Having left Manyu Money House, soft spring rain fell, adorning Ni Su’s hair at the temples with crystalline tiny droplets. “Xu Ziling, look at yourself. You’re already in this state—must you go find Censor Jiang at this moment?”
Without a paper umbrella for shelter, Ni Su stood opposite this young man whose sleeves were stained with blood and whose face was pale. Rainwater diluted the blood beads dripping from his sleeves. His lip color was faint. “Did you hear what that steward said? When Manager Hu Li went out on Lantern Festival night, he carried something with him.”
“…A book?”
Ni Su recalled.
Xu Hexue hummed in acknowledgment. “Previously I overlooked something. Although Du Cong’s ledger recorded his monetary transactions, the officials in the ledger—whether lower-ranking or higher-ranking—were all unnamed.”
“But that money flowed from various places through Manyu Money House. Manyu couldn’t possibly not have a secret ledger.”
“So the book Hu Li carried with him was very likely that secret ledger?” The sound of rain rustled. Ni Su recalled the various events at the tile-roofed house on Lantern Festival night. “But who did he go to the tile-roofed house to meet, carrying that ledger?”
Whoever it was, they were most likely inseparably connected to the people in that ledger.
“If Wu Dai’s dementia was truly deliberately self-inflicted, then he must have worried that although His Majesty wouldn’t sentence him to death, someone would always try to kill him. Rather than sit and wait for death, he might as well set up a scheme first to lead the Yinye Bureau to investigate Manyu Money House.”
The candle flame in the lantern was extinguished by rainwater. Xu Hexue’s vision returned to darkness, yet he only paused briefly before continuing: “But what exactly does Manyu Money House have that’s worth the Yinye Bureau investigating? Only this secret ledger.”
“Hu Li’s corpse was just found in the tile-roofed house and taken away by the Yinye Bureau. Though you and I had no opportunity to examine Hu Li’s body, from the Yinye Bureau’s reaction we can see they didn’t discover anything on his corpse. And in this investigation of Manyu Money House, they also haven’t found what Wu Dai wanted them to discover.”
Xu Hexue only heard the sound of rain. His empty eyes moved slightly, and he couldn’t help but call softly: “Ni Su?”
“So you believe that secret ledger already fell into Censor Jiang’s hands on Lantern Festival night?”
Ni Su spoke.
“I’m only guessing—Jiang Xianming didn’t tell me the truth that night. And the Yinye Bureau releasing Manyu Money House’s steward tonight is tantamount to telling those unnamed people in Du Cong’s ledger that the Yinye Bureau hasn’t found Manyu Money House’s secret ledger.”
But into whose hands had the ledger actually fallen? Xu Hexue believed those people should now be sitting on pins and needles, trying every means to find the ledger’s whereabouts.
“I must confirm this matter as quickly as possible, or changes will arise from delay.”
Xu Hexue couldn’t see what expression Ni Su wore at this moment. The spring night rain was heavy. He straightened his body and, facing her direction, bowed in salute. “Ni Su, please—help me.”
“In this life of mine…” As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt he’d misspoken. He was already no longer a living person—what talk was there of “this life”?
He lowered his eyelids slightly. “As you said before, when I returned, though I had thoughts of seeking old friends, humans and ghosts walk different paths. I thought, even if I saw them, what of it? It would only increase sorrow, of no benefit to them. But I still have one more important matter—that is my only meaning in the Netherworld, even in returning to this place.”
“Ni Su, your summoning me back is the most precious opportunity I’ve encountered in a hundred years in the Netherworld. I dare not delay. I fear that one delay means another fifteen human years.”
Fifteen human years—nearly a hundred years in the Netherworld.
“And I don’t know if I’ll be able to wait for you again next time.”
As time lengthened, would anyone in this world still care about the injustice suffered by those thirty thousand heroic souls trapped in the pagoda? Xu Hexue clearly knew this was his only chance, the meaning of his current existence as a remnant soul.
Ni Su watched him bow—proper and refined—yet his spine seemed even straighter than the scholars she’d seen. It wasn’t that those scholars weren’t upright enough, but rather that his uprightness had a blade-like sharpness.
“But your eyes.”
Ni Su’s throat felt dry. She accurately grasped the emotion in her heart—she felt heartache for the person before her. Actually, these days of being with him, fragmentary details were enough to build up a real him in her heart, but she had deliberately refrained from examining them closely.
She wanted to wait. Someday, he would speak.
“You’ll hold my hand, won’t you?” Xu Hexue lightly raised one hand, his finger joints slender. Rainwater couldn’t wash away the bloodstains on his wrist.
Ni Su looked at his hand.
The night rain was hazy. She didn’t know why the lantern under that household’s eaves ahead flickered bright and dim. She pressed her lips together and grasped his hand.
The touch of cold and warmth.
The mingling of rainwater.
“Thank you, Ni Su.”
Xu Hexue found it hard not to think of earlier in Manyu Money House’s storeroom, inside the cabinet, when she had lowered her eyes and brows, gently blowing on his wound.
The intense pain seemed, in that moment, not so painful anymore.
“Don’t be angry with me. I never meant to make you angry.”
Xu Hexue was led by her, unable to avoid the temperature of her fingers.
“I know.”
Ni Su wiped the rainwater from her face, pulling him quickly forward. “I’m not angry either. I’m just…”
How could she clearly express to him this heartache in her heart?
Ni Su didn’t know. She stopped speaking. After a long while she spoke again: “I was thinking, I once advised you that if you could be less pained, you should be better to yourself. But now I’ve discovered that what you seek can seemingly only be exchanged through self-harm.”
He walked alone, solitary.
Just as he was only willing to accept help like her lighting lamps and leading the way, but unwilling to let her risk herself or do anything for him—he surely also didn’t want his relatives and friends, his teacher, involved.
A person already dead, yet so wanting to protect the living.
“Have you ever thought of giving up medicine?”
Xu Hexue asked her instead.
Ni Su shook her head. “Never.”
Rainwater ultimately couldn’t match the severe cold on his body. Moist droplets fell on Xu Hexue’s face. “I’m the same as you.”
The road is supremely difficult, yet sweet as honey.
On this spring rain night, the night market hadn’t opened. There were no pedestrians on the street at this time. A carriage rolled over loose stone slabs, stirring up murky splashes.
Jiang Xianming sat in the carriage, both hands resting on his knees, his expression solemn.
The carriage traveled to an even more secluded place where the lights outside dimmed considerably. Jiang Xianming was carefully pondering his concerns when suddenly the horse outside neighed loudly. The carriage shook violently. His back struck the carriage wall. He immediately said: “What’s happening?”
“Sir!”
The coachman outside cried out in panic, immediately followed by the muffled sound of a blade entering flesh. The carriage curtain was heavily pressed down by a figure.
Jiang Xianming saw the young coachman’s upper body fall into the carriage, eyes wide open, chest soaked in blood, motionless. His expression changed. He looked up toward the rain curtain where several ghost-like forms appeared, pitch-black shadows pressing down.
Jiang Xianming only saw cold light faintly flash. He made a split-second decision, rolled up his sleeve, grabbed the reins, and heavily struck the horse’s back. The horse, in pain, neighed and ran wildly.
The black-clothed assassins pursued relentlessly. A long blade pierced through the carriage wall. Jiang Xianming barely dodged. He struck the horse’s back again forcefully, galloping toward where the night patrol soldiers were stationed.
Several black shadows flew over eaves and walked on walls. The sound of treading on green tiles mingled with the rain, nearly bursting Jiang Xianming’s eardrums. He dared not relax one bit when he suddenly felt a heavy sound on the carriage roof—someone seemed to have landed.
His heart tensed. He immediately released the reins and tumbled off the carriage. Hurried footsteps approached. Jiang Xianming endured the pain on his body and was about to rise when a blade wrapped in rainwater was already at his throat.
“Who exactly are you?! How dare you assassinate a court official!” Jiang Xianming said sternly.
Several faces were all concealed beneath black face coverings. One of them waved his hand. The blade at Jiang Xianming’s throat was about to slice his windpipe when, at this critical moment, a long sword broke through the rain curtain, accurately piercing the knife-wielder’s wrist. That person cried out in pain, his fingers went slack, and the blade fell to the ground with a clang.
The assassins turned back warily, seeing only white robes stained with blood, a lamp held in hand, a veil soaked through, hanging even more heavily over the face beneath. Several assassins rushed forward, while the leader kicked the long blade on the ground, striking the knee hollow of Jiang Xianming, who had been thrown more than a dozen steps away.
Jiang Xianming fell into a puddle. Dirty water nearly submerged his entire chin. He turned his head at once. The assassin had already raised the blade behind him.
Jiang Xianming instinctively raised his hand to block his eyes, but heard a crisp clang—an extremely clear ringing sound. He almost held his breath, raised his eyes, and through the gaps between his fingers saw the falling blade had been blocked by a long sword.
Jiang Xianming saw the hand gripping the sword—on the pale back of the hand seemed to be a red mole. His gaze traveled up along that hand, but he could only see the veil concealing this person’s features.
This person’s movements were extremely fast, sword techniques sharp and leaving no room. Within just a dozen moves, that assassin retreated step by step and immediately called to those behind: “Attack!”
Several assassins surged toward that person together.
Jiang Xianming’s heart tightened. He couldn’t help but shout: “Young master, be careful!”
Xu Hexue’s sword pierced one person’s chest. The blade he withdrew engaged with several long blades one by one. Rainwater washed away the blood on the sword edge. The long blades together blocked the sword body. He immediately released the sword hilt. Using their blades, the sword body turned. He quickly dodged behind them and promptly grasped the hilt, slitting one person’s throat.
The night rain couldn’t suppress the stench of blood. Jiang Xianming had originally worried this person couldn’t handle these dozen assassins, but sitting in the rain, he watched that figure move like flowing clouds and water, calm and unhurried from beginning to end.
Several corpses lay in the alley. Diluted blood meandered in the cracks between the ground tiles. Apart from the sound of rain, there was no more sound of slaughter.
The lamp in Xu Hexue’s hand was made of glass, impervious to rain. The hand gripping his sword relaxed a fraction. Intense pain nearly carved into his bone marrow.
“Who… are you, sir?”
Jiang Xianming looked at his back.
Xu Hexue turned his face.
Crimson blood had nearly soaked his entire sleeve. His usually clean and neat robe front was also red in patches. He stepped over the corpses on the ground, taking extremely slow steps, walking before Jiang Xianming. Through the soaked veil, he examined this middle-aged man whose face bore the marks of wind and frost:
“Censor Jiang doesn’t recognize me, but do you remember that horse trampling on a flying swallow? That night, you seemed to have deceived me.”