Chapter 285: Disaster Arrives (7)

The night was deep, and the candlelight flickered red.

Tonight was destined to be a sleepless night.

Le Wuya lay on his back on the bed, still fully dressed, removing the blank jade chess piece, still warm from his body, from around his neck. He tossed it up, caught it again, thoughts churning through his mind one after another.

He wondered, what was Wang Su really after in sending him here this time?

When a typical imperial censor was sent out to inspect or travel incognito, if he ran into his own people getting beaten or arrested, he'd immediately flash his credentials and demand answers from the local officials.

At that point, as long as the ones who'd roughed up Wang Cheng stuck to their story—that they'd just misunderstood what Wang Cheng meant—then blubbered and groveled with apologies, he, as the censor, would have a hard time pressing the issue further.

If word got around that he was hounding a merchant on someone else's turf, folks would just think he was small-minded—or even suspect he'd actually put Wang Cheng up to the shakedown, and was now flying into a rage after being found out.

Therefore, he could only choke down this bitter pill in silence, hold down the fort in Dansui for a spell, make sure the local disaster relief was running smoothly and getting results, with no graft or lawbreaking going on, pack up some local goods from Dansui, and head back to the capital in style to report in.

Then everyone would be happy, host and guest alike—all's well that ends well.

Was that what Wang Su wanted to happen?

The chess piece went soaring up again.

No.

Wang Su was the emperor's eyes, mouth, and teeth—an old dog that never barked but was damn good at biting.

From the Scholar Tian filicide case, Wang Su had probably already figured out his habit of traveling incognito.

Could the pit that was dug for Wang Cheng actually have been meant for him?

The chess piece dropped back into his palm.

Le Wuya narrowed his eyes.

The one who'd laid hands on Wang Cheng was the wife of You the Second, the cloth seller.

From what the locals were saying, Liu Blackie and Yan the Third were both famous local troublemakers—the kind of slick, slippery types, always looking to cut corners and weasel their way out of things, hoping to cash in on the disaster.

The locals had always thought poorly of them, and when Zhou Wenchang came down on them like a ton of bricks, the locals naturally cheered and clapped.

But the You family was different.

That motor-mouth old man had said the You family mainly dealt in top-grade silk—they catered to the high-end crowd.

Even if he'd gotten greedy and jacked up prices during the disaster, it wouldn't have affected ordinary folks' lives much at all. A slap on the wrist would've been enough. But now he was being lumped in with the profiteers who jacked up rice and veggie prices and wrecked people's lives—that seemed way too harsh.

Of course, it was also possible this Magistrate Zhou ran a tight ship and was making an example of them, hell-bent on cracking down hard to stamp out the bad behavior, so he'd made these three the poster children for his crackdown.

But what really grabbed Le Wuya's attention was the intel that the You family was the only one of the three that were outsiders.

Before arriving, Le Wuya had dug the Dansui County gazetteer out of some dusty corner and pored over the local customs and traditions.

The gazetteer noted that this place had "rich mineral resources, with clans living together in tight communities."

Those eight little characters were enough for Le Wuya to figure out the lay of the land.

Mining work demanded close cooperation and mutual trust, and the smelter trade was passed down from father to son, so people didn't move in and out of the mining areas much.

Bottom line: the locals stuck together and didn't take kindly to outsiders.

Slick as Yan the Third and Liu Blackie were, they had deep roots—they had at least seven or eight relatives in town to back them up. Even if the authorities shut down their shops and banned them from doing business, they could still get by mooching off folks and eating free meals.

But the You family, for all their workers and apprentices, was just one lone household.

The You family was a rootless weed—the easiest to squeeze.

With that thought, Le Wuya rolled over and sat up: "Qin Xingyue."

On the other bed, Qin Xingyue was flopping around like a pancake on a griddle. He shot straight up at the sound: "Master, what is it?"

Le Wuya waved him over, and when he leaned in, whispered a couple of sentences in his ear.

Qin Xingyue blinked: "Me?"

"Of course."

Qin Xingyue hunched by his bed, grumbling: "Aren't you worried I'll get dragged into it too?"

Le Wuya gave his bulging bicep a slap: "Are you afraid of them?"

Those four words immediately perked Qin Xingyue right up, pathetic as that was.

But he didn't head back to his bed to rest up.

Sure, Qin Xingyue had a gimpy leg, but he was still the best hand-to-hand fighter in their crew.

But for all his strength, not knowing what he was walking into left him feeling shaky. He could only feel a little better by sticking close to his master.

Le Wuya had been planning to grab some shut-eye, but watching this guy shuffle over and squat by his bed, staring at him with big puppy-dog eyes, he couldn't help chuckling: "What's wrong?"

Qin Xingyue figured he'd lived this long, been through battles, killed people, yet here he was, rattled by a peaceful-looking little county town—pretty damn embarrassing. So he decided to keep his mouth shut about it.

"Master, at least we know where Wang Cheng went..." Qin Xingyue said. "But Xiao Zhong?"

The words hung in the air, and a sudden silence fell between them.

The more Qin Xingyue thought, the more worried he got.

Zhong Piaoping had been sent to check on those three buried villages, but he'd never come back.

That road ran straight with no turnoffs, and he was on horseback, so he should've been back in Dansui town before nightfall.

What the hell happened to him?

Did another mudslide hit?

Did they drag him and his horse into helping because they were short-handed?

All kinds of guesses were churning in Qin Xingyue's head, but a laugh from Le Wuya scattered them all.

His tone was casual, almost offhand: "Don't worry about him. Xiao Zhong's always been unlucky—he trips over every piece of bad luck out there. He ought to be used to it by now."

Qin Xingyue didn't know whether to laugh or cry at such a heartless comment: "Master..."

Though, what the master said was true enough...

Xiao Zhong lost every bet he ever made, his family was destroyed, he went from being a pampered young master to a military household, and on his very first boat escort job, he ran into Japanese pirates...

There really was something uncanny about him.

Yet somehow, he always managed to come back safe and sound.

Maybe he really did have a knack for turning bad luck around.

With this thought, the gloom on Qin Xingyue's face gradually lifted.

He hopped up quickly, gave a respectful bow to Le Wuya, and returned to his own bed, wrapping himself up in the blanket in one quick motion before closing his eyes to sleep.

Having calmed Qin Xingyue down, Le Wuya rose and pushed open the window, as if to air out the room and chase away the summer heat.

While the window was open, he swiftly retrieved a note as thin as tissue paper from the gap in the outer window lattice.

Just moments ago, while conversing with Qin Xingyue, he'd caught a glimpse of a shadow flitting past the window.

He went back to bed, acting like nothing was wrong, and by the dim light of the oil lamp, he unfolded the note.

The note was in Qiu Sinian's handwriting: "Rest easy, my lord. Little Zhong has guards with him; nothing to worry about."

Le Wuya's expression relaxed slightly.

Xiao Zhong had probably just gotten held up by some unexpected trouble.

After all, the guy was always jinxed.

...

The wild wind whipped grass blades across Zhong Piaoping's cheeks.

Out here in the middle of nowhere, Zhong Piaoping was becoming more and more convinced he was just plain cursed.

At first, he figured someone had deliberately set him up.

But once he calmed down and thought it through, he realized that didn't hold water.

Zhong Piaoping had parted ways with Le Wuya and the others this morning, riding hard toward the disaster site, and had run into the yamen clerk and A Shun by chance on the road.

At the time, they were hauling out a survivor who was barely breathing, planning to rush him back to the county seat for treatment.

Both were soaked in sweat and caked in mud, and the survivor was truly at death's door, covered in muck.

There was no way that scene was faked.

What if he'd shown up a moment later and missed them altogether?

What if he'd ridden by before the guy had even been dug out?

What if he'd been too intimidated by the yamen's authority to ride back to Dansui County with A Shun and had decided to walk instead?

In short, him showing up there on horseback was pure coincidence.

Say he'd never shown up at all—what then?

A Shun and the clerk would have carried the stretcher, trudging toward the county seat under the blazing sun, trying to find a doctor in a nearby village or borrow an oxcart or donkey cart.

Then the clerk would've gone back to the site to keep directing things, while A Shun looked after or moved the injured man.

But A Shun the runner's goal was crystal clear:

He wanted to shut the guy up for good.

There were three things that didn't add up.

First, when Zhong Piaoping offered to ride back to Dansui with him, A Shun's face clearly stiffened.

Second, while Zhong Piaoping was still checking the calluses on the wounded man's hands, A Shun was already driving the cart into the tall grass.

Third, after he'd wrestled with Zhong Piaoping and ended up on the losing end, his first instinct wasn't to run—it was to strangle the guy first.

Zhong Piaoping didn't know if the wounded man had some old beef with A Shun, or if someone had ordered A Shun to kill him no matter what.

But he did know that his showing up was a total curveball for A Shun.

If Zhong Piaoping hadn't suddenly appeared, A Shun would've had a hundred ways to quietly kill the wounded man without raising any suspicion.

...Dying from severe injuries—what a perfectly convenient excuse.

At that thought, Zhong Piaoping casually turned his gaze to the young man glaring at him with pure hatred, like he wanted to eat him alive.

—So what did this guy count as?

Was he a wildcard for this guy?

The young Changmen Guard's cheeks were so stuffed with half a corncob that he couldn't get a single word out in his own defense, and could only curse him out in his head:

Zhong Piaoping, I'll screw your ancestors!!