As dusk soaked the crimson door knockers of Renyao Manor, Renyao sat in the Warm Chamber, staring blankly at the shards of porcelain on her desk. The parting words of Jiang Wan—"Shattered porcelain is easy to piece together into a painting, but a shattered heart is hard to restore"—echoed in her ears like the tolling of morning and evening bells. She looked up at the pomegranate tree outside the window; the "Drunken Xishi" flowers that had been so vibrant just two days ago were already wilting, mirroring her own turbulent state of mind.
"Miss," her trusted maid Feicui said, pulling back the curtain and entering with half a piece of silver in her hand. "Just as you instructed, I followed Xiaotao to the tea house in West City. I saw with my own eyes as she handed the silver to a woman in a bamboo hat. The woman’s cuffs were embroidered with..."
"The intertwined lotus pattern of Tinglan Courtyard," Renyao finished, her fingertips tightening around her teacup. "Is that right?"
Chapter 45