A Change of Scenes

It was the dead of night.

Yet Yanhe Pavilion was still brightly lit.

Once again, in a private room on the third floor.

Two constables dressed in plain clothes looked toward Bandit Brother, who had just walked in.

An attendant followed behind him.

The moment they entered, the attendant handed over the wine he was carrying.

Bandit Brother took it and raised it toward the officers. "Sirs! I'm late, I'm late. Allow me to apologize to you both!"

"No need."

One of the constables across from the door waved a hand when he saw Bandit Brother about to offer him wine, then raised his head slightly and asked:

"Shopkeeper Sun, I heard you hosted Young Hero Chen a few days ago.

"What sort of man is he?"

These two constables had been sent by Constable Yan.

Constable Yan was currently trying to get a read on Chen Guan.

When he learned that the shopkeeper of Yanhe Pavilion seemed to have spent half an hour dining with Chen Guan, apparently talking at length,

he sent these two subordinates to make some inquiries.

"Well, that's a long story..."

From the constable's question, Bandit Brother could more or less tell that Constable Yan had sent them to find out about Chen Guan.

Knowing that was one thing, but all these years, whenever he saw constables come to eat,

Bandit Brother's heart would clench, and he would wonder if his identity had been exposed.

With a guilty conscience, there was no way he could speak naturally with the constables.

Still,

after more than a decade, he had gotten used to feeling this nervous.

Now,

facing the two constables' questions,

he did his best to keep a natural expression and picked out a few things he could say, giving them a rough account of what had happened.

"Young Hero Chen struck me as mature and levelheaded, and quite easygoing with people.

"He didn't have that cold, murderous air the rumors talked about..."

As Bandit Brother spoke, he mostly had good things to say.

He did this in case Constable Yan ran into Chen Guan later and, because of something he had said, a conflict arose.

If that happened, he would be the one to suffer.

After all, one was a constable captain, while the other was a martial-world expert who could flee the moment he finished killing someone.

He couldn't afford to offend either of them.

"Young Hero Chen is mild-mannered?" The two constables heard Bandit Brother's account and quietly weighed it up.

All in all, they could take half of it at face value.

After cutting his words in half, then adding in the constables' recent investigation and Chen Guan's polite return of greetings to the people in the street a few days ago,

they concluded that Young Hero Chen was a fairly straightforward man and, by all accounts, easygoing.

He seemed like a normal person, with nothing particularly strange about him.

If they had to name anything strange, it was his unusual appearance.

"Thank you, Shopkeeper Sun."

Having gotten their answer, the two constables rose to take their leave. "How much is this table?"

"Please, don't!" Bandit Brother put on a fawning smile. "For you two to visit my little shop is an honor beyond measure, worth more than a thousand gold!

"If I were to settle the bill, I'd have to pay you out of my own pocket!"

"Well..."

When the two constables heard that the food and wine, worth four taels of silver, were free, they didn't hesitate or stand on ceremony. They simply said, "Courtesy is no match for obedience."

"Since you insist, Shopkeeper... we'll be on our way."

Making the shopkeeper pay them nine hundred and ninety-nine taels of gold would have been going too far.

But they had only taken a free meal, hadn't helped him with anything, and had even asked him about a few things.

The two constables left without a shred of guilt.

"They're more like bandits than I was back in the day..."

Bandit Brother watched them leave, fuming inside.

As the thought crossed his mind, he turned to the attendant behind him.

"Once the last few tables have left, balance the books and close up."

Sun Mansion was the home of the shopkeeper of Yanhe Pavilion.

It was on a street in the northern part of town.

It was now about three in the morning.

After balancing the books and closing up, Bandit Brother rode home in a small carriage, escorted by two guards.

"Master's home..."

When they reached the entrance,

the steward, who had been waiting there, hurried forward to help Bandit Brother out of the carriage.

Normally, Bandit Brother got home around three or four.

Although he had hired a bookkeeper,

Bandit Brother was so fond of money that he liked to watch the bookkeeper go over the accounts after closing time.

It was one of his great pleasures.

Only,

Chen Guan had a rough night because of it.

On a rooftop in the rear courtyard,

Chen Guan had been crouched there, waiting for two hours.

At that moment, after hearing several footsteps,

just as he was starting to doze off, he saw Bandit Brother, looking a little drunk, being helped inside by the steward and the others.

"I'm feeding mosquitoes while he drinks wine. Now that's the good life."

Chen Guan muttered to himself in boredom, then sharpened his focus and quietly shifted aside a roof tile beneath him.

As he watched,

Chen Guan saw them carry Bandit Brother into the room, bring over a basin of water, and soak his feet for him.

Then it seemed they were going to massage him, and a slender woman came over from the distance.

After sobering up, Bandit Brother even took another pill.

Chen Guan felt that this shopkeeper's good fortune might never end.

The hell, was this going to go on until dawn?

"I wanted to wait until he was alone before finding a chance to make a move and clear up my doubts.

"But it doesn't look like that's going to work."

Chen Guan thought for a few moments, then saw the steward and the others leave, leaving only the woman and Bandit Brother in the room.

So,

he waited for about another minute, until the steward and the others had left the courtyard.

The next moment, Chen Guan scuttled down the wall like a gecko, sliding along the eaves and wall. He used his spiritual energy to push the door open without a sound.

At that moment, on the bed,

Bandit Brother was holding the bashful woman with a beaming smile, his attention nowhere near the door.

Only when Chen Guan crossed the five-meter distance in a single stride and stopped in front of them

did the lamplight fall on him, his shadow looming over their field of vision.

"Wha..."

Only then did Bandit Brother snap back to his senses and instinctively look up.

But Chen Guan had already pointed at the woman, knocking her unconscious.

At the same time, his other hand had clamped around Bandit Brother's throat.

"You..."

Bandit Brother was utterly stunned. His hands went limp, and the woman slipped from his arms, flopping onto the soft bed.

The bedding was so soft that she barely made a sound.

"Don't raise your voice."

Chen Guan's voice sounded strange and old. He had used his spiritual energy to alter it.

"You... I..." Faced with the threat of death, Bandit Brother trembled like a sieve. The heat the pill had just stirred up had vanished in fright.

"Where do you keep the money in this mansion?"

Chen Guan imitated the manner of a notorious bandit and asked about the money first.

"Under the bed..." When Bandit Brother heard he only wanted money, he suddenly felt a little more at ease.

Chen Guan was wearing a face covering. That made him half a fellow practitioner—a flying thief.

Flying thieves generally only robbed people of their money, not their lives, so long as their victims cooperated.

"Good man! I know the rules of the road!"

To stay alive, Bandit Brother didn't wait for Chen Guan to question him slowly. He readily said, "I see your shadow, you see my silver.

"The money's under the bed. I'll get it, you take it.

"Loosen your grip, I'll lower my head, and I won't see your face."

"What's with all the coded talk?"

Honestly, Chen Guan didn't know what to make of how smoothly the man rattled it off.

Because he really wasn't a flying thief.

When faced with something that sounded like thieves' cant,

Chen Guan had no idea what to say.

But then he remembered Iron Fan had once said the shopkeeper of Yanhe Pavilion might be a bandit.

Chen Guan's thoughts suddenly shifted. Drawing on the social experience he'd gained in his previous life, he used a few lines to bluff him.

"Could it be we're cut from the same cloth?

"If so, I've wronged you today, brother."

As Chen Guan spoke, he not only released him but also cupped his fists in a salute, showing every sign of sincerity and apology.