Feng Tianlan regarded the display of fireworks with a frown. Knocking her chair aside, she exclaimed, “Self-combustion of spiritual force!”
“Self-combustion?” Xi Lin panicked, thinking someone was about to self-combust in their vicinity. Hurriedly, she retreated into the house while calling out, “Wang’er!”
Feng Tianlan’s figure flashed. Under the aurora of lights exploding in the air, she headed towards the epicentre of the explosion. Feng Tianlan was intimately familiar with the signs indicating a self-combustion. It was what happened to Chen Xinlu, after all.
Not long after, Feng Tianlan stood before the ruins of what was once an elegant pair of peony doors. Flesh, blood and the sight of dismembered corpses littered the site of the explosion. It was a gruesome scene of carnage. The force of the explosion had been so great that it reduced its immediate surroundings into a fine white powder. Only those buildings some ways away remained standing.
The pungent smell of blood hung in the air, causing her to wrinkle her nose in distress.
Why would someone self-combust here?
Feng Tianlan searched for the mutilated corpse under the illumination of a thousand flashing lights. She wanted to find something, some clue that would direct her to an explanation, but amidst the sea of bodies, finding a clue was as hard as searching for a needle in a haystack. Self-combustion was not a clean way to go and was made worse when many people were involved. She could hardly make out the remains of one person from another…
“Chen… Chen Xinyi?” Feng Tianlan saw an arm not far away. The severed limb bore the mark of a peony on its wrist. Unlike most of the remains, it had not been blown up in the explosion. Instead, it had been brutally mutilated.
Could it have been Chen Xinyi who committed an act of self-combustion? Or had she arrived just as someone else self-combusted?
Believing the owner of the severed limb to be Chen Xinyi, Feng Tianlan strode forward to examine it more closely. The palm was shattered beyond any reasonable means of further identification. Even the peony tattooed on its wrist was incomplete.
Feng Tianlan surveyed the surroundings again, hoping to pick out something she had missed in her earlier inspection. Still, nothing she saw could conclusively prove that the arm belonged to Chen Xinyi. What she did notice, however, chilled her to the bone.
Peonies were marked on many of the hands strewn about – all of them on their wrists. A quick scan uncovered at least twenty arms bearing the mark. No other identifying feature could be found on any of the bodies.
Feng Tianlan moved all the arms with peonies branded on their wrists to one side. The explosion had reduced many of them to barely recognisable lumps of flesh.
“35 minutes past midnight, the wedding, fireworks, Feng Yunsheng’s men…” Abruptly, Feng Tianlan’s head shot up, having arrived at a shocking thought. Were these the remains of Feng Yunsheng’s underlings?
Was this the wedding gift Chen Xinyi mentioned?
Feng Tianlan felt her heart gripped by fear. She stared up at the spectacle of crackling lights, praying she was wrong. The fireworks had to be Chen Xinyi’s wedding gift – not the remains splattered around her.
Feng Tianlan got up, bolting to the palace. She rushed straight to Chen Xinyi’s courtyard. Along the way, she grabbed one of the maids working in the palace and asked, “Has Chen Xinyi returned?”
“No,” the maid replied. “But a message was left for you. From what I know, it is to be delivered to you in three minutes at Zhaoyang Palace. Chen Xinyi told her maid that you would know where to look for her.”
No sooner had Feng Tianlan heard the maid’s words than she swiftly departed for Zhaoyang Palace.
“Tianlan, are you alright?” Xi Lin asked as she hugged her drowsy Wang’er.
Feng Tianlan shook her head. Just then, a palace maid came up to greet her. “This letter is for you.”
“This is Chen Xinyi’s maid. She has been waiting for you.” Xi Lin explained.
Feng Tianlan accepted the letter with trembling hands, tearing it open. Reading the words written, she turned as white as the sheet of paper held in her hand hands. “Chen Xinyi…”
