Chapter 32: Try It and You Shall Perish

Her pale, blood-stained fingertips trembled toward the mural: "It’s the lotus pod... it’s the lotus pod..."

"Wuwu, Zhaozhao—" The shrimp claw wrapped around her face, terrified of missing the chance for a final goodbye, letting the blood smear across half her cheek. "Why do you need a washbasin now? Let me, your shrimp claw, wipe it clean for you..."

"!!"

"The gate of life is..."

Fearing she would exhaust her remaining strength, the shrimp claw hurriedly covered her mouth: "Wuwu, Zhaozhao, stop talking. We have no gate of life left—"

"!!!"

Zhaozhao was practically choked with rage. If she survived this, she would first have to cure this shrimp-brained creature.

Fortunately, intelligence finally arrived. Realizing the situation belatedly, the shrimp claw hurriedly pried open her mouth, desperately trying to extract the answer: "Zhaozhao, say it again!"

Zhaozhao, brought back to life by pure indignation, gasped: "The gate of life... is the lotus pod..."

The shrimp had once said, you must place yourself in the jaws of death to find a way to live. Death is merely the prelude to rebirth. Mother Song, on the brink of death, had fought to birth her youngest daughter—was that not for the sake of the fifth sister's new life?

The withered lotus falls, the lotus pod emerges. A pond of cause and effect, where death and life grow in cycles. Was that not exactly like Mother Song and the youngest sister, life and death alternating, one waning as the other waxes?

The shrimp, burdened with its mission, crawled into the corner, nimbly dodging the star-like barrage of lotus arrows, and fumbled with the mechanism hidden among the lotus seeds on the mural.

The oppressive situation that had reigned a moment ago vanished; the starry night sky grew suddenly, eerily still. Amidst the chaos on the ground, a path of survival appeared, clean and transparent.

"Great!" the shrimp cheered. "It’s the exit!"

Song Ruozhao struggled to stand. No sooner had she escaped than a hand reached out from the air, gripping her throat in a grip so unfamiliar it nearly suffocated her.

Her body tilted backward uncontrollably; the intruder was determined to drag her back into the nightmare she had just escaped. Not content with that, he picked up one of the scattered arrows from the floor, turning it into a convenient weapon. He stared at the dying woman, his gaze as cold as the arrowhead he held, which could easily pierce her body.

Yet, the pain in his own heart, mirroring hers exactly, caused him to hesitate.

The shrimp, quick of eye and claw, seized the moment to bite down hard on his palm. The sharp pain forced him to instinctively drop the weapon.

The moment the weapon clattered to the ground, the pain in her own palm helped Song Ruozhao quickly identify her attacker. Reason drove her to push the arrow already in her chest an inch deeper, while she snatched up another arrowhead. As he reeled from the pain, she pressed the sharp tip against his throat.

"Since we share a bed every night, why hide your face?" Song Ruozhao whispered, her snowy lips biting away his disguise.

Though the breath of a dying person is faint, it felt intense as it grazed his ear, much like the blood staining her chest, slowly conquering the once-pure fabric of his composure.

Ju Sifu knew her trick for turning defeat into victory all too well. Suppressing his own pain, he mocked, "To kill eight hundred enemies, you lose a thousand of your own."

"But at least I might survive, might I not?"

The more stubborn and unyielding she was, the more Ju Sifu wanted to test her.

"Yesterday at the northern tip of the Qinling Mountains, I really shouldn't have been so tender-hearted. I should have indulged my curiosity. If you die here, I wonder if I could peacefully enjoy the sunrise tomorrow. Shall we put it to the test?"

As he spoke, his caressing touch drew closer to her wound, slowly applying pressure, more and more.

The deepening pain rippled through their linked consciousnesses. As the agony intensified, the arrowhead in Song Ruozhao’s hand pressed closer to his throat, drawing a thin line of blood in retaliation. "Master Ju, have you ever heard the saying? 'Test it, and you’ll rest it.'"

With a clatter of metal hitting the ground, the shared agony of their fated connection broke. The two collapsed in a heap, buried under the rain of lotus arrows.

...

The cold night air was filled with the frantic flight of startled crows. Because her second sister had not returned for two nights, the youngest Song brother had turned the city and its outskirts upside down.

"Second Sister—"

"Second Sister's shrimp—"

"Second Sister's bird—"

"Where are you!"

...

"Huh?" Song Ji looked up, unconvinced, pondering a faint, elusive scent. "Why is dew falling on my head?"

"Don't tell me it's crow pee—" The youngest sister, seeing a large, bird-shaped cloud drifting overhead, couldn't help but disparage it.

"Why does this dew smell like copper? It smells just like my treasure chest."

"..."

The Song siblings toiled for three days and three nights, but when they returned to the manor, the sky seemed to be collapsing! Someone had gone to the eldest sister to report that the second sister had been tricked by the third sister into a trap set by the fourth sister, wounded by the fifth sister’s lotus arrows, and her body was floating in the sixth brother’s lotus pond!

Song Ji’s head spun; all he could hear was "lotus pond." Anxiously grabbing the informant’s arm, he cried, "Say that again! What happened to my treasure chest?"

The crowd: "???"

In the magistrate's court, a female corpse fished from the lotus pond lay bloated like a giant. Having been soaked, her face was a mangled, unrecognizable mess.

Song Ruohua, the eldest sister, went pale the moment she saw the corpse's six-toed feet—a rare characteristic. Tears rolled down her cheeks as Ju Sifu presented the key piece of evidence to the magistrate: the blood-stained lotus arrow.

The coroner confirmed the victim's wounds matched the arrow, concluding that she had been struck first and then fallen into the lotus pond while fleeing.

Song Ruohua held a position of prestige in the palace, honored as a "Lady Teacher" by the imperial consorts and princesses. Magistrate Chen Rusheng had to show some deference: "I ask that you take a look, Lady Teacher. Are these dozens of lotus crossbow bolts from the Song residence?"

He emphasized the words "crossbow bolts" with deliberate malice.

Bows are different from crossbows. According to the Tang Code, private possession of crossbows—even five—was enough to warrant execution by strangulation.

Song Ruohua knew that if she agreed with him, she would be branded with the crime of illicitly casting weapons. She replied with restrained anger: "The Song residence's ledgers can be traced back three generations; our integrity is well-documented. I shall have someone fetch the ledgers for the court to inspect thoroughly."

"That will not be necessary," Magistrate Chen said, intent on twisting the knife. "This hidden weapon has an intricate design. Once the lotus-petal arrowhead pierces a victim, the barbs on all sides cause suffering worse than being shot by a thousand arrows. Your sister, Song Sanniang, is particularly obsessed with mechanisms and daggers. This craftsmanship looks remarkably like the bone-carving knives in her coroner's kit."

"Is this the one the Magistrate is referring to?"

Prepared for such a moment, Song Ruohua pulled a rusted dissecting knife from her robes. "Bringing up the past is painful. This was a token of affection once given by your son to my sister, forged from a multi-petaled lotus into a sharp bone knife. If the Magistrate is speaking carelessly, and if someone with malicious intent were to use this design to cast weapons and flood the market, surely people would try to implicate your son."

The counter-accusation caught Chen Rusheng off guard, his sarcasm dimming significantly.

Song Ruohua stopped there, feigning a self-deprecating laugh. "Our two families have our differences, but the Songs deal in facts. Naturally, we would not suspect your son based on a single bone knife."

Having hit a wall with the eldest sister, Magistrate Chen turned his authority on the prisoner: "Song Ruoxian of the Song family, it is said that in recent years you have been at odds with your second sister, constantly bullying her, and out of resentment, you used lotus arrows to wound her, causing her to fall into the water and drown."

With that, he dismissed the officials and had the coroner verify the findings, explaining the method, time, location, and motive with chilling precision. To prevent the suspect from arguing her case, they had stuffed a ball of wool into her mouth, silencing her pain and her defense.

It was only when it came time for the testimony that the gag was removed before the public.

The third sister wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth. Her gaze was piercing as she swept it over the officials and locked onto that old acquaintance—the embroidery-loving coroner. She tilted her head and offered a slight smile. Her plan was already in motion.

"Coroner Hu, how have you been lately?" Her tone was casual, like a neighborly greeting, before it shifted abruptly, her eyes burning with intensity. "My second sister met with a tragedy. The jade hairpin she wore was produced in Lantian County—a fine, exquisite piece and her absolute favorite. I must trouble you, Coroner Hu, to check it carefully for any damage."

Coroner Hu impatiently picked up the hairpin, gave it a cursory glance, and held it up for the court to see: "Rest assured, Sanniang, the jade hairpin worn by the deceased is intact."

"Hahaha—" The third sister suddenly let out a sharp, piercing laugh that turned every head in the court.

"That isn't a jade hairpin at all!" Her words were like needles piercing paper. "You are a coroner in this court, a person skilled in reading corpses and judging cases. You should examine the smallest details before speaking. This hairpin is dry and coarse—it is clearly a glass imitation!"

"You are charged with the responsibility of examining bodies and identifying objects, yet you cannot even distinguish the material of the items on the deceased! How can anyone trust your autopsy findings!"

A cry went up from the onlookers: "Re-examine the body!"

The third sister bowed, her resolve absolute: "With the people as my witnesses, the Wannian County Magistrate's Office has bungled the autopsy. I have been wronged, and I humbly request that the Jingzhao Prefecture intervene and conduct a new autopsy!"