“Yun Ye, listen to me—it’s truly dangerous in there.” Duan Hong looked at the broken reeds along the Qujiang shore and spoke softly to the small fish beneath the ice.

The small hole broken open yesterday had been blown by the cold wind all night and frozen solid again. Yun Ye pulled out his knife and continued breaking the ice. After opening a gap, he discovered that the small fish under the ice layer seemed to have been frozen as well, moving extremely sluggishly. Two of them lay motionless at the bottom of the shallow water.

Yun Ye laughed and speared four or five with his bamboo spear, then went to look for wild rice. Duan Hong followed behind Yun Ye without saying a word. Making breakfast was very simple for Yun Ye. The diaohu rice was irresistible, and the fragrance of the fish made one’s mouth water. Yun Ye’s seasonings were always kept in his own small pouch—using just a little filled the air with fragrance.

Closing the door, Yun Ye and Duan Hong sat facing each other across the table. Yun Ye picked out a fish with his chopsticks and casually tossed it on the table. Duan Hong didn’t know what he was doing—wasting good food like this wasn’t right.

Yun Ye dissected the fish bit by bit, first the skin, then the flesh. Before long, even the last strand of meat on the bones had been scraped clean. Seeing Yun Ye’s tense expression, Duan Hong’s heart couldn’t help but tighten. Like a fool, he watched as Yun Ye used his small knife to cut open the fish’s large bone. The knife seemed to meet resistance. Yun Ye let out a long sigh of relief, and using a handkerchief as protection, snapped the fish bone apart. Apart from a steel needle as fine as an ox hair, there was nothing else inside.

“Let me prick you with this needle.” Yun Ye turned his head and said ominously to Duan Hong…

Without even appearing to rise, Duan Hong and his stool slid three feet away. Even an idiot knew that something found inside a fish bone was no benign object.

Yun Ye fished out another fish and repeated the process. This time, he again extracted a gleaming blue needle from the fish’s bone. The two steel needles lay side by side before Yun Ye. He propped up his chin and kept shaking his head, as if only by doing so could he think of a solution.

If someone had wanted to kill him last night, eighty Yun Yes would all be stone dead by now. Why hadn’t they done so? What was the reason? If they didn’t want to kill anyone, how could the steel needles be explained?

“Marquis Yun, let me take these two steel needles back. The old masters in the palace will know what these things are and who uses such items.” Duan Hong said carefully to Yun Ye. If previously he had regarded Yun Ye as merely a lucky person, this time was the first he’d addressed this young man in an equal tone.

“No need. I know who put the steel needles in the fish bones—I just don’t want to expose them. I suspect these two needles are poisoned with some kind of compound toxin. With only one needle, eating the fish wouldn’t harm anyone. Eat two fish and something might happen. I’d wager this compound toxin won’t kill anyone. Take them back and quickly have the masters test them to see what they are. If they don’t kill anyone, ring the evening bell one time fewer tonight. If they do kill someone, ring the bell normally so I can prepare.”

“Prepare for what?” At this point, Duan Hong felt his intelligence was somewhat insufficient.

“To flee, of course! What else? If the poison doesn’t kill, it means this is an intellectual game—as long as you’re clever enough, you can continue playing safely. If it kills someone, it means they really intend to murder. Am I supposed to stay and wait for the blade? Hurry up.”

“You still haven’t said who planted the poison needles. After all these years, we finally have a breakthrough. If you die, it becomes another damned unsolved case.” Duan Hong argued with Yun Ye in a low voice but was pushed and shoved out the door.

Yun Ye took the fish bones intending to dump them outside but accidentally spilled them beside the threshold. He kicked at them with his foot—the bones disappeared into the snow, and then he returned to his room to sit by the window and continue reading his *Book of Rites*.

He didn’t know if his eyes were playing tricks, but a dark red sash at the foot of the bed suddenly wriggled. Yun Ye put on his pig-snout mask, pulled on deerskin gloves, picked up the sash from under the bed intending to examine it. Who would have thought the sash would start thrashing about wildly? Yun Ye laughed with delight, grabbed one end of the sash and lifted it up, placing it on the desk and letting the sash run around frantically. Each time it was about to fall off the table, Yun Ye pulled it back, never tiring of the game.

Finally bored with playing, he flipped the sash over. Two very small mice were sewn side by side onto the sash. Their flesh and skin were densely stitched together with needle and thread, transforming two separate individuals into a single entity. Such skillful handiwork! The mouse skins were sewn together, yet there were few bloodstains on the mice’s bodies. Desperate to escape, the mice’s eight legs couldn’t maintain coordination, so they walked erratically left and right, forward and backward. If you couldn’t see the mice, you’d think a dark red sash was dancing.

The crows had returned, cawing annoyingly. Yun Ye was no Gongye Chang, so he couldn’t understand what the crows were saying. But he knew one thing: where crows gathered, there was surely carrion.

He called over the patrolling guards to accompany him toward where the crows were most numerous. Before they even drew near, the crows began clamoring loudly, flapping their wings in a posture of imminent attack.

Yun Ye didn’t care, and the guards cared even less about such threats. They used their long sabers to cut through the thatch grass, searching everywhere. When Yun Ye walked to the deepest part of the wilderness, he discovered a field of scattered rocks. In early years, Qujiang had been much larger than now. After the previous Sui dynasty renovated it, only a small portion remained. This rocky beach was actually part of the original Qujiang Pool bottom—naturally, the chaotic rocks stood in strange formations. Some had peculiar shapes that even made Yun Ye consider bringing them home to place in his garden.

A small path wound its way deep into the distance. Yun Ye placed the guards in front of himself and slowly advanced along the path. He tried his best to shrink behind the guards, pretending not to see their resentful gazes, occasionally poking his head out to observe his surroundings. Yun Ye’s caution infected the four guards. One of them angrily threw a stone at the cawing crows, only feeling somewhat better after they all shut their beaks.

The foremost guard twisted his foot. Yun Ye saw bone fragments protruding from the top of the fellow’s foot. He didn’t know how it had twisted, but it looked extremely serious. So Yun Ye simply bandaged it and left him by the roadside to continue forward. Clever fellow—though at this moment, injuring himself like this, Yun Ye wondered what he was thinking.

There was no justice! Just being scratched on the arm by a small jujube tree’s thorn could cause foaming at the mouth, convulsing limbs, and finally bleeding from all seven orifices—after kicking his legs twice, there was no more sound. What kind of poison was this? He’d never even heard of it. The legendary “traction drug” wasn’t this terrifying. He’d asked Empress Zhangsun about getting some of this good stuff and had been beaten for it.

Actually, human vitality was quite formidable. Unless it was cyanide, no poison could take a life this quickly. He didn’t know what substance this was. At this time, poisons used for household and travel purposes were all biological or plant toxins—the era of synthetic toxins had not yet arrived. This guard had no heartbeat or pulse. Only then did Yun Ye confirm the fellow was truly dead.

Yun Ye didn’t plan to follow in his footsteps. The pig-snout mask absolutely had to be worn, a wooden board had to be added under his shoes, deerskin gloves had to be worn. After Yun Ye finished equipping himself and looked back at the remaining two guards, he found their faces ashen, bodies shaking like sieves, the pleading in their eyes couldn’t be more obvious.

Yun Ye himself didn’t want to force his way through either. Why stake his own life? He really wanted to turn back, but seeing that the guard who had injured his foot in the distance was already hanging from a southeastern branch, Yun Ye refused to turn back.

Ahead, sunlight bathed everything in extraordinary brightness, as if hope lay before them. Moreover, the stone was even inscribed with the words “Danger, Turn Back”—how thoughtful it looked from every angle. What a considerate murderer!

The north wind blew fiercely, unmelted snow particles poured down people’s necks. How comfortable! Yet no one felt cold. The two guards’ winter clothes were soaked through with sweat. Yun Ye stripped the dead guard’s clothing, lit it, and tossed it into the wild grass. No matter what poison it was, after being purified by fire, it would lose its toxicity. The fire would also summon other guards. The fluffy thatch burned quickly. Yun Ye followed behind the flames, stepping on the grass ash, as if taking a leisurely stroll.

Yun Ye gave the inscribed stone a wide berth. Only fools like Pang Juan would hold up torches to see what the enemy wanted to tell them. The crows flew far away, and there was a gray figure in the grass running forward with the crows. He wasn’t as fast as the crows. The small crossbow in Yun Ye’s hand was powerfully strong, and the medicine smeared on the bolts was particularly vicious. The gray-clothed man had only run two steps when three crossbow bolts struck his back—one shot, three releases. This was specifically designed by Gongshu Mu to compensate for Yun Ye’s terrible aim.

The fire rolled over the gray-clothed man’s body. He could only emit two or three meaningless groans before falling silent. The two guards let out a cheer and were about to rush forward but were stopped by Yun Ye. He still patiently followed behind the flames, slowly advancing.

The gray-clothed man’s garments caught fire. After beating them with a tree branch twice, the flames went out. His hair and eyebrows were all burned away, but he wasn’t dead yet. Apart from trembling all over, he had heartbeat and pulse. But his mouth was full of grass ash. Yun Ye pried open his mouth and discovered the mucous membrane in his throat had turned white—inhalation burn. Yun Ye knew this medical term.

The guards wanted to chop off the fellow’s head—this was clearly battlefield practice. For severely wounded, useless enemies, this was standard procedure. Each head represented military merit—couldn’t waste them.

“We need intelligence. This fellow is important—can’t kill him.”

“Marquis, this bastard’s mouth is burned. Even if he wakes up, we can’t question him. We’re in a dangerous place—taking him along is a burden. Better to just take his head.”

Yun Ye removed his pig-snout mask and smiled: “Who told you that a person who can’t speak can’t reveal secrets? Without a mouth, there are still hands. Without hands, there are feet. Without hands or feet, there are arms and legs. Not knowing how to write isn’t a big deal either. I have a friend—I can’t understand his words, but I can understand the pictures he draws. Anyone can draw pictures. Understanding drawings isn’t difficult.”