Crossing the Mountains

Chapter 197 Mother's Relics
This is a slightly worn-out dressing case.

The once exquisite wood carving had several worn areas, and many grains of sand remained in the tiny gaps, making it look dull and unremarkable. However, as soon as Cai Zhu'er's fingertips touched its mottled edges, she abruptly withdrew her hand as if burned by fire.

The peeling lacquer on the dressing case revealed the aged wood color, and the once meticulously painted twin lotus pattern was still faintly visible—her mother would always stroke it while doing her makeup every day, lost in thought.

“This is…” Caizhu asked in a daze, “my mother’s dowry.”

"It seems I haven't mistaken it for something else; it truly belongs to your family." Zhou Wenzong smiled gently as he handed the dressing case to her. "This way, it can be considered a return to its rightful owner."

"How did Your Highness know this was my family's?" Caizhu asked.

“I found it by chance among the odds and ends that the Zhenxi Army had collected. The soldier who found this pile of things said that the dressing case was pressed under a camel saddlebag and was neither burned nor buried by sand. Along with it, there were also goods marked with the word ‘Halang’ in the Mohe language. I remember your grandfather’s name was Halang.”

He spoke of it casually, but what coincidence could there be in the world?

When Caizhu was still a princess, she had told him about her true background and mentioned that her trip to the Central Plains with her father and brothers was not only for business and livelihood, but also to find her mother's belongings and fulfill her wish to return home. He kept this in mind and personally sifted through the mountains of bones and debris for three days before finally finding this small dressing case.

"Thank you, Your Highness." Caizhu said gratefully, holding the dressing case in her arms. "Although this dressing case is not valuable, it was my mother's favorite item when she was alive. I thought I would never find it again..."

"It was nothing," Zhou Wenzong said, gesturing for her to open it. "Take a look and see if anything is missing."

Cai Zhu nodded and carefully opened the lid of the makeup box.

Presumably because it had been thrown and rolled, the bronze mirror inside had become uneven and had countless fine lines scratched by the sand and gravel, making the reflected image distorted and blurry, and it was clearly unusable.

Take out the bronze mirror; there's very little red clay left in the rouge compartment below.

This is a special kind of rouge made by grinding and soaking petals in Mohe. It should have a unique floral fragrance, but now the red clay has dried up, and the cosmetic box has been mixed with the pile of bones for a long time, only emitting an indescribable smell of decay.

Cai Zhu'er recalled that her mother used to dip her fingers in this red clay and dab it on her forehead, dress her in the Da Xuan clothing she made herself, and teach her to dance the Hu Xuan dance that she herself had just learned.

Mother's words, spoken in a gentle Central Plains accent, said, "Our Caizhu is a bird that flew from the water towns to the desert. Perhaps one day, Mother can take you back to see..."

Coming back to her senses, Caizhu packed up her dressing case. Inside were some hairpins and accessories, not all of them in perfect condition, but that didn't matter. The dressing case itself was more important.

Just as she was about to close the dressing case, Shentu Zhuo suddenly said, "Wait, what's that pattern?"
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Cai Zhu'er paused in her hand movements: "What? This?" She thought Shen Tu Zhuo was asking about the pattern on her mother's hairpin, so she casually explained, "It's a lotus flower. Many of the things my mother brought from her hometown are lotus-shaped."

Shen Tu Zhuo stepped forward: "Not this one." He took out the accessory he had put back and pointed to a small, inconspicuous mark at the bottom of the dressing case, asking, "I mean this one. The outside looks like the outline of a lotus petal, and the inside looks like a character?" Cai Zhu'er looked at it carefully: "There are scratches and wear, so it's not very clear. I've never noticed it before."

Zhou Wenzong also came over: "Let me take a look."

The three of them pondered around the dressing case for a while. Cai Zhu'er came up with an idea. She took a brush, dipped it in some bright red rouge, and traced the pattern on it: "The scratches are confusing our vision. The scratches are different in depth and pressure from the original engravings. If we can identify the engravings and trace them again, we should be able to restore it."

After she finished drawing, Shen Tu Zhuo recognized it at a glance, but frowned in disbelief: "This is... the character Li?"

Cai Zhu'er was also stunned: "Li?"

The Li family merchant they've been investigating for so long, is he really right in front of them?
Zhou Wencong asked, puzzled, "What do you mean? What's wrong with the character 'Li'?"

Shen Tu Zhuo told him his speculations about the case of the Grand Herald's demotion: "We suspect that the family had some private contact with my grandfather, and perhaps my grandfather left some evidence with them."

Zhou Wenzong thought for a moment and shook his head, saying, "No, Caizhu'er's mother went to Mohe twenty years ago, which doesn't match the time when the Li family moved to Hexi."

Shentu Zhuo said, "But that doesn't mean the two are completely unrelated." He turned to Caizhu'er, "What's your mother's name?"

Cai Zhu'er said blankly, "Mother... I only know that Mother's name is Ashili. I have never heard Grandfather call her Da Xuan. Mother has never told us either."

Zhou Wencong: "Did you originally plan to send your mother's belongings to Jiangnan?"

“Yes, Mother’s hometown should be in Jiangnan, but even my grandfather probably doesn’t know exactly where. We just wanted to take Mother’s belongings back to look for her, maybe we could meet her relatives.” Cai Zhu’er said sadly, “Later, my grandfather and brother had an accident in the valley, and all the evidence was lost. I have no heart to look for anything anymore.”

“So in the end, we still need to figure out what’s going on with the Li family.” Shen Tu Zhuo put the accessories he had just taken out back into the dressing case and handed them back to Cai Zhu’er, comforting her, “Don’t be discouraged. Now we have more clues. We can ask the Chamber of Commerce again, or we can try to find out what my mother thinks.”

"More clues? Just this dressing case?" Cai Zhu'er was still immersed in sadness.

“Yes, thanks to Your Highness for finding your mother’s belongings, we were able to continue our investigation.” Shen Tu Zhuo gently tapped the twin lotus pattern on the dressing case and said, “Besides the character ‘Li,’ these lotus patterns are also clues. You said that many of the items your mother brought from her hometown had lotus patterns, and the pattern at the bottom of the dressing case, which resembles a clan emblem, also has the outline of a lotus. So I think the Li family may have a strong connection with lotuses.”

"Thinking about it this way, Ashili in the Mohe language also means 'flower in the water,'" Caizhu said. "I used to think it was just that there were many lotus flowers in the water towns of Jiangnan, and my mother just liked them."

“I’ve heard that the Kingdom of Sindhu at the edge of the desert is Buddhist. After Lord Zhang returned from his mission to Sindhu, and with the subsequent expansion of the trade routes in the west, Da Xuan has gradually gained many Buddhist followers. The lotus flower holds great significance in this religion, symbolizing peace and tranquility,” Shen Tu Zhuo pondered. “I’m wondering if the Li family has a branch that also believes in Buddhism, or if they often do business with Buddhist caravans in the west.”

“That makes sense.” Zhou Wenzong nodded. “Let’s continue investigating along this line. Maybe we’ll find something unexpected. I’ll assist you from the sidelines, since this is one of the tasks the Crown Prince has given me.”
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Next chapter: In the darkness...