Anxi Street was silent. Moonlight spilled across the bluestone road like a flowing stream, serene and clear.
Chen Ji stood silently inside the door. Cloud Goat, outside, did not hurry him either. Separated by the door, the two simply stood there in silence.
After a long moment of thought, Chen Ji finally took a deep breath and slowly pulled the door open with a creak. "Lord Cloud Goat, what is it?"
Outside stood Cloud Goat, dressed in black. His clothes fit him as neatly as if they had just been pressed, and his hair was gathered tidily atop his head with a hairpin, making him look like the young noblemen often seen in operas.
With the Taiping Medical Hall's high threshold between them, Cloud Goat smiled and asked, "Won't you invite me in to sit for a while?"
Chen Ji shook his head. "There's nowhere inside the medical hall to have tea. Why don't we talk at the door?"
"Oh?" Cloud Goat studied Chen Ji with interest. "Don't you know I'm with the Secret Intelligence Directorate? Didn't Imperial Physician Yao tell you?"
"He did."
Cloud Goat's smile faded. "Then do you know that when someone from the Secret Intelligence Directorate says he wants to sit in someone's home, no one has ever dared refuse? Aren't you afraid of me?"
With that, he stepped over the threshold, walked past Chen Ji as though no one else were there, and headed into the medical hall.
"I am," Chen Ji admitted frankly as he turned around. "But I suggested talking at the door because I know you're in a hurry, and I didn't want to waste your time."
"Oh?" With his hands behind his back, Cloud Goat looked around the medical hall and asked curiously, "Why am I in a hurry?"
Standing in the doorway, Chen Ji looked at Cloud Goat's back. "You arrested members of the Liu Family, causing their old master to collapse from anger. He doesn't have long to live. The Liu Family's grand secretary and minister of personnel is rushing back to Luo City. You must be in a hurry."
Cloud Goat laughed. "Just because the Liu Family sent for Imperial Physician Yao to treat someone, you dare claim to know my situation? I came on the inner minister's orders. What of the Liu Family? Now I suspect you're a Jing Dynasty spy. Come with me to the inner prison."
Chen Ji leaned against the doorframe. "Lord Cloud Goat, why don't we speak frankly? If you had really come to take me to the inner prison, why come yourself? You could have just sent two men."
Cloud Goat turned and stared straight at Chen Ji, studying his resolute expression. "Since you're so clever, you should also know that Imperial Physician Yao isn't here tonight. If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't even need a reason. How dare you lay your cards on the table with me?"
The reason Chen Ji had laid his cards on the table was... just as Cloud Goat had told Zhou Chengyi: when you saw the Secret Intelligence Directorate, you no longer had a choice.
Cooperate or die.
But he had another idea as well.
When Chen Ji said nothing, Cloud Goat spoke unhurriedly. "Since you're a clever man, guess why I've come. If you guess right, it'll prove you still have value."
Chen Ji said, "Everyone says the Secret Intelligence Directorate executes first and reports later, by imperial authority. But there's a condition to that power: you have to execute the right people."
Cloud Goat raised an eyebrow. "Go on."
Chen Ji frowned as he reasoned it out. "There aren't many things that would bring you looking for me in the dead of night, Lord Cloud Goat. It can only be that after arresting those people, you couldn't find the evidence to nail them down. Now Old Master Liu is at death's door. If you can't find evidence proving you were right to arrest them, I'm afraid the inner minister will push you out as scapegoats."
"Very good!" Cloud Goat applauded and spoke frankly. "Bright Rabbit followed the lead you gave her and searched twenty-two Xuan paper shops in Luo City. In the end, she found two whose paper matched the paper in Zhou Chengyi's residence, and both businesses belonged to the Liu Family. But we couldn't find any other evidence in the shops."
Chen Ji quickly asked, "Did you brush vinegar over all the Xuan paper?"
"We did, but no writing appeared."
Puzzled, Chen Ji asked, "If you didn't have evidence, why did you dare arrest them outright?"
Cloud Goat swept his sleeve and sneered. "When the Secret Intelligence Directorate catches Jing Dynasty spies, we've always preferred to kill the wrong person rather than let one go. Let one spy escape, and a hundred soldiers at the front could die, or even more. Three years ago, the autumn grain was being shipped north along the Grand Canal. Because there was a spy among the troops escorting it, twenty-four hundred shi of our Ning Dynasty's grain and fodder went up in flames-enough to feed a thousand soldiers and their horses at the front for a month. Tell me, were the consequences serious or not?"
"But you didn't expect Old Master Liu to be angered to death. If not for him, arresting a few young members of the family would have been no great matter, right?"
For the first time, a helpless expression appeared on Cloud Goat's face. "Who could have guessed the old man's life was as thin as paper? Bright Rabbit is still dealing with the Liu Family, and we need to find evidence."
Chen Ji asked, "When do we leave?"
Cloud Goat stepped over the threshold ahead of him and headed out. "Now!"
"Wait a moment."
"Hm?"
Chen Ji did not move. He simply asked in earnest, "What do I get out of it?"
Cloud Goat stopped and turned. Standing in the moonlight on Anxi Street, he looked at Chen Ji inside the medical hall with a half-smile. "You dare bargain with me?"
Chen Ji did not humble himself before the man's power. He simply said sincerely, "Lord Cloud Goat, you and Bright Rabbit are in a predicament, and it has nothing to do with me. But if I lend a hand, I ought to receive some payment. Just think of me as a worker at a canal transport dock, doing a job for money."
Cloud Goat smiled. He stepped forward and flicked a silver needle into Chen Ji's chest. It was as fine as an ox hair, visible only upon close inspection in the moonlight.
In an instant, the veins in Chen Ji's neck bulged, and unbearable pain shot through his chest, nearly sending him into shock.
Cloud Goat's voice turned cold. "The Secret Intelligence Directorate never haggles with anyone."
Gripping the medical hall's doorframe, Chen Ji gasped, "There have to be exceptions."
Cloud Goat shot back, "Why? Do you think we can't do this without you?"
Chen Ji suddenly braced himself against the doorframe and straightened up, looking Cloud Goat in the eye. "That's right. You can't do it without me."
The world fell silent.
It was as though an immense pressure had descended on Anxi Street, crushing every sound beneath it.
Chen Ji continued, "If you could do without me, Lord Cloud Goat, you wouldn't have come looking for an unknown nobody like me at a time when you're in the eye of the storm."
Were there experts at catching spies in the Secret Intelligence Directorate? Certainly.
But Cloud Goat had also said that they had been transferred to Luo City at short notice. And judging by the way Cloud Goat and Bright Rabbit operated, they did not seem like people who specialized in catching spies. They were more like... killers.
On the day Zhou Chengyi was arrested, neither Cloud Goat nor Bright Rabbit had shown any counterintelligence skills. Their methods of killing, on the other hand, had been exceptionally covert and ruthless.
Now the two had been entrusted with an important task at short notice, only to make a mess big enough to punch a hole in the sky.
They needed someone to help clean it up... a clever person.
Cloud Goat narrowed his eyes. "Even if I need your help this time, aren't you afraid I'll come after you afterward? I suggest you weigh every word you say to me carefully, or the consequences will be more than you can bear."
Chen Ji said, "You'll surely have to deal with many more spies in the future, Lord Cloud Goat. Wherever there are spies, there's merit to be earned. If I help you earn merit, why would you come after me?"
"Oh?" Cloud Goat's eyes lit up.
Of all the things Chen Ji had said, this was the first to truly catch his interest!
"You think you can help me earn merit?" Cloud Goat asked.
Chen Ji said, "I was the one who found the alum at Zhou Chengyi's residence."
"That wasn't much of an achievement," Cloud Goat said, shaking his head.
Chen Ji shook his head too. "No, the achievement I'm talking about isn't Zhou Chengyi. It's that I... no, that you, Lord Cloud Goat, uncovered the method the Jing Dynasty's Military Intelligence Directorate uses to write secret letters. In the past, when the Secret Intelligence Directorate arrested spies and searched their homes, it overlooked this method of screening for secret letters, and that means it missed a great deal of information. If you use this method to go back through them now, you might find an unexpected surprise in their homes."
Cloud Goat's eyes grew brighter and brighter. "That's right! This time the inner minister will know that Bright Rabbit and I..."
He glanced at Chen Ji and abruptly fell silent.
After weighing it over for a moment, Cloud Goat asked, "What kind of reward do you want?"
"Power," Chen Ji said. "I want an official post in the Secret Intelligence Directorate."
Cloud Goat said irritably, "Do you take me for the inner minister? The Secret Intelligence Directorate is the most powerful office under the Directorate of Ceremonial, and its work is the most secretive. To join, you must have three generations of your family investigated by the Bureau of Punishments and reported to the inner minister. No one else can make that decision!"
"Then I want money," Chen Ji said.
He had never truly intended to ask for power, but when a person wanted something, he could not reveal his intentions beforehand. He had to open his mouth like a lion first.
Seeing that Chen Ji was not asking for an official post, Cloud Goat breathed a sigh of relief. "How much do you want?"
"Two thousand taels of silver."
"What?!"
Chen Ji asked, "Can't you pay it?"
Cloud Goat scratched his head. "Do you know my annual salary is only thirty-six taels of silver? And you open your mouth and ask for two thousand?! If you keep being this outrageous, just see whether I stick you again!"
"Does the Secret Intelligence Directorate really live on its salaries alone?" Chen Ji didn't believe it.
Cloud Goat thought for a moment and set aside the effect the prospect of "merit" had had on him. In a tone that brooked no argument, he said, "Every time you earn me merit, I'll give you fifty taels of silver."
"A man as important as you, Lord Cloud Goat, and you're offering only fifty taels?"
"Only fifty taels? Fifty taels is enough to buy twenty maidservants in the West Market! Time is short today, and there's no telling how much longer Bright Rabbit can hold them off. If you delay any longer, I'll kill you. I'll ask you one last time: fifty taels. Do you want it or not?"
"Yes!"
Cloud Goat turned and walked off. "There are three shichen until dawn. You only have three shichen."
"Where are you planning to look for evidence now, Lord Cloud Goat?"
"I'm taking you to the Xuan paper shops. Maybe you can find something there!"
Chen Ji shook his head. "We're not going to the Xuan paper shops. We're going to Zhou Chengyi's residence."
Cloud Goat frowned. "Didn't you already find the alum there last time? What else is there?"
Chen Ji remained silent.
Cloud Goat understood at once. "Wait, you must have found other clues at Zhou Chengyi's residence last time, but you hid them from Bright Rabbit and me!"
"I only kept a few cards up my sleeve to protect myself. Please forgive me, Lord Cloud Goat." Chen Ji had never been one to let himself be captured without a fight. When killing someone, even with a knife buried in his waist, he would still bite a chunk of flesh from his enemy's neck.
Cloud Goat sucked in a sharp breath. "What am I supposed to do? I'm starting to think more and more that you're a Jing Dynasty spy."
"Would a Jing Dynasty spy help you catch spies, my lord?"
Cloud Goat pressed two fingers to his tongue and gave a clear whistle. A fine horse came galloping around the corner of Anxi Street.
He swung into the saddle and pulled Chen Ji up behind him. "Hold on tight!"
The horse's hooves, wrapped in coarse cloth, thudded against the bluestone road as it galloped headlong into the thin mist of the early morning.
No one noticed the little black cat that had been hiding in the shadows on the eaves of a rooftop overlooking the street all along.
As they left, the cat leaped lightly across the gray tiles of the roof and followed in pursuit.