Why did everyone fear social death? This was related to a rule in the inner city, which differed from the outer city in that it had no curfew. The inner city, home to respectable individuals, imposed a curfew after sunset for the safety of high-ranking officials and nobles. Once the drum sounded at dusk, the streets had to be clear of people.
As is widely known, the Imperial Entertainment Bureau operated at night. This meant that visiting the bureau wasn’t just about gathering information; one had to stay overnight. This was why Xu Pingzhi opposed Xu Qi An going to the bureau. For a young man in his prime, spending the night there meant risking temptation from the courtesans.
Therefore, whoever went to the Imperial Entertainment Bureau would have to engage in intimacy with the courtesans. The three men present all had reputations to uphold:
Xu Cijiu, the upright gentleman.
Xu Qi An, who avoided brothels.
Xu Pingzhi, the devoted husband.
They all knew that regardless of the circumstances, engaging in such activities would be a fact that couldn’t be changed. Although Xu Qi An had never experienced this in his previous life, he could imagine the embarrassment of being caught and having the police call his parents… It would be utterly mortifying.
Xu Qi An sat up straight, his expression serious and proper. In his mind, he recalled stories about brothels. During one visit to listen to music, Constable Wang had brought up a topic about a government official who had gone to sleep with a courtesan, only to encounter his son during tea. The father and son in the same establishment created an extremely awkward situation. The next day, this story spread throughout the official circles of the capital, becoming a source of amusement. Even Constable Wang had heard about it from County Magistrate Zhu.
In an era that valued the Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues, as well as one’s reputation, such an incident was unbearably shameful. Xu Qi An looked at Second Uncle Xu and Second Young Master Xu, involuntarily imagining a scene:
Xu Xinnian: “Oh, Father, you’re here too? I’ll let you have this girl today, and she can be mine tomorrow.”
Second Uncle Xu: “Get lost, who’s the father here? I’ll sleep with her first.”
Xu Qi An: “Both of you step aside, I’ll take her for myself.”
The mere thought of it sent chills down his spine. Xu Qi An coughed and said, “Let’s put the Imperial Entertainment Bureau matter aside for now. We’ll continue gathering information elsewhere. After all, going there isn’t necessary, and we’re not sure if we can get useful information from Courtesana Fuxiang. Let’s reconvene the day after tomorrow to summarize our findings. If we don’t have any additional information by then, we can consider going to the bureau.”
Hearing this, Second Young Master Xu and Second Uncle Xu’s attitudes immediately improved, and they both nodded in agreement. Xu Qi An thought to himself that he should sacrifice himself and visit the Imperial Entertainment Bureau tomorrow night.
The next day at noon, Xu Qi An took leave to return to the Xu residence. The usually lively mansion had become much quieter. Half of the maids and servants had been taken away, leaving only Old Zhang the doorkeeper, and a few servants to manage the place. Second Uncle Xu and Second Young Master Xu had not returned.
Xu Qi An made his way to the inner courtyard, pushing open Second Young Master Xu’s room. He rummaged through the drawers and found the moon-white scholar’s robe with precious fabric embroidered with cloud patterns of the same color.
He took off his constable uniform and changed into his younger brother’s most presentable outfit, hanging a decent-quality jade pendant from his belt. Xu Qi An stood in front of the bronze mirror, examining his current appearance.
It wasn’t bad… though his rugged features lacked the delicate beauty of a young puppy. If he still had his previous life’s stunning looks, he could have pulled off this outfit perfectly… His current appearance somewhat lacked the right feeling for it. Xu Qi An smoothed out the wrinkles on his chest and left, satisfied.
The structure of the capital city of Da Feng could be described as a set of nested dolls, consisting of the Palace City, Imperial City, Inner City, and Outer City. Compared to the populous and diverse Outer City, Xu Qi An understood the Inner City as equivalent to the CBD of his previous life. In this era, those who could live in the Inner City were people of status and position.
It’s worth mentioning that his aunt had always wanted to sell their property in the Outer City and move to the Inner City. Unfortunately, having a money-pit of a nephew meant that while she longed for the Inner City, she couldn’t afford to live there.
From the Xu residence to the Inner City gate, it would take Xu Qi An three to four hours on foot, even with his current pace. He hired a carriage and arrived at the nearest Inner City gate an hour later, presenting his pre-prepared credentials to pass through smoothly.
The guards at the city gate carefully inspected the carriage. Seeing that Xu Qi An wasn’t carrying any large luggage, they couldn’t hide their disappointment. This meant Xu Qi An wasn’t entering the Inner City for business, so they couldn’t collect the city gate tax.
The streets of the Inner City were wide and intersecting. The main roads were lined with beautiful houses surrounded by green trees, while various courtyards were distributed along the secondary roads. Whether it was urban construction, the attire of pedestrians, or the number of carriages on the streets, everything far surpassed the Outer City.
“I must bring Sister Lingyue to play in the Inner City sometime. Its prosperity is incomparable to the Outer City,” Xu Qi An thought, lifting the carriage curtain and gazing at the prosperous scene, Xu Lingyue’s delicate and beautiful face appearing in his mind.
He didn’t go straight to the Imperial Entertainment Bureau; it was still early, and the seafood merchants didn’t work during the day. After paying for the carriage rental, Xu Qi An wandered on the streets.
Before long, Xu Qi An came to a marketplace. He looked up at the archway at the entrance of the street: Yongkang Street!
The breadth of this street was unlike anything Xu Qi An had ever seen before. It was two hundred meters wide, with neat bluestone slabs forming an even surface that extended as far as the eye could see. Shops and houses lined both sides, and ten carriages could easily travel side by side without any trouble. Pedestrians bustled about.
It wasn’t just a street; it was more like a grand plaza. Standing under the archway, Xu Qi An was genuinely amazed by the sight.
“Yongkang Street is one of the main roads in the capital. Uncle mentioned it was big, but I didn’t expect it to be this massive,” Xu Qi An muttered to himself.
The main road’s spaciousness had its purpose. When the emperor or noble clan members traveled, guards would clear the area in advance. The two-hundred-meter width rendered most military crossbows and firearms ineffective. Even if assassins wanted to hide in the buildings on either side to ambush, seeing this distance, they could only helplessly take their hands off the keyboard and type “666” in admiration.
Xu Qi An roamed Yongkang Street like an unleashed dog, but due to his limited budget, he restrained himself from shopping. Suddenly, a luxurious carriage caught Xu Qi An’s attention, dazzling his titanium alloy dog eyes.
It was a carriage pulled by four sturdy horses, with an arched dome gilded in silver and gold. Yellow silk curtains hung from the windows and below was a dust cover made of translucent white jade. The sides of the wheels were studded with a row of neatly arranged gold nails, and the hubs were also wrapped in jade.
The truly impressive part was the carriage’s material: golden silk nanmu wood, exclusively used by the imperial family.
“I estimate that even if I worked hard all my life, I couldn’t afford one of their wheels…” Xu Qi An thought sadly, feeling as if he had returned to the mindset of being a wage slave in his previous life.
This luxurious carriage was parked by the roadside, guarded by a row of black-armored soldiers holding long spears. Interestingly, another row of soldiers was playing an arrow-throwing game.
The stall owner was an old Taoist priest wearing a tattered robe, his graying hair tied up with a wooden hairpin, with messy strands hanging down. The stall displayed copper coins, silver ingots, gold ingots, Taoist scriptures, a bodhi bead bracelet, a jade mirror… all sorts of odds and ends.
Putting aside the other items, the fact that gold and silver ingots were displayed on the stall without being stolen showed that this old Taoist was no ordinary person… Xu Qi An stopped to observe.
After watching for a while, he understood the rules of the game. The thrower stood thirty paces away from a porcelain vase, blindfolded and facing away, with three arrows to throw. If one arrow hit the target, the thrower could win an item from the third tier, which consisted of gold, silver, and jade items. If all three arrows hit the target, the thrower could choose any item from the first tier. The first tier only had two items: the bodhi bead bracelet and the jade mirror.
“Missed again, damn it!”
“Move aside, it’s my turn.”
The soldiers took turns throwing arrows, but all failed. The pile of silver fragments in front of the old Taoist grew higher and higher.
After fifteen soldiers had gone through another round of failures, Xu Qi An noticed the carriage curtain move slightly. A soldier standing by the window lowered his head to listen, then walked towards the stall owner.
“Old Taoist, my master says sixty taels of gold for everything on your stall,” the soldier announced as he approached the old Taoist.
Is this a case of failing at arrow throwing and resorting to paying outright?… Xu Qi An stood not far away, watching the scene unfold.
Faced with the temptation of sixty taels of gold, the old Taoist shook his head. “Rules are rules.”
The soldier’s body immediately tensed up. He stared fiercely at the old Taoist for a moment, then abruptly turned around to report back to the carriage.
A few seconds later, the carriage’s owner recalled the soldier, preparing to leave.
Xu Qi An seized the opportunity to approach, coming to the old Taoist’s side and asking, “Old Taoist, how much for one try?”
The old Taoist, sitting cross-legged on the ground, looked up at him and handed over three arrows. “One qian of silver.”
Xu Qi An took the arrows and smiled, feeling confident in his victory.
Throwing arrows into a vase from thirty paces away wasn’t particularly challenging for a martial artist at the Body Refining Realm. However, doing so while facing away and blindfolded made it almost impossible to hit the target.
The eyes are the most crucial of the five senses, and losing sight would reduce a martial artist’s sense of touch, increasing the difficulty of hitting the target.
Whether one could hit the target or not depended entirely on luck.
Xu Qi An’s face wasn’t particularly handsome, but he had absolute confidence because he hadn’t picked up any silver for several days in a row.
Is it because I was destined to come to the Inner City and encounter this arrow-throwing game that my luck has been automatically accumulating? If I can hit the target, all the gold and silver ingots will be mine… Ah, the life of a lucky person is just so plain and uneventful… Xu Qi An walked to the thirty-pace mark, turned around, blindfolded himself with the black cloth, and casually threw the arrows backward.
“Thunk, thunk, thunk…”
The three arrows hit the vase almost simultaneously, without any delay between them.
The surrounding onlookers let out exclamations of amazement. The commotion attracted the attention of the carriage that was about to leave. A soft, enchanting voice floated out from the window:
“Stop the carriage!”