On the night before Mu Chun’s departure, the Eagle Guard held a farewell party especially for him – a send-off for the plague god, sincerely wishing this shameless superior would die at the frontier and never return.

The Eagle Guard was just as lively as when the Embroidered Uniform Guard had sent off Mu Chun in August – gongs and drums thundering, firecrackers bursting in unison, with officers and soldiers from top to bottom all showing expressions of relief.

When the drinking was in full swing, Mu Chun said, “I was recommended by Duke Weiguo to go to the frontier. It’s a rare opportunity – which of you would like to go with me?”

Everyone continued their drinking games and acted as if they hadn’t heard him.

Mu Chun used his silver tongue to tempt his subordinates: “I know you people all come from military families. Your family ranks are at least at the level of a thousand-household commander, and you have connections at home. Whether you serve as imperial guards in the capital or get transferred to guard the imperial mausoleum in Fengyang, you’ll be promoted quickly and won’t worry about your future. But are you really willing to live a life where you can see your entire future mapped out when you’re only in your teens?”

Most of the soldiers burst into laughter and raised their cups, saying, “We’re willing! Really, this kind of secure life is pretty good. Even if we’re doing poorly in the capital, we’re still much better off than the vast majority of common people. If we go to the frontier, we probably won’t live to come back and enjoy the good life.”

Mu Chun turned a deaf ear to these sarcastic remarks and continued, “If you want to surpass the achievements of your fathers or grandfathers, you must go to real battlefields to accumulate military merit. There’s a great opportunity right in front of you now. If you don’t treasure it, you’ll definitely regret it later.”

“When you’re old in the future and your grandsons ask, ‘Grandfather, what were you doing during the Ming Dynasty’s fourth northern expedition?’ you’ll say, ‘I was young and strong, drinking with courtesans by the Qinhuai River.’ Can you really say such words?”

Everyone laughed again: “We can say it!”

But there was always a small group who didn’t join in the laughter, thinking Mu Chun’s proposal was quite good.

So when Mu Chun departed the next day, about a hundred men volunteered to follow him to garrison the northwest and seek better prospects.

Each of them came from high-ranking military households, ate meat at every meal, had strong bodies, received good education and training, and their ambitions had not yet been extinguished by comfortable living – they were the elite of the Eagle Guard.

The mighty procession set off. After leaving the city and traveling two li, Marquis Xiping Mu Ying caught up with several men. Mu Chun ordered the troops not to stop but to continue their march, while he stayed at the rear of the formation to meet his father.

Mu Ying said coldly, “You’re going to garrison the northwest frontier without even telling the family. This morning at court, I only heard about your departure today from others’ gossip. The northwest frontier is most dangerous in winter. The Northern Yuan army takes advantage of the bitter cold to constantly harass the frontier and deliberately provoke. You must not be impulsive. Once you fall for their trick and give chase, you’ll freeze to death, starve to death, or be killed in ambush on the vast grasslands in blizzards.”

Mu Ying had been the commander-in-chief of the third northern expedition and had achieved great victory. These were all words from his experience.

Sometimes in his rage, he wished he could beat this son to death, but him beating his son to death was different from others beating his son to death.

Mu Chun had done this deliberately. After severely embarrassing his father’s face at yesterday’s grand review, he didn’t dare go home.

Mu Chun said insincerely, “I didn’t expect the assignment to come so quickly either. I had planned to write a letter to the family on the way to tell them about these events and inform them of my whereabouts.”

Mu Ying rarely refrained from exposing his son’s clumsy lie. He pointed to the dozen or so people behind him and said, “These are ten guards who often fight with Yuan forces, plus a military doctor I regularly use who has superb medical skills. These eleven will go to the northwest with you.”

Mu Chun craned his neck to look behind them, as if searching for someone.

Mu Ying asked, “What are you looking for?”

Mu Chun said, “I’m looking for my wet nurse from childhood. Father should also be sending her to the northwest, right?”

Mu Chun thought his father was deliberately putting on an act and had no good intentions.

Mu Ying heard the mockery in his son’s words and flew into a rage: “Unfilial son! Unfilial son!” He was about to swing his whip to discipline his son when his subordinates risked their lives to hold him back.

Mu Chun spurred his horse and fled, catching up with the troops. He wouldn’t be fooled by his father’s hypocritical warmth into a father-son reconciliation – could all those years of beatings and scoldings just be written off?

Mu Chun refused to accept them, but Mu Ying insisted on sending them. The eleven men followed behind the troops and couldn’t be driven away.

On the afternoon of October 23rd, Hu Shanwei’s party of over three hundred people arrived at the Zhouzhi County post station in Xi’an Prefecture. This was exactly where Liu Siyan’s group had disappeared.

The post station master checked the travel permit in Hu Shanwei’s hands and received them warmly, saying, “People from Prince Qin’s manor are also staying here. Every day they go to the nearby mountains, rivers, and streams to search for traces of Liu Siyan and the others. They only return when it gets dark, but so far there’s been no news. Alas, I fear the worst.”

Traveling rapidly along the way, one would discover that the northwest was clearly different from Jiangnan. The land here was vast and sparsely populated, and having experienced prolonged warfare, many fields lay barren – completely different from Jiangnan, which had been recuperating for over ten years and had restored its prosperity.

Ji Gang asked the post master, “I heard there are bandits in these parts?”

The post master nodded, saying, “Zhouzhi County has too many mountains and waters, and we’re poor here. Poor mountains and evil waters produce unruly people. The mountain areas claim to have eighteen strongholds. When the court sends troops to suppress bandits, they take their money and flee to the deep mountains and old forests, or disappear into the marketplace, or run to other places. Once the court’s army leaves, they come out to cause trouble again. When merchant caravans pass through here, they must first find local brokers to send tribute to the eighteen strongholds, or spend heavily to hire escort agencies, before they can pass through safely. Now that Prince Qin’s manor troops have arrived, the bandits of the eighteen strongholds have all fled, and the strongholds are empty.”

Ji Gang slammed his fist on the table: “Outrageous! How can they be so rampant? Is there no law?”

Hu Shanwei said to the post master, “Take me to the room where Liu Siyan stayed that night.”

Anger was useless; finding clues was the urgent priority.

The post master looked troubled and said, “After Liu Siyan and his group left here, our post station received several more waves of officials. That room is the best guest room in the post station, specially used to receive high officials. It’s had more than ten different guests, and each time guests left, we cleaned it. Moreover, people from Prince Qin’s manor have already looked at it and found nothing significant.”

Hu Shanwei said, “Take me there.”

Ji Gang threw his weight around: “Stop the nonsense! Hurry up!”

Seeing it was still early, Ji Gang immediately ordered guides from the post station to take two hundred Embroidered Uniform Guards to search the nearby mountain areas, while the remaining hundred stayed at the post station to protect Hu Shanwei and search the post station itself.

Ji Gang said, “Cellars, stables, latrines, wells, even every roof beam and mouse hole in the rooms – search them all!”

A subordinate asked, “What about the post station’s cesspit?”

Ji Gang waved his hand grandly: “Search that too.”

Such dirty work didn’t fall to the fair-skinned, beautiful, long-legged Ji Gang. He went with Hu Shanwei to the room where Liu Siyan had stayed.

Calling it a room, it was actually a quiet little courtyard deep in the post station, with a small central patio. From the dried branches and leaves in the patio, one could see that two grapevines had been planted there. The main building had a bedroom, sitting room, bathing room, and study.

Hu Shanwei wiped the table surface with her handkerchief – it was clean without dust, indeed cleaned beforehand.

Hu Shanwei “asked for advice humbly,” asking Ji Gang, “Your Embroidered Uniform Guard is responsible for investigating imperial cases. You should have the most experience. When encountering situations like this with no leads, where do you usually start investigating?”

Honestly, all along the way, Hu Shanwei had looked at Liu Siyan’s route map again and again without getting any leads. She had to rely on the Embroidered Uniform Guard’s strength and wisdom.

Ji Gang looked rather troubled and asked, “Does Bureau Chief Hu want to hear the truth or lies?”

Hu Shanwei said, “I don’t want to hear nonsense.”

Ji Gang cleared his throat and said, “Actually, when we Embroidered Uniform Guards investigate cases, we rely entirely on beatings and intimidation. We throw people into the imperial prison, and most people confess just seeing those instruments of torture. Those with harder bones are more troublesome – we knock out teeth, pull out fingernails, round after round, but they eventually talk.”

Hu Shanwei asked, “Don’t you look for evidence?”

Ji Gang chuckled, “Once they confess, we have evidence! If there really is no evidence, we create evidence ourselves. How could we possibly fail to solve cases assigned by His Majesty?”

It seemed wisdom was not to be counted on.

Ji Gang said, “Bureau Chief Hu needn’t worry. Once we catch a local bandit and use all the imperial prison methods on him, there will definitely be clues.”

Hu Shanwei said, “Didn’t you hear the post master say? People from Prince Qin’s manor have been looking for bandits recently. All the people from the eighteen strongholds have fled – they haven’t caught a single one.”

Torture wouldn’t work either, because they couldn’t catch anyone at all.

Ji Gang scratched his head: “Then what should we do?”

Sigh, none of them could be relied upon – she could only rely on herself. Hu Shanwei rolled up her sleeves, walked to the bed, lifted all the bedding, and started searching from under the bed.

Ji Gang slashed the quilt open with his blade and even pulled out the cotton stuffing inside.

When darkness fell, the guides led the two hundred Embroidered Uniform Guards back. The bandits had vanished without a trace, but they had killed two wild wolves and several wild rabbits.

Hu Shanwei found a lost silver ear pick in a drawer – crudely made, definitely not something Liu Siyan would use.

Ji Gang discovered a mouse nest and several centipedes in the roof beams.

Inside the post station, apart from fishing out a few copper coins from the cesspit, there were no unexpected discoveries.

The post master sighed repeatedly, “We really didn’t lie to you. After the incident, we searched ourselves, and Prince Qin’s manor searched too. We couldn’t hide even a louse here.”

The five hundred troops from Prince Qin’s manor also returned to the post station. The two armies joined forces. Even with the firewood storage rooms packed full, they still couldn’t accommodate everyone. Prince Qin’s manor was hospitably courteous, voluntarily camping outside and leaving the post station to the guests who had come from afar.

The leader of Prince Qin’s manor troops was Commander Lu. That night, Hu Shanwei, Ji Gang, and Commander Lu sat down to exchange information.

Hu Shanwei asked, “Commander Lu, I heard that when Liu Siyan’s group returned to the capital, Prince Qin and the Princess entrusted them with delivering over twenty carts of gifts to Their Majesties. Does the manor have a record of the gift list? Bandits who steal things will certainly take them to be sold and disposed of. We can start with pawn shops in various places and track down the bandits by tracing the gifts.”

Commander Lu said, “Our prince already secretly distributed the gift list to investigate. As soon as there’s news, we’ll inform Bureau Chief Hu and the Embroidered Uniform Guard. After this incident occurred, both our prince and princess felt very remorseful. The princess has already written a memorial requesting punishment, which should currently be on its way to the capital…”

Commander Lu was respectful in attitude. Whatever questions Hu Shanwei and Ji Gang asked, he answered one by one without impatience, extremely cooperative, until late into the night before they dispersed.

Ji Gang was Hu Shanwei’s personal bodyguard and slept in the adjacent study. Ji Gang also set up a small mechanism – he tied a rope by Hu Shanwei’s pillow that went over the roof beam, with the other end in the study attached to a bell.

Ji Gang pointed to the rope: “When you sleep at night, if you feel something’s wrong, no matter what disturbance there is, don’t hesitate – pull the rope immediately. I’ll run over as soon as I hear the bell.”

Hu Shanwei nodded.

Ji Gang went to the study. Exhausted from the journey, he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. Just as he entered his dreams, he heard the bell ringing by his ear.

Without even opening his eyes, his brain still unclear, Ji Gang’s muscles made their habitual response – he drew his sword, flipped over, and leaped up. Without even putting on shoes, he charged barefoot into the bedroom: “What scoundrel dares!”

Hu Shanwei was nestled in her blankets reading a book, pointing to the rope in her hand: “There’s no thief. I was testing whether this mechanism works well.”

Ji Gang breathed a sigh of relief, hugging his body tightly. His bare feet on the ice-cold floor made him shiver: “Northwest autumn nights are colder than Nanjing winters. There’s even a layer of white frost outside. Don’t test it anymore, okay? I’m freezing to death.”

Hu Shanwei said, “Understood. Go back to sleep. By the way, please blow out the candle for me.”

Ji Gang blew out the candle and walked to the doorway, feeling something was wrong. He turned back and asked, “You’re actually just afraid of the cold and don’t want to get up to blow out the candle, so you used testing the mechanism as an excuse to call me up, right?”

Hu Shanwei, holding the warm hot water bottle in her blankets, tacitly admitted it. Was this really autumn? It was even colder than the coldest days of winter in Nanjing!

Ji Gang sighed, “Indeed, the more beautiful a woman is, the more cunning she is.”

The night passed without incident. The bell never rang again, and Ji Gang slept soundly. The next morning when he got up, a post station servant knocked on the door to deliver hot water and breakfast.

After Ji Gang finished washing and eating breakfast, he went outside and saw another servant waiting outside the bedroom with a water pot and food box.

Strange – Hu Shanwei was accustomed to rising early and would practice a set of simple boxing and footwork in her room to exercise her muscles and strengthen her body. Why hadn’t she gotten up yet?

A terrible thought flashed through his mind. Ji Gang kicked the door open and rushed in – the bedroom was empty. He felt the bedding – it was ice cold. Where was any trace of Hu Shanwei!