QIXIA WAS A COMMON name with a pleasant meaning—dwelling in the clouds. When the powerful and affluent wished to name their villas something that sounded somewhat sophisticated, it was among the most frequent picks.
This wasn't to say that the owner of this villa was unrefined, merely that it was an exceedingly ordinary villa. When spring turned to summer, the villa's owner would often leave the city with his family and come to this retreat, which lay in the higher terrain to the city's north. The villa sat halfway up the slopes of a mountain, the perfect spot for avoiding the summer heat.
Nevertheless, there was something strange about the place.
Its gates were locked, and a layer of dust coated the scattered footprints on the steps. It looked like no one had visited for a long time. Yet in contrast, the eaves were clean and showed no traces of cobwebs. The plaque inscribed with the words Qixia Villa was also in perfect condition, a deterrent to potential thieves. Outside or in, no lamps were lit.
The wind whistled past the leaves and slipped through the cracks in the windows, its sound transforming into something eerie, like a vengeful ghost howling into the wilderness. The backyard was empty. A latent danger seemed to lurk in the shadows, as if a ferocious beast might bound out at any time and pounce, its bloody maw open wide.
As the three of them were uninvited guests, however, they were unbothered by the atmosphere. Holding Cui Buqu's arm, Guan Shanhai landed gently on the ground. Cui Buqu pointed, and Qiao Xian took the lead, heading toward the woodshed and kitchen to explore.
As for what lay in Qixia Villa, and why Huang Lüe and Feng Xiao had both sent them here at the same time—tonight, they were bound to find answers.
Qiao Xian strode up to the door and was about to push it open when Guan Shanhai snatched her wrist. He jerked a finger upward, motioning for her to enter through the roof. Qiao Xian ground her teeth. Ever since Guan Shanhai had come, another position seemed to have opened at Cui Buqu's side, one that quietly ate away at her importance.
But Cui Buqu was still waiting nearby. She couldn't afford to be willful. Qiao Xian leapt up to the roof, then stooped, lifting a few tiles and placing them to the side. She jumped in through the resulting hole, night pearl in hand to light the way.
It was one of the night pearls Cui Buqu had plucked from the cave in Mount Tiannan. He'd taken the dagger Fan Yun had left at his bedside and used the chance to pry a few night pearls from the stone walls along the way. Xiao Lü was rich enough; he wouldn't miss them. If Cui Buqu'd had room in his pockets, he'd have taken one for every member of the Zuoyue Bureau.
In the night pearl's dim glow, Qiao Xian gradually made out the contents of the woodshed. The windows were locked from the inside, impossible to open. When her gaze fell on the door, she couldn't hold back a soft gasp.
A trap was set up behind the door. The moment someone pushed it open, it would trigger crossbows that would kill them instantly. Had she ignored Guan Shanhai's advice, even if she'd managed to evade the crossbow bolts, she would have alerted the guards in the villa.
This villa wasn't as ordinary as it looked. After all, what wealthy family would place traps in their own holiday home?
Outside, Guan Shanhai had found the same trap in the kitchen. After searching the rest of the room and finding nothing unusual, he returned the way he came, planning to check out other buildings in the backyard. Considering the traps behind the doors of the kitchen and woodshed, they were already certain something strange was going on here. If not, the owners wouldn't have taken security so seriously.
Guan Shanhai saw Cui Buqu crouching next to a flower bed, head bent as if examining something.
"Lord Chief," Guan Shanhai said quietly.
Cui Buqu didn't look at him. He picked up a green brick next to the flower bed. There was no soil underneath, but an empty hole.
Realizing something was amiss, Guan Shanhai didn't wait for orders; he reached into the hole, where he found a smaller piece of brick. This one was loose, as if it could be pushed down. He looked to Cui Buqu for his approval, and Cui Buqu patted his shoulder twice in agreement. No sound passed between them in the dark.
Though Guan Shanhai had only recently joined the Zuoyue Bureau, his previous career had been in the army. He was highly disciplined, capable of enduring far more than even the trained Zuoyue guards. Cui Buqu had brought him on this trip partially out of respect for the empress, but also as a test of his abilities. So far he had performed excellently, picking up Cui Buqu's tacit cues even more quickly than Qiao Xian, who'd been with him for years. It was no surprise Qiao Xian was unhappy.
At Cui Buqu's signal, Guan Shanhai pressed down on the brick.
There came a low roaring sound as something underground began to shift.
All three of them stood stunned. The ground in the backyard split down the middle, then slowly pulled apart to reveal a pitch-black chasm with no bottom they could see.
Guan Shanhai reacted swiftly. He directed the night pearl's light downward and illuminated a cellar full of sacks. When he extended his arm and poked a hole in one of them, a stream of something that looked like pale sand spilled out to bounce from his palm and onto the floor: Rice—plump, white fresh rice.
Thanks to the disaster this year in Guangqian County, most of their farmland had been swept away before the rice could be harvested. This couldn't be rice from their local fields, and it certainly wasn't old rice either. It was this season's fresh rice, transported directly from the imperial warehouses.
A noise came from the front yard, followed by the patter of approaching footsteps. Lamplight cast swaying shadows around the yard, followed by panicked voices.
Should they stay or go? Guan Shanhai couldn't decide.
They'd alerted the enemy. If they left now, their adversary would move the rice the next day, and no evidence would remain. But if they stayed, he and Qiao Xian would have to repel the guards, then call for Rong Qing to summon the nearby Zuoyue guards to seize the people and goods here. If they were captured in the process, forget any chance of investigating—they'd be lucky if anyone found their corpses.
Guan Shanhai had never had to make such decisions in the Right Guard. He understood now why Cui Buqu had to come himself. Neither he nor Qiao Xian could bear the responsibility of this choice.
"Go!" Cui Buqu's succinct order cut through Guan Shanhai's spiraling thoughts.
He breathed a secret sigh of relief. At that moment, his confidence in Cui Buqu grew a hundredfold. He'd been reluctant to leave the capital just a few days ago, yet at this critical juncture, he didn't think twice about the order he was executing. Even Guan Shanhai couldn't have said when his feelings had changed. The ailing Zuoyue Bureau chief had a strange power to ground others.
The instant Cui Buqu's order left his mouth, Guan Shanhai grabbed him and leapt out of the villa with Qiao Xian close on their heels. As soon as they landed, several black shadows flew out of the forest and lunged toward them.
Blades clanged as bloodlust boiled in the air.
It was a trap! thought Guan Shanhai. Their opponents had been waiting for them to arrive so they could capture them in one fell swoop. No wonder their incursion had gone so smoothly.
"Take him away! I'll hold them here!" cried Qiao Xian. She leapt at the enemies without looking back. So ferocious was her sword that not even the wind could slip between her swings. She wove a dense sword screen, warding off seven or eight attackers and leaving them unable to advance an inch.
Guan Shanhai didn't hesitate. He snatched Cui Buqu up and ran.
While Qiao Xian held the others off, Guan Shanhai pulled Cui Buqu along, sprinting without pause for several miles. They were almost at the foot of the mountain, but Guan Shanhai dared not let down his guard. The forest here was dense with trees swaying in the howling wind. Their branches cast shadows over sky and earth, as if ready to ambush them from all sides.
Bloodlust!
Bloodlust was there, yet not. Front, back, left, right; the air shifted, and Guan Shanhai jerked his head around. Black clouds curled and whipped the branches and leaves, dragging long shadows across the ground.
But without light, how could there be shadow?
An alarm sounded in Guan Shanhai's heart. In the next breath, a long sword cut soundlessly toward him. But he wasn't the target—it was Cui Buqu.
Shocked, Guan Shanhai flung himself backward faster than he ever had in his life, unsheathing his saber and hurling it at the newcomer. Even then, he was too slow. The sword flew like an arrow, impossible to evade. Cui Buqu scrambled back, but a few steps from a layman were nothing in the face of sword qi. The blade tore through his clothes and pierced his chest.
Agony lanced through Cui Buqu's heart. The new injury aggravated the old one, and pain rolled over him like the tide. He groaned and stumbled. Yet after drawing blood, the sword went no further—Guan Shanhai's saber stopped it before it could run him through.
Guan Shanhai leapt forward and engaged the enemy. Their blades flashed and wove, so fast it was impossible to look away.
Cui Buqu pressed a hand to his wound and staggered back another few steps. After his initial muffled groan, he made no sound. He remained quiet as a corpse, allowing Guan Shanhai to concentrate on fighting the enemy.
The villa's lanterns, now lit, glimmered in the distance, but their dim light merely revealed that the newcomer's face was masked. Only his angular figure hinted that he was a man. Still, unless someone was a prodigious talent who had studied all forms throughout the land, it was nigh impossible to conceal the origins of one's martial arts—especially not from someone as knowledgeable as Cui Buqu.
So it's him.
In an instant, many points connected. Cui Buqu understood—but that didn't help the situation at hand. If they couldn't escape tonight, they would be cold corpses by morning. It wouldn't matter what they'd discovered.
The masked man was a formidable fighter, at least on par with Guan Shanhai. Guan Shanhai's martial arts were suited for the battlefield, but the masked man's moves were a classic example of jianghu assassination techniques. Guan Shanhai's bold and vigorous style couldn't be used to its full effect against him.
He felt his strikes blocked from all directions, while he himself took blow after blow. But Guan Shanhai was adaptable. He switched from offense to defense and bided his time. His saber guarded the small area before him, as well as Cui Buqu at his back, while he waited for a chance to counterattack.
Within the villa, Qiao Xian remained trapped; her companions couldn't know whether she was dead or alive. She was skilled enough to escape unscathed as long as her opponents didn't overpower her too greatly, yet she was terrified that if she didn't pin her adversaries down here, they'd catch up to Cui Buqu. She stubbornly, painfully held on.
The villa's lanterns shone brightly, no longer hidden.
Had this ambush been prepared for them? Had their opponents known of their coming and quietly awaited their arrival before springing the trap? Or had they been alerted to their party's intrusion when they'd opened the underground cellar?
Cui Buqu watched the man fighting Guan Shanhai. In his heart, he already knew the answer.
But no matter how much danger they were in now, one fact remained: Despite passing him the note, Feng Xiao—or rather, Li Shisi—hadn't shown up.
Li Shisi was Feng Xiao. Where had the star of tonight's show gone?
***
Rong Qing looked at the letter in front of him, his heart in turmoil.
The message was only one line, a request to meet Rong Qing in the study in the county office's backyard tonight. In place of a signature, there was a small illustration of leafy branches and distant mountains, rendered in the same style as the three paintings.
Rong Qing couldn't be certain the handwriting belonged to Huang Lüe, and indeed, Huang Lüe seemed to have predicted his hesitation. He'd therefore included these sketches, allowing Rong Qing to carefully compare them with the others to earn his trust.
Should he go or not? Rong Qing was paralyzed with indecision.
He and Cui Buqu had analyzed the situation earlier that day. Huang Lüe had painted picture after picture, hinting at some larger conspiracy lurking beneath the relief efforts. Cui Buqu had set off for Qixia Villa to investigate with Guan Shanhai and Qiao Xian, while Rong Qing remained in the relay station, waiting for Huang Lüe's fourth painting.
But this letter had arrived instead.
Perhaps Huang Lüe was trying to free himself from his predicament. His only way out was to support the imperial censor's attempts to bring the malfeasance to light, thereby atoning for his crimes through meritorious deeds. Yet he must also fear that Rong Qing wouldn't succeed.
Now Rong Qing understood why the empress had sent Cui Buqu. The intrigue here was too deep, and might even involve relatives of the royal family. Without Cui Buqu here, Rong Qing wouldn't have gotten anywhere.
But fortunately, Cui Buqu was here.
At this thought, he felt a bit calmer. But he soon grew conflicted again. Before Cui Buqu left, he'd warned Rong Qing not to leave the relay station under any circumstances. They hadn't expected Huang Lüe would personally pen a letter to him. Maybe someone had discovered Huang Lüe's duplicity, so he'd seized his chance, no longer concerned about being exposed. He might have evidence that Guangqian County had misappropriated the grain. Rong Qing had a hunch that if he missed this chance, there would not be another.
Finally, he made up his mind. He stuffed the note into his lapels before heading out.
It was late, and the dew was heavy on the leaves and grasses. Rong Qing hurried along the back roads, unseen, until he arrived at the small door behind the county office where groceries were usually delivered. Just as he was wondering whether to knock, the door opened.
A servant in dark blue bowed and beckoned him in.
Rong Qing took a few steps inside as the servant said, "The magistrate ordered me to bring you to the study. Don't make any noise—Commandery Governor Yang's eyes are everywhere in this manor."
So the letter really was from Huang Lüe.
Reassured, Rong Qing nodded. He was crackling with nerves. The servant had implied that Commandery Governor Yang Yun was involved too. Perhaps he would be the prize catch.
Rong Qing followed the servant through the winding corridor and came to the door of the study. In the glow of dim candlelight through the window, he saw the silhouette of a man sitting at a table—Huang Lüe.
No one was guarding the door. Huang Lüe must have sent them away in preparation. The servant in blue whispered, "Please step inside, sir. I'll keep watch out here."
Rong Qing strode through the door, and the servant shut it behind him, as if afraid of being discovered. Rong Qing paid him no heed and stepped up to the desk in the center of the room. Behind the rolled-up curtain, Huang Lüe had his back to him. He sat with his elbows on his desk, hunched over as if writing furiously.
"Huang Lüe, I'm here. What did you want to tell me?"
The magistrate didn't turn—his shoulders didn't even twitch. He obviously hadn't heard him. But wasn't he the one who'd invited Rong Qing over?
Something was wrong.
"Huang Lüe?" Rong Qing slowly stepped forward, reaching out to shake him gently.
Huang Lüe slumped limply to the side, and Rong Qing reeled back in horror. A dagger protruded from Huang Lüe's neck—it'd pierced his throat cleanly, a single, fatal strike.
What was this?! Rong Qing's head was spinning. Before he'd fully registered what he'd seen, he turned and was rushing toward the door.
Locked!
He flew to the window and found it, too, was blocked from the outside; it couldn't be opened. Rong Qing was no martial artist; it was impossible for him to leap up to the rafters and break through the roof tiles to escape. He was trapped.
Suddenly it grew bright outside. Lamps flamed to life one after another, accompanied by shouts. "Help! Murder! Censor Rong has killed the magistrate! Guards!"
Rong Qing was sure now that he'd fallen—completely and utterly—into a trap.
But a key question sprang to his mind: How did the other party know there was no one with him—that he'd had to come to the meeting alone? Could Cui Buqu be in danger at the villa? Rong Qing's heart plummeted. He stood beside Huang Lüe's slumped body, listening as the clamor rose outside. He didn't know who'd been called over.
A group of people rushed to the door and kicked it open. Commandery Governor Yang Yun was in the lead, ready to arrest the culprit. Behind him were Li Yan, Wu Yi, and more.
"What nerve you have, Rong Qing!" barked the governor. "Did you think being a censor gave you leave to do whatever you want? To kill an official of the court?!"
"So it was you—it was you!" Rong Qing burst into wild laughter.
Yang Yun looked at Rong Qing as if he'd gone mad. He waved his hand. "Guards! Seize him!"
"Don't touch me!" Rong Qing jabbed a finger at Yang Yun. "You killed Huang Lüe and called me here so you could frame me. You're the real murderer!"
Yang Yun sighed. "Why did the court send a madman as censor?" He turned to the others. "It's not my place to involve myself in the affairs of your county, but I fear this is a serious crime; I must arrest him and report it to the court. Have you any objections?"
Yang Yun was the commandery governor; Li Yan and Wu Yi both ranked below him. They quickly said, "We'll follow the governor's lead!"
"I am an imperial envoy! Who dares arrest me?!" roared Rong Qing. "Huang Lüe sent me three paintings that hinted at embezzlement of relief grain in Guangqian County. I came here at his invitation to inquire about the case, only to find he'd already been silenced. I'm going to submit a memorial! Yang Yun, by arresting me today, you've merely proven your own guilt. You killed him!"
Yang Yun laughed in anger. "Very well! It appears Censor Rong won't relent until his back is to the Yellow River. You claim Huang Lüe sent you three paintings. Where are they?"
Rong Qing raised his chin. "My room at the relay station!"
"Then I shall go there with you personally," Yang Yun said, clipped. "If you can't produce them, don't blame me for taking drastic measures."
At the sight of Yang Yun's brazen confidence, Rong Qing's heart sank. Still, he had no choice but to lead them to the relay station while secretly praying Cui Buqu and the others would return as quickly as possible. He'd completely forgotten that, just a few days ago, he hadn't been able to stand Cui Buqu. Right now, the man was his last lifeline—Rong Qing could only pray that Cui Buqu showed up in time.
The group made their way to the relay station. Rong Qing sprinted into his room ahead of everyone and threw himself onto the bed to grope beneath the blankets. His face turned ashen.
He yanked the blankets away. Where there should have been three paintings, now, there was nothing but empty sheets.