The person outside urged them again.
"The hall master has ordered the immediate transfer!"
Gu Qinghe put away the tracing and walked to the door, but didn't open it.
"What's the name of the person delivering the order?"
"Yan Song."
"Tell him to wait."
There was no more sound from outside.
Zhao Chong leaned against the headboard, his wound still oozing blood. "Yan Song is the hall master's personal attendant. He has people among the dungeon guards. If I go into the dungeon, I won't survive the night."
Li Sanshun pulled over a stool and sat beside the bed.
"I can keep you safe. First, hand over what you have."
"I want a public hearing."
"You're in no position to bargain."
Sweat beaded on Zhao Chong's forehead from the pain, but he still refused to back down. "If I die, the clues about Number Fifteen will die with me. Do you dare take that gamble?"
"Whether you die depends on how much you know."
Li Sanshun picked up the tracing and waved it in front of Zhao Chong.
"Who told you to get this portrait?"
"Mr. Bai."
Gu Qinghe returned to the table and took out paper and brush.
"Name, identity, cultivation level."
"I don't know."
Li Sanshun pressed the tracing against Zhao Chong's wound.
Zhao Chong's body trembled with pain.
"I really don't know! He never showed his face. Whenever we met, he wore a White Wood Mask, and he changed his clothes, too. All I know is that he could get a pass token for the ninth floor of the Scripture Library."
"Where did you meet?"
"In the back courtyard of the East Market Hundred Herbs Shop."
"How many times?"
"Three."
The first time, Mr. Bai had found Zhao Chong and shown him the account book documenting the sect medicinal herbs he'd sold on the side.
If that account book were handed to the Law Enforcement Hall, Zhao Chong would spend at least ten years in the Cold Prison.
Mr. Bai hadn't asked for spirit stones. He'd only asked him to do one thing.
Enter the ninth floor of the Scripture Library, find a restricted file called Shuncheng Old Records, and make a tracing of the fifteenth volume.
At their second meeting, Mr. Bai had given him a pass token, along with the shift-change schedule for the disciples guarding the Scripture Library.
Following the plan, Zhao Chong had slipped into the ninth floor and found a black wooden chest beneath the third bookcase on the west side.
There were fifteen infant records in the chest.
The first fourteen were stamped with transfer seals. Only the fifteenth was missing two pages, and it bore an extra red missing-person seal at the end.
"I only had time to trace the portrait before someone came in." Zhao Chong looked at Li Sanshun. "I was afraid I'd lose the tracing, so I hid it in the lining of my inner robe. I'd planned to wait until things died down before handing it to Mr. Bai."
Gu Qinghe stopped writing.
"What about the third time?"
"I went to the Hundred Herbs Shop to hand over the item, but Mr. Bai didn't show. There was only a letter in the shop, telling me to burn the tracing and leave the sect at once."
"Did you burn it?"
"I burned a fake."
Li Sanshun finally understood why the edges of the tracing were scorched.
Zhao Chong had been wary of Mr. Bai from the start.
The bastard wasn't stupid, either.
"If you didn't hand over the tracing, how did they know you'd seen the fifteenth record?"
"The restricted files on the ninth floor bear a lingering-breath seal. Anyone who looks through a volume leaves behind an aura for three days. Mr. Bai never mentioned that when I went to the ninth floor."
Zhao Chong gripped the thin blanket, his nails nearly digging through the fabric.
"He never intended to let me live."
He'd used Zhao Chong to retrieve the fifteenth record, then silenced him.
Mr. Bai had even arranged for someone to clean up afterward.
Gu Qinghe continued taking notes.
"What did Mr. Bai look like?"
"He had a burn scar at the base of his right thumb, and he often smelled of pine resin. He never used a Storage Bag. Everything was delivered by a Grey Feather Paper Crane. The only character on the crane was 'Bai.'"
"What was the signal?"
"On the seventh of every month, I'd buy three qian of Bitter Heart Grass and two qian of White Cicada Slough at the Hundred Herbs Shop. If the shopkeeper replied, 'We're out of White Cicada Slough,' I could go into the back courtyard that evening."
Gu Qinghe handed the statement to Zhao Chong.
"Put your fingerprint on it."
Zhao Chong didn't move.
"I want to hear your promise first."
Li Sanshun took the brush and shoved it into his hand.
"You won't die before the public hearing."
"What guarantee can you give me?"
"Six killers at North Mountain couldn't take me down. You think you're harder to kill than them?"
Zhao Chong studied him for a few breaths, then pressed his fingerprint beneath the statement.
An enemy's pawn had become a witness in the Old Infant Case.
The sound of keys clinking came from outside.
Yan Song stood at the door with four dungeon guards, holding the hall master's token in his hands.
"Junior Sister Gu, time's up."
Gu Qinghe opened the door but blocked the entrance.
"Zhao Chong is involved in the Old Infant Case and is a key witness in the North Mountain Arson Case. Under the Law Enforcement Hall's major-case regulations, two stewards must jointly examine his injuries and seal his statement before he can be transferred to the dungeon. He can't be taken away."
Yan Song raised the token.
"You're defying the hall master's order?"
"Please ask the hall master to come in person."
"The hall master is in seclusion reviewing case files. He has no time to deal with one criminal."
Li Sanshun came out of the room.
"He has no time to see anyone, but he has time to issue orders?"
Yan Song stared at him. "The Law Enforcement Hall is handling this. A menial disciple has no right to butt in."
"If Zhao Chong dies in the dungeon, who takes the blame?"
"The dungeon has a Spirit Locking Array and twelve guards. How could he die?"
"The medicine cellar at North Mountain had a sealing array, too, and someone still managed to plant an Ignition Array inside."
Yan Song gripped the token. "Move."
Gu Qinghe drew her short sword and held its tip just before the threshold.
"Senior Brother Yan, take one step over that threshold, and I'll detain you first, then apologize to the hall master afterward."
The four dungeon guards didn't dare move.
Yan Song looked past them into the room, then at the statement on the table.
"You've already interrogated him?"
"He just put his fingerprint on the statement."
"Give it to me."
Gu Qinghe put the statement into her Storage Bag.
"You can sit in on the public hearing."
All trace of a smile vanished from Yan Song's face. "If the hall master blames you, you can answer for it yourself."
He put away the token and left the side hall with his men.
Only after their footsteps faded did Zhao Chong lean back against the headboard.
"Yan Song won't let this go."
"The more impatient he is, the more valuable your statement must be."
Li Sanshun locked the door again, then had the Law Enforcement disciples outside replace the guards with the North Mountain men Gu Qinghe had brought back.
Gu Qinghe wrote two copies of the report.
She sealed one in the Major Case Cabinet.
The other she sent to the Law Enforcement Hall meeting chamber, requesting that three stewards jointly conduct the hearing the next day.
As long as the hearing date was public, Zhao Chong couldn't quietly die in the dungeon.
Zhao Chong watched her seal the report and finally loosened his grip on the thin blanket.
"I know one more thing."
Li Sanshun turned around.
"When Mr. Bai asked me to find the fifteenth record, he also told me to look into a medicine requisition."
"What medicine requisition?"
"Twenty-one years ago, someone checked out a batch of infant-nourishing medicine under Medicine Peak's name. It was enough to raise fifteen children for half a year. The person who took it didn't leave a name, only an old seal."
With bloodied fingers, Zhao Chong drew the mark on a piece of paper.
At its center was half a White Cicada Wing.
It was the same symbol as the White Cicada Slough from the Hundred Herbs Shop's signal.
"Where's the requisition?"
"The original was torn up long ago. When Sun Erhe was handling corpses, he found an old copy in a pile of discarded papers at Medicine Peak."
Gu Qinghe immediately sent someone next door to bring Sun Erhe over.
The door opened, and Sun Erhe came in, leaning on a wooden cane. The moment he heard the words "medicine requisition," he turned and tried to leave.
Li Sanshun blocked the door.
"Where did you hide it?"
"I don't know anything about a medicine requisition."
Zhao Chong spoke from the bed. "The axle on the left rear wheel of the seventh corpse cart is hollow."
Sun Erhe went rigid.
Gu Qinghe took out the report on the corpse cart found at the cliff. The cart frame had burned, and the left rear wheel was missing a piece. The remaining axle was still stored in the Law Enforcement Hall's evidence room.
"Bring me the axle."
Sun Erhe dropped to his knees with a thud and grabbed Gu Qinghe's leg.
"Don't! If you touch that thing, they'll kill them!"
"Who?"
Sun Erhe lifted his head. Tears streamed down his dirt-streaked face.
"My wife and three children are all locked up in the old warehouse at Medicine Peak!"
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