bayedsolid Chapter 188 The Clear Mind and Divine Eyes: Song Jing and the QR Code in the Golden Crack
Chapter 188 The Clear Mind and Divine Eyes: Song Jing and the QR Code in the Golden Crack
The bronze mirror reflected the blood-red brocade. Zhen Xiaosi stared at the figure in the mirror, dressed in a phoenix coronet and wedding robes, and for a moment she thought that someone's mahogany screen had come to life.
The copper bells on the eaves jingled, a lingering sound from a thousand years ago, nailing the soul of a twenty-first-century person to this carved canopy bed.
When the maidservant tucked a gold hairpin into Zhen Xiaosi's hair, the sweet scent of osmanthus oil on her fingertips seemed to permeate the whole marriage with a more insincere air than the ceremony itself.
"Young mistress should go to pay her respects morning and evening." The maid's voice was like a silver needle dipped in honey.
As Zhen Xiaosi walked through the winding corridor, lifting her skirt, she caught a glimpse of a ginkgo leaf floating in a goldfish tank beneath the corridor. It looked like a gilded hairpin that someone had left behind.
The sandalwood shavings in the main hall fell softly onto Zhang Yue's shoulders. The prime minister of the time sat upright in a sandalwood armchair, looking like a faded gilded Buddha statue.
“He’s a respectable man, though.” Zhang said, stroking his jade thumb ring, his eyes sweeping over the bride’s peony-embroidered shoes.
As Zhen Xiaosi bowed her head in a curtsy, she caught a glimpse of half a cloud-patterned brocade robe peeking out from behind the screen—her nominal husband, Zhang Jun, was grinding a jade thumb ring against the rim of a celadon cup, the tea rippling in circles around the rim, much like the unyielding ice crystals in his eyes.
As dusk crept up the windowpanes of the east wing, Zhen Xiaosi stared blankly at the gilded beast-shaped incense burner.
Zhang Jun's indifference was like a brocade robe wrapped around her, weighing heavily on her chest.
She suddenly laughed out loud, took out an eyebrow pencil from the bottom of her dressing case, and drew a molecular structure diagram on a piece of plain silk—this Tang Dynasty night always needs some modern will-o'-the-wisps to light it up.
Amidst the rising steam in the kitchen, Zhen Xiaosi sprinkled pepper into the mutton soup with the precision of a stopwatch.
The servants, watching the new bride roll up her sleeves and slice the meat, thought it was as if they were seeing a concubine washing clothes in the inner palace.
That day, the old lady suffered from a headache. She took the distilled medicine and dripped it onto the rhinoceros horn comb, making the agarwood incense in the whole room seem like a mere backdrop.
Gradually, even the most mean-spirited old nanny would bow to the gilded door when passing by the west courtyard.
On a night when the autumn rain pattered on the banana leaves, Zhen Xiaosi carried a sheep horn lantern to the study to deliver ginseng soup.
A few whispers escaped from behind the ink-wash screen: "...Those people in the Censorate are going to tamper with the grain transport ledgers..."
She pressed her face against the cool sandalwood lattice, hearing her own heartbeat mingling with the water clock, sounding like a death knell.
The next day, she "accidentally" found a copy of "Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art" on Zhang Jun's desk. The ink on the red-pen annotations was still wet, reflecting the depth of the waterline of the cargo ships.
During the Lantern Festival banquet, the palace was filled with dazzling silk lanterns that made people dizzy.
Zhen Xiaosi commented on Li Bai's new work "Qingping Diao" with the line "The Song of Rainbow Feather Garments is originally a satirical poem," which startled Song Jing so much that the luminous cup in his hand tilted slightly.
As the prime minister, known for his uprightness, strolled over, the silver cloud patterns on his official robe gleamed coldly, resembling a sword drawn from its sheath.
"Does Madam Zhang know that seeing through people's hearts is more dangerous than seeing through the account books?" Song Jing's words carried a hint of probing.
Zhen Xiaosi picked up a piece of translucent glutinous rice cake, letting the sugar frosting fall onto her pomegranate-colored skirt:
"Can Prime Minister Song's clear and bright eyes see the neon lights a thousand years from now?" She smiled, her eyes crinkling, but she clutched the Kaiyuan Tongbao coin with a QR code engraved on it tightly in her sleeve.
The pipa music from the Jiaofangsi suddenly changed tune. Zhen Xiaosi looked at the nearly full moon outside the eaves and recalled the secret letter she had glimpsed in Zhang Shuo's study last night.
The Sogdian dancers, presented as tribute by An Lushan, were twirling in the hall. Their pomegranate-red skirts swept across the gold bricks, resembling splattered bloodstains.
Song Jing's sigh mingled with the aroma of wine: "In this Chang'an city, the most ruthless predators aren't tigers and wolves, but rather those with gilded facades of respectability."
On the carriage back to the manor, Zhang Jun suddenly grasped her icy hand.
This man, who always liked to hide his thoughts in his ledgers, now had a strange light flickering in his eyes:
"You seemed like a completely different person at the banquet today."
Zhen Xiaosi lifted the carriage curtain and saw the lights of Zhuque Street winding like snakes. In the distance came the sound of the night watchman's clapper—bang, bang, bang, each sound shattering the glass dome of the prosperous age.
The moonlight in Chang'an always carries a hint of rust, somewhat like the smoke rising from an uncleaned gilded incense burner.
In the twilight, the glazed tiles of Daming Palace cast a dark, greenish shadow, and the copper bells hanging from the eaves jingled, like jade bracelets that a woman could never remove from her wrist, hanging emptily in the wind.
Song Jing stood before the Zichen Hall, the silver cloud patterns on his official robe gleaming coldly under the candlelight.
He was extremely thin and frail, with a frost-like look in his eyes, much like the unfinished painting "Visiting Dai on a Snowy Night" in the late emperor's study.
When Zhao Hanzhang's case came to light a few days ago, all the officials in the court were like moths stuck in spider webs, but his sleeves were spotless.
But this innocence is most conspicuous in Chang'an City, like an abrupt ink spot in the snow.
"Song Qing is quite clean."
Emperor Xuanzong tapped his knuckles on the armrest of the dragon throne, and the nine candlesticks cast deep and shallow furrows on his face.
The memorials piled on the desk were soaked in the stench of corruption, and even the imperial agarwood could not mask the smell of money.
Song Jing's eyes were like black jade immersed in a cold pool.
His "clear-minded eyes" were an inherited gift, allowing him to see the filthiest corners of people's hearts.
The day before yesterday, Zhao Hanzhang came to deliver a porcelain vase with ice crackle patterns. He only glanced at it and saw countless golden silkworms wriggling under the celadon glaze—all of them fattened up by eating human bones and blood.
At this moment, the bowed heads of the courtiers in the hall appeared to him like leaky bamboo baskets, dripping with murky water.
"Does Your Majesty know that the human heart is more clinging than the vines on the palace walls?" His voice was clear and cold, startling the birds roosting under the eaves into a flurry of flight. Cold sweat beaded on the foreheads of the officials, like frost-covered window paper in the twelfth lunar month.
At that moment, the beaded curtain of the side hall rustled softly, and a girl dressed in a moon-white ruqun (a type of traditional Chinese dress) emerged.
Zhen Xiaosi hopped in, her embroidered shoes adorning her temples with a crooked jade hairpin, looking like a spirit who had fallen out of the "Cave of the Immortals".
When she fell into the lotus pond of Daming Palace the day before yesterday, she had half a half-eaten sesame cake in her arms. Now she has learned to use a silver spoon to scoop up cherry blossoms and eat them.
“Lord Song is truly remarkable,” she said, leaning against the dragon-carved pillar, her fingertips twirling the silk sash around her waist. “Can you see what I’m hiding in my sleeve?”
Before he finished speaking, he produced a bamboo-woven cricket.
The insects fluttered their wings as if about to take flight before the emperor, turning the solemn atmosphere of the palace into a farcical spectacle.
Song Jing's pupils suddenly contracted.
Ordinary people's eyes are always clouded, but this girl's eyes are as clear as glass, reflecting the neon lights and shadows of a thousand years later.
He saw the wondrous sight of iron birds piercing the clouds in her memory, saw the glazed pagoda soaring into the clouds, and saw human figures swaying in countless bronze mirror-like objects—a bizarre scene that even the governor of Nanke could not have written.
"Where does Miss Zhen come from?" he suddenly asked, startling Xiao Si so much that her fingertips trembled. "I'm afraid they don't have such a golden cage there?"
Emperor Xuanzong clapped his hands and laughed, but his laughter sounded like ice shards shattering on the jade steps.
He loved watching the clear stream fight the wild fox, just like he used to watch Consort Mei and Consort Gui dance together in the Hall of Longevity.
But the sky over Chang'an City always had holes.
Urgent reports from the north always carried the stench of blood, and the sound of An Lushan's iron hooves mingled with the night watchman's drumbeats, urging the grandeur of the prosperous era to begin.
Late at night, Song Jing sat alone in his duty room, the pages of the "Essentials of Governance in the Zhenguan Era" on his desk yellowed.
Zhen Xiaosi slipped in like a cat, her skirt brushing against the blue bricks, stirring up a little dust. She suddenly stopped laughing and took a copper coin from her sleeve:
"Does Lord Song recognize this?"
The coin is inscribed with "Kaiyuan Tongbao" on the front, but a QR code is prominently engraved on the back.
Moonlight slanted in through the window lattice, weaving a strange net across the mottled verdigris.
"The day I fell into the lotus pond," her voice was as soft as willow catkins, "I saw countless coins like these sinking to the bottom, strung together like chains..."
Before he could finish speaking, shouts from the Imperial Guards suddenly came from outside.
Song Jing opened the window and saw the Big Dipper slanting down toward Fanyang, with an ominous red hue in the sky.
Years later, the pear blossoms at Mawei Slope fell like snow. Emperor Xuanzong stroked the faded sachet and suddenly remembered the look in Song Jing's eyes that night.
It turns out that the most insightful aspect of "Clarity of Mind and Divine Eyes" is not its ability to see through others, but rather its early glimpse of the calamity that lies beneath its own reputation—when a prosperous era is about to crumble, even the moonlight can be deadly.