Under the night sky, the Red Dress Alley was ablaze with vibrant colors.
From one end to the other, lanterns and decorations hung everywhere, as if every day was a wedding celebration, every night a drunken revelry to forget sorrows, with the red sleeves of courtesans waving from every building.
The Golden Workshop had earned its fame by coating its beams and pillars with gold foil and powder, turning them into shimmering gold.
Inside, the Qianqiu Pavilion's ceiling was adorned with gemstones, making the entire place glitter with a golden brilliance.
This kind of extravagance was common in Jinling, but in Luocheng, it was still a unique sight.
In a dark corner outside the Red Dress Alley, dark clouds slowly merged into the shadows.
Chen Ji quietly placed his hands on the edge of the wall and, with a slight push, leaped up, landing steadily on the wall's edge.
With another light jump, he grabbed the extended eave of a nearby building and swung himself onto the roof.
His right leg was injured and couldn't bear much weight, but with twenty-six furnaces of inner energy now ignited, his arm strength alone was enough to easily scale the building.
Chen Ji crouched down, carefully surveying his surroundings.
Below, the crowd flowed like a river, while above, the gray rooftops stretched out like rolling hills.
The ridges of the roofs resembled mountain ridges, with the side facing the Red Dress Alley bathed in light, while the other side remained in shadow.
Confirming that no one was around, Chen Ji slowly moved across the shadowed side of the roof, stepping lightly on the gray tiles to avoid alerting anyone below.
Fortunately, the Red Dress Alley was already noisy, so his faint footsteps went unnoticed.
As he walked, his gaze occasionally drifted over the rooftops, looking down at the Red Dress Alley below.
Chen Ji moved through the night like a shadow, while the White Carp and the Young Master walked under the lanterns, their paths seemingly destined never to cross.
Chen Ji turned his attention to the footsteps of the White Carp and the Young Master, trying to figure out where they were headed.
He silently hoped it wasn't the Golden Workshop, as that place was dangerous.
Just then, a vendor carrying a shoulder pole passed by, and the White Carp stopped to pick out a small box of snacks—candied fruits and pickled plums.
She skewered them with a bamboo stick and continued walking, nibbling as she went.
Amidst the crowd and the sea of red, the White Carp and the Young Master stood out in their white robes, like two pieces of pristine jade hidden in a muddy stream.
They were impossible to miss.
Suddenly, Chen Ji heard the sound of tiles shifting both in front and behind him.
He turned sharply and saw two black-clad men with long swords climbing up from below using a ladder.
The three of them froze for a moment, staring at each other in surprise.
These two men, likely elite agents from either the Secret Intelligence Bureau or the Military Intelligence Bureau, had climbed up to the roof to get a better vantage point over the Red Dress Alley.
But they hadn't expected to run into Chen Ji.
In an instant, the two men silently drew their swords and charged at Chen Ji from both sides, their blades glinting with the red light from the alley below.
Chen Ji cursed his luck.
When he had climbed up earlier, he had made sure the roof was empty, wondering why such a prime observation spot hadn't been taken.
He had even thought the Military Intelligence Bureau's tactical awareness was lacking.
Little did he know, they had just arrived late.
While the Red Dress Alley below was alive with music and revelry, the rooftop was a battlefield of silent death.
None of the three dared to make a sound, fearing they would be discovered.
Chen Ji quickly started running, trying to ignore the pain in his leg and move as naturally as possible.
He needed to escape the encirclement before the two men closed in on him.
But the two black-clad men were seasoned fighters.
Seeing Chen Ji's intent, they immediately adjusted their paths, cutting off his escape routes.
The rooftop wasn't large, and Chen Ji had nowhere to go unless he jumped down.
He stood at the edge, looking down at the six-meter drop.
Considering his injured leg, he decided against it and stepped back.
Just as he was weighing his options, the two men were already upon him, their swords slashing horizontally like scissors.
The blades reflected the red light from the alley below.
In that split second, Chen Ji's sword-fighting instincts, honed through countless battles, kicked in.
Like the sound of a hammer striking iron, his body moved with lightning speed.
He swung his short blade twice, each strike precise and effortless, like a white deer darting through a forest.
Two metallic clangs rang out, drowned by the noise from the alley below.
One of the black-clad men's swords shattered, the broken blade clattering down the sloped roof and falling into the dark courtyard below.
The other man's sword was knocked from his hand.
Chen Ji was stunned, and so were the two men.
Their eyes widened in disbelief.
"Cuojin," Chen Ji muttered to himself.
He had once asked Feng Huai what this technique was—the one that made his hands ache from the impact.
Feng Huai had called it "Cuojin," a method of using precise force to find weaknesses and break blades.
If not for the special material of Feng Huai's sword, it would have shattered long ago.
And now, Chen Ji, a mere apprentice from a medical clinic, had instinctively used this technique with a short blade meant for cutting herbs.
He had broken one sword and disarmed the other.
If he had been more practiced, both swords would have been shattered.
The two black-clad men exchanged a glance.
They found the night increasingly bizarre.
Not only had they encountered a swordsman of this caliber on a deserted rooftop, but the man had initially tried to flee and now seemed more shocked than they were.
Unbeknownst to them, Chen Ji had always felt powerless when sparring with Feng Huai.
Feng Huai's movements were flawless, and Chen Ji often found himself on the defensive.
He had even begun to doubt his own talent for swordsmanship.
But now, facing opponents other than Feng Huai, everything felt different.
The two men looked down at their broken swords, a hint of fear creeping into their hearts.
But they had come this far and couldn't back down now.
With the resolute will forged in the harsh lands they hailed from, they discarded their broken swords and drew daggers from their belts, charging at Chen Ji.
Their movements were coordinated—one feinted while the other attacked, one false and one real, cutting off Chen Ji's possible escape routes.
Yet, compared to Feng Huai, these two seemed full of openings.
As the daggers came at him from both sides, Chen Ji sidestepped effortlessly, avoiding the blades.
With his left hand, he grabbed one man's wrist, holding it like a vice, preventing him from retracting his dagger.
With his right hand, he flicked his blade, severing the tendons in the other man's wrist.
The dagger clattered to the roof and rolled into the courtyard below.
The man with the severed tendons stumbled back.
Chen Ji, still gripping the other man's wrist, pressed forward like a puppeteer controlling a marionette.
His short blade stabbed into the man's heart, spleen, and liver in quick succession, before finally slashing his throat.
The other man, still held by Chen Ji, could only stagger along, watching helplessly as his comrade was stabbed repeatedly.
Before he could even think of breaking free, Chen Ji's blade flashed in the moonlight, slicing across his neck.
A faint spray of blood dotted Chen Ji's soot-covered face as he slowly released his grip, letting the man crumple to the ground.
Chen Ji searched the bodies.
He knew that agents under Jin Zhu's command usually carried a copper whistle to mimic bird calls for signaling, but these two had none.
They were Yuan the Shopkeeper's men.
...
The wound on his leg throbbed with pain.
During the fight, he hadn't noticed, but now the old injury had been aggravated.
Chen Ji wiped the blood from his hands to keep his grip on the blade steady, but it was no use.
He tore a strip of cloth from his robe and wrapped it around his hand.
Then he looked over the rooftops toward the Red Dress Alley.
The Young Master and the White Carp were now surrounded by a group of Jianghu figures, chatting amiably.
The White Carp and the Young Master had reached the entrance of the Golden Workshop, where Yan'er, the courtesan, greeted them with a smile and led them inside.
So they were indeed heading to the Golden Workshop.
Chen Ji sighed inwardly and stood silently on the roof, quickly scanning the area.
He couldn't worry about the Young Master and the White Carp now.
He needed to find Yuan the Shopkeeper as soon as possible.
In the Red Dress Alley, more and more people were entering the Golden Workshop, but there was still no sign of Yuan.
Had he not arrived yet, or had he already gone inside?
Wait.
Chen Ji noticed movement in the darkness outside the Red Dress Alley.
Over a hundred black-clad agents, armed with long swords, were converging from both ends of the alley.
Among them was Jin Zhu, now clad in light armor, his usual amiable smile replaced by the stern demeanor of a battlefield general.
Further away, Chen Ji saw five hundred cavalrymen from the Jiefan Guard, their horses' hooves muffled with cloth, standing silently in the night.
Each wore a bamboo hat and a straw raincoat, holding spears at the ready.
At their head was Lin Zhaoqing, sitting astride his horse with a sword resting across his saddle, unmoving.
Lin Zhaoqing had come too!
Chen Ji marveled at Jin Zhu's caution.
They had only just uncovered clues about the missing firearms from the Armory, and yet Jin Zhu had already teamed up with the Criminal Investigation Bureau to mobilize the Jiefan Guard from Mengjin Camp.
At the entrance of the Red Dress Alley, Lin Zhaoqing sat on his horse and said coolly, "The Twelve Zodiacs of the Secret Intelligence Bureau are all so impulsive. The last time the Rabbit and the Goat mobilized the Jiefan Guard, they ended up in prison. I wonder what will happen to you this time, Lord Jin Zhu?"
Jin Zhu chuckled.
"I'm not like them. I've found the Jing Dynasty spies, and not just the outsiders—I've also found the traitors within."
"Oh? You've kept your lips sealed tight, Lord Jin Zhu," Lin Zhaoqing sneered.
"When you arrived at my Mengjin Camp, all you did was demand to eat Yellow River carp, sending my Jiefan Guard to fish for you. I thought all you cared about was food. Given the Rabbit and the Goat's example, if you don't explain what's going on, my Jiefan Guard won't lift a finger."
Jin Zhu smiled.
"Commander Lin, don't be angry. You're in charge of the Criminal Investigation Bureau in Yuzhou, so of course I need to inform you why I've mobilized the Jiefan Guard. Commander Lin, what do you think the Jing Dynasty spies are most eager to steal from our Ning Dynasty?"
"Military deployment maps, court secrets, firearms."
"Exactly.
Zhou Chengyi has been trying to turn officials from the Armory, which means their primary target is the firearms. So when I arrived in Luocheng, my first task was to monitor all sales of saltpeter and sulfur. My second task was to investigate the Armory's inventory and records.
A few days ago, I discovered discrepancies between the Armory's inventory and its records, and some blueprints were missing. I followed the trail and captured six people—some from the Grain Transport Gang, some from the Armory. Eventually, I found out that the missing firearms had ended up here, in the Red Dress Alley."
Lin Zhaoqing frowned.
"There are so many brothels in the Red Dress Alley. Which one are you targeting? You must know that every business here has powerful backers. You're not planning to have the Jiefan Guard raid every brothel, are you?"
Jin Zhu chuckled.
"Earlier, I set a trap at the Chaocang Gambling House and captured twelve spies. Eleven of them took poison and died, but one turned traitor. He told me that he had been ordered by the Military Intelligence Bureau's Secretary to retrieve a shipment of goods from the Golden Workshop. Normally, the Jing Dynasty spies wouldn't be foolish enough to use the same location twice, so I only sent a few agents to keep an eye on the place as a precaution. But today, suspicious individuals brought another shipment into the Golden Workshop, and I caught them."
Lin Zhaoqing stopped questioning.
He knew Jin Zhu was a favorite of the Prime Minister, having earned his trust through numerous achievements.
The reason Jin Zhu was still one of the lower-ranked Zodiacs wasn't due to lack of ability but because of his close relationship with the Heavenly Horse.
The Prime Minister didn't want the top three Zodiacs to be too close.
Some speculated that if the Sick Tiger were to retire, Jin Zhu might take his place.
But Lin Zhaoqing knew that as long as the Heavenly Horse was alive, Jin Zhu would never rise to the top.
After a moment of thought, Lin Zhaoqing said, "Lord Jin Zhu, the Jiefan Guard is at your disposal tonight. Just don't make any mistakes."
"That's all I need," Jin Zhu said, signaling to his agents.
The black-clad agents swarmed into the Red Dress Alley, causing chaos.
Patrons from the brothels and taverns fled in panic, trying to escape the commotion.
But the Jiefan Guard's cavalry blocked both ends of the alley, trapping everyone inside.
From his perch on the roof, Chen Ji saw the Young Master, the White Carp, and the Jianghu figures run out of the Golden Workshop.
Seeing both exits blocked, they rushed into the tavern opposite the Golden Workshop—the very building Chen Ji was standing on.
They planned to cut through the tavern's main hall and escape over the back wall.
Six agents noticed their escape attempt and abandoned their pursuit of others, chasing them into the tavern.
Chen Ji looked down from the roof's edge and saw the Jianghu figures easily vault over the two-meter-high back wall.
The Young Master called out from the courtyard, "Hey, give us a hand! Help us over!"
One of the Jianghu figures jumped up, perched on the wall, and reached down.
"Grab my hand, I'll pull you up."
But before the Young Master could take his hand, the six agents burst into the courtyard...
"Go!"
In the next moment, the Jianghu figures abandoned the Young Master and the White Carp, disappearing into the alley beyond the wall.
Chen Ji frowned.
Something was off.
If the Young Master was just here for leisure, he could have stayed put and waited for the Secret Intelligence Bureau's investigation.
Once cleared of suspicion, he would have been fine.
Why risk fleeing?
(End of Chapter)