Outside the Zhou residence, shouts and firelight roiled. Inside, more than ten of the secret agents' warhorses were tethered to trees in the courtyard, stamping their hooves uneasily as the commotion disturbed them.
Someone shoved hard against the Zhou residence's front gate. The barred doors shook and rumbled.
Cloud Goat looked at Chen Ji. "The Liu family may break through the gate in less than fifteen minutes. No one can guarantee what will happen then. Can you find the evidence within fifteen minutes?"
Fifteen minutes again.
Chen Ji asked himself whether he could really decipher the secret of the book in fifteen minutes. Impossible.
His face was hidden beneath a gray cloth. After lowering his head in thought for a moment, he replied, "Fifteen minutes won't do. I need at least..."
Outside the Zhou residence, someone bellowed, interrupting his thoughts. "Listen up, you people inside! Come out at once and give us an explanation! If you have evidence, bring it out! If you don't, make the killer pay with their life!"
Cloud Goat tucked the hem of his robe into his belt, casually drew a long saber from the waist of a secret agent beside him, and headed for the gate. "Seven Bamboo, Five Circles, guard the gate for me! Bright Rabbit, watch the back wall. Anyone who dares break in is to be treated as a rebel and killed without mercy! Chen Ji, you have fifteen minutes to find the evidence, or we'll die here together!"
Chen Ji hesitated no longer. He turned, went into the room, and shut the door, sealing out the noise.
He opened the copy of the "Chapter and Verse Commentaries on the Four Books" that Zhou Chengyi had transcribed and quickly checked it against every ancient method of secret correspondence he could remember, trying to see which one had been used to convey information.
Was it the hidden-character method? No.
Character verification? No...
Could it be the character-dissection method?
The so-called "character-dissection method" hid information by, for example, breaking the character 董 into qian li cao, or Zhuo into shi ri bu.
If it was character dissection, that would be trouble. It wasn't hard to crack, but it involved an enormous amount of work. There was no way to decipher it without several days!
Time slipped by, minute by minute, second by second. The Zhou residence's gate could be pushed down by the furious crowd at any moment, and on this cool autumn day, fine beads of sweat appeared on Chen Ji's forehead.
It wasn't character dissection. Chen Ji had searched for ages without finding a single clue that fit the method!
What should he do?
Chen Ji closed the book and shut his eyes in thought...
Wait!
The answer to a problem often wasn't in the problem itself!
A flash of inspiration struck Chen Ji. He turned back to the shelves and rummaged through them again. One book, two books, three... The more books he looked through, the brighter his eyes became.
By then, the noise outside had gradually died down. The stillness after the clamor felt eerie.
Someone called loudly through the gate, "Liu Mingxian of the Liu family requests that Lord Cloud Goat open the gate and meet with him."
The secret agents silently looked at Cloud Goat.
Bright Rabbit said quietly, "Liu Mingxian, Elder Liu's son and Old Master Liu's grandson. He currently manages the Liu family's second branch and serves as Luo City's assistant prefect, Subordinate Fifth Rank."
Cloud Goat considered it for a moment, then tossed the long saber to a secret agent. "Open the gate. We can't let the Secret Intelligence Directorate lose face!"
With a creak, the vermilion gates slowly swung inward. Outside, several hundred people stood waiting quietly with torches in hand.
Liu Mingxian sat on horseback amid the crowd, like a crane among chickens.
He wore white mourning hemp and a mourning cap, and his eyes were red-rimmed. Even the brown horse beneath him had a white silk flower tied to its chest.
Cloud Goat walked forward and stopped just inside the threshold. "Lord Liu, you've gathered hundreds of people in the dead of night to lay siege to the Secret Intelligence Directorate. Are you plotting rebellion?"
"I wouldn't dare." Liu Mingxian's voice was hoarse as he gripped the reins tightly. "We've only come to ask Lord Cloud Goat why you arrested a member of my Liu family for no reason. Do you have evidence?"
"Of course we do!" Cloud Goat said confidently.
"Then bring it out and let us see. If a member of my Liu family really is guilty, you may deal with him as you please!"
Cloud Goat shook his head. "I can't show it to you yet. This matter involves secrets and must be presented to the Lord Inner Chancellor."
Liu Mingxian urged his horse forward, confronting Cloud Goat across the gate. "Then you have no evidence!" he said angrily. "If I let you dismiss me like this, where would that leave the honor of my Liu family, whose members have served as high officials for generations? How could the old master rest in peace? And how could I answer to the empress dowager?"
"Lord Liu, I advise you not to burden yourself with the grave crime of rebellion." Unwilling to deal with him any longer, Cloud Goat retreated step by step into the shadows of the Zhou residence. "Close the gate. If anyone dares set foot inside the Zhou residence, they will all be punished as rebels!"
The gate closed again. Liu Mingxian's face looked somewhat vicious in the flickering torchlight. "The eunuch faction brings disaster to the country. They're nothing but the Poison Chancellor's hounds... Send for Liang Gou'er. Be ready to break down the gate at any moment."
A young man hesitated. "Second Uncle, Liang Gou'er was drinking in Red Clothes Alley tonight. He might already be asleep in some girl's room by now... Do we need to call on him?"
Liu Mingxian sneered. "You raise soldiers for a thousand days to use them for a single moment. Tell him to get here at once with that battered saber of his. If I don't see him shortly, I'll cut off his drinking money, then cut off the medicinal ingredients he uses for cultivation. You there, fetch firewood and pile it against the base of the Zhou residence's walls. We'll set it alight later and force them out!"
Cloud Goat hurried back, no longer as composed as before. "Bright Rabbit, they intend to kill us!"
Bright Rabbit blinked. "Liu Mingxian wants to rebel?"
Cloud Goat sighed. "He didn't bring Luo City's troops tonight, so he's plainly treating this as a family matter. If he's dead set on avenging his grandfather, he might be exiled afterward, but you and I will have died for nothing. This sort of thing can be made serious or trivial. Isn't it up to the gentlemen at court to decide what to call it with a single word? The civil officials are stealing the country! No wonder Jinzhu said this assignment's merit was a little too hot to handle when we left the capital. He really was the shrewd one..."
Bright Rabbit blinked again. "Then what do we do? Let's run while they haven't surrounded the back wall yet."
Cloud Goat hesitated. "If we just run away, where will that leave the authority of my Secret Intelligence Directorate?"
Bright Rabbit rolled her eyes. "Then I'll run by myself."
Cloud Goat said, "Let's run together!"
"But there's a problem." Bright Rabbit smiled at Chen Ji. "What about him? The secret agents can all fight their way out, but if there's an expert hidden among the Liu family's people, he'll be a burden."
The two exchanged a glance, then both looked at Chen Ji.
Cloud Goat picked up the two copies of the "Chapter and Verse Commentaries on the Four Books" on the table, his face expressionless. "Leave him here. We already have the books. Someone in the Secret Intelligence Directorate will be able to decipher them."
Bright Rabbit said, "We have to kill the boy. Otherwise, if he falls into the Liu family's hands, they'll know we have no evidence. He'll become a witness."
These two, as venomous as snakes and scorpions, turned hostile faster than one could turn a page. They had already decided to abandon Chen Ji. Bright Rabbit gestured to the secret agents, and more than ten of them silently sheathed their sabers and retreated swiftly toward the back wall, abandoning even their warhorses.
Cloud Goat and Bright Rabbit had expected Chen Ji to cry and beg them to take him along, but he did no such thing.
Chen Ji stood before the shelves, taking down one book after another and quickly leafing through them, as though he had not heard Cloud Goat and Bright Rabbit's conversation.
He did not examine each book closely. He mostly gave them a cursory look before tossing them onto the floor, as though searching for something specific.
A thick layer of books lay at Chen Ji's feet, almost burying him to his knees.
Finally, he tossed all the books onto the floor and fell into thought.
Just as Bright Rabbit was about to kill him to silence him, Chen Ji suddenly asked, "Don't you two want to find proof that a member of the Liu family colluded with the enemy anymore?"
Chen Ji closed the book in his hands and stepped out of the pile of books.
Cloud Goat and Bright Rabbit exchanged looks. Bright Rabbit asked curiously, "Why do I feel like he's a little different from that night?"
"He is different."
"Huh?" Bright Rabbit tilted her head and studied Chen Ji. "Did you crack the secret in that book?"
Chen Ji said confidently, "I already know where the evidence of a Liu family member's collusion with the enemy is."
Cloud Goat frowned. "You're not lying to make us take you with us when we escape, are you?"
Chen Ji said, "I'm just a lowly apprentice at a medical clinic. Even if I tricked you into taking me out, wouldn't you still kill me?"
Cloud Goat looked at him with the suggestion of a smile. "Then tell us where the evidence is."
Chen Ji tightened the gray cloth covering his face and calmly laid out his analysis. "Tonight's struggle is between the imperial in-laws' faction and the Directorate of Ceremonial. The Inner Chancellor knew perfectly well that you weren't good at handling this sort of situation, but he didn't send someone more tactful and worldly. He wanted to use your personalities as a blade to strike at the Liu family. If you two run away without finding evidence, I'm afraid you won't escape punishment when you return to the Directorate of Ceremonial, will you?"
"Threatening me?" Cloud Goat narrowed his eyes.
"Lord Cloud Goat, even if I told you where the evidence was right now, I'm afraid you still wouldn't know how to find it without me," Chen Ji replied.
Meanwhile, Bright Rabbit had made her decision. She called a secret agent over. "Seven Characters, take him with you and keep him alive!"
The group retreated toward the Zhou residence's back wall. Bright Rabbit nimbly vaulted over it first and kept watch outside. "No one here. Quick!" she called.
Only then did Cloud Goat stand at the foot of the wall and form a step with his hands, helping the secret agents up onto the gray tiles atop the wall one by one.
When it was Chen Ji's turn, he planted his left foot on Cloud Goat's hands, then suddenly paused and said seriously, "Lord Cloud Goat, the merit this time will be greater than you can imagine."
Cloud Goat sneered. "You're deliberately trying to stand on me a little longer, aren't you? You really think I can't tell? Get the hell over there!"
With that, he heaved with both hands and sent Chen Ji up onto the wall.
But just after all of them had climbed over, they saw a group of Liu family members carrying armfuls of dry firewood, preparing to set the Zhou residence ablaze. When the Liu family members saw the Secret Intelligence Directorate's people, they roared, "Come quickly! They're escaping out the back!"
The Secret Intelligence Directorate's people did not linger to fight. They quickly made their way through Luo City's deep alleys. Cloud Goat lowered his voice and asked, "Where do we go to find the evidence now?"
Chen Ji asked, "What was the name of the provincial graduate who died in the inner prison?"
"Liu Shiyu!"
"His house first!"
Chen Ji followed the secret agents, racing through Luo City's streets.
The cool night wind wandered along Luo City's bluestone streets, making everyone's robes flutter and their hair fly loose.
Night lay ahead, and cries of battle sounded behind him. At one point, Chen Ji felt as though he too had become a wanderer with no way home in this jianghu.