Zhang Laifu arrived at Yujin Wharf. It really was not large, but it was crowded with people. Some carried shoulder poles, some had bedrolls slung over their backs, and others squatted along the flagstone walkway, baskets, hampers, and bundles piled beside their feet.
Vendors had set up their stalls directly along the bank. With a small pot and a wooden board, they made and sold noodles, dough-drop soup, congee, fried dough twists, and pancakes on the spot, the mouthwatering aromas mingling with the river's fishy smell and drifting through the autumn wind.
Near the trestle stood a ticket office with gray-brick walls and a piece of tattered paper pasted across the window frame. Behind the small window sat a woman in her thirties, compact in hand, touching up her makeup in a small mirror.
Zhang Laifu approached the door, brought out all his money, and asked about the fare to Miedaolin. Putting away her compact, the woman answered, "First class is a hundred and twenty, second class is seventy, and third class is thirty-five."
Thirty-five.
She definitely meant copper yuan, not copper cash.
Zhang Laifu currently had four dazi and a dozen or so copper cash; how could he possibly scrape together thirty-five copper yuan?
"Do you have anything cheaper?"
Seeing his predicament, the ticket agent suggested, "Mister, take second class. We provide meals."
Zhang Laifu sighed. "Second class is seventy. What would I buy that with?"
"You sure love to joke. You've already pulled out a silver dollar, yet you're stingy about spending it?"
A silver dollar?
Zhang Laifu inspected the money in his hand and only then noticed that one of the coins was different.
It was silver in color. The front still read "Wansheng League", while the back also depicted the head of a man in military uniform—yet unlike the copper yuan, this was a profile portrait.
Was this a silver dollar? The kind that could be exchanged for a hundred and thirty dazi?
Where had this coin come from?
Then Zhang Laifu remembered: he had given Li Yunsheng three dazi, and Li Yunsheng had returned two coins. Zhang Laifu hadn't looked closely at the time, never imagining that Li Yunsheng had returned a silver dollar to him.
What was this supposed to mean? Why should he keep someone else's money?
Just as Zhang Laifu was thinking about returning the coin, he heard an argument break out nearby.
"Why does it take so much effort to get you to do anything?"
"Young Miss, please calm your anger. We have to clarify your purpose in coming before we can send word to the manor for you."
"What's there to ask? Just tell him Yuan Kuifeng is here!"
Yuan Kuifeng? That name sounded awfully familiar!
Behind Zhang Laifu, several people queuing for tickets took off running the moment they heard Yuan Kuifeng's name.
The ticket agent's expression changed, and with a loud clatter, she slammed the glass window shut.
The wharf manager was still trying to negotiate with Yuan Kuifeng. "Young Miss, please wait a moment. Our young master isn't at the wharf. We'll have to go to the main residence to find him."
"Nonsense! Would I have come if he wasn't here? Old Song, block the way! Don't let a single person leave!"
Old Song?
Which Old Song?
Zhang Laifu turned to leave, but he had barely taken two steps when a sound that choked the breath from his throat reached his ears.
Thump! Clink-clink-clink! Thump! Clink-clink-clink!
Old Song had arrived.
The sound of fluffing cotton had arrived.
The name and the sound triggered an acute stress reaction in Zhang Laifu, leaving him momentarily paralyzed with indecision.
Run out of the wharf?
Plenty of people were already sprinting toward the wharf's exits. Some went weak in the knees and collapsed on the spot. Others threw their legs forward but could not take a step, as though their trouser legs were being yanked back by something. Still others ran at full speed, yet after a short distance found themselves right back where they started, their vision blinded by cotton.
Wisps of fine cotton fluttered everywhere. This was the cotton fluffer's signature technique—Splendid World.
Yuan Kuifeng had said not to let a single person leave, and Old Song had truly stopped everyone.
The crucial problem was that Zhang Laifu had not even spotted where Old Song was.
If he couldn't see him, he shouldn't move around recklessly. Zhang Laifu quickly ducked behind the ticket office.
The wharf was in an uproar. Several bandit soldiers grabbed people and hauled them over one by one for Song Yongchang to identify, but Old Song repeatedly shook his head. None of them were the one he was looking for.
Seeing that they would soon reach the ticket office, Zhang Laifu gripped his clay knife, trying to figure out where to run. Groping against the wall of the ticket office, his fingers suddenly brushed against the seam of a door.
It was the back door of the ticket office.
Zhang Laifu pushed the back door open and stepped inside. He saw neither the ticket agent nor the ticket window. Instead, he saw a man sitting in a wheelchair, molding clay.
Isn't that Lin Shaocong?
Seeing Zhang Laifu, Lin Shaocong was equally astonished. "What are you doing here?"
"Taking a boat."
"Taking a boat for what?"
"Fleeing."
"Weren't you supposed to have fled to the Outer Prefecture long ago?"
"If I could go to the Outer Prefecture, why would I come here?"
Lin Shaocong said bitterly, "Of all the wharves you could have gone to, you had to come to this one. You've completely doomed me!"
The commotion outside grew louder. Lin Shaocong hastily finished molding a lock and pressed it against the door alongside the clay crossbar he had made earlier.
"Will that lock work?" Zhang Laifu looked at the remaining clay.
"It works. Ordinary people can't open it." Lin Shaocong had great confidence in the lock he had shaped.
"Will this room hold up?" Zhang Laifu looked around the ticket office.
The ticket office was divided into an inner and an outer room. The outer room was where tickets were sold, and the inner room was where the money was stored. Because of its ingenious design, the inner room was extremely hard to detect.
Lin Shaocong was confident in the building as well. "My father personally hired someone to—"
Bang!
The outer room's door was kicked in. The ticket agent wailed and screamed as someone dragged her out.
Zhang Laifu grabbed a lump of clay and shoved it into Lin Shaocong's hands, then waved the knife in his own hand, signaling to Lin Shaocong that molding more clay knives would be far more useful than molding locks.
Lin Shaocong hurriedly went to work molding knives. The construction of the ticket office was indeed peculiar; even standing inside the outer room, the bandit soldiers could not tell that an inner room existed.
After searching for a good while without finding any trace of Lin Shaocong, Song Yongchang barked at the crowd, "We came today specifically looking for your Third Young Master. This has nothing to do with anyone else. If anyone knows where Lin Shaocong is, please tell me. Once we find him, you may all go wherever you please. We will never harm the innocent."
Zhang Laifu glared at Lin Shaocong. "They're here for you! You're the one who doomed me! What are you doing here? Trying to catch a boat and flee too?"
"This is my family's wharf. I came to check the account books." Lin Shaocong finished two clay knives and handed them to Zhang Laifu.
Zhang Laifu felt slightly relieved. "Since it's your family's wharf, they can definitely protect you."
Lin Shaocong pursed his lips and said nothing.
Zhang Laifu's relief vanished. "You're their Third Young Master. They wouldn't sell you out, would they?"
"They'll keep up appearances on the surface, but when it comes to what's beneath... that's hard to say." Lin Shaocong was speaking the truth. Now that bandits had arrived, no one had given away his location yet.
However, no one had come to protect him either—not even to warn him.
Perhaps it was just as well they hadn't; as of now, the bandits still hadn't discovered that the ticket office had an inner room.
Manager Hu and the other workers at the wharf kept their mouths shut. They would not actively hand over the Third Young Master, but if the Third Young Master was found on his own, they couldn't be blamed.
The bandit soldiers searched all around, yet found no sign of Lin Shaocong.
Yuan Kuifeng had received definite word that Lin Shaocong was at Yujin Wharf. Having come all this way, how could she let the matter drop?
She called Manager Hu over to interrogate him about Lin Shaocong's whereabouts.
Manager Hu repeated once more, "Our young master isn't at the wharf. He went back to the estate."
Yuan Kuifeng flashed Manager Hu a smile. "Old dog, I'm speaking nicely to you. Are you playing dumb?"
"Our young master really... really isn't..." Manager Hu's eyes darted around, threatening to wander toward the ticket office at any second.
Lin Shaocong readied dozens of clay darts, aiming them straight at the door leading to the outer room.
Zhang Laifu gripped his clay short knife, guarding the back door.
Both held their breath, braced to fight for their lives, when the voice of a man suddenly drifted in from outside:
"This crossing belongs to the Lin family. The water is neither shallow nor deep. If the young miss wants to wade across, she ought to first test whether the stones beneath are slippery. If she loses her footing and falls into the river, soaking her clothes, that would make for an unsightly scene."
Zhang Laifu looked at Lin Shaocong. "Who is that?"
"One of ours!" Lin Shaocong wiped away his sweat and let out a long breath. "The Lin family's head guard—a fourth-tier Marvelous Bureau expert!"
Chapter 18