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The young eunuch quickly went to the Imperial Household Department and soon came back with Supervisor Zhang.
Xiao Liulang was waiting for her outside the Renshou Palace.
Supervisor Zhang was previously a senior palace maid. The imperial palace of the State of Zhao had a rule that palace maids who had reached the age of twenty-five could leave the palace. If they chose not to leave, they could comb their hair and become a senior palace maid.
Supervisor Zhang was one of the latter.
She had spent most of her life in the palace, from being the lowest palace maid to a senior palace maid, and then to a supervisor.
The young eunuch who delivered the message didn't explain the specific situation, so Supervisor Zhang thought that the Empress Dowager was summoning her. When she arrived at the entrance of the Renshou Palace and spotted Xiao Liulang, she was greatly shocked for a moment and took several steps back in horror.
Because of his face, there were more than one person that thought they had seen a ghost. Supervisor Zhang was also getting older, so it was inevitable that she would be more scared.
Xiao Liulang didn't take her reaction to heart. He said, "My surname is Xiao, and my name is Liulang. I am a Senior Compiler in the Hanlin Academy."
"Xiao, Xiao Liulang? Is it not Xiao..." Supervisor Zhang was about to say the name but suddenly remembered her humble status and that she was not worthy to mention the name of the Little Marquis of Zhao.
She gathered her thoughts and calmed herself, wiping off the cold sweat on her forehead. She said, "Apologies, I mistook you for someone else."
Xiao Liulang didn't care much. He took out the token that Old Chief had given him—— an inkstone with a missing part.
When Supervisor Zhang saw the inkstone, her expression changed again. "You..." She hesitated for a moment and then asked, "Did Chief Huo ask you to come find me?"
Xiao Liulang nodded and handed the inkstone to her.
Supervisor Zhang took the inkstone, seemingly recalling something, then the expression in her eyes became complicated, "I didn't expect him to come looking for me. How is he? I heard that he has returned to the capital and is now the Imperial Academy Chief again..."
"He's doing well. Please don't worry." Xiao Liulang replied.
Supervisor Zhang smiled bitterly, "What do I have to worry about? He is a man who wouldn’t let himself die even if he were exiled to a cold and harsh place. He would naturally take good care of himself..."
Xiao Liulang felt that the relationship between the two people wasn’t simple, but he didn't want to pry into other people's privacy.
Supervisor Zhang looked down at the inkstone in her hand and said, half-angrily and half-amused, "After all these years, he still keeps this broken thing. I thought he had thrown it away already. It's not even worth anything, why keep it? The fact that he let you bring this to me shows that he trusts you a lot. So, what's the matter that he asked you to look for me? No, that’s not it. Why are you looking for me? I know he will never come looking for me again."
Xiao Liulang was somehow saddened by her complicated emotions, but he didn't know how to comfort her.
A teardrop flashed in Supervisor Zhang's eyes, but she smiled as if nothing had happened and asked, "What can I do for you?"
Xiao Liulang didn't beat around the bush and said directly, "I came to ask Supervisor Zhang for information about a person."
"Which person?" Supervisor Zhang asked.
"It's someone with a mole on their left wrist who entered the palace more than ten years ago, either as a palace maid or an imperial concubine." Xiao Liulang replied truthfully. It couldn't be Empress Xiao as Empress Xiao was his own aunt and she wouldn't harm him. Moreover, he knew what her wrist looked like since she often carried him back then.
Supervisor Zhang frowned and fell into thought. "I don't recall anyone like that, but I can help you look for them as long as they haven't left the palace in recent years. However..."
Xiao Liulang understood that it had been over a decade already, and there were palace maids released from the palace every year, so if the person he was looking for had been one of them, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
But he shook his head soon after, "No, she shouldn't have left the palace."
Poisoning Marquis Xuanping's legitimate son was a serious crime, and once discovered, the offender would face certain death. If the person was an imperial concubine, they couldn't leave the palace, and if it was a palace maid, she must have been acting under someone's orders.
For someone who had done such an important task for their master, how could their master let them leave the palace? Either they were killed to silence them or they were kept close to continue serving their master.
But he had not heard of any palace maid being wrongly executed after he was poisoned.
That person was still alive.
Living within the imperial palace.
Supervisor Zhang asked, "When exactly was this?"
"Fourteen years ago," Xiao Liulang replied.
"Ah..." Supervisor Zhang seemed to have thought of something and looked deeply at Xiao Liulang, nodding. "So we need to find someone who entered the palace fourteen years ago. Okay, I'll take care of it."
Supervisor Zhang took the inkstone and left.
Xiao Liulang watched her gradually disappear into the night, and for some reason, he could feel a sense of unsteadiness and loneliness in her figure.
It was getting late, and the imperial palace was about to close its gates.
Little Jing Kong bid farewell to Empress Dowager Zhuang.
Little Jing Kong spoke with precision, "Grandaunt, you can eat sweets on the sly but you must not sneakily eat sweet soup or fried pastries. Or I will tell JiaoJiao."
Empress Dowager Zhuang looked disgusted as she said, "Alright, alright, you talk too much. Hurry up and go!"
Little Jing Kong tilted his head and placed his hands behind his back with his eyebrows raised, "Then don't miss me too much."
Empress Dowager Zhuang retorted, "Aijia will only miss you when Aijia has a full stomach!"
The sound of their bickering was unbearable. Xiao Liulang calmly walked over, held Little Jing Kong's hand, and said goodbye to Empress Dowager Zhuang.
There wasn't much to say between Xiao Liulang and Empress Dowager Zhuang. They stared at each other for a moment before quickly looking away.
See that, she didn't even want to look at him.
"Take the things with you." Empress Dowager Zhuang said expressionlessly.
"Oh, I almost forgot!" Little Jing Kong broke free from his bad brother-in-law's grip, ran over to the table, picked up a brocade box before running back. "Let's go!"
Xiao Liulang looked at the brocade box in Little Jing Kong's arms, then at his own empty hands. He suddenly felt thousands of arrows piercing his heart!
He glanced at Empress Dowager Zhuang.
Empress Dowager Zhuang lowered her eyes and turned her head away.
Xiao Liulang then looked at the table where the brocade box was placed earlier and saw a multitude of other boxes, but none of them were his.
He took a deep breath, pressed down the frustration in his chest, and walked out with a black expression.
Empress Dowager Zhuang watched the backs of the two as they left and snorted.
On the way home, Little Jing Kong fell asleep in Xiao Liulang's arms, his hands letting go of the brocade box. Xiao Liulang held him with one arm and the brocade box with the other.
He felt the urge to open the box and take a peek at what Empress Dowager Zhuang had given the little one.
Why does he have something, but I don’t?
"What am I thinking?"
Xiao Liulang felt embarrassed by his own childishness. He shook his head and suppressed the urge to look inside.
He forgot that he was only eighteen years old, still just a teenage boy who had yet come of age.
He didn’t have to be so mature, nor did he have to be so steady.
……
When they returned to Bishui Alley, it was already late at night.
Yao Shi and Gu Yan had already rested, Grannie Fang and Yuya'er had also returned next door to rest, and Gu Jiao was tinkering with black gunpowder in the main room.
The proportion of the ingredients was almost determined, but there wasn’t enough gunpowder to make a powerful weapon or hidden weapon.
Hearing the noise at the door, she put down what she was doing and walked out, saying, "You're back?"
"En." Xiao Liulang nodded.
Gu Jiao walked over and picked up Little Jing Kong, who was sleeping soundly, and put him on the bed in the west room.
"What's this?" Xiao Liulang asked, looking at a bunch of black objects on the table.
Gu Jiao walked out of the west room, thought for a moment, and said, "I don't know what it is called either, um... black firecrackers?"
Xiao Liulang: "..."
What kind of name was that?
Gu Jiao made the black gunpowder into pellet-sized balls, put them in a modified small bamboo tube, and added phosphorus powder to the device inside the bamboo tube. Phosphorus had a low ignition point and would spontaneously ignite when heated by friction, setting fire to the black gunpowder inside the bamboo tube which would result in a small explosion.
The power of the explosion wasn’t very strong, mainly for intimidation.
However, there was a hidden danger to this, which was that if the weather was too hot, the phosphorus powder might self-ignite even without friction.
So it still needed to be improved.
"I've boiled some water. You go wash up and go to bed. I'll be done in a bit." Gu Jiao said.
Xiao Liulang thought she was making pills and didn't say anything.
Gu Jiao continued to tinker with the black gunpowder, and seeing that he seemed to have something to say, she asked, "Is there anything else?"
Xiao Liulang opened his mouth and said, "No."
Forget it, let's find the person first.
The next day was the day Xiao Liulang entered the palace to give lectures to the Crown Prince again. He had just entered the study hall when he heard that something big had happened in the imperial harem—— a supervisor of the Imperial Household Department had died in her own room. The Emperor was furious and immediately went to the imperial harem after the morning court.
"Which supervisor was it?" Xiao Liulang asked an old eunuch in the study hall.
The old eunuch whispered, "Supervisor Zhang. Her Majesty's garments were all made by her. His Majesty even mentioned her a few days ago..."
Xiao Liulang didn’t know that Supervisor Zhang was a favored servant of the Emperor. Old Chief didn't mention it to him, and it was also possible that Old Chief himself didn’t know. After all, it was a matter of the imperial harem, and as a former official, it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t know.
But, he had just seen her yesterday, and today something happened to her, which was very fishy.
Raz P.'s Thoughts
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