In the spring of the third year of Yongxi, wisps of pale blue smoke rose from the bronze crane censer in the Zichen Palace. Jiang Ning knelt with lowered eyes on the icy gold-paved floor, the ebony hairpin in her hair catching the candlelight and casting a slender shadow on the ground. This was the third time she had angered the inner court while investigating a case. The jade nail guard the Empress had hurled to the floor lay shattered in two, its bright red manicure still carrying a lingering fragrance.
"A mere woman, yet you dare to meddle in the affairs of the inner court?" The Empress's phoenix eyes were filled with frost, her head ornament's eastern pearls swaying slightly with the movement. "Could it be that Official Jiang has forgotten her place?"
Jiang Ning straightened her back, her voice neither servile nor overbearing: "This subject's daughter received His Majesty's decree to thoroughly investigate the sudden death of Noble Consort Shu. If I were to shrink back because of my status, I would truly be forgetting my duty." She thought of the traces of arsenic she had found in Noble Consort Shu's bedchamber half a month ago, and the blood-written letter the palace maid had shoved into her hands before drawing her last breath. Her fingernails dug deep into her palms.
Chapter 107