The wooden clappers signaling the Hour of the Dog (7 p.m. to 9 p.m.) pierced through the curtain of rain. Shen Xitang’s fingertips trembled, causing her wolf-hair brush to bloom into an ink blot on the fine silk. The bronze mirror reflected a strange face; the slight furrow of the brows bore a seventy-percent resemblance to her own appearance in the modern world, save for the cinnabar mole beneath the eye.
"Third Miss, Nanny Zhang from the First Mistress’s quarters is here to press for the embroidery samples." The maid, Qingxing, entered carrying a lacquer tray. Beneath it lay a half-finished pattern of twin lotus flowers.
Shen Xitang gazed at that jarring splash of red, recalling the white silk hanging from the rafters when she had first awoken three days ago.
Slanted rain lashed against the carved window, dampening the tattered pages of the *Tian Gong Textile Annals* on her desk. This was a unique copy left behind by the original owner’s birth mother, and tucked between the pages was a yellowed contract—a thirty-percent equity stake in the Shen Family Embroidery Workshop from the Jiangning Imperial Textile Factory.
As Shen Xitang traced the worm-eaten edges of the contract, she suddenly heard the courtyard gate creak.
"Third Miss certainly puts on airs." Nanny Zhang stepped over the threshold, waving a water-red handkerchief. The gold hairpin at her temple caught the candlelight, dazzling the eye. "The First Mistress says if you cannot deliver the 'Hundred Sons and Thousand Grandsons' banner for Magistrate Li’s family by tomorrow, you are to go live at the estate on the outskirts of the city for a while."
Shen Xitang lowered her eyes to mask her icy demeanor. The original owner’s mother had been an embroiderer for the Shen family; after she died of illness ten years ago, the mistress, Madam Wang, handed the workshop’s operations entirely to her cousin. Now that the Jiangning Imperial Textile Factory was seeking a new imperial merchant, the Shen family’s main branch intended to use her mother’s equity as a bargaining chip.
"Qingxing, fetch my brocade box." Shen Xitang spoke suddenly, her voice as clear and cold as rain dripping from the eaves. "Please tell Mother that at the Hour of the Dragon (7 a.m. to 9 a.m.) tomorrow, I shall go to the workshop myself to deliver the work."
Once the footsteps vanished into the sound of the rain, Shen Xitang spread out the silk and used the ink stain to outline a flowing cloud pattern. As a former author of business war novels, she was all too familiar with this sort of family power struggle. She added intricate shadows to the cloud motifs—the "Hidden Thread Weaving Technique" recorded in the *Tian Gong Textile Annals*.
A thunderclap exploded outside the window. By the time Qingxing lit the Glazed Lamp, Shen Xitang had already drawn twelve new patterns at her desk. Deep in the rain, the sound of galloping hooves approached, and the tramping of official boots splashing through puddles startled the birds in the courtyard.
"Court of Judicial Review! We are here on official business!" Black-clad guards swarmed in, their torches illuminating the cold, stern profile of the man leading them. Xiao Heng shook the raindrops from his ink-colored cloak. A silver fish-shaped tally at his waist caught the cold light. "Third Miss Shen, your family’s embroiderer, Madam Chen, drowned in the Qinhuai River last night. You must come with us."
Shen Xitang’s fingertips brushed the hidden patterns in her embroidery, and from an angle unseen by the others, she tucked the equity contract into Qingxing’s sleeve. Seeing the raindrops congealing on Xiao Heng’s saber, she suddenly remembered the embroiderer from the original story who had been silenced by the powerful—it was Madam Chen who had kept evidence of the Jiangning Imperial Textile Factory’s corruption.
"My Lord, may I have a moment?" She bowed gracefully, a silver needle slipping from her sleeve. "This commoner must... tidy up Madam Chen’s appearance."
On the bluestone path, wet patches lingered. Shen Xitang followed the watery prints left by the official boots, the air thick with the scent of tung oil and rust typical of government offices. Xiao Heng’s cloak swept past her at the corner of the corridor, grazing the silver needle wrapped around her wrist.
The morgue’s brick walls were covered in mildew, and the hem of Madam Chen’s drenched clothes still dripped water. Shen Xitang took the silk cloth from the coroner; when her fingertips touched the corpse’s neck, she paused. Beneath the purple-blue bruising lay tiny puncture marks, like silk pierced by a thimble on an embroidery frame.
"The victim has mushroom-shaped foam in her mouth and nose; she definitely drowned," the coroner said, pulling back the white cloth to reveal the swollen fingers. "But there is indigo powder embedded in her fingernails, likely from struggling."
Indigo? Using the morning light filtering through the examination window, Shen Xitang looked closely. The powder had crystallized under Madam Chen’s nails; it was clearly unfermented indigo plant juice.
She suddenly recalled passing the dye house yesterday, where Manager Wang was directing laborers to pile fresh indigo plants under the eaves.
"Does my Lord know that dyeing silk indigo in Jiangning requires seven cycles of steaming and drying?" As she turned, her embroidered shoe crushed a grain of blue crystal in a floor crack. "Unfermented indigo rots upon contact with water. If Madam Chen had truly drowned in the Qinhuai River, this indigo powder would have long since dissolved into murky water."
Xiao Heng’s fingers tightened on his saber hilt, revealing a silver silk wrist guard beneath his black cuff. Shen Xitang caught a glimpse of the scrolling vine pattern on the guard—it was identical to the hidden patterns on the tribute satin recorded in her mother’s notebook.
"Miss Shen is quite knowledgeable about dyeing and weaving." Before he could finish, a porcelain bowl shattered outside. Manager Wang knelt on the steps, his back hunched. In the shards at his feet, mulberry branches soaked in water were staining the bluestone a ghastly purplish-red.
Shen Xitang crouched to pick up a piece of the mulberry branch. The rings at the break were oozing black spots.
This was aged mulberry wood used by dyers to test water temperature; it should have been honey-brown, but now it looked as if it had been soaked in rust. She brought the branch to her nose and caught a faint, familiar scent of bitter almonds.
"Manager Wang, have you been to the tile kiln in the west of the city recently?" Her voice was soft, but her fingertip suddenly jabbed at the man’s thumb joint. Red spots immediately bloomed on the old artisan’s wrist—the telltale reaction to contact with saltpeter.
Xiao Heng’s saber cleared its scabbard by half an inch, the cold light reflecting off Manager Wang’s pallid face. Shen Xitang, however, turned toward the autopsy table and pulled back the sleeve of Madam Chen’s right arm—there, in the crook of the elbow, were three cinnabar moles arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper.
"My Lord, have you checked Madam Chen’s place of origin?" She dropped the bloodied mulberry branch into a copper basin; the clear water instantly churned as if boiling. "To prevent kidnapping, women from Yongzhou are branded with cinnabar on their arms. And the amount of saltpeter on these mulberry branches is enough to blow up the stone bridge by the tile kiln."
A pigeon whistle cut through the air outside. Shen Xitang saw Xiao Heng’s pupils contract. She stepped back nonchalantly, though the silver needle in her sleeve was already stained with the mulberry ash—three days ago, she had watched Manager Wang sprinkle such ash into the workshop’s dye vat.
"To the tile kiln!" As Xiao Heng’s cloak brushed the gold hairpin in her hair, Shen Xitang quickly pricked the ash-stained needle into her silk handkerchief. The pistil of the twin lotus on the corner of the cloth gradually turned a strange, eerie blue—the exact reaction to contact with saltpeter.
As the carriage jolted, she fingered the contract hidden in the secret pocket of her skirt. The worm-eaten holes, when connected, formed a map of the Jiangning Imperial Textile Factory’s administrative offices.
On the night Madam Chen drowned, the original owner was supposed to deliver embroidery samples to the south of the city, but someone had swapped her identification tag...
"Does Miss Shen know the penalty for hoarding official mine maps?" Xiao Heng’s voice sounded suddenly by her ear.
Shen Xitang slowly raised her head, her gaze meeting his. In that instant, she caught a glimpse of a half-sheet of mulberry paper clutched tightly in his fingertips.
The paper was slightly yellowed, and while the handwriting was somewhat blurred, Shen Xitang recognized it immediately as the page from the *Tian Gong Textile Annals* she had deliberately left behind in the morgue that morning.
Just then, a commotion erupted outside the carriage curtains, followed immediately by raging flames leaping into the sky. The corners of Shen Xitang’s mouth lifted, revealing a bright, enchanting smile.
Her voice was exceptionally clear amidst the sound of explosions: "My Lord, why not take a guess—after being baked in this massive fire, what kind of patterns will show up on the cloud brocade in the workshop's dye vats?"
At the same time, amidst the ruins of the tile kiln, Shen Xitang stepped lightly over the burning ceramic shards and carefully picked up half a brick.
The surface of the brick still held faint traces of a woven pattern. Although scorched black, one could still clearly see that it matched the worm-eaten holes on the contract perfectly.
A surge of joy welled up in Shen Xitang’s heart. She had finally found the missing half of the Jiangnan canal transport map!