Fang Xidao examined the tray of silver — every piece a large fifty-tael ingot, all of them so large and regular in shape that under normal circumstances they would surely be official government silver.

And yet when Fang Xidao feigned greed and picked one up for a look, the ingot carried no casting mark at all.

In that moment, even Fang Xidao couldn’t help but feel a flash of inward shock.

An underground money house sitting on vast wealth — that alone didn’t surprise him in the least. It was the oldest and fastest way to accumulate money in all of history. But the ability to cast your own silver currency at will — that was genuinely alarming.

Underground money houses almost always had connections to illicit gambling dens, because the kind of people who frequented such dens were naturally never the poor and destitute. Most were wealthy merchants, and among those, young men made up the majority — men with little life experience who, once they fell in, could rarely pull themselves back out.

The silver they gambled with was never the money house’s real target. The target was absorption of those men’s family enterprises. Through these sordid methods, they lured the sons of wealthy households into a trap. The ultimate goal was to swallow the family business whole — and any single successful operation would yield a minimum of tens of thousands of taels.

“This silver…”

Fang Xidao looked at Old Eight. “Something about it seems off.”

Old Eight’s expression shifted. He looked as though he wanted to flare up — he was, by nature, a vicious and overbearing man — but he held himself back for the moment.

“My dear sir, whether the silver looks odd or not — what does it matter? Silver is silver.”

Fang Xidao smiled and said, “That won’t do. What if the authorities come checking? Once this silver circulates outside, it could be traced.”

“The authorities?”

Old Eight burst out laughing. “You think I’d still be running this operation if I had any fear of the authorities? Besides, this silver only circulates within the den — we exchange it out for you before you leave.”

Fang Xidao shook his head. “I’m from Jizhou. My family has a reputation there — we have ties with a good number of officials in Jizhou. If something were to go wrong because of this, if your local authorities were to pick me up for it, I’d have nowhere to put my face — and neither would my family.”

When Old Eight heard the man mention having ties with Jizhou officials, his eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

He turned and whispered something into a trusted subordinate’s ear. The subordinate immediately turned and hurried out.

Old Eight said with a smile, “What business does your family run, sir?”

Fang Xidao answered, “My surname is Liu. My father, Liu Erhe, runs various small trades. My uncle on the paternal side is Liu Shanwen, Prefectural Magistrate of Jizhou.”

Old Eight’s expression shifted again. His manner immediately became considerably more respectful.

“Young Master Liu — please, come inside. Let us talk in private.”

Old Eight made a welcoming gesture.

Fang Xidao glanced at Chen Dawei. Chen Dawei immediately said, “Young Master, let’s just go back — it’s getting late.”

Fang Xidao nodded, appearing to calm down a fair amount, and said to Chen Dawei, “All right, let’s go.”

“Young Master Liu, please wait.”

At that moment, a man stepped out from one of the private rooms — somewhere in his mid-forties, with a genial and agreeable face.

He clasped his fists toward Fang Xidao with a smile. “Might you spare a moment? I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Fang Xidao returned the salute. “And you are?”

Old Eight smiled and said, “This gentleman is none other than Wang Xueguan, Deputy Magistrate of our Guàn County.”

Inside, Fang Xidao felt another quiet shock.

Exactly as expected — this kind of gambling den, this kind of underground money house, always had local government connections.

Deputy Magistrate Wang Xueguan walked up to Fang Xidao and smiled warmly. “Young Master Liu, there’s no rush to go — now that you’ve come to Guàn County, I ought to welcome you properly.”

He put on a sterner face, his tone taking on a note of annoyance as he said, “Old Eight — was Young Master Liu not doing well at the tables just now?”

“Nonsense!”

Old Eight pointed immediately at the tray of silver. “All of this is what Young Master Liu just won — and his stake is being held in the back. It’ll be sent to Young Master Liu’s inn along with these winnings in just a moment.”

Wang Xueguan gave a measured sound of acknowledgment. “Just as I thought. Looking at Young Master Liu’s bearing — that full and luminous brow, that broad and distinguished jaw — any way you read it, it’s the face of a man blessed with lifelong fortune. There’s simply no chance he’d be losing money.”

He made another welcoming gesture. “Young Master Liu, please.”

Fang Xidao said to Chen Dawei, “I’ll sit for just a bit. Wait for me outside.”

Chen Dawei immediately bowed. “Young Master, please don’t stay too long.”

Fang Xidao waved him off with an impatient flick of the hand. “I know, I know — go wait outside.”

He followed Wang Xueguan and Old Eight not back into the private room they had come from, but out through the main hall to the back courtyard of the chicken farm.

They passed through the chicken coops, and on the other side, Fang Xidao realized he had come to an entirely different world.

Beyond it lay an orchard. From a distance, nothing would seem out of the ordinary — but inside this garden, it was like a realm apart.

On all sides stood tall walls, thick and solidly built.

Little courtyards were arranged throughout, each one exquisitely appointed. The buildings were not tall — thatched roofs, wooden walls, bamboo-fenced enclosures — yet they looked anything but rough.

Stepping inside one of these little courtyards made it clear they were far more than merely “not rough.”

The ground was laid with white river pebbles, each stone nearly the same size as the next. Even the stone tables and stools in the yard were made of no ordinary material.

Inside the house, the furnishings were nothing short of extravagant. Calligraphy and paintings on the walls were the work of great masters. The tables and chairs for receiving guests were all carved from sandalwood. The tea table appeared to be a single solid piece of huanghuali rosewood.

On a long table nearby, the four treasures of the study were laid out — every one of them extraordinarily fine.

The atmosphere and decor of this room, set against the smoke-filled vulgarity of the gambling den out front, felt like two entirely different worlds.

“Young Master Liu, please take a seat.”

Wang Xueguan smiled. “Bring tea for Young Master Liu.”

After they had sat, Wang Xueguan said with a smile, “Young Master Liu’s uncle is the current Prefectural Magistrate of Jizhou?”

Fang Xidao nodded. “Indeed. My younger female cousin, when she was young, dressed as a boy and studied at Jizhou’s Four-Page Academy — she was a classmate of Prince Ning.”

Wang Xueguan immediately broke into a smile. “Now that is quite the charming story… Come, Young Master Liu, please have your tea.”

At that moment, another person entered from outside, stepping in with an unhurried stride.

This person wore a plain wide-sleeved robe — nothing costly about it. Plain-soled cloth shoes on his feet, no expensive ornaments anywhere about him. His hair was loosely tied at the back of his head, and it seemed he had neglected to shave for several days — his stubble was thick and full.

The moment he stepped in, Deputy Magistrate Wang Xueguan and Old Eight both immediately rose and bowed deeply.

It was understandable enough for Old Eight to bow. But for a sitting deputy magistrate to show such fawning deference — that deepened Fang Xidao’s surprise considerably.

Then, recalling the affairs in Jinzhou, Fang Xidao realized this situation was likely far more complicated than it appeared on the surface.

Jinzhou had not been where these people started.

By now, the officials of Guàn County — every level — had probably long since been brought under their control.

And if one thought further ahead — across the entire northern reaches of Jizhou, how many prefectural and county officials might have already been reduced to running dogs for these underground magnates?

The middle-aged man who had entered didn’t even spare a glance for Wang Xueguan or Old Eight. He walked directly to Fang Xidao and studied him carefully for a long moment, without a trace of concern for how discourteous it might appear.

“Young Master Liu.”

After a long look, the middle-aged man clasped his fists.

Fang Xidao returned the greeting. “And you are?”

“I am…”

The middle-aged man smiled, said those two words, and then said nothing more.

He walked to the seat of honor, sat, and then looked at Wang Xueguan and Old Eight.

“Do you remember — I have told you, more than once, that if a person’s mind isn’t sharp enough, they must compensate by learning more and remembering it well?”

Wang Xueguan and Old Eight quickly bowed their heads. “We remember.”

“You remember…”

The middle-aged man turned, reached out, and took a sealed dossier from the bookshelf. The dossier was still sealed with wax. He broke the seal, unwound the cord wrapped around the dossier turn by turn, and withdrew several sheets of paper.

“This is the dossier I had distributed to posts across northern Jizhou yesterday. It was in your hands by midday yesterday — and yet today you still haven’t opened it.”

The middle-aged man exhaled heavily. “If you had read it, you would have known what a serious mistake you made today.”

He looked at Fang Xidao. “My apologies, Young Master Liu — let me first deal with this matter at home, and then we’ll speak properly.”

Thud, thud.

Deputy Magistrate Wang Xueguan and Old Eight both dropped to their knees at the same moment. And both of them were trembling — not a performance. The fear was real.

“I have deployed so many people, put in so much thought, invited so much talent, spent so much silver…”

The middle-aged man spoke slowly. “All of it to help us live well a little longer, to prevent fools like you from making so many blunders. I have never trusted that anyone other than myself has any real capability — which is why I attend to every matter personally, down to the smallest detail.”

He flicked the papers forward. They drifted down in front of the two kneeling men.

The middle-aged man said, “Read it yourselves.”

It was a portrait. Fang Xidao was sitting at some distance, and the two men were blocking part of his view — but in the brief moment the paper turned, he could make out it was a likeness of someone.

The two kneeling men crawled forward and bent low to look. At that instant, the middle-aged man had already risen and was pacing slowly toward them.

He held the dossier’s cover in his hand, rolled into a cone-shaped paper tube.

In the moment when the two men looked up sharply, having just made out the portrait, the middle-aged man’s cone-shaped tube struck twice within a single breath.

The first thrust pierced Wang Xueguan’s throat. The second pierced Old Eight’s throat.

The difference was that on the second thrust, the cone-shaped paper tube was left lodged in Old Eight’s neck — so the blood poured outward along the tube in a steady stream.

The middle-aged man stepped aside, not a drop of blood touching him. As he moved, he picked up the portrait from the floor.

He smiled apologetically at Fang Xidao. “I’m truly sorry. The people in my household are always too dim-witted. They work carelessly and they are lazy. I’ve told them countless times — I don’t fear stupidity. What I fear is stupidity combined with no effort. I have already thought through every last detail on their behalf — all they need to do is memorize and retain it. And yet they can’t even be bothered to do that much. Such people are utterly useless… I would imagine the Censorate Army does not keep such men in its ranks either — isn’t that right, Thousand-Commander?”

As he said those final words — “Thousand-Commander” — he raised the portrait in his hand and held it before Fang Xidao.

And on that portrait was the exact likeness of Fang Xidao.

Fang Xidao did not leave. Nor did he immediately make a move.

He had a certain confidence in his own abilities — even accounting for how unsettling the middle-aged man’s technique with the dossier cover had just been.

Fang Xidao said approvingly, “Remarkable method.”

He asked, “How did you know who I was?”

The middle-aged man was in no hurry. He explained patiently, “When Prince Ning entered Jinzhou, I had people in the city. At the time, the Thousand-Commander was at Prince Ning’s side.”

“In the tavern across from the prefectural office, we had artists — people of exceptional skill, capable of capturing a person’s likeness in the shortest time and then refining it in detail afterward.”

The middle-aged man smiled. “By that night, the portraits were complete. They arrived with me the following morning.”

“In my employ, there are sixty-eight artists in total. Once they receive a draft portrait, they reproduce it — like printing with ink — each copy nearly indistinguishable from the original.”

“Once copied, they are immediately distributed to my operations across northern Jizhou… Hmm. After all I’ve just told you, shouldn’t the Thousand-Commander be thanking me?”

Fang Xidao smiled. “If you thought I could simply leave, you wouldn’t have said all this — would you? That’s right… Lü Wuman. Master Lü.”

The middle-aged man burst out laughing. “Remarkable indeed — every one of Prince Ning’s people is remarkable.”

—