Qingshan

Chapter 74 : Chapter 74

Chapter 74: Jianghu

The colors of Red Cloth Lane burned vivid under the night sky.

From one end of the lane to the other, lanterns and festoons hung thick, as though every night were a wedding feast, every evening a drowning of sorrows in wine, every balcony alive with beckoning red sleeves.

Jin Fang had earned its fame by gilding every pillar in gold leaf and gold dust against that sea of crimson. Inside, the coffered ceiling of its Thousand Autumns Pavilion was studded with gemstones -- resplendent in gold and jade, dazzling beyond measure.

Such extravagance was commonplace in Jinling. In Luocheng, Jin Fang stood alone.

In a corner outside Red Cloth Lane, Dark Cloud melted into the darkness. Chen Ji's hands found the wall's edge, and with the lightest effort he launched himself upward, landing firmly on top.

Another light leap. His hands caught the protruding eaves of the building above, and he swung himself onto the roof.

His injured right leg was useless for climbing, but with twenty-six furnaces now lit within him, arm strength alone was more than enough.

Chen Ji crouched low and quietly surveyed his surroundings. Below, people flowed like a river through the streets. Above, the grey hip-roofed buildings rose and fell like an undulating range of hills.

Ridgelines ran like mountain spines -- the side facing Red Cloth Lane bathed in light, the other side lost in shadow.

Once certain he was alone, Chen Ji moved along the dark side of the rooftops, treading lightly on the grey tiles, careful not to alert anyone below. Fortunately, Red Cloth Lane was already loud enough that his faint footsteps were nothing.

As he walked, his gaze passed over the ridgeline and down into the lane below.

Chen Ji on the grey tiles walked through the night. Baili and the Heir walked through the lamplight of Red Cloth Lane. The two paths ran parallel, as though they would never intersect.

He tracked their movements, wanting to see where the Heir was headed. In his mind, only one thought: please, not Jin Fang. It would be dangerous there.

A street vendor passed with a carrying pole, and Princess Baili paused to pick out a compartmented snack box -- tidbits dressed in malt sugar and plum sauce, eaten with bamboo skewers as she walked.

Amid the crowds and the crimson glow, Baili and the Heir were both dressed in white, like two pieces of jade hidden in a muddy current, impossible not to notice.

The next moment, Chen Ji heard tiles shifting both ahead of and behind him.

He spun around. Two black-clad figures with long sabers at their hips had climbed up via ladders from below.

On the desolate rooftop, Chen Ji froze. The two men in black froze as well.

These operatives -- whether from the Secret Spy Division or the Military Intelligence Division, he couldn't tell -- had climbed up intending to watch Red Cloth Lane from above, scouting and keeping lookout... and had run straight into Chen Ji.

In an instant, both men drew their blades without a sound and closed in from front and back, boots crunching on the slanted grey tiles.

Chen Ji cursed his luck. When he'd first climbed up, he had worried someone might have the same idea, which was precisely why he'd confirmed the roof was empty before ascending.

He'd even wondered at the time -- how could such an excellent vantage point be left unoccupied? The Military Intelligence Division and the Secret Spy Division had dreadful tactical awareness when it came to small-area battlefield positioning.

As it turned out, they hadn't overlooked the spot. They had simply arrived late.

Below, in the sea of red, music and laughter carried on. Above, in the darkness, killing intent crackled between them. None of the three called out -- all seemed equally afraid of being discovered.

Chen Ji broke into a run. He forced himself to ignore the pain in his leg, to move like a man with no injury, to break out of the pincer before the two men could close their trap.

But these two were battle-hardened. Reading his intent, they immediately adjusted their lines of approach, coordinating front and rear to seal off his escape.

The rooftop was only so wide. Chen Ji had nowhere to retreat, unless he jumped.

He stood at the edge of the eaves and looked down at the six-meter drop. Then he thought about his injured leg. After a moment's deliberation, he stepped back.

In that instant of hesitation, both operatives closed the distance. They swung their sabers in unison, a horizontal scissoring cut -- the long blades gleaming with reflected red light from the lane below.

In the space of a breath, the saber instincts carved into Chen Ji's very bones surged awake, as though the ringing of hammer on steel had burst forth in his chest. He slashed twice in a flash of lightning -- one forward, one back.

He was faster than both of them. His blade moved second but arrived first. The arcs of his slashes were like a white deer gliding through the forest -- effortless, natural, seamless.

Two ringing clashes of steel on steel, swallowed by the din of Red Cloth Lane below. One operative's forged-steel saber snapped clean in two, the broken half clattering onto the slanted tiles and sliding down into a dark courtyard behind the building. The other man's blade didn't break, but the impact wrenched it from his grip.

Chen Ji froze. Both operatives froze again.

All three pairs of eyes contracted.

Gold Inlay.

Chen Ji had once asked Fenghuai what the technique was called -- the one that struck the blade and left his wrist aching. Fenghuai had answered: Gold Inlay. A technique that uses precise force to find the weak point and snap the blade. If not for Whale's unique material, it would have broken long ago.

And now, a clinic apprentice who should have been scrambling for his life under a two-man assault had, through sheer honed instinct, used a short herb-cutting knife from the clinic to snap one blade and send the other flying. Had Chen Ji not been slightly rusty -- this being his first time using Gold Inlay against a real opponent -- both sabers would have broken.

The two operatives exchanged a glance. Tonight felt wrong. Running into a swordsman of this caliber on a deserted rooftop was one thing -- but why had he tried to flee, and why did he look even more shocked than they were?

What they didn't know was that when Chen Ji sparred with Fenghuai, he always felt outmatched -- unable to find a single opening, constantly being overpowered. Fighting Fenghuai left him with a creeping sense of futile despair, even wondering whether he had any talent for the blade at all.

But the moment he faced opponents other than Fenghuai, everything changed.

The two men looked down at the broken edge of the snapped blade, and a flicker of fear rose in their chests. But having come this far, there was no retreating.

They drew on the iron will forged in the bitter cold of their homeland, cast aside their broken weapons in unison, and pulled daggers from their belts.

Their coordination was seamless -- one feinting, one pressing, one false, one real -- cutting off every possible escape route.

Yet Chen Ji suddenly realized that compared to Fenghuai, these two were riddled with openings.

When both daggers thrust at him from front and back in the same heartbeat, Chen Ji shifted his body just slightly, slipping between the two trajectories. His left hand clamped onto one man's wrist like an iron vise, locking the dagger in place so it couldn't be withdrawn.

His right hand flicked upward, and the blade's edge severed the other man's wrist tendons. The dagger clattered onto the grey tiles and rolled off the eaves into the courtyard below.

The man whose tendons were cut retreated rapidly.

Chen Ji hauled the other operative by the wrist like a puppet, staying tight on the retreating man's heels, his body driving the blade forward. The short knife punched into the man's heart, spleen, liver -- one thrust after another. The final cut raked across his throat.

The second operative, wrist still locked in Chen Ji's grip, could only stumble along behind. He watched helplessly as his comrade was stabbed again and again, unable to even keep his footing.

Before he could think of a way to break free, the cold glint of the blade reversed, slicing across his throat under the moonlight.

A fine mist of blood sprayed onto Chen Ji's charcoal-dusted face. He slowly released his grip and let the man sink to his knees and collapse.

Chen Ji searched the bodies. He knew Jinzhu's agents all carried a copper whistle that could mimic bird calls to relay signals, but neither man had one.

These were Shopkeeper Yuan's men.

...

...

The wound on his leg throbbed. He hadn't felt it during the fight, but now Chen Ji realized the struggle had torn open the old injury.

He wiped the blood from his hands, trying to keep his grip on the blade from slipping. It was no use.

He tore a strip from the hem of his robe and wound it around his hand. When he raised his head again, his gaze crossed the ridgeline and dropped into Red Cloth Lane -- at some point, several jianghu types had gathered around the Heir and Baili, chatting amiably.

He watched as Princess Baili and the Heir walked right up to Jin Fang's entrance. Yan'er stepped out from within, smiling, and welcomed them inside.

Just as he'd feared. Jin Fang.

Chen Ji sighed inwardly and stood in silence on the rooftop, rapidly scanning his surroundings.

He couldn't afford to worry about the Heir and Baili anymore. He had to find Shopkeeper Yuan, and fast.

Down in Red Cloth Lane, more and more people were entering Jin Fang, but Shopkeeper Yuan's figure was nowhere to be seen. Had he not come, or was he already inside?

Wait.

Chen Ji saw figures massing in the darkness beyond Red Cloth Lane. Over a hundred agents with long sabers at their hips split into two columns and advanced from both ends of the lane, closing the net. Among them, Jinzhu had donned a suit of light armor, his usual affable smile gone, looking more like a general of the Palace Guard.

Further out, Chen Ji could make out five hundred mounted Trouble-Solver Guards, their horses' hooves wrapped in burlap, every rider in a bamboo hat and straw cloak, standing in silent formation with spears at the ready in the darkness beyond the lane.

The man at the head rested his saber across his saddle, immovable as a mountain.

Lin Chaoqing.

Lin Chaoqing was here too.

Chen Ji marveled at Jinzhu's caution. The man had barely picked up the trail from the Crafts Supervisory, and he had already gone so far as to cooperate with the Chief Punishment Division, calling in the Trouble-Solver Guards all the way from Mengjin Camp.

At the mouth of Red Cloth Lane, Lin Chaoqing sat his horse and said coolly, "The Twelve Zodiacs of the Secret Spy Division are all reckless hotheads. Last time, Jiaotu and Yunyang called in the Trouble-Solver Guards and landed themselves in prison. I wonder what fate awaits you this time, Lord Jinzhu?"

Jinzhu snickered. "Can you really compare me to them? I've actually found the Jing Dynasty's agents. And not just foreign spies -- I've found a traitor too."

"Oh? You certainly kept that close to the chest, Lord Jinzhu -- not a hint beforehand." Lin Chaoqing's tone was mocking. "After arriving at my Mengjin Camp, you spent every day hollering for Yellow River carp, ordering my Trouble-Solver Guards to go fishing for you. I thought all you cared about was eating. With Jiaotu and Yunyang's blunder fresh in memory, unless you tell me exactly what we're doing tonight, my Trouble-Solver Guards won't lift a finger."

Jinzhu smiled. "No need for harsh words, Commander Lin. You oversee the Chief Punishment Division for Yuzhou, so naturally I owe you an explanation for calling in the Trouble-Solver Guards. Tell me, Commander -- what do you think Jing Dynasty spies want most from our Ning Dynasty?"

"Troop formation maps. Court secrets. Firearms."

"Exactly. Zhou Chengyi spent years trying to turn officials inside the Crafts Supervisory, which proves their primary target has always been firearms. So after I arrived in Luocheng, the first thing I did was monitor every sale of saltpeter and sulfur. The second was to audit the Crafts Supervisory's inventory and ledgers. A few days ago, I found that the stored firearms didn't match the account books, and several blueprint sheets were missing. I followed the trail and arrested six people -- some from the Canal Gang, some from the Crafts Supervisory. Ultimately, I traced the missing firearms to this place. Red Cloth Lane."

Lin Chaoqing frowned. "Red Cloth Lane has dozens of pleasure houses, and every one of them has powerful backers. Which house? Surely you don't expect the Trouble-Solver Guards to raid them all?"

Jinzhu snickered again. "Earlier, I set a trap and captured twelve agents alive at the Chao Cang Gambling Den. Eleven swallowed poison and died. The last one defected and told me he'd once been sent by the Military Intelligence Division's Officer to collect a shipment from Jin Fang. By rights, the Jing Dynasty's spies shouldn't be foolish enough to use the same location twice, so at first I only posted a few agents to watch the place -- a long shot, a move played on a whim. But then, today, another suspicious delivery was spotted going into Jin Fang. And I caught it."

Lin Chaoqing raised no further objections. He knew Jinzhu was the Inner Minister's most trusted operative, a man with distinguished service. The reason Jinzhu remained among the Bottom Nine Zodiacs was not for lack of ability -- it was because his relationship with Heavenly Horse was too close, and the Inner Minister refused to allow members of the Top Three to be that tightly bonded.

Some speculated that if Sick Tiger ever stepped down in the coming years, Jinzhu might fill the vacancy.

But Lin Chaoqing knew that given the Inner Minister's temperament, as long as Heavenly Horse lived, Jinzhu would never get the chance.

After a moment's thought, he said, "Lord Jinzhu, the Trouble-Solver Guards are at your disposal tonight. Just don't make any mistakes."

"That's all I needed to hear." Jinzhu flashed a series of hand signals to his agents.

A dense swarm of operatives poured into Red Cloth Lane, and chaos erupted. Patrons came stumbling out of one tavern and pleasure house after another, fleeing in panic, terrified of being caught up in the affair.

They tried to escape the lane, only to find the Trouble-Solver Guard cavalry blocking both the north and south entrances. There was nowhere to go.

From the rooftop, Chen Ji suddenly saw the Heir, Baili, and those jianghu swordsmen come running out of Jin Fang as well. Finding both exits sealed, they ducked straight into the tavern across from Jin Fang -- directly beneath Chen Ji's feet -- hoping to cut through its main hall and escape over the back courtyard wall.

Six agents spotted their attempt and immediately abandoned their other quarry, drawing sabers and chasing them into the tavern.

Chen Ji stood at the eaves and peered down. Below, the jianghu swordsmen had made it to the back courtyard. With a casual leap, they cleared the two-meter wall.

The Heir shouted over the wall after them: "Hey! Give us a hand! Help us get over!"

The swordsmen paused. One vaulted onto the wall and reached down. "Grab my hand, I'll pull you up."

But before the Heir could take his hand, the six agents burst into the courtyard, sabers drawn...

"Go!"

In the next instant, the jianghu swordsmen abandoned the Heir and Baili, turned, and disappeared into the dark alley beyond the wall without a trace.

Chen Ji frowned. Something about this felt wrong.

If the Heir had come here simply for entertainment, all he needed to do was stay put and wait for the Secret Spy Division to conduct their sweep.

Once the investigation cleared him, an innocent man would walk free.

Why risk fleeing?