Chang Fu was a tofu seller.
This wasn't entirely true, nor was it entirely false.
He had set up a stall at the entrance of Jixiang Alley in the south of the city.
Every day before dawn broke, he would rise to grind soybeans, curdle them with brine, and press the tofu.
He busied himself until the chen hour to set up his stall, then packed up by the wu hour.
Throughout the entire year, he never missed a single day unless it rained or stormed.
Auntie Wang next door, who sold steamed cakes, knew him; Blind Liu, who told fortunes at the end of the alley, knew him; everyone along Jixiang Alley knew him.
An utterly ordinary round face and two sparse eyebrows.
He always greeted others with a faint smile, spoke in a slow, deliberate drawl, and never lost his temper with anyone.
When someone like him squatted at the street corner, he was like a pebble resting on a riverbank—no one would spare him a second glance.
On this day, however, Chang Fu did not set up his stall.
Before dawn broke, he stepped out of his house, changed into a dusty coarse cloth tunic, hoisted two baskets of soybeans on his shoulder pole, and walked west along the Gun River embankment.
By the time he reached the abandoned ferry landing at the river bend, the horizon was just beginning to show a fish-belly white.
Beside the ferry landing stood a crooked, dilapidated Water God Temple.
The vermilion paint on the temple doors had long since flaked away completely, and the threshold was mostly hollowed out by termites.
Inside stood a river god statue with half of its arm broken off.
Long spiderwebs stretched all the way from the bridge of the statue's nose down to the altar table.
Not even beggars were willing to take shelter in such a place.
Yet Chang Fu lowered his shoulder pole before the temple doors and raised his hand to knock on the doorframe three times.
Two long knocks and one short, followed by a pause, and then one more knock.
After a moment, a low voice came through the crack of the door.
“Where from?”
“The Gun River flooded; the tofu drowned.”
“How much drowned?”
“Three jin and six liang.”
As soon as the words fell, the temple doors opened a crack without a sound.
Chang Fu squeezed sideways through the opening.
The scene inside the temple was entirely different from the dilapidation outside.
The altar table had been moved aside, revealing a flight of stone stairs leading downward.
Oil lamps were embedded into the walls on both sides of the stairs, their flames flickering with an eerie blue glow in the damp air.
Chang Fu descended the stone steps. After some twenty steps, the space opened up before him.
This was a stone chamber converted from a cellar. The four walls were built of blue bricks, and an oil lamp on a bronze frame hung from the ceiling, illuminating the entire room brightly.
In the center of the stone chamber sat a long black-lacquered desk, upon which were stacked several piles of documents and a palm-sized bronze compass.
Behind the long desk sat a man.
Around forty years of age, he had a lean face and a goatee, wearing a scholar's robe washed pale. He was leaning over the desk, busily copying something down.
His surname was Zhou and given name Yan. In name, he was an aging Xiucai who had failed the imperial exams, scraping by in a rented shop in the south of the city by writing letters for others.
In truth, he was one of Zhizhou Tower's managers in the Jiangbei Circuit region.
Along both sides of the stone chamber sat seven or eight people, each dressed differently.
There were porters in short work clothes, boatmen bundled in padded cotton jackets, and an old woman with a silver hairpin in her hair who looked no different from any other elderly woman basking in the sun along the neighborhood streets.
All of these people were intelligence scouts operating in the Gunzhou area.
On different days each month, they entered this cellar through various entrances, gathering information collected from all directions onto Zhou Yan's desk like streams converging into a pool.
And Chang Fu was one of them.
Chang Fu walked up to the long desk, retrieved a wax-sealed secret letter from his robes, and handed it over with both hands.
Zhou Yan received the letter, verified that the wax seal was intact, and only then broke it open.
He read swiftly, his eyes sweeping across several lines on the paper before a profound wave of shock suddenly stirred in his normally calm eyes.
He put down the letter and looked up at Chang Fu.
“Lu Chenzhou truly did this?”
Chang Fu nodded, his round face unusually devoid of expression.
“He used the memorial box jointly submitted by the Education Commissioners of the Three Jiangnan Circuits, sealed with eight-hundred-li express wax. The courier stations along the route have already been arranged. It will arrive at the Office of Transmission in the capital within six days at the latest.”
“Did the Mountain Lords of all the Jiangnan academies sign it?”
“Nine signed; four refused.”
Chang Fu reported truthfully.
“The four that refused to sign are Zhou Bingwen of Yuyao Academy, Shen Heting of Lize Academy, Ma Duanlin of Cihu Academy, and Zhang Jiushao of Xiangshan Academy.
“All four Mountain Lords claimed that jointly petitioning to recommend the Fourth Princess's succession violates the three-hundred-year ancestral laws of Grand Zhao.
“They would rather have their academies investigated than become sinners for all eternity.”
He paused slightly as he reached this point, a faint hint of disdain curving at the corner of his lips.
“However, it does not affect the overall situation.
“With nine academies signing jointly, along with several Chancellors and Directors of Studies from the Imperial Academy, the weight is already enough to send shockwaves through the imperial court.
“Especially the main text of the memorial personally penned by Lu Chenzhou—his wording was extremely measured.
“He petitioned solely in the name of the scholars of the world, steering clear of factional struggles and political scheming, discussing only the foundation of the state.
“Phrased like that, even if the censors wished to impeach him, they would find no opening to strike.”
Zhou Yan set down the letter in his hand.
“Lu Chenzhou, this chess piece, has made his move.”
He seemed to be speaking to Chang Fu, yet also confirming it to himself.
He then lifted his brush and wrote several characters on a blank slip of paper.
The writing was extremely small and dense. Once finished, he rolled the paper slip into a slender tube, stood up, and walked over to a pigeon cage.
He reached in to retrieve a grey-feathered carrier pigeon, expertly sliding the paper tube into the copper capsule attached to its leg.
Then, walking to a corner of the hidden room, he pushed open a small concealed window in the wall and lifted his hands.
With a flutter of wings, the carrier pigeon took to the sky and vanished into the horizon in the blink of an eye.
Having completed all this, Zhou Yan turned around and brushed the pigeon down from his hands.
“Is there any other news?”
“There is one matter. However, it has no direct connection to the leads in our hands—it is purely a martial world affair.”
“Speak.”
“Before Qingya Academy's Caiqin Trial, a young spearman clashed violently with Cao Zhengchun, the Seal-holding Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, in front of the academy's mountain gate.
“That spearman, with only Mountain-Viewing Realm cultivation, tangled with Cao Zhengchun of the Wind-Riding Realm for a long time.
“In the end, not only did he retreat unscathed, but he also severely wounded Cao Zhengchun with a single spear thrust.
“That very night, on his way back to the capital, Cao Zhengchun died at the hands of Ghost Gate Chamber.
“It is said that because his injuries were too severe, others were able to take advantage of his weakness.”
Having finished speaking, Chang Fu looked up at Zhou Yan with his plain, unremarkable eyes.
“This matter has already spread through the dark side of the martial world.
“That young spearman is named Chen Zui—the very person we set our eyes on in Luoyan City three months ago.
“The tower has invested no small amount of capital in him.”
“As for Chen Zui's affairs, the tower has its own arrangements.
“At our level, we have no right to inquire into them.”
Chang Fu nodded and did not press further.
Immediately, he fished a tiny bamboo tube from his sleeve, pulled off the wax seal, and shook out a roll of paper as thin as a cicada's wing.
The slip of paper bore only a few sparse lines.
“News from the Furnace-Listening Pavilion. The sword Sword God Lü commissioned them to forge has already been completed.”
Zhou Yan's eyebrows twitched sharply.
“So quickly?”
Chang Fu licked his chapped lips, a rare trace of dread surfacing in those eyes that were usually as murky as muddy soup.
“It is said that the moment the furnace was opened, all 3,700-odd divine weapons and sharp blades kept by the Furnace-Listening Pavilion for over a century began to vibrate and hum incessantly.
“Sword hilts faced north and blade tips bowed low. Like all the civil and military officials prostrating themselves, myriad weapons paid homage.
“The Furnace-Listening Pavilion has already sealed the sword in a case and sent it toward Jinyang City.”
Zhou Yan nodded, placed the paper slip under a paperweight, and was just about to say something.
Suddenly, the oil lamp on the wall in the northwestern corner of the stone chamber flickered violently.
It was not caused by wind.
Deeply buried underground with airtight walls on all four sides, this cellar had not the slightest draft of air.
Yet the lamp flame had indeed jumped.
First, it contracted sharply inward, shrinking into a needlepoint of blue luminescence.
Then it suddenly expanded, bursting into a dense ring of sparks.
Everyone in the room caught their breath simultaneously.
Chang Fu's hand was already pressed against the short blade at his waist.
Zhou Yan slowly raised his head, his gaze looking past Chang Fu's shoulder toward the entrance of the stone chamber.
The sound of footsteps on those stone stairs was descending from above.
Light and deliberate, as if stepping directly upon everyone's hearts.
One step, two steps, three steps...
The interval between every step was precisely equal—neither fast nor slow, steady to the point of absolute composure.
The oil lamp at the corner of the stairs first illuminated a spearhead, followed by the billowing black qi roiling across the spear shaft.
Then came the distinct, well-defined hand of a young man.
Chen Zui stood at the doorway.
His gaze swept across the faces of everyone present before finally resting on the long black-lacquered desk in front of Zhou Yan.
“Zhizhou Tower.”
Chen Zui's tone remained placid as he uttered those three words.
“You people truly picked a nice hiding spot.”
Rate on N.U.
