“Will you need to use my sword?” The man didn’t even glance at Mo Zi.

Thinking of the reason he had just refused the other person, Mo Zi spoke ambiguously, “Possibly.”

“Do you think I’m such a fool that I’m easy to deceive? If it’s something like stealing chickens or touching dogs, don’t think about having me do it. We martial artists—the most important thing is martial virtue. My great-grandfather passed down one item and one saying: this Emerald Heart Sword, and the words ‘even if you starve to death or die of poverty, you cannot use martial force to seize wealth.’ Otherwise, dizzy and seeing stars from hunger as I am, I’d really want to sell this sword for some silver. Before burying my old father, I’d first go to the bun shop across the way and buy two big meat buns. For three days, that fragrance has kept wafting over me. It’s made the wild vegetable jerky I especially loved taste all wrong in my mouth. Eating it is like not eating at all, and my stomach keeps rumbling nonstop…” Completely treating Mo Zi standing before him as if she didn’t exist, the man hung his head and went from martial virtue to buns, finally ending with such bitter complaint through gritted teeth that it seemed the next moment he’d take his sword and go rob the bun shop.

“…” Mo Zi had thought the man would be very happy to hear he didn’t need to sell himself to bury his father, but she hadn’t expected he’d have quite strong opinions of his own and be very alert. However, he was really quite long-winded—one person facing the ground, shaking his head, rambling on and on about a whole bunch of things. Listening to the end, she felt a certain vein on her forehead throbbing violently.

“Stop!” She rubbed her temples. “I don’t need you to steal, don’t need you to rob. Aside from having your old father suffer a little indignity, you won’t need to wrong your great-grandfather or your family’s martial virtue either. Help me with one favor, I’ll give you fifty taels of silver. You won’t need to sell your great-grandfather’s sword for two buns, and your father can be properly buried.” She decided not to tell him the complete truth, fearing that colluding with a court criminal would violate his conscience.

The man suddenly raised his head. Tall and burly as he was, even kneeling he wasn’t much shorter than Mo Zi standing. Mo Zi couldn’t help thinking, such a poor foolish boy. Even malnourished he could grow this tall—if he ate his fill, wouldn’t he grow into a six-foot giant?

“What you just said, is it true?” His eyes gleamed brightly, filled with white reflections of the steaming hot buns across the way.

Mo Zi couldn’t help laughing aloud, nodding repeatedly. “True. If you don’t believe me, I’ll go buy you ten buns right now. Consider them my treat. Even if you listen to my requirements but can’t do it, I won’t ask you to return them.”

“No need.” The man refused decisively, suddenly standing up and bouncing twice, seemingly working the joints that had been kneeling for so long. “My father said, a man earns his food by his abilities. If I can’t help you, I’ll just keep kneeling.”

After this person came back to his senses, his speech wasn’t so long-winded. Mo Zi secretly felt fortunate. She thought, otherwise, listening to a grown man prattling endlessly in her ear—she really couldn’t bear it.

“I’m called Zan Jin. How should I address you, young brother?” He clasped his hands in salute, full of vigor.

“People all call me Brother Mo.” Mo Zi also clasped her hands, but in a refined manner.

“Brother Mo, tell me, what do you need me to do?” Zan Jin gripped the upright sword, pulled it up, and hung it at his waist.

Mo Zi was just about to explain to him when she saw him turn toward the grass mat, squat down, and begin rolling up the mat.

“Brother Zan, what are you doing?” She was startled—could it be—

“Since I’m doing work for you, it definitely won’t be here. I have to bring my father along.” That posture suggested he intended to hoist both person and mat onto his shoulder.

Mo Zi immediately felt sweat on her forehead, thinking this was a filial son. Good thing the weather now wasn’t hot. Otherwise, with him having already knelt for three days, his old father’s smell wouldn’t be pleasant.

“Brother Zan, hold on a moment. Let me explain things clearly first, then you can carry your father—it won’t be too late.” According to her plan, Zan Jin would need to temporarily separate from his old father.

Hearing this, Zan Jin covered his father back up with the grass mat, turned around and said, “Right, I almost forgot—you just said you’d need my father to suffer a little indignity. Go ahead, let me first hear whether the old man can withstand it.”

Mo Zi smiled again. This person had the heart of a child—at first glance seeming foolish, but actually endearing. Maybe entrusting this matter to him could work. So without further hesitation, she walked up to him and, at the base of the wall, avoiding everyone’s eyes, spoke to him in low tones.

Half an hour passed, and the sun rose higher.

A gate-guarding soldier looked at the long queue leaving the city, rubbed his eyes that hadn’t slept all night, and complained to his superior on duty, “Captain, we’ve been on duty for two shifts already. When can we go back to sleep?”

Another soldier immediately dampened his hopes. “You just keep dreaming. The whole city is catching someone, and heavy troops are deployed at every gate—who still remembers to give us a shift change? Just wait. Once they catch the number one corrupt official, we’ll have completed our mission. Right, Captain?”

The captain also looked exhausted, speaking quite rudely. “Bullshit! Wait, wait, wait—wait until when? How many soldiers are sent to the South, North, and West Gates—I have no complaints. But our East Gate opens toward our own home territory. If the number one corrupt official wants to escape for his life, he absolutely wouldn’t take the East Gate. He’d either take the waterway or land route, and neither has anything to do with us. The higher-ups insist we also set up checkpoints. Not one suspicious person, yet I’m so thirsty my throat’s smoking, and I’ve stood so long my legs are weak.”

“Captain, shall I brew you a pot of tea and bring you a chair?” one soldier ingratiated.

“What good tea do we have here to drink? Besides, the patrol officer might suddenly come look for a while. If he sees me sitting in a chair, won’t he scold me?” The captain gave his subordinate an eye roll.

“If you ask me, we shouldn’t waste our energy either. Just go through the motions and that’s enough. When this queue gets shorter, Captain, you can go rest for a bit. What’s there to fear if the officer comes? Say you went to the toilet—will he personally check?” This soldier’s ingratiation was more skillful than the previous one’s.

“Take turns resting. I don’t believe that just because they’ve reassigned the East Gate guards, we can’t even arrange to rest a bit ourselves?” The captain straightened his back. “Brothers, lift your spirits, endure a bit longer. Once this batch of people leaving the city passes, take turns going back for a nap.”

Hearing this, the soldiers weren’t very satisfied in their hearts, but there was nothing to be done. Thinking they could at least catch a short nap, they became even more careless about inspections that weren’t particularly thorough to begin with.

Just then, a large flatbed cart gradually pulled to the front of the queue.

“What’s in the cart, all bulging like that?” the captain asked the young man pulling the cart.

“It’s not a thing, it’s my father.” That man was precisely Zan Jin. “Don’t you remember me? Three days ago, I pulled my father in—it was also this flatbed cart entering the city.”

The captain spoke unkindly. “So many people every day—how would I remember who’s who? Why have you covered your father up so tightly? Let me tell you, right now we’re catching a court criminal. Everyone passing through the city gate must have their face compared before they can pass through. Hurry up and have your father get up.”

“My father can’t get up.” Zan Jin grimaced with a mournful face. “If you don’t believe me, try calling him. If you can wake him up, I’ll be your ox and horse.”

Hearing this, the captain raised his eyebrows and glared, thinking he’d met someone looking for trouble. “Hey, you brat, looking for death!”

Just as he was about to explode, he was pulled aside by a small soldier who whispered in his ear, “Captain, his father’s dead. You must remember—the one in the East Market, sticking a sword there, selling himself to bury his father, that big fool.”

With this reminder, the captain remembered. His hand had just lifted a corner of the grass mat to see the cotton quilt underneath when he immediately jumped back three steps, covering his nose. “A dead person? He’s been dead for how many days, and you’re still covering him with a cotton quilt?”

“Three days,” the small soldier reminded.

“Not three days, thirty days. When I came back from hunting in the mountains, my neighbor told me my father had expired more than twenty days ago.” As Zan Jin spoke, tears welled in his eyes.

“Heavens, no wonder the smell!” Everyone scattered in all directions, clearing a path.

“Hurry through, hurry through! What rotten luck, smelling corpse stench.” The captain waved his hand as if driving away a plague god.

Zan Jin shook his head, shifted his shoulders, and walked neither hurried nor slow, even looking back as if the captain’s word didn’t count and he was very unwilling.

A small soldier asked, “Just now, shouldn’t we have looked underneath to see if it really was his father?”

“No need. I saw quite clearly—the roots of the hair showing were scorched yellow, exactly the same as when he entered the city.” The soldier who had just reminded the captain spoke with complete certainty.

“That’s fine then.” The captain wished to send them away one by one. “Next one, hurry up.”

With an affirmative grunt, a horse carriage drove up, and grinning on it was Cen Er.