"...Then how do we find it?"
"I'll find it," Di Jiu said evenly. "Tracing the sordid dealings of these government offices is something Li Zhaoyou and I have always excelled at."
"Three days." He looked at Pei Ye. "Keep this secret for now. Within three days, I'll produce the prison's location, report it openly at court, and request that the imperial guards seal it off."
That conversation had taken place at the Prefectural Office only a short while ago. Now Pei Ye and Xie Chuantang stopped walking. The streets of Yongan Ward did indeed look less affluent. Before them stood Ding Yukang's little courtyard, everything just as it had been when they left that day.
"Old Ding told me that day: 'That uniform you're wearing and that saber you're carrying were bestowed by those people, and you want to take them back and investigate them?'" Xie Chuantang said. "I thought he had a point. Everything I did after the case closed, I did in plain clothes."
"No need now," Pei Ye said. "We're acting on an official mandate."
"Yes. So thank you. Without you people, I couldn't have kept investigating this case." Xie Chuantang placed the two stacks of yellow paper she had bought on the street into a bowl and lit them. Flying ash and flames surged into the sky.
Pei Ye watched quietly, then added his own stack. "...When I first came to the Divine Capital, I learned something: power plus evidence makes a threat. But I never thought of it the other way around-if there's no threat, why not do whatever you please?"
"Then you haven't been in the Divine Capital long."
"No."
Xie Chuantang raised her head and watched the drifting smoke gradually disperse. Pressing her lips together, she said softly, "Three more days, Old Ding,