Chapter 56
Chapter 56: The Overclever Twin Lotus
Dusk sank into night. Candlelight turned the room gold and sickly, painting Zheng Xiu Yun’s face in thin shadows as she stood before the bronze mirror.
She dabbed rouge beneath her eyes, blending two faint, unhealthy blooms. She tugged a few strands loose at her temples, messy in just the right way—fragile, pitiful, bruised by life.
Then she opened the deepest compartment of her makeup box and took out a pitch-black pill.
Without hesitating, she tucked it beneath her tongue.
Within half an hour, it would send her blood surging and drain her face pale—an illness painted from the inside out.
“The timing is about right…”
She glanced toward the window and saw the First Madam approaching in the distance with Matron Zhou, heading toward the Auspicious Cloud Residence.
Zheng Xiu Yun’s lips curved into a cold, careful smile.
She stepped out and leaned against the corridor pillar, moving as if her bones had turned to water. Each step wobbled. She made sure to appear in the First Madam’s line of sight, then let her breath quicken, her chest rising and falling as if she were struggling to stay upright.
“Oh!”
With a soft cry, she “collapsed” toward the cold stone path.
The sachet hidden in her sleeve “accidentally” spilled, dried petals scattering across the ground like a small, ruined spring.
“Xiu Yun!” the First Madam cried, rushing forward to catch her.
Zheng Xiu Yun let her eyes fall shut. Her lashes trembled. Her lips were white as paper—the picture of a delicate faint.
Matron Zhou’s gaze swept over the steady rise of her chest, the tense curl of her fingers. Inside, she sneered. Outside, she helped lift her with a face as calm as lacquer.
Zheng Xiu Yun “slowly came to,” blinking as if dazed. The moment her eyes landed on the First Madam, she tried to push herself up to bow—then broke into tears as if her heart had split.
“Aunt… Xiu Yun is useless. I meant to hurry over to pay respects, but I… I…”
Her voice choked. Her gaze “accidentally” drifted toward the Auspicious Cloud Residence, then dropped again, as though afraid.
The First Madam followed her glance, brows knitting. “That Auspicious Cloud Residence… did the feng shui clash with you?”
“No!” Zheng Xiu Yun shook her head quickly. As she did, her sleeve slipped down and “accidentally” revealed a faint red mark on her wrist.
A mark she had pinched out herself.
“It has nothing to do with the Buddhist Scion,” she said, voice weak and earnest. “It’s only that Xiu Yun’s body is unworthy…”
Matron Zhou watched her and thought, [This fragile act… she must have practiced it until it became muscle memory. And that red mark—fresh, placed where anyone can see. How convenient.]
A few days later, Zheng Xiu Yun passed by Yao Xiao Man’s quarters and saw firelight flickering through a window crack. A faint burnt smell drifted into the air.
Her chance.
She ran straight to the First Madam, face pale with “panic.”
“Aunt! Something’s wrong! I… I saw Miss Xiao Man burning something in her room. Smoke was coming out of the window! What if there’s a fire?”
The First Madam’s face changed at once. She hurried over with a crowd behind her and kicked the door open.
Inside, Yao Xiao Man was crouched by a brazier, feeding in a stack of discarded scripture-copy pages. Ash drifted up, and in the gray remains, a few half-burned strokes still clung to life.
Xiao Man startled at the sudden invasion and opened her mouth to explain—
But Zheng Xiu Yun was already rushing forward, voice sharp with “alarm,” reaching barehanded toward the fire.
“Sister Xiao Man, this is the Buddhist Scion’s hard work! You can’t burn it!”
Her movement looked urgent, but her wrist “slipped,” and the brazier tipped.
Scalding coals and paper ash spilled across the floor. In the scramble, the pages she “saved” tore and crumpled in her hands.
The First Madam lowered her gaze.
Her expression turned hard in an instant.
Those strokes—those characters—were unmistakably Lin Qing Xuan’s.
“This is the Buddhist Scion’s hand,” she snapped. “What nerve you have—destroying it in private!”
Xiao Man went blank. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out.
Zheng Xiu Yun dropped to her knees at once, tears falling like rain, voice trembling with “guilt.”
“Aunt, it’s all Xiu Yun’s fault! I shouldn’t have been so reckless… but these scriptures are precious, every word priceless. If the Buddhist Scion learns…”
Her eyes were red, her face earnest with sorrow—and then she added as if the thought had only just occurred to her:
“How about… how about I copy another set for Sister Xiao Man? My handwriting can’t compare to the Buddhist Scion’s, but at least I can make up for a little…”
The First Madam’s gaze softened, turning thoughtful. Matron Zhou, however, stared at the torn pages and thought, [What a neat tear. Not a hair off—only the corner that would matter most is ruined.]
That night, Zheng Xiu Yun sat at her desk beneath candlelight, copying Lin Qing Xuan’s strokes with maddening patience. She loaded her brush, drew each line, each turn, each pause, until the page looked like it had been born from the same hand.
When the ink dried, she placed her copy beside Yao Xiao Man’s original.
Nearly identical.
Only at the edge of the paper, she dipped a finger in cinnabar and, as if by accident, added one faint mark—a twin lotus.
Outside the window, black fog coiled like a living shadow. Tuan Tuan’s laughter slid through the room, low and delighted.
As expected, Lin Qing Xuan noticed the extra page tucked away in the corner.
He pinched it between two fingers and went straight to Yao Xiao Man.
“This wasn’t copied by you.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a verdict.
Xiao Man took the page, held it up to the candlelight, and squinted.
“The handwriting is exactly the same. I can barely tell it apart myself. How can you be so sure? What are you—some worm living in my gut?”
Lin Qing Xuan lifted a long finger and tapped the faint cinnabar mark in the corner.
“You wouldn’t draw this.”
Xiao Man’s eyes sharpened.
A twin lotus.
She opened her mouth to argue, but Lin Qing Xuan’s voice cut through—cool and clear, carrying a quiet force that left no room to doubt.
“The handwriting can be copied. But the spirit behind the copy—the intent and the resonance—she can’t imitate that.”
Xiao Man snatched the page back and stared at it again, as if glaring hard enough would make “spirit” and “resonance” crawl out in visible ink. In her mind, she cursed him from head to toe.
Above, on the roof beams, Tuan Tuan rolled in its fog, laughing until the shadows shook.