Li Chi and Xiahou Yili hurried back to the inn. Li Chi’s curiosity about the seal had been thoroughly ignited by Han Huamei’s words.

When Han Huamei had said that Songming Xiansheng was not human, there had been no exaggeration in his expression whatsoever — on the contrary, it was clear he believed it completely.

And in that moment, Li Chi had immediately thought of Li Xiansheng, and an idea inevitably surfaced in his mind.

Xiahou Yili, seeing how urgent he seemed, couldn’t help asking: “Do you actually believe there are gods and spirits in this world?”

Li Chi shook his head: “No.”

Xiahou Yili: “But your expression looked like you believed it.”

Li Chi said: “I don’t believe Songming Xiansheng isn’t human — but I believe that humans are not all the same.”

Xiahou Yili didn’t quite follow.

Back at the inn, Li Chi immediately retrieved the real seal. He had not carried it on his person precisely because he feared that if Yunbao Zhai turned out to be a den of wolves and some mishap occurred, it would be lost.

Moreover, when he had walked the rivers and lakes in his youth, his master Changmei Daoren had drilled into him: in all matters, not the slightest room for wishful thinking.

Master had said: suppose you sell someone a fake, but you still have the real one on you — even if there’s only one chance in a hundred thousand that the real one falls out, wouldn’t that be just a little awkward?

Li Chi took out the seal, sat down, and began to examine it carefully.

The seal was very small. Even if it could open to reveal a stone case, that case would be no bigger than a thumb at most — what could possibly be hidden inside something that small?

Li Chi thought it over and decided it was worth trying. Faced with the choice between satisfying curiosity and prudently preserving a seal worth several hundred thousand taels, Li Chi chose to satisfy his curiosity. After all, he was a spendthrift by nature — and he had some confidence in his own abilities.

He produced his tools and prepared to take the seal apart.

Xiahou Yili watched him reach back with one hand and produce items from seemingly nowhere, and instinctively looked behind Li Chi to see where they were coming from. How on earth did he conjure things like that?

Then she looked again and saw that Li Chi had also, at some unknown moment, produced a great many candles, which he had arranged densely across the table and lit.

Xiahou Yili’s eyes went wide. In that moment, Li Chi looked more like the supernatural entity.

Only under sufficiently bright light did Li Chi begin to work. First he used a small pair of tweezers to scrape through every engraved groove and crevice on the seal, then he wiped it carefully clean with cloth.

Some time later, Li Chi pressed gently on the top of the seal and applied a little force…

Click — sure enough, a mechanism engaged.

Li Chi’s eyes brightened. He increased the pressure slightly, and with another click — the seal did indeed spring something open. The seal also broke apart.

Li Chi was stunned. Xiahou Yili was stunned.

This was a seal worth at least five hundred thousand taels. Had it truly been taken to Han Huamei, Han Huamei would really have bought it.

Li Chi stared at the broken seal, and for a moment his chest ached — extraordinarily so. Even the side without a heart ached. Both sides ached.

Inside the seal there was only one tiny object, no bigger than the tip of a little finger, with a pin on the back. Turned over, there were characters on it.

Li Chi examined it carefully, and grew even more bewildered.

XX Agricultural University.

What was this?

What great secret could this thing represent?

Li Chi sat there in a daze, as though his soul had left his body — not because this object appeared to be of little monetary value, but because the seal was broken.

After a long while, Li Chi let out a slow, long breath…

To think I would throw money aside just out of curiosity. I’ve really gotten carried away.

Xiahou Yili also sat in a stupor for quite some time before turning away. Li Chi noticed the movement and instinctively asked: “Where are you going?”

Xiahou Yili said: “I’m going to boil some paste — see if we can stick it back together…”

Li Chi smiled bitterly: “How could paste possibly hold it together… You’ll make yourself look a bit pastey in the head, is what you’ll do.”

—

After midnight, in the small pastry shop.

Auntie Mei — Liu Gumei — sat at the table mending clothes. Her life was not particularly comfortable; she was always patching garments rather than throwing them away.

She seemed to have grown accustomed to this kind of life, having long forgotten the fine silks and rich food of her days in Daxing City.

The late emperor had once said: all under heaven may despise Liu Chongxin, yet I cannot despise him.

Liu Gumei was the same. All under heaven may have hated Liu Chongxin to their core — yet in her heart there was only gratitude.

Who could have imagined that a man like Liu Chongxin would have been moved to compassion by an abandoned infant?

That year, Liu Chongxin had led his retinue out of Daxing City for a hunt and outing when one of his mastiffs retrieved this infant in its mouth.

The child was completely unharmed — hadn’t even been frightened into crying — and simply lay there looking at everything with wide, curious eyes. Her survival against such odds struck Liu Chongxin in some way he could not explain, and he was moved to mercy.

He ordered that the child be taken home and properly cared for, that she not be mistreated — and then promptly forgot about the matter entirely.

He forgot about it for ten years. And that is exactly how absurd it was.

Ten years later, when the eunuch Wen Qiuteng had risen to become a trusted confidant of Liu Chongxin’s side, he finally brought up the matter of Liu Gumei.

Ten years before, Wen Qiuteng had been only a minor eunuch — it had been he who had brought that child before Liu Chongxin.

When Liu Chongxin had said to take care of the child and not let her want for anything, Wen Qiuteng had taken those words to heart. He had arranged for someone to raise her, ensured she had the best of everything, and arranged for her to be taught.

Yet Liu Chongxin had forgotten not only the child, but Wen Qiuteng himself — for at that time Wen Qiuteng had truly been a person of no consequence whatsoever.

He had forgotten, but Wen Qiuteng dared not be remiss. In order to please Liu Chongxin, Wen Qiuteng had continuously had the child told: it was Chief Liu Chongxin who saved your life. Everything you have now was given to you by the Chief.

And so the child had grown up holding that truth in her heart: Liu Chongxin was her benefactor.

The ten-year-old Liu Gumei was brought before Liu Chongxin, who thought to himself that this was perhaps Heaven’s will — Heaven had sent him such a clever and spirited child.

And so Liu Chongxin gave the personal order that she be properly cultivated.

That alone took another ten years.

When Liu Chongxin sent Liu Gumei to Yuzhou, he told her: wait for my word. Secure the Prince Wu’s Consort and the son of Prince Wu.

Prince Wu’s Consort had long been living in the Cao household. Prince Wu’s only son was the same. Should there ever be a need to control Prince Wu, these two were the only way — they were Prince Wu’s sole vulnerabilities.

Yet Liu Chongxin’s orders never came. Tang Pidi had led the Ning Army to Yuzhou City.

And Tang Pidi had ordered the Ning Army to escort Prince Wu’s Consort back to Jingzhou.

With that, Liu Gumei’s mission lost its target entirely.

—

The lamplight in the room was dim and yellowish. After Liu Gumei finished mending her clothes, she looked toward the doorway — Liu Yanggong had been standing there for some time now, not daring to interrupt.

“How have you arranged things?”

Liu Gumei asked.

Liu Yanggong said: “I have already directed Prince Ning’s people toward Young Master Yu.”

Liu Gumei’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly, but she quickly composed herself again.

Liu Gumei was silent for a long moment, then said: “Then be careful.”

Liu Yanggong made a sound of acknowledgment, and seemed almost overwhelmed with gratitude at this small gesture of concern. His eyes were full of her — but her gaze remained ever cold.

Liu Yanggong said: “Once something happens to Young Master Yu, Prince Ning’s people will simultaneously move on Yunbao Zhai. When that happens, you can slip out of the city safely. This time we go our separate ways — I take my route, you take yours. It may be difficult to meet again afterward, so I wanted to look at you a little longer.”

Liu Gumei made a sound of acknowledgment again, seeming as before unwilling to say much more to him.

Liu Yanggong stood in the doorway in a daze for a moment, then smiled: “You look so beautiful.”

Liu Gumei’s shoulders trembled very slightly. She still said nothing.

Liu Yanggong turned: “I’ll go make arrangements.”

This time Liu Gumei did not even make a sound — she simply gave a small nod, and Liu Yanggong turned and left.

Liu Gumei sat there for a long time in silence, then lowered her head and looked at the clothes she had been mending — those clothes that were not, in truth, old clothes at all. They were a new garment.

And yet the clothes remained in her hands, needle and thread still in place.

—

Xingchen Lou.

Senior Officer Zaoyunjian looked at the empty little courtyard, his expression not particularly pleasant.

The Tingwei officers had already searched the courtyard inside and out without finding anything of note. They had indeed found some silver, but nothing that could be called great wealth. A rough calculation put everything in the courtyard at perhaps thirty to forty thousand taels in total.

Had they found several tens of thousands of taels anywhere else, it would certainly have been cause for celebration. But found in the home of a target of this magnitude, it was hardly worth celebrating.

“Where’s the person?”

Zaoyunjian looked at the proprietor of Xingchen Lou: “Didn’t you say he never left?”

The proprietor was equally baffled. After returning from Cao Lie’s side, he had added more men to watch discreetly — and it was true that he had genuinely never seen Young Master Yu go out.

And yet the place was now empty. There was no explanation except that his men were truly incompetent.

This left him feeling ashamed. He wanted to explain, but didn’t know how.

Yu Hongyi pulled Zaoyunjian aside and signaled with her eyes not to be too harsh — after all, this was Cao Lie’s territory, and these were Cao Lie’s people.

Zaoyunjian exhaled heavily: “They say he practically never comes out during the day and sees no one — but at night he opens his door and lets the women in. Tonight there’s no one here, yet we were the ones who opened the door.”

He glanced back. In the distance, several young women were watching curiously.

He said with a rueful smile: “The one thing that turned out to be accurate — the women really did show up.”

The proprietor of Xingchen Lou said: “I truly spoke no falsehood. Today I genuinely never saw him leave. Last night the women came as usual, and he drank for a while before driving them out in the small hours.”

Zaoyunjian said: “I’m not blaming you. I just feel that something isn’t right about this.”

Yu Hongyi said: “It seems the person has already fled. That day when the shop assistant from Yunbao Zhai came, it was to give him advance warning — not to consult him about anything.”

Zaoyunjian made a sound of agreement — that was the only reasonable explanation now.

“Let’s pull back.”

Yu Hongyi said: “There probably isn’t much to show for this. At least there’s a little silver to bring back.”

The proprietor of Xingchen Lou thought to himself: a little silver? You call tens of thousands of taels a little?

How big-hearted are Prince Ning’s people — every one of them like the young Marquis, tens of thousands of taels barely worth a glance.

Just as the Tingwei Army was preparing to pull out, a young man in a purple brocade robe suddenly appeared at the entrance.

He arrived at the doorway like a phantom — the Tingwei officers posted outside had not noticed him at all.

This alone testified that this person’s lightness technique was at the very least extraordinarily powerful.

Purple robes were not something just anyone could wear. They were a symbol of rank and status — only officials of the third rank and above in the Great Chu court were permitted to wear purple.

This young man stood at the doorway with a dark expression and looked at the Tingwei officers: “You thieves — why have you broken into my home?”

Zaoyunjian almost laughed. Yu Hongyi almost laughed as well.

Yet before long, they discovered that this was not so funny after all.

—