Fan City, an inn.
Several Western Hu people sat in a circle.
"If this were really so easy to handle, you and I wouldn't have been stuck here for years!" one of them said.
Another nodded. "Exactly! We thought that once we had that magistrate under our thumb, we'd get twice the results with half the effort. Who knew he'd kept something up his sleeve?"
Sitting together, they found themselves at a loss.
They were beginning to regret losing their patience that day and planting gunpowder in the imperial palace.
But who could have known they would misjudge the charge and blow more than half the palace clean out of existence?
Now, even though they knew something had once been hidden inside the palace, they had nowhere left to search.
The magistrate was dead, and the trail they had followed for so many years had abruptly gone cold.
They sat there listlessly for a long while, until one of them suddenly remembered someone.
"We only managed to keep that fellow Chai under our thumb because he kept a mistress. Perhaps he told her something about that matter."
County Magistrate Chai was deeply afraid of his wife, for his entire official career had depended on her family's connections.
But Madam Chai was overbearing and unreasonable. After enduring her for years, County Magistrate Chai had finally taken a secret concubine in his tenth year in Fan City.
Since he could not openly acknowledge her, he treated the woman especially well.
That was also why County Magistrate Chai had barely hesitated when these Western Hu people from Yijiang threatened to expose the affair unless he worked for them.
Could he have left the things with his mistress?
The men exchanged looks, then rose at once, pushed open the door, and left.
The oil