clear the snow. She also used that very wooden broom to send Fifth Concubine, the one who was secretly there to meet with him, to the underworld. Zhi Wei’s finger gently caressed that broom…if she had not killed Fifth Concubine, would she not have met him then? If she didn’t meet him then would all the rest of the things not happened? No…they were fated to stand at opposite ends. They would’ve met eventually.  Exerting a bit of force, she yanks the gold broom off and throws it to the side.

The basket had many levels, seemingly containing quite a bit of stuff. The first level, a bottle of wine. The wine bottle was coarsely made. It doesn’t even have any label on it. All of the major fine diners in the Capital have their own brewery with their own brand label. Only the small diner would not have any brand labels. Ning Yi went through all that trouble to send a bottle of inferior wine thousands of miles? Peering closely at that bottle of wine, Zhi Wei suddenly felt a sense of familiarity. Opening the jug, Zhi Wei carefully sniffed. The smell was pungent, an obvious sign of a very strong wine. The sort of cheap alcohol that poor laborers love to buy to warm their bodies on a cold winter day. Zhi Wei’s hand around the wine bottle shook slightly. That night on that old bridge, they shared a cheap bottle of wine from a small diner. With a pensive tone he told her of Da Cheng’s past while she listened with half of an ear, her mind mostly on what to do in the future. She had thought it was just a casual conversation but thinking back now, there was deep meaning in each of his words. Perhaps even then, the meeting on that bridge was planned. 

That winter night with the thin layer of snow on the bridge, without knowing, the snow had piled on the road ahead of them. It sure must have been difficult for him to find the small tavern that had sold them the wine. Zhi Wei lets out a faint smile, grabs the wine bottle, and chugs it all down in one shot. The moment the wine hits her throat, a fiery hot knife-like fire immediately spreads through her lungs, promptly setting an explosion of fire in her organs. She began to cough in earnest until she was red in the face. Dumbfounded as she stares at the empty pot in her hand, Zhi Wei can’t figure out how in heaven she had managed to drink this thing so casually that night on the bridge. Such bad wine but in her memory, that high and mighty guy didn’t even frown the slightest when he drank it. That person…could never live as his true self. Zhi Wei wipes her lips and laps up the residue of wine on her fingertips as she slowly reminisces the past along with that burning sensation. She drank a lot of good wine this past year, who would’ve known that only this pot is the real taste of life. 

On the second layer, rest a small strangely shaped exquisite crossbow. The crossbow doesn’t look like it was made in the Central Plains, with serpentine-shaped red tassels hanging on either side, the arrows on it are of different lengths with a reddish luster. Zhi Wei didn’t recognize it at first sight until after playing with it for a while that she was hit with a sense of familiarity. 

…….. On the eve of the big examination at the academy, she had drunkenly barged into the back courtyard and bumped right into the Ning Yi who was on his way out of the tunnel and was about to make a move against the crown prince. She tumbled and fled none too gracefully. In the chaos, she saw the red crossbow’s slight red eagle-like eye… That arrow, if it had shot into her back straight into her heart, perhaps mother and brother would not have died. Zhi Wei gently stroked the small crossbow, her fingers running the length of the crossbow again and again. “Click, click, click.”  

In the silence of the night, the sound was crisp and low. On the carpet, a few reddish short arrows fell silently, breaking cleanly in the middle. 

The third layer, a pack of golden begonia fruit. One the day of the Academy exam, the assassins had used a special soft sword that was folded into the shape of a plate. The golden begonia fruit was served on top of the plate and carried into the imperial court. (The fruit mentioned here is a type of crabapple indigenous to China. Not sure if google’s translation of fruit as “begonia fruit” is exactly right but I figured it sounds more exotic-sounding than calling it crabapple…) 

When the sword striked, the crimson red begonia fruit and the torrent of blood dyed the ground a splendid red color. 

A show, a ploy within a ploy. He had gone to great lengths to use himself to unseat the crown prince and he couldn’t allow her, the brand new minted national scholar, to pry into his secrets. Behind the covered screen, his fingers stained with blood rested on her neck. She saw the brimming intention to kill in his eyes but in the end, he let go. 

Feng Zhi Wei shuddered. “You let me go today. One day, I will let you go one time as well.” 

Some words are said casually, without much thought yet it isn’t until later that one realizes that they were prophetic words of fate. 

Zhi Wei savors the taste of the begonia fruit in her mouth. Who would’ve thought that this world famous royal tribute sweet fruit would be bitter when eaten. Such as it is with life, there are some pasts that one doesn’t dare to remember but keep on coming back. 

The fourth layer, an aqua-colored pill. He got drunk at her place and Princess Shao Ning had given her the pill and charged her to find an opportunity to apply it to Ning Yi’s wrist while she takes his pulse. Princess Shao Ning had planned on using the effect of the pill to accuse Ning Yi in front of the Emperor the next day. If everything went according to Shao Ning’s plan then there would be no way for Ning Yi to save himself later. 

She took his pulse, made the wine sobering soup but she didn’t apply the medicinal pill. She didn’t believe Ning Yi, who was struggling every step of the way would allow himself to get drunk in her manor, just as she doesn’t believe that Ning Yi would trust her completely. Sure enough, it turns out she made the correct choice. Everything was within his calculation. He even had the same blood transforming pill Shao Ning had. 

Ning Yi, are you trying to thank me for not applying the medicinal pill back then or are you trying to tell me that I can never escape from the palm of your hands?

I got sidetracked on the questions regarding the Phoenix translation that I totally forgot to ask what you guys thought about Peony thus far. I am curious what you all thought of that shocking revelation about Peony. Does that change your opinion about her? As I was working on this post, it occurred to me that our heroine also knows of another mother who was willing to kill her own son in the name of a greater cause. The author never made the comparison between Peony and Mama Feng but it does make me wonder how that would’ve affected how Zhi Wei sees this whole situation with Peony.

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