Another Sinister Scheme Is Born

When Shui Sheng burst into the “Winter” private room, the scene inside the door was completely beyond anything he'd expected. Chu Xue and Sun Yixie were actually sitting in the outer room talking—and not talking normally either. They'd rolled up books into makeshift “speaking tubes” and were shouting into each other's ears. And the one banging gongs and drums in the inner room was that young maid... Anyone looking at this would understand: Sun Yixie and Chu Xue had the maid make noise to guard against eavesdroppers, while they themselves came out to the outer room and talked using that childish game of passing messages. Childish as the method seemed, it actually worked. Apart from Shui Sheng, none of the other spies Master Shu had planted in this brothel could hear a word of what was said in that room. Seeing that Shui Sheng had barged in, the two of them stopped talking. Chu Xue gave Shui Sheng a deep look that left him somewhat at a loss. Then, without paying him any further attention, she rose and returned to the inner room, and the noise stopped along with her. Before long, the young maid came out of the inner room and announced loudly, “My lady says she's tired and wants to rest. She asks Young Master Sun to head back first.” It wasn't that she meant to speak so loudly—rather, all that banging had left her nearly deaf herself, so for the moment she couldn't gauge the volume of her own voice. “Very well, then I'll take my leave.” In truth, Sun Yixie had already heard just about everything Chu Xue needed to tell him; now there happened to be a convenient opening for him to withdraw, and naturally he was glad to oblige. With those words of farewell, Sun Yixie rose and left without looking back. And the maid, having delivered her message, also withdrew into the inner room. In the blink of an eye, only Shui Sheng—who had barged in so rashly—was left standing there dumbly in the outer room. His earlier urgency had faded, replaced by a sense of unease... because he had already guessed that Xue'er might want to borrow this young hero Sun's power to help the two of them. But judging from what Shui Sheng knew of Master Shu, this matter... was likely very difficult, and once it failed, the two of them might end up in a situation even worse than the one they were in now. ………… When Sun Yixie walked into the “Too Happy to Think of Shu,” Huang Donglai had already been waiting inside for a while. “Huh? How come you're back first?” That was the first thing out of Sun Yixie's mouth when he saw him. “Well, when talks break down, they break down fast.” Huang Donglai was quite leisurely, still eating and drinking. “And after the talk wrapped up, I even found time to go take a shit.” “Mm...” Sun Yixie thought it over. “All right. This isn't the place to talk—let's go somewhere else.” The two didn't dawdle; they headed straight out the door. No one stopped them, since on this trip they hadn't actually consumed much of anything—it amounted to just having a late-night snack, and the gold ingot they'd handed over earlier was more than enough to cover the bill. Now, after the two left Qiliu Youran, they didn't head back to the inn, but instead made for another brothel. And why was that? To guard against being tailed, of course... After all this poking around, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai both understood that the waters at Qiliu Youran ran deep; coming out of a place like that, how could they not drag along a “tail” or two? In any case, the two of them held no illusions about it—guard against it if you can... So the method they came up with was this: they ran to another brothel and booked six rooms in one go. The two of them would stay in the middle one, and then they'd station several girls in the five rooms above, below, east, west, and north of theirs—nothing else required of them. Play music, sing, do as you please; the only demand was that the noise mustn't stop and had to be loud enough for them to hear. And their own room had to keep its door wide open, so that they could see the corridor to the south. Once things were arranged to this extent, they could talk in low voices inside the room. The people at that brothel didn't interfere with them either... How the rich get their kicks, we don't understand and don't want to. You book six rooms and a whole pile of girls, and then you don't even want the girls to keep you company—just two men chatting with the door open... that's your freedom. As long as the money's there, it's fine. If the money's there, then even if you two stood on your heads and had the runs right there in the guest room, we wouldn't care. And Master Shu's men? Yes, Master Shu had indeed sent people to tail them. Since he didn't know what Chu Xue had said to Sun Yixie earlier, he'd figured he'd have someone eavesdrop on the conversation between Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai to find out. But now, having witnessed these two's little performance, the spies Master Shu had sent were all left dumbfounded... The way these two clowns were carrying on, were they supposed to eavesdrop with their lives? They could only slink back and report the truth to Master Shu. As for how Master Shu flew into a rage upon hearing their report, we'll leave that aside. Let's return to Sun and Huang. The two sat down and exchanged the information they'd gathered, and both thought: This is bad—this won't be easy. Although Sun Yixie had already gotten the whole story of Zheng Mukai's murder from Chu Xue, she had at the same time begged Sun Yixie to find a way to save her and Shui Sheng—and that was what really put them in a bind. “By rights, once I tell Zhu Jiaduan everything I found out today, what happens next is between Zhu Jiaduan and Shui Sheng, and the two of us can just walk away, free and clear,” Sun Yixie said to Huang Donglai with a troubled look. “But they trusted me like that, told me the whole truth, and even begged me to save them. If I just sell them out like that... seems a bit much, doesn't it?” Hearing this, Huang Donglai nodded and replied, “Not just ‘a bit much’—it's downright inhuman, isn't it?” He paused, then changed tack. “But then again, given your character, I don't think you'd go to such lengths to help someone out over just a few words and a request. Brother Sun, tell me honestly... did you get some kind of offer along the lines of ‘I'll give myself to you once it's done’?” “Ah, don't even bring it up.” Sun Yixie replied with a sour face. “If it were really like that, I'd be over the moon, wouldn't I? Too bad what she offered was that whole ‘in this life and the next I'll serve you like an ox and a horse’ routine.” “Damn, isn't that just trying to get something for nothing?” Huang Donglai quipped. “Exactly,” Sun Yixie said. “Not only that—she went on about... ‘I've long heard that Young Hero Sun and Young Hero Huang are chivalrous and righteous, your sense of honor reaching the heavens, unafraid of the powerful, sacrificing yourselves for others...’ Damn it, tell me, what am I supposed to do?” “Damn... this girl's something,” Huang Donglai said. “A real top courtesan, sure enough—with just a few words she's put both of us up on the moral grill and turned up the heat.” “Isn't that the truth!” Sun Yixie said. “Look... if we sell her and Shui Sheng out now, that's standing by while others die and breaking our word; but if we abandon Lei Buji to keep the two of them safe, that's putting lust before friendship and betraying a brother... We're blocked on both ends.” At this point, Huang Donglai thought and thought, and suddenly an idea came to him. “Brother Sun, I've been mulling it over, and if there's any way to have it both ways, it seems the only one is to divert the trouble elsewhere—dump the blame-pot on Master Shu's head and let Zhu Jiaduan go straight to Master Shu for revenge. Only that would work.” Sun Yixie waved his hand. “That won't work either. Think about it—what kind of power does Master Shu have? Making the Guangxing Escort Agency vanish in a single night would be an ‘easy thing’ for him... Even if we steered Zhu Jiaduan's hatred toward him, what would come of it? At most, Zhu Jiaduan's whole crew gets wiped out, and Shui Sheng and Chu Xue still don't get rescued. And most importantly... after all that commotion, the two of us might well end up marked by Master Shu for retaliation.” “Mm...” Huang Donglai grunted thoughtfully, then went on. “So now we need to give Zhu Jiaduan a satisfactory result, while also making sure neither Lei Buji nor Shui Sheng gets pushed out to take the fall, and also find a way to make Master Shu willingly release Shui Sheng and Chu Xue...” He spread his hands. “That's not really possible, is it?” Sun Yixie shook his head. “Brother Huang, your line of thinking is too normal. A normal approach can't solve this problem.” The moment Huang Donglai heard this, he knew that Brother Sun—this “weird genius”—had come up with another bizarre scheme. He immediately quipped, “Hey, Sun—tell me, are you about to pull another ‘swap bases’ with someone?” “What are you even talking about?” Sun Yixie put on an act of not understanding. “Don't make it sound like that's the only move I've got, all right?” When Huang Donglai answered, he was laughing so hard his voice shook. “Damn you... aren't you the master of turning every tactic around? It's not like I met you yesterday.” “Screw off!” Sun Yixie shamelessly denied it. “I've got plenty of tactics. This time I'll just pull the firewood out from under his cauldron...” “Hmm, why does that sound like just another name for ‘swapping bases’ to me?” Huang Donglai said. “Bull—they're two completely different things, all right?” Sun Yixie said. “‘Taking the firewood from under the cauldron’ means solving a problem at its root.” “You want to kill Master Shu?” Huang Donglai blurted out. “Right.” Unexpectedly, Sun Yixie actually said so. “Damn, I was just saying it off the top of my head.” Huang Donglai was startled. But Sun Yixie was undoubtedly serious. “We take care of him, and once he's dead, we pin the blame for killing Zheng Mukai on him—a dead man—and wouldn't that settle everything once and for all?” “Brother Sun, you really are a weird genius—isn't that just stating the obvious?” Huang Donglai said. “Killing him isn't hard. When I was drinking with him today, I could've poisoned him right then. The problem is, once he's dead, what do we do when the power behind him comes after us for revenge?” “So we have to make it look like it had nothing to do with us at all,” Sun Yixie said. “Huh?” Huang Donglai seemed to have some idea of what Brother Sun was up to. “Are you planning to ‘kill with a borrowed knife,’ or to pull off a locked-room murder?” Sun Yixie replied, “Definitely not killing with a borrowed knife. Zhu Jiaduan's already a pretty sharp ‘knife,’ isn't he? And even then there's still no guarantee it would work. I think it's best to make it look like an ‘accidental death’—the kind of situation where no one would ever think it was murder.” “Oh...” Huang Donglai pondered. “Well, if you want to go that route... I do happen to have a way.” “Heh... I knew Brother Huang would have a way.” Sun Yixie gave a sleazy grin. “Come on, out with it—did you pick up a few tricks from that Gu Qiying?” “Oh, come on~ While I was looking for a way to cure that gu, I flipped through his notes on the side and saw some pretty useful stuff, so I just memorized it.” Huang Donglai glanced up at the sky out of the corner of his eye, being evasive. “‘Useful stuff’?” Sun Yixie raised an eyebrow. “Any of that ‘Peerless Ecstasy Powder’ in there?” “Peerless my ass!” Huang Donglai cursed. “Damn you, all you ever think about is this crap—your standards are fucking low.” As he cursed, his tone weakened. “But then again... the thing I'm considering using this time really is a bit similar to that one...” ………… The next day, the sun was already high in the sky. When Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai came down from the second floor of the inn, Zhu Jiaduan had already been waiting a good while in the inn's main hall with several of his men. “Oh, Agency Head Zhu, you're up early.” When Huang Donglai saw him, he greeted him in a very relaxed tone. “Hmph...” Zhu Jiaduan gave a cold snort, having no intention whatsoever of taking that up. This business of wishing someone good morning at noon really wasn't worth acknowledging. “I wonder what brings Agency Head Zhu to block us off here first thing in the morning?” Sun Yixie continued. It had to be said, these two had a real talent for driving up other people's blood pressure. Just a couple of sentences in, and Zhu Jiaduan wanted to slam the table. “The two of you... are really something,” Zhu Jiaduan replied coldly. “Yesterday... in the daytime you were saying you'd get to the truth and give me an account, even sending your own brother to jail... and then at night the two of you went off whoring? Visited two brothels in a row, no less?” Clearly, Agency Head Zhu's people hadn't been idle either; his men had also been gathering information all over town. “What do you mean, ‘whoring’?” Sun Yixie's face was full of displeasure as he declared righteously, “The two of us are full of righteous spirit and never go to such places. Yesterday we endured humiliation and bore a heavy burden, penetrating deep into enemy territory—wasn't it all just to investigate the cause of death of your chief escort?” At these words, Zhu Jiaduan's expression also changed. As for what kind of man Zheng Mukai was, Zhu Jiaduan, being his master, knew best. He knew Zheng Mukai really did have this failing—he liked to frequent those pleasure quarters—so if it were said that Zheng Mukai's death had something to do with a brothel, Zhu Jiaduan wouldn't be surprised in the least. “Oh?” Zhu Jiaduan thought for a moment. “Then did you find out anything?” “We did... find out a few things,” Huang Donglai said. “But I can't say right now.” “Why can't you say?” Zhu Jiaduan asked. “Because telling you might spoil things,” Huang Donglai said. “You—!” Zhu Jiaduan got so worked up he nearly started cursing, but in the end he held it back, because after swallowing the curse words and questioning himself inwardly, he found that what the other man said really did seem to make some sense. As the saying goes, those directly involved are the ones most confused. After a full day of cooling down and thinking it over again and again, Zhu Jiaduan did realize that his earlier conclusion had quite a few holes in it. Even setting aside the various logical problems of the case itself—thinking carefully, judging by how Huang Donglai, Sun Yixie, and Lei Buji had behaved and what they'd done in Luoyang, they didn't seem like the type to kill a man over a mere quarrel. If it came down to who was petty and narrow-minded, Zheng Mukai actually seemed more like the one who'd lose his mental balance. “Fine...” Zhu Jiaduan said. “I won't ask.” He paused. “But you at least owe me a deadline. I can't just drag things out here in Xuzhou with you two, waiting around every day for you to finish whoring, can I?” Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai exchanged a glance, and after two seconds, Sun Yixie said, “Two days, then. At the soonest tomorrow, at the latest the day after, we'll give you an answer.” “That fast?” The words slipped out before Zhu Jiaduan's brain could catch up—he was so surprised that he blurted it out without thinking. “Too fast for you?” Sun Yixie said. “Or how about... you head back to Kaifeng first, and come find us again after the Laba Festival?” “No! No, no... two days is fine, two days!” Having said that, as if afraid these two might change their tune, Zhu Jiaduan quickly called to his men at his side and rose to leave. “I, Zhu, shall await your good news. Farewell!” And so Zhu Jiaduan left. But what he didn't know was that there was no need to wait two days—this very night, a deadly... siege would befall him.