“Hahaha, so you’re saying that you both got caught drinking at the tavern last night?” A laughing Tong Xun was on the floor, nearly laughing himself to death with the hilarity of the situation.
““Shut up.”” Tang Yue and I both replied in unison. Since last night, we had both become good brothers. Add on the fact that he’s the only one that knows my secret, and you have two close friends.
“Hmph, as expected of men.” Luo Qingshan snorted at the two of us.
“Don’t say that, it’s sexist.” I waved my hand. If I ever said that about women in from of shimei, she would beat me to the high heavens, pull me down, and beat me up again. “Anyways, we have an assignment.
“We are to investigate the corruption of a certain official of the Zhejiang Prefecture.” I said. We then searched through the information that was provided. The official’s name was Xu Jianbei, the minister of Finances within said prefecture, and there was an informant that leaked information that he used public funds to buy an 800-year-old bottle of beer from my sect……
When did my sect become so poor that we had to sell of our ancestral bottle of beer? Damn it, wasn’t it said to have become so potent that a single smell could kill a city, yet the bastard wanted to drink it?
Damn it, he wasn’t even a connoisseur like my shifu, and he wasn’t freakishly strong like my shiye, so how did he expect to survive that? It might be due to the fact that I maybe drank it all over a year’s time, and replaced it with cheap whiskey from the bar, but……
Definitely not! Definitely.
Either way, I still have to investigate him for buying a glorified bottle of 20 copper whiskey at a price of 8 million gold ingots. Reading through the reports just made me feel worse for him. Anyways, he was also suspected to be accepting bribes, eliminating political opponents, the whole nine yards.
We spent a day preparing all of the equipment we needed, i.e., weapons, food, water, etc., and headed out for Hangzhou the following day. The journey was quite long, so we got the horses to run for a few shi, and rested for the rest of the day. Our horses were quite fast, bringing us to Hangzhou in just under three days. Upon reaching the location, we rented a cheap inn, and started our investigations. As new hires, we didn’t know what to do, so we sort of waited for information to fall into our arms, like that would ever happen.
So, we decided to start with probably the least suspicious and easiest thing to investigate—the cases of political assassination.
. . .
“Good morning, sir, I heard that you were a witness in the murder of Provincial Minister of Manpower Li. I would like you to confirm the things that you saw on that night.” Tong Xun asked, holding a notebook and a brush. The man he was interviewing was a middle-aged man who had sparse hair and a fat stomach.
“Yes, I witnessed his murder. On the thirtieth of the Fourth Lunar Month, this year, why is your handwriting like that?”
Tong Xun looked up, and said, “Continue.”
“Why is your handwriting like a girl’s? A guy might be bold, not like those queer bastards in the Western countries.” The man interrupted. Tong Xun’s handwriting was indeed extremely queer. It looked like a painting focusing on beauty rather than readability, making it difficult to read the text: ‘30th, third Month, Year 8 of Emperor Qin Qu’s rule,’
“Just continue, or I’ll arrest you.” Tong Xun glared obviously displeased with the disrespect that he was shown.
“No need, no need. Anyways, like I was saying, it was about shen zheng er ke[1], and the Minister was sitting in the restaurant in the South of the city. There was a prostitute that approached him, trying to seduce him. However, Minister Li was a very serious man, and a great minister, so he pushed her off.
“But then she stabbed him in the stomach with a poisoned dagger, hemlock or something if I remembered correctly, and then he collapsed onto the floor. By the time anyone could make sense of the scene, the bitch had already run away.” The man’s tone of voice made it obvious that he extremely respected Provincial Minister of Manpower Li.
“OK, it matches up with the reports.” Tong Xun did not have any reports, since those were mysteriously destroyed in a mysterious fire, but this person probably wouldn’t make it up, especially since he used the excuse of confirming the source. Turning around, he asked another question.
“Who do you believe hired the assassin?”
“Definitely Finance Minister Xu.”
“I would like to ask for your reasons?”
“There were reports of seeing a lady that looked like the assassin around the estates of Finance Minister Xu. I think it was around the first week of April.”
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“Thank you for your cooperation.” Upon receiving the information, Tong Xun went to meet with the other three. They had each spent three days tracking down witnesses, and were going to rendezvous to check the consistency of the information.
Sitting in a room at the inn, the four stared at each other nervously. Luo Qingshan decided to start with her information.
“I interviewed three witnesses and they all gave similar results. My witness said that he saw Minister Li get stabbed in the stomach by an assassin that was dressed as a prostitute. It was coated in a hemlock, from the autopsy, and she fled immediately. The reasons for suspecting Minister Xu was due to a scandal where she was sighted with Minister Xu passing over a large bag of silver taels and also due to an incident where she was seen in his house.”
Tang Yue went next. “I interviewed two, and they gave similar responses.”
Tang Xun added, “I interviewed four, and they also gave similar responses.”
Wuming smiled, and said, “I also got a similar conclusion.”
. . .
Luo Qingshan looked at me, shocked that I did something. Oi, oi, there’s no way that I’m lazy enough to skip work, OK? “How many people did you interview?”
“Zero.” I replied, causing her gaze to turn odd.
“What investigations did you do?” She questioned further.
“I slept in for three days.”
“Well, I sent a letter to the sect, asking them for information on the purchase, along with some sample gold bars to track.” I said, rubbing an egg over my bruised body parts.
“Hmph, you still deserve that beating. If you were so free, you could’ve gone somewhere to investigate more.” Luo Qingshan glared at me. The other two also nodded.
“Hey, keeping watch is exhausting, OK?” I shook my fist about, and received another punch from who I thought was my good brother.
“Fuck you, we had been running around like monkeys for three days, and you have been sleeping?” Tang Yue’s furious voice could be heard as I rubbed my left eye, which had turned blue.
“That’s subjective.” I replied, looking up. I had sensed the pigeon exclusive to the Hundred Divine Technique Mountain. Raising my hand, I let the pigeon land on my arm. Picking up the letter, I unrolled it and read it out loud. Even if I didn’t, the other three would’ve still read it from over my shoulder.
“No gold, your shifu spent all, on girls. Wine was sold at 3020 gold.”
I threw the paper onto the floor. Damn shifu again, blowing money on brothels. At this point, I asked Tong Xuan: “How much is an official’s salary?”
“About 100 gold per year.” He replied, shocking my ass off. One gold was equivalent to 100 silvers, which was also equal to 1000 bronze coins. 80 silver coins was enough for a family of five or six to live comfortably for a month, so imagine getting more than 100 times of it per month.
“Damn, he’s quite the spendthrift.” Said Luo Qingshan. I sighed at her naivety, since the cost was likely footed by the taxes he embezzled. I decided on a plan.
“Does Minister Xu have any legal businesses?” I asked, thinking up a quick plan.
“Uhh……No, he doesn’t.”
“How long has he been an official?”
“Five years.”
“Great,” I gestured for the three to put up a spiritual barrier to prevent spies and eavesdroppers, and continued, “If we can bribe a worker to give some inside intel on the Minister, then we can basically arrest him on the spot. If he claims that he earned the money from doing business, then we can also arrest him, since he doesn’t have any legal businesses.”
“Bribery is illegal. I object to this method.” Luo Qingshan shook her head as she looked disappointed that I even suggested this idea. I simply ignored her and continued,
“There is no other job that has such a salary, so if he claims that it is from savings, we can get the government to do a formal audit instead of this small cop show that we’re doing here. Then, if his expenses are greater than 50 gold per month, we can use it as an excuse to arrest him.”
“Wait, this isn’t right!” Luo Qingshan interjected, “We have no clue whether he is guilty or not. Even so, we must get evidence.”
“That’s not the problem here. We’re here to find an excuse to arrest him, and not to prove his guilt. Anyways, you should all be careful from now on, since he will probably target us once he gets wind that we’re investigating us.”
“No! This is not right! We can’t just……arrest an innocent man!?”
“Screw you and your justice.” I lost my patience, “It isn’t a matter whether he’s a good person or not. The only reason why the Imperial Court hands this task to us is because they know that he’s guilty. Whatever you do, the government will arrest him anyways, so why not get some credit for the arrest?”
“B-but this—how could the Imperial Court be so ruthless?” Luo Qingshan questioned, as if her impression of the entire country was shattered.
“Bullshit. This is such a small matter, and you’re like this? What a joke. Despite being secluded in my sect for 20 years, and only being able to leave a few times before that, I still know the cruelty of the jianghu. The Imperial Court is a part of the jianghu.” I replied bluntly, “If you’re like this, you can just leave.”
Luo Qingshan looked as if she was about to cry from her worldview being shattered. She clenched her fists tightly, before unclenching them. When she answered, her voice had a somewhat determined yet disappointed tone within, “I shall follow through with this plan, and I shall quit immediately after.”
“Good. Just remember that there is no good nor bad, just friends and foes. Friends are foes, foes are friends. Your idea of justice is laughable.” I said coldly, testing her limit. The other two stared at me, shocked that I could even say such words to a young lady.
“……Understood.” Luo Qingshan looked as if she was about to cry. Slamming open the door, she left to go into her room.
“Anyone else want to quit?” I asked in a joking tone, a 180° switch from my cold tone previously.
““You went too far.”” They both said simultaneously.
“No, I didn’t. She could develop a heart demon, and that’s all.” I replied. A heart demon was considered a serious ailment, which could result in Qi deviation, and thus, death, “If she can solve it herself, she will definitely soar. If not, she’s not worth our time, nor captain’s.”
My reply caught the two off-guard. They realised that I was actually helping her, despite her verbal abuse. They also realised why I told her to leave if she refuses to accept this reality. If she didn’t, then she would interfere in our missions in the future.
“Brother really is knowledgeable.” Tang Yue complimented.
“Yes, Unit Leader is cultured.” Tong Xun followed up.
“Haha, I know, right?” I laughed shamelessly, catching them off-guard again, “Anyways, let’s go to their house again. We’ll greet them kindly, and make sure that they are living well.”
My statement made them stare at me in confusion, but I waved my hand, “Sleep well tonight—there’ll be something fun tomorrow.”
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[1] About 4:30