Lalong's muscles tensed instantly.
The action of drawing the sword was entirely instinctive, the blade being pulled out half an inch.
But he couldn't pull the knife out.
Three figures darted out of the shadows around the corner like mad dogs.
Three women.
She was wearing a floral-patterned jacket and carrying a dark paper lantern.
Before Lalong could even react to the fact that a young woman had appeared in the middle of the night, three pairs of hands had already locked him up in a way he couldn't comprehend at all.
The plump woman on the left was clinging tightly to his left thigh with both hands, practically hanging on his leg.
The young woman on the right was tightly gripping the sleeve of his right arm, which was holding the knife.
The Widow Wang in the middle, holding a lantern in one hand, reached out with her other hand, fingers spread, to grab Lalong's collar.
"Someone spat indiscriminately! And it was a huge spit! I saw it clearly!"
Widow Wang's voice was so loud it was deafening.
Lalong's hand, gripping the hilt of the knife, froze.
Should I draw my sword and kill them?
The smell of blood would immediately attract the city's defense patrols, and his identity as a spy would be exposed instantly.
Not drawing your sword?
The three women's fingernails had dug into his flesh, and the pulling force was unusually strong, completely unpredictable.
His prized fighting skills were utterly useless against these three unreasonable women.
"What... are you doing?" Lalong squeezed out a few words through Great Yan teeth in broken Mandarin.
"What are you doing? Are you blind?!" Widow Wang grabbed his collar, nearly shoving the lantern into his nostril.
Spitting on the ground! Ten coins fine! Otherwise, we'll take you to the Inspection Brigade!
Lalong was stunned.
Spitting? Fine?
When did the laws of the Great Yan become so overbearing?
He tried to break free of his right arm.
I have no money.
"No money? Dressed all high and mighty, you're broke?"
The young woman on the right grabbed the hem of his robe and reached inside his waistband to grope him.
"Sisters, search! If you can't find him, skin him alive and pawn him!"
The plump woman on his lap cooperated and began to climb upwards.
For the first time, cold sweat seeped down the spine of this top Tubo spy who had once single-handedly severed the neck of a Great Yan sentinel.
What kind of playing style is this?
Lacking any inner strength, she relies solely on the instincts of a shrew.
This Yi Prefecture City is too eerie.
"Give it to me! I'll give it to you!" Lalong gave up struggling.
With trembling hands, he pulled a small piece of silver from a hidden pocket in the lining.
"Keep the change, please."
Widow Wang snatched the loose silver.
The three women released their grip instantly, their movements perfectly synchronized.
Lalong took two steps back, straightening his collar which had been pulled askew.
They were preparing to escape quickly.
But then they saw a brightly lit, newly built brick house at the entrance of the alley not far away.
Outside the brick house, dozens of people were queuing up, each clutching a small piece of paper tightly in their hand, their faces filled with a strange fanaticism.
Lalong was stunned.
A faint, unpleasant odor emanated from the brick house.
The top spy's intuition told him that this was definitely not an ordinary place.
He had only ever seen that light in the eyes of the common people when the great shaman of Tubo performed rituals, in the eyes of those fanatical believers.
What are they doing?
Secret recruitment ceremony?
Or was it some kind of evil sacrificial ceremony?
Trading a small piece of paper for a life?
"If you don't leave, what are you doing over there!" Widow Wang weighed the silver in her hand and pointed to the brick house.
"Your kid also wants to try his luck?"
Lalong swallowed hard.
Trying your luck? Is it something like the incense burning and Buddha worship practices common in the Central Plains?
That house must hold a lot of secrets!
We must investigate to see if it's true or not.
Under the watchful eyes of the three middle-aged women, Lalong quickly walked towards the brightly lit "little dark room".
As soon as I got close, a suppressed fermented smell entered my nostrils.
He watched as an old man in line ahead of him pulled up his pants and walked out, taking a piece of paper from the guard at the door. The old man's face broke into a wide grin, as if he had received a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Lalong stood in the doorway.
The old soldier glanced at him but ignored him.
Lalong didn't go in directly; instead, he turned and disappeared into the darkness to the side.
He didn't understand, but things were certainly not that simple, and he couldn't act rashly.
In an abandoned, dilapidated house about fifty steps diagonally opposite the public toilet.
Chen Qing was crouching by the window, half of his body hidden in the shadows.
A pair of eyes were fixed intently on the public toilet.
As a spy planted in Yi Prefecture by the Second Prince Gu Mochen, he felt his brain was about to give out these days.
Midnight (11 PM - 1 AM)
The line for the public restroom finally dispersed.
Two large trucks, sealed off with heavy wooden planks, were parked at the back door of the public toilet.
Four or five men dressed in burlap uniforms, carrying long-handled manure ladles and wooden buckets, began cleaning the sludge from the sedimentation tank.
Bucket after bucket of sewage was poured into the truck.
The men moved swiftly and efficiently.
Chen Qing covered his nose, his eyes wide open in the darkness.
My brain is spinning rapidly.
Prince Yi spent 20,000 taels of silver to build this kind of thing in the city.
In order to get people to dump their filth in designated areas, they even gave out eggs, refined salt, and piglets!
This is completely illogical.
Who would spend a lot of money to collect people's excrement?
Unless... this thing is extremely useful!
Chen Qing recalled the earth-shattering roar that echoed from the broken Ten-Li Slope Severed Dragon Ridge Shili Slope.
The shattered stones, the power like a thunderbolt from the heavens.
In his secret report, he wrote, " Prince Yi is practicing witchcraft and sorcery, and summoning heavenly lightning."
He then recalled the tall chimneys that had been erected in Ten-Li Slope days, emitting flames day and night.
The blacksmiths swung their sledgehammers inside like they'd lost their souls, forging those finely crafted, gleaming black pots.
Prince Yi said it was for cooking porridge.
fart!
All the clues were forcibly pieced together in Chen Qing's mind, forming an extremely terrifying yet logically consistent conspiracy.
"Heavenly Thunder Fire..." Chen Qing murmured to himself, a chill running down his spine.
"The black iron pot... the filth of the entire city..."
He understood!
He remembered a picture book he had seen as a child.
The above records that the most yin and evil curse technique requires gathering the filth of ten thousand people, placing it in a cauldron, and refining it with heavenly thunder and fire for eighty-one days.
The extracted poisonous fog, if blown downwind, could wipe out the entire population of a city!
Prince Yi is concocting a world-destroying poison!
He wants to forge those foul things into invisible weapons!
Those little slips of paper that were handed out were actually talismans used to steal the souls of ordinary people!
Yes! That must be it!
It has to be me!
Chen Qing felt her heart pounding.
No wonder those people were queuing up so frantically; they might have been possessed!
He turned and quietly left the dilapidated house, running all the way back to his own home.
He pushed open the door, and without even turning on the light, he groped his way out from under the bed to pull out a tinderbox and writing implements.
By the dim light, Chen Qing spread out a sheet of paper, his hands trembling slightly with excitement and fear.
The brush is fully dipped in thick ink, and the tip rubs rapidly across the paper.
My lord, please accept my humble opinion:
Yi Prefecture has undergone a great upheaval! The Prince Yi's schemes are not about military might, but rather a descent into demonic ways!
For nearly half a month, Prince Yi built a large number of brick grottoes in the city, which he called 'public toilets'.
It is truly a Gu poison that collects the filth of ten thousand people!
He lured the people with great rewards and distributed demonic talismans, causing the entire city's inhabitants to flock to him day and night as if possessed by an evil spirit.
I personally witnessed them using a furnace fueled by heavenly thunder to forge a black iron cauldron.
Now, they are sending assassins at night to smuggle filth into the furnace.
This is clearly an attempt to use the resentment and filth of ten thousand people, supplemented by heavenly fire, to concoct an extremely yin and poisonous substance!
Chen Qing wrote this, his wrist trembled. He could imagine the Second Prince's expression when he saw the letter.
He unconsciously clenched his right fist and held it upright in front of his chest.
" Chen Qing, keep going! You must expose Prince Yi and protect Brother Ba!"
He lowered his head and continued writing the last line of conclusion.
" Prince Yi to destroy Yi Prefecture, Anyang, and Great Yan."
I urge my lord to make a swift decision, report to His Majesty, and dispatch a large army south to annihilate this demon king. This is of utmost importance!
Roll up the paper and stuff it into the sealed bamboo tube.
Chen Qing pushed open the back window and released a black carrier pigeon.
In the night sky, carrier pigeons flapped their wings and flew north towards Anyang.
Chen Qing watched the pigeons disappear into the night and let out a long breath.
He was convinced that this secret report would completely change the landscape of Great Yan.