Night lay heavy. The main chamber of the Wang Residence was silent, save for the occasional faint crackle of the lamp wick.
Before the lamp, Wang Yang sat alone in his nightclothes, his brows drawn and his eyes deep in thought. Several fingers rested on a scroll, tapping now and then before falling still.
On the other side of the lamplight, Little A-Wu sat quietly in a corner, carefully sorting white fleabane leaves.
Jiao Zheng had delivered the item: a scroll with two documents concealed between its layers.
One was the acknowledgment of receipt the other party had written after Jiao Zheng handed over the valuables.
The other was the official dispatch from the Directorate of Arms-the general staff and military command office-ordering Jiao Zheng midway through his journey to change course and deliver the goods to a manor rather than the directorate. (For the Directorate of Arms, see Chapter 107, "Bluffing.")
Back then, Jiao Zheng had been acting on Chen Tianfu's orders, escorting ten large cartloads of valuables to the Directorate of Arms. Along the way, he encountered Liu Yin, a messenger from the directorate, who ordered him to deliver the goods to a manor, saying it was an outlying estate under the directorate's jurisdiction.
Although Jiao Zheng found this strange, Liu Yin was indeed a Clerk-a staff officer-of the Directorate of Arms, and had given him an official dispatch from the directorate. He had no grounds to refuse, so he obeyed. Once he reached the manor, its steward took Chen Tianfu's written order and the directorate's dispatch, counted the valuables, rewarded Jiao Zheng, and then sent him on his way.
This was not Jiao Zheng's first time handling the transfer of military supplies. Although he received a sizable reward on this occasion, he refused to leave when the