General Wang asked in a grave voice, "Miss Chunhua, did you find anything?"
Chunhua held back a sob. "No..."
She turned around, her eyes red, and looked at She Dengke in disbelief. There was some puzzlement in his eyes, but also some relief.
General Wang looked at Chunhua, then at She Dengke, his voice growing colder. "Miss Chunhua, next time, I hope you'll have solid evidence before summoning us. We of the Thousand-Year Army are the prince's guards, not petty constables who go looking for lost chickens and dogs. Let's go."
The guards were about to leave when Old Yao unexpectedly blocked their path. "Apologize," he said casually.
General Wang fell silent for a moment, then turned to Chen Ji. "My apologies. I've offended you!"
Chen Ji said slowly, "Sorry to trouble you, General Wang, but please clear my name at the door. Otherwise, the neighbors won't have anything to do with me from now on."
General Wang shook his head. "I can't do that. Let's go!"
The estate guards left as quickly as they had come. Chunhua looked at She Dengke as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, her eyes reddened and she turned to leave. "You're going to get me killed!"
"Wait!" Chen Ji said.
Chunhua stopped and turned to look at Chen Ji, a hint of fear in her voice. "What are you going to do? I didn't want to do it either, but I had no choice."
"A word in private."
Chen Ji led Chunhua to the door and said softly, "When you go back, sorry to trouble you, but please tell Consort Jing that she and I never needed to become enemies. I didn't kill Liu Shiyu, and neither did the Secret Intelligence Directorate. The Liu Family killed him to silence him. Since I was able to help her find the lead-barium glass cup last time, I can help her get her revenge this time. Go back. Once you've passed that message along, you should be all right."
Chunhua froze for a moment, then turned and left.
Chen Ji stood in front of the medical hall, listening to the chatter around him as he watched Chunhua walk away.
The sun sank in the west, its orange-red light fading from him little by little until night enveloped him.
The Secret Intelligence Directorate, the Military Intelligence Directorate, Consort Jing, Consort Yun-every one of them was a behemoth in this world, seemingly capable of crushing him to death with a lift of the hand.
Chen Ji's fate was not in his own hands. Having only just arrived, he could do nothing but survive in the cracks between them.
But now there was a chessboard before him too. He gently placed a piece in the "spring corner" at its edge. It might not decide victory or defeat, but he had always taken the unorthodox path when playing chess, never making an ordinary move.
He returned to the medical hall and found Old Yao glaring at She Dengke. "Think your wings are strong enough to fly now? Kneel!"
She Dengke obediently knelt on the floor, crying with snot and tears streaming down his face. "Master, I didn't expect this either. Chunhua said Consort Jing made her do it, or she'd kill her tonight. Chunhua told me all we had to do was hide a pearl in Chen Ji's clothes and get him kicked out of the Imperial Medical Hall. She brought out the savings she'd put aside over many years and said they were to compensate Chen Ji, so he could start a small business after leaving the medical hall."
As he spoke, She Dengke took three silver ingots from his robes, along with two silver hairpins, two silver bracelets, and thirty-six copper coins.
Old Yao turned to Chen Ji. "This concerns you. What do you say?"
Chen Ji stood in silence.
Chunhua could have given him ten taels of silver, fifty taels, or five hundred taels, but what she had given him was precisely thirty taels and thirty-six copper coins, because that was all she had.
But could he forgive her? He couldn't.
He knew that in this age, a girl like Chunhua had no choice. If she refused, Consort Jing really would kill her.
But if he had actually been framed, would his fate have been as simple as being kicked out of the Imperial Medical Hall? No, Chunrong would surely have brought her strong servants and beaten him to death with staves.
He had thought he could treat the medical hall as his home and his fellow apprentices as his family, but reality never unfolded the way one expected.
The most fucking wretched thing about this world was that it wouldn't spare you just because you were a good person.
Chen Ji wasn't a good person either.
He picked up the silver, bracelets, hairpins, and copper coins from the floor. "I'll take these, but Senior Brother She, you and Chunhua each owe me a life. Whenever I tell you to repay me, you'll have to do it. Agreed?"
She Dengke nodded frantically. "Agreed! Agreed!"
Chen Ji turned and went back to the medical hall's main room. Liu Quxing watched him leave, wanting to speak but stopping short, feeling that nothing he said now would do any good.
Old Yao looked down at the kneeling She Dengke. "You fool, bewitched by a woman! Go kneel inside, and stop being an eyesore here. Chen Ji may not pursue this, but if anything like this happens again, there'll be no room for you in this medical hall."
That night, Taiping Medical Hall grew quiet, as though nothing had happened during the day.
Chen Ji stood behind the counter, his chin propped on his hand.
Dark Cloud emerged from the shadows, hopped lightly onto the counter, and sat down, then spat a perfectly round pearl into Chen Ji's palm.
Dark Cloud meowed. "Don't be sad. Don't be angry."
Chen Ji hid the pearl in his sleeve. "I'm not sad, and I'm not angry. Sadness and anger are useless emotions for the weak... Let's talk about something cheerful. Let's tally things up!"
"I've lit sixteen furnace fires in total now. I feel like I could take on a secret agent without any trouble. When those estate guards had me pinned down today, I felt I could have broken free of them. I wonder how many furnace fires I'd have to light to beat a section officer, Lin Chaoqing, Cloud Goat, or Bright Rabbit..."
"We can't sell the pearl yet. We'll dispose of it when we go to another city. Earlier, we bought six ginseng roots at the Hundred Deer Pavilion. We gave one back to Old Yao, and the other five cost a total of 195 taels of silver... Counting the fifty taels under the bed and the money Chunhua gave me as compensation, we have eighty-five taels of silver and 121 copper coins left."
Dark Cloud was puzzled. "How many roast chickens can that buy?"
Chen Ji spent a long time trying to work it out, but still couldn't. "...Anyway, a lot! When I bought the ginseng, that section officer really didn't give me any discount at all. Say, should I find a way to become the Military Intelligence Directorate's Gyrfalcon in Luo City and take over as shopkeeper of the Hundred Deer Pavilion? I studied traditional medicine, so it's right in my line of work..."
If he could take charge of the Hundred Deer Pavilion, even if he didn't embezzle anything, he could still buy ginseng at wholesale prices, couldn't he?!
Just then, Dark Cloud pricked up his ears. He heard faint but uneven footsteps outside the door: several people were approaching the medical hall.
"Chen Ji, someone's coming! Several people!"
"Whew." Chen Ji blew out the oil lamp and quietly went behind the door to listen.
Who could it be?
The Ning Dynasty's Secret Intelligence Directorate, or the Jing Dynasty's Military Intelligence Directorate? Or had Consort Jing refused to give up and sent more people to kill me?
This was the predicament of having multiple identities. When someone came to ambush him, Chen Ji couldn't even tell who had sent them.
But before he could think it through, a voice came from the back courtyard. "Hurry up, and be quieter!"
Chen Ji whipped around and looked down the corridor between the main room and the back courtyard, just in time to see a tall figure climb into the courtyard!
I'm surrounded!
He gestured for Dark Cloud to hide in the shadows, then pulled a short medicine-cutting knife from behind the counter and crept over to attack.
A light sweat broke out on Chen Ji's palm. With more than ten people closing in from front and back, such a large-scale attack was far beyond what he could handle.
But before he reached the back courtyard, he saw a little monk climb onto the wall separating the medical hall from the prince's estate!
The little monk's head gleamed in the moonlight as he grunted and struggled to climb over the courtyard wall. Chen Ji took a closer look at the one who had already come over. Wasn't he the heir of Prince Jing's Estate, who had ridden out in fine clothes on a spirited horse that day?
As he stood there astonished, a voice came from Anxi Street outside the medical hall. "Everyone, please be patient. The heir will be out shortly!"
Chen Ji looked back at the front door, then at the heir and the little monk in the courtyard, and at the person now climbing over the wall... Commandery Princess Bai Li.
Chen Ji: Huh?
In the middle of the night, he had thought Consort Jing had sent more than ten people to assassinate him. He hadn't expected it to be a false alarm.
Chen Ji slapped the little monk on his bald head. "Hey, what are you doing?" he asked irritably.
The little monk and the heir jumped at his words. Commandery Princess Bai Li, who was climbing over the wall, hurriedly ducked her head back down. Only after a moment did she furtively poke it up again to peer into the medical hall's back courtyard.
In the moonlight, Chen Ji held a knife, the slender young woman clung to the wall, and the heir and the little monk looked as guilty as thieves. None of them had expected to meet like this.
It was like the beginning of every story, when people met and caught one another a little off guard.
Chen Ji raised an eyebrow. "Heir, isn't it a bit improper to be climbing over someone else's courtyard wall in the middle of the night?"
The heir was puzzled. "You know me?"
Chen Ji sneered. "I do. I even held you when you were little."
The heir: "..."
Zhu Baili, clinging to the top of the wall, burst out laughing. "Brother, he's making fun of you."
"Keep it down," the heir whispered sharply. "Don't bring the guards over!"
The heir wasn't angry with the medical hall apprentice before him. Grinning, he came over and tried to put an arm around Chen Ji's shoulders, but when he saw the short knife in Chen Ji's hand, he sheepishly retreated. "Here's the thing, little brother. You know who we are. The estate has a curfew at night, and we're not allowed to come and go freely, so we're just borrowing a route through your medical hall. Don't worry, we definitely won't damage any property!"
A curfew at the estate? Chen Ji hadn't heard of one, but considering what the heir had said during the day about "the old man keeping a tight rein," perhaps this curfew was meant specifically for the heir and the commandery princess.
That was why they had climbed over the medical hall's wall instead of using the estate's front gate.
As he pondered this, the little monk studied Chen Ji in the moonlight, and his eyes lit up. "It's you! Are you at this medical hall?"
The heir was puzzled. He asked quietly, "You know each other?"
The little monk smiled. "Yes, we met during the day. He's very capable. I originally wanted to ask him for advice, but he disappeared into the crowd."