The sudden influx of runners threw the warehouse-inn into utter chaos.
The cook, Madam Huang, knelt before the kitchen with her nephew, trembling with fear.
Shitou and Liu Jiu (Brother Liu) were pinned to the ground while the runners held up a portrait and compared it against them, only letting them up after a long while.
Song You, the warehouse keeper, had been reading by lamplight when the runners broke down his door and turned his room upside down. In the end he was even forced, together with Yu Yuan, to take the keys and open up each of the storehouses.
After they had searched every one of the storehouses — the First, Second, and Third — the runners looked faintly disappointed, though whether it was because they hadn't caught their man, or because the storehouses were so bare there was nothing to skim, it was hard to say.
The room where Shao Shuyi lived was searched with particular thoroughness. Bedding, chairs, and stools were flung to the floor in disarray, and brush, ink, paper, and inkstone lay scattered everywhere. Had Yu Yuan and Song You not shielded his "toolbox" and his cash box with all their might, those two would have met the same fate.
As they were about to leave, the petty official leading them detoured straight into the kitchen and carried off several salted fish, three cured chickens, and a soy-braised goose — for all the world like a pack of bandits.
"Not here?" Zhu Jin sat behind the counter, ignoring the runners' pilfering. He cared only about where the wanted man had gone.
"He truly isn't here," the petty official reported. Then he ventured, "Shall we search again?"
"Never mind." Zhu Jin waved his hand. "Question everyone in the shop separately, and ask where he's gone."
"Should we take them away to be interrogated?" the petty official asked.
Zhu Jin hesitated a moment. "No need. And there's no call for rough methods, either."
"Yes." The petty official accepted the order and went off.
Song You, the warehouse keeper, saw this from the side. He cupped his hands in salute and said loudly, "May I ask, Judge Zhu, just who lodged the accusation? No sooner is the charge made than you move to seize the man? Perhaps it's only one side's word."
Zhu Jin gave a cold snort. Instead of answering directly, he said only, "Gold and silver are precious things, bestowed as rewards on princes and high ministers. Do you not know that the Maritime Trade Regulations forbid gold, silver, copper, grain, and arms from being shipped out to sea?"
"Of course I know that," Song You replied. "But this is only one side's word — it should not be believed lightly."
"Since the prohibition has been violated, the law must be brought to bear," Zhu Jin said.
"Perhaps someone has made a false charge to frame him?" Song You went on.
"He has certainly fled in fear of punishment." Zhu Jin did not even look at him, speaking as though to himself.
Song You shut his mouth. You say this, he says that — like a chicken trying to talk to a duck. There was no point in going on; nothing would come of it. And if this Judge Zhu were shamed into a fury and had him arrested too, it wouldn't be worth the risk. The man was dead set on arresting the accountant — either he bore a grudge, or he'd been paid, or he was acting on someone else's orders. Now was not the time to push back head-on; better to wait until he'd gone, then think of another way.
On the other side, Liang Tai kept a tight hold on Wang Huadu's hand, afraid he might do something foolish. But the worry was needless — Wang Huadu was very quiet, clearly a man who knew when to do a thing and when not to.
Yu Yuan, by contrast, was all anxiety. If the runners had not still been there, he would have rushed straight to Suzhou that very moment to send word — to tell Elder Brother Shao not to hurry back, but to lie low out there a while.
So the people from the Maritime Trade Supervisorate made a great commotion at the warehouse-inn for more than two hours, and only when they truly could get nothing more out of anyone did they hurry off, leaving a fine mess behind them.
* * *
The moment the government men were gone, Wang Huadu caught hold of Yu Yuan and asked, "Is Young Master Shao coming back by boat?"
"He went by boat, so of course he'll come back by boat," Yu Yuan said anxiously. "Are the officers going to seize him at the docks?"
Wang Huadu looked hesitant.
"That's not quite it," spoke up Song You, who had been arguing the point so forcefully just now. "The Maritime Trade Supervisorate only goes after smugglers and contraband; it doesn't actually have many runners. If they went to the Taicang docks, they might even clash with the authorities of Kunshan Zhou. My guess is they mean to wait until the accountant gets back to the shop, and then make the arrest."
"What Brother Song says is absolutely right." Wang Huadu's attitude toward him changed completely. "What can this lot at the Maritime Trade Supervisorate do besides want money? Quite a few of those runners just now were fat and heavyset — they must be lazy the whole year round. I don't know who paid out silver this time to frame Young Master Shao, but that's the only reason this bunch would stir themselves to move."
Yu Yuan only half understood. He was actually a little confused: could a false accusation really work? If he accused a man of being a sea pirate, would the authorities seize him without troubling to tell right from wrong?
"If they can frame Young Master Shao today, they can frame someone else tomorrow. And the little courtyard—" Liang Tai suddenly spoke up.
Wang Huadu's expression tightened at first, but seeing that everyone was looking at him, it abruptly eased again. He smiled awkwardly and said, "A while back I was listening to an opera down at the docks. In the late Tang, Zhu Wen followed Huang Chao in rebellion and rose to be a great general and military governor — and yet his old mother, his sister, and his elder brother, weren't they all left untouched? They just went on farming and hiring out as day-laborers back home for years. You can't expect the great officials to sort out the household circumstances of small folk like us — that's asking a bit much of them."
"We can't afford to be careless, Dog-Slave—I mean, brother," Yu Yuan said worriedly.
"We'd do better to move to Taicang." Liang Tai spoke vaguely, as though he had some misgiving.
Taicang? Taicang where? He hadn't made it clear, but Wang Huadu already understood. Wasn't Li Fu's house still empty? If they squeezed in, they could surely all fit. The neighbors of East First Ward pitied Li Fu's family, and thought well of Young Master Shao besides. If government people really did come round, someone would surely tip them off, and there'd be time enough to hide.
"Right!" He drove a fist into his palm. "When the government puts on that kind of show, it's no different from bandits — you can spot them from far off."
Song You shook his head with a wry smile.
In those days, the gong-and-drum signals used to welcome and send off a Surveillance Commissioner followed a fixed rule: two drumbeats and one gong beat. To haul a bandit off under guard, it was one drumbeat and one gong beat. So someone wrote a poem that went:
"To haul off a thief — one gong, one drum;
To greet an official — two drums, one gong.
The gongs and drums look all the same;
Between official and thief, there's little to choose."
This was to mock how, whenever a Surveillance Commissioner came to "set the officialdom in order," all the officials would be thrown into a flurry, and the commissioner would rake in money until his hand went numb.
"Then that's what we'll do," Wang Huadu said at last. "I'll head back and get ready now; we move tonight. Ugh — there's no small amount of grain, rice, and salted vegetables. It'll be the death of me."
"And the arms," Liang Tai added. "Everything else is easy enough — the arms are the most trouble."
With that, he lowered his head again and gazed silently at the ground, saying no more.
Song You, as though by chance, glanced at Liang Tai. This fellow had said more today than in the past ten days combined, and yet not a word was wasted — every sentence struck the vital point. Fierce of face and big and burly as he was, who would have thought he was such a meticulous man.
Wang Huadu soon left.
Yu Yuan sat there restless, one moment wanting to get up and go out, the next sinking back down in a daze. Just as he made to rise yet again, Song You patted his shoulder and said, "Accountant Shao will be back soon. If you can't set your mind at ease, go meet him at the Zhangjing docks. There's nothing much to do at the shop anyway; being gone a day or two won't matter."
Yu Yuan looked at him, bowed deeply, and hurried off.
Song You sighed softly. "I'll make a trip to Salt and Iron Creek." With that, he too drifted away.
After everyone had gone, Liang Tai rose and shut every door and window. Then he sat down in a dark corner behind the counter, took up a piece of hemp cloth, and quietly began to wipe his blade.
* * *
Early the next morning, Sun Chuan got up from the side room in the west wing.
After he had washed, he turned his head to glance toward the north and silently sighed. Two days running now he'd been kicked off to sleep in the side room, not even allowed into the bedroom. A woman who came with a son in tow — you'd never truly win that sort over.
Still, he had to endure it. He had to endure!
This woman, Madam Liu, kept two or three shops each in Liujiagang, Taicang, and Longwan in Jiqing Circuit; she had built up an enormous business. Especially the three warehouse-inns over at Longwan market — their trade in grain and oil, cloth and silk, and salt was thriving, the business actually bigger than his own. Every year on Renri, the seventh day of the first lunar month, a whole crowd of shop managers would come in a dark swarm to pay their respects, a sight alarming enough to set the heart pounding.
After they married, Madam Liu had let him in on a little of the truth: many of the shop managers over at Longwan market had once made their living on the sea, and though they'd since come ashore and quit, he'd best not provoke them. From this, Sun Chuan understood just what Madam Liu's late husband had really been.
Of course, he, Sun, hadn't come out of it empty-handed. The business of fencing goods for the sea pirates — it was Madam Liu who had brokered that connection for him, and it had brought in no small profit. There was only — well, a lingering regret: why couldn't the two families' wealth and goods be merged into one?
Shaking his head, he sauntered into the dining hall, only to find an old servant standing with folded hands, as though waiting for him.
Sun Chuan beckoned. The old servant came over and reported in a low voice, "Yuanswai, Deputy Superintendent Chen sent a man to inform you: Shao Shuyi was not caught yesterday. It seems he has gone to Suzhou and has not yet returned."
Chen's actual title was deputy superintendent (tong-tiju), a subordinate official under Nasir al-Din, the superintendent of the Taicang Maritime Trade Branch Office; ordinary people simply dropped the "deputy" when addressing him.
"Gone to Suzhou?" Sun Chuan frowned slightly. After thinking a moment, he said, "Did the Maritime Trade Supervisorate not go to waylay him at the crossroads, or stake out the docks?"
"How would the Maritime Trade Supervisorate have the manpower for that?" the old servant said with a bitter smile. "Besides, if they went, the people at the prefectural yamen would think they were overreaching their bounds — they might even come to blows."
Sun Chuan grunted, his face blank, then said, "Never mind. I've nothing to do today anyway — I'll go sit a while at the prefectural yamen. Taicang has set up a new Police Inspection Office and ordered men like us to pay for it. Surely there's some benefit in it for us?"
Once Sun Chuan had finished, the old servant reminded him, "Yuanswai, that lot at the prefectural yamen are terribly greedy. To get them to stir themselves, you'll likely have to pay out no small sum — is it worth—"
Sun Chuan waved his hand before the servant could finish. "You don't understand! A thousand-li dike can collapse through a single ant hole. What is the foundation of my livelihood? Overseas trade! Without it, the Maritime Trade Supervisorate surely won't protect me, and what becomes of me is all too easy to guess. They can touch anything else, but not this. Whoever touches this — I'll fight him to the death."
With that he gave up on his breakfast, rose, and said, "Fetch that coral branch from the house. I'm taking it with me to the prefectural yamen."
Chapter 55