“Are you thinking that Zhou Xian left a bloody writing on the wall?” He snorted, “You must not forget that he was a spokesperson from the royal palace, if he was being wronged, couldn’t he find a way to convince people?”
That was right! Zhou Xian was once an official in the Personnel Department, a Palace spokesperson too. The position of a Palace spokesperson was not high, but he was responsible for supervising and speaking in the palace. At the top, he could speak sweetly to the emperor, but from behind he could accuse hundreds of officials with no fear, since he was in charge of supervising all places. Being a palace spokesperson meant he had the duty to speak without reserve, keeping in mind to uphold absolute integrity and a good reputation over wealth and honor.
If Zhou Xian had experienced injustice and became a blacklisted official who had embezzled the river funds, wouldn’t it have made some sense for him to say something?
Jinxia looked at Lu Yi, and, still unwilling to give up, she continued to use the lantern to slowly shine the light on each side of the room, suspecting that traces and instructions had been removed by people. Beside the walls, she also examined every place in every corner of the room.
Lu Yi ignored her, continuing to concentrate on looking at the picture on the wall.
“Eh?” Jinxia had walked up to a wardrobe closet with the door being tightly shut. Underneath there was a circular porcelain urn: she reached out to take the item, the paper seal on the top was torn; this indicated that the jar had been opened by someone. She walked closer and sniffed the urn; the aroma of wine flowed out, beside that there was another fragrance…
She rolled up her sleeves and put one of her hands in the urn, taking out two items tied with silk ropes.
The old Wang wondered: “Is there still something hidden in the wine jar?”
Lu Yi looked over as well.
She unwrapped the layers of silk robes one by one under the light of the lantern. The items inside were slowly showing their form: blackish, some in the form of chunks, together with a piece of pulp…
“This, what is this?” Old Wang saw it but couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Lingzhi mushrooms? Lingzhi mushrooms soaked in wine,” Jinxia confirmed without thinking again, “It can strengthen the body, let you be healthier and live longer… Drink it for three months and you will be able to walk eight hundred miles a day.”
Old Wang said “Oh,” while nodding his head: “Zhou Daren was very thin… Since his health was not so good, maybe he wanted to nourish his body.”
Ignoring Jinxia’s nonsense, Lu Yi took one of the flakes and brought it closer to his nose: “This is a spice, it looks like a Huoxiang plant, there is also… lilac.” He sniffed it again a few times, until he was confident.
Jinxia opened the drawer of the cupboard: inside there was an anuma plant and a small stone. These objects were not documents, perhaps that was the reason the police considered them to be invaluable and left them behind.
Seeing these two items, a thought appeared in Jinxia’s mind, therefore she asked the old Wang: “Did Zhou Daren ask to buy beef marrow and fat?”
Old Wang answered in surprise: “He did request Zhou Fei, the servant, to ask me where to buy marrow and beef fat.”
Jinxia laughed out loud and said: “It’s unexpected. This Zhou Daren was in love.”
Lu Yi looked at her: “How do you know he was in love?”
“Because of these things!” Jinxia played with the anuma plant and said with confidence, “This is a recipe for making blushes. Lilac and Huoxiang plants wrapped in silk ropes, then soaked in wine jars for three nights, then marinated with wine, beef marrow and fat, boiled slowly and then added in anuma plants so that the oil color comes out bright white. Finally, the filtered oil is poured into a porcelain bowl or paint bowl to let it cool. If cinnabar is added in, it can be used as red lip balm, but without cinnabar, that’s just blush for the face.”
Listening to her speak in such a precise manner, it didn’t seem like she was saying nonsense. Lu Yi asked: “How do you know this recipe?”
“This recipe was written in the book Qiminyao*. One time, my mother tried making it at home, hoping to earn some profit out of it. Unfortunately, the production cost was too high while these products could not be sold at high prices, therefore she gave up. Jinxia, feeling sorry, let out a sigh of sadness, “In this world, even a little more money can make you sad.”
*[Qiminyao = important skill acquired to benefit people, knowledge Encyclopedia of Agriculture by Jia Sixie, TN]
She continued to sigh and the Old Wang next to her shook his head and sighed as well. Lu Yi had to cough a few times to bring her attention back to the main topic.
“The whole procedure to create this cream is very complicated, but he sincerely made it himself, and did not feel bothered about it. This shows that he had good intentions and a deep affection for this woman.” Jinxia continued, “That’s unexpected that Zhou Xian was a loving person.”
Lu Yi suddenly remembered the fragrance bag, he asked the old Wang: “Do you know any woman close to him?”
“This…” Old Wang answered awkwardly, “Beizhe is only responsible for managing this building, Zhou Daren never brought a woman home, so I wouldn’t know. Zhou Fei should know more about this matter than me: except these days that he’s caught a fever, he used to be always by Zhou Daren’s side.”
“Where is Zhou Fei now?” Jinxia asked.
“After Zhou Daren’s incident, he was taken away.” Old Wang sighed, “He’s only thirteen or fourteen, he’s still a child: it’s wrong to keep him in prison.”
“It’s okay, it’s just the government prison, not the jurisdiction prison… Otherwise he won’t be able to get out once he enters.”
Jinxia comforted Old Wang.
Lu Yi glanced at her, shook his head without even realizing it and then looked somewhere else.
That night, outside, a strong wind was blowing, the cold breeze was mixing itself with the fragrance of the night, and the moonlight was just glimmering.
The wet green roof was covered with a soft, dense moss. In several cracks a few green fox grass stalks had grown and were swaying left and right, until they were severely cut off by a man’s hand.
Xie Xiao, dressed in night clothes and with his head and face covered, was bowing low on the roof of the provincial court. He furrowed his eyebrows and continued to bite the stalk of the grass. He was somewhat annoyed by the bright moonlight of that night.
Ahead of him was the provincial court’s jurisdiction prison. According to YangYue’s words, Sha Xiuzhu should have been there after being dragged off the ship.
How to get inside was the issue.
How to find Sha Xiuzhu and how to get him out was also a problem.
Xie Xiao lowered his head when he saw two JinYiWei’s commanders walking past him. On their body, they were wearing a long blue-purple buttoned robe and iron armor, on their belt hung a bronze plate. Stopping in front of the prison, the two men said a few things to the guards, then one of the guards turned and let them enter.
He threw away his stalk of grass and suddenly remembered something. He turned around and came down from the roof not making a sound, hiding away in the darkness.
By the time he reappeared, he had switched from the night costume into a JinYiWei commander’s uniform. He straightened up his posture, his arms and legs seemed to grow longer when he put on the stolen uniform.
With confidence, he walked straight to the prison door and said to the prison guards: “Jingli Daren wants to interrogate Sha Xiuzhu. He has ordered me to take him away.”
His face looked unfamiliar, the two prison guards examined him and did not say anything.
Xie Xiao cleared his throat loudly: “Lu Jingli, Lu Daren, who came from the Capital.”
Hearing Lu Yi’s name, the two guards snapped out of their thoughts, looked at each other and turned around to open the prison door. One of them shouted while standing at the door, “Lu Daren sent someone to take Sha Xiuzhu for interrogation, you must serve him well!”
The prison guards shouted back in agreement.
Seeing that the plan was half-successful, Xie Xiao was pleased with himself and feeling bold, he took big walking steps inside. He was a few steps in when all of a sudden the light coming from the outside disappeared and the door was being closed tight again. Followed by a deep thudded noise, less than three feet from him, a thick and solid metal door fell down from the air blocking the front entrance.
The pathway was damaged, the walkway was blocked and he was trapped in between.
“Thief, you dare to pretend to be a JinYiWei!” A cold voice was heard, it seemed to be coming from the inside, “Wait until the army of thousands of Daren units come, see if it will cut you into seventeen to eighteen pieces.”
Xie Xiao didn’t understand how he was exposed, or how the plan was used… Was that why they were able to tell? But he didn’t have enough time to process all his thoughts, the most important thing was to get out of there. If they were to catch him alive, he would most likely have been killed and not tortured, but if he’d gone to his old man, he would’ve had to listen to his nagging and his frustration would have increased.
In the dark surroundings, he took out his bamboo fire stick from his pocket and lit it up, searching for any opening door in all directions.
Right at that moment, noises of explosion could be heard outside, making the ground tremble. He heard the prison guards shout, as if somewhere had been flooded, so they had to immediately go to help…
Xie Xiao continued to search for the iron door opening machine button, which would usually be on a flat surface of each door. There was no light… Unable to find any gap, he was annoyed and kicked the iron door, which made a faint sound, but it still did not move at all.
“Lao Si, Lao Si!” Someone outside the prison door called for him.
That was Shangguan Xi!
“Jie?”
“Lao Si, you move aside a little, I will break this door.”
“Okay.”
Xie Xiao hid in the corner of the room. After a while, he heard a detonation, so loud that his ears were still buzzing afterwards. The prison door was damaged by the blast that had knocked out some parts of the wall too. A piece of dust flew out and the shadow of a person appeared before his eye among the smoke.
“Lao Si?!”
His head still felt dizzy. Xie Xiao, still feeling confused, was finally found by Shangguan Xi: “You can’t stay here for long, we have to go quickly!”
“Jie, what trick did you use, so great! Give me one, I want to blow up the iron door, brother Sha is still inside.”
Shangguan Xi quickly pulled him out: “I only brought three, there’s no more, let’s go!”
“But…”
Xie Xiao was somewhat unwilling to let go of this good opportunity
Shangguan Xi gripped his hand and, in a low voice, she said, “I will definitely help you find a way to get him out, believe me!” After saying that, not waiting for his answer, she pulled Xie Xiao out and jumped into the darkness of the night.
***
At the sound of the three explosions following one another, Lu Yi looked out the window. From a distance, a faint glow of fire appeared in Yangzhou City.
“Where is that place?” he asked Old Wang.
Old Wang narrowed his eyes trying to see it. After a moment, he said: “East of the city. If you look at the location, it should be where the provincial prison is.”
Jinxia also leaned forward looking in that direction. While chuckling, she observed, “How many people hold a grudge against JinYiWei, for them to use lightning mines? That toy is very expensive, they are really not afraid to spend money!”
Lighting mines!
Lu Yi frowned and stepped out at a fast pace.
“Hey! Daren…” Jinxia called out for him as she heard his footsteps that had reached the bottom floor. Then in a low voice she said, “Looks like there’s no need for Beizhe to come, right?”
Of course there was no answer and Lu Yi’s footsteps could no longer be heard.
Jinxia was very satisfied: she was getting ready to go home and sleep… Feeling happy, she extended her hand to stroke Ahu, then raised it to say goodbye to Old Wang.
As she was walking down to the ground floor, in an instant she remembered something… A thought appeared briefly in her head, ‘Is this made by Xie Xiao? Helping someone does not need to cause a big commotion, right?’
There was no time to think, she stepped down to the ground floor in the blink of an eye and ran towards the fire location.
Even though Lu Yi walked ahead first, Jinxia ran as quick as she could to catch up with him. She was able to reach him after going through three streets.
“Your hands and feet are slow, how can you catch any thief?” Lu Yi heard her running from behind, then suddenly slowed down.
Jinxia gasped for breath and without thinking she said, “It’s my good luck that Daren is not a thief, otherwise you would be impossible to capture.”
Lu Yi’s facial expression dropped and he increased his speed, no longer caring about her.
When they arrived at the provincial prison, all the flames had been extinguished, everything left was a little smoke, which curled up into the night air.
It looked like the fire had gone out.
The time period between now and when the detonation was first heard was no more than one stick of incense burning time. Although Jinxia was not too fond of JinYiWei, she had to admit, also considering the size of the fire, that their army was indeed well-trained, for they did everything in a quick and efficient manner. She remembered the year before when the Justice Department had a fire: it started from a single house and caught fire until midnight. At the moment it was extinguished, ten prisoners had already suffocated to death from the smoke… It was really sad.
“Lu Jingli!”
In front of him was the four rank right-hand officer, deputy Head of the inspection department, Yin Xianguang, who was somewhat surprised to see Lu Yi there.
“Yin Daren.” Lu Yi followed the rules strictly and paid his respect to the official, “Forgive Beizhe if I’m being presumptuous, but I heard a blast a moment ago and saw the fire. I’m not sure what the problem was, so I hurried myself to come here to see if I could help with anything.”
“Ah, is that so?” Against the seventh rank Lu Yi Jingli, deputy Head Yin did not dare to show the slightest superiority, let alone ignore the question. “There were thieves, they were very rude and arrogant. They first blasted the horse stables to cause chaos, then blew up the prison door and they deliberately tried to make a diversion to help the thief who was trapped inside.”
“Are there any prisoner who escaped, is there anything Beizhe can do?” Lu Yi asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Deputy head Yin realized that this was the right time to earn some credit. He smiled, “Lu Jingli doesn’t know this… In order to prevent thieves from looting the prison, last year I added an iron door, thick by a few inches, placing it in the middle of the prison. It’s impossible for ordinary explosives to destroy it, and it can also seal the prisoners inside.”
“It seems that Daren has thought of everything.” Lu Yi faced forward and walked a step, then he asked, “Don’t know if it’s okay for Beizhe to take a look inside?”
“Sure, sure.”
Deputy Head Yin quickly walked in front, bringing Lu Yi inside.
Jinxia followed him but was stopped by the doorman outside. She explained at once, “I am Lu Daren’s subordinate, we’re here together.” Because she went to The Xie’s house last night, she did not wear her police uniform, but she did bring her waist plate. She immediately took the plate off her waist and showed it to the prison officials.
The prisoner guard gleaned her waist plate and coldly said: “Lu Daren is a JinYiWei, how is it possible to have a subordinate from Liu Shanmen? This lady… you must be mistaken.”
The problem could not be clarified in an instant. Jinxia saw Lu Yi, who continued to walk deep inside the prison and she frantically called out to him: “Lu Daren! Lu Daren!”
As Lu Yi was walking, he continued to converse with Deputy Head Yin, so none of them heard her voice and they both took a turn and passed the prison wall.
“Are you thinking that Zhou Xian left a bloody writing on the wall?” He snorted, “You must not forget that he was a spokesperson from the royal palace, if he was being wronged, couldn’t he find a way to convince people?”
That was right! Zhou Xian was once an official in the Personnel Department, a Palace spokesperson too. The position of a Palace spokesperson was not high, but he was responsible for supervising and speaking in the palace. At the top, he could speak sweetly to the emperor, but from behind he could accuse hundreds of officials with no fear, since he was in charge of supervising all places. Being a palace spokesperson meant he had the duty to speak without reserve, keeping in mind to uphold absolute integrity and a good reputation over wealth and honor.
If Zhou Xian had experienced injustice and became a blacklisted official who had embezzled the river funds, wouldn’t it have made some sense for him to say something?
Jinxia looked at Lu Yi, and, still unwilling to give up, she continued to use the lantern to slowly shine the light on each side of the room, suspecting that traces and instructions had been removed by people. Beside the walls, she also examined every place in every corner of the room.
Lu Yi ignored her, continuing to concentrate on looking at the picture on the wall.
“Eh?” Jinxia had walked up to a wardrobe closet with the door being tightly shut. Underneath there was a circular porcelain urn: she reached out to take the item, the paper seal on the top was torn; this indicated that the jar had been opened by someone. She walked closer and sniffed the urn; the aroma of wine flowed out, beside that there was another fragrance…
She rolled up her sleeves and put one of her hands in the urn, taking out two items tied with silk ropes.
The old Wang wondered: “Is there still something hidden in the wine jar?”
Lu Yi looked over as well.
She unwrapped the layers of silk robes one by one under the light of the lantern. The items inside were slowly showing their form: blackish, some in the form of chunks, together with a piece of pulp…
“This, what is this?” Old Wang saw it but couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Lingzhi mushrooms? Lingzhi mushrooms soaked in wine,” Jinxia confirmed without thinking again, “It can strengthen the body, let you be healthier and live longer… Drink it for three months and you will be able to walk eight hundred miles a day.”
Old Wang said “Oh,” while nodding his head: “Zhou Daren was very thin… Since his health was not so good, maybe he wanted to nourish his body.”
Ignoring Jinxia’s nonsense, Lu Yi took one of the flakes and brought it closer to his nose: “This is a spice, it looks like a Huoxiang plant, there is also… lilac.” He sniffed it again a few times, until he was confident.
Jinxia opened the drawer of the cupboard: inside there was an anuma plant and a small stone. These objects were not documents, perhaps that was the reason the police considered them to be invaluable and left them behind.
Seeing these two items, a thought appeared in Jinxia’s mind, therefore she asked the old Wang: “Did Zhou Daren ask to buy beef marrow and fat?”
Old Wang answered in surprise: “He did request Zhou Fei, the servant, to ask me where to buy marrow and beef fat.”
Jinxia laughed out loud and said: “It’s unexpected. This Zhou Daren was in love.”
Lu Yi looked at her: “How do you know he was in love?”
“Because of these things!” Jinxia played with the anuma plant and said with confidence, “This is a recipe for making blushes. Lilac and Huoxiang plants wrapped in silk ropes, then soaked in wine jars for three nights, then marinated with wine, beef marrow and fat, boiled slowly and then added in anuma plants so that the oil color comes out bright white. Finally, the filtered oil is poured into a porcelain bowl or paint bowl to let it cool. If cinnabar is added in, it can be used as red lip balm, but without cinnabar, that’s just blush for the face.”
Listening to her speak in such a precise manner, it didn’t seem like she was saying nonsense. Lu Yi asked: “How do you know this recipe?”
“This recipe was written in the book Qiminyao*. One time, my mother tried making it at home, hoping to earn some profit out of it. Unfortunately, the production cost was too high while these products could not be sold at high prices, therefore she gave up. Jinxia, feeling sorry, let out a sigh of sadness, “In this world, even a little more money can make you sad.”
*[Qiminyao = important skill acquired to benefit people, knowledge Encyclopedia of Agriculture by Jia Sixie, TN]
She continued to sigh and the Old Wang next to her shook his head and sighed as well. Lu Yi had to cough a few times to bring her attention back to the main topic.
“The whole procedure to create this cream is very complicated, but he sincerely made it himself, and did not feel bothered about it. This shows that he had good intentions and a deep affection for this woman.” Jinxia continued, “That’s unexpected that Zhou Xian was a loving person.”
Lu Yi suddenly remembered the fragrance bag, he asked the old Wang: “Do you know any woman close to him?”
“This…” Old Wang answered awkwardly, “Beizhe is only responsible for managing this building, Zhou Daren never brought a woman home, so I wouldn’t know. Zhou Fei should know more about this matter than me: except these days that he’s caught a fever, he used to be always by Zhou Daren’s side.”
“Where is Zhou Fei now?” Jinxia asked.
“After Zhou Daren’s incident, he was taken away.” Old Wang sighed, “He’s only thirteen or fourteen, he’s still a child: it’s wrong to keep him in prison.”
“It’s okay, it’s just the government prison, not the jurisdiction prison… Otherwise he won’t be able to get out once he enters.”
Jinxia comforted Old Wang.
Lu Yi glanced at her, shook his head without even realizing it and then looked somewhere else.
That night, outside, a strong wind was blowing, the cold breeze was mixing itself with the fragrance of the night, and the moonlight was just glimmering.
The wet green roof was covered with a soft, dense moss. In several cracks a few green fox grass stalks had grown and were swaying left and right, until they were severely cut off by a man’s hand.
Xie Xiao, dressed in night clothes and with his head and face covered, was bowing low on the roof of the provincial court. He furrowed his eyebrows and continued to bite the stalk of the grass. He was somewhat annoyed by the bright moonlight of that night.
Ahead of him was the provincial court’s jurisdiction prison. According to YangYue’s words, Sha Xiuzhu should have been there after being dragged off the ship.
How to get inside was the issue.
How to find Sha Xiuzhu and how to get him out was also a problem.
Xie Xiao lowered his head when he saw two JinYiWei’s commanders walking past him. On their body, they were wearing a long blue-purple buttoned robe and iron armor, on their belt hung a bronze plate. Stopping in front of the prison, the two men said a few things to the guards, then one of the guards turned and let them enter.
He threw away his stalk of grass and suddenly remembered something. He turned around and came down from the roof not making a sound, hiding away in the darkness.
By the time he reappeared, he had switched from the night costume into a JinYiWei commander’s uniform. He straightened up his posture, his arms and legs seemed to grow longer when he put on the stolen uniform.
With confidence, he walked straight to the prison door and said to the prison guards: “Jingli Daren wants to interrogate Sha Xiuzhu. He has ordered me to take him away.”
His face looked unfamiliar, the two prison guards examined him and did not say anything.
Xie Xiao cleared his throat loudly: “Lu Jingli, Lu Daren, who came from the Capital.”
Hearing Lu Yi’s name, the two guards snapped out of their thoughts, looked at each other and turned around to open the prison door. One of them shouted while standing at the door, “Lu Daren sent someone to take Sha Xiuzhu for interrogation, you must serve him well!”
The prison guards shouted back in agreement.
Seeing that the plan was half-successful, Xie Xiao was pleased with himself and feeling bold, he took big walking steps inside. He was a few steps in when all of a sudden the light coming from the outside disappeared and the door was being closed tight again. Followed by a deep thudded noise, less than three feet from him, a thick and solid metal door fell down from the air blocking the front entrance.
The pathway was damaged, the walkway was blocked and he was trapped in between.
“Thief, you dare to pretend to be a JinYiWei!” A cold voice was heard, it seemed to be coming from the inside, “Wait until the army of thousands of Daren units come, see if it will cut you into seventeen to eighteen pieces.”
Xie Xiao didn’t understand how he was exposed, or how the plan was used… Was that why they were able to tell? But he didn’t have enough time to process all his thoughts, the most important thing was to get out of there. If they were to catch him alive, he would most likely have been killed and not tortured, but if he’d gone to his old man, he would’ve had to listen to his nagging and his frustration would have increased.
In the dark surroundings, he took out his bamboo fire stick from his pocket and lit it up, searching for any opening door in all directions.
Right at that moment, noises of explosion could be heard outside, making the ground tremble. He heard the prison guards shout, as if somewhere had been flooded, so they had to immediately go to help…
Xie Xiao continued to search for the iron door opening machine button, which would usually be on a flat surface of each door. There was no light… Unable to find any gap, he was annoyed and kicked the iron door, which made a faint sound, but it still did not move at all.
“Lao Si, Lao Si!” Someone outside the prison door called for him.
That was Shangguan Xi!
“Jie?”
“Lao Si, you move aside a little, I will break this door.”
“Okay.”
Xie Xiao hid in the corner of the room. After a while, he heard a detonation, so loud that his ears were still buzzing afterwards. The prison door was damaged by the blast that had knocked out some parts of the wall too. A piece of dust flew out and the shadow of a person appeared before his eye among the smoke.
“Lao Si?!”
His head still felt dizzy. Xie Xiao, still feeling confused, was finally found by Shangguan Xi: “You can’t stay here for long, we have to go quickly!”
“Jie, what trick did you use, so great! Give me one, I want to blow up the iron door, brother Sha is still inside.”
Shangguan Xi quickly pulled him out: “I only brought three, there’s no more, let’s go!”
“But…”
Xie Xiao was somewhat unwilling to let go of this good opportunity
Shangguan Xi gripped his hand and, in a low voice, she said, “I will definitely help you find a way to get him out, believe me!” After saying that, not waiting for his answer, she pulled Xie Xiao out and jumped into the darkness of the night.
***
At the sound of the three explosions following one another, Lu Yi looked out the window. From a distance, a faint glow of fire appeared in Yangzhou City.
“Where is that place?” he asked Old Wang.
Old Wang narrowed his eyes trying to see it. After a moment, he said: “East of the city. If you look at the location, it should be where the provincial prison is.”
Jinxia also leaned forward looking in that direction. While chuckling, she observed, “How many people hold a grudge against JinYiWei, for them to use lightning mines? That toy is very expensive, they are really not afraid to spend money!”
Lighting mines!
Lu Yi frowned and stepped out at a fast pace.
“Hey! Daren…” Jinxia called out for him as she heard his footsteps that had reached the bottom floor. Then in a low voice she said, “Looks like there’s no need for Beizhe to come, right?”
Of course there was no answer and Lu Yi’s footsteps could no longer be heard.
Jinxia was very satisfied: she was getting ready to go home and sleep… Feeling happy, she extended her hand to stroke Ahu, then raised it to say goodbye to Old Wang.
As she was walking down to the ground floor, in an instant she remembered something… A thought appeared briefly in her head, ‘Is this made by Xie Xiao? Helping someone does not need to cause a big commotion, right?’
There was no time to think, she stepped down to the ground floor in the blink of an eye and ran towards the fire location.
Even though Lu Yi walked ahead first, Jinxia ran as quick as she could to catch up with him. She was able to reach him after going through three streets.
“Your hands and feet are slow, how can you catch any thief?” Lu Yi heard her running from behind, then suddenly slowed down.
Jinxia gasped for breath and without thinking she said, “It’s my good luck that Daren is not a thief, otherwise you would be impossible to capture.”
Lu Yi’s facial expression dropped and he increased his speed, no longer caring about her.
When they arrived at the provincial prison, all the flames had been extinguished, everything left was a little smoke, which curled up into the night air.
It looked like the fire had gone out.
The time period between now and when the detonation was first heard was no more than one stick of incense burning time. Although Jinxia was not too fond of JinYiWei, she had to admit, also considering the size of the fire, that their army was indeed well-trained, for they did everything in a quick and efficient manner. She remembered the year before when the Justice Department had a fire: it started from a single house and caught fire until midnight. At the moment it was extinguished, ten prisoners had already suffocated to death from the smoke… It was really sad.
“Lu Jingli!”
In front of him was the four rank right-hand officer, deputy Head of the inspection department, Yin Xianguang, who was somewhat surprised to see Lu Yi there.
“Yin Daren.” Lu Yi followed the rules strictly and paid his respect to the official, “Forgive Beizhe if I’m being presumptuous, but I heard a blast a moment ago and saw the fire. I’m not sure what the problem was, so I hurried myself to come here to see if I could help with anything.”
“Ah, is that so?” Against the seventh rank Lu Yi Jingli, deputy Head Yin did not dare to show the slightest superiority, let alone ignore the question. “There were thieves, they were very rude and arrogant. They first blasted the horse stables to cause chaos, then blew up the prison door and they deliberately tried to make a diversion to help the thief who was trapped inside.”
“Are there any prisoner who escaped, is there anything Beizhe can do?” Lu Yi asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Deputy head Yin realized that this was the right time to earn some credit. He smiled, “Lu Jingli doesn’t know this… In order to prevent thieves from looting the prison, last year I added an iron door, thick by a few inches, placing it in the middle of the prison. It’s impossible for ordinary explosives to destroy it, and it can also seal the prisoners inside.”
“It seems that Daren has thought of everything.” Lu Yi faced forward and walked a step, then he asked, “Don’t know if it’s okay for Beizhe to take a look inside?”
“Sure, sure.”
Deputy Head Yin quickly walked in front, bringing Lu Yi inside.
Jinxia followed him but was stopped by the doorman outside. She explained at once, “I am Lu Daren’s subordinate, we’re here together.” Because she went to The Xie’s house last night, she did not wear her police uniform, but she did bring her waist plate. She immediately took the plate off her waist and showed it to the prison officials.
The prisoner guard gleaned her waist plate and coldly said: “Lu Daren is a JinYiWei, how is it possible to have a subordinate from Liu Shanmen? This lady… you must be mistaken.”
The problem could not be clarified in an instant. Jinxia saw Lu Yi, who continued to walk deep inside the prison and she frantically called out to him: “Lu Daren! Lu Daren!”
As Lu Yi was walking, he continued to converse with Deputy Head Yin, so none of them heard her voice and they both took a turn and passed the prison wall.
