Madam Zhou plummeted straight down, but before hitting the ground, something caught her in mid-air, slowly arranging her into a seated position at her dressing table. The bronze mirror reflected her decaying face, while her right hand automatically picked up eyebrow pencil and meticulously drew her eyebrows in the mirror. Her pale fingers, smeared with rouge, dotted a dimple on her cheek: "Miss Zhao's wedding is tomorrow..." The mouth in the mirror opened and closed, "Do you think the bride will like the mandarin duck pillow in the betrothal gifts?" Suddenly, the dressing case sprang open, revealing ten fingers neatly arranged inside, nine of them withered, only the newest still dripping blood, its nail stained with balsam juice. A rooster crowed in the distance, and Madam Zhou's body instantly collapsed to ashes, leaving only the red rope, like a living snake, darting towards the window. Qiu Wuyai chased to the courtyard wall, just in time to see the red rope disappear into a blue cloth carriage. The curtain was lifted slightly, revealing half the face of a woman wearing a pearl-embroidered veil. Below her right eye, a vermilion birthmark was as bright as blood. The curtain of the blue cloth carriage swayed past, the wheels rolling over the bluestone slabs with a wet, rattling sound, as if it had just passed through a pool of blood. Qiu Wuyai chased after it to the alley entrance, only to find a single, rolled-off pearl. The pearl's surface was covered with fine cracks, and dark red blood seeped from its inside. The night watchman trembled as he crept over from the corner: "That... That was the Zhao family's carriage..." He pointed to the pearl, "Half a month ago, Miss Zhao suddenly started wearing a veil, saying she had contracted a terrible sore." At the end of the street, shrouded in morning mist, several servants were going door-to-door posting auspicious notices. Qiu Wuyai approached and saw that the bright red paper was decorated with a design of mandarin duck pillows drawn in gold powder, with the following words written in small print:
