Chapter 6

Meng Zhou spruced himself up in front of the mirror, darkening his face, thickening his eyebrows, making his nose look less finely shaped, and adding a few black moles. In his previous life, he had worn makeup almost every day, so he had long since mastered the whole routine.

With an aching heart, he counted through his remaining five hundred taels again and again before finally taking out a hundred as his gambling stake.

Hopefully I won't lose too badly.

Tianjiu Casino stood in a little alley in the bustling market district. Its entrance had low eaves and a blue cloth curtain, but it was spacious inside. The closer he got, the more clearly he could hear the gamblers' frenzied, excited shouts.

Meng Zhou frowned. He particularly disliked this sort of environment. It reminded him of living in a basement with a motley assortment of people before he entered the entertainment industry in his previous life: aging apartment buildings, chaotic public security, and shouting matches and vendettas playing out in the streets every day.

His eyebrows lifted, and in the next instant, his expression changed. His face wore the curiosity and eagerness of someone visiting a casino for the first time. With his lips half pursed and his eyes shining, he practically announced to everyone, "I've got money. Come fleece me."

Soon, someone brought him to a table with a minimum bet of ten taels. This world did not yet have many varieties of gambling; most involved betting big or small. Meng Zhou made a show of reluctantly fishing out ten taels and setting them on the table, drawing jeers from those around him.

Amid the heated excitement, the gleaming silver before Meng Zhou piled higher and higher. Someone quietly left. His eyes flickered, and he made as if to stop, gathering all the silver into his pockets with a grin so wide it swallowed his face. "That's enough for today. I'll come back tomorrow."

He had barely taken two steps toward the exit when two burly men blocked his way. "Young master, our boss invites you to play a couple of rounds."

Meng Zhou shook his head. "I'm hungry."

"There's food and wine inside." With that, the burly men seized Meng Zhou and dragged him straight into the inner hall.

Meng Zhou cried out wildly, "I'm done gambling! Help!" while his eyes kept surveying his surroundings, trying to find what was wrong with the casino.

Boss Huang was absent that day. A tall, thin, middle-aged man with a goatee was watching the place. Goatee gestured for Meng Zhou to take a seat, and Meng Zhou sat down opposite him, trembling with fear.

"I really can't gamble anymore. My wife is waiting at home."

A big, formidable wife-the sort who would make me kneel on a washboard if I got home even a moment late.

"Hmm?" Goatee narrowed his eyes. Meng Zhou followed his gaze and saw a row of blades and swords standing to the left, gleaming coldly.

Meng Zhou's gaze froze, as though the sight had frightened him senseless.

"I'll play. I'll play." Meng Zhou hunched his shoulders, his fingers trembling. He accidentally knocked over the dice cup, scattering the dice across the floor. Their clattering made him turn pale, and he immediately scrambled after them, terrified of being fined.

Goatee watched Meng Zhou's cowardly performance with satisfaction. Lucky beginners might exist in this world, but never in the Tianjiu Gambling House.

Meng Zhou played ten rounds against Goatee and lost everything. He had never understood gambling at all. He had merely been certain there was something fishy here, and after carefully observing the gamblers around him, he had successfully identified a shill. He had then decided whether to bet big or small by watching the looks exchanged between the shill and the dealer.

His face was deathly pale. When Goatee said, "That's enough for today," unwillingness welled up in his eyes, and the veins stood out on his neck.

"Do you have any silver left?"

"No," Meng Zhou growled.

"Then get out!"

Meng Zhou struggled briefly before collapsing onto the floor and clinging to a table leg, making a scene. "No! I can't leave through the front door! So many people saw me come in carrying all that silver. I'd lose so much face! How could I ever come back?"

His deliberately altered voice was hoarse and shrill, sheer torture to the ears. Goatee waved irritably, unwilling to listen for even another moment, and motioned for the burly men to take him out through the back door.

Tianjiu Casino still had a business to run, so this small demand of Meng Zhou's was bound to be met. Through a series of embarrassing mishaps and shameless antics, he had surveyed the entire casino, trying to find some identifying mark.

Unfortunately, aside from that unexpected row of weapons at the beginning, Meng Zhou had only discovered that all the equipment here bore the image of a black copper coin. He had never seen it before and could not tell whether it was a symbol meant to attract wealth or something else.

The corner of Meng Zhou's mouth curled. That row of weapons was already enough to show there was a problem.

Before Great Wei, kings and nobles had carved up the land, raised troops and forged weapons, and turned their arms against one another. Thus, ever since its founding, the court had forbidden the private manufacture of weapons, punishing offenders for treason. Any civilians who needed weapons had to register with the authorities to purchase them.

Just as carriage tracks and written characters were standardized, weapons throughout the country were also made to uniform specifications, making replacements easier on the battlefield.

Spears were fourteen chi long, spearheads one chi and six cun, sabers eight chi, long swords twenty-one cun and three fen, and short swords fifteen cun and two fen...

Jiang Yao had left behind quite a few military treatises she had brought from the Jiang Clan, and Meng Zhou read them in his spare time. They contained detailed explanations. Recalling the blades and swords he had seen at the casino, Meng Zhou had keenly noticed at first glance that they did not conform to any of the prescribed specifications.

If large quantities of weapons with other specifications appeared within Great Wei, someone was either manufacturing them privately or bringing them in from outside.

Either way, they could wait to explain themselves to the suspicious Emperor Tianyuan.

Meng Zhou liked to wander while thinking. Along the way, he passed the Jiang Clan's home and looked over from a distance. Jiang Xin was practicing martial arts. He happened to pass Prince Huai's Residence, with its imposing walls and vermilion gates, where the guards stood as firm and upright as stone lions.

His steps paused as a possibility suddenly struck him. Why had Prince Huai appeared at the general's residence that day? Had he been involved in Jiang Xin's affair? Was there a connection between the casino and Prince Huai?

While Meng Zhou was puzzling over this, he saw A-Juan's mother bringing her to a medical clinic. He hurried after them and pretended to be waiting for someone outside as he listened to what was happening within.

"Doctor Ji, I've brought A-Juan to have her dressing changed."

"Ah, A-Juan's mother. Sit over there and wait a moment."

"Thank you, Doctor. We don't have anything nice at home, but please do accept these eggs..."

"Prince Huai has already paid for A-Juan. How could I dare accept payment twice?... Take care, ma'am. Remember to come back in five days."

Meng Zhou paced slowly, deciding to trust Chu Huaiyin's character. Prince Huai commanded more than half of Great Wei's armies and had molds, workers, and everything else he needed. There was no reason for him to manufacture a batch of "substandard" weapons. Although the Jiang Clan had fallen on hard times, it remained a legend in the military. It was perfectly normal for Chu Huaiyin to lend them a hand to win their loyalty.

On the contrary, the source of the casino's weapons posed a threat to Chu Huaiyin.

Meng Zhou quickly concluded that he and Chu Huaiyin were on the same side. This matter would be difficult to investigate on his own, whereas Chu Huaiyin had uprooted Right Chancellor Wang within half a month of returning to the capital... What he should do went without saying.

He walked from one end of Chang'an Street to the other without a single person recognizing him. Calmly sitting down at a small stall, he stretched his legs to rest. Back in the gambling house, Meng Zhou had taken advantage of several moments when he bent down or stamped his feet to slip some silver into his boots unnoticed. Although Goatee had stripped him of his money in the end, he had hidden his principal long before, with some profit to spare. He, Meng Zhou, never did business at a loss.

As usual, he ordered a bowl of soy milk and two steamed buns.

There was a teahouse nearby, where a storyteller was spraying spittle as he embellished Chu Huaiyin's heroic deeds on the battlefield. In particular, after the right chancellor's downfall and the spread of news about the missing military funds, new material had emerged to meet demand.

Divine troops descending from heaven, unrivaled might, dashing good looks, elegant bearing... When the storyteller reached the part where "an eighty-nine-year-old woman volunteered to take apart the mandarin-duck wedding quilt from seventy years ago, solely to keep Great Wei's soldiers warm while crossing the snowy mountains," Meng Zhou was not moved at all. He actually wanted to help write the man a normal script.

He could even do it for free.

Meng Zhou often ate here, and almost every time, he heard the teahouse's storyteller wildly praising Chu Huaiyin as a god of war. Yet everyone except him loved it.

He gnawed on his steamed bun with an impassive face. Back at the orphanage, kindhearted bun-shop owners would occasionally bring plenty of stuffed buns and pastries during festivals. As a child, Meng Zhou had been short and thin-armed, and he only ever got plain buns without filling. Those were the best steamed buns he had ever eaten. Later, even with lavish delicacies before him, he still had a special fondness for them.

Sensing an intense stare, Meng Zhou looked up. A sallow, scrawny little girl was staring fixedly at the steamed bun in his hand. She stood a meter away, quiet and still, without coming closer.

Meng Zhou's heart softened. He beckoned her over, then ordered a steamer of meat buns with thin wrappers and generous fillings from the stall owner and placed it before her. "Eat."

The child's large eyes shifted. Dirt filled the gaps beneath her fingernails. She swallowed and pointed at the other plain bun beside Meng Zhou's hand. "I'll just have that one."

Meng Zhou handed her the bun. Even starving, the child did not forget to thank him before eating.

A commotion rose from the teahouse. A crowd squeezed onto the threshold, craning their necks to look outside. Hoofbeats passed; it turned out Prince Huai had come by and entered a nearby restaurant.

Meng Zhou thought back carefully. Had his fans ever been this old and this frenzied?

As it happened, he also had something to discuss with Chu Huaiyin. Meng Zhou stood up, then paused slightly as something occurred to him. He had only just agreed to leave the casino matter to Chu Huaiyin. If the man learned that he had once again obeyed in public while defying him in private, and settled both old and new scores at once...

Meng Zhou looked at the child earnestly eating in front of him, and inspiration struck.

Why go in person?

Everything was merely his speculation. He might as well test Chu Huaiyin's attitude first.

Borrowing paper and a brush from the teahouse, Meng Zhou wrote with his left hand, briefly summarizing what he had seen and his conjectures.

He signed it "Wild Talker," a name picked at random that was highly credible. People were always like that: when someone openly admitted to lying, they became more willing to believe him instead.

As he folded the paper, he paused, crumpled it up, and took another sheet. He had nearly forgotten that the character "Zhou" had already exposed him once before Chu Huaiyin. If he came up with another alias similar in meaning to "Zhou," he might well be recognized.

He needed a different name, preferably the sort that suggested someone unfathomable, free of worldly ties, and ready to intervene upon witnessing injustice.

In the end, four characters appeared in the lower-left corner.

-Haruki Murakami.

The moment Chu Huaiyin left the Gathered Fragrance Restaurant, he saw a filthy child staring straight at him as though staring at some drunken chicken wings.

Ordinary people could not easily approach Prince Huai. The child did not rashly come forward, but those sparkling eyes reminded Chu Huaiyin of someone.

His sharp eyes noticed a piece of paper clutched in the child's hand, and he motioned for a hidden guard to take a look.

After reading its contents, Chu Huaiyin's gaze darkened slightly, though his expression remained unchanged. As casually as if asking about the weather, he asked the child where she had come from.

The child tightened her grip on the steamed bun and said nothing.

A steamed bun... Chu Huaiyin immediately looked toward the bun stall ahead. Aside from the owner, who was busy with his work, there were no suspicious customers. He waved for a hidden guard to take the child into the restaurant for a meal as thanks, then clenched and flicked his right hand. The paper disintegrated into scraps that fluttered away.

Mingling among the teahouse's listeners, Meng Zhou watched the child being taken to sit at the table Prince Huai had just left.

This child has a good character. I'll buy her another meat bun next time I see her.

So Meng Zhou thought.

The staff of the capital's foremost restaurant-the Gathered Fragrance Restaurant-welcomed Prince Huai's "honored guest" with exceptional enthusiasm, serving the same dishes as before. The Gathered Fragrance Restaurant had ten signature dishes, bringing together the finest specialties from across Great Wei: exquisite delicacies on jade plates, heavenly flavors on earth. They were simply very expensive-so expensive that Meng Zhou had only heard of them and never seen them.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

All the dishes had arrived.

Meng Zhou silently counted on his fingers.

His stomach chose that unfortunate moment to growl.

Clutching his stomach, Meng Zhou took another look at the child enjoying the feast alone, at Chu Huaiyin leaving with composure, and at the half-eaten, shriveled plain bun in his own hand. He felt the malice of class divisions deeply.