Ever since Jinxia was a child, she had already made a name for herself. Everytime a neighbour mentioned her to others, they would add more nicknames for her like YeCha or big bug. When she first heard it, she felt uncomfortable, but then she read a book called Xingsu Xiafan and learned that YeCha was a ferocious demon, a gatekeeper of the spirit realms with a scary appearance and that it was a name that brought fear to everyone. So she found this title fascinating and treated it as a compliment since.
After becoming a constable in the department, she was treated as an official and ‘the compliments’ she received from her neighbours started to fade. Now just by mentioning the fierce daughter of the Yuan family, everyone would know right away who she was. Yuan Chen couldn’t restrain her daughter, and since she was growing older day by day and no one had come to propose to her yet, this was a matter that made Yuan Chen pretty upset. Thinking about this matter, she gritted her teeth and thought ‘Just wait until I prepare a big dowry, I won’t be worried even if they don’t come begging.’
In order to save up for a dowry, Yuan Chen had to sell bean curd during the day and dried bean curd at night, which was very difficult. Due to all the rumours and nicknames, Jinxia was affected by the lack of marriage proposals, making her a burden for her family, and given the situation, she didn’t have a choice but to continue catching criminals and it was not easy for her.
When Jinxia heard that Yuan Chen had chosen Yi young master, she curiously wondered how much dowry her mother gave to the Yi family for them to agree to this matchmaking. Then she turned her thought around; this matter was like a one time hard work equal to a pleasure for life [TN, idiom]: if she married into the Yi family, Yuan Yi would become the brother-in-law and that would mean his tuition expenses could be saved for the next few years, as well as being provided with ice in the summer and woods in the winter, that were not small costs.
Therefore all the expenses could be lowered a lot, and the dowry could be kept.
She hit herself hard on the forehead, anxiously looking at the burning woods in the kitchen and quickly put in more.
***
On the surface of the Jinshui river, the water flowed slowly and reflected the lights from both sides of the river.
There were painters and music on each side of the river and people rowing their boats. Shirtless men with flowers on their heads would smile, sing and climb on the pole of the boat whenever someone threw money down the river, then they would dive down underwater, but before reaching down they would either do a kung fu dance in the air or a spin before hitting the water.
The restaurants on the shore were across from each other, in the middle there was a small bridge to cross.
Jinxia leaned against a stone lion statue by the bridge railing, feeling bored while guarding the dried bean curd stall: she was listening to the sound of bamboo flute and the sounds of people coming from the restaurants, her eyes staring down at the river. At first Jinxia was just supposed to go help her mother sell dried bean curds, but as she knew Yuan Chen had worked so hard the night before and had so many things to worry about, that thought was giving her a headache. Therefore she had persuaded her mother to go home and rest, but Yuan Chen was feeling uneasy leaving the bean curd stall to her and Jinxia had had to swear and promise that she would behave when watching the stall, and would not cause any trouble.
“Two orders of dried bean curds with spicy oil!” a pleasurable voice said with a laugh.
The voice startled Jinxia, she looked up to see YangYue, and wondered: “How did you know I was here?”
“I went to your house to give two salted fish and I met your mother; so I gave her the money from your trip. Then she said that you were here.” YangYue did not hesitate and treated himself with a stick of dried bean curd, topping it off with spicy oil.
“My dad said tomorrow morning we have to go with him to the Ministry of Defense Department.”
“Oh.” Then Jinxia casually said. “Is the Ministry of Defense Department missing something?”
“Only gods would know.” YangYue followed the direction of her gaze and looked at the river, then curiously asked: “What are you looking at?”
“Do you see that person jumping down the river?” Jinxia pointed out.
Following her words, the shirtless man jumped from the top of the boat, doing a beautiful three-spin flip in the air while holding his head, he then flopped into the water. It was springtime, but the weather was cold, even if not enough to freeze the water. YangYue felt the cold air down his spine just by looking, feeling bad for them.
“I sold three orders of bean curds, but he’s already jumped eight times.” Jinxia enviously looked at the shirtless man currently climbing up the boat pole. “The amount of money he makes for jumping in one night equals the number of money we make in a month. You see, why are we even working as constables?”
“You’re not scared of the cold?”
“Do you complain if silvers are cold?”
Jinxia lowered her head looking at the dried bean curds piling up like a small mountain. She let out a sigh, she wouldn’t know when she could sell all of them.
“Lack of money again?” YangYue understood her really well.
Before she could answer, a person appeared in front of the stall–
“I want four orders of dried bean curds, two with spicy oil and the other two with plum powder, the more sour the better. My wife wants to eat something sour now.” Sun Jixing, the eldest son of the Sun family, was visiting the night market with his wife.
Although she did not want to look up, Jinxia – because of money – had to quickly complete the orders and give them to him. She plainly said: “Four coins, thank you.”
Sun Jixing paid the money, took the bean curbs and stared at her intently: “Jinxia, why are you here? Are you not busy catching criminals?”
“Cough…cough…it’s a special task.” Jinxia closely said in a low voice. “Recently, the government is planning a big mission. If you have nothing to do, go outside less, especially if your wife is pregnant… Too many outings are not good.”
Sun Jixing became anxious after listening: “Really?!?”
Jinxia signaled them to look at YangYue next to her, and turned the questions around: “If not, do you think we’re just standing here… just to sell bean curds?”
Sun Jixing quickly left with his pregnant wife, and YangYue watched as their figures disappeared into the crowds. He was surprised and asked her, “Why did you scare them?”
“That couple keeps acting lovingly and wanders in front of my mother: if she sees it, she will complain, and I can’t even say anything back, which makes me really frustrated.”
Feeling frustrated, she put her fingers up to massage her head. Suddenly there were loud noises from the crowd on the left. When she lifted her head up to take a look, she saw a man wearing three in-laid robes passing by people, and then fell down heavily onto her bean curd stand, which immediately fell down to the ground with the oil squirting everywhere.
“Hey you…”
Seeing that he was holding a golden bell, guessing he was one of the fortune-tellers on the street, Jinxia held up her hand wanting to pull him up, but unexpectedly the fortune-teller pushed her hand away and a bright, long dagger was exposed inside his sleeves. Just by a glance, she could already tell that the tip of the dagger was poisonous.
“Be careful!” YangYue panicked and rushed forward.
This situation happened too suddenly, but Jinxia quickly reacted and moved to the side avoiding the dagger, but it still cut off half of her sleeve.
YangYue was prepared to fight, but someone from behind jumped out first: he could only see a green figure passing by, throwing a leg up and kicking the fortune-teller, that kick was strong enough for the man to cough up blood.
“Speak, where did you hide the secret file?”
The man jumped from behind was wearing a bamboo-green robe with a gold thread embroidery, a belt of the same colour, looking very befitting; one foot was stepping on the hand of the fortune-teller holding the poisonous dagger, the voice was cold as ice.
“…I don’t know!” The fortune-teller was in so much pain that he started to sweat.
The man in the bamboo-green robe, Jinxia recognized him.
In this capital, the people with the highest ranking and with the most power aside from Shizong [the Emperor], were only two. One was Yan Song, head of the Supreme Secretariat; he controlled the government and its workers, needless to say, he was a key figure in the palace. The other one was Lu Bing, the supreme commander of the JinYiWei [Brocade Robe Department]. He and Jiajing [The 12th emperor of the Ming Dynasty] were good friends who grew up together, and one time Lu Bing risked his life jumping in the fire to save Jiajing. Their relationship could be described in three words: solid, unshakable and flawless. In a sense, Lu Bing was a good official, despite having a lot of power and he still followed the rules closely fulfilling his duties. Lu Bing and Yan Song had a well established relationship.
The reputation of Supreme Commander Lu Bing, Jinxia already knew. Lu Bing had sharp eyes with long wavy eyelashes, his appearance was impressive, not rough but powerful, his stern expression scared many people.
The person in the bamboo-green robe in front of Jinxia was Lu Bing’s son, Lu Yi. Lu Bing came from a family with high martial arts background and had the highest grades among many scholars, but Lu Yi had also high martial arts skills in comparison to his father: They were in fact considered to be the number one and two martial arts experts in the JinYiWei [Brocade Robe Department].
In her opinion, in terms of appearance, Lu Yi resembled his mother, and did not have much roughness but he was far more attractive than his father. His eyes were like his father’s, his temperament was so calm that it didn’t seem to suit his age and he did give a cold vibe.
Lu Yi’s leg slightly twisted, adding more strength, Jinxia could even hear that the fortune-teller’s wrist bone was cracking.
“I…really…don’t know!” The fortune-teller’s said in distress.
The fortune-teller carried a poisonous dagger, which was not a good sign. Although, Jinxia knew that JinYiWei [Brocade Robe Department] was really harsh when interrogating, witnessing his method forced her to step up, “I don’t know what this fortune-teller did, but is it necessary to interrogate…”
She only said half of her sentence. Lu Yi, without moving his eyes, didn’t even care to look at her, pushed aside his outer robe revealing the JinYiWei [Brocade Robe Department] plate hanging from his waist, and coldly said: “The authorities are handling business, those not involved move aside!”
Just by seeing JinYiWei’s people, even if others were curious they wouldn’t dare to come any closer, so they rapidly left the scene. The crowded Xinfeng Bridge quickly became deserted.
Meanwhile, four more people arrived, all wearing the same clothing: blue-green long body armour with the embroidered letters “thousands”, leather boots and belts. These were the formal JinYiWei’s uniforms.
As soon as these four people arrived, they greeted Lu Yi respectably and then reported: “Lu Daren, Cao Ge is dead.”
JinXia upon hearing the name CaoGe, understand what is happening. It’s not even half a day, CaoGe couldn’t withstand the torture and succumbed to death.
After being a constable for almost 2 years now, JinXia managed to restrain her hot temper most of the times now, she had given herself a few rules to follow example like; a wise man will know when to make an escape to avoid losses; ‘a wise man will know when to yield and when not to; those who act accordingly to the situation are wise‘ and some more. During times like these, in order to keep her life safe, standing aside was surely the best choice.
Even though she couldn’t stand JinYiWei’s almighty attitude, LiuShanMen had no ground to butt into JinYiWei cases. As she was about to turn away, she saw the tofu lying on the ground and she thought about her mother’s face and suddenly this idiom came to her mind: humans die for money, birds die for food.
With the voice sounding like about to cry, making it as pitiful as possible, “Officer, you guys shouldn’t smash my stall even though you are handling a case!”
No one answered, probably no one even heard it at all.
LuYi frowned and pointed at the fortune teller: “Take him back to the prison!”
The fortune-teller knew how terrible JinYiWei’s prison was, his face quickly changed, he suddenly stood up and tried to escape: his goal was not to escape but to stab himself with the poisonous dagger.
That was a poison quick to kill and in just an instant, the fortune-teller vomited black blood and let out his last breath.
Lu Yi’s brows furrowed, after witnessing the situation and he coldly said, “Check his body.”
Four people immediately examined the fortune-teller’s body while Jinxia and YangYue were watching closely. They examined his body from head to toe: they removed his hair bun, opened his shirt and removed his shoes, in case he’d hid something.
“They’re doing a good job.” YangYue said to Jinxia while observing.
Jinxia disagreed with his statement: “This is nothing, just a little practice. This is the basic standard level in our department, they are just a group of rude people.”
Lu Yi’s back turned toward them, not knowing whether he heard them or not, he slightly turned his head and glanced from the side, his eyes were as cold as ice and made YangYue swallow back his words.
“Lu Daren, nothing!” After completing the examination, the unit faced Lu Yi and reported.
“Can you guess what they’re looking for?” As a constable, it made YangYue very curious, he lowered his voice and asked Jinxia.
Previously, YangYue said that the Head of the Ministry of Defense Department lost something, and Cao Ge was a person in the department, Jinxia could’ve guessed it, but did not want to share her thoughts, so she only said: “Needless to say, it must be related to a big case, state affairs.”
Lu Yi turned his head again, although he did not say anything, but his cold eyes were signalling them to shut up.
Jinxia’s concern now was not the case but the smashed bean curd stall in front of her, so she opened her mouth again, this time her voice was humble and full of sincerity: “Officer, the price of my bean curd is actually not expensive, if you could give me two taels of silver it would be enough.”
While Jinxia was speaking, one of the people in the unit reported to Lu Yi anxiously: “Two people have died, and we still haven’t found the map, later the commander–”
“Cough.. Cough..” Jinxia raised her voice at the back: “Officer, you should at least compensate me a little!”
Jinxia’s voice was loud and sharp this time, it was hard to ignore. Right at that moment, not only Lu Yi but all of JinYiWei’s people turned their gazes to her.
“Two taels of silver is enough.” Jinxia laughed while pointing in the direction of the smashed bean curd stall.
“Do you want to die? Move!”
One of the people in the units advanced forward and drove her out.
When it came to money, Jinxia was very tough and without stepping back, she said: “Compensate me, and I will go, if not then I cannot explain to my mother.”
“You…”
One of the people in the unit wanted to step up and fight her, but was stopped by Lu Yi.
“Give her the money and let them go!” There was a bigger matter that needed to be solved and Lu Yi obviously did not want to add more problems, especially having unnecessary things disturbing his work.
They did not dare to disobey his orders; one of the men took out the money from his pocket and threw the two taels of silver at Jinxia.
Jinxia collected the silvers with joy and was ready to leave with YangYue, she just walked a few steps and the stopped and turned back to look at Lu Yi, with a cheerful face and said: “I don’t know what the officers are looking for, but on his sleeve there is a trail of moss and his shoes are half wet; I guess he just visited a place not far from the river, for example a place near the bridge.”
Lu Yi looked at her for a moment, then crouched down to check: it was true that on the left and right arm of the fortune-teller’s clothes there were traces of moss.
“That place is a bit high, so he put his foot on his foot, his left hand pressed against the wall, and used his right hand to dig something up.” Jinxia continued to speak, “If my guess is not wrong, between the cracks of his left nail there is a piece of moss.”
Lu Yi held up the left hand of the body and examined it carefully, it was true that between the cracks of his nails there were some moss fragments.
Jinxia saw that he understood her, she turned around and left the place, while keeping the two taels of silver in her pocket, then she walked quickly away with a cheerful smile.
“I told you they are a bunch of rude people, they only know how to beat and kill, they can’t see the simple things in front of their eyes.” She strongly disagreed with the working style of JinYiWei, while walking and chatting with YangYue. “If they can settle this by tomorrow morning, we won’t need to go to the Ministry of Defense Department anymore.”
“How do you know?”
“People have all died, things have also been found, why would we need to go there anymore?” Jinxia thought again and felt a little sorry, “If only Cao ge was related to the enemy, the prize for arresting him should have been greater!”
Half a day later, the map of Jizhou City wrapped in tarpaulin was found on the ceiling of the bridge pier. The fortune-teller named Song YongWen, who turned out to be a spy from two countries hiding in the capital, was in charge of gathering information and then selling them at a high price. Cao Ge offended his superior and was in the process of being transferred to leave the Capital. In order to take revenge he had stolen the defensive map and sold it to Song YongWen, then took Qi Qiushi to flee.
After the case was resolved, JinYiWei’s commander Lu Yi entered the palace that same night. Even though the case was over, Jiajing was still angry, he issued the decree to fire the Minister of Defense Ministry, and deducted the salary of the Left Deputy Minister and Right Deputy Minister of the Defense Ministry for a year.
Ever since Jinxia was a child, she had already made a name for herself. Everytime a neighbour mentioned her to others, they would add more nicknames for her like YeCha or big bug. When she first heard it, she felt uncomfortable, but then she read a book called Xingsu Xiafan and learned that YeCha was a ferocious demon, a gatekeeper of the spirit realms with a scary appearance and that it was a name that brought fear to everyone. So she found this title fascinating and treated it as a compliment since.
After becoming a constable in the department, she was treated as an official and ‘the compliments’ she received from her neighbours started to fade. Now just by mentioning the fierce daughter of the Yuan family, everyone would know right away who she was. Yuan Chen couldn’t restrain her daughter, and since she was growing older day by day and no one had come to propose to her yet, this was a matter that made Yuan Chen pretty upset. Thinking about this matter, she gritted her teeth and thought ‘Just wait until I prepare a big dowry, I won’t be worried even if they don’t come begging.’
In order to save up for a dowry, Yuan Chen had to sell bean curd during the day and dried bean curd at night, which was very difficult. Due to all the rumours and nicknames, Jinxia was affected by the lack of marriage proposals, making her a burden for her family, and given the situation, she didn’t have a choice but to continue catching criminals and it was not easy for her.
When Jinxia heard that Yuan Chen had chosen Yi young master, she curiously wondered how much dowry her mother gave to the Yi family for them to agree to this matchmaking. Then she turned her thought around; this matter was like a one time hard work equal to a pleasure for life [TN, idiom]: if she married into the Yi family, Yuan Yi would become the brother-in-law and that would mean his tuition expenses could be saved for the next few years, as well as being provided with ice in the summer and woods in the winter, that were not small costs.
Therefore all the expenses could be lowered a lot, and the dowry could be kept.
She hit herself hard on the forehead, anxiously looking at the burning woods in the kitchen and quickly put in more.
***
On the surface of the Jinshui river, the water flowed slowly and reflected the lights from both sides of the river.
There were painters and music on each side of the river and people rowing their boats. Shirtless men with flowers on their heads would smile, sing and climb on the pole of the boat whenever someone threw money down the river, then they would dive down underwater, but before reaching down they would either do a kung fu dance in the air or a spin before hitting the water.
The restaurants on the shore were across from each other, in the middle there was a small bridge to cross.
Jinxia leaned against a stone lion statue by the bridge railing, feeling bored while guarding the dried bean curd stall: she was listening to the sound of bamboo flute and the sounds of people coming from the restaurants, her eyes staring down at the river. At first Jinxia was just supposed to go help her mother sell dried bean curds, but as she knew Yuan Chen had worked so hard the night before and had so many things to worry about, that thought was giving her a headache. Therefore she had persuaded her mother to go home and rest, but Yuan Chen was feeling uneasy leaving the bean curd stall to her and Jinxia had had to swear and promise that she would behave when watching the stall, and would not cause any trouble.
“Two orders of dried bean curds with spicy oil!” a pleasurable voice said with a laugh.
The voice startled Jinxia, she looked up to see YangYue, and wondered: “How did you know I was here?”
“I went to your house to give two salted fish and I met your mother; so I gave her the money from your trip. Then she said that you were here.” YangYue did not hesitate and treated himself with a stick of dried bean curd, topping it off with spicy oil.
“My dad said tomorrow morning we have to go with him to the Ministry of Defense Department.”
“Oh.” Then Jinxia casually said. “Is the Ministry of Defense Department missing something?”
“Only gods would know.” YangYue followed the direction of her gaze and looked at the river, then curiously asked: “What are you looking at?”
“Do you see that person jumping down the river?” Jinxia pointed out.
Following her words, the shirtless man jumped from the top of the boat, doing a beautiful three-spin flip in the air while holding his head, he then flopped into the water. It was springtime, but the weather was cold, even if not enough to freeze the water. YangYue felt the cold air down his spine just by looking, feeling bad for them.
“I sold three orders of bean curds, but he’s already jumped eight times.” Jinxia enviously looked at the shirtless man currently climbing up the boat pole. “The amount of money he makes for jumping in one night equals the number of money we make in a month. You see, why are we even working as constables?”
“You’re not scared of the cold?”
“Do you complain if silvers are cold?”
Jinxia lowered her head looking at the dried bean curds piling up like a small mountain. She let out a sigh, she wouldn’t know when she could sell all of them.
“Lack of money again?” YangYue understood her really well.
Before she could answer, a person appeared in front of the stall–
“I want four orders of dried bean curds, two with spicy oil and the other two with plum powder, the more sour the better. My wife wants to eat something sour now.” Sun Jixing, the eldest son of the Sun family, was visiting the night market with his wife.
Although she did not want to look up, Jinxia – because of money – had to quickly complete the orders and give them to him. She plainly said: “Four coins, thank you.”
Sun Jixing paid the money, took the bean curbs and stared at her intently: “Jinxia, why are you here? Are you not busy catching criminals?”
“Cough…cough…it’s a special task.” Jinxia closely said in a low voice. “Recently, the government is planning a big mission. If you have nothing to do, go outside less, especially if your wife is pregnant… Too many outings are not good.”
Sun Jixing became anxious after listening: “Really?!?”
Jinxia signaled them to look at YangYue next to her, and turned the questions around: “If not, do you think we’re just standing here… just to sell bean curds?”
Sun Jixing quickly left with his pregnant wife, and YangYue watched as their figures disappeared into the crowds. He was surprised and asked her, “Why did you scare them?”
“That couple keeps acting lovingly and wanders in front of my mother: if she sees it, she will complain, and I can’t even say anything back, which makes me really frustrated.”
Feeling frustrated, she put her fingers up to massage her head. Suddenly there were loud noises from the crowd on the left. When she lifted her head up to take a look, she saw a man wearing three in-laid robes passing by people, and then fell down heavily onto her bean curd stand, which immediately fell down to the ground with the oil squirting everywhere.
“Hey you…”
Seeing that he was holding a golden bell, guessing he was one of the fortune-tellers on the street, Jinxia held up her hand wanting to pull him up, but unexpectedly the fortune-teller pushed her hand away and a bright, long dagger was exposed inside his sleeves. Just by a glance, she could already tell that the tip of the dagger was poisonous.
“Be careful!” YangYue panicked and rushed forward.
This situation happened too suddenly, but Jinxia quickly reacted and moved to the side avoiding the dagger, but it still cut off half of her sleeve.
YangYue was prepared to fight, but someone from behind jumped out first: he could only see a green figure passing by, throwing a leg up and kicking the fortune-teller, that kick was strong enough for the man to cough up blood.
“Speak, where did you hide the secret file?”
The man jumped from behind was wearing a bamboo-green robe with a gold thread embroidery, a belt of the same colour, looking very befitting; one foot was stepping on the hand of the fortune-teller holding the poisonous dagger, the voice was cold as ice.
“…I don’t know!” The fortune-teller was in so much pain that he started to sweat.
The man in the bamboo-green robe, Jinxia recognized him.
In this capital, the people with the highest ranking and with the most power aside from Shizong [the Emperor], were only two. One was Yan Song, head of the Supreme Secretariat; he controlled the government and its workers, needless to say, he was a key figure in the palace. The other one was Lu Bing, the supreme commander of the JinYiWei [Brocade Robe Department]. He and Jiajing [The 12th emperor of the Ming Dynasty] were good friends who grew up together, and one time Lu Bing risked his life jumping in the fire to save Jiajing. Their relationship could be described in three words: solid, unshakable and flawless. In a sense, Lu Bing was a good official, despite having a lot of power and he still followed the rules closely fulfilling his duties. Lu Bing and Yan Song had a well established relationship.
The reputation of Supreme Commander Lu Bing, Jinxia already knew. Lu Bing had sharp eyes with long wavy eyelashes, his appearance was impressive, not rough but powerful, his stern expression scared many people.
The person in the bamboo-green robe in front of Jinxia was Lu Bing’s son, Lu Yi. Lu Bing came from a family with high martial arts background and had the highest grades among many scholars, but Lu Yi had also high martial arts skills in comparison to his father: They were in fact considered to be the number one and two martial arts experts in the JinYiWei [Brocade Robe Department].
In her opinion, in terms of appearance, Lu Yi resembled his mother, and did not have much roughness but he was far more attractive than his father. His eyes were like his father’s, his temperament was so calm that it didn’t seem to suit his age and he did give a cold vibe.
Lu Yi’s leg slightly twisted, adding more strength, Jinxia could even hear that the fortune-teller’s wrist bone was cracking.
“I…really…don’t know!” The fortune-teller’s said in distress.
The fortune-teller carried a poisonous dagger, which was not a good sign. Although, Jinxia knew that JinYiWei [Brocade Robe Department] was really harsh when interrogating, witnessing his method forced her to step up, “I don’t know what this fortune-teller did, but is it necessary to interrogate…”
She only said half of her sentence. Lu Yi, without moving his eyes, didn’t even care to look at her, pushed aside his outer robe revealing the JinYiWei [Brocade Robe Department] plate hanging from his waist, and coldly said: “The authorities are handling business, those not involved move aside!”
Just by seeing JinYiWei’s people, even if others were curious they wouldn’t dare to come any closer, so they rapidly left the scene. The crowded Xinfeng Bridge quickly became deserted.
Meanwhile, four more people arrived, all wearing the same clothing: blue-green long body armour with the embroidered letters “thousands”, leather boots and belts. These were the formal JinYiWei’s uniforms.
As soon as these four people arrived, they greeted Lu Yi respectably and then reported: “Lu Daren, Cao Ge is dead.”
JinXia upon hearing the name CaoGe, understand what is happening. It’s not even half a day, CaoGe couldn’t withstand the torture and succumbed to death.
After being a constable for almost 2 years now, JinXia managed to restrain her hot temper most of the times now, she had given herself a few rules to follow example like; a wise man will know when to make an escape to avoid losses; ‘a wise man will know when to yield and when not to; those who act accordingly to the situation are wise‘ and some more. During times like these, in order to keep her life safe, standing aside was surely the best choice.
Even though she couldn’t stand JinYiWei’s almighty attitude, LiuShanMen had no ground to butt into JinYiWei cases. As she was about to turn away, she saw the tofu lying on the ground and she thought about her mother’s face and suddenly this idiom came to her mind: humans die for money, birds die for food.
With the voice sounding like about to cry, making it as pitiful as possible, “Officer, you guys shouldn’t smash my stall even though you are handling a case!”
No one answered, probably no one even heard it at all.
LuYi frowned and pointed at the fortune teller: “Take him back to the prison!”
The fortune-teller knew how terrible JinYiWei’s prison was, his face quickly changed, he suddenly stood up and tried to escape: his goal was not to escape but to stab himself with the poisonous dagger.
That was a poison quick to kill and in just an instant, the fortune-teller vomited black blood and let out his last breath.
Lu Yi’s brows furrowed, after witnessing the situation and he coldly said, “Check his body.”
Four people immediately examined the fortune-teller’s body while Jinxia and YangYue were watching closely. They examined his body from head to toe: they removed his hair bun, opened his shirt and removed his shoes, in case he’d hid something.
“They’re doing a good job.” YangYue said to Jinxia while observing.
Jinxia disagreed with his statement: “This is nothing, just a little practice. This is the basic standard level in our department, they are just a group of rude people.”
Lu Yi’s back turned toward them, not knowing whether he heard them or not, he slightly turned his head and glanced from the side, his eyes were as cold as ice and made YangYue swallow back his words.
“Lu Daren, nothing!” After completing the examination, the unit faced Lu Yi and reported.
“Can you guess what they’re looking for?” As a constable, it made YangYue very curious, he lowered his voice and asked Jinxia.
Previously, YangYue said that the Head of the Ministry of Defense Department lost something, and Cao Ge was a person in the department, Jinxia could’ve guessed it, but did not want to share her thoughts, so she only said: “Needless to say, it must be related to a big case, state affairs.”
Lu Yi turned his head again, although he did not say anything, but his cold eyes were signalling them to shut up.
Jinxia’s concern now was not the case but the smashed bean curd stall in front of her, so she opened her mouth again, this time her voice was humble and full of sincerity: “Officer, the price of my bean curd is actually not expensive, if you could give me two taels of silver it would be enough.”
While Jinxia was speaking, one of the people in the unit reported to Lu Yi anxiously: “Two people have died, and we still haven’t found the map, later the commander–”
“Cough.. Cough..” Jinxia raised her voice at the back: “Officer, you should at least compensate me a little!”
Jinxia’s voice was loud and sharp this time, it was hard to ignore. Right at that moment, not only Lu Yi but all of JinYiWei’s people turned their gazes to her.
“Two taels of silver is enough.” Jinxia laughed while pointing in the direction of the smashed bean curd stall.
“Do you want to die? Move!”
One of the people in the units advanced forward and drove her out.
When it came to money, Jinxia was very tough and without stepping back, she said: “Compensate me, and I will go, if not then I cannot explain to my mother.”
“You…”
One of the people in the unit wanted to step up and fight her, but was stopped by Lu Yi.
“Give her the money and let them go!” There was a bigger matter that needed to be solved and Lu Yi obviously did not want to add more problems, especially having unnecessary things disturbing his work.
They did not dare to disobey his orders; one of the men took out the money from his pocket and threw the two taels of silver at Jinxia.
Jinxia collected the silvers with joy and was ready to leave with YangYue, she just walked a few steps and the stopped and turned back to look at Lu Yi, with a cheerful face and said: “I don’t know what the officers are looking for, but on his sleeve there is a trail of moss and his shoes are half wet; I guess he just visited a place not far from the river, for example a place near the bridge.”
Lu Yi looked at her for a moment, then crouched down to check: it was true that on the left and right arm of the fortune-teller’s clothes there were traces of moss.
“That place is a bit high, so he put his foot on his foot, his left hand pressed against the wall, and used his right hand to dig something up.” Jinxia continued to speak, “If my guess is not wrong, between the cracks of his left nail there is a piece of moss.”
Lu Yi held up the left hand of the body and examined it carefully, it was true that between the cracks of his nails there were some moss fragments.
Jinxia saw that he understood her, she turned around and left the place, while keeping the two taels of silver in her pocket, then she walked quickly away with a cheerful smile.
“I told you they are a bunch of rude people, they only know how to beat and kill, they can’t see the simple things in front of their eyes.” She strongly disagreed with the working style of JinYiWei, while walking and chatting with YangYue. “If they can settle this by tomorrow morning, we won’t need to go to the Ministry of Defense Department anymore.”
“How do you know?”
“People have all died, things have also been found, why would we need to go there anymore?” Jinxia thought again and felt a little sorry, “If only Cao ge was related to the enemy, the prize for arresting him should have been greater!”
Half a day later, the map of Jizhou City wrapped in tarpaulin was found on the ceiling of the bridge pier. The fortune-teller named Song YongWen, who turned out to be a spy from two countries hiding in the capital, was in charge of gathering information and then selling them at a high price. Cao Ge offended his superior and was in the process of being transferred to leave the Capital. In order to take revenge he had stolen the defensive map and sold it to Song YongWen, then took Qi Qiushi to flee.
After the case was resolved, JinYiWei’s commander Lu Yi entered the palace that same night. Even though the case was over, Jiajing was still angry, he issued the decree to fire the Minister of Defense Ministry, and deducted the salary of the Left Deputy Minister and Right Deputy Minister of the Defense Ministry for a year.
