In the spring of the third year of Yonghui, rain fell over Yunzhou for an entire month.
The flagstone roads grew slick with water, and the alleys were filled with the scent of pear blossoms and damp air. That spring, four strange things happened in Yunzhou.
First, Yun Jinshu, the eldest daughter of the Yun family’s embroidery shop, stitched a work called A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix. On the day it was sent to the palace, the empress took one look from thirty feet away and burst into tears. No one knew why she cried. All they knew was that the embroidery was burned that very night, and even the ashes were scraped away until not a trace remained, as if it had never existed.
Second, a sixteen-year-old girl named Yun Qingyan came to the prefectural office seeking a position as a forensic examiner. The old coroner stroked his beard and laughed, until she took less than half an incense stick to find the sole piece of evidence in a family massacre on a set of bones buried for three years. After that, the dead throughout Yunzhou lined up for her examination.
Third, Yun Qingxian, the third young lady of the Qingyun Literary Society, wrote an essay titled On Women. Scholars from half of Yunzhou gathered at the society’s entrance to curse her, ranting until their throats were dry, for three days and three nights. In the end, they realized that the more fiercely they attacked her, the farther the essay spread. It was even being secretly copied in the deepest chambers of the capital’s palace.
Fourth, the youngest daughter of the Yun family, Yun Jinci, flicked her abacus beads and calculated the true state of Yunzhou’s granaries. When unscrupulous merchants hoarded grain to drive up prices, she devised a chain of clever schemes and kept the people of Yunzhou from going hungry. That day, households everywhere set up memorial tablets in her honor.
Four strange events, four young women.
The four stood at the entrance to their old home, unaware that this spring would change their lives and the fate of the entire dynasty.
