Qingshan

Chapter 78 : Chapter 78

Chapter 78: Ten Division Officers

Atop the collapsed ruins, only a few roof beams remained, leaning against each other at crooked angles.

Beneath the broken walls and shattered tiles, brick and rubble kept shifting upward, as though something unkillable was buried below, clawing its way out.

Through the ringing in his ears, Chen Ji crouched low and crept forward, drawing the short blade from his sleeve. He had made three bamboo tube charges in total -- one for Jinzhu, two for the Division Officer. He was out of explosives now. The blade was all he had.

A thunderous crash. Brick and stone flew in every direction.

From the wreckage, Shopkeeper Yuan rose, shouldering a heavy beam aside and forcing himself upright through sheer will.

His hair hung loose and wild, his gold-beamed crown blown to parts unknown.

Iron shrapnel studded his body from head to foot. His face was a ruin of blood and flesh, dust and gore caked together. His once-bright red satin robe hung from him in tatters, like a midnight specter.

He raised a hand to rub his eyes -- the blast had driven grit and debris into them, and they refused to open.

Then he realized his right hand wouldn't respond. It had been shattered in the explosion. He couldn't lift it at all.

Firearms.

This was the Ning Dynasty's firearms.

Shopkeeper Yuan, like Jinzhu, had seen firearms before. But neither of them had ever seen firearms this powerful.

The Ning Dynasty had been deploying firearms on the battlefield for barely a century.

In the beginning, muskets had used crude bamboo tubes as barrels, packed with gunpowder and projectiles. The powder back then was so weak it couldn't even split the bamboo -- a tube could be fired several times before being discarded.

Only in recent decades had the Ning Dynasty switched to iron barrels for more potent charges. But even then, the gunpowder was far from perfected -- no purification process, the proportions all wrong. It was used only on open battlefields to check the Jing Dynasty cavalry's charges.

When Shopkeeper Yuan had first seen the bamboo tube, he'd known he couldn't dodge it, but he hadn't truly believed the thing could kill him. Tear open his flesh, maybe. But not damage bone or sinew.

Chen Ji's powder, however, had been incomparably more powerful than anything he'd imagined.

It had brought down an entire building.

Shopkeeper Yuan forced his eyes open. His left eye was flooded with blood, the eyeball crimson. Only his right eye could still see.

He scanned the space in front of him and found no one. "The Secret Spy Division sends its best to kill one man, and they still need to skulk around in the shadows?"

From start to finish, Shopkeeper Yuan hadn't seen Chen Ji's face. He assumed the attack had come from a Secret Spy Division elite armed with firearms -- Chen Ji never even entered his mind.

But no one in the courtyard answered him. Only a short blade came slicing through the air.

Shopkeeper Yuan shifted sideways, easily dodging the thrust aimed at his throat. But Chen Ji didn't relent -- in rapid succession, he stabbed at the man's back over the heart, the kidney at the waist, and the left thigh, then pulled back.

Then Chen Ji realized that aside from the thigh wound, every other strike had glanced off.

No -- they hadn't missed.

Shopkeeper Yuan's body was encased in iron-forged skin, a product of years of hardening cultivation. An ordinary dagger simply couldn't penetrate. No wonder the man could stand after being caught in an explosion.

But his defenses couldn't be uniform everywhere -- otherwise the throat strike wouldn't have needed dodging.

Shopkeeper Yuan ignored the blood streaming from his thigh, shut one eye, and spun around. He glared at Chen Ji with raw venom. "You? You secretly kept the firearms the Prince's manor and the Liu family handed over?!"

Chen Ji said nothing. His mind raced through how to kill this bear of a man. Whatever enforcer path Shopkeeper Yuan had cultivated, it made him seem unkillable.

In a flash, Shopkeeper Yuan charged like a war chariot. Chen Ji immediately retreated, circling through the courtyard.

He hadn't taken two steps when Shopkeeper Yuan kicked a chunk of brick at him. It screamed through the air like a cannonball.

CRACK!

The brick grazed Chen Ji's ear, the wind tearing at his hair, and smashed into the far wall, disintegrating into dust.

The kick was terrifying. If Shopkeeper Yuan hadn't lost one eye and his aim along with it, Chen Ji would have died on the spot.

Shopkeeper Yuan snarled at the miss and kicked again. Brick after brick hurtled like musket fire -- each one faster, more accurate, more vicious.

CRACK!

A brick slammed into Chen Ji's back. That single hit sent him tumbling across the ground.

Chen Ji felt his heart and lungs shift from the impact, but he didn't dare pause for even a breath. He scrambled up and kept running. Before he could take more than a few steps, two more bricks struck him in rapid succession -- one in the spine, one in the right leg.

Chen Ji went down again. The short blade flew from his hand, landing five or six meters away. He tried to push himself up but couldn't find his footing.

Shopkeeper Yuan strode over, his shattered right arm dangling, and reached out with his left hand to wring Chen Ji's neck.

And at that very instant --

In the silent darkness, Chen Ji, flat on the ground, suddenly rolled to face Shopkeeper Yuan.

Shopkeeper Yuan stared into his eyes. There was no desperation there. Only calm.

No. Something was wrong.

Those were not the eyes of a dying man.

In the space of a breath, the sword seed that Chen Ji had been nurturing inside his body for days surged like a swimming dragon along his meridians and gathered at his fingertips.

Nurture the Sword with Starlight -- shatter all things and all laws!

It happened too fast, too close. Shopkeeper Yuan had no room to dodge.

An invisible blade of sword qi streaked across the artery in Shopkeeper Yuan's neck. A jet of blood erupted like a geyser, spraying without end.

The sword seed that Old Man Yao had once mocked as being no better than She Dakang breaking wind -- that had been the power of a mere two hours of nurturing.

But over these past days, Chen Ji had been simultaneously learning the saber from Fenghuai and nurturing this sword seed, patiently waiting for this invisible blade to become his final trump card.

Chen Ji pried Shopkeeper Yuan's thick fingers off one by one, peeling the meaty hand open, and collapsed to the ground coughing violently.

Shopkeeper Yuan clutched his throat in disbelief, staggering backward step by step. Blood pulsed between his fingers in thick, relentless surges, draining his strength with horrifying speed.

"When did you become an enforcer? That's the sword seed path -- how do you know the Martial Temple's method of nurturing the sword?! Did your mother teach you? But how could she have known..."

"The sword seed path..."

"The sword seed path!"

Shopkeeper Yuan crashed to the ground.

Chen Ji sat slumped in the dirt. He raised one palm to the sky. Faint snowflakes had begun drifting from above, and each one melted the instant it touched his skin.

He felt dazed. Shopkeeper Yuan was really dead?

Tonight he had first saved the Heir and Baili, then dragged his broken body here to kill Shopkeeper Yuan. Dawn hadn't come, yet it felt as though he had endured an entire season -- from autumn all the way into winter.

Before he could gather himself, hoofbeats echoed from the street outside. The Secret Spy Division was coming.

Chen Ji struggled to his feet, desperate to flee the scene. But the moment he stood, he crashed back down. Shopkeeper Yuan's last brick had landed on his leg, tearing the wound wide open.

Just as the crisis peaked, footsteps sounded nearby. A voice, taut and low: "So this is where you are. I've been looking for you all night."

Chen Ji was stunned. That voice was painfully familiar.

...

...

At the far end of Tongji Street, dozens of horses thundered in. Jinzhu rode at the head, his expression grim.

He had been in Red Cloth Lane just moments ago, preparing to withdraw, when the sound of another explosion reached his ears.

He could hardly believe it. The Jing Dynasty agent with the firearms hadn't fled the city -- instead, he had surfaced elsewhere in Luocheng and struck again.

The explosion was odd, though. It seemed to come from the merchant quarter, and Jinzhu couldn't fathom what a Jing Dynasty spy would be doing there.

But the debt of being blown off a rooftop demanded repayment.

Jinzhu charged down Tongji Street at the head of his men. He spotted the column of smoke and dust from afar. "Seal every street around Tongji Street. Starting tonight, no one leaves -- only enters. Turn over every inch. Don't let so much as an earthworm escape!"

The words had barely left his mouth when something black dropped from the night sky.

A crow. It swooped and rose like a gust of black wind, so fast that no one could make out its shape.

The crow didn't engage the men directly. It simply dove again and again at the horses' eyes, sending them rearing and bucking, hooves flailing as they tried to shake it off, throwing their riders to the ground.

Jinzhu launched himself from his saddle, one foot on the seat, and hurled his body at the crow in midair.

The horse's legs buckled under the force of his leap, but his stout frame and the crow passed each other in the dark... and he missed.

Jinzhu's eyes went wide. The crow was faster than he was. "What is this thing? How can a crow be this powerful... An enforcer?!"

"Crossbows! Shoot it down!"

Agents drew hand crossbows and fired into the sky, but the crow wove and jinked through the bolts, cawing as though laughing at them.

Jinzhu was certain this was some kind of enforcer path. But searching through every path he knew, he came up blank. This one seemed to have never appeared in recorded history.

How was that possible?

The Ceremonial Directorate oversaw all imperial intelligence. Every enforcer path that had ever surfaced in the world was catalogued in its archives -- even folk legends were documented.

What kind of enforcer path could be hidden so deeply that the Ceremonial Directorate's records didn't contain a single word about it?

"Dismount!" Jinzhu barked, and sprinted on foot toward the smoking ruins of the residence.

The crow grew frantic. It dove and struck at the agents with everything it had, but more kept arriving. Crossbow bolts wove an almost solid net through the air.

One dip too low and it would be skewered by a dozen bolts at once.

The crow was forced back up into the night sky.

In the span of a dozen breaths, Jinzhu vaulted over the high gate and landed in the courtyard. But all that remained was a collapsed building, and a single body, stripped of its robes.

He looked up. The crow had vanished.

"After them! The killer can't have gone far!"

...

...

Several hundred meters away, Chen Ji was slung over someone's shoulder, with a second man following behind.

Bouncing with each stride, Chen Ji craned his neck to look at the man behind them and spoke with effort. "Brother Biaozi? I thought you'd already left!"

Wu Hongbiao flashed a grin. "I was going to. But the Division Officer figured if you stayed behind, you were probably planning something. So he kept me here and we stayed. We heard the commotion in Red Cloth Lane and snuck over, but we didn't dare get close. When you fled across the rooftops, we tailed you from a distance. Didn't recognize you at first -- thought you were some kind of outlaw."

The man carrying Chen Ji -- the carter, Division Officer Gui -- cut in coldly. "Save the chatter. Control your breathing, or they'll track us down."

He shouldered Chen Ji through twist after twist, a good half hour of turns before they reached a dark alley where an ox-cart was tethered.

The Division Officer dumped Chen Ji onto the flatbed, climbed into the driver's seat, cracked the whip, and drove the ox south.

Chen Ji sat up. "Where are we going?"

Division Officer Gui spoke calmly. "South to Yangzhou first, to lie low. Once the Secret Spy Division lifts the lockdown, we'll head north to the Jing Dynasty. The Ning Dynasty has no place left for us. We need to get back to your uncle."

Chen Ji froze. He turned and looked at the buildings and flagstone roads receding behind them. Was he really going to leave the Ning Dynasty after all?

He asked quietly, "Is there no other way?"

"No. You wounded Jinzhu tonight and killed Liang Heyong. From now on, neither the Military Intelligence Division nor the Secret Spy Division will tolerate you."

"Liang Heyong?"

"The man you just killed. Shopkeeper Yuan." Division Officer Gui's voice was cold. "He was once your uncle's man. But he betrayed your uncle to offer his head as tribute to Lu Guanwu. A faithless traitor -- anyone has the right to put him down. If you hadn't killed him tonight, I would have found a way to do it myself before leaving."

Chen Ji leaned against the side of the cart, silent for a long time. "Why are you so loyal to my uncle?"

Division Officer Gui pulled the reins taut. "That's none of your concern."

Chen Ji recalled his fight with Shopkeeper Yuan. "What path did he cultivate? Why was his body hard as bronze -- even a blade couldn't pierce it?"

"Before he came to the Ning Dynasty, your uncle placed him undercover at Kujue Temple in our Jing Dynasty's capital, Shengjing. He cultivated the Golden Bell Path. There's no shortcut -- you have to ring the temple bell day after day for years on end, never missing a single day, and the path naturally forges your body into bronze skin and iron bone. But he only rang for ten years, so there were still plenty of gaps in his defenses. An old monk at Kujue Temple once rang for sixty years. His bronze skin and iron bone were truly without flaw."

Chen Ji sagged against the cart, exhausted. "I've learned something tonight. So ringing a bell can be cultivation."

He recalled that the little monk at the Heir's side was the same way -- simply reciting the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva's Original Vow Sutra over and over was itself a form of cultivation.

If that were the case, then Buddhist and Daoist traditions must each command a vast number of cultivation paths. No wonder the Buddhist Treasure Coins had muscled out the money-lending houses...

Since arriving in the Ning Dynasty, Chen Ji hadn't seen a single money-lending house on any street. The Buddhist Treasure Coins must have cornered the entire market.

Chen Ji asked again, "How many Division Officers does our Military Intelligence Division actually have?"

Division Officer Gui was quiet for a moment. Perhaps feeling they were firmly on the same side now, he stopped holding back. "There used to be three. Now there are ten. Their codenames follow the Heavenly Stems: Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui."

"Which one are you?"

"I'm 'Gui.' Shopkeeper Yuan was 'Xin.'"

The Ning Dynasty's Twelve Zodiacs, mirrored by the Jing Dynasty's ten Heavenly Stems.

Chen Ji pressed further. "Why is there no place left for us in the Ning Dynasty?"

Division Officer Gui answered evenly. "The Military Intelligence Division used to be staffed entirely with people your uncle had promoted. But now Lu Guanwu has been elevated to Military Strategy Commissioner, with authority over all of our Jing Dynasty's military intelligence. He's been bringing in his own people and plans to systematically purge your uncle's loyalists. The Division Lord was originally one of your uncle's men too, but I haven't been able to reach him for half a month. I'm afraid he's already been dealt with. Once the new Division Lord takes office, there'll be another round of purges."

Chen Ji suddenly asked, "Wait. If all of my uncle's loyalists have been eliminated, then aside from you, Shopkeeper Yuan, and Brother Biaozi -- who else in the Military Intelligence Division knows my identity as a Jing Dynasty agent?"

Gui thought it over. "The Division Lord knew as well."

Chen Ji took a deep breath. "But if Lu Guanwu has already eliminated the Division Lord, then that means -- apart from you and Brother Biaozi -- no one in the Military Intelligence Division knows who I am?"

Gui considered this carefully. "That's correct."

Chen Ji reached forward and seized the reins from Gui's hands, pulling the ox-cart to a halt. His voice was resolute. "You two go to Yangzhou. I'm going back to the Taiping Clinic."