Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I did not finish the portrait of the Grand Princess.

Before dawn, I submitted a half-finished work. The bone structure was accurate, but the eyes were incomplete, and the lips were a complete blank.

Emperor Xiao Cheng was weak and sickly, viewing the painting from behind a curtain. From behind that veil, the scent of medicine was as thick as rotting wood. He coughed for a long time before asking, “Shen Yan, you have spent ten years painting the deceased. Why did you fail today?”

I knelt on the ground. “My old ailment flared up last night, Your Majesty. My vision was clouded.”

Standing beside the curtain was Empress Jiang. She was in her early thirties, dressed in plain mourning clothes, her face showing neither joy nor sorrow. She stepped down the dais, picked up the painting herself, and rested her fingertip on the blank space where the lips should have been.

“Clouded vision?” she said softly. “Mr. Shen, if your eyes are not clear, then no one in this palace can see clearly.”

I lowered my head and remained silent.

The Empress suddenly smiled. “No matter. Her Highness the Grand Princess is of noble status; her funerary portrait naturally cannot be handled carelessly. Mr. Shen shall remain in the palace to repaint it tonight.”

My heart sank.

She didn’t want my painting; she was biding her time.

As I left the hall, Liu Quan pressed a pill into my hand, saying it was a sedative bestowed by the Empress. I did not eat it, hiding it in my sleeve instead. Upon returning to the side hall where I was staying, I sliced the pill open. Inside was a thread of red silk that did not dissolve in water; instead, it curled and moved like a living worm.

Soul-Returning Incense, the Face-Peeling Corpse, the Red Thread Medicine, and Wuxiang Tower.

These things finally connected into a single line.

Using the excuse of needing old paintings for reference, I ordered my young apprentice, Ah Heng, to return to the Painting Academy to fetch some files. Ah Heng had been with me for three years; he was clever and timid, but he knew how to keep his mouth shut. I gave him the copy of Xie Wanning’s portrait and told him to secretly investigate every noble lady I had painted who had died suddenly over the past three years.

By evening, Ah Heng’s face was deathly pale when he returned.

“Master,” he said, placing a stack of registers on the table. “Seventeen people in total. Aside from two whose families fell into ruin and couldn’t be traced, the remaining fifteen all had women with identical appearances reappear three to six months after their deaths.”

I flipped through the registers.

The Daughter of the Minister of Rites: six months after her death, she married into Earl Chengen’s Mansion as a distant cousin.

The Legitimate Daughter of Marquis Jingnan: three months after her death, her “twin sister” entered the palace as a consort.

The Granddaughter of the Grand Tutor: four months after her death, the daughter of a certain salt merchant in Jiangnan was suddenly recognized by the clan to inherit dowries and land.

Behind every entry was my name.

I had painted them all.

Ah Heng’s voice trembled. “Master, there is one more thing. In the Painting Academy’s storehouse, all the original drafts of your funerary portraits are gone. Only the copies remain. The guard said someone from the Empress’s palace came to collect them last night, claiming it was an imperial order to take inventory.”

The sound of the wind outside the window suddenly grew shrill.

Ah Heng pulled another piece of paper from his robe. “I also found this on the floor of the storehouse.”

There was only one sentence on the paper: *If you want to know how your mother died, come to the East Market Agarwood Shop at midnight.*

My knuckles tightened bit by bit.

My mother died the year I was born. My father had also passed away early. I had been taken in by Qin Lao since I was a child, and I had only heard my master say one thing while he was drunk: “Your mother was a fierce one; she snatched you from the King of Hell at the cost of her own life.”

I had always assumed it was simply a difficult labor.

But now, the people from Wuxiang Tower were saying they knew the truth.

Before midnight arrived, the lights in the side hall suddenly went out.

In the darkness, Ah Heng let out a muffled groan.

By the time I lunged toward him, he had already collapsed on the floor, a paintbrush plunged into his throat. The brush handle was mine, and the tip was soaked in cinnabar.

A line of blood-red characters had appeared on the wall: *Mr. Shen, don’t be late.*