Fang Ke enjoyed socializing and entertaining.
Yang Ge was equally happy to shut his door and let Fang Ke loose.
And with no reply forthcoming from the capital,
the affair in Luting County somehow ended up shelved, neither hot nor cold.
The Wanted Notice for the hardened bandit Zhang Mazi remained posted at every city gate, but no one ever actually investigated his whereabouts.
The people from the Abundant Prosperity Rice Shop remained in the County Yamen's prison. The charges looked rather absurd, yet no one who interceded for them could get them released.
From a bystander's perspective, the whole affair was extraordinary!
By all rights, with something as serious as a civilian riot, grain looting, and arson happening in the capital's environs, even if the court did not send nearby garrisons into town to impose martial law and make arrests, it should at least have immediately dispatched a large contingent of capital constables to turn the place upside down.
Neither happened...
No troops entered town to impose martial law.
No constables entered town to investigate.
It was as though the great fire that night had merely been a grand bonfire party, where everyone gathered to eat, drink, and have fun, then went home to their own mothers when it was over.
Life was so peaceful that even the common folk at the bottom, who knew nothing of what had happened, found it uncanny and felt deeply uneasy.
Even with grain in their hands, they could neither enjoy their meals nor sleep soundly. They kept feeling as though a blade hung over their heads, with no telling when it might fall...
Yang Ge, the man at the center of it all, was instead enjoying everything he ate and sleeping until broad daylight. His greatest daily concern was life's three great