"Can we go directly now?"
"I've already had someone prepare a black-canopied boat. We'll slip out quietly after dark," Han Anbo said.
Li Qingxian smiled. "As expected of Brother Han—everything's been arranged perfectly."
Yu Ping said, "Brother Han is very meticulous. He prepared some light disguises for us. We'll pretend to be fishermen night-fishing, and nothing can go wrong."
"Can it fool the eyes of a Middle Rank expert?" Li Qingxian asked.
Han Anbo straightened up and said, "Back when I scouted enemy intelligence, I never failed once. I can disguise you as well, sir. I guarantee no one will recognize you."
"Let's go!"
The three left the Night Guard and boarded a carriage.
Night fell. The carriage stopped by the Northern Bank of the Grand Canal, and Li Qingxian's group stepped down.
The three wore ordinary coarse blue-cloth clothes.
Li Qingxian had a scattering of freckles on his nose, thick brows, and dark skin. He looked like a dim-witted country lad.
Led by Han Anbo, the three boarded a black-canopied boat.
The boatman was a middle-aged man in his fifties and deaf. Han Anbo communicated with him through gestures and lip movements.
Under the moonlight, the black-canopied boat drifted slowly onward. Its wooden oars stirred the water with a splashing sound, and shattered glimmers of waves slowly spread from the stern.
Han Anbo wore a bamboo hat and straw rain cape. With his back to the southern bank and his face toward the north, he cast out a fishing rod.
Li Qingxian and Yu Ping sat beneath the canopy, where they had bored a small hole on the south-facing side.
The black-canopied boat moved slowly onward. Pleasure boats crisscrossed the river, and the voices of revelers and courtesans drifted through the air, tugging at the heartstrings.
In the darkness,