Wang Daxia said, “It’s too late. The food boxes have already been taken inside, and we’ve missed our chance to add the drug.”
Lu Ying slapped her forehead, filled with regret. “If only I had realized earlier, we could have found an opportunity to add the drug at the Lakeside Inn.”
Ding Wu consoled her, “Who could have predicted this? Things can’t always go according to our plans.”
Lu Ying composed herself and instructed her subordinates, “Send word of this immediately by carrier pigeon to Lord Lu.”
When Lu Bing received the message, he thought to himself that fortunately he had kept a backup plan. He had surrounded Toutiao Alley so tightly that not even a fly could escape. He immediately wrote a reply, telling his daughter to remain calm and proceed according to the original plan, as he had already prepared reinforcements.
By the first watch of the night, all the candles in the shop had been extinguished. The shopkeepers and warehouse guards had all retired to their makeshift beds. Perhaps it was because rainy days made for good sleeping, but the dozen or so people keeping watch in the shop tonight had gone to sleep earlier than usual. The heavy rain pounding on the roof tiles was quite hypnotic. Even after their customary pre-sleep discussion about women, they were soon yawning continuously and fell asleep almost as soon as their heads touched the pillows.
Wu Dianyong had accompanied Boss Wang for dinner, then carried the leftover food back to the inn. He gave the servant a few coins for running errands and asked him to return the food boxes to the Lakeside Inn. He truly disliked sweet foods and had only eaten a few bites randomly to please Boss Wang.
When dining with a leader, one naturally couldn’t eat their fill, so he sat down in the inn’s main hall and ordered a bowl of eel noodles and two steamed crabs. Indeed, as Wang Daxia had observed, he had a cat’s tongue and loved eating fresh seafood.
The opportunity had come.
When the kitchen was preparing the dishes, Wang Daxia ordered his agents to add “Lanke’s Dream” to the eel noodles.
Wu Dianyong first finished the eel noodles to satisfy his hunger, then methodically picked up the crab-eating tools to extract the crab meat, enjoying the delicacy and satisfying his preferences.
Wu Dianyong was an expert crab eater. After finishing both crabs, he even reassembled the dismantled remains to form complete crab shells.
Finally, he drank a cup of warmed yellow wine to counter the cold nature of the crab, completing his meal perfectly.
Wu Dianyong belched contentedly as he went upstairs to his guest room. The inn’s servant had already prepared his bath water, with an additional bucket of hot water standing by the tub.
Wu Dianyong undressed and settled comfortably into the bathtub. Perhaps due to the yellow wine, he felt his eyelids growing heavy, so drowsy that he could barely keep his eyes open. He placed a towel behind his neck, planning to rest briefly in the tub.
The moment his eyes closed, he lost consciousness, returning to an infant-like sleep.
All of this was witnessed by the agent hiding in the roof beams.
Wu Dianyong had gained weight in middle age, and his unconscious body slid down from the tub’s edge, with his head submerged in the water, yet he showed no reaction.
The drug was incredibly potent. When added to drinking water, one could still hold out for a while, but when mixed directly into the eel noodles, it could knock someone out within a quarter-hour.
Fearing Wu Dianyong might drown, the agent jumped down from the roof beams, pulled the unconscious Wu Dianyong out of the water, and bound him with rope.
Simultaneously, several signal arrows shot into the sky, emitting green light that was quickly swallowed by the heavy rain. The Imperial Guards stationed throughout the northern district began their operation, arresting all suspects without exception—every single one was captured.
At the All-Goods Trading House, agents fed the guard dogs several drugged meat bones, knocking them out, then infiltrated the shop and split up to capture the night watchmen.
With one person covering mouths and four binding the victims, everything went smoothly. Except for one naturally gifted strongman who awoke and resisted but was immediately subdued, all the night watchmen were taken while still dreaming.
In the tunnel, Wang Daxia, whose entire body was nearly submerged in water, moved aside the final brick leading to the warehouse. The tunnel water gushed into the warehouse as Wang Daxia emerged from the hole. He took out a blue fluorescent stone for illumination and was immediately stunned by what he saw in the warehouse—it was filled with various firearms!
Moreover, these weren’t homemade, crudely manufactured firearms. The wooden crates were clearly marked “Royal Arsenal.”
The Royal Arsenal was the imperial weapons factory, specializing in firearm production and supplying the military forces responsible for defending the capital.
All firearms required gunpowder to function, so the Royal Arsenal constantly stored thousands of tons of gunpowder, making it extremely dangerous. Therefore, it was located in Coffin Alley in the southwest corner of Beijing’s inner city, a remote area surrounded by four imperial temples: Dinghui Temple, Cheng’en Temple, Huguo Temple, and Yuanhong Temple, where unauthorized personnel were forbidden to approach.
The air was thick with the acrid smell of gunpowder. Wang Daxia wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, grateful that Lu Ying had been so thoughtful. Considering that the underground warehouse might very well contain firearms, she had told Wang Daxia to discard his flint and other lighting tools and had given him the blue fluorescent stone from her family’s collection that glowed in darkness.
If he had lit the flint and even a single spark had fallen on the firearms, the consequences would have been unimaginable.
If these firearms were ignited and exploded, they would be enough to blow up the entire All-Goods Trading House!
The water from the hole was merely a drop in the bucket compared to a warehouse full of firearms—it couldn’t solve the danger at all.
Although he had prepared mentally beforehand, Wang Daxia was still scared weak in the knees: I can’t die here! If I die, Wei Caiwei will truly become a widow.
Just then, knocking came from outside. “We’ve bound the warehouse guards. Can we open the door?”
Wang Daxia quickly ran to the door and said, “Hurry up and open the door! I need to get out! This warehouse is full of Royal Arsenal goods. I don’t dare stay here another moment! Don’t bring anything with fire, and everyone stay far back!”
Life was more important!
The door opened, and Wang Daxia bolted out like a rabbit.
The final target was Boss Wang, suspected of being Zhao Quan, the White Lotus Sect leader.
Boss Wang was staying in Wu Dianyong’s small courtyard. Lu Ying personally took action, using the cover of the rain to lead elite Imperial Guards with hooks and ropes over the courtyard walls.
Lu Ying first captured the old servant who was attending to Boss Wang in the small courtyard. This man had been crouching by a small stove with water boiling in the furnace, but he had already succumbed to the drug and collapsed unconscious. Having failed to add firewood to the stove in time, the fire in the furnace was nearly extinguished.
The reinforcements sent by Lu Bing had also surrounded the courtyard in layers, ensuring that not even a fly could escape—it was foolproof.
Boss Wang’s bedroom was in the eastern wing, and light shone from its windows!
Since he had eaten from the Lakeside Inn tonight, while everyone else slept, he alone remained awake—the only person in the White Lotus Sect who hadn’t been knocked out by “Lanke’s Dream.”
They needed to capture him alive. Lu Ying crept to the window and listened intently to the sounds inside, hearing the clicking and clacking of abacus beads.
Boss Wang was doing his accounts.
Boss Wang’s windows were fitted with expensive Western glass, merchandise readily available from the All-Goods Trading House.
The only drawback of glass was that Lu Ying couldn’t cut through window screens or Korean paper as the Imperial Guards usually did to scatter sleeping powder inside.
Breaking the glass would make too much noise and alert Boss Wang, so sleeping powder was unusable.
There were now two options: first, to break down the door and windows to capture him, or second, to wait until Boss Wang fell asleep and then quietly pry open the door and windows to enter.
As Lu Ying pondered the next step, the abacus sounds in the bedroom ceased, followed by Boss Wang’s yawning.
A shadow moved in the window as Boss Wang stood up from behind his desk, stretched lazily, then called out loudly, “Old Li, why isn’t the bath water ready yet? I want to bathe and sleep.”
Old Li, who had been boiling water, was already unconscious and naturally couldn’t respond to Boss Wang.
Lu Ying gave a meaningful look to one of her subordinates skilled in voice mimicry. The subordinate immediately lowered his voice and spoke in an elderly tone: “It’s ready now. Should I bring it over?”
In the torrential rain, the sound of rain could distort voices, especially when separated by a door.
Boss Wang didn’t suspect anything and said, “Bring it quickly.”
The Imperial Guard quickly stripped off Old Li’s clothes and put them on himself. He then poured the hot water from the stove into buckets, carrying them with both hands to the door, knocked, and said, “Boss, open up.”
Imperial Guards lined both sides of the door, waiting for Boss Wang to open it before rushing in to capture him alive.
Boss Wang walked to the door but didn’t immediately open it. Through the door, he asked, “This rain just won’t stop. I wonder if tomorrow will be sunny or rainy?”
“Old Li” replied, “Well, only Heaven knows that.”
Upon hearing this, Boss Wang immediately withdrew the hand he had placed on the door bolt.
Boss Wang didn’t immediately open the door, which made Lu Ying sense something was wrong. Looking through the window, she saw Boss Wang turn and run toward the canopy bed.
Disaster! The seemingly casual question “I wonder if tomorrow will be sunny or rainy” might have been a code phrase, and he had discovered that “Old Li” was fake!
Lu Ying immediately made a charging gesture, and her subordinates immediately smashed through the door and windows with a large iron hammer, rushing in from both the window and the main door.
Boss Wang jumped onto the bed and activated a mechanism. The bed collapsed, Boss Wang disappeared into a black hole, and the bed board flipped back up, looking no different from an ordinary canopy bed.
Lu Ying pointed at the bed board. “Smash it!”
After several hammer blows, the wooden bed frame cracked open, revealing an iron plate underneath.
Wang Daxia wielded an axe, savagely hacking at the iron plate until he finally tore open a gap. He probed inside with a torch, revealing a twisting black hole like a slide—Boss Wang had slid down through it.
Lu Ying was the first to jump inside, with Wang Daxia close behind, holding a shield. The two slid to the bottom, with Wang Daxia holding up the shield and walking in front, telling the pursuing Imperial Guard comrades, “I discovered Royal Arsenal firearms in the warehouse. Boss Wang must have firearm traps below. We must be extremely careful.”
The tunnel was narrow, allowing only one person to pass through, but it was built very solidly with walls constructed of green bricks, no wonder it didn’t collapse despite the rain.
Wang Daxia charged forward with his shield raised while Lu Ying shot arrows into the darkness ahead, but the tunnel curved, and the arrows all struck the walls without the muffled sound of flesh being hit or any screams.
Wind came from ahead, suggesting they were approaching an exit, but Wang Daxia saw a spark in the darkness of the tunnel ahead, writhing and crawling like a snake’s forked tongue, getting closer and closer to him.
Wang Daxia remembered the Royal Arsenal firearms in the underground warehouse and immediately understood what the writhing, crawling spark was.
There was no time to run; he could only gamble now. Wang Daxia swung his shield and hurled it fiercely at the spark!
The shield struck the spark precisely, extinguishing it, and the tunnel returned to darkness.
When everyone ran over, they found the spark was a long fuse leading to a fist-sized cannon. Once ignited, the cannon would explode, collapsing the narrow tunnel and burying alive all who pursued!
Damn!
Lu Ying picked up the cannon as a precaution and continued the pursuit.
Wang Daxia was the first to emerge from the tunnel’s end, which opened into a wardrobe with its doors hanging open. Clearly, when Boss Wang escaped from the tunnel, he had immediately lit the cannon’s fuse, thinking the pursuers would certainly be buried alive in the tunnel, so he hadn’t even bothered to close the tunnel’s door.
This was also a bedroom, with bedding half-hanging over the edge, indicating that whoever was stationed here had been awakened from sleep with a start.
Wang Daxia rushed out the door and discovered this was a fisherman’s house. The courtyard’s shed was stacked with fishing nets, and the house was built beside Jishuitan Lake. Apparently, this fisherman was also a member of the White Lotus Sect, guarding the tunnel.
The muddy road showed two clear sets of footprints leading to the lakeside dock, where several fishing boats were moored.
Just then, a bolt of lightning struck, instantly illuminating the dark, rainy night like daylight. Wang Daxia and Lu Ying saw a fishing boat braving the rain, sailing on the vast, misty Jishuitan Lake.
Lu Ying jumped onto a fishing boat. “We’ll split into two groups. Row and follow me in pursuit! Wang Daxia, immediately mobilize the Northern District Military Commissioner’s night patrol to guard the shores of Jishuitan Lake.”