By evening, Baozhu and the others had gone to bed early.
At the second watch, all was silent. The little courtyard in Cihui Ward lay steeped in stillness.
Steady breathing came from the bed; Thirteenth Son was already asleep. Wei Xun left the room he shared with his junior brother and made a soundless, ghostlike circuit of the house, pausing to listen outside Baozhu's and Yang Xingjian's doors. Nothing stirred.
Once he had confirmed that all three were safe, he went to the main hall on the ground floor. The hinges gave a faint creak as he opened the door, then sat cross-legged in the doorway, gathering his focus and quieting his breathing to begin meditating. The curfew had been suspended on the night of the City Procession, but it had resumed today. Once the ward gates closed, the streets fell deathly silent, with no one wandering outside. The watches dragged on, the water clock dripped endlessly, and the slightest sound from outside reached his ears with exceptional clarity.
A stray cat darted out from somewhere and swept over the courtyard wall like a phantom, frightening away the turtledoves roosting in the courtyard tree. Beneath it, the donkey quietly chewed soybean meal. After its midnight snack, it dozed standing up, occasionally flicking its tail to drive off insects. That was one reason Wei Xun had chosen it: this donkey was more alert than most livestock.
At the third watch, the hollow knocking of a watchman's bamboo clapper drifted over from afar. The sound traveled through the silent streets and alleys, passed outside the ward wall, and slowly moved southward through the city. Eyes closed, Wei Xun listened to those unhurried, rhythmic knocks.
Less than a quarter of an hour later, however, intermittent clapper sounds reached him again. This time, they