Chapter 5 The Hollow Hairpin
I opened my eyes. The red candles were burning bright.
My head ached as if it would split. Even my breathing shook.
The door creaked. Crown Prince pushed it open and came in.
A smile sat all over his face. Fear shook through me.
The man in front of me had killed me three times. I broke into a cold sweat and wanted to run. I still had to put on a sweet smile and play along, and let him draw my stiff body into his arms.
The next day, after Crown Prince left, I took that slip of paper out again.
The scene before my death was still clear before my eyes. I was sure of it. The handwriting really was the same as the notes in the study.
If this slip had truly been left by Xiao Yan, there was only one possibility.
The one in the Eastern Palace now, wearing the yellow python robe, was someone else. Someone who looked very much like Xiao Yan.
"Crown Prince" was not Crown Prince...
But why had a false Xiao Yan appeared in the Eastern Palace?
After Empress Zhangsun died, The Emperor had made Xiao Yan Crown Prince. For years he taught him in person and favored him greatly.
Now The Emperor was gravely ill. Crown Prince supervised the state. His power sat firm and his wings were full. He had always been known as kind, and as far as I could tell the court officials were willing to support him. I had never heard of any minister or prince clashing with Xiao Yan.
So this false Xiao Yan was unlikely to be someone outsiders had found and brought in. It was more likely someone Xiao Yan himself had raised in his residence.
From old times, it was not rare for the powerful to find doubles for themselves. A double could handle trivial matters, attend dangerous events in their place, and take disaster for them.
A double climbing up and replacing the real master was not unheard of either.
A double swapped in for Crown Prince. Play the false one long enough, and it became real.
But the real could not be passed off as false, and the false could not be passed off as real. As long as it was false, there had to be a flaw.
Still, why did this double have to kill me just because I could speak?
I rubbed my tightly locked brow and pulled the buyao from my hair.
The hairpin was hollow. I gently twisted the head open, rolled the slip up, and stuffed it inside.
I had to keep this slip safe. If I could find the real Xiao Yan, this note was iron proof I could lay before the court.
But where was I supposed to find the real Xiao Yan?
Since he had been able to leave me a note, he had to be alive, and hidden somewhere in this Eastern Palace. But why did he not show himself...
I paced back and forth in the room. I touched the vase and turned it, trying to find the mechanism of a hidden chamber.
"Your Ladyship," Xiao Cui called from behind me. "Junior Consort has come to pay her respects."
Lan Zhi?
Right. She had followed Xiao Yan for so many years. She ought to know him well.