At 9:45 AM, sunlight sliced the bookshelves of the Lu Mansion study into zones of light and shadow. Seventeen Withered Plum Jade Pendants were arranged in a neat row, casting chilling shadows upon the sandalwood tray. Jiang Wan’s hand, clutching a silver hairpin, hung in mid-air. She paused just before the tip touched the jade, as if the contact might awaken some dormant viper. "Mr. Zhou said these pendants were crafted by artisans from the Kingdom of Khotan," she murmured, her voice mingling with the cicadas’ drone outside. "To be able to lure the proprietor of Yumantang to travel thousands of miles for a custom order, the person behind this must be someone powerful enough to shatter paving stones with a single stomp."
Lu Jingyuan spread the incense ash he had retrieved from Cien Temple across a sheet of xuan paper, his fingertip tracing the hidden pattern in the center of the pile. "The boy in grey wrote the letter on snow-wave paper. Only a hundred sheets of this paper are produced annually, all supplied to the Scripture Pavilion at Cien Temple. And the Marchioness Jingnan always takes several extra stacks home for scripture copying whenever she offers alms on the first of the month." He looked up suddenly, his gaze meeting Jiang Wan’s. The shadows of the grapevines outside danced like fragmented gold in his eyes.
Ren Yao pushed the door open, swinging a soft whip, the gilded wine flask at her waist clinking rhythmically. "This Princess has truly seen something today—tha…
Chapter 263