Night fell.
The Azure Dragon Gang members who had infiltrated the inner city during the day and taken rooms at inns and taverns quietly took to the streets under cover of darkness.
They moved in groups of three, skillfully using shadows, alleys, stalls, and other cover to evade the city defense patrols as they raced toward Broad Peace Street, Rosy Glow Street, and Joybearer Street.
Near this district where officials and nobles gathered, the city defense patrols were even heavier.
But the Azure Dragon Gang members had long learned the patrol patterns from their gang leader. They deftly avoided the patrols as they searched for their targets.
Wang Beiwang was among one of the teams, serving as its captain. He led two young, capable Azure Dragon Gang members, each of the three carrying a heavy bundle on his back.
Before long, Wang Beiwang led his two brothers to the outside of Yunlan Residence, home of the Vice Minister of Justice.
The three skillfully scaled the high wall and dropped into the courtyard, then hid behind the flowerbeds to evade the residence guards' patrols.
"We'll set the fires in the outer courtyard. There may be experts in the inner courtyard, and we'd be spotted easily." Wang Beiwang pulled three bamboo tubes, each half a finger thick, from his robes and handed them to his teammates.
The tubes contained Red-Refined Fire Sand, which came from Gang Leader Duan's training grounds—the cellar beneath the Duan Residence.
The soil in that cellar had absorbed fire spirit power for countless years, transforming into crimson, crystalline fire sand. It contained abundant fire spirit energy; once ignited, it could burn for several hours and could not be extinguished with water.
Under cover of night, the three poured the Red-Refined Fire Sand onto easily flammable spots such as