gnovel Chapter 075: Acting in Accordance with the Law
Chapter 075: Acting in Accordance with the Law
"Who?"
Xin Qizong did not answer. He took out a copper coin from his pocket and placed it on the stone steps at the entrance of the alley. The coin was old and missing a corner.
"Take this. Tomorrow at noon, a carriage from the Cining Palace will pass by the main gate of the Dali Temple."
The people inside the carriage will see this copper coin and let you on. They'll tell you what to do once you're on.
Xiao Bieli looked down at the copper coin with a missing corner.
He had seen this coin before. In the tenth year of the Shaoxing era, the monk Zhijia distributed one to each vanguard officer outside the camp gate.
He sheathed the knife and bent down to pick up the copper coin.
The moment he straightened up, Xin Qizong's expression suddenly changed.
Xiao Bieli was a fraction faster than him, having already drawn his sword and turned around.
At the end of the alley stood an old man in a gray cotton robe, thin as a rake, holding a lantern whose flame had been extinguished.
Behind the old man stood two rows of people, six in each row, all in civilian clothes, each with an iron ruler hanging from their waist.
An official from the Imperial City Guard.
"Xiao Bieli." The old man's voice was very calm. "I have been living in seclusion by the river for five years. I have not practiced swordsmanship or archery. I only do one thing every day: ponder people."
"I'm figuring out where you guys who've come back from the battlefield are hiding, how to contact you, and when you'll lose your composure."
He took half a step forward and hung the lantern on a nail on the wall at the entrance of the alley.
The lanterns were out, but the shadow of the wall nail in the moonlight looked like a nail driven into a crack in the stone.
"You've been in the Jin camp for six months, no need for further interrogation—are you coming with me or not?"
The wind in the alley has stopped.
The sound of twenty-four iron rulers being drawn simultaneously was particularly crisp in the narrow alley.
Xiao Bieli stood sideways in the middle of the alley, with his back against a blue brick wall. Xin Qizong was three steps behind him to the left, and the broken wooden bucket that he had just kicked over was to his right.
"Old man," he suddenly spoke, his tone casual, "do you know what the greatest skill I learned during these two years of exile is?"
He slowly moved his wrist, and the faded red rope cast a blurry shadow in the moonlight.
"It's not fighting, it's running away."
The old man squinted in the moonlight. Before he could speak, Xiao Bieli's shoulder slammed into Xin Qizong's chest, using a clever force to push him out of the attack range towards the alley entrance, while simultaneously using his feet to leap backward.
"Walk!"
Xin Qizong was knocked back several steps, but the veteran reacted very quickly. Instead of rushing to help, he turned around and ran out of the alley.
His left leg dragged slowly, but he ran faster than the scouts.
Xiao Bieli rushed into the depths of the narrow alley.
The alleyway was less than three feet wide, allowing only one person to pass at a time.
The pursuers could only enter in single file, but he used the terrain to retreat and block, each strike landing precisely on the moment the pursuers changed positions.
The first slash struck the wall, sending up shards of stone and forcing the two men back. The second slash slammed horizontally onto the iron ruler that bounced off the ground, numbing the man's hand. The third slash followed the momentum, piercing the shoulder blade of the man in front and pinning him to the wall.
Blood splattered all over his face.
He drew his knife and continued running, turning four corners in the alley, climbing over two low walls, and kicking over a pile of debris to block the pursuers' path.
His familiarity with the terrain was an instinct he developed during his exile; during the three days he spent staking out the Dali Temple, he explored every street and alley in the vicinity.
The Imperial City Guard's inspectors surrounded the area from eight directions, and footsteps approached from every alleyway.
At the end of the alley, under the wall, was a wooden cart used for emptying chamber pots, the stench was overwhelming, and the buckets of excrement were piled up to half a person's height.
The smell made the pursuers instinctively slow their pace.
Without pausing, Xiao Bieli flipped over and leaped into a recess on the side of the carriage, sticking himself tightly to the vehicle. This was a hiding place he had prepared beforehand, with simple wooden planks used to cover the area. From the alley entrance, all one could see was a pile of smelly, broken wooden barrels.
The sound of pursuers' footsteps surged from the alley entrance, pausing for a moment beside the manure cart.
He held his breath.
The footsteps dispersed, one group chased eastward, and the other searched westward.
No one noticed that there was a narrow gap between the wooden cart used for emptying chamber pots and the manure bucket.
Xiao Bieli huddled in the shadow of the manure cart, listening to the sound of his own heartbeat.
It was loud and chaotic, but it couldn't drown out the scene that kept replaying in his mind: moonlight shining at the alley entrance, an old man hanging a lantern on a nail on the wall, and then saying, "You've been in Jinying for half a year."
Those six words pierced a hole in his heart.
For two years, he has tried everything to bury those six months deep inside, not to speak of them, not to write about them, and not to let anyone know.
But the old man revealed it with just six words. He now understood that Qin Hui's men knew who he was from beginning to end, and what he had done during those six months.
They kept this matter to themselves, waiting for the moment he would walk into the Dali Temple.
If he goes in, Qin Hui will publicly pin the stain of the Jin Camp's six months of misdeeds on him, using it to smear everything he said and to nail down the people behind him.
He almost went in by himself.
Xiao Bieli leaned his head against the wooden plank of the manure cart, silently clenching his fists until his nails dug into his flesh.
He didn't make a sound, he just lowered his head even further.
The chipped copper coin in his arms pressed slightly against his chest as he curled up, so he pressed it even tighter.
The old general, limping, ran so far just to personally place this one copper coin into his hand; he couldn't let it slip away.
He waited there until dawn.
After daybreak, he was going to the main gate of Dali Temple.
......
It was the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, at noon.
The copper bell of the Imperial Observatory rang twelve times as usual. In the last note, a very short and very light hidden bell signal was embedded, which rang out from the direction of Deshou Palace to the outer watchtower of Dali Temple. Only a very few people could understand it.
A carriage from the Cining Palace was parked outside the main gate of the Dali Temple.
A plain white curtain hung outside the carriage, and two palace lanterns from the Cining Palace hung on the carriage shaft. The driver was an old eunuch with a sallow complexion.
Xiao Bieli walked out of the alley, holding the chipped copper coin in his hand.
His gray cotton-padded jacket was the same one he wore yesterday, with dried bloodstains on the cuffs, and several bloodstains from broken tiles on his face.
He showed the copper coin to the coachman, who glanced at it and then lifted the curtain.
There were two people sitting in the car.
One is Zhao Bocong, and the other is Qin Keqing dressed in a female official's robe.
This was her first public appearance as a female official in charge of the Imperial Clan Court's archives. She wore a jade hairpin and held a bronze box sealed with the seal of the Imperial Clan Court in her hand.
"Xiao Xianfeng," Zhao Bocong said, "Today is the 28th of the twelfth lunar month. According to the court's custom, the Dali Temple will conduct a pre-holiday review of the prisoners in custody before the 30th of the twelfth lunar month."
The Court of Imperial Clan Affairs has the authority to send representatives to review relevant files concerning the imperial clan. Our role today is that of the Court of Imperial Clan Affairs' reviewing officials.
He handed Xiao Bieli a neatly folded blue cloth short coat from the Imperial Clan Court.
"Your identity is a clerk escort for the Court of Imperial Clan Affairs. Once you enter the Court of Judicial Review, you will be under the command of Clerk Qin. If she tells you to look somewhere, you look there; if she tells you to leave, you leave. If she doesn't want you to speak, you must remain silent."
Xiao Bieli took the clothes but didn't change into them.
He shifted his gaze from Zhao Bocong's face to Qin Keqing's face, and then asked a question.
"Which floor is my sister on?"
Qin Keqing met his gaze without flinching.
"In the lower-class cell, number C, after entering through the east door, walk straight along the prison corridor, pass through two iron gates, and turn left to the third cell."
Xiao Bieli nodded.
He put the Zongzheng Temple robes over his gray cotton-padded jacket, fastened his belt, stuffed the chipped copper coin into the deepest lining of his sleeve, then bent down and crawled into the carriage.