Lin Yuchan walked through the main door with a pale face.

Seeing that Su Minguan had no intention of killing to silence her, she tried to smile obediently and asked timidly: “How did you know I was here?”

In typical novels and movies, cannon fodder always had to say something like this when discovered – practically meaningless words.

But meaningless words had their uses – for instance, they made good flattery.

The little girl’s eyes were wide, forcing a smile, her pale little face not knowing which way to turn, fingers slightly trembling, even her voice shaking – truly the appearance of cannon fodder destined to be eliminated within three minutes of appearing.

Sure enough, seeing her panicked state, the wariness in Su Minguan’s eyes retreated.

He even showed slight pride, telling her, “I saw you when I entered. Your hiding was far too unprofessional…”

Lin Yuchan looked at that pitch-black hole and suddenly understood, boldly saying: “You didn’t come to steal any tea-roasting secrets. You fabricated so many reasons, put on so many acts, all to make the shopkeeper reasonably suspicious, to let him deliberately allow you in, so you could find… this.”

The hole was concealed very cleverly. Even tea-roasting masters who worked here daily might not pay much attention to this unremarkable corner.

But he had found it. His trip today was specifically to find this.

Su Minguan had left a trail of clues, only they were too scattered, buried among the bizarre financial transactions of Shangxiajiu, attracting no attention.

He had told her he wasn’t originally in the tea business; this deal was something he had fought for with his boss at Jardine Matheson & Co.

He had repeatedly made excessive requests to see Defeng Trading House’s tea-roasting workshop;

He had deliberately hinted to Lin Yuchan that she needn’t hide his “technique-stealing” intentions from Wang Quan;

Even the peeking outside the workshop was probably him deliberately exposing his tracks, enticing Wang Quan to “turn the tables.”

…

Wang Quan was too confident. Thinking of what waves a young man under twenty could stir up, he boldly dug a trap for him, not realizing that Su Minguan, hiding a knife behind his smile, had already dug an even bigger trap for him.

Lin Yuchan pointed at the hole, carefully asking: “What’s in there?”

Her first thought was perhaps a small treasury of Defeng Trading House, for storing money?

He had come alone. Without companions, he couldn’t carry too much silver anyway.

But Su Minguan didn’t respond, his expression turning cold again as he pushed her back with his hand, pointing at the main door.

“Goodbye.”

Lin Yuchan looked back in disbelief: “I’m the one who got you the key…”

Never mind not being grateful, but you could push more gently!

Su Minguan lowered his head, took out a small bottle of gunpowder from his sleeve, and silently loaded it into the gun barrel, tamping it down with a thin rod.

This time his movements were very slow, his strong fingers lingering between the metal gun barrel, deliberately letting her observe clearly.

Lin Yuchan: “…I’m leaving, I’m leaving.”

Consider it kindness fed to a dog.

But her heart rose with an inexplicable joy. Young Master Su wasn’t a traitor helping foreigners steal secrets after all – her intuition was still fairly accurate.

Su Minguan had indicated for her to leave. She wouldn’t do anything suicidal. No matter how curious she was, she could only turn around and exit decisively.

Ding – a key dropped at her feet.

“Don’t forget to lock the door.”

Lin Yuchan picked it up, saying quietly and aggrievedly: “You used me.”

Su Minguan was silent for a moment, finally finding his conscience and adding, “When you return, act as if nothing happened. Defeng Trading House might be chaotic for a few days. When things settle down, I’ll naturally find an opportunity to thank you.”

Lin Yuchan thought: Thanks aren’t necessary. As long as you don’t give me up if you’re caught, I’ll burn incense in gratitude.

She stepped over the threshold, looking for a chance to slip away, when she suddenly glimpsed a light in the distance.

The rain was still heavy. Someone was approaching quickly in the rain, carrying a lantern.

From the silhouette, it looked like…

“Someone came?” Shopkeeper Wang Quan had also evaded the curfew, alone, wiping rainwater from his face as he asked in a low voice: “He’s inside?”

The guards nodded, saying that Su Minguan from Jardine Matheson had just used the key to open the door, lit a lamp, and was probably busy copying the “operation manual” right now.

“Guard well, all of you!” Wang Quan commanded with satisfaction. “Don’t alert the prey!”

Lin Yuchan quickly hid behind the door frame.

How did the shopkeeper come?! Wasn’t the plan to turn the tables?

The guards thought the same as her, asking in low voices: “How did the shopkeeper come? Should we still let him steal things?”

Wang Quan huffily explained to the guards: “I changed my mind – can’t let the foreign devils get too pleased with themselves! Here’s what we’ll do: in a quarter hour, when that Su fellow is off guard, we’ll rush in and catch him red-handed, drag him to the magistrate, and give the foreign devils a humiliation!”

The guards cheered in unison, rolling up their sleeves.

Lin Yuchan groaned inwardly.

“Jiang Gan Steals the Letter” suddenly became “Catching a Turtle in a Jar” – the shopkeeper was truly capricious.

She had to quickly warn Su Minguan.

Taking advantage of Wang Quan talking with the guards, Lin Yuchan slipped back into the workshop, gently barred the door, then resolutely ran into that dark hole.

Fortunately it wasn’t completely dark inside. A lamp sat on the ground, probably left by Su Minguan for lighting his return journey.

Lin Yuchan picked up the lamp and tiptoed quickly down the steps.

The warehouse was near the Pearl River and naturally had a slope. The “secret passage” descended several steps, feeling like it was underground beneath Qichi Lane, with earth on both sides, extremely damp. After turning two corners, the surroundings became even darker, but she could hear faint groaning sounds.

Suddenly, Lin Yuchan’s hair stood on end.

A warm hand covered her mouth. Immediately, another hand clamped her arms, fingertips pressing against her throat.

Everything happened in an instant. She was dragged several steps away, the oil lamp falling to the ground. A braid swept across her face. The clean scent of soap beans.

“Mmm mmm mmm it’s me, Ming Ming Minguan Young Master don’t be impulsive…” Lin Yuchan’s whole body went limp, struggling to make sounds through his fingers. “Wang Quan just brought people to come in and catch you, I I I came to tell you and then leave…”

The hand covering her mouth loosened: “Really?”

It was indeed him.

She quickly nodded.

Su Minguan lowered his head, meeting her eyes, seeing his own inverted face in her pupils. He stared coldly for a long moment, confirming her genuine good intentions.

Unselfish, pure kindness. Rare to see in these times.

This girl’s scheming wasn’t yet practiced – her small, thin lips couldn’t help trembling, unable to hide subtle emotions.

Only then did he release her arms and pick up the lamp from the ground.

Lin Yuchan continued: “I’ve already locked the main door from inside, but there’s only a thin bar inside – it’s easily broken. Whatever you came to do, you need to hurry…”

Halfway through speaking, she suddenly lost her voice, gasping.

By the weak lamplight, she saw clearly for the first time where she was standing.

It was probably some trading company’s abandoned warehouse, extremely hot and humid inside. Before her stretched a long corridor, the floor slippery and covered with garbage. The corridor sides were partitioned with wooden boards and wire into small spaces, narrow as pigeon cages. In those pigeon cages, huddled person after person.

All men, old and young, all dispirited and barely clothed. Each pigeon cage held three to five people locked inside.

Their braids were tied together, connecting them in chains. Looking around, there were no fewer than a hundred people – bald, lame, hare-lipped, hunchbacked, scabby-headed, one-eyed, densely packed, half-dead, slightly writhing like wronged ghosts in Buddhist hell paintings.

The human voices Lin Yuchan had vaguely heard earlier undoubtedly came from these people.

She suddenly noticed the entire room had no bright windows, only rows of air holes in the roof. Air circulation here was almost nonexistent, mixed with body odor and excrement stench that was suffocating.

At the warehouse’s end, dimly visible, was another tightly locked large door. Undoubtedly, these people had all been transported through that door. Outside the door, there were probably dedicated guards ensuring they couldn’t escape.

When Su Minguan had snuck in, his footsteps were nearly silent. Lin Yuchan brought light and spoke a few words, only then did many in the pigeon cages notice outsiders had entered, dozens of cloudy gazes slowly moving to her.

Someone mumbled something, cracked lips revealing rotten teeth, dripping pus-like saliva.

The scene was too horrifying. Lin Yuchan’s legs went weak, the back of her head tingling, barely able to stand.

Su Minguan steadily supported her, bending to whisper in her ear: “Welcome to Guangzhou’s largest coolie house. I spent two months figuring out its location.”

Lin Yuchan asked with a trembling voice: “…Coolies?”

She remembered various rumors. Young men lured by human traffickers, imprisoned, transported overseas, becoming slave laborers… Guangzhou local officials also seemed involved, selling death row prisoners and exiles for money… Right, when Hede came to inspect taxes at Defeng Trading House, he had also casually asked about smuggling coolies, with Wang Quan playing dumb…

In her past life as a student, she had also read about the blood and tears of Chinese workers forced overseas – they were lured by high wages, left home to cross oceans, built foreign lands, but were cruelly abused, with most buried in foreign soil…

Seeing it today, she realized the truth was far crueler than historical records. This was damn well slave trading!

The coolie house, as the name suggested, was probably the last stop where these Chinese workers stayed before being shipped and sold.

These people, about to become slaves, had already been tortured half to death by hunger and exhaustion, or perhaps knew they had signed indenture contracts with no possibility of escape. Seeing strangers enter, their expressions were uniformly numb, without the slightest intention of calling for help.

Several people, bothered by the oil lamp’s brightness, even frowned and turned their faces away.

Lin Yuchan asked incredulously, stuttering: “Why are they… and Defeng Trading House warehouse workshop connected… could it be…”

Su Minguan’s face showed a mocking smile: “What else? Just with Qi Chongli’s little tea business, how could he support his entire household’s extravagant lifestyle? Selling coolies is hugely profitable – selling one to Southeast Asia gets a hundred silver yuan; to America, two hundred. Packed like salted fish on ships, thrown overboard when sick. Even if half die en route, it’s much faster money than trading tea or opium.”

He didn’t give Lin Yuchan another chance to ask questions, grabbing her wrist and pulling hard, striding into that corridor reeking of decay.

His self-control was superb. The miserable conditions in the pigeon cages, those sounds and smells, completely failed to affect his emotions. Just like that day, mistakenly entering the mass grave, he remained composed among piles of bloody corpses.

He walked hurriedly, his rain boots making hollow thumping sounds on the ground. The bean-sized lamplight couldn’t keep up with his face, his features hidden in rotting darkness, only his eyes gleaming.

Lin Yuchan asked in a trembling voice: “What are you going to do?”

“Find someone.”

“Find who?”

He didn’t answer directly: “If you see your brother, point him out.”

Consider it good karma for her kindness.

Lin Yuchan didn’t recognize her brother. By Su Minguan’s lamplight, she hastily scanned weak face after weak face.

Su Minguan’s expression was grave. He suddenly held his breath, stopping to listen.

Sounds of commotion seemed to come from the air vents outside. This place was quite far from Defeng Trading House’s warehouse.

Thanks to Lin Yuchan’s warning, he knew it was probably Wang Quan outside, waiting to catch his prey, ready to burst in at any moment.

According to his plan, Wang Quan would let him in to “steal secrets,” giving him a whole night to search slowly.

But now it was different. Wang Quan had suddenly decided to “catch him red-handed.” As soon as the shopkeeper came in to check, he would immediately discover where this “traitor” from Jardine Matheson & Co. had gone.

Time was urgent.

He grabbed Lin Yuchan’s hand and said urgently: “Help me.”

Without waiting for her response, he continued: “You go left, I’ll go right. I’ll teach you a poem – recite it as you walk.”

He seemed to have forgotten how firmly he had just driven her away. Lin Yuchan sensed this was critically important and didn’t argue with him.

“Tell me.”

“Listen carefully – To visit Jin Lanhe and destroy the Qing, the Peach Garden oath to restore the Ming.”

Lin Yuchan repeated it once, feeling something was very wrong.

“Wait, who wrote this poem?”

“If anyone in the cages can answer the second half – ‘Before Hongshun Hall comes righteousness, marshal troops to enter Flower Pavilion’ – give them this. You don’t need to worry about what happens after.”

Lin Yuchan felt something cold in her hand – he had stuffed her with sharp iron nails.

The cage locks were crude. A strong man could probably break them barehanded. Ordinary people using iron nails, with proper technique, wouldn’t find it difficult to open them.

Unfortunately, the prisoners in the cages were either half-dead from weakness or completely without fighting spirit, motionless, having completely lost the ability to pick locks.

Su Minguan had her repeat the poem lines, then hurriedly turned to search the other half of the warehouse.

Lin Yuchan stood bewildered, feeling like she had fallen into a huge sinkhole.

…Since she was already here.

No one held a gun forcing her down, right?

She gritted her teeth, gripped the iron nails tightly, and steeled herself to walk into the gaps between pigeon cages, her chest and lungs immediately filled with that stagnant, rotting stench.

“To… to visit Jin Lanhe and destroy the Qing…”

“Oh ho,” she thought randomly, “time-traveling to Qing without rebelling… how did it go again? I’ve finally got the right script…”

Before she could recite it twice, a pigeon cage suddenly produced an urgent voice:

“Before Hongshun Hall comes righteousness, marshal troops to enter Flower Pavilion – Here! Here! Damn it, finally came! Any later and the corrupt officials would have shipped us off for sale!”

Lin Yuchan jumped, seeing a bearded uncle who, compared to the other prospective coolies nearby, had more life in his eyes.

She hesitantly extended a hand. The iron nails were snatched away.

In nearby pigeon cages, several people slightly opened their eyes, looking at her blankly.

A few cages away, someone else quickly responded: “A’Mei, over here!”

Click – a lock was picked open. Several figures crawled out, panting, forcefully pulling apart braids that had been tied together.

“Miss, joined recently? Haven’t seen you before.”

The bearded big brother in his thirties was emaciated from hunger, covered in dried black bloodstains, his right hand probably previously broken, using torn clothes and wire scraps to make a splint, dangling shakily across his chest.

Lin Yuchan hesitantly said “mm,” wanting to say: I’m just here as a guest…

“Amitabha, give these to me.”

A bald monk, his robe torn like rags, quickly took the iron nails from Lin Yuchan’s hands, joining several escaped companions to spread out and pry open more pigeon cages.

The others in the cages finally had some reaction. Some reached out from their cages, pleading: “Female Bodhisattva, young miss, save me too…”

But others sneered: “Want to run? There are guards at the door – who can escape? If you don’t want your life, that’s fine, but don’t drag me down!”

…

In less than the time it takes to smoke a pipe, Su Minguan had returned to the original spot. He was supporting two people, with a string of others following behind.

They were all disheveled, but their eyes shone brightly, full of vigorous life.

Adding the dozen or so Lin Yuchan had released, altogether thirty or forty people, all tortured to half-death, swaying as they gathered together, asking each other: “Ah, you’re still alive.”

Their eyes flashed with the joy of survival after catastrophe, suddenly turning toward Su Minguan and cupping their hands in unison.

Weak voices in ragged chorus: “Greetings to Jin Lanhe!”