Chapter 73: The Jianghu

Under the shroud of night, the colors of Hongyi Alley were vibrant. Lamps hung and ribbons were tied from the alley's entrance to its end, as if celebrating newlywed bliss every day and dispelling sorrow with wine every night. The buildings beckoned with their red sleeves.

Thus, Jinfang became famous. Inside this grand, red establishment, gold leaf and gold powder were used to adorn every beam and pillar in gold. Inside the building, the Qianqiu pavilion and the Zaojing were inlaid with gems and gold, creating a magnificent, dazzling display. This kind of practice was already common in Jinling, but in Luocheng, there was still only one such place.

Around the corner outside Hongyi Alley, dark clouds slowly gathered. Chen Ji quietly climbed up the wall's eaves with both hands. With a gentle upward push, he leaped up and stood steadily on the eaves. With another light leap, he wrapped his arms around the building's extended eaves corner and swung himself onto the roof.

His right leg was injured and couldn't bear weight, but fortunately, twenty-six furnaces had already been lit, making it easy to climb buildings with just arm strength. Chen Ji squatted down and quietly observed his surroundings. Below the building, people flowed like a river, a constant stream. Above, the gray figures on the rooftops resembled rising and falling hills.

The rows of roof ridges were like mountain ranges. The side facing Hongyi Alley was bright and sunny, while the other side was a dark, sunless area. Confirming that no one was around, Chen Ji slowly walked along the shady side of the roof. He stepped lightly on the gray tiles, afraid of alarming the people below. Fortunately, Hongyi Alley was inherently noisy, so the slight sound of footsteps was negligible.

As he walked, he scanned the roof ridges and looked down into Hongyi Alley. On the gray tiles, Chen Ji moved in the night, while Baoyu and Shizi walked in the lamplight of Hongyi Alley, like two parallel lines that would never intersect. He turned his head to watch Baoyu and Shizi's footsteps, wanting to see where Shizi was going. He desperately hoped it wasn't Jinfang, as there would be danger there.

At this moment, he saw peddlers coming and going with shoulder poles. Baoyu, the county lord, stopped and chose a stack of boxes from a shoulder pole. Inside the boxes were small dishes of syrup and plum sauce mixed together. She picked at them with a bamboo stick and ate as she walked.

Amidst the crowd and the red colors, Baoyu and Shizi were both dressed in white, standing out like two pieces of mutton-fat jade in a chaotic, muddy flow, particularly conspicuous and eye-catching. The next moment, Chen Ji heard the sound of tiles being lifted from both in front and behind him. He spun around and suddenly saw two figures in black clothes, with long knives hanging from their waists, climbing up from below the building using ladders.

On the cold and remote rooftop, Chen Ji was startled, and the two black-clothed figures were also startled. These unknown black-clothed elites from either the Secret Service Department or the Military Intelligence Department, who had climbed up to the roof to get a vantage point overlooking Hongyi Alley, had just encountered Chen Ji, who was also scouting!

In an instant, the two black-clothed figures silently drew their knives and, one in front and one behind, stepped on the sloping gray tiles and attacked. Chen Ji secretly cursed his bad luck. When he had just climbed up, he had been worried that someone else had the same idea as him, so he had only climbed up after confirming that the roof was empty. At that time, he had even wondered why no one had come to occupy such a good scouting position and thought that the Military Intelligence Department and the Secret Service Department had very poor battlefield awareness in small areas. Who would have thought that the other side hadn't thought of coming here, but had arrived late!

Below the building, the sounds of singing and dancing were prosperous. Above, in the night, killing intent was palpable. None of the three spoke a word, as if all were afraid of being discovered by the outside world. Chen Ji quickly ran. He tried to ignore the pain in his leg and run like a normal person, hoping to escape the encirclement before the two black-clothed figures surrounded him and avoid the danger of being attacked from both front and back.

But these two black-clothed figures were also battle-hardened. After seeing through Chen Ji's intentions, they immediately changed their movements, linking up front and back to block his escape route. The rooftop was only so big. Chen Ji had nowhere to retreat unless he jumped directly off the roof. He stood on the edge of the eaves, looked at the height of over six meters, and then thought about his injured leg. After much consideration, he still retreated.

While he was thinking, the two elites had already attacked Chen Ji, simultaneously swinging their knives in a horizontal chop! The two long knives twisted towards him like scissors, their blades reflecting the red light of the alley! In that instant, Chen Ji's ingrained knife technique instinct seemed to awaken, and the sound of a blacksmith's hammer forging iron suddenly burst forth in his heart. He swiftly swung out two knives, one in front and one behind.

Chen Ji's speed was faster than the two black-clothed figures. Although he drew his knife later, his attack arrived first. His knife movements were like a white deer in a forest, lightly sketching, naturally perfect. With two clangs of metal, drowned out by the noise of Hongyi Alley, one black-clothed figure's forged steel long knife broke, its blade clanging onto the sloping tiles and sliding off the roof into the dim small courtyard below. The other black-clothed figure's knife, though not broken, was also knocked out of his hand.

Chen Ji was startled, and the two elites were startled once again. All three's pupils suddenly contracted, as if they had seen something unbelievable. "Cuojin." Chen Ji had once asked Feng Huai what this style of knocking on the knife body that caused pain in the hand was. Feng Huai had answered, "Cuojin, using clever force to find flaws and break the knife. If it weren't for the special material of Whale, it would have broken long ago."

And now, a medical hall apprentice who should have been frantically escaping under a pincer attack, driven by instinct refined through a thousand hammers, actually used the short knife from the medical hall used for chopping medicinal materials to break one knife and knock away another with his first move. If Chen Ji hadn't been somewhat unfamiliar with using Cuojin on outsiders for the first time, perhaps both knives would have broken.

The two black-clothed figures looked at each other, feeling that tonight was a bit strange. Encountering a knife master of this level on this remote rooftop was one thing, but why did this knife master just want to run, and why was this knife master more shocked than them! They didn't know that when Chen Ji fought Feng Huai, he always felt as if he couldn't use all his strength, that the other side was flawless, and he was often suppressed and beaten. Against someone like Feng Huai, he always felt a sense of powerless frustration, even thinking he had no talent for practicing the knife. But when he faced people other than Feng Huai, everything seemed different.

The two black-clothed figures lowered their heads and looked at the broken knife edge again, a hint of fear rising in their hearts. But since they had come, there was no reason to retreat. With the firm will cultivated in bitter, cold places, the two threw aside their broken knives and drew daggers from their waists, stabbing forward. They cooperated tacitly, one feinting and the other attacking, one virtual and one real, blocking Chen Ji's possible escape routes.

However, Chen Ji suddenly felt that, compared to Feng Huai, these two people were full of flaws. As the two daggers stabbed in from front and back, Chen Ji's body lightly shifted, dodging the trajectories of the two daggers. His left hand grabbed the wrist of one of them, like iron pliers, pulling so that the other could not pull his dagger back. His right hand lightly flicked, the knife blade severing the hand tendon of the other person. With a clang, the dagger fell onto the gray tiles of the roof and rolled into the courtyard below the eaves. The black-clothed person whose hand tendon was severed quickly retreated.

Chen Ji pulled the wrist of the other person, like pulling a puppet, clinging tightly to the retreating black-clothed person and pursuing, his body urging the knife forward. The short knife stabbed again and again into the heart, spleen, and liver, and the last strike wiped across the neck. The other black-clothed person whose wrist was gripped and pulled could only stagger along, watching with wide eyes as his colleague was stabbed again and again, unable to even stand steady.

He was still trying to figure out how to struggle free from Chen Ji's grip when he saw a cold flash of knife light suddenly reverse and, under the moonlight, draw across his neck. Blood spattered lightly on Chen Ji's face, which was covered in charcoal ash. He slowly released his hand, letting the black-clothed person slowly kneel and fall.

Chen Ji searched the bodies. He knew that the Jinyiwei under the Zongdu all carried a copper whistle that could imitate bird calls to transmit information, but these two had none. "These are Yuan Shi Zhang's people..." The wound on his leg stung. He hadn't felt it during the fight, but now Chen Ji realized that he had aggravated his old injury during the struggle.

Chen Ji wiped away the traces of blood on his hands so that his grip on the knife wouldn't be slippery, but it was no use. He lowered his head and tore a piece of cloth from the hem of his clothes to wrap around his hand. Then he looked up again, gazing over the roof ridges towards Hongyi Alley. Around Shizi and Baoyu, several Jianghu figures had gathered at some point, and they were talking happily.

He saw that Baoyu, the county lord, and Shizi had already walked to the entrance of Jinfang. Yanzi walked out from inside the door, smiling and welcoming them in. It was indeed Jinfang. Chen Ji sighed and stood silently on the roof, quickly observing his surroundings. He wasn't concerned about Shizi and Baoyu; he had to find Yuan Shi Zhang as soon as possible.

Inside Hongyi Alley, more and more people walked into Jinfang, but Yuan Shi Zhang was nowhere to be seen. He didn't know if the other side hadn't come or had already gone inside. "Wait." Chen Ji saw shadows of people in the darkness outside Hongyi Alley. Over a hundred Jinyiwei, with long knives hanging from their waists, were dividing into two teams and surrounding the alley from both ends.

Amidst the crowd, Zongdu also wore light armor, without his usual amicable smile, looking more like a general leading troops in front of the palace. Further away, Chen Ji actually saw five hundred Xuanjiewei using hemp cloth to wrap their horses' hooves. Each wore a hat and raincoat, quietly holding their spears in the dark night outside the alley. The leader sat on horseback with his knife held horizontally on the saddle, unmoving. "Lin Chaoqing..." Lin Chaoqing had also come!

Chen Ji sighed at how cautious Zongdu was. He had just found a clue about the missing firearms from the craftsman supervisor's inspection and hadn't hesitated to cooperate with the Capital Criminal Department, directly mobilizing all the Xuanjiewei from the Mengjin Grand Camp.

At the entrance of Hongyi Alley, Lin Chaoqing sat on his horse and said indifferently, "Each of the Twelve Zodiacs of the Secret Service Department is impulsive and reckless. Bai Tu and Yun Yang self-imprisoned themselves last time by mobilizing the Xuanjiewei. I wonder what your end will be this time, Zongdu?"

Zongdu chuckled, "Am I the same as them? I have already found the thief from the Jing Dynasty, and not only the outside thief, but also the inside thief."

"Oh, Zongdu's words are indeed very strict, without revealing a trace," Lin Chaoqing said mockingly, "Ever since you came to this Mengjin Grand Camp, you've been shouting every day about wanting to eat big carp from the Yellow River, making me, the Xuanjiewei, go fishing for you. I thought you only knew how to eat. With Bai Tu and Yun Yang as precedents, this time, if you don't say what you want to do, my Xuanjiewei will not take action."

Zongdu smiled, "Commander Lin, don't say angry words. You lead the Yu Province Capital Criminal Department, so I naturally need to let you know why I mobilized the Xuanjiewei. Commander Lin, what do you think the Jing Dynasty thief wants to steal most from our Ning Dynasty?"

"Military deployment maps, court secrets, firearms."

"Correct. Earlier, Zhou Chengyi always wanted to win over the officials of the craftsman supervisor, which indicates that their biggest goal is firearms. So, after I arrived in Luocheng, the first thing I did was monitor the sales of saltpeter and sulfur, and the second thing was to inspect the inventory and accounts of the craftsman supervisor. A few days ago, I discovered that the inventory of firearms in the craftsman supervisor did not match the account books, and several drawings were also missing. Subsequently, I followed the clues and apprehended six people, including members of transport gangs and the craftsman supervisor. Finally, I discovered that that batch of missing firearms flowed here, to Hongyi Alley."

Lin Chaoqing doubted, "Hongyi Alley has so many brothels. Do you know which one it is? Every business in Hongyi Alley has a deep background. You don't expect the Xuanjiewei to check every brothel one by one, do you?"

Zongdu chuckled, "Earlier, I set up a trap and apprehended twelve live spies in the morning warehouse gambling house. Eleven of them swallowed poison and committed suicide. The last survivor defected and told me that he had once received instructions from Si Cao of the Military Intelligence Department to come to Jinfang to pick up a batch of goods. Logically, the Jing Dynasty thief should not be stupid enough to trade in the same place twice, so at first, I only arranged for a few Jinyiwei to monitor here, treating it as a casual move. Who knew that today, a suspicious person suddenly transported another batch of goods into Jinfang and was apprehended by me."

Lin Chaoqing no longer questioned. He knew that Zongdu was a trusted official of the Inner Minister and had established great merit. Why he was still ranked ninth among the Zodiacs was not because of insufficient ability, but because Zongdu had too good a relationship with Tianma, and the Inner Minister would not allow such close relationships among the top three Zodiacs. Some speculated that if Binghu retired in recent years, Zongdu might take his place. But Lin Chaoqing knew that with the Inner Minister's character, as long as Tianma didn't die, Zongdu would never have the opportunity.

He thought for a moment and then said, "Zongdu, the Xuanjiewei tonight will follow your orders. Just don't make any mistakes."

"That sentence from you is enough," Zongdu made several hand signals to the Jinyiwei below.

Dense Jinyiwei rushed into Hongyi Alley to arrest people, causing a commotion. Guests in the wine buildings and brothels fled in panic, afraid of being implicated. They wanted to escape Hongyi Alley but were blocked by the Xuanjiewei cavalry at the north and south entrances of the alley and simply could not leave.

Chen Ji hid on the roof and suddenly saw Shizi, Baoyu, and those Jianghu knights also run out of Jinfang. Seeing that both roads were blocked, they simply rushed into the wine building opposite Jinfang, where Chen Ji was, wanting to pass through the wine building's hall and escape by flipping over the wall in the back courtyard. Six Jinyiwei discovered their intention to escape and immediately gave up arresting others, chasing into the wine building with their knives.

Chen Ji stood on the edge of the eaves and looked down. He saw that the several Jianghu figures beside Shizi had reached the back courtyard and, with just a light flip, went over the wall, which was more than two meters high. Shizi shouted from the back courtyard, "Hey, lend a hand, help us over!"

The Jianghu figures stopped. One person leaped up, lay on top of the wall, and reached down, saying, "Grab my hand, I'll pull you up." But before Shizi could grab his hand, he saw the six Jinyiwei already chasing in with their knives... "Quickly leave!"

The next moment, the Jianghu knights actually abandoned Shizi and Baoyu, turned around in the small alley outside the courtyard wall, and ran away without a trace. Chen Ji frowned. Something about this was suspicious. If Shizi had just come here to play, then he only needed to stay honestly and wait for the Secret Service Department to finish their inspection. Once things were clear and he wasn't a suspect, there would naturally be no problem. Why risk escaping?