When Bai Changkong stepped out with his son, high above them in the sky, thousands of feet above the ground, within thick, dark clouds, a single red bird’s shadow was watching them closely.
From Yushun Ward straight into Wuyin Ward, Bai Changkong and his people dashed ahead at full speed, and the bird’s shadow pursued relentlessly.
A few guards were left behind at the little official’s home to wait quietly, while Bai Changkong and Bai Lang descended into the underground passage.
The bird exhaled deeply and leisurely landed on the rooftop of a small building in the backyard of the little official’s house.
Lubin's pet parrot, sly and furtive, peeked its head out from behind the roof ridge beast, its large round eyes scanning the surroundings cautiously.
Silently, it raised both wings and shook them hard.
The parrot cursed in a low voice.
“When did this old mouth start doing grunt work?”
“A bunch of troublesome brats!”
The parrot cursed a few more times, let out a sigh, lifted its tail, held its stomach tight, and sprayed a messy pile of bird droppings onto the little official’s backyard below.
Flapping its wings, the parrot took off and vanished swiftly into the thick clouds.
About a quarter hour later, a chubby, round, furtive rabbit cat stealthily climbed over the wall, its fat jiggling with every step.
It sniffed the air and arrived at the rooftop where the parrot had just been hiding.
The rabbit cat grinned, a sly human-like expression appearing on its round face.
It poked its head around, looking over the yard carefully, sniffing the leftover scent from the parrot in the air.
Silently, it stalked along the roof tiles, arriving above the side room where Bai Changkong and the others had entered the underground tunnel.
Its pointy ears twitched as it listened attentively to the sounds inside the side room.
After a little while, it let out a breath and leapt from the roof, landing lightly on the courtyard wall several dozen feet away.
Proudly, it strutted along the wall for seven or eight steps, lifted its tail and left a puddle of cat urine on top of the wall before curling up and jumping down, disappearing without a trace.
At the entrance to the surveying bureau’s base in Yushun Ward, Lubin had arranged for a rocking chair to be placed on the porch by the gate.
He sat in the rocking chair holding a small purple clay teapot, sipping slowly and smiling as he watched the workers busy at the ruined Blue Field Estate across from him.
That vast Blue Field Estate had been razed to a pile of broken tiles and ashes by fire.
Early that morning, the Bai family had already hired workers to clear the rubble.
While Lubin was watching, trucks laden with broken bricks, burnt beams, pillars, and charred ancient trees — all those ruined materials with no more aesthetic value — were hauled away.
The Bai family was very conscientious; they feared that leftover debris might litter the streets and pollute the environment of Yushun Ward.
So, the workers brought in special four-wheeled carts custom-built by wealthy grain merchants to transport large amounts of grain — now repurposed to carry this construction waste.
These carts were five zhang long, with iron-plated, square-shaped, fully enclosed compartments, sealed tight with not a single crack for dust to leak.
As the workers hustled, one cart after another left the Blue Field Estate ruins, slowly making their way along the street toward Dock Number Two in Yushun Ward not far away.
Yushun Ward was inhabited by high officials and nobles; the plots of land there were fully developed with no room to dump this debris locally.
According to information from informants below, the Bai family had rented many sleds at Dock Number Two.
These construction wastes would be transported via canals and buried in pits dug deep at a distant ward about a thousand li west — ‘Swallow Ward’ in Jiupin Market City.
Swallow Ward was a "reserved village," a "firewood ward."
Jiupin Market City was the largest ward-type district in terms of area within Gaojing City but remained practically undeveloped.
Swallow Ward itself was nearly ten times the size of Yushun Ward, yet its population was fewer than a hundred thousand, uniformly composed of ‘firewood people’ who had cut wood and burned charcoal for generations.
The purpose of the Firewood Ward was to supply Gaojing’s higher-end wards with daily firewood.
Once the construction debris was buried deep in pits within Swallow Ward, it would take only a few years to assimilate into the soil, enriching it as nutrients necessary for firewood trees to grow.
Lubin lightly tapped the armrest of the rocking chair with his finger.
He turned his head and glanced at Ah Hu, standing by his side, now dressed in a white brocade robe embroidered with a gecko pattern.
Ah Hu grinned and stuck two fingers into his mouth, blowing out an extremely sharp, piercing whistle.
At a street corner more than a li away from Lubin, a dozen idle men, dressed in various clothes and possessing strong physiques, stood up from squatting against the wall, dazed.
Several four-wheeled carts slowly rolled past them.
Suddenly, the idlers all broke out in angry curses: “What’re you looking at?”
Upon hearing the whistle, the idlers quickly drew iron rods more than a foot long from their sleeves and charged at the Bai family servants escorting the carts, swinging their rods which whistled through the air and landed solidly on the unprepared servants.
Cries of pain rang out as the wheels of several carts were smashed to pieces, axles broken, carts overturned heavily with the heavy broken bricks and tiles spilling everywhere with a loud crash.
Several carts were overturned in succession; the Bai family servants were left bruised and battered, lying on the ground helpless.
The idlers who attacked them laughed gleefully, hopped about, then turned and ran away.
They disappeared quickly into the thinning crowd after turning the corner.
The Bai family guards reacted immediately.
Hearing the pitiful screams from their people, seven or eight guards rushed out in a panic and hurried to the scene.
But the assailants had vanished without a trace, leaving only the beaten house servants rolling and wailing on the ground.
The Bai guards stared around, bewildered, unsure of how to handle the situation.
Lubin chuckled as he stood up, handing his teapot to the little eunuch standing nearby.
“Keep a close eye on the Bai family. Also have someone watch those carts. Somehow I feel like they’re hauling something else out there.”
The little eunuch took the teapot and sneered, “If Master says there’s something fishy, then there’s definitely something fishy. We’ve sent signals to our brothers along the route. Those boats they hired? They won’t get away with it.”
Lubin nodded.
Suddenly a sharp curse came from the sky.
The great parrot, panting heavily, flapped down from the air, spread its claws, and dug hard into Lubin’s shoulder.
Lubin reached out and pinched the parrot’s beak.
“Quiet! No noisy nonsense. Later I’ll give you a treat. You all do what you’re supposed to. If there’s any news coming from the surveillance office, don’t delay — report to me immediately.”
Lubin raised his head.
Perhaps because those damned members of the Ghost Mother cult were now dead, and other injured had been transferred to the secret prison of the Gecko Watch, the red lanterns floating high in the sky had disappeared without a trace.
Lubin looked again toward the Blue Field Estate.
Beyond the old Blue Field Estate, Lubin saw the beautifully tall and graceful girl he had seen early that morning, sitting by the open window of Bai Lu’s mansion’s fifth floor, playing with a collection of musical instruments treasured by Bai Lu.
Bai Lu was not home.
She hadn’t showed up since the big fire last night.
Whoever this girl was — some member of the Bai family, apparently — she could enter unbidden straight into Bai Lu’s mansion and freely handle her precious collections!
Lubin gazed deeply at the girl, then turned and entered the base, going into the third courtyard where his office had been prepared.
Six years ago, after obtaining his visionary map and rescuing Ah Hu, who had fled thousands of li from the far northern Daizhou to Gaojing, Lubin had begun building his own power.
Starting small, step by step.
Stinky tofu, grilled cold noodles, baked flatbreads, wonton stalls — all small ventures with thin profits, despised by the powerful and rich — Lubin kept hustling and slowly built his little empire.
Now, his stinky tofu stalls alone were distributed in over six hundred ward markets across Gaojing, with over a hundred stalls on average in each ward market.
These stalls, plus other small vendors, paid Lubin half their daily profits.
Many little drops fill a large vessel; many small sands form a mountain.
Lubin’s daily income was a frightening number.
But more importantly, relying on these street-level informants, Lubin’s intelligence might still not rival certain thousand-year-old official offices in the great empire, but it was far ahead of ordinary aristocratic families.
After only a short while in his study, Ah Hu had come and gone, delivering dozens of narrow scrolls.
Lubin unrolled them: intelligence from Wuyin Ward, Kunpeng Ward, as well as Fengdiao Yushun and Guotai Min’an — the four biggest wards — all the day’s happenings within view.
“Old thief!” Lubin clapped his hands enthusiastically, surprised.
Bai Changkong had truly made a move again.
The parrot had started the fire that burnt down Blue Field Estate.
The palace had nailed the Chuxiu Gold Plaque on his family’s gate.
Bai Changkong’s estate burnt, which, to Lubin, must be a blow to the Bai family’s reputation.
And the Chuxiu Gold Plaque pushed the Bai family into an extremely awkward position.
But, in the short morning, in the wards closest to the imperial city, the educated students had already started making a fuss.
They talked about the concept of "Heaven and man responding to each other."
They claimed that Blue Field Estate burning was a reaction from the heavens and earth, that Bai family’s house was too "constricted."
They said that the Bai family would produce a "noble person," a noble person like a "golden phoenix," which only perches on phoenix trees, not ordinary wood.
Therefore, the burning of Blue Field Estate proved the Bai family’s lineage was going to prosper — the old making way for the new was the principle.
Some even swore that the Bai family was about to "make it big."
A small six-courtyard estate no longer fit the soon-to-be rising Bai family, so burning down the garden was a sign the Bai family planned to renovate their residence.
Only by first burning the garden could they construct a bigger, better one.
Lubin sat in his study, staring at the intelligence before him, speechless for a moment.
Could there really be such a twisted interpretation?
These educated students and Bai Changkong — where did their mouths grow?
Before Lubin could fully grasp Bai Changkong’s reversal of public opinion, lively noises came again from the direction of Bai Changkong’s home.
Lubin grew restless, quickly stood up and led his men toward where the noise was coming from.
(End of chapter)