At daybreak, the world was still shrouded in gray.
Chen Ji slowly sat up in bed. He instinctively reached for the phone beside his pillow, but there was nothing there.
"Wait, shouldn't I be in the courtyard?" Chen Ji's last memory was of practicing the Stone-Bearing Stake-Embracing Technique beside the apricot tree, yet he had woken up back in the west wing, still wearing the tattered clothes from last night.
Had his master brought him back? Or had it been his two fellow apprentices? Chen Ji couldn't be sure. He didn't remember a thing.
At this moment, the icy current lay quietly in his dantian, its ferocity from last night gone.
Chen Ji pondered, Who caused the icy current to surge this time? The first time it appeared, it came from Zhou Chengyi. The second time was...
Several people had died each time the icy current appeared, but the ordinary people at Zhou Chengyi's residence hadn't produced an icy current, nor had the maid who died at the Evening Star Court...
Could it have come this time from the fetus Consort Jing had just miscarried?!
As he thought of this, She Dengke abruptly sat up at the far end of the shared sleeping platform and said with his eyes closed, "Master, why don't you just beat me to death? Once I'm dead, there'll be nobody to care for you in your old age and see you to your grave!"
Speechless, Chen Ji turned to look at him. After saying that, She Dengke fell back down with a thud. He had been talking in his sleep...
The rooster had yet to crow.
Strangely, Chen Ji had returned during the chou hour last night and had slept less than four hours, yet he now felt full of vigor, without the slightest trace of fatigue or sleepiness.
Was this a change brought about by the icy current and the Stone-Bearing Stake-Embracing Technique?
He sat on the bed pondering for a long time. Finally, he got up, changed clothes, and went into the courtyard to pick up a shoulder pole. Carrying two wooden buckets, the slender youth headed out toward Anxi Street.
Yesterday, while waiting for his family to bring his tuition silver, Chen Ji had noticed a well there. Everyone in the neighborhood drew water from it, and anyone who arrived late would have to wait in a long line.
As Chen Ji stepped outside, he froze. The black cat from the Evening Star Court was crouched on the eaves of the grain and oil shop across the street, quietly watching him.
So it hadn't been his imagination last night. The black cat really had been drawn by the bead in his sleeve, and had even doggedly followed him in secret all the way outside the prince's residence!
Chen Ji walked along the flagstone street toward the well in the early morning, while the black cat followed silently over the gray roof tiles, never taking its eyes off him.
He was the only person on the long street, and it was the only cat on the rooftops.
They walked side by side through the thin mist of an autumn morning, as though passing together through the long reaches of time.
He stopped and, with the shoulder pole still across his shoulders, gazed at the black cat from a distance. "Meow Meow?" he asked curiously.
The black cat merely looked at him coldly.
What self-respecting cat would be called Meow Meow?
Seeing no reaction, Chen Ji tried again. "Sang Biao?"
The black cat: "..."
Chen Ji tentatively held the bead out on his open palm. "Do you want this?"
Though covered in wounds, the black cat still looked at Chen Ji with a noble bearing. It gave no reaction, as if waiting for the youth to offer up the bead himself.
Chen Ji stretched his hand a little higher.
This time, the black cat stood on the gray-tiled eaves and leaned forward slightly, preparing to jump down and carry the bead away in its mouth. But the instant it stretched out its neck, Chen Ji closed his hand and put the bead away again.
The black cat: "..."
It opened its mouth, wanting to meow, but ultimately couldn't bring itself to set aside its dignity.
In the end, it resumed its aloof posture and silently watched the youth.
Chen Ji tucked the bead into his sleeve and continued strolling toward the well. The black cat followed silently, watching him coldly. A wound on its brow, only suffered last night, made it look a little fiercer.
Chen Ji stood by the well and turned the wooden handle to lower a bucket. Just as he was about to wind it back up, he saw that the black cat had jumped down from the eaves at some point and come to the well, where it was looking up at him.
"You..." Chen Ji thought for a long time, then suddenly asked, "You want this bead, don't you? Here, you can have it."
He opened his hand and held the bead in his palm, no longer deliberately teasing the little cat.
But the black cat merely stood on the well's rim, the right corner of its mouth curling up slightly, seemingly in disdain: I won't fall for your damned trick again!
"Wait, are you mocking me with that expression?" Chen Ji hadn't expected to see such a humanlike expression on a cat... He surveyed the empty street, then finally put the bead on the ground and backed away three meters. "There. Carry it away yourself."
Animals had instincts. They seemed to know naturally what they should and shouldn't eat, and even if they were poisoned, they would find their own antidotes.
Humans lacked such instincts. They dared to eat anything, and even took pleasure in eating poisonous mushrooms...
So Chen Ji wasn't worried that anything would happen if the black cat ate it. He wanted to know why the cat was drawn to it, and what would happen if it swallowed the bead.
The answer to the icy current lay with this black cat.
Beside the well, the black cat approached cautiously, looking at the bead one moment and warily glancing at Chen Ji the next. After a long while, it finally came closer and sniffed at the bead from a short distance away.
"Go on, eat it," Chen Ji said, watching expectantly.
But when the black cat opened its mouth to pick it up, the thin, snakelike wisp of gray mist inside the bead churned violently as if alive, and the cat was pushed away by an invisible force!
"Huh?" Chen Ji was absolutely certain that an invisible force had just burst from the bead and pushed the black cat away!
The little black cat arched its back, no longer daring to approach.
"Why is that?" Chen Ji wondered.
As his words fell, the rapid clatter of hooves sounded in the distance.
Chen Ji turned and saw a carriage approaching from afar, racing toward the medical hall and shattering the tranquil mist. As the carriage passed him, the driver looked anxious. Perhaps something urgent had happened.
When he turned back, the black cat was nowhere to be seen. Only the bead remained, lying quietly on the ground.
When Chen Ji returned to the medical hall, swaying beneath his shoulder pole, the carriage was parked outside. Its two horses were handsome and powerful, their bodies covered in rippling muscle and their manes neatly groomed.
Cranes were carved into the wooden carriage body, their tails extending all the way to the rear in an intricate, exquisite design.
Beside the carriage, She Dengke was helping the driver load some luggage.
Chen Ji went over with the shoulder pole still on his shoulders and asked, "What's going on?"
At that moment, She Dengke's face was alight with irrepressible joy. "Master's going to examine a patient."
"Why are you so happy..."
"Of course I'm happy!" She Dengke lowered his voice. "Master will be gone for at least ten days or half a month. Soon we won't have to endure beatings or scoldings, and he won't be testing our studies either. Aren't you happy? We can even go to the East Market together, or to Red Clothes Alley... If my third brother helps a noble put on a private performance, I can take you all in to watch the opera on the sly. A few days ago, I even heard that the Ma Family Troupe from the opera world was coming back to give a private performance!"
"Whose family is he going to treat?" Chen Ji asked curiously.
She Dengke lowered his voice. "I heard that while the inner court chancellor's Secret Intelligence Directorate was tracking down Jing Dynasty spies, they arrested several members of the Liu Family's younger generation and locked them up in the inner prison. One of them was tortured to death in there. When the Liu Family's old patriarch heard the news, he was so furious that he fainted. Now he's at death's door."
Hearing this, Chen Ji suddenly recalled the faint smile on Cloud Goat's face as he stood outside the Zhou residence. "The Secret Intelligence Directorate has that much power?"
"Of course," She Dengke said. "Old Patriarch Liu's daughter is the reigning empress dowager, and his son is the current minister of personnel. Even with a family background like that, the Secret Intelligence Directorate still arrested them without hesitation. People in the jianghu say the directorate can execute first and report afterward, by imperial authorization."
Chen Ji had a vague sense that something was wrong. No matter how much power the Secret Intelligence Directorate had, surely it shouldn't disregard even the empress dowager and the minister of personnel?
As the two chatted, Old Yao came out of the medical hall, accompanied by a middle-aged man with an imposing bearing.
Old Yao instructed his three apprentices, "While I'm away these next few days, none of you are to take a patient's pulse on your own. If a patient brings a prescription, fill it according to the prescription. Don't weigh the medicine wrong and cost me money. The first thing I'll do when I get back is check the inventory. Whoever dares cost me money will make up the loss!"
Chen Ji's heart jumped. He still hadn't figured out what to do about that old ginseng root. What if Old Yao discovered something amiss when he returned and checked the inventory?
The middle-aged man beside Old Yao said, "Old Master Yao, let's get moving. I'm afraid the family can't wait much longer. Whatever it takes, we must keep him alive until my father returns from the capital to see the old patriarch one last time."
Old Yao nodded. "Let's go."
Liu Quxing went over to help Old Yao into the carriage. It drove away, the horses' hooves clattering crisply against the flagstones.
She Dengke exclaimed in admiration, "How much would it cost to buy a carriage like that?!"
Liu Quxing laughed. "Shows how little you know. See the cranes on that carriage? That design can only be used after my Liu Family has a first-rank official at court and receives it as an imperial reward. In our Great Ning Dynasty, even riding in a sedan chair is beyond a commoner's station. How many heads do you have to risk riding in a carriage like that?"
She Dengke sneered. "You make it sound like you're really a member of the Liu Family!"
Liu Quxing glared at him. "How am I not a member of the Liu Family?"
"Your family is just a distant branch of the Liu Family, so far removed you couldn't reach them with an eight-yard pole. Do they even acknowledge you?" She Dengke retorted. "My family may be poor, but we have backbone. We earn our living on the docks through our own abilities, and we never cling to dragons and phoenixes."
Liu Quxing flew into a rage. "I even went with my parents to Old Patriarch Liu's ninetieth birthday banquet!"
"Yeah, and sat at the servants' table."
"Fuck you!"
Chen Ji watched speechlessly as the two grappled their way into the medical hall. Suddenly, he noticed something amiss. He turned and saw that the little black cat hadn't actually left. It was hiding among the overlapping shadows of the eaves across the street, secretly watching them.