Early that morning, Xu Buling had been sitting in a little boat on Qujiang Pool, fishing, while eight soldiers stood guard outside the waterside pavilion.

As a transmigrator, Xu Buling had hardly come out beyond the city walls to fish in order to cultivate his spirit and pose as a refined scholar.

By its timeline, the Great Yue dynasty ought to have sat somewhere between the Tang and the Song—but this world's history had gone crooked after the Spring and Autumn period, and Xu Buling had no idea what the future held.

And Xu Buling was, by birth, Prince Su's legitimate son, and in childhood he'd been famous enough to be called "dragon sinew, tiger bone, qilin strength." Grown up, he was expected to be a he-man on the order of Lü Bu, Xiang Yu, and Lao Ai.

Fame in youth was one thing. His father, Prince Su, was also a hereditary vassal prince with real power, his title passing down without ever being reduced, holding the twelve prefectures of Xiliang and two hundred thousand Xiliang troops in his palm.

Strong soldiers, fat horses, and achievements great enough to shake the man on the throne.

Give him an heir who never lost a battle besides, one who rolled right over the barbarians of the northern wastes—then what was the emperor on the dragon throne supposed to hand out as a reward?

Above a prince of the blood, there was only the emperor himself!

Whether or not that was the reason, the original Xu Buling had, per the ancestral rule, set out for the capital for three years of study—and on the road he'd been set upon by assassins.

With death moments away, Xu Buling had transmigrated in. The last surviving old servant had escorted him into Chang'an, the poison still in his body.

Xu Buling had lived a few decades in his last life; he could have figured out with his toes that there was nothing simple behind this.

Once in Chang'an, of course he kept his head down and preserved himself, seeing no one he didn't have to see, striving to live until he could leave the capital after three years.

But given who Xu Buling was, holing up at home as a shut-in wasn't easy.

Xu Buling was no fresh orphan straight out of the Qidian orphanage. Prince Su thought his son young and a bit of a blockhead, so he'd arranged a guardian for him.

And when it came to that guardian, Madame Lu, Xu Buling could not have summed her up in a word if he'd tried.

Madame Lu's name was Lu Hongluan. As the legitimate daughter of one of the great clan houses, her standing was lofty, and she and the present Empress Dowager were aunt and niece, with Madame Lu the aunt.

More important, Madame Lu and Prince Su's consort—Xu Buling's mother—were sworn sisters who'd burned yellow paper together.

Madame Lu had been widowed young and had no children of her own, and she sat about the house all day with nothing to do. Toward this nephew who'd dropped out of the sky she was attentive to the smallest detail: what time he rose, what he ate, where he went—she had to know all of it. She was playing a full-on child-raising game.

Xu Buling's body might be seventeen or eighteen, but inside he was a normal man. Being watched every day by a widow—who could stand that? All he could do was hide outside the city walls and fish.

Unfortunately, when a woman fixes her eye on a man with the zeal of a wife catching her man in bed with another, hiding really isn't easy.

Xu Buling was fishing and questioning his whole existence when footsteps came along the shore of Qujiang Pool.

A beauty in palace dress came walking up, a fire-fox stole over her shoulders—graceful as jade, lovely as an immortal—a vermilion food box carved with auspicious beasts hanging from her hand.

The eight guards bowed slightly:

"Madame Lu!"

"All of you, go and rest."

"As you command!"

Xu Buling's head ached, but his face broke into a bright, clear smile:

"Aunt Lu."

Madame Lu stepped onto the little boat and lifted a hand to open the food box. Inside was a dish of longans:

"Buling, when you came to the capital last year you were foully ambushed and poisoned, but you can't just give up on yourself. Longans dispel cold poison—better than liquor does. These were meant for His Majesty; I asked the Empress Dowager for them specially. Try one."

When Xu Buling arrived, he'd been ambushed and poisoned, and of his heaven-reaching martial arts, less than a tenth remained. Only liquor could press the cold poison down. The court had been investigating the matter all along, and had gotten nowhere.

Faced with Madame Lu's concern, Xu Buling smiled and opened his mouth to take the longan:

"I'm not giving up on myself. I was ambushed at the Wei River and I've got less than a tenth of my martial arts left. Nobody's found the killer yet, and you told me to play the fool—well, I've got to find something to do, don't I?"

Madame Lu went on peeling longans. "When I told you to play the fool, I didn't mean for you to hide yourself away. Have you ever seen a lad of seventeen or eighteen sit by a lake all day fishing like a hermit?"

Xu Buling picked up a longan, peeled it, and held it to Madame Lu's lips:

"All right, Aunt Lu. Tomorrow I'll go back to the Imperial College and study, and at night I'll take my lackeys out to harass respectable women."

Madame Lu looked a little cross. "Nonsense. You're not some rich bumpkin's idiot son—what respectable women would you harass? Feigning stupidity and dirtying your own name is a profound art; even a wastrel needs a bit of class... mmm... for instance, buy a fine horse just to eat it, buy a scroll of calligraphy and burn it for warmth—do things like burning a zither for firewood and boiling a crane for soup. Never a big mistake, always small ones, enough to make people furious and yet unable to do a thing about you..."

On and on she chattered.

Xu Buling nodded earnestly. "All right, all right, I know."

Only then was Madame Lu satisfied. She added softly, "Whatever you do, don't go making your own decisions and acting rashly. Just be your carefree, philandering heir and nothing more. With your standing, any outrageous thing you do doesn't matter—but if you draw His Majesty's suspicion, that's ruin beyond recovery."

Xu Buling nodded slightly and smiled a little.

In all of Chang'an, Madame Lu was probably the only one who genuinely wished Xu Buling well.

Xu Buling had kept dodging Madame Lu, but he knew well enough who truly cared.

Still, her plan—that he play the fool, dirty his own name, and earnestly be a good-for-nothing wastrel with no ambition and a swagger to him—was, frankly, a tall order.

I've been pushed into pulling myself together plenty of times, but being pushed into being a spoiled rich brat—what kind of deal is that?

The poison in Xu Buling's body was still uncured; he could drop dead at any moment. That was the first order of business. But if he ignored what Madame Lu said, she could wear a man down to nothing.

After watching Madame Lu out of sight, Xu Buling had lost his taste for fishing. He packed up and went back to Prince Su's residence.

Compared with the neighboring mansions on Kuishou Street, ablaze with lanterns, Prince Su's residence looked rather bleak.

The residence was a mansion the court had bestowed on the Xu family. The Xus spent their years in Xiliang and it mostly stood empty: eight guards, plus Xu Buling and the old servant—ten people in all.

As for pretty maidservants, Madame Lu guarded against them so fiercely, terrified Xu Buling would be ruined by some unscrupulous girl, that even the cooks were men.

All in all, Xu Buling's life as an heir was a little pitiful.

Snow was falling through the winter air. Xu Buling passed along the corridors and across the courtyards to the study, and raised his eyes and saw an old family retainer sitting on the steps outside the door.

The retainer was called Old Xiao, and he was Xu Buling's guard. The year before, when the assassins struck by the Wei River, it was Old Xiao who'd fought to the death and gotten Xu Buling out alive.

Just now Old Xiao had his crutch laid across his knees and his servant's cap askew, licking his finger and leafing through an illustrated album—by moonlight, the characters "Spring Palace, Jade Tree" were just barely visible.

"Ahem—"

"Oh-ho~ The young prince is back! A rare guest, indeed!"

The old retainer flipped his palm, stuffed the album into his sleeve, and hobbled up on his crutch with an ingratiating smile:

"I told you so, young prince, you can't hide from her. Madame Lu's a widow with nothing to do at home; she watches your every move. Three days without a sight of you and she'll have the Imperial Guard turn the city upside down. You'd best just stay put at the Imperial College and study."

"Get to the point."

Xu Buling picked up his liquor gourd and took a swig. Stuck with such a capable aunt, he felt the bitter wine go down his throat and ache in his heart.

Old Xiao hobbled along beside him on his crutch and said with a light laugh, "Young prince, the 'Dragon-Locking Gu' you took is a poison gu that came out of Miaojiang. A few days ago I heard some wandering Jianghu occultists say that ten years back, when the Investigation Bureau was rooting out the Jianghu clans, the 'Dragon-Locking Gu' turned up. The Investigation Bureau may know something..."

Because Great Yue rose to power through the martial arts, its people trained in the martial arts in great numbers. There's a saying: "martial heroes use their fists to defy the law." Too many Jianghu folk who wouldn't bow to discipline were naturally a hindrance to those who held power.

Ten years ago, when the new emperor took the throne, he sent heavy troops to clear out the unruly elements of the Jianghu. The Investigation Bureau was founded then, made specifically for that work—and incidentally for keeping watch over the various princes and nobles. Fierce as wolves and tigers, they were called the Wolf Guards.

That the Investigation Bureau would know something about the Dragon-Locking Gu didn't surprise Xu Buling. He turned his head and asked Old Xiao:

"Is there any way to get someone inside the Investigation Bureau?"

Old Xiao shook his head. "The Investigation Bureau has too much power. Year in and year out they watch every prince and every great clan—our Prince Su included. I doubt we could get in."

Xu Buling frowned. "Not even by cultivating a mole?"

Old Xiao rubbed the arm of his crutch. "That, of course, can be done... A few new Wolf Guards came into the Bureau's Earth-Dog Camp. One of them's a young girl, only sixteen. I've watched her a few days—she's simple-hearted... A few days ago I let word slip to the girl. She ought to go and look into the Fulai Tavern in Daye Ward. The Fulai Tavern has backing that's none too safe to cross; the girl's bound to come off badly. We just wait for the rabbit to come to us."

"How hard is the Fulai Tavern's backing?"

"No idea. Not as hard as you, young prince, anyway."

Xu Buling nodded, took his sword, and went out.

In the year since he'd come to this world, Xu Buling had never been out of the city, but he'd gotten to know Chang'an fairly well.

Each of the one hundred and eight wards had its own ward chief. Apart from the regular Imperial Guard, three Wolf Guards were posted to each ward. There was no night curfew, and it was common for the busy wards to sing and make merry until dawn.

Daye Ward lay close to the imperial city, its brothels, teahouses, cloth shops, and jewelers packed row upon row—one of Chang'an's famous money pits. At the Dragon's Roar Pavilion on Top Scholar Street, they even said, "In walks a rich man's son; out he goes with two empty sleeves."

Xu Buling rode through the jostling crowds of Daye Ward to the back street, and raised his eyes and saw a female constable sitting at a tea stall outside a tavern.

She wore the standard black uniform with a token at her waist and a goose-quill saber laid on the table—the standard Wolf Guard getup. Her big eyes were bright and alert, her hair bound in a headscarf; by her face she looked fifteen or sixteen, with an impressive figure and a fresh, pretty look about her.

"Young prince, that's the girl."

Old Xiao leaned on his crutch, studying the female Wolf Guard in the tavern in the distance, and muttered seriously:

"I looked into her these past days. Surname Zhu, given name Manzhi, from somewhere along the Fen River. Born in the marketplace; after her parents went missing she took up as a constable, and last month she was transferred to the capital."

Xu Buling studied her a few moments and knit his brows. "A greenhorn like that—how long do we have to groom her before she can get into the Records Vault and read the case files?"

Old Xiao thought it over. "The Records Vault is a vital place—Bureau people can't just walk in either. Three thousand Wolf Guards, split into one hundred and eight units named for the Heavenly Spirits and Earthly Fiends. Only the Heaven-marked Wolf Guards may enter the Records Vault..."

"...But constable work is, in the end, about catching thieves. Big merit, big skill, and she'll be promoted into the Heaven Camp ahead of schedule soon enough."

"How big a merit?"

"The Investigation Bureau posts bounties on Jianghu toughs. Catch at least a few with bounties of a thousand taels or more, slip the chief official a little silver to smooth things along, and that should about do it."

Xu Buling nodded and settled in to wait quietly near the tea stall with his sword in his arms, while Old Xiao passed himself off as a storyteller and spun nonsense.

What came next was, naturally, that old tired script—the female constable gets into trouble, and Heir Xu saves the beauty like a hero, and incidentally swaggers about and finishes the task Madame Lu handed him...