Tie Ci led her people through the checkpoints and rushed north at great speed. Her pace was extremely fast, and Xia Houchun had familiarized himself with the terrain beforehand, so the Xiao Family’s several organized pursuit attempts were all shaken off. However, Tie Ci’s people were also constantly decreasing in number—some were injured, some fell behind, and some stayed back to cover their retreat. In the end, to reduce their target size, Tie Ci simply disbanded the group.
The most vicious encounter occurred when entering Qing Zhou territory, where three thousand men from the Qing Zhou garrison, under the pretext of capturing notorious bandits, surrounded the small inn where she was staying.
Just as those men threatened the safety of the inn’s guests to demand Tie Ci surrender and lay down her weapons, the magistrate of Ziyang County happened to “pass by” with men from the Ziyang Patrol Inspector’s Office, claiming they were escorting that year’s tax revenues to the Provincial Administration Office. Somehow they had detoured to Qing Zhou, then collided head-on with the Qing Zhou garrison troops. They insisted their tax revenues had also been robbed and wanted to join forces to suppress the bandits and investigate the notorious criminals. After infiltrating the Qing Zhou garrison ranks, they then reversed their story, claiming the Qing Zhou garrison coveted their tax revenues, and started swinging their sabers at people’s heads. This immediately caused utter chaos, and Tie Ci seized the opportunity to break out with her people. When the Qing Zhou garrison tried to pursue, those patrol inspector soldiers that Tie Ci had personally trained began dragging and pulling while shouting loudly, every sentence striking fear into people’s hearts.
The ordinary soldiers of the Qing Zhou garrison didn’t know Tie Ci’s identity—they only knew they were catching notorious bandits, so under no circumstances could they attack a brother unit. The thousand-household commander leading them, though he had received secret instructions from the Xiao Family, couldn’t openly order his soldiers to attack the Ziyang Patrol Inspector’s Office either—that wouldn’t be capturing bandits, that would be rebellion. So they were entangled for quite a while, and by the time they finally extricated themselves, Tie Ci had long since gone far away.
Meanwhile, the Ziyang people suddenly seemed to have an epiphany. They got up from the ground, straightened their collars, slapped their foreheads, and said with sudden realization: “Oh my, we got the wrong people!” They quickly bowed and apologized to their brother troops.
The Qing Zhou thousand-household office watched these people putting on their act, so angry they nearly fell backward, but ultimately could only swallow this bitter pill.
They couldn’t cross borders to pursue either, so by the time the Xiao Family received word, Tie Ci had already reached the Deng Zhou port.
Deng Zhou’s seaport had seventeen or eighteen docks, large and small, but only Mashan Seaport and Bajiao Seaport could accommodate large ships crossing the sea. Both had thousand-household offices stationed there for management. Tie Ci randomly chose Bajiao Seaport.
As soon as they reached the dock, everyone felt something was wrong. The dock was filled entirely with large ships, and all small boats and merchant vessels were forbidden from going to sea. All ships were inspected one by one by Maritime Trade Supervisorate personnel, especially those departing. The sea surface was even more tightly guarded, with patrol boats and messenger ships shuttling back and forth, their sails filling the sky in strict defense.
The dock was bustling with people. Xia Houchun sent one of his subordinates who was good at socializing, disguised, to deal with those ship captains. In the past, these merchant ships would take people aboard for some silver, or at worst, one could disguise as a merchant and follow merchant caravans onto ships.
Today, however, the negotiator returned empty-handed. The merchant caravans would only cooperate with familiar people, and as soon as the ship captains heard about taking passengers, they waved their hands repeatedly, saying that recently the sea inspections were strict—even a cat on board had to be drawn and registered with the Maritime Trade Supervisorate. After going to sea, patrol enforcement ships would constantly inspect, checking against the registry one by one. Even an extra cockroach would have its legs pried open to check if it was carrying anything. If they took passengers, they’d immediately face bankruptcy-level fines.
These large merchant ships carried top-grade porcelain and gold and silver vessels worth considerable sums. They were already targets for extortion by the Maritime Trade Supervisorate—how could they afford to give them more leverage?
If not for the fact that the financial backers behind most merchant ships had connections in the capital, and closing the port would involve too great a loss, the Xiao Family would have preferred to halt all shipping and cut off all external routes.
The Xiao Family actually hadn’t expected that under such circumstances, instead of rushing back to the capital, Tie Ci was still running outward. They had focused most of their energy on the main roads from Dongming to the capital. Only when they pursued her to Qing Zhou did they vaguely guess that Tie Ci might be going to sea, but by then they were already a step behind.
The guard made a full circuit and returned unsuccessful.
Tie Ci said: “In that case, let’s split up for now. Each of us will find our own way onto a ship, then regroup later at Yongping Prefecture.”
At this time, she had seven or eight people with her, all elite members of the Nine Guards led by Xia Hou. Everyone nodded in agreement.
Dan Shuang silently stood behind her, indicating that no matter what, she would follow the Crown Princess.
Creating chaos at this moment would be the best approach. Tie Ci was just preparing to act when suddenly there was a commotion at the dock. A group of soldiers, led by one man, ran toward their direction. The leader shouted as he ran: “It’s that man who wanted us to secretly take him aboard!”
He was pointing directly at the guard who had gone to inquire earlier!
Xia Hou shouted: “Scatter and run!”
He threw a fire pellet, hitting the ship where the informant was. With a thunderous crash, the ship’s hull was breached. The people on board fled down from the ship in panic or jumped into the water. People on the dock scattered in terror, and the crowd immediately became chaotic. Even though the soldiers desperately shouted orders and used whips to beat the crowd while demanding quiet, it was all in vain.
Tie Ci and Dan Shuang took advantage of this chaos, using the ship’s hull as cover, and leaped onto the largest merchant ship. Both had already disguised themselves—they had smeared their faces and changed into ordinary sailor clothing, making them inconspicuous in the chaotic crowd.
Once aboard, the two didn’t enter the ship’s cabin but instead stole the crew roster hanging on the bulkhead, then slipped down from the side of the ship again. Tie Ci took out a length of rope made from sinew that her master had given her and suspended them both beneath the ship’s hull.
She had originally planned to blend in with the crew and find a hidden compartment to hide in. These merchant ships, in order to pay less tax and guard against sea pirates, sometimes had hidden compartments.
But just now she had heard that the port had strengthened management and would check each person against portraits in the registry, so she had a new idea.
Flipping through the entire roster, she looked for people whose outlines were relatively close to their own, then took out the simple yet sophisticated disguise tools her master had provided and began applying makeup.
It was a palm-sized box. When opened, it was divided into countless compartments, each containing various powders, rouge, ointments, patches, fake moles, fake hair, and so forth—all complete. Compared to the current scattered various boxes, it was countless times more convenient.
Her master called this a portable disguise palette.
The lower layer of the box also contained small bottles of glue, thin skin, hair dye supplies, and so on.
The disguise techniques her master taught were half tools, half makeup, and never used human skin masks. She said human skin masks were firstly disgusting, and secondly, wearing someone else’s entire face mask inevitably wouldn’t fit properly with one’s own facial contours. So her masks were all small pieces that needed to be applied piece by piece, utilizing the natural skin texture and muscle structure of the human face. All the attachment points were at naturally occurring ridges and valleys of the skin, making the transitions natural. The makeup artistry was even more miraculous—Tie Ci had personally witnessed her master transform an ugly woman into a beauty to meet a potential husband, thus deceiving a wealthy son-in-law. This technique was practically like changing heads.
That’s why her master’s rouge and cosmetics shops were always bustling with customers. All shops related to women were thriving like fire. In her master’s words, women’s money was the easiest to earn.
As Tie Ci applied her makeup, she thought with emotion that if the high-risk career of Crown Heir really couldn’t continue, she could hide her identity and work as a female shop assistant in her master’s store, spending her days moving through floating fragrances, doing elegant and beautiful things like selecting embroidery and choosing fabrics. Wouldn’t this quality of life be eight hundred times better than being Crown Heir?
Before long, both master and disciple were ready. One had a pockmarked face, the other had an underbite. When they looked at each other, both were visually assaulted by the other’s ugliness.
The advantage of choosing ugly people was, firstly, ugly people usually had distinctive features that were easy to impersonate, and secondly, when people were ugly, others wouldn’t want to look at them much, making discovery less likely.
After finishing their disguises, they memorized the contents of the roster. The pockmarked one was called Er Dan, and the underbite one was called San Hai. Both had very characteristic names for sea folk.
The ship captain was particular and could even recognize a few characters. He had actually annotated a few crawling characters after each person’s name. Tie Ci hadn’t noticed at first, but after finishing their disguises, she discovered that Er Dan’s name was followed by “lustful,” while San Hai’s was marked “gluttonous—will eat anything.”
Tie Ci and Dan Shuang looked at each other again, neither knowing whom to pity more.
Dan Shuang felt she was more unlucky. There couldn’t be women on the ship, so being lustful wasn’t afraid of being exposed—besides, the Crown Princess herself was quite lustful.
As for herself, she might very well have to swallow live squid.
But there was no time to change identities now. The chaos at the dock was settling down, and the large ship would soon set sail. The two leaped back onto the ship, leaving the rope they had hung beneath the ship—if inspection boats came, they would slip down there.
After hanging the roster back in its original place, the two went down to hide. After the ship’s personnel finished their recount, nearly a hundred people shouted work songs as they raised the massive anchor weighing over a thousand catties, and the large ship slowly set sail.
Giant sails connected sky to shadow, the vast sea flowing between ships and oars.
Tie Ci and Dan Shuang blended into the crowd, looking for Er Dan and San Hai. They heard the ship captain giving instructions: “Go knock on all the hidden compartments and check the bottom hold storage too. Don’t let anyone sneak aboard. This time at sea, patrol boats will follow us the whole way. If there’s anything amiss, signal them and the patrol boats will come.”
Some people shook their heads while others were pleased. Someone said: “With patrol boats following and harassing us every few days, what do we do?”
Someone else said: “With patrol boats following, those natives on Ghost Island won’t be able to trouble us either.”
The ship captain shouted: “Whether they follow or not isn’t for us to decide. Everyone be careful and get to work!”
The sailors scattered in all directions.
Listening, Tie Ci thought that her original plan to hijack the entire ship if discovered would need to be revised.
The two continued searching for their targets. Er Dan was easy enough to find—he was organizing ropes on the aft deck, but there were quite a few people around, and meals were eaten in shifts. Tie Ci was watching from a corner when suddenly someone patted her from behind and asked: “Er Dan, why haven’t you gone to eat yet?”
She and Er Dan weren’t far apart to begin with, and this shout wasn’t quiet. Just as Er Dan over there was about to look up, Dan Shuang quickly moved to block Er Dan’s line of sight.
Here, Tie Ci didn’t know what Er Dan’s voice sounded like, so she laughed vaguely and pulled the sailor aside. Over there, Er Dan had keen senses and stood up suspiciously, saying: “Who’s calling me?”
Dan Shuang walked past him and grabbed his neck, saying: “Come on, brother, I’ll take you to eat something good.”
But Er Dan struggled in confusion: “San Hai? You? What do you mean? I didn’t steal your money, don’t think about dragging me to a corner to beat me up.”
Dan Shuang hadn’t expected there to be bad blood between these two. In her moment of surprise, she saw Tie Ci make a gesture and immediately understood.
Enduring Er Dan’s greasy fishy smell, she chuckled and continued dragging him forward, but let him see a bit of the makeup box at her waist.
It was a black lacquered box inlaid with mother-of-pearl, very exquisite. Even showing just a bit caught Er Dan’s attention. Sailors traveling the seas had some discernment, and his eyes immediately lit up.
Sailors often had sweethearts on land and would collect nice things for them. Seeing this item, his hands itched, thinking of stealing it to sleep with some woman later, or at the very least exchange it for money.
So he followed Dan Shuang all the way down to the ship’s cabin.
Tie Ci followed the person who had called her to eat. Several large basins contained coarse rice, kelp soup, and stewed small fish—very simple fare placed directly on the floor. Each person took various bowls to serve themselves, then crouched on the floor or went elsewhere to eat.
With a glance, Tie Ci unexpectedly discovered that the eating utensils here weren’t randomly shared but brought by each person individually. She had no idea where Er Dan’s bowl was.
The person who had called her was a busybody who had served himself a bowl of rice and enthusiastically waved: “Come quickly, come quickly! If you’re any slower, only fish bones will be left!”
Tie Ci rolled her eyes and muttered: “It’s the same stuff every day—I’m sick of it!” Saying this, she pretended to be annoyed and turned to leave.
As soon as she turned around, all the people who had been eating with their heads down looked up at her with surprised expressions. Her heart jumped, knowing she had accidentally given herself away.
But where exactly was the problem?