Chapter 17

"By the way, has Prince Huai read those letters? Did he find anything?" This was what concerned Meng Zhou most. He had nearly paid for them with his life; he hoped they weren't just two old men pouring their hearts out to each other.

"Nothing seemed unusual on the surface, but all three letters mentioned one place."

"Where?"

"Mount Chongling."

"The Chongling region is desolate and remote, with few inhabitants. Mount Chongling should be barren land too, with steep, treacherous peaks and crisscrossing ranges. The villagers live in clans at the foot of the mountain. Why would it come up so often?"

"The two families seem to have some secret dealings at Mount Chongling. His Highness has already sent men to investigate the details."

"Tell me, are there any mines around Chongling?" Meng Zhou thought it over. If a mountain had no apparent economic value, the answer could only lie inside it.

"Yes." Ji Yang searched his memory. "Chongling has iron ore, but the mines were declared exhausted in the fifteenth year of Tianyuan. You suspect a connection to those weapons of unknown origin? Mining takes considerable manpower and resources, for one thing. How could the local officials not have reported something on that scale?"

Even in the information age, something could be kept completely under wraps, let alone in ancient times, when messages traveled by relay station.

Meng Zhou swallowed his questions. His groundless suspicions really weren't worth taking seriously, much less spending effort to verify.

A sturdy, guileless-looking shadow guard knocked awkwardly on the door and stammered, "O-official Meng, this subordinate's name is A Hu. H-how would you like the fish cooked next time?"

The shadow guards had already begun betting on whether Meng Zhou would become their master's man. The odds were high, and A Hu had eagerly put five taels on "prince consort." When he looked up, everyone was watching him with the tender pity reserved for an idiot.

"A Hu, keep this silver for a wife. Your mother has been waiting twenty-eight years." The head shadow guard pushed the five taels back into his hand, looking unwilling to take advantage of a fool.

Unconvinced, A Hu muttered, "Just wait until your losses pay for my wife," put the silver back, and volunteered to deliver the fish.

Meng Zhou considered it. "Fish in vinegar sauce."

"Understood!"

Meng Zhou's superior at the Court of Judicial Review was close to retirement and rarely interfered. When Meng Zhou occasionally went out on business, he turned a blind eye. Meng Zhou was efficient enough to finish a day's work in half a day anyway.

One of his colleagues, named Jiang Liangzhe, disliked him. Every time Meng Zhou entered, he would hear the man raise his head from behind a towering stack of files and give a cold snort, without fail. After a while, Meng Zhou started treating it as "Welcome."

This man had risen through the imperial examinations and thoroughly disdained young masters like Meng Zhou, who had obtained an official post through ancestral privilege. That was largely the prevailing attitude in the capital's official circles. Meng Zhou found his indignant manner rather amusing and simply refrained from provoking him.

You may have spent ten years studying by a cold window, but I received nine years of compulsory education too.

Meng Zhou suffered in silence.

Jurisdictions had their hierarchies, and naturally, so did case files. Piled before Meng Zhou were cases from godforsaken backwaters, all concerned with petty trifles.

Jiang Liangzhe had gathered up every file from the wealthy lands of Jiangnan, but Meng Zhou wasn't in a hurry. What was wrong with petty trifles? They called that "the people's livelihood."

When he spotted the word "Chongling" written on a file cover, his eyes lit up. After a fruitless search, an unexpected path had opened before him.

Jiang Liangzhe had unwittingly done him a huge favor.

On his way back, Meng Zhou remembered Jiang Xin for once and took a detour to the Jiang Clan residence, intending only to check from a distance that nothing had gone wrong.

But his timing was too perfect. Every time he came, someone was making trouble.

Even a starving camel was bigger than a horse. Everyone wanted a share of what remained of the Jiang Clan.

This time, Liu Hongbao had set his sights on the Jiang Clan's training grounds. He petitioned Emperor Tianyuan, saying that since the grounds stood idle, the court might as well requisition them for the capital's guards to drill on.

Emperor Tianyuan agreed and placed the training grounds at Liu Hongbao's disposal.

Training grounds had always been places where men shed blood and sweat. Only Liu Hongbao had turned them into a living hell. Once ownership changed, who knew what would become of land once marked by loyalty and valor?

The innocent iron had been cast into a treacherous minister.

Jiang Xin had trained a group of household guards lately and kept the general's residence tightly secured. But none of that could stop Liu Hongbao from arriving with an imperial decree. However aggrieved he felt, he could not defy it.

The corners of his eyes had turned red with suppressed anger, and he looked ready to explode. His hands trembled as he accepted the decree. When he looked up and saw Meng Zhou, his eyes brightened, and he instinctively moved to seek him out.

Meng Zhou hurriedly waved him off. Liu Hongbao had seen him before. They couldn't let their efforts go to waste at this crucial moment by arousing his suspicions.

Jiang Xin really was a little foolish. He understood Meng Zhou's meaning, but his eyes kept drifting that way, aggrieved and hopeful, imagining that Meng Zhou would come up with an idea for him.

Meng Zhou inwardly cursed. There was nothing nearby to hide behind. Noticing something strange, Liu Hongbao followed Jiang Xin's gaze-

Chu Huaiyin gazed coldly over, waving a fan.

Liu Hongbao hurriedly knelt in greeting.

"Official Liu, even while observing mourning at home, you remain concerned about the capital's defenses. Truly admirable." Chu Huaiyin raised a hand to stop Liu Hongbao from approaching. "Weren't you here to read an imperial decree? Since that is done, go report to my imperial father."

"This subject takes his leave." Liu Hongbao had no intention of making conversation with Prince Huai either. Ever since Chu Huaiyin had replaced Liu De on the battlefield five years ago and sent him slinking back to the capital, they had not been on the same side.

Meng Zhou poked his head out from behind Chu Huaiyin and breathed a sigh of relief.

"You said you needed to see me?"

"Yes. While sorting through case files, I found several suspicious points concerning the iron mines at Mount Chongling. Let's discuss them inside the general's residence."

The general's residence was shabby indeed, with neither good tea nor good food. It was dinnertime, and Steward Liu was rather worried. They hadn't hosted an important guest in over a decade. Even Meng Fushan had never set foot here again after the master's death.

Ji Yang considerately took Steward Liu by the arm. "Our prince is a little particular about his food. Let me prepare it."

The old steward blushed. Once, the general's residence could have entertained even the emperor without fault. Now, though... alas.

Ji Yang returned to the prince's residence and counted. There weren't many Snow Spot fish left. The moment they heard footsteps in the distance, they hid at the bottom of the river, becoming harder and harder to catch.

What could he do when his master doted on Meng Zhou? Ji Yang briskly and mercilessly caught another one and handed it to the chef.

Red-braised.

Meng Zhou took the files he had stolen from the Court of Judicial Review out of his sleeve and handed them to Chu Huaiyin.

At first glance, there was nothing unusual about them, merely ordinary cases of fatal village brawls. Chu Huaiyin rubbed the cover and immediately discovered the problem.

There was a hidden layer.

Meng Zhou had already torn it open to read it. Chu Huaiyin took out the contents, his brow tightening as he read.

"It records a place called Startled Horse Trough in Mount Chongling. During thunderstorms in the sixth and seventh months every year, strange incidents of ghost soldiers passing through sometimes occur. The sounds of battle and shouting, horses neighing and stones flying, chains clashing and war drums thundering." Meng Zhou added from beside him, "The locals were terrified and invited people to perform rites. A wandering Daoist said this was once an ancient battlefield, where a god-of-war general had been framed and fallen in battle..."

At the mention of a god of war, Meng Zhou couldn't help glancing at Chu Huaiyin before continuing, "The god of war's heroic soul lingered, emerging to cause trouble whenever storms raged. He abducted any passersby he saw to serve in his army, intending to rebuild a powerful army of ghost soldiers and make his return."

The Daoist had also said that the deeper the god of war's resentment grew, the greater the danger became. To prevent whole villages from being slaughtered and conscripted, whenever the ghost soldiers passed through in the sixth and seventh months, the nearby villages had to gather seven times seven, forty-nine able-bodied men and send them willingly into Startled Horse Trough to serve the god of war. Any who disobeyed would meet a terrible end.

No one ever returned from Startled Horse Trough. Naturally, some secretly fled halfway there, but every one of those men was found dead with his entire family the next morning. After that, the villagers firmly believed in the "god of war's conscription."

Over two hundred people had disappeared from the villages in the past five years.

"Hmph. How could someone who recruits through such despicable means deserve to be called a god of war?" Chu Huaiyin looked at Meng Zhou. "What do you think?"

What do I think? There was a scientific explanation for ghost soldiers passing through in modern times. The factors involved were a sound source, electric current, magnetic fields, and silicon. The rock and soil of Startled Horse Trough contained large quantities of silicon dioxide, which happened to record the sounds of the ancient battlefield under the effects of lightning during thunderstorms. As for magnetic fields, Mount Chongling was rich in magnetite, which fit perfectly too.

Another theory held that unusual terrain produced acoustic resonance.

But he clearly couldn't say any of that directly to Prince Huai. Meng Zhou pressed his lips together and said, "The Master did not speak of strange phenomena, feats of strength, disorder, or spirits. Leaving aside the ghost soldiers for now, there is something suspicious about this god of war's conscription."

The local authorities had used evil spirits as an excuse to keep putting off reporting it, but something this big was bound to have flaws. The scholar who wrote the files had probably noticed one, but couldn't get word out. He could only hide it in a concealed layer, hoping that court officials would see it and take it seriously.

Meng Zhou continued, "I checked the officials who governed the Mount Chongling region. For the past ten years, every prefect has been related to the Liu family. From this, I deduced that the local authorities falsely reported the iron mines at Mount Chongling as exhausted five years ago, when they had actually appropriated them. The laborers needed for smelting are precisely those who disappeared in Startled Horse Trough."

"And those three letters suggest that Liu De has unusually close dealings with the Zhou family. Their merchant caravans travel north and south. If they have been transporting weapons in secret, that would explain why their businesses have expanded so rapidly over the past five years."

Having finished, Meng Zhou eagerly sought Chu Huaiyin's agreement. Liu Hongbao had already set his sights on the Jiang Clan's training grounds, and ownership could change at any moment.

Chu Huaiyin had formed a plan, but said, "Meng Zhou, you're getting impatient."

Impatience could lead to errors in judgment.

Meng Zhou's expression changed. "Does Prince Huai think I'm deliberately steering things this way because of the personal feud between the Zhou and Jiang Clans?"

He had dug out ten years of Chongling files at the Court of Judicial Review, getting covered in dust as he painstakingly unraveled them one by one and cross-checked the evidence. Would he have drawn a conclusion without being completely sure?

Chu Huaiyin smiled and shook his head. "You certainly don't stand on ceremony with me."

"When judging a case from a thousand miles away, even meticulous care isn't enough. Without going to Mount Chongling to see for ourselves, any conclusion deserves further consideration. How can these few points alone persuade His Majesty that the Liu family is up to something?"

The initiative lay with Chu Huaiyin. Meng Zhou had nothing to say and muttered, "Speed is paramount in war."

What good would it do to go there and find nothing after they had hauled away all those weapons?

"Are you hinting that I should mobilize troops?" Chu Huaiyin gave him a sidelong look.

How could he slap a charge of inciting rebellion on me just like that? Meng Zhou worried. Will I die young if I follow Chu Huaiyin?

Jiang Xin had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. Seeing the tense atmosphere at the table, he admired his eldest nephew even more.

That was Prince Huai, and he challenged him without hesitation.

Afraid that Meng Zhou would suffer for offending Prince Huai, Jiang Xin rather awkwardly played host. "The food is here. Your Highness, please eat first. Whatever it is, couldn't we discuss it once we've filled our stomachs?"