Chen Xiuyuan did not chase the man along the wall.
He cut through the empty shed, taking the shortcut he used every day to haul goods. When he reached the small kitchen, he shouted, "Everyone inside, get away from the window!"
A medicine chest struck the floor inside. The next moment, a hand reached through the side window. A short blade sliced through the old cord beside it and was about to pry away the crossbar.
Chen Xiuyuan kicked a wooden bucket beneath the window. Its rim struck the foot of the wall, forcing the man to withdraw his hand. Taking that opening, Chen Xiuyuan moved around to the window and held his short saber across his chest, blocking the narrow passage to the side door.
The attacker was very thin and stood hunched over. The short blade in his hand lay close against his leg, barely reflecting any light. He glanced first at Chen Xiuyuan's blood-seeping wrist guard, then stepped left.
Chen Xiuyuan shifted half a step as well, never leaving his position before the door.
"Shi Yuan, get people over here!"
An answer came from the distance, but no one could reach him yet. The narrow gate was still being battered. If Shi Yuan called away the people supporting him too, the opening they had just secured would be breached again.
The thin figure seized that gap, flicking his short blade upward from below.
Chen Xiuyuan did not meet it head-on. He first drew his injured forearm inward and used the flat of his saber to deflect the section approaching him. His opponent's blade was shorter, but his attacks were extremely fast. The moment one strike missed, he changed direction, thrusting along the doorframe toward Chen Xiuyuan's waist.
Chen Xiuyuan kept his rear foot on dry ground and shifted his waist aside. His saber swept back beneath his elbow, pressing against the hand reaching toward him. The thin man recoiled, his foot already landing on the wooden bucket beside the window. He meant to use the height to get over Chen Xiuyuan and charge straight into the room.
The bucket had originally been used to catch leaks, and there was a crack around its base. Chen Xiuyuan knew it could not bear a man's weight. He kicked its side, and the bucket immediately tipped over. The thin man's foot lost its support, leaving him no choice but to twist around and land.
Before he could steady himself, Chen Xiuyuan drove his saber's hilt toward his shoulder, trying to force him away from the window. But his right arm had just been injured. Halfway through the blow, pain made it spasm, and he failed to put his full strength behind it. The thin man drove an elbow back into his chest, forcing him to retreat, and raised his short blade with it.
Only a short distance remained between the blade's tip and his throat.
Chen Xiuyuan's heel struck the threshold. He stopped retreating, turned toward the side of the door, and hooked his short saber back, intercepting the hand still reaching toward him. They were too close for either of them to use broad, sweeping moves as their blades scraped past. He narrowed the movement of his wrist instead, turning the edge through what little space was available.
A bloody cut opened across the back of the thin man's hand, but he still held his blade.
Someone inside suddenly tried to open the door, and the latch rattled. Chen Xiuyuan immediately shouted, "Don't open it! Go to Elder Shi's room through the other side!"
This was the side door they had discussed earlier. Hearing him, the old herb gatherer and the porter turned toward the inner side of the small kitchen. The medicine chest dragged over a threshold with a dull thump.
At the sound, the thin man's expression changed. He stopped tangling with Chen Xiuyuan and turned to rush toward that side passage. But Chen Xiuyuan blocked him again at close range, his short saber held between them and his injured arm still pressed low.
The man swore and reached into his clothes.
He pulled out a thin piece of wood wrapped in oilcloth. Chen Xiuyuan immediately hooked up the basket of damp firewood on the ground with his foot, blocking the medicine-room doorway. Having just suffered that scare with a fire starter, he did not dare let even a spark near the dry wooden boards again.
But the thin man took advantage of the half-step he used to block the fire and slashed sideways.
The strike was well calculated. Chen Xiuyuan's saber had just moved outward. If he brought it back in the same arc as before, he would be too late to protect his shoulder.
He did not force the arc wider. Drawing his right elbow toward his ribs, he raised his short saber almost flush against his body. The other blade scraped and pressed past the spine of his saber. It still slashed through the clothing at his shoulder, but he had already avoided the deepest part of the strike.
At the same time, the thin man's blade hand had reached the doorframe.
Chen Xiuyuan stepped diagonally forward, using his body's position to force that hand toward the hardwood. His short saber hooked upward from below, its hilt striking the side of his opponent's wrist.
This time, he used the strength of his whole body with his footing firmly planted.
The short blade flew from the man's hand and fell onto the stone.
The thin man twisted around and ran. Chen Xiuyuan kicked the fallen blade aside, pursued him as far as the window, then stopped, refusing to leave the witnesses' escape route. He pointed the approaching guards in the man's direction while he stood outside the side door, panting too hard to speak a complete sentence for a time.
Two guards cut the thin man off at the other end of the empty shed and pinned him beneath the wall.
Only then did Chen Xiuyuan knock on Elder Shi's door.
"Is everyone here?"
The porter answered first from inside, followed by the old herb gatherer. "Everyone's here. So are the accounts. See to that arm of yours first."
Elder Shi opened the door and let him in. He first pressed a clean cloth against the wound on his forearm, then examined the cut on his shoulder. That strike had grazed his skin. The tear in his clothes was long, but the wound was shallow. The old man rewrapped his arm and told him to put down his saber first.
Only when Chen Xiuyuan loosened his fingers did he realize how tightly he had been gripping it ever since leaving the narrow gate.
It was still the same old short saber he had borrowed. Blood and water stained its blade, and the cloth wrapped around its hilt had been rubbed askew. Elder Shi took it and set it within easy reach rather than putting it far away at once.
Someone came from outside to report that the guards had cornered the two wounded men at the narrow gate. The axe wielder had tried to retreat, but the people returning had cut off his escape. The long-saber wielder had lost his weapon and had failed to escape over the wall. The grain store was still standing, and none of the people evacuated earlier were missing.
Immediately afterward, Shi Lei called Chen Xiuyuan's name from outside.
Chen Xiuyuan put his clothes back over his shoulders and went out. The medicine cart with the cracked boards had been pulled beneath the light. Its front sat askew, a guard held the reins, and its canvas cover had been lifted halfway, revealing two people crammed together underneath.
One was the driver from that afternoon. The cloth over his mouth had just been removed, and binding marks remained on his wrists. The other kept his head lowered. His gray-brown clothes had torn open at the front during his struggle, and the flat medicine pouch at his waist was gone, but he could no longer hide his face.
Du Huai.
Shi Lei hauled him down from beside the cart and handed him over to Shi Qiren.
"He tried to leave by the western road. When I stopped the cart, he claimed he was only passing through and stopping to rest. As soon as that thin fellow shouted, he crawled under the cover."
Du Huai looked up and saw the cloth around Chen Xiuyuan's arm. He froze briefly, then turned to Shi Qiren and said he had been forced into this, and that he had only borrowed the cart to escape with his life.
Hearing this, the driver jerked upright.
"Borrowed? You had your men tie me up and put one of your own in my place as driver! You even said you'd return the cart after tonight!"
Du Huai snapped that he was talking nonsense. Shi Qiren had the driver taken aside to sit down, have his injuries checked, and drink some water. They would question him separately once he recovered, rather than letting the two sides dissolve into an argument on the spot.
Chen Xiuyuan went over to Shi Lei and quietly asked whether anyone else remained outside. Shi Lei said people were searching the nearby shortcuts, and all the attackers seen that night had been brought under control. Whether there were others waiting farther out to help them was not something he could settle with a single answer yet.
"Go back and rest."
Instead, Chen Xiuyuan recounted what had happened at the side room, explaining in particular how the thin man had first sought the window, then pursued the side door, tried to force his way inside, and brought a fire starter close to the medicines and accounts.
Shi Lei looked toward the room, where the light had almost gone out. The smile vanished from his face.
"If all I'd done was stop the cart, and he'd harmed those people, this account really would have been hard to settle."
After speaking, he pointed at Chen Xiuyuan's injured arm and told Shi Qiren to hear the full account and record who had guarded the door and who had protected the people.
The night deepened. The torches inside the gate were replenished twice. The wounded were held separately, and the knife-wielding assailant already in custody was moved elsewhere as well. Chen Xiuyuan sat outside Elder Shi's room and drank some hot soup. Only when the guards called him did he go over and recount once more the parts he had witnessed himself.
At first, the thin attacker said only that he had been paid to steal goods. But his route had bypassed the grain store and led straight to the side room housing the witnesses, and he had carried a fire starter. By the end of the separate questioning, he admitted that Du Huai had said several people who had ruined his business were staying inside, and that they were to drag those people away and burn the accounts they had kept.
The driver said that after leaving Blood Stone that afternoon, he had been stopped at a fork in the road and his medicine cart seized. Du Huai's men had replaced him as driver and ordered him to hide beneath the cover without making a sound. The rope used to bind him and the clothes and hat from that afternoon stuffed into a corner of the cart all matched his account.
For the time being, these statements concerned only that night.
Shi Qiren then brought out the tucked-away accounts they had previously seized and separately checked the payment amount confessed by the saber wielder from Broken Stream, the debts recorded by the medicine stall's owner, and the driver's experience of stopping below the Broken Stream fork that time. At first, Du Huai argued that his underlings had acted on their own. When he heard about the unpaid portion of blood food, he changed his story and said he had only told them to intercept people.
"Did intercepting people require putting beast-luring medicine beneath the bridge?" Shi Qiren asked.
"There were beasts in the mountains to begin with."
"Then why tell them that deaths in the mountains couldn't be blamed on the medicine seller?"
Du Huai glanced at Shi Lei standing outside and failed to answer.
Chen Xiuyuan took the map of Broken Stream from inside his clothes. It showed the bridge, the grassy gully, and the slope Ge Ping had crossed after being injured. Its edges had grown soft from repeated handling. He did not use it to silence Du Huai, merely placed it where Shi Qiren could consult it.
How the five of them had made it back that day lay within those winding lines.
As dawn approached, Shi Qiren invited Chen Xiuyuan, Auntie Sang, and the newly summoned Ge Ping inside the gate. Shi Duo was there too. He could move his injured shoulder now, though raising it too high still felt uncomfortable.
The verified findings were laid out clearly before them: to control the Scarlet Whisker Root gathering route in Broken Stream, Du Huai had paid men to cut the bridge ropes, plant beast-luring medicine, and intercept and kill herb gatherers. Afterward, to extricate himself, he had seized a cart and brought men on a night raid, intending to take away the witnesses and destroy the medicine accounts. What each person captured that night had done would be investigated separately, without making ordinary goods haulers bear the blame for them.
Du Huai still argued under his breath that he had not initially ordered anyone killed. As Ge Ping listened, he touched the wound on his upper left arm and suddenly asked, "If I hadn't come back by the old charcoal road, how many packets of cheap medicine were you planning to give my family?"
Auntie Sang guided him aside a little, not letting him argue with Du Huai any further.
In front of everyone, Shi Qiren handed Du Huai over to the guards for detention. He ordered the medicine stock and remaining accounts and property confirmed to belong to Du Huai sealed, to be checked item by item against the victims' losses. They would keep investigating whether any accomplices remained undiscovered outside. For now, this man was to be locked up securely and forbidden from leaving again under the pretext of exchanging goods or compensating people with medicine.
After hearing this, Chen Xiuyuan slowly relaxed the hand pressing against the edge of the map.
Several children awakened by the disturbance peered in from outside the gate. Their families led them back, and water was put on the stoves to boil again. Shi Yuan came over too and handed the grain-allocation board to Shi Qiren, explaining that all the portions not collected the night before were still recorded. No one would lose their share simply because they had moved rooms.
The old herb gatherer sat nearby with his medicine chest in his arms. He first asked whether someone could be arranged to travel with him on his return journey. Only after receiving an answer did he set down the account board he had protected all night.
The porter no longer hid behind him. Pointing toward the driver, he asked whether any hot water had been saved for that man.
Chen Xiuyuan was about to return to his room when Shi Yuan stopped him and placed a clean board beside the grain-store door.
"The door you guarded last night still has to be used this morning. Don't stand here for now. Let them carry things through."
Chen Xiuyuan moved aside, and Shi Yuan promptly slid the board behind him and told him to sit.
The guards began inventorying the seized medicines. Auntie Sang took charge of first separating the usable medicines from the spoiled ones, while the owners brought old accounts to check returns and exchanges. Shi Qiren had each injured household report, in turn, the medicines used, work missed, and possessions lost. Once verified, they could collect from the portion owed in compensation.
Ge Ping approached with the medicine packets kept at home. Passing Chen Xiuyuan, he paused.
"This time, we won't have to keep chasing after people to ask whether anyone will acknowledge the debt, will we?"
Chen Xiuyuan looked at Du Huai in custody, then at the medicine baskets already opened on the table.
"Someone will. Even if he won't, he still has to pay."
Auntie Sang cleared a space beside the usable medicines she had sorted out and beckoned to them.
"Those who are injured, come first."