Chapter 102: The Director

A large family of people gathered around a small Bā Xiān table, each person holding a small ceramic bowl in one hand and chopsticks in the other, making for a lively and bustling scene. Not far away, an apricot tree hung full of red cloth strips, inscribed with "peace," "joy," "health," and "long life," gently swaying in the breeze.

"Is this the 'Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea'?"

"That's right!"

"I've never seen the ingredients inside before," She Dengke looked at Chen Ji. "Chen Ji, why aren't you eating? Don't let Liu Quxing finish it all by himself."

Liu Quxing rolled his eyes. "You're not eating? Why do you say I'm the one who's going to finish it all?"

Chen Ji explained with a smile, "I'm not used to eating 'Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea'. I'll have something else."

Liu Quxing pouted. "No luck. The ingredients for 'Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea' are all transported back from the sea by the Cáo Gāng. Even Yíngxiān Lóu doesn't necessarily have fresh ingredients every day. Whether you can eat it depends on your luck."

Chen Ji smiled without retorting.

The so-called "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea" is a dish stewed with shark fin, sea cucumber, abalone, fish bone, fish maw, shrimp, asparagus, and ham.

For the people of Luòchéng in this era, these ingredients might be something they never see in their lifetime, but Chen Ji had eaten them many times, so he only served himself a small bowl and placed it on the table, letting the others taste the rest.

Liu Quxing suddenly asked, "Hey, what do you all think the sea is like?"

Bái Lǐ raised his hand. "I know. My dad said the sea is boundless, the sea water is all blue, and there will be especially beautiful shells and starfish pushed onto the beach by the waves. Families with big ships along the coast will also go out to sea to catch whales. He said those big fish called whales can be as big as a building."

Liu Quxing stared with wide eyes. "Are you exaggerating? Can fish grow that big?"

Bái Lǐ was unhappy. "Who's exaggerating? That's what my dad said!"

Liáng Gōu'er, holding a jug of Shàoxīng Huādiāo wine, asked, "Has Wángyé been to the seaside?"

Bái Lǐ hesitated. "...No, but our Níng Dynasty has ship teams that go out to sea. They've seen it."

Shìzi suggested with an excited face, "How about we make a pact to go to the seaside together in the future? I heard it only takes a three-month carriage ride to reach the coast. At that time, we can find a ship family and buy a ship, then go out to sea to catch fish and make 'Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea' right on the ship to eat!"

The crowd exchanged glances, their eyes growing brighter and brighter.

She Dengke couldn't help but ask, "Can we really go to the seaside?"

Yáo Lǎotóu put down his chopsticks and slowly said, "What's so difficult about seeing the sea? If you go smash the plaque of the Luòchéng Government Office today, you'll be exiled to Língnán next month, and you can see the sea every day."

Shìzi: "..."

Bái Lǐ: "..."

Chen Ji sighed. "Master, you really know how to ruin the mood."

Shìzi changed the subject and looked at Chen Ji curiously. "Right, Chen Ji, where exactly did you go last night that you didn't return all night? If you have any difficulties, you must tell us. Friends should go through fire and water for each other without hesitation!"

Chen Ji was silent.

Everyone knew he was unwilling to go back to Chénfǔ, and as a mere medical hall apprentice with nowhere to go, he indeed couldn't explain his whereabouts.

He couldn't tell Shìzi that he was actually a member of the Eunuch Party, which the other person hated the most. He also couldn't tell the crowd that he had actually helped Shìzi and Jùnzhǔ clear their suspicions last night.

There are no real secrets in this world. If you tell someone else's secret, it will always be unintentionally leaked.

In the silence.

Liu Quxing quietly muttered, "Did he go gambling again? I see his eyes are all red with bloodshot veins. He definitely didn't sleep all night."

She Dengke stepped on his foot under the table. Liu Quxing raised his voice, "Why are you stepping on me? I was just saying that casually! I believe Chen Ji isn't that kind of person!"

At this moment, a "meow" sound came from the roof, the call of a cat.

Chen Ji looked up and saw Wūyún leap down from the roof as expected, jumping into... Yáo Lǎotóu's arms.

Yáo Lǎotóu picked up the "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea" from his bowl and brought it to Wūyún's mouth. "Eat."

Liu Quxing was startled. "Master, such an expensive dish, are you feeding it to a cat?"

Yáo Lǎotóu glanced at him. "He might be much more precious than you."

After saying that, Yáo Lǎotóu turned his head again to look at Liáng Gōu'er. "We agreed at the beginning that you could live here, but the premise is that you must teach my disciple knife skills. Start now, don't be lazy."

Liáng Gōu'er, still not having had enough to drink, put down the wine jug. "Okay! Shìzi, Liu Quxing, She Dengke, come over here and practice knife!"

Chen Ji watched Shìzi and the others stand in a horse stance in the yard. Liáng Gōu'er pulled Liáng Máo'er aside to whisper something. Wūyún didn't even eat the "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea," just squatted on Liáng Máo'er's shoulder so obediently, his ears erect.

He looked at Wūyún, then at Yáo Lǎotóu, and suddenly had a very absurd guess: Is Master helping Wūyún secretly learn the Liáng family's knife technique?!

"Master, this is..."

Yáo Lǎotóu looked at him. "Go to sleep. You don't need to worry about Wūyún's affairs. Just worry about whether you can come back alive every day."

"Oh."

Yáo Lǎotóu sneered. "Risking your life every day by hanging your head on your waistband, and you don't even know what for."

"Master, you said life can be changed."

"Hmm?"

"I want to try."

Night was deep and quiet.

Chen Ji detached himself from the Qīngshān Dream Realm, breathing slightly.

In his ears was Liáng Gōu'er's snoring, the whole room filled with the others' exhaled wine fumes, so strong that one would feel drunk just by smelling it. If possible, being a carefree, thoughtless wanderer like Liáng Gōu'er would also be quite good.

Chen Ji looked at the sleeping people in the room, smiled silently, and quietly got out of bed. He came under the apricot tree and looked at the red cloth strips covering the tree, suddenly lost in thought.

*Dong dong dong*, a light knocking sound came from outside the door. Chen Ji ignored it.

It wasn't until the knocking outside the door became urgent that he looked at the two red cloths at the highest point of the apricot tree again, turned around, and went to the main hall. "Who is it?"

Jǐn Zhù said, "It's me. Open the door."

Chen Ji pulled open the door bolt and the two wooden doors, letting Jǐn Zhù squeeze in sideways. "Jǐn Zhù adult, have you had any success?"

He saw Jǐn Zhù wearing a hat and straw shoes, again dressed as a tenant farmer, and said solemnly, "Nothing gained."

"Oh?" Chen Ji said curiously, "No movement from the Liú family?"

Jǐn Zhù frowned. "The old secret agents transferred from the capital today have all arrived. I ordered them to guard the Gōngzuò Jiàn warehouse and the archives warehouse respectively."

"And then?"

In the main hall of the medical hall, only an oil lamp on the counter flickered.

In the dim firelight, Jǐn Zhù stared directly at Chen Ji. "I can guarantee that no one intruded into Gōngzuò Jiàn today, and no one took anything related to firearms from Gōngzuò Jiàn. Someone in the East Market did buy sulfur and brimstone, but after careful inspection, there were no problems... Don't you feel strange?"

Chen Ji answered calmly, "Adult, I don't necessarily show all my emotions on my face."

Jǐn Zhù circled around Chen Ji twice. "You won't be pretending to cooperate with me, while secretly tipping off the Liú family, will you?"

Chen Ji doubted, "Adult, overthrowing the Liú family is the most important thing now. We are almost there. Why be mutually suspicious? It's not too late to suspect me after you overthrow the Liú family. I can't run away anyway."

Jǐn Zhù examined Chen Ji's expression and didn't think it was fake.

He had waited from morning to evening today, and then from evening to midnight, watching hope gradually dissipate, finally turning into anger.

Last night, he almost thought he was only one step away from overthrowing the Liú family, but today he felt that the one step had become an abyss again.

But Jǐn Zhù knew that Chen Ji was right about one thing: This medical hall apprentice couldn't run away, and it wouldn't be too late to deal with him later.

With a calm face, he patted Chen Ji's shoulder and laughed. "Little Doctor Chen, don't mind. It's not the first time our Secret Agent Department has had internal ghosts. All the Hǎi Dōngqīng spend almost half their time purging their own teams to avoid being infiltrated by Jǐng Dynasty thieves. This is a suspicious habit I've developed over the years. There's no other meaning."

Chen Ji instead comforted him. "Jǐn Zhù adult is dedicated to revenge, which is understandable."

Jǐn Zhù analyzed, "Now there are two possibilities. The first is that Liú Xiánxiān has re-established contact with the Jǐng Dynasty thieves, confirmed your and my identities, and discovered that we are faking it. The second is that time is too tight, and Liú Xiánxiān doesn't dare to act rashly, so he didn't act today."

He looked at Chen Ji. "Which one do you lean towards?"

"Adult, have you sent people to watch the Liú family?"

"The three people around Liú Xiánxiān are all capable experts. Ordinary secret agents simply can't watch them."

Chen Ji thought for a moment. "Adult, we should still go to Mǔdān Bridge to see again. No matter what, we have to verify it before we know."

Jǐn Zhù looked deeply at Chen Ji. "Then let's go see."

The two people left the door. Chen Ji turned around and closed the large door. The wind outside blew the oil lamp on the counter, causing it to sway.

"Jǐn Zhù adult, what is the origin of that old man who played with copper coins last night?" Chen Ji sat at the carriage door, lifted the curtain, and asked Jǐn Zhù who was driving.

"That old man is named Zhāng Guǒ'er. The copper coins in his hand are called 'Shānhuā Ghost Money'," Jǐn Zhù answered casually. "He was once a member of the Beggar Gang but later disappeared. The court looked for him for a long time, and it turned out he had escaped into the Liú family."

"Escape?"

Jǐn Zhù sneered. "During the Lantern Festival in the winter of the eighth year of Jiāníng, Hú Jùnyán, the direct grandson of the Hú family, secretly slipped out to visit the temple fair during the Lantern Festival, but was accidentally abducted by people from the Beggar Gang. The Hú family was furious and turned the capital upside down, only then finding Hú Jùnyán. At that time, several of the most important people in the Beggar Gang changed their names and hid, including this Zhāng Guǒ'er."

Chen Ji frowned. "The Beggar Gang traffics people?"

Jǐn Zhù sneered. "You think the Beggar Gang is like the storytellers' stories, begging for a living and acting chivalrous? They are just a group of extremely vicious people gathered together. They not only traffic people, but also blind and cripple the abducted children who cannot be sold to beg, earning no less money than brothels."

Jǐn Zhù continued, "Shānhuā Ghost Money was originally a thunder talisman used in Taoism to ward off evil, but I don't know which evil cultivator turned it into an evil cultivation method. A capable expert in this cultivation method must maintain a virgin body, deceive women into falling in love with them, and then kill the other person on the wedding night, putting the soul into Shānhuā Ghost Money to nurture."

Chen Ji's heart turned cold.

Jǐn Zhù laughed. "Isn't that something? There are even more evil methods in the Southwest. I've seen magic tools made from skulls and leg bones."

Chen Ji was silent for a moment and then asked, "Adult, why do you know so much about Shānhuā Ghost Money?"

Jǐn Zhù answered happily, "More than one person cultivates this method. Our Secret Agent Department alone has killed two. In the underground secret room of our Secret Agent Department's Jiěfán Building, there are still two pieces of Shānhuā Ghost Money that have been nurtured for several hundred years. This thing gets redder the longer it's nurtured. The piece in our Jiěfán Building... tsk tsk, it's simply red like dripping blood. If you're interested, wait until you're promoted to Hǎi Dōngqīng, and I'll request the inner minister adult to grant this method to you."

Chen Ji lowered the curtain. "Thank you for your kindness, Jǐn Zhù adult, but no need."

"We've arrived."

Jǐn Zhù stopped the carriage in a small alley about one li away from Mǔdān Bridge. The two people put on ox and tiger masks and slowly walked up Mǔdān Bridge.

As soon as the two arrived, a carriage slowly drove up in the distance.

The driver's seat of that carriage was clearly empty, yet the reins moved on their own without wind.

Jǐn Zhù narrowed his eyes slightly. Liú Xiánxiān actually came again? He still thought the other person wouldn't come. "It seems we can rule out the first possibility. If Liú Xiánxiān had already re-established contact with the Jǐng Dynasty thieves, he shouldn't have come tonight."

However, it wasn't Liú Xiánxiān who got off, but the old man who played with Shānhuā Ghost Money.

The next moment, the old man lifted the curtain and jumped down, carrying a hemp cloth bag in one hand.

The mouth of the hemp cloth bag was wrapped with thick hemp rope. When the old man jumped down, the hemp cloth bag suddenly struggled violently!

The old man walked onto the bridge, laughed, and threw the hemp cloth bag on the ground. While looking at Jǐn Zhù and Chen Ji, he untied the circles of hemp rope on the hemp cloth bag. "I've brought the goods you wanted."

The hemp bag was untied, revealing the terrified face of a middle-aged man.

Jǐn Zhù's figure moved slightly as if to act, but Chen Ji suddenly pinched his wrist and said, "That's not what we wanted."

The old man knocked the middle-aged man unconscious, stroked the Shānhuā Ghost Money on his waist, and laughed. "Emergency measures. The Secret Agent Department is watching closely. The things you want in Gōngzuò Jiàn can't be stolen out."

Saying that, he pointed a finger at the middle-aged man's head. "But the things you want are all inside his head. This person is the vice supervisor of Gōngzuò Jiàn. If you can take him back to the Jǐng Dynasty, what can't you figure out?"

The bridge quieted down, and the moonlight was covered by clouds.

Chen Ji lightly inhaled behind his mask. Neither he nor Jǐn Zhù thought Liú Xiánxiān would be so bold. The other party didn't make a move in Gōngzuò Jiàn, but took another route and abducted the vice supervisor who was resting at home!

Jǐn Zhù said solemnly, "It's over a thousand li to the Jǐng Dynasty, with seventeen checkpoints in total. Transporting one person out is as difficult as climbing the sky!"

The old man laughed heartily. "That's not something we can manage."

Jǐn Zhù thought for a moment and asked, "Liu adult? In the carriage? Please ask him to come down and talk."

The old man answered, "Liu adult? What Liu adult? I, Zhāng Guǒ'er, am doing this matter alone. I don't know what Liu adult. In addition, I have done what your department required me to do. When can I see the department head?"

Jǐn Zhù was about to answer, but Chen Ji spoke first. "We must first transport the person to Kāifēngfǔ. We will meet at Mǔdān Bridge again three days later. But, at that time, it may not be for you to decide. Call someone who can take charge."

Zhāng Guǒ'er cupped his hands. "Understood. This old man will take his leave."

Jǐn Zhù gazed at the carriage gradually moving away and sighed lightly. "I misunderstood you earlier. It wasn't that you leaked the message causing Liú Xiánxiān not to make a move at Gōngzuò Jiàn, it's really... this person is too bold."

Chen Ji said softly, "Without enough boldness, one wouldn't dare to do treacherous things either."

Jǐn Zhù turned around and walked down the bridge, waving his hand towards a small alley. Xī Fēng, dressed in black, flashed out.

Chen Ji looked closely and saw that there were actually dense secret agents hidden in that small alley, their hands on their waist knives.

He doubted, "Adult, this is..."

Jǐn Zhù sighed. "Originally, I planned to catch Liú Xiánxiān into the inner prison for interrogation tonight, but I didn't even see his shadow. What should we do now?"

Chen Ji lowered his masked head in thought.

He raised his head again and looked at Jǐn Zhù. "Adult, are these secret agents reliable?"

Jǐn Zhù was certain. "Reliable. These are the ones I have selected one by one, and I even spent a lot of money to ask Mèng Jì to interrogate them. There's no problem."

Chen Ji looked at Xī Fēng. "Starting today, you are the head of the Military Intelligence Department."

Xī Fēng: "Ah? Me?"

()