vstars Chapter 319 Song Xiaobai's Dark Turn
Chapter 319 Song Xiaobai's Dark Turn
In the late spring of the third year of the Yonghui era, the locust flowers on Zhuque Avenue in Chang'an City bloomed in abundance, fluttering like snowflakes when the wind blew.
Song Xiaobai came out of Hongwen Hall clutching her newly issued workbook, her stomach rumbling with hunger. Just as she was thinking of finding a bowl of sour soup noodles to fill her stomach, she suddenly heard the tinkling of her jade pendants. A gilded Tibetan sachet rolled to her feet, and the rich aroma of camphor and sandalwood wafted towards her.
Looking up, a young man in a purple robe was leaning against the corridor. The Hetian jade inlaid on his belt shone with a warm luster in the sunlight. His appearance was so handsome that he seemed otherworldly.
"This young lady's handwriting is even more delicate than the spring stationery from the Hu Ji tavern." The young man lightly tapped the small, flower-shaped characters on the homework book with his folding fan. It was Pei Zi'an, the third young master of the Right Prime Minister's Mansion.
From that day on, every morning at the first light of dawn, a delicate food box would be waiting outside the schoolhouse, its aroma of goat's milk cheese and sesame cakes filling the air. Neat annotations of the *Zhaoming Anthology* were often tucked into the students' workbooks, the handwriting as beautiful as calligraphy models. Holding the crabapple blossoms Pei Zian had given her, Xiaobai saw the petals fall onto her coarse cloth skirt, and for a moment, she felt as if it were all a dream.
On the night of the Lantern Festival, Chang'an was ablaze with lights, as bright as day. Pei Zi'an invited her to stroll through Pingkang Ward. Xiaobai pulled out a crimson ruqun (a type of traditional Chinese dress) from the bottom of her trunk, and following the popular style, lightly applied a pale yellow flower ornament to her forehead with a willow twig. Looking at herself in the mirror, she felt her beauty rivaled that of the lotus blossoms of Qujiang. But as the curtains fell on the second floor of the tavern, Pei Zi'an suddenly grabbed her waist, his warm breath brushing against her ear:
"The affected modesty of a poor girl is more interesting than any street performance." Xiao Bai was furious. She dug her nails into the other person's hand and bit down hard on her rouge-stained lips, only letting go when her mouth was full of bloody sweetness.
Returning to the small courtyard he had rented in Jinggongfang with great joy, he found the wooden gate wide open. Under the moonlight, Yao'er, the daughter of the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, was sneering at Pei Zi'an's poem, while twelve maids held torches, illuminating the courtyard as bright as day.
"How dare you, you lowly wretch, covet young master Pei Zi'an?" Dong Yao'er's silver scissors snapped shut, tearing her crimson dress to shreds. The sharp blade sliced across her pale thigh, and beads of blood trickled down the cracks in the blue bricks.
"I've heard you're quite literate?" Dong Yao'er raised the gilded hairpin, its cold light flashing before Xiao Bai's eyes. "Today I'll let you know that the flesh of a lowly woman is not even worth as much as mulberry bark paper!" The moment the hairpin pierced her shoulder blade, Song Xiao Bai felt her joints crack and her heart ache terribly—it turned out that the bright moon of Chang'an City could not ultimately illuminate the tragic fate of a woman from a poor family.
Three days later, a silk shop in the East Market was robbed, and a priceless silk ribbon vanished without a trace. The constables found half a flower hairpin at the scene, identical to the one Yao'er had worn in her hair that day. In the following months, several prominent families closely associated with the Pei and Dong families were robbed. Every dark and windy night, people saw a woman in white walking on the eaves, her crimson ribbon at her waist fluttering like a blood-red flame, as if she were coming to demand justice from the world.
A strange rumor has been circulating in the markets of Chang'an lately: a thief in white robes is known for stealing from wealthy and powerful families, even managing to steal the luminous pearl from the home of the Vice Minister of Personnel. That very night, someone spotted her squatting on a street wall, munching on a flatbread! This legendary ruthless character is none other than Song Xiaobai, who recently joined the "Black Robe Alliance." The alliance is also in an uproar, all because during the year-end bonus distribution, the Wolf King rewarded Song Xiaobai with a money pouch so bulging it could outshine even the camels of a Persian merchant.
"This isn't distributing silver, it's practically stuffing mountains of gold and silver into that girl's arms!" Song Daqin, drawing eyebrows in front of the bronze mirror, snapped her nail polish brush against her vanity case with a "snap," her newly styled bun swaying. "Erjiu, we brothers have been living on the northwest wind for three years following the Wolf King. Why don't we break up the bandits and go our own way? It'll definitely be better than being suckers here!" The fourth leader, Song Erjiu, munched on a cold sesame cake, his cheeks puffed out like a hamster stealing grain, and mumbled in agreement: "Alright! Once we're independent, we'll eat sesame cakes with meat filling every meal!"
Little did they know, the Wolf King had seen right through their little schemes. On the Lantern Festival, the aroma of wine wafted from the Hu Ji Tavern by Qujiang Pool. The Wolf King, holding a pair of Yuezhi roses, a tribute from the Western Regions, smiled sweeter than the most cunning broker in Chang'an: "Da Qin, your sister's phoenix eyes are a perfect match for these roses." Da Qin accepted the flowers, secretly planning his new patron, unaware that that very night the Wolf King sneaked into his sister's room in the West Market and fiddled with the copper-leaf-like water heater—a specially made "thunder god mechanism" from the alliance that crackled and sparked when it came into contact with water.
The next morning, the neighbors were terrified by the earth-shattering screams. When they broke down the door, they saw Daqin's sister lying on the bluestone bricks, her gold hairpin askew, and her fingertips blackened as if she had just cleaned a chimney.
Meanwhile, the Wolf King was sitting with his legs crossed, munching on a flatbread at a restaurant on Vermilion Bird Street: "That girl was insatiable, she insisted on touching the alliance's precious mechanism, and now look what happened, she's been invited for tea by Eunuch Lei!"
When these words reached Song Xiaobai's ears, her hands, gripping the celadon cup, broke out in a cold sweat, the tea sloshing around like her pounding heart. From then on, whenever she walked at night, she always felt as if a shadow was following her, and she would circle the old well in the East Market three times before passing it, fearing that a claw would suddenly reach out from the well and pull her down.
Just as Daqin breathed his last, Song Erjiu, clutching a sandalwood ledger engraved with runes, rushed into the copper shop in Huaide Lane, trembling with fear. "Grandpa Wolf King, spare me!" His knees buckled, and he knelt faster than wheat seedlings in a sudden frost. "My mother suddenly caught malaria and is lying in bed like a wilted cucumber. If we don't get a doctor soon, she'll be singing 'The King of Qin's Battle Song' to the King of Hell!" He shakily pulled out an oilcloth bag, inside which, besides loose silver, lay half a gnawed, pitted sesame seed cake. "This is Daqin and I's secret stash of money. Please consider it feeding the stray cats!"
The Wolf King leaned against the gilded screen, toying with Persian glass beads and laughing like a lynx caught stealing fish: "Oh, do you think the alliance rules are just a facade at the market gate?" Before he finished speaking, a flash of cold light appeared, and a dagger grazed Erjiu's ear and embedded itself in a wooden pillar, startling him so much that his hair bun came undone with a "whoosh," looking like a chicken coop blown into disarray by the wind. "I'll remember this debt this time. If you dare to have any more crooked thoughts, even the turtles at the bottom of Qujiang Pool will be waiting to eat you as their midnight snack!"
By the time Song Erjiu scrambled out of the copper shop, night had already climbed over the corner tower of Chang'an. Touching the sweat-soaked ledger in his arms, he gazed at the flickering stars and muttered to himself, "So, in the Wolf King's eyes, we really are just like leeks on a chopping board—cut one crop, and another grows..."
In the shadows, a pair of eyes peered through the carved wooden window, witnessing the entire farce unfold. A knowing smile played on their lips...