The Wooden Box from the Past
The morning breeze slipped through the slits of an old wooden window, its hinges creaking softly. But the faint sound did little to disturb the stillness of the forgotten basement an archive hidden behind the Imperial Shrine, unknown to all but a scarce few among the court.
The air was thick with the scent of ancient dust and dry timber. Pale sunlight filtered through the wooden slats, casting slanted lines across an old stone table, upon which rested a silent wooden box. Beside it lay a timeworn ledger and a faded piece of silk, lovingly wrapped and preserved.
Xianlan sat before the box in a plain white robe, her long, graceful eyes fixed upon it as though confronting a ghost from the past come to call once more.
She reached out with pale fingers, lightly brushing the lid. The quiet scrape of her nail against the wood was nearly inaudible.
"Qin Zi Box…"
She whispered the name carved faintly into the grain, a name that had not been spoken in years.
This was once the possession of the former Chief Accountant of the palace, a man dismissed without mercy during the era when Consort Yi Fei was falsely accused. Xianlan remembered well he was one of the few who had sent financial records directly to her mother. After the accusation, he vanished without a trace.
She drew a breath and slowly lifted the lid… The soft groan of wood echoed in the still chamber like a prayer uttered in a long-abandoned temple.
There was nothing precious inside no gold, no jewels yet what it held weighed heavier than any metal. Ancient financial scrolls, a carefully folded scrap of silk, and a circular jade medallion no larger than a coin.
Her reflection trembled in the sheen of the jade as she lifted it. The morning light broke through it, as though time itself had split open.
Gently, she unfurled one of the scrolls. The fragile fang paper quivered like a fevered patient under her touch brittle, thin, ready to vanish in a sigh.
The ink had faded, but some lines had been rewritten in red underlined in deliberate urgency.
"Imperial Procurement Bureau, 7th year of the Li Era.""Items: black pearls, gold foil, cloud-patterned brocade, white jade dispatched to Consort Su's residence."
Xianlan's gaze froze.
In that very same year, her mother Consort Yi Fei had been accused of embezzling palace resources. And no proof had ever surfaced. Yet here, the scroll before her clearly recorded the transfer of royal treasures… not to her mother, but to the other woman.
"The evidence my mother never had the chance to show… lies right here."
She set the scroll down with care and turned to the faded silk.
It had once been the embroidered cloak from Consort Yi Fei's residence. The phoenix-and-dragon pattern her mother's personal insignia was now stained in black ink and slashed deliberately through.
"Not merely defamed… but erased, down to the shadow of her memory."
Xianlan's fingers traced the fabric until they paused at a seam hastily stitched over, as though to hide something.
She took a pin from her hair and began to unpick the threads.
Inside was a scrap of thin paper, no larger than her palm.
Scrawled in rushed handwriting, it bore only one word:
Beware. Jade Circle.
Xianlan turned toward the medallion resting in the box.
Heavy. Cold. Etched with golden clouds along its rim fine, yet unyielding.
She understood instantly.
"A key to the secret treasury…"
Only the Crown Prince or one granted direct authority by the Emperor could wield such a medallion.
"But why… was it hidden in the box of a disgraced official?"
"Unless someone had used his name to requisition goods in my mother's name… and rerouted them elsewhere…"
Her thoughts surged, unstoppable as a mountain stream.
—
Xianlan sat for a long time.
Her breathing calmed, steady as moonlight over still waters. Then, slowly, she lowered the lid of the box and reached for a brush.
On a prepared strip of white silk, she wrote:
"This box belonged to Consort Yi Fei. Entrusted to Xianlan until the day of the Alliance Ceremony."
Her brush hovered for a heartbeat in the air… then she signed her name beneath the line.
"I will not use this to strike others down," she whispered,"but to remind them I have not forgotten."
She laid the brush down.
Then rose, leaving the silent archive with the wooden box in her hands… and a fire in her eyes that had not burned in years.
—
Later that day - Crown Prince's Residence
The private hall of Feng Yuhan was silent, save for the soft tapping of a sandalwood fan upon the table. His gaze remained fixed on a report in his hand.
Penned in the handwriting of an imperial spy, it read:
"The Qin Zi box has appeared at the Imperial Shrine. Someone allowed centrist ministers to glimpse part of the scrolls but not all."
Wen Yichen, seated nearby, placed his teacup down.
"Are you not afraid she might reveal everything… at the ceremony?"
Feng Yuhan studied the page a moment longer before replying, his tone calm as ever.
"If she meant to expose it all… she would have done so yesterday."
He paused, then added in the voice of one perpetually reading the battlefield:
"I believe she revealed just a fragment… as bait."
"Bait for whom?" Wen Yichen asked, raising a brow.
"For the fish hiding in the dark," Feng Yuhan answered without hesitation."To see who fears the truth… the most."
—
Same Night – Pavilion Behind Jiang Xinluo's Residence
Jiang Xinluo had received a quatrain from an anonymous agent:
"The crescent moon parts the clouds, the veiled night seals the wooden box.
A jade disc veils the ancient ledgers old shadows are not yet gone."
She sat in deep thought beneath the muted flicker of candlelight that passed softly through sheer curtains. In times past, a verse like this might have been dismissed as a cipher or a warning. But now it was a message between allies.
"Xianlan is telling me… she has yet to play her full hand."
"And she's waiting… to see what card I will lay down first."
The young woman took up a fresh slip of paper and, with swift strokes, began to sketch. In but a moment, a round jade medallion appeared on the page its center etched with a faint fracture.
Jiang Xinluo gazed at the image before folding it neatly into an envelope, then sent it back with the same messenger.
"I possess such a medallion too…" she murmured.
"But I've never used its full weight. And I am ready… to crack it, if I must."
—
Deep Night – Shadow Hall, Intelligence Bureau
In a windowless chamber lit only by a flickering oil lamp, a man sat behind a black curtain. His face was obscured, but a long scar visible at the wrist trailed up the forearm an old wound carved from another lifetime.
A subordinate stepped forward and spoke in a hushed tone.
"Plan Three has leaked. The Qin Zi box was shown to neutral ministers. The imperial ledgers have been dispersed fragmented."
The man behind the curtain said nothing for a long while.
At last, his voice, low and faint, broke the silence:
"Too fast… She's moving quicker than I calculated."
He shifted slightly. The groan of aged floorboards creaked underfoot.
"This time, I will not let her use silence as a sword again."
This unnamed man was once a bearer of the same jade medallion, a decade past
A figure whispered to have held secret authority over the imperial treasury and its procurement web.
And now… he was preparing to move once more.
—
Late Night – Hua Lan Residence
Xianlan lit the plum-blossom oil lamp with her own hand. The flame was small, but its warmth filled the chamber with quiet resolve.
Before her lay the Qin Zi box.
She watched it as though it might speak an object that had survived treachery, time, and dust.
"Mother… you likely never imagined that one day, your daughter would use what was buried… to unearth the truth again."
Her whisper melted into the night.
Then, with composed fingers, she reached once more for a sheet of white silk. Upon it, she calmly wrote a single line:
"I have not played all my cards… because the dealer has yet to show their face."
"This chapter has been updated with improved narrative and deeper character perspective. The plot remains unchanged."
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