Story of Yanxi Palace, Chapter 24: A-Man

   “Ahem, cough cough…” At night, Aunt Fang tossed and turned for a while before calling out in a hoarse voice, “Bingqing, pour me a bowl of water!”

No response came for a long time.

“Yu Jie!” Aunt Fang tried calling someone else. “Pour me a bowl of water!”

Still no reply.

The two palace maids who used to wait on her every day—who would rush to bring her tea the moment she so much as coughed lightly—had now both vanished without a trace.

“You two ungrateful wretches! After all the trust I placed in you day after day!” Aunt Fang cursed at length, tears finally spilling from the corners of her eyes. “And now… now you won’t even give me a sip of water…”

Before she could finish, a teacup was brought to her lips.

The water was cold and contained no tea leaves at all, but Aunt Fang had been thirsty all night and could no longer afford to be picky. She seized the cup with both hands and gulped it down in one go.

“Had enough?”

“One more… Wait—no!” This wasn’t the voice of Bingqing or Yujie! Aunt Fang jerked her head up, and what met her eyes was a face as pure and lovely as a lotus blossom. Even without any makeup, it possessed seven-tenths of the world’s beauty.

“Now that you’ve had enough, answer a few questions for me.” The young woman smiled slightly.

“Wei! Ying! Luo!” Aunt Fang spat each syllable through gritted teeth. “You actually dare show your face in front of me!”

“If I didn’t come, I’m afraid you wouldn’t even get a mouthful of water,” Wei Yingluo said with a quiet sigh. “How pitiful. In just half a year more, you could have left the palace according to the rules. But now that you’ve been driven out, not only will there be no severance pay, I doubt even your own family would dare take you in.”

At the thought of her miserable old age, Aunt Fang’s vision darkened. Her lips trembled as she spoke: “Why… why did you have to ruin me like this? And that belly of yours… what exactly is going on with your belly…?”

She had tossed and turned over this question night after night, yet never found an answer. If she hadn’t been convinced that Wei Yingluo was pregnant, she never would have dared drag Manager Wu into it.

“Oh, you mean this?” Wei Yingluo gave a light laugh. Her fingers gently stroked her still slightly swollen abdomen, her tone as casual as if she were talking about someone else’s body. “A while back I got some high-grade kaolin clay from the pottery workshop. A small amount won’t kill you, but it causes rapid bloating. I only acted about two-tenths convincingly, yet you all took the bait so eagerly, couldn’t wait to get rid of me…”

A chill ran down Aunt Fang’s spine as she listened.

She said “a small amount” and “no danger to life,” but it was still dirt, after all. People had died eating Guanyin clay before—who could say what would really happen after swallowing it?

Someone who was so ruthless even to herself would only be more merciless to her enemies.

“As for why…” Wei Yingluo flicked her fingers, and a delicate plum-blossom hair-tassel dangled from them. “Do you still recognize this tassel?”

Aunt Fang stared hard. “This… this is the one I lost a while back! You little thief—”

“You’re the thief!” Wei Yingluo suddenly seized Aunt Fang by the hair, forcing her head up so their eyes met. The gentle mask she had worn for so long was completely torn away, revealing to Aunt Fang the true, terrifying face of a vengeful avenger. “Look at my face. Look carefully. See who I really am!”

“You’re Wei Yingluo… No—no, you’re…” Aunt Fang stared in horror at the face before her. “You’re… Wei Yingning!”

Wei Yingluo had always found it strange.

If Jinxiu targeted her out of jealousy, why would Aunt Fang get involved?

Not until she picked up the plum-blossom tassel Aunt Fang had dropped did the truth slowly surface. Before her older sister entered the palace, Wei Yingluo had stayed up all night making that very tassel for her by hand.

“Speak!” Wei Yingluo viciously yanked Aunt Fang’s hair, her expression ferocious, like an unwilling demon who had clawed her way back from hell. “Tell me everything about Wei Yingning! Otherwise I’ll go straight to Manager Wu right now and expose all the cruel ways you’ve mistreated palace maids over the years. When that happens, you won’t just be expelled with a clean record—you’ll be punished far worse!”

“No—no, I’ll talk, I’ll tell you everything…” Aunt Fang broke down in tears and yielded. “When I first heard your name, it sounded a little familiar. Later, when I thought about it carefully… Wei Yingning changed her name as soon as she entered the palace. Everyone called her A-Man…”

By some twist of fate, when Wei Yingning entered the palace, she too had been assigned under Aunt Fang.

The two sisters even did the same things: rising before dawn to embroider different flower patterns onto the handkerchiefs and clothes that belonged to Aunt Fang.

“Later she got caught in a scandal. I seized the evidence and used it to threaten her. I made her hand over all the valuables around her, as well as her private savings, for me to ‘keep.’” Aunt Fang pointed toward the corner. “There—buried under that floorboard.”

Wei Yingning pushed her away, swiftly pried open the wooden plank, and from beneath it pulled out an old, faded blue cloth bundle. When she untied it, there wasn’t even half a copper coin inside—only a couple of worn old clothes and a cracked, now worthless jade pendant.

“So many years have passed… the money… I’ve already spent it all.” Aunt Fang shrank into the corner of the bed, hugging her knees tightly, trembling as she spoke. “Don’t report me. Once I leave the palace, I’ll find a way to repay you.”

Wei Yingluo had no interest in the money. She stared blankly at the old clothes in her hands. They seemed to still carry the warmth of her sister’s body. She cradled them carefully to her chest, as though holding her sister herself…

“You keep saying my sister committed some shameful act.” She turned her back to Aunt Fang, her voice low and heavy. “What exactly was this shameful act?”

“What else could it be… stealing a man…” Aunt Fang muttered.

“Nonsense!” Wei Yingluo whipped around, her voice sharp. “My sister was not that kind of person!”

Aunt Fang’s shoulders shrank inward. “If you don’t believe me, go ask Momo Zhang.”

Wei Yingluo frowned. “Momo Zhang knows about this too?”

Aunt Fang gave her a strange look in return. “Why do you think she’s taken such good care of you? It’s because your sister was the embroidery girl she valued most. If you want to know what happened to A-Man, you shouldn’t ask me—you should go to her…”

Before she could finish speaking, the room was already empty. Only the two doors, violently flung open, remained, creaking back and forth with a lingering squeak.

At the palace maids’ quarters, in Momo Zhang’s residence.

Two teacups sat on the table. Because they had been left for some time, the tea was no longer scalding—just the right temperature to drink. Momo Zhang sat calmly beside one cup, eyes closed in quiet repose, as though waiting for a guest.

Knock, knock, knock.

“The door’s not locked. Come in.” Momo Zhang slowly opened her eyes. “Sit down. Drink the tea first.”

Wei Yingluo stood panting at the doorway. She had run the entire way, her throat burning as though on fire. Only after gulping down a cup of tea did she finally regain enough strength to speak.

“Mama.” She set the cup down and stared at Momo Zhang, who was calmly refilling it for her. “Wei Yingning was my sister.”

The tea was poured once more, the emerald-green leaves swirling and unfurling in the cup, releasing a fresh fragrance. Momo Zhang spoke slowly and deliberately:

“I’ve told you before—do not mention that name. It is taboo.”

Wei Yingluo stared at the teacup being offered to her. After a long silence, she asked softly:

“You already knew. You knew everything. But why… why didn’t you tell me anything?”

“What did you want me to tell you?” Momo Zhang replied. “That A-Man did something wrong and I was deeply disappointed in her?”

“Everyone says my sister did something wrong. But what exactly did she do that was so terrible she had to pay with her life?” Wei Yingluo pushed the teacup aside, threw herself at Momo Zhang’s knees, lifted her small, palm-sized face, and looked up with tear-filled eyes like a wronged granddaughter clinging to her grandmother’s hand, shaking it again and again. “Mama, Mama, please tell me. I beg you!”

Momo Zhang could no longer resist her. She let out a heavy sigh.

“Someone reported it to Chief Steward Wu, saying she had been missing all night and must have been carrying on an illicit affair outside the palace. Her luck was not as good as yours. Chief Steward Wu searched the rockery in the Imperial Garden and found the filthy undergarment she had left behind…”

“My sister was always proper and self-respecting—she would never do such a thing!” Wei Yingluo listened but refused to believe a single word. “She must have been framed!”

“I also wish she had been framed.” Momo Zhang looked down with pity at the girl huddled against her knees. “But she told me herself—no one forced her. It was entirely voluntary.”

The world before Wei Yingluo’s eyes suddenly darkened. Everything seemed to spin. With every word Momo Zhang spoke, another crack opened beneath her feet, and countless hands reached up from the fissures, trying to drag her down into the abyss.

“There was no other choice but to follow palace regulations—death by random beating.” Momo Zhang gently stroked her hair, comforting her. “But her fate was not yet sealed. At that time, the Empress Dowager was ill and did not wish to see blood spilled in the palace. So instead she received fifty strokes of the cane and was expelled from the Forbidden City. How… how has she been since then?”

“…She’s dead.” Wei Yingluo could no longer hold back her tears. “Everyone said she hanged herself out of shame and could not face anyone. But I investigated the wound—there were blue finger marks around her neck. She was strangled to death!”

Momo Zhang was greatly shocked. She suddenly grabbed Wei Yingluo by the shoulders: “Strangled to death?”

Wei Yingluo nodded through her tears, the drops continuing to roll down her cheeks with every movement.

“This isn’t right, this isn’t right…” Momo Zhang had walked more paths in life than most people had eaten meals. In an instant, she spotted the flaw. “If she truly had willingly engaged in illicit relations with someone, how could she have ended up silenced by murder? There must be something more to this matter… something hidden.”

“Yes—that’s exactly why I entered the palace,” Wei Yingluo said, wiping the tears from her face. “I cannot allow my sister to die so unjustly and without explanation. I must find the truth and give her justice! Momo, I beg you—help me, and help her too!”

“How can I help you?” Momo Zhang looked helpless. “So many years have already passed, and there isn’t a single clue…”

A clue?

Wei Yingluo thought for a moment, then suddenly took out a jade pendant from her bosom: “Momo, please take a look at this jade pendant.”

It was one of the few belongings left behind by Wei Yingning. Because Aunt Fang was greedy, it had been hidden under a wooden plank and never discovered during searches. It had remained sealed away in dust for years—until today, when it finally saw the light again.

Momo Zhang took the jade pendant and examined it. Her brows immediately furrowed.

Wei Yingluo had been watching her face closely the entire time and naturally did not miss this change in expression. Her heart stirred at once—three parts excitement and seven parts anticipation—as she asked: “Momo, do you recognize this jade pendant?”

Momo Zhang shook her head and said: “Fucha insignia.”

It was a phrase in Manchu. Wei Yingluo naturally did not understand and could only wait for Momo Zhang to explain.

“I don’t recognize the jade pendant itself, but I do recognize the name engraved on it,” Momo Zhang said slowly. She raised her head, her gaze complicated as she looked at Wei Yingluo. “Fucha insignia—this jade pendant belonged to His Majesty’s childhood friend, his wife’s younger brother, an Imperial Guard—Fucha Fuheng.”

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