The sun sank behind the western hills, and splendid lights began to glow throughout the city.
Near Livestock Market Street in the eastern market lived lowly peddlers and porters. The streets were rather old, lined with stalls selling miscellaneous goods, while gambling dens and clandestine brothels filled the alleys.
Although the brothels were cheap, their standards were far too low for the Capital City. Even at nightfall, their busiest time, few people walked the old streets; only faint clamor drifted from the brothels and gambling dens.
Behind a gambling alley stood a residence with its gate tightly shut. A little dirt clung to the threshold stone, and practically no one had entered there after dark.
Inside, the residence was quiet. Several men who had dug the tunnel during the day were in a room washing themselves with hot water, cleaning off the oil stains they had picked up while splashing Molten Stone Oil.
The door to the main room was closed. Xu Bailin sat in a chair, tapping its armrest, his expression grim.
Cao Aning paced back and forth before him.
Cao Aning had grown up in the palace under Cao Gonggong's tutelage and had always conducted himself calmly and unhurriedly.
But after a series of incomprehensible incidents, Cao Aning's long-strained nerves could no longer hold up. A hysterical side emerged as he kept muttering:
"When we ran into him at the morgue, I chalked it up to his miraculous foresight. When he ambushed us as we fled, I chalked it up to his many informants and quick feet. But without a shred of evidence, how did he trace us to Prince Wu's Manor?
"Even if he found Prince Wu's Manor, how did he find the tunnel without seeing a single clue? And finding the tunnel aside, what gave him