Fate's Attendant 1.41

That night, Hong Fei brought his people together in the salon. He handed Fortune’s Favor to Little Ruyun with strict instructions not to draw the sword. He would know if she did, and the repercussions would be serious. The young girl was then placed into Auntie Ling’s custody for the two of them to spend the evening studying.

Once the girl and giant badger were gone, he turned to Kang Lian. “You will take Sun Han into the city,” he commanded. “Both of you will wear inconspicuous clothes, and you will point out to him the places where the Rock Knives gather and do business.”

“Sir, for what reason?” she asked.

“Too many forces are moving, and I can’t track them all on my own,” he replied, avoiding the whole truth. “Sun Han will take over some of those duties for me.”

“These are all I have,” the scholar pointed out, gesturing to his clothes.

“Then this is an opportunity to expand your wardrobe,” Hong Fei said. “The errand will be your excuse to leave the estate.”

Kang Lian was no fool. She sensed the waters were deeper than they appeared, but she couldn’t read Hong Fei’s intent. Gathering her courage, she said, “I’ll go get ready.”

The dūtóu nodded gratefully, then waited for the salon doors to close before addressing Sun Han again. “Make sure no harm comes to her. Return to the estate once you’re done scouting the gang’s operations. Later, you’ll go over the walls to revisit the places she showed you. Find a gang member on their own and bring me their rock knife. Can you do that?”

“Yes, of course,” Sun Han answered, “but I find I have the same question as Kang Lian: sir, for what reason?”

“I need a weapon that’s not associated with me, just in case it’s necessary.” Hong Fei replied, then added, “Leave nothing that may be traced back to you or this courtyard.”

Sun Han nodded. “Then it will be so. What should I do with the body?”

There was a pitcher of wine on the table. The design on it was simple, which suited Hong Fei. He went to pour himself some, though he only drank half the cup. “The gang member doesn’t need to die, as long as you can retrieve the knife without others knowing who did it or where it went.”

“And if that’s not possible?” Sun Han asked.

“Then make it look like an accident,” Hong Fei replied. “A fall into the river or a theft gone wrong.”

“It would be faster if Kang Lian was my accomplice,” Sun Han observed.

“You’re not to involve her,” Hong Fei instructed, then drank the rest of the cup. “I gave my word I’d protect her and Ruyun.”

###

None of the Chen family left their courtyards after retiring for the evening, though Chen Wenbin continued to receive messages late into the night. The missives were related to the Yu family’s ongoing investigations, or so Hong Fei judged based on what he was able to overhear while skulking nearby.

Zhang Dehua was also up late. The steward’s apparently endless appetite for work kept him in his office until Hong Fei was forced to concede that nothing would happen there except for the sound of papers read, written, or filed away.

Hong Fei concluded his surveillance a little after midnight, whereupon he headed to the outer wall. He waited for the night gate patrol to pass by, then slipped down into the city beyond. After rushing toward a nearby alley, he put on his long coat to hide the motley underneath. His hat hid his face. From there, he moved from alley to alley to put some distance between him and the estate. Only then, did he walk out into the street proper.

The thoroughfare was empty of pedestrians, the lamps dimming. Hong Fei strode like a man hurrying home. As he descended from the high city, he came across others—mostly people who’d stayed too long and drank too much at the night market. They wobbled past him, singing songs as they went.

A few merchants were still disassembling their stalls in the area of the Wing Span Bridge. Hardly any gave thought to the man walking past. They had their own work to do, with rest and a warm bed at the end of it.

Climbing in elevation again, Hong Fei’s path took him deeper into the middle city. There, he eventually found the courtyard of the Ma family. A guard stood in front of the gate, pacing to keep awake. The walls were plastered, without places to grip, and so Hong Fei required a touch of essence before leaping to the top and then dropping down to the interior.

The courtyard was entirely cobbled over—no gardens here, but places where people could work at chores too messy or smelly to be indoors. A butcher’s block sat under the eaves of the kitchen building. Near the storerooms was a large wash basin. Various tools lay out exposed to the evening, so that work could resume early in the morning. The only nod to decoration was a planter of flowers at the courtyard’s center.

A guard stood out in front of the main hall. A pair of lamps hung from the eaves beside her, and light flickered from under the doors behind her, as well as the seams around the closed shutters nearby. There were members of the household still awake at this hour.

Hong Fei made his way to the storage building to climb up to the roof. The tiles, however, were in poor condition. Walking across them would make too much noise, so back down he went, resolving himself to a painstakingly slow approach hugging the shadows.

The human eye was drawn to movement, breaks in patterns, and shapes it recognized. Hong Fei’s motley helped with the latter two; the rest required fitting himself into the shadows cast by the lamps and moving at the pace of a vine creeping, a finger’s width at a time.

The guard yawned twice. She hopped up and down, then walked toward the center of the courtyard and back to her position at the doors. There was a temptation to rush once Hong Fei was in her peripheral vision, but he knew better than to do so.

He kept to his slow-but-steady pace until he was well outside her view. Ahead, he spotted a guard patrolling the gap between the main building and the outer wall. Hong Fei waited until he turned the corner before rushing to the nearest closed shutter. A light tug, and it didn’t budge. The next was the same, but the third swung open to reveal a darkened room. Hong Fei slipped inside before the guard’s patrol took him past.

A quick glance showed he was alone in a small study. He squatted beside a desk; adjacent were a chair and a trunk. There was a map on the wall that was difficult to read in the dark but appeared to be of the city. Hong Fei sent a touch of essence to his eyes and saw that the map noted the locations of the Yu-family businesses. A pin had been placed at the location of the Gallant Hero Marble Sculpture Gallery.

The trunk was locked, but the lid was hinged. A moment’s fiddling with his knife pushed the bronze rods at the center of the hinges out enough for him to pull them free.

The lid wasn’t meant be lifted from the back, so Hong Fei had to be careful not to break the lock. He peeked through the gap and saw a small pouch rounded by the coins inside it, a bundle of clay tubes stoppered with wax, and a sheaf of papers tied with a gray ribbon.

The sheaf was out of reach of his fingers. The lock creaked ominously as he attempted to work his hand closer, so he used his knife’s scabbard to nudge it closer. Two fingers eventually grabbed hold, and he carefully pulled the sheaf through the gap in the trunk’s lid.

Instead of undoing the ribbon’s knot, he simply slid it aside to unroll and read the documents—the Yu retainers’ patrol schedules, a personnel list of the Yu businesses, the agendas for the Yu family members and other important household personages over the next ten days. There was also what looked like a copy of the doctor’s report on Yu Yong’s condition.

Hong Fei steadied his breath. He imposed a calm onto his mind to keep from crumpling the papers. There was a decent chance they were Ma Zhi’s working documents, and not a tidy intelligence packet to be handed over to the Yu’s enemies. The problem was the ribbon; it implied that the papers would travel.

Working documents wouldn’t need to be bundled with a ribbon unless the person involved was fastidious about such things, which looking around the neat study, it was possible that Ma Zhi was.

Inconclusive, Hong Fei thought, but possibly damning.

He briefly eyed the stoppered tubes, but ultimately left them alone. Any attempt to pry open the wax would give away they’d been tampered with, so he returned the trunk to the way he’d found it and slid the bronze rods back into their hinges

Hong Fei padded toward the door. The light from under the jamb was dim, as if it came from a distance away. He carefully eased the door open and saw a dimly lit corridor outside. The study was in was at its terminus.

Two more doors were to the left, and the corridor opened onto a larger room at the end. The contents of that room were blocked by a screen, lamplight limning its border. People were conversing on the other side, the voices too low to hear the words.

Hong Fei shook his head in regret. The family spell for improving one’s hearing required qi, and he’d decided earlier not to take Sun Han’s buff with him, calculating that the scholar might need the support for his own mission. He’d simply have to get closer to listen in.

Taking a breath to steady his nerves, Hong Fei crept into the corridor and toward the speakers. The voices continued to be muffled, however, even as he came up right up next to the screen.

It was the salon on the other side. Hong Fei could tell from the room’s placement in the main hall. Beams ran across the ceiling, and the furnishings visible from his hiding place were plain but serviceable. An outsider visiting would think this was a hard-working house.

The screen was all of one piece and stood upright due to a pair of bronze footings at each end. Hong Fei got on his belly, so that he could peek under it.

He saw the back of Ma Zhi’s head. She had an arm draped over the side of the couch upon which she sat. With the other she gestured as she spoke to whoever sat across from her. That person or persons weren’t visible from Hong Fei’s angle of view. There was a low table on the other side of Ma Zhi’s couch which blocked him from counting the number of feet.

The distance to the speakers wasn’t more than two or three zhang. Hong Fei should’ve been able to understand what was being said, but the words were still muffled. Magic was being used to obscure the discussion.

Suddenly, Ma Zhi stood up. Opposite her, Ma Mo also stood, his head becoming visible above the couch. The shízhǎng turned to walk toward the screen, and Hong Fei withdrew as quickly as he could, not letting his feet settle onto the ground before flinging himself through the corridor, into the study, and outside through the window.

Crouching outside, his heart beat quickly. His breathing, he controlled to keep it from giving his position away. Any moment now, the guard might appear from the around the corner, but he lingered, listening to the study door open, the hinges to the trunk creaking, and Ma Zhi’s voice saying, “This is it here.”

The sound of footsteps coming from around the corner sent Hong Fei climbing up to the roof. The area was clear, and he took a moment to steady himself before leaning over the side.

Down below, the guard had paused outside the study’s window. He knocked on the shutters, and when Ma Zhi opened them, he reported that they’d appeared slightly ajar. The shízhǎng glanced to each side, then thanked the guard for his vigilance. A moment later, the shutters closed, and the guard returned to his duty.

Hong Fei waited. His breathing returned to normal; his heart quieted. Time passed, and the guards below changed shifts. He continued to stay hidden on the roof until he was sure everyone except for the guards outside were asleep.

Only then did he creep back down to the study to try the shutter. It wouldn’t open. There’d be no way to know what Ma Zhi had handed to Ma Mo without breaking the lock.

Hong Fei seriously considered it, yet he ultimately decided against it. Letting the Ma family continue in ignorance of his investigation was worth more than the information he’d gain.

He would have to find another way to learn whether it’d been the sheaf of papers, bundle of clay tubes, or pouch of money.

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ToC  | Next Chapter >

Characters who’ve been mentioned previously are: 

• Auntie Ling, a summons 

• Scholar Sun Han, a summons 

• Chen Wenbin, a soldier working for the Yu's, a xiàowèi

• Kang Lian, Little Ruyun's mother

• Kang Ruyun, Kang Lian's daughter

• Ma Mo, a soldier working for the Yu's, working as a guard at a family business

• Ma Zhi, a soldier working for the Yu's, a shízhǎng

• Yu Yong, the grandson of Duke and Duchess Yu

• Zhang Dehua, the steward of the Yu family