Flesh Grows Upon White Bones
By the time the carriage reached the gates of the Zhenguo Commandery Princess's estate, Bai Jingyan could see her plainly—a woman with a voice cracked raw from shouting, gasping out her plea with what little strength remained.
"My name is Ji Nanghua. I beg you, let me see the Zhenguo Commandery Princess. General Zhiyong, Bai Qingming, is a man to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. I drew my own blood to refine an elixir—a medicine that can bring the dead back to life. I beg the Commandery Princess to grant me the chance to save General Zhiyong, Bai Qingming."
The people of the capital, who held ghosts and spirits in reverent awe, all drifted toward the entrance of the Zhenguo Commandery Princess's estate the moment word spread that a woman was clutching an elixir capable of reviving the dead.
One bold fellow bellowed at her.
"Look here, woman! If you've got an elixir that can bring the dead back to life, then pull it out and show us! Let's all have a look at it!"
"All talk and no proof—there's no way the Princess will see the likes of you!"
Then the crowd caught sight of the Zhenguo Commandery Princess's carriage pulling to a halt, and their murmurs turned urgent.
"It's the Commandery Princess's carriage!"
Chun Tao lifted the curtain and helped Bai Jingyan down from the carriage.
The haggard Ji Nanghua turned her gaze toward where Bai Jingyan stood.
The moment she saw the tall, straight-backed woman stepping down from the carriage, Ji Nanghua dragged herself forward on her knees, her strength all but spent. Her eyes were clear and limpid. She bowed so deeply that her forehead pressed against the ground.
"I am Ji Nanghua. General Zhiyong, Bai Qingming, is a man who showed this humble girl great kindness. I drew my own blood to refine an elixir—a medicine said to bring the dead back to life. I beg you to grant me the chance to save General Zhiyong."
Though her true purpose could not yet be fathomed, Ji Nanghua was plainly a woman who engraved every kindness deep in her heart and was determined to repay it in full. She had even carefully preserved the bloodstained keepsake A-Ming had left behind—hardly the sort of person who would lightly do harm to the Bai family.
And those clear eyes gave no sign of a woman who had lost her reason to another's manipulation.
Ji Nanghua pressed her forehead heavily to the bluestone pavement in a deep kowtow, then repeated herself once more.
"I am Ji Nanghua. General Zhiyong, Bai Qingming, showed this humble girl great kindness. I drew my own blood to refine an elixir—a medicine said to bring the dead back to life. I beg you to grant me the chance to save General Zhiyong."
Perhaps the tension had finally drained out of her upon meeting Bai Jingyan, for the woman who had been repeating the same words over and over collapsed where she knelt, right there at the estate's entrance.
Bai Jingyan clenched her fist and gave her orders.
"Qingzhu, carry this young lady inside to the residence. And summon the physician."
"Yes, my lady!"
Shen Qingzhu answered at once.
Once Bai Jingyan had the woman carried into the Zhenguo Commandery Princess's estate, the onlookers began to wonder—could it be that the Princess actually believed her?
"So many years have passed. Can an elixir truly make flesh grow upon white bones?"
"That's not what I'm wondering about. If the elixir is real, what I want to know is whether the Commandery Princess will use it to save the Bai family's Sixth Son—or the Zhenguo King."
"The Bai family's Sixth Son, obviously. If Sixth Son came back alive, the Bai family's line would carry on without breaking."
"If it were me, I'd save the Bai family's Seventeenth Son—that ten-year-old boy! I saw the body of a child in armor at the south gate, and I tell you, it near broke my heart."
After midday, Lu Ninghua emerged from the palace, having finished treating the Emperor's headaches.
Rumor had already reached the Emperor's ears—how a woman had knelt at the gates of the Zhenguo Commandery Princess's estate clutching an elixir said to revive the dead, begging the Commandery Princess for the chance to save Bai Qingming.
"An elixir that brings the dead back to life?"
The Emperor lifted his teacup, eyes narrowing, and asked.
"Yes, Your Majesty. They say the woman is kneeling outside the Commandery Princess's estate even now, begging her to grant the chance to save the Bai family's Sixth Son."
Gao Demu, all smiles, replaced the Emperor's teacup with a fresh one.
"Your Majesty, this old servant made a point of reminding you when he attended you—you must drink plenty of chrysanthemum tea."
The Emperor nodded, then took a sip of his tea, lost in thought. He frowned, perhaps finding the scent of chrysanthemum distasteful, but remembering his old servant's reminder, he drank a few more sips besides.
"And what did Bai Jingyan do with that woman who tried to dig up the Bai family's Sixth Son's grave?"
"Your Majesty, have you forgotten? The Commandery Princess went to Suyang and has not yet returned. It will likely be several more days before she does."
Gao Demu, recalling how the Crown Prince had assigned guards to Bai Jingyan, smiled and went on.
"His Highness the Crown Prince seems to look after the Commandery Princess most attentively—he even went so far as to attach an escort to her, shoring up her standing. Considering those imperial kinsmen made even the Grand Princess vomit blood, it's only fitting. It must have given the Commandery Princess quite the headache."
"You're underestimating Bai Jingyan."
The Emperor set his teacup down hard upon the table, a cold sneer on his lips.
"Bai Jingyan is a woman who could put the squeeze on me, of all people. Do you imagine a few of the imperial clan would even register in her eyes?"
"Who can say, Your Majesty? There is always a higher heaven above the highest flyer. However proudly the Commandery Princess carries herself, there is bound to be someone out there who can bring her to heel."
Gao Demu continued with his placid, smiling face.
"Besides, Your Majesty, if you wish to know what the Commandery Princess went through in Suyang, you need only ask His Highness the Crown Prince once she returns. One of His Highness's own people went along with her, so he would know better than anyone."
The Emperor said nothing. His mind was filled with nothing but that elixir—a medicine that could save even the dead.
There was no one left who could shake his throne. The Bai family, once the very threat to the Li clan's imperial power, had crumbled.
And if one were to ask what wish remained to him now, it would doubtless be the one every emperor who ever lived had dreamed of—eternal life.
An elixir that could bring the dead back to life, no less. Could such a thing truly exist, something said to dwell only in legend?
Gao Demu had likely blurted the words out without a second thought, but the notion gnawed at the Emperor from that moment on.
By the time Lu Ninghua arrived at the Zhenguo Commandery Princess's estate and stepped down from her carriage, a handful of the onlookers still lingered, unwilling to leave.
She listened closely to their murmured gossip. The woman who had tried to dig up the Bai family's Sixth Son's grave the previous evening had collapsed before the estate gates, and the Commandery Princess—freshly returned to her residence—had the woman carried inside and ordered the physician summoned.
Lu Ninghua bowed her head and fell briefly into thought. A young lady bearing an elixir that could save the dead—real or not, the Bai family's eldest young miss was certain to hold that woman in high regard.
She turned to the old gatekeeper.
"Where did the Princess take that young lady? I know something of medicine myself—I might as well go to her."
The Bai household's servants held Miss Lu in the deepest respect. The old gatekeeper called over a servant who was off duty, who then bowed and respectfully led her to the courtyard where Ji Nanghua was being kept.
Word reached Lu Ninghua that the woman with the elixir had been laid in the guest room, and she entered all the more carefully for it.
The old servant walked ahead, back bent in deference. Chun Tao, catching sight of them entering the courtyard, hurried inside to report to Bai Jingyan before rushing back out to receive her guest.
"Miss Lu."
Lu Ninghua smiled and spoke.
"I heard the eldest young miss sent for a physician. I thought she must be quite anxious. My skills are nothing remarkable, I'm afraid—but I can at least manage emergency care if it comes to that..."
The moment Lu Ninghua finished, Bai Jinchi walked out of the room. Lu Ninghua bowed to her.
"Fourth young miss."
"Aunt!"
Bai Jinchi returned the bow.
"Please—help her!"
Bai Jinchi stepped aside to clear the way, and Chun Tao swept the curtain up so that Lu Ninghua could enter.
Bai Jinchi, weariness weighing on her, kneaded her stiff neck. She had been stunned to learn only a short while ago that the woman was Ji Nanghua—the very Miss Ji she had met in the Southern Border.
She had wanted to wait right here until Ji Nanghua woke and ask her what on earth had happened. But her eldest sister, saying there was no telling when the woman would come to, had ordered her to go back, change out of her travel clothes, and rest first.
Reflecting that days of hard riding must have left her sister exhausted as well, Bai Jinchi had chosen to obey.
Bai Jingyan stood beside the bed, watching Shen Qingzhu wipe Ji Nanghua's face with a warm cloth. The question refused to untangle itself. Ji Nanghua had proclaimed it loudly enough that all of the capital knew—that she held a medicine capable of saving the dead. Why would she do such a thing?
"Eldest young miss."
Lu Ninghua bowed to Bai Jingyan.
"May I examine her?"
Bai Jingyan turned her head and returned the greeting.
"Thank you, Aunt. Please do."
Lu Ninghua washed her hands thoroughly and dried them with a cloth. Then she sat down on the stool beside the bed and took Ji Nanghua's pulse. After a moment she turned her gaze to the woman's face, and with her brow knit in a frown, began to study her closely.
The maid attending Lu Ninghua set the medicine chest down to one side and drew out a cowhide needle pouch lined with golden needles.
Lu Ninghua stilled her mind, selected a single golden needle, and carefully pierced Ji Nanghua's yuan acupoint, then slowly rotated the needle.
Before long, Ji Nanghua's eyes fluttered slowly open.
Lu Ninghua withdrew the needle and tucked Ji Nanghua's hand back beneath the covers, then drew the blanket carefully up around her.
Ji Nanghua stared at Lu Ninghua—her pupils trembling faintly—and unconsciously seized Lu Ninghua's hand before coming back to herself and letting go.
"Her injuries are nothing more than scrapes. She simply collapsed from sheer exhaustion—with proper rest and some medicine, there should be no cause for concern."
Lu Ninghua murmured softly to Bai Jingyan.
Bai Jingyan glanced at Lu Ninghua, then turned her gaze back to Ji Nanghua and spoke.
"Thank you, Aunt. Please write out a prescription for Miss Ji."
Only after Miss Lu had bowed and gone around the screen to write her prescription in the outer room did Bai Jingyan at last turn her full attention to Ji Nanghua.
"What is it that drives you to such lengths? What is your purpose in proclaiming to the whole city—even staging the digging of A-Ming's grave—that you hold a medicine that can raise the dead?"
Ji Nanghua struggled upright, and looking at Bai Jingyan—cold and distant as frost—her eyes slowly reddened.
The Xiao Baixiu before her now wore a woman's clothing. She was nothing like the Xiao Baixiu she had seen in the Southern Border. The Xiao Baixiu before her now was a woman of breathtaking, vivid beauty.
"Xiao Baixiu—I have no intention of harming the Bai family. Not now, not ever."
Bai Jingyan gave a nod, took the seat Chun Tao brought over, and spoke in the same even, unhurried tone she always used.
"I told you to live well—so that the Bai Family Army's sacrifice would not come to nothing."
Ji Nanghua knew only too well how brilliant and incisive Xiao Baixiu was. It occurred to her that the woman might have already read her intentions and her schemes long before she opened her mouth—and was speaking accordingly.