A lean man wearing a pointed hat and white boots walked toward the front while turning back to say warmly: “Considering your physical condition, I’ve arranged a single room for you. It was previously used to store sundries, but we’ve tidied it up, so it’s reasonably clean.”
Halting before a door, he pushed it open.
The moment the door cracked ajar, a cloud of dust billowed out from within.
Stepping back a pace, the man laughed self-deprecatingly: “Those little bastards must have been slacking off again. Never mind, you can tidy it up yourself in a bit.”
Xie Zi’an stood behind him in silence.
Having spent a total of sixty-seven days recovering at the Grand Princess’s residence, his body was still far from fully healed. However, now that the Eastern Depot had come to claim personnel, he had no choice but to move into the yamen’s main compound.
Throwing the door wide open, the man stepped inside, set down the bundle Xie Zi’an had brought from the Princess’s estate, brushed the dust from his hands, and turned back to smile at Xie Zi’an: “From now on, once you’re here, we’re all family. I live with the other brothers in the front courtyard, so if you need anything, just come find me. My name is Li Jiang, also an Eastern Depot operative. You can just call me Brother Jiang.”
This man possessed a pair of inverted triangular eyes with an excess of white showing, and his appearance hardly suggested a man of upright character. Yet he was easily the most enthusiastic person Xie Zi’an had encountered since transmigrating into the book.
Something about him felt vaguely off to Xie Zi’an, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Noticing Xie Zi’an still standing mute, Li Jiang walked over and lightly clapped him on the shoulder: “I can tell you’re a man of few words, but that’s actually a good thing. Talking too much usually just invites trouble.”
“Since you’re new here, there are a few things I need to make clear for you. We’re all Eastern Depot operatives. My duties lie in criminal investigation and detective work, serving within the depot prison, which is also known as the ‘Dim Sum House.’ As the name implies, the prisoners inside are essentially our ‘dim sum.'” At this, Li Jiang chuckled twice.
“Shifts at the Dim Sum House are split into internal and external duties. Internal duty handles criminal investigation, while external duty is responsible for apprehension. That doesn’t really concern you, so you don’t need to get bogged down in the details. Your job is looking after the tribute offerings, serving within the Imperial Storehouse (Guangchu Si).”
“Though we won’t be stationed in the same place, we’re both under Squad Leader Song. You must bow and offer respectful greetings whenever you run into Squad Leader Song. The Squad Leader is the highest authority here after all, we never get to see anyone higher up anyway so offending anyone is fine, but you must never offend the Squad Leader. There are four Squad Leaders in the Eastern Depot, and every single one of them is highly skilled in martial arts with tricks of the trade up their sleeves.”
“Squad Leader Song and I are brothers, so if you run into any difficult situations, just come find me. Most of the hundred men under Squad Leader Song’s command live right here in this yamen courtyard, while those with families in Yecheng live outside. Not a single one of them doesn’t know me, so if you need to find me, just ask anyone.”
Xie Zi’an murmured a soft assent. Raising his hand to pat Xie Zi’an’s shoulder once more, Li Jiang said: “Get some rest today. Tomorrow, I’ll take you over to the Imperial Storehouse, and someone will fill you in on your duties there.”
“My word, the dust is real,” Li Jiang muttered, circling the room once more. “What terrible timing, I’ve got business at the prison side today and have to head out. We just caught a prisoner waiting for me to interrogate, otherwise I’d stay and help you clean up. How about this: I’ll come check on you later tonight once I’m done.”
Xie Zi’an gave another soft grunt of assent.
Smiling, Li Jiang pulled the door shut behind him and departed.
Whether it was merely Xie Zi’an’s imagination or an actual occurrence, Li Jiang had deliberately kneaded his shoulder both times he patted him.
Straightening the creases on his shoulder, Xie Zi’an turned his head to survey the dust-choked room.
Tiny and filthy though it was, it was nevertheless a private room.
The luxury of a single room was something Xie Zi’an had never anticipated.
A distinctly ominous premonition now bloomed within him.
Ordinarily, ominous premonitions stem from minute, trivial details in reality. As the saying goes, by observing a single leopard spot, one can picture the entire beast. Furthermore, Xie Zi’an’s instincts regarding danger had always proved unerringly accurate.
Back in the business world, even the slightest anomaly in market data allowed him to keenly detect financial loopholes and policy shifts.
Yet even if he could foresee impending misfortune, he possessed zero capability to alter it at the moment.
After all, he was no longer an executive at a financial conglomerate, nor was he the private assistant to a prominent multinational CEO. He was currently a nobody, left with no choice but to let the storm buffet his face and then scramble for whatever makeshift countermeasure he could devise.
Before the storm broke, however, routine must proceed as usual.
The first order of business: tidying up the room.
Clenching his teeth, Xie Zi’an used his left arm to slowly drag the wooden chest blocking the bed. Beads of cold sweat saturated his inner garments instantly.
He lived in constant dread of inadvertently tearing the muscles in his right arm.
Though his right arm had healed considerably under the care of the palace’s divine physician, Lu Bingqiu’s savage dragging during his palace entry had reopened the wound, snapping the ligaments in his right arm once more and leaving it permanently incapable of heavy labor, right down to rendering his right hand useless for writing.
Even without movement, the right hand still retained a slight, involuntary tremor.
Xie Zi’an glanced down at the hideous scar marring the back of his right hand the mark left behind when Lu Bingqiu’s blade had pierced clean through it.
To someone who had crawled back from the gates of death time and again, these injuries were trivial.
He was profoundly grateful simply to have survived. If his right hand could no longer write, he would simply switch to his left; given time, he could master it. Just as he had relied on sheer, unyielding grit to climb from absolute destitution to the pinnacle of the financial pyramid in his past life, starting over from scratch was nothing more than a rerun. He intended not only to survive in this wretched place, but to carve out a dignified human existence.
Pushting open the window lattice, Xie Zi’an let the incoming sunlight instantly illuminate the gloomy interior.
With his body far from fully recovered, it took him roughly three solid hours to render the small room barely habitable.
He was just about to apply fresh salve to his arm when the door was violently kicked open.
Bam! a burly man built like a bear hunched his shoulders as he strode inside. The moment he entered, the newly tidied room instantly felt cramped.
“You Xie Zi’an?” He swept his gaze around the room before finally fixing his eyes upon Xie Zi’an.
Puzzled, Xie Zi’an nodded, his left hand instinctively sliding toward the concealed dagger tucked inside his sleeve.
He had begged Ah Nan to help him steal this dagger from the Grand Princess’s armory.
“Someone on the Third Prince’s side asked me to give you a message. Tomorrow is the Third Prince’s birthday banquet, being held at Yizui Fanghua at noon. The Third Prince specifically named you—you must go whether you want to or not.”
“The Third Prince has already squared things away with the Eastern Depot. You’ve been granted a day off tomorrow, and the Third Prince will send someone to pick you up.”
Xie Zi’an froze.
The man at the door appeared to harbor utter revulsion for the place. Turning on his heel to leave, he muttered under his breath: “What a godforsaken, thoroughly repulsive dump.”
What did that remark imply?
Xie Zi’an wanted to call out and ask, but the man had already vanished into thin air, leaving him no one to question.
Releasing his grip on the dagger hidden in his sleeve, Xie Zi’an recalled how the original book portrayed Third Prince Zhu Ying.
As the protagonist Gong, Zhu Ying possessed an enduring, highly calculated nature, stopping at nothing to secure whatever he desired. One might describe him as both unhinged and black-bellied; to seize the dragon throne, he utilized everyone around him, and upon securing supreme power, he used that very authority to imprison the object of his affection within his embrace.
Meanwhile, the protagonist Shou’s personality stood in direct contrast: possessing mild cunning yet lacking true depth, resembling an attractive and easily edible little white rabbit leaving him perpetually manipulated and deployed by the protagonist Gong.
While such contrasting character dynamics might read as thrilling within the pages of a novel, experiencing them firsthand was an entirely different matter.
Every step Xie Zi’an took in dealing with Zhu Ying would be fraught with extreme peril.
Regarding the ledgers, he had dragged Zhao Chengxiao through the mud; Li Hanchi harbored resentment, and Zhu Ying was equally seething.
Though the Empress Dowager and the Emperor had temporarily let him off, Zhu Ying was hardly foolish enough to make a direct move against him right now yet that didn’t stop Zhu Ying from employing other methods.
For the dignified Third Prince of Great Jin to hold his birthday banquet not within the palace walls, but at a pleasure quarter in Yecheng, while specifically summoning a fallen official’s son what hidden agenda could possibly lurk behind this?
Xie Zi’an struggled to decode Zhu Ying’s motives, but one fact remained crystal clear: Li Hanchi was guaranteed to be present at tomorrow’s banquet!
This wasn’t a case of enemies crossing paths by chance; someone had deliberately narrowed the road.
The right hand resting upon Xie Zi’an’s lap began to tremble involuntarily once more.
Within the original book, Zhu Ying and Li Hanchi were notorious adversaries.
When two wolves fought, one was bound to bleed.
Zhu Ying’s game was far more elaborate than merely exacting revenge on Zhao Chengxiao’s behalf. His gaze remained perpetually fixed on greed and ambition, entirely devoid of genuine romance.
Zhu Ying intended to use Xie Zi’an as an instrument to strike at Li Hanchi.
At tomorrow’s birthday banquet, as long as Li Hanchi inflicted injury upon him, Li Hanchi would instantly find himself thrust into the crosshairs of violating the imperial decrees of both the Empress Dowager and the Emperor.
That was Zhu Ying’s true endgame.
“Zi’an, what are you daydreaming about?” Li Jiang walked in carrying an oil-paper package. “You didn’t even lock the door.”
“Oh, by the way—you managed to clean this place up nicely. You’ve been busy tidying up all day and probably haven’t eaten, right? I picked up some food from Chunhua Street while it’s still hot. Dig in; look how thin you’ve gotten—you’re nothing but skin and bones.”
Lacking a table in the room, Li Jiang placed the paper package atop the wooden chest.
Attempting to slide the chest closer to the center, he grabbed hold of it to shift its position. As he dragged it, the aged wooden chest emitted a sharp creak!, and because it was already rotting with age, the forceful tug caused a section of the wood to splinter inward.
Li Jiang appeared to catch sight of something. Anxious to prevent Xie Zi’an from noticing, he hurriedly threw his body forward to block Xie Zi’an’s line of sight, frantically shoving something protruding from the chest back inside.
“Ah, this chest has seen better days. Go on and eat, Zi’an.”
Li Jiang moved swiftly, but Xie Zi’an had already seen it clearly: a scrap of blood-stained fabric.
The man who delivered the message earlier had muttered, “What a godforsaken, thoroughly repulsive dump.”
At the time, Xie Zi’an had wondered why he would say such a thing, but the man had moved too fast, and even had he asked, he wouldn’t necessarily have received an honest answer.
By now, however, he was certain Li Jiang had lied to him. This room had never been used to store sundries or if it had, it served another, far darker purpose.
Stepping down from the kang bed, Xie Zi’an fixed a cold, piercing stare upon Li Jiang.
Oblivious to the subtle shift in Xie Zi’an’s demeanor, Li Jiang produced a small wooden stool, pulling a broad grin: “I know you’re used to living like royalty, but things aren’t like before, so you’ll just have to make do.”
Li Jiang had purchased pork and cabbage-stuffed steamed buns, each the size of a fist. The outer dough was so soft that the mere pressure of a fingertip left a deep indentation.
Taking a bite released an immediate burst of savory meat juices across the tongue, the rich aroma spreading instantly through the mouth.
Xie Zi’an ate with extreme deliberation, nibbling like a cat, taking tiny, measured bites.
His slender, pale fingers delicately pinched the edge of the bun, ensuring not a single drop of grease splattered or smeared against the corners of his mouth.
Swallowing hard, Li Jiang stared with glazed, infatuated eyes: “As expected of someone born to a wealthy estate even eating a steamed bun looks this refined.”
Abruptly raising his eyes, Xie Zi’an asked in a chilling deadpan: “Brother Jiang, won’t you eat?”
“No, no, I won’t. Watching you eat is enough.” Frantically wiping a trail of drool from his chin with his sleeve, Li Jiang urged, “Is it good? If you like it, brother will buy you more next time.”
Setting down the half-eaten bun, Xie Zi’an’s expression turned frigid: “I’m full.”
“My word, you eat like a bird. That little bit is already filling?”
Rubbing his hands together with a greasy, leering smile that could no longer be contained, Li Jiang pounced: “Well, since you’re full, it’s time brother gets his fill.”
Xie Zi’an smiled: “Is that so?”
A chilling, razor-sharp dagger was already silently pressed against Li Jiang’s lower abdomen.
Li Jiang’s hand, stretched out toward Xie Zi’an, froze dead in midair. Stunned for a long moment, he finally lowered his gaze to look at the blade resting against his stomach.
“Will you eat?”
Perched atop the eaves of the Grand Princess’s residence, a young child stared fixedly without blinking toward the direction of the Eastern Depot yamen.
The sunset slowly dipped below the distant horizon, the evening clouds blazing like fire.
“What’s wrong? Missing him?” A woman materialized silently behind the child.
The child offered no reply.
“His enemies are far too numerous. You’re better off staying right here in the Princess’s estate,” the woman murmured gently.
A stray gust of wind swept past, gently parting the hair across the woman’s cheek to reveal a jagged scar.
“If one day he proves his own worth, I will consider letting you follow him.”
Hearing this, the child lifted his head, blinking wide, luminous eyes with absolute conviction: “He will.”