At the hour of the rabbit, dew clung to the blue tiles of the Marquis's Mansion like scattered diamond dust. Jiang Wan sat under the veranda, lifting a block of eyebrow ink with a silver hairpin. She watched as the breeze from Qiaoyun’s hurried arrival caused the ink in the inkstone to ripple.
"Miss, I’ve found out!" Qiaoyun lowered her voice, a piece of willow catkin caught in her hair. "Half a month ago, that Zhao Er worked as a day laborer at Madame Li’s dowry manor! The old servants there said he was brought in by Zhusha."
Jiang Wan’s hairpin froze in mid-air, and a drop of ink fell onto the rice paper, blooming into a small dark shadow. "The dowry manor?" She recalled that last winter, Madame Li had brought two cartloads of charcoal into the mansion, claiming they were "newly burned at the manor." Looking back now, she suspected there were many unspeakable secrets hidden there.
Chapter 64