[Vol. 1, Fragment XII: The Inner Palace ? Makeup Procurement List]

  "Southern Sea Mermaid Pearls (Substandard): Grind into powder, apply to the face, can conceal corpse spots. Deep Sea Mermaid Tears (Premium): Consume raw, or drip into the eye sockets; can keep the eyeballs 'moisturized' to prevent them from shriveling and falling out. Note: That fish is almost out of tears. Zero drops extracted today. Deduct three months' salary from the eunuch in charge."

  — Imperial Wardrobe Bureau ? Exclusive Ledger for the Noble Consort

  [Internal Note / Directorate of Astronomy] "Skincare": Refers to the frantic process of scraping putty and painting whitewash over a skin sack that has already rotted.

  When they left the Ministry of Revenue, the horizon had just begun to turn the color of a fish's belly. The air was permeated with the sour stench of overnight rot—the bad breath of a city suffering from indigestion.

  Xie Bi’an carried the dead-weight pouch of "Dragon Vein Dregs" in his robes, yet his mood was unusually light. He even casually hummed an off-key rendition of Fur Elise, a tune that made Shen Wu’s temples throb so hard he wished he could plug his ears.

  "Gleaner Xie," Shen Wu pressed his hand against his saber, lowering his voice. "Where to now? Back to the Miscellaneous Division?"

  "Why go home? We're almost out of cat food." Xie Bi’an yawned and casually pointed his right hand toward the deepest part of the Imperial Palace, at the tallest building roofed with emerald-green Liuli tiles. "Strike while the iron is hot. We're going to 'restock'."

  "That's... Huaqing Palace?" Shen Wu's expression changed. "The Noble Consort's bedchamber?"

  "Correct." Xie Bi’an's eyes held a playful gleam, resembling an unscrupulous merchant preparing to peddle inferior cosmetics. "I heard Her Ladyship's skin has been 'leaking water' terribly lately and desperately needs patching. We're going to deliver some warmth."

  If one weren't told Huaqing Palace was an imperial residence, the atmosphere would easily lead one to mistake it for a massive steamer basket.

  Before they even got close, a hot, sticky, suffocating wave of moisture hit their faces. It was mixed with a floral powder scent so intense it bordered on pungent, giving one a headache. The scent was too fragrant—fragrant as if specifically designed to mask the stench of rot.

  There were no Imperial Guards at the doors.

  There were only a few deathly pale young eunuchs squatting in the corners. Holding ledgers soaked through by the moisture, they trembled while recording something.

  "...Zero drops extracted today."

  "...Her Ladyship is furious. Thirty lashes."

  "...Fish skin ulcerating. Must apply salt for preservation."

  Shen Wu felt his scalp go numb listening to this. He thought they had walked into the wrong place; this was clearly a meticulously managed torture chamber.

  The moment he stepped onto the stairs, he felt the ground was slippery. Looking down, he saw the white marble floor covered in a layer of slimy green moss, with salty, fishy seawater seeping from the cracks.

  "Careful." Xie Bi’an covered his nose with his sleeve. "The moisture here is heavy enough to grow mushrooms. That Consort turned this place into the bottom of the sea just to keep herself fresh."

  Avoiding the eunuchs' sight, the two men slipped in through a window of the side hall.

  The interior was dim, draped in layer upon layer of pink gauze curtains. The moisture condensed into water droplets on the gauze, dripping onto the marble floor with a tick-tock, tick-tock rhythm that gnawed at the mind.

  "Over there."

  Xie Bi’an pointed to the center of the grand hall.

  There was no bed, only a massive pool carved from a single piece of white jade.

  The pool wasn't filled with hot spring water, but with seawater... glowing with a faint, eerie blue light.

  And sitting by the edge of the pool was a woman.

  With her back to them, her long hair cascaded down like a waterfall. She was draped in mermaid silk as thin as cicada wings. Facing a massive bronze mirror, she held a sharp little silver knife, and was... scraping her own face?

  Scriiiitch—Scriiiitch—

  The sound of the silver knife scraping across skin was sharp and ear-piercing. It sounded like scaling a fish, carrying the raw friction of hard objects grinding together.

  "That's the Noble Consort?" Shen Wu held his breath, his palms slick with cold sweat.

  "Yes." Xie Bi’an narrowed his eyes. "She's 'exfoliating.' It's just that her dead skin is a bit thick; it's already turned into a crust."

  With the Consort's movements, flakes of grayish-white, dried, cracked skin fell to the floor. Her originally peerless face now looked like a mottled, peeling wall, revealing the dark red, desiccated muscle texture beneath.

  "Water..."

  The Noble Consort let out a hoarse moan, her voice sounding as if her throat were filled with sand. "I need... water... this skin is cracking again..."

  She abruptly turned around. In the candlelight, her mottled face was terrifyingly hideous. She reached out a hand, grasping toward the center of the pool.

  Only then did Shen Wu clearly see what was chained inside the pool.

  It was a mermaid.

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  But it had absolutely nothing in common with the beautiful creatures of legend that "wept tears into pearls."

  It was suspended in the center of the pool, its four limbs bound by thick iron chains. Its fish tail was ulcerated, the scales plucked clean to reveal ghastly white flesh. Its long hair was dry and tangled like a rat's nest.

  The most terrifying part was its eyes.

  Those eyes, which should have been a deep, azure blue, were now shriveled and sunken. The corners of the eyes were covered in knife scars—marks left behind from forcibly extracting tears.

  It had cried itself dry.

  It couldn't even cry blood anymore.

  "Cry! You dead fish!"

  The Noble Consort roared. She grabbed a handful of coarse salt and viciously threw it onto the mermaid's ulcerated wounds.

  Sizzle. As the salt grains touched the wounds, white smoke rose. The mermaid convulsed violently, a broken, raspy urgh tearing from its throat, but its eye sockets remained completely dry. Not a single tear fell.

  It was already numb to the pain.

  In the corner, the young eunuch responsible for recording didn't even lift his head, mechanically writing in the ledger: Hour of the Dragon, three quarters. Two ounces of salt applied. No tears.

  "Useless thing!"

  The Noble Consort, flushed with exasperation, grabbed a whip nearby, ready to lash out.

  "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Your Ladyship."

  A lazy voice suddenly drifted from behind the gauze curtains. "Such rough methods will ruin the 'raw material'. You aren't extracting tears; you are destroying the mold."

  The Noble Consort whipped her head around, her bloody, mangled face staring dead at the two men walking out.

  "Who are you?!"

  "Directorate of Astronomy, Xie Bi’an." Xie Bi’an fanned himself with his folding fan, sweeping his gaze over the Consort's rotting face. There was no fear, only the regret of an old craftsman looking at a defective product. "I heard Your Ladyship's facial skin has been 'leaking water' terribly lately? This humble servant came specifically... to deliver a prescription."

  "A prescription?"

  The Noble Consort paused, her eyes instantly turning greedy. "You have medicine? You can cure my face?"

  "Of course." Xie Bi’an pulled out the "Fire Essence" he had just snatched from the Ministry of Revenue.

  The Fire Essence radiated a warm red glow, looking exceptionally enticing in the cold, damp palace.

  "This isn't medicine; this is a 'heat-catalyst' newly acquired by the Miscellaneous Division." Xie Bi’an spouted nonsense, yet spoke with absolute authority. "The reason Your Ladyship's face is cracking is that you can't lock in the moisture. This item can help you 'set the shape,' welding the moisture directly into your flesh and blood. However..."

  He shifted the topic, pointing at the dying mermaid in the pool. "The fire energy of this catalyst is too vigorous. Used alone, it will burn the foundation. We need something to act as a 'binding agent'."

  "What binding agent?" the Noble Consort asked impatiently. Her mottled face twitched slightly with excitement, causing a few flakes of powder to fall off.

  "Fresh mermaid tears, filled with hope."

  Xie Bi’an walked to the edge of the pool, looking at the mermaid. "Your Ladyship, using salt and whips produces 'bitter tears.' Bitter tears are astringent; using them in medicine will turn the face black. To cure your face, we must make it shed... 'sweet tears'."

  "Sweet tears?" The Noble Consort was stunned. "This beast can cry sweet tears?"

  "Of course. All things possess a spirit."

  Xie Bi’an crouched down, bringing his eyes level with the shriveled mermaid. He extended his freezing Liuli right hand and pressed it lightly against the water's surface.

  A microscopic thread of pure spiritual energy traveled down his fingertips and injected into the foul pool water.

  The mermaid's deathly still body trembled slightly. Its shriveled eyes slowly turned toward Xie Bi’an.

  "Do you want to go home?"

  Xie Bi’an's voice was very soft. He didn't speak with his mouth, but projected the words directly into its mind.

  The mermaid's lips moved, producing no sound, but its soul emitted an extremely faint resonance.

  Want...

  "I will take you home." Xie Bi’an looked into its eyes, his gaze sparkling with a sincerity perfectly resembling a con artist. "But you must give me a tear. Your very last one."

  It was a transaction.

  Beneath the water, Xie Bi’an's right hand quietly gripped one of the iron chains. With a soft crack, the black iron chain that had bound the mermaid for ten years was forcibly crushed by the Liuli hand.

  The mermaid shuddered violently.

  It felt the loosening of its bonds.

  It stared fixedly at the man. After a long time, a trace of moisture actually welled up in those shriveled eye sockets. What seeped out was not water, but a smear of eerie blue radiance.

  It believed him. Or rather, it had no choice but to believe this final straw.

  A crystal-clear blue teardrop, radiating the scent of the ocean, slowly condensed, then fell with a plop into Xie Bi’an’s palm.

  "That's it!"

  The Noble Consort shrieked and lunged forward. "Give it to me! That belongs to me!"

  "Commander Shen, work," Xie Bi’an called out without looking back.

  With a resonant hum of the blade clearing its sheath, Shen Wu blocked the Consort's path. He drove the scabbard heavily into her stomach with a dull thud.

  The Noble Consort was sent flying backward, crashing into the massive bronze mirror. The mirror collapsed with a deafening crash, pinning her beneath it.

  "Insolent! I am the Noble Consort! You dare strike me?!" The Consort struggled madly beneath the mirror. Her body began to deform, her skin peeling off entirely, turning into a collapsing husk of bloody flesh.

  "Apologies, Your Ladyship."

  Xie Bi’an pocketed the mermaid tear, his tone cold. "Your face had dried up to the bone. It was solely sustained by the moisture from this mermaid. Now that the water source is cut off, this layer of 'wall plaster' of yours... is due to collapse."

  Just as Xie Bi’an said.

  Without the mermaid's support, the husk rapidly lost its luster. It began to dry, crack, and harden—like a clay idol ruined by rain and then scorched by the blistering sun—shattering into grayish-white powder across the floor with a grating, ear-piercing crack-crack.

  The moisture on her body wasn't her own. Once lost, like wall plaster losing its binding paste, she immediately powdered away.

  Shen Wu suddenly realized that there had never been a truly living person in this palace.

  Xie Bi’an didn't spare the pile of powder another glance.

  He turned toward the pool and had Anu slice through the remaining three iron chains one by one.

  The mermaid's physical body had already begun to turn ethereal, transforming into countless tiny bubbles.

  Xie Bi’an reached out, guiding those bubbles toward a drainage outlet at the bottom of the pool.

  "Follow this path."

  He spoke softly. "This hidden channel leads straight to the Qinhuai River, connects to the Yangtze, and finally empties into the sea. Don't look back."

  The bubbles swirled, emitting a gurgle-gurgle sound, and dove resolutely into the dark drainage pipe.

  "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

  Xie Bi’an looked at the empty pool, a trace of exhaustion flashing through his eyes.

  Back in the carriage.

  Shen Wu looked at the blue teardrop sealed in a crystal vial in Xie Bi’an’s hand, his mood complex.

  "You lied to it."

  Shen Wu said quietly. "It died. It turned into bubbles. It can never go back."

  "Who says it can't go back?"

  Xie Bi’an toyed with the vial, looking out the window with dark eyes. "To a mermaid, the physical body is a cage; the bubbles are the wings of the soul. If I let it die in that filthy bathhouse, that's called exile. Letting its bubbles flow into the sea, that's called homecoming."

  "As for this tear..."

  Xie Bi’an held up the vial, gazing at the eerie blue light within. "What we need isn't quantity, but 'composition.' This sweet tear is the final 'fuse' of its soul. Only this can ignite the Emperor's freezing jade heart."

  He touched the Records of Strange Tales in his robes.

  The book had grown a few degrees hotter, seemingly very interested in this tear filled with the mixed scent of "hope and despair."

  "Only the last item remains."

  Xie Bi’an stretched, but his eyes grew graver than ever before.

  "'The Relic of an Eminent Monk'."

  "Although the bone ash of that Meat Buddha at White Horse Temple is usable, the purity isn't high enough. To suppress the evil qi of the Emperor's jade heart, we need a true relic from a monk of great virtue."

  "Where do we find one?" Shen Wu asked.

  Xie Bi’an turned his head, his gaze falling upon a barren mountain outside Jiankang City.

  "We go grave robbing."

  Xie Bi’an grinned, revealing two stark white canine teeth. "We dig up the grave of a mad monk... who once nearly killed the Imperial Preceptor."

  Shen Wu didn't reply; he merely tightened his grip on his saber hilt.