Even Thieves Have a Code

At dusk, dinner was delivered. The yamen runner looked Wen Qingkong up and down, as if checking whether anything had changed about him.

Wen Qingkong took the food box and shut the door. As usual, it contained thin porridge and wild vegetables.

He carried the food box upstairs and stared in astonishment. The place, which had not been cleaned in a long time, was now spotless and neatly arranged.

More than half of the dry rations the original owner had stored remained on the small dining table.

Li Lan'er looked at him cautiously. "We didn't finish it. You should eat."

Seeing the fear in her eyes, Wen Qingkong guessed that Li Lan'er had not dared to finish it.

In truth, the rations did not taste good. They were all flatbread and coarse steamed buns that had occasionally been sent over in the past.

The original owner had once gone hungry, so he always hid some away. After a while, they would spoil, yet he could not bear to throw them out and would keep hiding fresh ones.

Wen Qingkong smiled. "I'm not hungry. Come have some porridge."

Li Lan'er shook her head. "We've eaten. You're the head of the household, so you should eat."

She held her six-year-old daughter, Sun Shuang'er, in her arms and fell silent again after speaking.

Wen Qingkong held the porridge bowl out to her. "Eat. It's nothing valuable. We can barely afford enough food here. I work at night while you sleep. No matter what noises you hear, don't show yourselves."

Li Lan'er nodded. She fed a little of the thin porridge to her daughter, then handed it back to Wen Qingkong.

"I'm not hungry. You should eat instead. You still have work tonight."

"A man can't go without food, or he won't have the strength."

Wen Qingkong did not refuse. He drank half, then gave the remaining half to Li Lan'er.

Li Lan'er froze for a moment, her eyes reddening slightly.

Only then did she suddenly realize that the boy before her, five years younger than herself, truly was the best choice she had ever made.

After eating, Wen Qingkong was about to clean up, but Li Lan'er hurriedly got up and packed away the food box.

Wen Qingkong took it from her. "Leave it outside. Someone will collect it. I'll be working tonight, so lock the door properly. Unless I call for you, don't open it."

Li Lan'er hurriedly agreed. Back at the estate, she had heard that those who stitched corpses all knew demonic arts.

Then she secretly rebuked herself for thinking such a thing. This man before her was to be her husband from now on.

Wen Qingkong had no idea what she was thinking. He went downstairs and placed the food box outside the door.

After night fell, Wen Qingkong quietly waited for the bodies to be delivered.

Unexpectedly, at the fourth quarter of the Hour of the Dog, a yamen runner strode over and shouted, "No work tonight. Get some sleep, all of you."

Wen Qingkong was somewhat disappointed. This was already the second time there had been no work.

How was his martial arts supposed to improve like this?

Still, since there was no work tonight, it was the perfect chance to handle something important.

He went upstairs and saw Li Lan'er peeking through a crack in the door toward the stairs. The moment she saw him, she recoiled like a startled rabbit and quickly pulled her head back inside.

Smack!

She moved too fast and bumped into her daughter Sun Shuang'er beside her. Mother and daughter both cried out in pain at the same time.

Wen Qingkong found it both funny and exasperating.

He helped Li Lan'er and Sun Shuang'er to their feet.

"Get a good night's sleep."

"But..."

Li Lan'er bit her lip, clearly wanting to say something but holding it back.

Wen Qingkong said, "I told you, I didn't buy you to sleep with you."

As he spoke, he flicked his finger and sealed the sleeping acupoints of Li Lan'er and Sun Shuang'er, then laid them properly on the bed.

Wen Qingkong found a piece of black cloth and covered his face before leaping out the window and speeding away.

He arrived at Zhang Quan's home not far from Caishikou Execution Grounds. Pressing his right palm against the door, he secretly channeled his palm force and shattered the bolt, slipping inside without a sound.

Zhang Quan's home was not large, consisting of three rooms and a courtyard.

Wen Qingkong's ears twitched. He discovered that Zhang Quan and his wife slept in the east wing, while their son slept in the west wing.

Wen Qingkong likewise used his palm force to shatter the bolt on the east wing's door and slipped into the room.

After a quick search, he found that only a drawer beside the wardrobe was locked.

He shattered the lock again with his palm force. Sure enough, there was a large money pouch inside.

Opening the pouch, he found a one-hundred-tael silver note, along with twenty taels in loose silver. The money he had given Zhang Quan earlier that day was also among it.

"Even thieves have a code. I'll leave you three taels."

Wen Qingkong left behind three taels of silver, pocketed the silver note and the rest of the silver, then swiftly departed Zhang Quan's home.

Zhang Quan was merely a minor official in charge of the Corpse Seamstresses, yet he had a hundred-tael silver note. That truly took Wen Qingkong by surprise.

One hundred taels of silver was no small sum. An ordinary family needed only ten taels a year for food and living expenses.

After taking the silver note, Wen Qingkong did not immediately return to Corpse Seamstress House Number Nine. Instead, he took a sack of rice and a sack of flour from separate shops, left payment behind, and only then returned to Corpse Seamstress House Number Nine.

He hid the silver note away and put the rice and flour aside as well.

Then he spread out some bedding and went to sleep alone.

Early the next morning, the sounds of Li Lan'er getting up woke Wen Qingkong.

"You don't need to get up. Breakfast will be delivered from over there."

Wen Qingkong said to Li Lan'er.

Li Lan'er lowered her head somewhat embarrassedly. "I'm used to it. I'll tidy up a little more."

Wen Qingkong looked at the perfectly neat room. What was there left to tidy?

He took out five taels of silver and gestured for Li Lan'er to come over.

Li Lan'er came to his side, glanced at the sleeping Sun Shuang'er, and whispered, "Master, let's go downstairs. If Shuang'er wakes up... it wouldn't be good for her to see."

"What wouldn't be good for her to see?"

Wen Qingkong understood as soon as he said it. Shaking his head, he stuffed the five taels of silver into Li Lan'er's hand.

"What are you thinking?"

"This is for you. Keep it safe. No one can know about it."

Li Lan'er looked stunned. Five taels of silver—she had never seen so much money before.

For a moment, she became flustered.

"Master..."

"Whew~~"

"My entire fortune. Keep it safe."

"Master, I'm afraid I'll lose it."

"You won't. You can't go anywhere, so where could you possibly lose it?"

Wen Qingkong did not think much of it, then said seriously, "There's clearly less work at the Corpse Seamstress Workshop. The realm is in chaos, and the imperial court is short on funds. I reckon it won't be long before they tell us to find our own way to survive."

"When that time comes, we won't go anywhere. We'll stay here and stitch corpses for people. People want to be buried whole. The more chaotic the times, the more people will need corpses stitched."

Li Lan'er nodded, biting her lip. She hesitated, her expression conflicted.

Wen Qingkong said, "If there's something you want to say, just say it. I won't get angry."

Li Lan'er suddenly stood up, went to the bed, and took a mysterious, very thin item wrapped in oil paper from her bundle.

"This was left behind by my late husband. He said an itinerant Daoist he had once saved by chance gave it to him, and that it was a very important treasure."

"But it's actually just a map. It seems to be somewhere around Songzhou."

"Master, I can tell that you're a kind person. You want to save Shuang'er and me. I have nothing else to give you, so I'll give you this map."

Wen Qingkong thought for a moment and did not refuse. Mainly because Songzhou lay on the northern frontier of Great Xia, ten thousand li from Yujing City. Even if it was a treasure, he might not be able to make it there safely.

He unwrapped the oil paper and discovered that the map was not made of ordinary paper. It was neither metal nor silk, and he could not tell what material it was.

Mountains and rivers crisscrossed its surface. A red circle marked a mountain range, and beside it were three tiny characters.

"Jingyan Palace."