Walking Heaven Street (8)

It was not just Zhang Xing. Anyone paying the slightest attention knew that the Eastern Capital was bound to descend into chaos-the kind with blades drawn and blood falling like rain. But someone still had to puncture that paper window, turning the rain clouds into a bloody downpour.

Most people thought that first drop of bloody rain would come from the Ministry of Justice. Minister Zhang Wenda would lead the furious ministry in striking first, taking out the little flesh-cutting knife he had treasured for over a decade to carve a few more holes in someone's back.

Now, though, the Ministry of Justice seemed to have overestimated itself. The first drop of bloody rain had indeed come from the ministry, but it was their own blood that had been spilled first-the prisoners had been transferred barely a full day ago and had only just been settled in. They probably had not even finished checking the names when a jailbreak, clearly launched in haste because of the summer rain, took place.

The rain and the Street-Clearing Copper Alms Bowl became the jailbreak's greatest aids.

Dozens of clearly trained, organized, and equipped raiders used the rain as cover, calmly dispersing and gathering near the Ministry of Justice before suddenly joining forces to storm the prison. Caught unprepared, the ministry was cut straight through. One crucial circumstance was that, at this hour, all the organized forces operating by day in Eastern Capital City were dispersing, while those that operated at night had not yet finished assembling.

In fact, even the ministry's own people were leaving or changing shifts. Minister Zhang's carriage had departed only a short while earlier, escorted by a newly assembled squad of Jinwu Guards.

For that very reason, the ministry failed to obtain large-scale, organized armed support in time.

And the most lethal part came afterward. Once the jailbreak succeeded, the raiders tossed simple summer clothes to the prisoners, then discarded their weapons and vanished with their targets onto Heaven Street, which was full of ordinary people.

Ordinary people had to make a living. Even in the rain, they had to set up their stalls, haul firewood, and buy rice. Otherwise, what would they put in the pot tomorrow, and what would they burn beneath it?

The Street-Clearing Copper Alms Bowl had begun sounding, but had not yet finished. Everyone on the streets was carrying all manner of things home to their wards. It was summer, too, and raining. Without a large, organized armed force surrounding the area, how could anyone search them?

Given his position, Intendant Cao naturally stayed put. But Eunuch Superintendent Niu of the Northern Office reportedly flew straight over, while the White Emperor General Abbey in Huixun Ward across the river sent two Core Condensing experts to help. They caught only five fugitives. It was no damn use.

By nightfall, the jailbreak was a success.

Many people secretly rejoiced at the Ministry of Justice's calamity, but that did nothing to withstand Ziwei Palace's fury.

Whatever else one might say, even leaving aside that the ministry had been acting on the sovereign's orders, the main prison of the nation's Ministry of Justice had been breached right beneath the emperor's feet. That alone was absolutely intolerable.

The chief ministers of the Southern Office had nothing to say either. Pressure immediately mounted at every level. Whichever of Bai Yousi's older brothers happened to be on duty became the first man held responsible and the first unlucky victim: he was stripped of every rank and thrown into the ministry's prison on the spot.

Conveniently, the prison was empty. He practically had the place to himself.

But there was no time to concern themselves with that. The Jing'an Directorate's Central and Eastern Pacification Offices, the Ministry of Justice, the Jinwu Guard, the City Defense Army, and the runners of Luoyang and Henan Counties-the empire's armed agencies-mobilized in force. Braving the summer rain, they swept Heaven Street, searched the wards, and even went outside the city to comb the mountains, hoping to capture every fugitive within the sovereign's deadline of half a month.

Alive, they had to be seen; dead, their bodies had to be found.

For a time, ranks of armed men filled Heaven Street throughout Eastern Capital City, as though it were wartime.

Zhang Xing could not escape this ordeal. On the afternoon after the incident, he accompanied Bai Yousi's Second Patrol Team through the rain to the Southern City, where they were assigned to watch a stretch of wall.

On the third afternoon, official word of the emperor's fury arrived. While still on the wall, the Patrol Group received an uncompromising order to take full responsibility for searching the Southern City's two wards, Jiaqing and Jiaqing.

This was also Zhang Xing's first encounter with the Southern City wards where the urban poor gathered.

"Clearly man-made."

Amid the pattering rain, watched by local residents whose gazes might have held fear, wariness, expectation, or numbness, a thoroughly drenched Zhang Xing jumped easily down from Jiajing Ward's wall. Qin Bao promptly vaulted over from outside as well. "It opens onto the mouth of a main lane. There's a pile of sundries underneath and marks left by ropes... probably used for nighttime smuggling."

"Must be the local gangs." Black Sash Hu Yan, who had rejoined the team, stroked his beard below with a frown. "We've made a full circuit, haven't we? How many openings altogether?"

"Twenty-three damaged sections, seven or eight makeshift crossings." Zhang Xing answered without hesitation. Disregarding appearances, he stripped off his Brocade-Clad uniform, wrung it out bare-chested, then put it back on. "And that doesn't count hidden doors inside people's homes..."

"Brother Hu." Qin Bao wiped water from his forehead as well. "There's no way to seal it up like this."

"Come on. Let's go back to the crossroads and wait for Qian Tang's group." Hu Yan shook his head and turned straight toward the ward's central shops.

Zhang Xing, Qin Bao, and the other Brocade-clad Patrol Cavalry had nothing to say and could only follow at once.

When they reached the crossroads, they unexpectedly found Qian Tang and the other small squad led by Li Qingchen already waiting.

"How did things go on your side? Why are you back so early?" Hu Yan called through the rain from a distance.

"Brother Hu, aside from the crossroads, which still follows the original layout, all the narrow streets and alleys have been altered..." Qian Tang stepped out of the ward's well pavilion into the rain to answer. "We simply couldn't untangle the roads. Searching house by house like we did in the wards beside the Luo River will probably be difficult."

"You don't even have to think about it. Jiaqing Ward next door must be the same. At most, the inspector can fly, and now that the city's restrictions have been lifted, she can make out the roads." Hu Yan looked unhappy and said nothing; it was Li Qingchen who complained from inside the pavilion.

Zhang Xing followed Hu Yan into the pavilion. Before he could speak, he heard buzzing and could only swat a mosquito with the back of his hand, then sit beside the well, ready to fold his arms and listen.

But as he turned and sat down, he saw two people on the road behind him suddenly slip awkwardly into an alley beside it. He stared in surprise.

"Are those tails?"

"Yes. They've been following since we jumped down from the ward wall." Hu Yan answered without even looking back. "Must be a local gang."

Zhang Xing, Qian Tang, and a few others took this calmly, but Li Qingchen, Qin Bao, and several more almost instantly rose with hands on their blades, ready to head over.

"Come back!"

The thunderous rebuke exploded from the pavilion. Clearly, Hu Yan, the deputy patrol inspector who had only just rejoined them, was genuinely angry.

Qin Bao, Li Qingchen, and the others returned sheepishly, almost completely at a loss.

"The gangs in the Southern City are probably different from those along the Luo River." Zhang Xing had more or less guessed part of it. "Be careful about everything. Don't follow them into the alleys."

"Exactly." Hu Yan sighed too. "I was just thinking of saying this on the way. Here in the Southern City, the problem isn't how many breaches there are in the walls or streets. It's the people... the gangs here are nothing like those in the northern city. They're far more dangerous... conducting searches will be exceedingly difficult."

"Because they have more experts?" Li Qingchen could not resist interjecting, prompting Zhang Xing, who had just killed one mosquito, to slap another dead on the spot.

"Because people are poor and lives are cheap." Resting a hand on his blade, Hu Yan looked around at the curtain of rain. "Would you believe that a fifteen-year-old here would kill an officer for fifty copper coins? Those of you whose cultivation is stuck at the Orthodox Meridian stage must never get separated... if you really end up alone, you won't even know how you died."

Everyone fell silent.

The atmosphere inside the well pavilion grew heavy. No one spoke; only the rain pattered ceaselessly... after all, the surroundings and people here were vastly different from the areas along both banks of the Luo River where they usually operated... it left them feeling at a loss.

And it was raining, they were exhausted, and they faced orders that would be hard to fulfill.

Just as everyone sat in silence, a whistle suddenly rang out from atop the towering, majestic wall of Eastern Capital City to the south.

"Let's go!" Hu Yan patted the black sash at his waist, shaking his head repeatedly. "We're not the ones making decisions. We'll report things as they are and follow the inspector's instructions."

The dozen or so Brocade-clad Patrol Cavalry rose together and followed Hu Yan into the rain, heading north.

But after following the others seven or eight paces along the ward's cross street, Zhang Xing suddenly pulled Qin Bao to a stop. "Brother Hu! I'm going to ask these shops how much stock they have. I'll take Qin Bao along for protection. We'll be right there."

Hu Yan stopped and looked back, visibly startled. He seemed about to say something, but finally gave a small nod. "As long as you understand the risks. Whatever you do, don't end up alone."

With that, he led the other rather bewildered patrolmen onward to the north. Qian Tang hesitated for a moment, but after glancing north, he too went straight after them.

By then, Zhang Xing had already dragged Qin Bao into a grain shop beside the road.

Under the ward-and-market system, every ward had enclosing walls, with cross streets and chessboard-like alleys inside. Passage between wards through their gates was permitted only at designated times during daylight. Under these circumstances, internal commerce had to be comprehensive. Generally, rice and grain, sauces and vinegar, tea and salt, charcoal and firewood, and cloth and silk all had to be available, and these businesses usually clustered near the ward's central crossroads.

Rice shops were among the most common, and they could not stop trading even briefly. Even now, in the rain, people were lining up.

The sudden arrival of two Brocade-Clad warriors badly frightened shopkeeper and customers alike. Had the pair not blocked the doorway, the people inside might well have fled.

"Don't panic, shopkeeper. I'm only here to ask one thing. How much grain do you have in stock right now?" Zhang Xing went straight to the point.

"O-one hundred and e-eighty shi." The plainly dressed shopkeeper remained nervous. "One hundred and eighty shi of rice, flour, and miscellaneous grains altogether... why do you gentlemen ask?"

"Isn't that rather little?" Qin Bao was perceptive beneath his quiet exterior. Though he did not know why Zhang Xing was asking, he immediately noticed something odd. "How many grain shops are there in your ward?"

"About seven or eight?" The shopkeeper still had no idea what was going on.

"That still seems too little..." Qin Bao had indeed grasped the problem.

"Ma'am, how much rice can that cloth bag you're carrying hold?" Zhang Xing suddenly turned to a customer buying rice.

"Sir, i-it can hold four dou." The woman, dressed in plain cloth with a wooden hairpin and carrying a child on her back, answered cautiously.

"Then how many dou are you buying this time?" Zhang Xing continued questioning her, his face expressionless.

Qin Bao had understood by now and immediately stared wide-eyed.

"O-one dou..." The woman grew even more frightened. "I only brought fifteen coins. I only have fifteen coins."

Qin Bao immediately reached into his clothes.

"Let's go!"

Zhang Xing's rebuke was just like Hu Yan's sudden angry shout at Li Qingchen earlier. He stepped into the curtain of rain first.

Qin Bao had no time to think, much less hand over any money. He lowered his head and followed.

As soon as the two emerged, two bare-chested men standing outside snorted and went straight into the shop to question those inside. Zhang Xing ignored them as well. He merely hurried along with Qin Bao, heads lowered, quickly catching up with Hu Yan's group. They then left Jiaqing Ward, climbed the city wall, and entered the tower on the Southern City wall midway between Jiaqing and Jiajing Wards.

This was the temporary base for the hunt for imperial fugitives being carried out by Bai Yousi's Second Patrol Team, directly subordinate to the Jing'an Directorate's Central Pacification Office.

When the group entered the tower, Bai Yousi and the other squad were already waiting beside the fire in the middle. The two squads immediately began comparing conditions in the two wards.

Zhang Xing did not join the conversation and had no intention of warming himself by the fire. Instead, with one hand on his blade, he paced to the tower's north-facing window, leaned directly on the sill, and stared blankly at Eastern Capital City shrouded in summer rain.

Qin Bao, meanwhile, squeezed in beside the fire.

After a while, the two sides finished comparing information. Everyone found the situation difficult, and an awkward silence settled over them.

At this point, Qin Bao, who had looked back several times at Zhang Xing without receiving any response, finally flushed and spoke. "Inspector, Deputy Patrol Inspector, I have something to say too... Brother Zhang and I just checked the rice shops in Jiaqing Ward. We found that, unlike the wards to the north, the shops here carry very little stock..."

"It's only a few shopkeepers. Remember their faces, keep a little watch on them, and let them go out for their regular supplies," Li Qingchen answered immediately. "As long as it doesn't interfere with the searches."

"It's not just the shops." Qin Bao swallowed and continued, looking solemnly at Bai Yousi and Hu Yan. "The decent households here don't keep supplies at home either. They have to go and buy more every few days... Brother Zhang and I ran into a woman carrying a child on her back, and she was buying only one dou of rice."

"But..."

Hu Yan had already lowered his head somewhat evasively, and Bai Yousi's face darkened. Qian Tang and several seasoned patrolmen tilted their heads up and sighed softly. Yet Li Qingchen still did not understand. "If we let the shopkeepers buy supplies and let the residents shop inside the ward, won't that do?"

"Li Twelve, do you understand or not? The shops carry so little because they have little capital, little money in the shop, and can only buy that much stock at a time. The households have no reserves because they haven't a penny to their names. They have to go out to Heaven Street or the Luo River and work a day's casual labor to get food for the next day or the day after..." Qin Bao finally grew angry. "If you only let shopkeepers buy supplies but won't let the poor go out to earn money, where will they get the money to buy grain and necessities? Having one meal with no promise of the next isn't some proverb. It's the truth! If we seal off Jiajing and Jiaqing Wards completely and conduct sweeping arrests, they'll run out of food in three to five days, and people will starve to death in seven or eight!"

Li Qingchen had never been rebuked publicly by Qin Bao like this. But the reasoning was simple and clear, and he could not refute it. He merely looked sheepish.

Bai Yousi glanced at Zhang Xing, who stood with his back to everyone watching the rain. He remained silent and utterly motionless. With no alternative, the female inspector looked rather flustered herself.

"Jiaqing and Jiaqing aren't the only poor wards in the Southern City, are they? What will the other wards do?"

"What can they do?" Seeing his inspector so distressed pained Qian Tang greatly, and he immediately lowered his voice to answer. "Inspector... I know what you're thinking, but the truth is, Eastern Capital City calls itself the finest place under heaven, yet people freeze to death in the Southern City every winter. Even rain like this often kills people... at those times, did anyone think of offering them any protection? We only feel our hands getting dirty because this time it's fallen to us... as for the other wards, they probably won't have any scruples at all."

"We'll have to grit our teeth and do it!" After a long while, Hu Yan finally spoke with difficulty, pushing things forward. "This is no joke... His Majesty was furious enough to send even Vice Minister Bai straight to prison. With pressure coming down level by level, if people like us are caught making an obvious mistake, immediate execution would probably be nothing unusual... in Jiaqing and Jiajing, leave the secret passages and waterways aside for now. Don't go deep inside yet. First seal the four gates and ward walls, make a pass along the cross streets, then sweep the lanes and alleys in order. We have to give our superiors some accounting."

Everyone looked at Bai Yousi. She remained silent for a long time, but finally lowered her head.

"There's something I haven't told you. This afternoon, whether it was an Inner Palace Edict issued directly from Ziwei Palace or an order requested by the Southern Office's ministers, an order came down: any escaped prisoner involved in Yang Shen's case is to be treated as condemned to death and killed without pardon. Their immediate families are implicated as well, to be killed on the spot and their property confiscated... in other words, mass killings have already begun in the north."

"We're all serving officials. We have no choice either." Hearing this, Hu Yan grew still more dejected, and his speech became increasingly urgent. "The best response is to investigate faster, work harder, and be more thorough... Inspector, please give the order! The military orders from above are to seal the wards and search them!"

Bai Yousi exhaled deeply and was about to call Zhang Xing over.

Unexpectedly, Zhang Xing turned back of his own accord. "So neither you nor Brother Hu has a good solution, Inspector?"

"That's right."

Hu Yan looked up at him. The young man who had carried a corpse a thousand li had left a profound impression on him, so he treated him with considerable respect. "Zhang Sanlang, do you?"

"I have two plans, a better one and a worse one!" Keeping one hand on his blade, Zhang Xing saluted everyone in turn and answered solemnly. "Whether they're workable, I don't know. I ask both inspectors and all my brothers to consider them."

"We're all grasshoppers on the same rope." Qian Tang urged him anxiously before Bai Yousi could speak. "Out with it. If you can get us out of this predicament, we'll feel nothing but gratitude."

"The better plan is to seal the wards according to regulations, then spend five days repairing the ward walls and the residents' houses. At the same time, buy several hundred strings of cash worth of grain and distribute it to the residents to win their hearts. Once their hearts are won, if anything is amiss inside the wards, someone will surely respond to our kindness and report it. I speak from experience..."

"Oh, give it a rest." Li Qingchen was exasperated. "Winning hearts? With Sister Si's family background, if she buys people's loyalty like that, someone here will probably report her for rebellion before anyone in the wards reports a fugitive."

Bai Yousi and Hu Yan also looked somewhat disappointed.

But Zhang Xing was not flustered. Instead, he smiled. "Then we can only use the worse plan!"

"What is the worse plan?" Bai Yousi held on to her last patience and expectations for the subordinate before her.

"The worse plan has five steps."

Holding his blade in one hand, Zhang Xing raised the fingers of his other slightly as he answered.

"First, seize authority! Inspector, immediately summon the relevant Henan County runners around both wards, the wall garrison, the Jinwu Guards on the streets... and the Street-Cleaning Tigers... tell them you're a Principal Fifth Rank Vermilion-Sash Inspector and a noble scion of the Bai Clan. Have every one of them place their authority in your hands, under unified command and deployment. Anyone who dares refuse or play tricks, kill them outright to establish your authority... be fast and ruthless!"

"That's simple." Bai Yousi did not even blink.

"Second, seal the wards. Leave waterways and tunnels aside for now... if they really escape underground, that's a good thing... Inspector, you remain here, overlooking everything from above and ready to reinforce us at any moment. Divide the manpower between the two wards and, regardless of anything else, first plug the gaps in the walls and surround them... that is the direct military order from above, after all."

"So we still have to do that?" Bai Yousi frowned, and Qin Bao also looked disappointed.

"I'm afraid we do." Zhang Xing lowered his head with a smile. "And the third step is the same too... buy grain. The Eastern Capital has no shortage of it. Grain is piled mountain-high at Luokou Granary. It used to cost five coins a dou, and even after this incident it's still only fifteen... several hundred strings of cash worth, used sparingly, will be enough to keep the ward residents fed over these next few days."

"I already said, you can't distribute grain without authorization." Li Qingchen stamped his foot anxiously. "It's not that I don't care about lives. It's that doing this could cost even more lives!"

"We won't distribute it or buy people's hearts." Zhang Xing sneered. "It's for rewards. Only households that report suspects will receive grain. That's the fourth step."

The atmosphere inside the tower briefly stilled. Someone seemed to have realized something.

"But Brother, will there really happen to be suspects in these two wards?" Qin Bao could not bear it. "If there aren't, will we leave the grain undistributed even after it arrives?"

"Just as we decide whose reports deserve credit, don't we also decide whether there are suspects?" Fixing his eyes on Bai Yousi, Zhang Xing finally stated the last step. "Inspector, the fifth step is killing! Kill people unconnected to this case to claim credit and demonstrate our hard work!"

"Zhang Xing, you're courting death..." While Qin Bao and the others stared dumbfounded, Bai Yousi was the first to react, erupting in fury. The sword in her hand flew out of its own accord, then abruptly stopped.

For her deputy, who had assisted her reliably for so long and was the most experienced person present, the Jing'an Directorate's Black Sash Hu Yan, suddenly looked delighted and sprang up, striking the table.

"It'll work!"

Bai Yousi stared openmouthed. Like the others who had just been about to react, she froze again.

There was no helping it. The turn had come too fast.

"Inspector, don't strike. The reasoning is actually very simple." Watching the sword gradually slide back into Bai Yousi's hand, Zhang Xing answered with a laugh. "Everyone knows the present situation. Those raiders were so well trained, their advances and retreats so orderly, and Eastern Capital City has a hundred and fifty wards, not to mention the wilds of North Mang Mountain. How could they be easily found?"

"But the emperor is furious, and the Southern Office's ministers are furious. Each level pressures the one below, military law looms larger than heaven, and everyone must produce results. What do you do when failing to do so means being charged yourself? You can only demonstrate hard work and forcefulness to give your superiors an accounting."

"Leaving hard work aside, isn't killing people to claim credit the simplest way to demonstrate forcefulness?"

"For instance, the conventional approach we discussed was to say we could only obey military orders, seal the ward gates, search meticulously, and disregard the lives below... why did everyone find that hard to stomach? Because it is essentially a display of hard work, killing the innocent and weak to claim credit, using innocent blood to give the higher-ups an answer... the only defense available is that you and I wouldn't personally be committing the worst of it."

"Since that's the case, and we're killing people to claim credit anyway, why not kill people who deserve to die? Elsewhere, because they're incompetent and cowardly, they can only kill the weak and innocent for credit... we're different. We have ability, strategy, organization, benevolence, and righteousness. We can kill the guilty and the powerful to claim credit!"

At this point, Zhang Xing looked around on three sides. By now, even the dullest patrolman had understood. Bai Yousi's eyes shone, and she stared with interest and a smile at the subordinate she had picked up along the road.

Zhang Xing swept his gaze around, then saluted Bai Yousi with his head held high. "Inspector, today I heard a children's rhyme on the road: 'Jiaqing, Jiajing, every household clean.' Since we have to do something to satisfy our superiors anyway, why not take the opportunity to give these two wards a genuine cleaning?! Charge the local gangs with possibly harboring imperial fugitives and sweep them out in force! Kill until blood flows in rivers and heads roll everywhere. Who would dare say we aren't devoting ourselves to the sovereign's service?"

Bai Yousi looked around. Before anyone could speak, she raised her eyebrows and slapped her sword onto the table. "Well said! If the gentlemen at court won't feel comfortable until they see us down here killing until blood flows in rivers, then we'll give them rivers of blood! We'll kill until everything is clean! Is there anyone here who doesn't dare kill?!"

PS: Merry Christmas, everyone!

. Providing you with Exorcising the Dragon: Zhang Xing and Bai Yousi by the great Water-Fearing Grenade