Resumo do episódio 10 de Unveil: Jadewind
> Resumos de Unveil: Jadewind
As Wu Ren prepared to leave the residence, she encountered Gu Lingzhou moving a body. Gu Lingzhou, who had been reinstated as a petty clerk thanks to Li Peiyi’s intervention, watched as Li Peiyi examined the corpse. Upon uncovering the face, she discovered a plum blossom brand on the victim's neck, identical to the mark found behind Hanxiao’s ear, linking the victim to the Xiuhong House.
Seeking answers about the poison used in the recent hot spring deaths, Li Peiyi visited the retired official Du Zhixing. Now spending his days focused on toxicology and brewing his own wine, which he called Amber Glow, Du Zhixing was reluctant to share his findings until Li Peiyi threatened to pour out his precious barrel. He revealed that the toxin was a volatile mixture of Bird-poison and Aconite.
He noted that the poisoner was likely driven by immense hatred but lacked professional experience, as they had haphazardly combined every lethal substance they could think of. However, there was a third plant-based toxin he couldn't identify. He warned that while the surviving victim's life could be briefly prolonged with his prescription, a full recovery required the specific antidote for that final ingredient.
Li Peiyi then tracked down Birou, who had remained in the Western Capital while Ruyi and the others supposedly left. Birou claimed she stayed behind because her chronic illness prevented her from making a living elsewhere, so she took up blending essential oils and hair treatments. Li Peiyi noticed Birou picking nervously at a wound on her hand and asked about the other girls, but Birou insisted she had lost contact with them.
Informing Li Peiyi and Xiao Huaijin of a potential lead, Gu Lingzhou pointed toward Chief Justice Wu Yuekun, who had taken a sudden leave of absence and secretly summoned numerous physicians. Posing as experts capable of curing the poison, Li Peiyi and Xiao Huaijin gained entry to the Wu mansion. Wu Yuekun’s wife, desperate and terrified, admitted that her husband had returned home early five days ago after a secret gathering at Vice Minister Yang’s house.
He had been coughing blood, and their driver was so frightened by the situation that he resigned immediately. Li Peiyi administered a pill to the unconscious Chief Justice, stating it would only sustain him for a few hours, forcing him to wake and face the truth. When Wu Yuekun regained consciousness, he initially tried to maintain a facade of innocence, claiming he was merely an accidental victim.
Xiao Huaijin and Li Peiyi countered this by spinning a calculated narrative: they suggested that if Wu Yuekun were framed as a righteous official who took the law into his own hands to poison the corrupt Prince of Heng, he would be hailed as a hero, but his entire family would still be executed for the murder of royalty. Faced with the threat of his lineage being wiped out, Wu Yuekun broke.
He confessed that the girls from Xiuhong House had approached him, suggesting they could provide "mobile" services for high-ranking officials. He claimed he only agreed out of a moment of misplaced sympathy for their lack of livelihood. Searching the residence where the girls had been kept, Li Peiyi and Xiao Huaijin found the rooms eerily identical and devoid of any personal effects like handkerchiefs or sachets.
Li Peiyi deduced that either the evidence had been meticulously scrubbed or the girls had prepared themselves for death. Returning to the morgue, Li Peiyi discovered that the girls had saturated their hair with the deadly poison. She tested a strand against her own blood and rushed to Du Zhixing, who confirmed it matched the toxin that killed the officials in the hot spring. Li Peiyi confronted Birou one last time.
Birou revealed the harrowing truth: after realizing that the man assigned to investigate their case was actually the secret owner of Xiuhong House, the girls knew they would never find justice through the law. Ruyi had led them back to Wu Yuekun, pretending to cooperate while secretly planning a suicide mission. Because they were searched before entering officials' homes, they hid the poison in their hair. Birou had served as the poison supplier and coordinator.
Having already ingested the toxin herself, Birou died in front of Li Peiyi, but not before asking her to return Taozhi’s belongings to Gu Lingzhou. In the aftermath, a burial was held for the seven courageous women. Hanxiao’s young sister, Zhenzhen, burned paper money at the site, hoping her sister would find peace in the next life.
The Emperor issued an edict to better protect palace maids and compensate the families of the victims, while the corrupt officials’ families were exiled and Gu Lingzhou was fully reinstated. Despite the victory, Li Peiyi felt the heavy weight of the lives lost to reach the truth. As they prepared to move on, Li Peiyi recalled the presence of water-clock apprentices at various crime scenes.
She asked Xiao Huaijin to investigate the records of the apprentice sent to the Prince of Duan’s mansion fifteen years ago. Xiao Huaijin discovered that the records had been intentionally destroyed long ago. When he questioned his father, Xiao Wenyuan, he was told to stop digging into the past, yet Xiao Huaijin remained haunted by his own memories of that time. Meanwhile, in the palace, a maid named Fangsheng was terrified by a ghostly silhouette and a child’s voice calling for its mother, eventually collapsing in fear.
