In the afternoon, fewer people came to pay their respects. The wives and concubines had spent the morning wailing and putting on a show in front of outsiders, and they were tired now, so they started slacking off. When no one was around, they warmed themselves by the brazier; when someone came, they let out a loud wail.
Suddenly, a man wearing a Yisa Robe and Cloud-head Shoes appeared before the mourning hall.
Another job. The wives and concubines reluctantly began to wail, but the man raised his hand. A grayish pill, about the size of a soybean, rolled into his palm and dropped into the brazier.
Whoosh—
A pillar of flame, over ten feet high, suddenly surged from the brazier, where only embers remained.
Though fierce, the flames were a strange, dark green.
Countless tiny, bizarre insects, seeming both real and unreal, flew up from the pillar and spread throughout the entire residence.
The swarm chased everyone, from the wives and concubines in the mourning hall to the servants secretly ransacking the front and back courtyards for valuables.
The residence descended into chaos! They swatted at the insects and tried to flee, but it was no use. The bugs quickly swarmed onto them.
Some crawled into their nostrils, ears, mouths, and other openings. Others simply melted into their skin.
In a short while, everything fell quiet again.
Everyone was trembling with fear. Although the insects seemed to have no effect after burrowing into their bodies,
no one who had seen that horrifying scene thought the bugs were truly "harmless."
"All of you, come here."
At his command, everyone obediently gathered in front of the mourning hall.
"Where is Qiao Zi'ang's study?" the man asked coldly.
The wives and concubines eagerly led the way.
A moment later, the man had turned Qiao Zi'ang's study upside down. He roared in fury, "Where is it?!"
The wives and concubines looked bewildered. "What are you looking for, my lord?"
The man stormed out of the study and began searching the rooms one by one.
"Wait... my lord..." The wives and concubines scrambled to stop him. Every one of them had hidden gold, silver, jewelry, land deeds, and property deeds in her room.
Now was the moment when money mattered more than their lives.
The man bellowed, "Get out of my way!"
A wall of fire surged up, forcing the wives and concubines to retreat with screams.
But the man tossed aside every valuable item he found without even glancing at it. He swept the jewels and ornaments onto the floor, smashing them to pieces. The wives and concubines watched with hearts aching as if they were about to die.
For over an hour, the man searched every corner of the Qiao residence.
He searched every servant, maid, wife, and concubine several times, too.
When he searched Qiao Zi'ang's principal wife, a burly servant flew into a rage and resisted on the spot. The man burned him into a charred stump right there.
But he still couldn't find what he was looking for.
Then he remembered something and returned to the study for another careful look. A vase was missing from the side table in the outer room.
"Someone got there first!" He gritted his teeth, then turned and hurried away.
The furnishings favored by scholars and men of letters followed strict rules and conventions. Qiao Zi'ang had been especially fond of affecting an air of refined taste; he wouldn't have made a mistake about that.
"Spare us, my lord..."
The wives and concubines screamed and begged him for an antidote, but the man was nowhere to be seen.
The man didn't leave Wangjing Ward. After weaving through its twisting lanes and making sure no one was following him, he slipped into the back courtyard of a solemn mansion in the northeast corner.
It was a quiet back garden.
The mansion was several times grander than the Qiao residence.
A few exquisite buildings stood hidden among the trees. He pushed through the door and got straight to the point. "The thing is missing!"
An old lord reclined on a chaise longue inside, reading a scroll in his hands.
"Was Qiao Zi'ang really killed? Or was he using that thing as a stepping stone to win favor and join someone else?" the old lord asked.
"He wouldn't dare."
The old lord set down his book and considered the matter. "The Qu Hui Division went to River Worker Alley today. There's a young man there who seems to have gotten mixed up in Qiao Zi'ang's case."
"The Qu Hui Division is here? Then we can't wait any longer. I'll go capture that young man." Decisive as ever, he turned to leave.
"Come back!" the old lord barked. "You're an outsider. You don't understand Shanhe County. There's something strange about River Worker Alley."
He lightly tapped the table with a finger. "Send Old Qian to sound out River Worker Alley. If there's a chance, bring that young man back."
"My lord, if that boy Xu Yuan really is involved, we absolutely mustn't let him fall into the Qu Hui Division's hands!"
The old lord frowned. "I know what I'm doing! Keep an eye on the Qiao family. The thing may have been stolen by one of the Qiao family's own servants."
"Don't worry. Everyone in the Qiao family has taken my Gu Pill. They're all under my control."
He went out and called Old Qian in. The old lord gave him his instructions.
Old Qian was thin and bent, his face covered in wrinkles. He looked as if a gust of wind would knock him over.
He accepted the old lord's orders without a word, nodded, and went back to prepare.
The old lord didn't know that two of the Qu Hui Division's most capable captains had suffered a crushing defeat at the entrance to River Worker Alley. Otherwise, he would have been more cautious and wouldn't have sent Old Qian to probe the place so readily.
Once he had finished making arrangements, the old lord picked up his book and was about to resume reading when a young page came down the path and bowed outside the door. "My lord, Wang Mingqian, the magistrate of Shanhe County, requests an audience."
The old lord didn't even raise his eyelids. "I won't see him."
"As you command."
In the gatehouse, Wang Mingqian had come in plain clothes with only a small retinue. He didn't dare show the slightest displeasure. He left his gifts behind and slunk away.
Old Qian lived in a row of cold, gloomy rooms beneath the western wall of the back garden.
The old lord had brought all of them back from Nandu.
After receiving his assignment from the old lord, Old Qian returned to his room to prepare.
Several Hanged Ghosts dangled from the rafters. Old Qian took them down and packed them into bags, one by one.
Then he hefted a hoe and dug up some bottles and jars buried by the wall.
After a moment's thought, he went out and called for a carriage. He left the city for Qilipu, seven li beyond the walls, and retrieved the "net cage" he had set in a stream outside the village months earlier.
Inside were seven or eight Drowned Ghosts, half human and half fish.
Old Qian collected them all.
By the time he returned to the city, night was about to fall.
"I'll eat first, then get to work."
Xu Yuan was also eating dinner.
Tonight's meal was meat-stuffed flatbreads, one of Xu Yuan's favorite foods.
The pork belly had been diced and mixed with chopped scallion whites and beaten egg to make the filling.
His stepmother had kneaded the dough by hand and rolled it out until it was only two layers of hemp paper thick. After wrapping the filling, she'd pan-fried the flatbreads until both sides were golden brown.
Xu Yuan ate three or five in a few bites and stopped when he was just about full. Then he realized there was a problem: today was already his second day back. At most, he probably had until tomorrow before these delicious meals every day came to an end.
He was about to become a nuisance again.
Lin Wanmo was actually quite lazy. No matter how virtuous and hardworking she seemed in front of the elders in the alley, she couldn't fool Xu Yuan, who had lived with her for over ten years!
Of course, his stepmother hadn't even tried to fool him.
She was good at cooking, but she absolutely didn't like doing it.
To keep this standard of living, Xu Yuan figured he had to do something to make her feel guilty.
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