Elder Yan was dead.
The man who in his youth had stormed Mount Taiheng alone and shaken both banks of the Great River; who had swatted down the Southern Sea Twin Swords with such ease only hours before; the secret master the emperor himself had sent to guard him — dead, just like that.
Wang Yu's mouth twitched. A master of that order, snuffed out that carelessly. Wasn't this world a little too dangerous?
With a rush of noise, the whole hall broke into commotion.
An ordinary jianghu killing, the customers would have happily stayed to watch. But poison was different — poison could spill onto anyone.
Customers lurched to their feet. The ten guards drew their sabers as one behind Song Yong, glaring outward like cornered tigers.
Only Li Yunxiu remained still. She looked at Elder Yan's body, then at the waiter — shaking so hard he could barely keep his feet. "Take me to where the tea is kept in the back kitchen."
Her voice seemed to lend the man strength. He nodded and nodded, turned, and led the way.
"Your Highness?" Song Yong looked to her.
She waved him down. "The moment we failed to drink those three bowls, the poisoner was done staying to watch."
Song Yong flicked a hand, and the guards sheathed their blades.
Li Yunxiu followed the waiter into the kitchen, Wang Yu and Ziling behind her.
It was an ordinary kitchen. The head cook was still working the stoves. A kitchen hand had just carried the cut meat over to the stove-side, poured himself a bowl of cool tea, and was drinking it at his leisure.
His face, too, had turned black-blue.
"You... you..." The waiter's finger shook at him; the words wouldn't come.
"Me what?" the kitchen hand managed. "And what are you doing bringing a customer into..."
He never finished either. His eyes rolled dark, and he dropped.
Li Yunxiu walked cold-faced to the iron cauldron where the cool tea sat, bent to smell it lightly, and sighed — half in vexation, half in relief.
"To the carriage. We move!"
***
One of the guards took over the reins, and the whole party pressed on with empty stomachs.
One guard did try to buy a few steamed buns from the shop beside the cookhouse. Li Yunxiu took the buns from him and tossed them to a stray dog by the road.
The dog got out a single yelp before it collapsed, convulsed, and died. After that, nobody said anything.
"This is a man who calculates people," Li Yunxiu said, her voice low. "He reasoned that we wouldn't dare go on eating at the cookhouse — and that coming out hungry, we might well buy buns from the shop next door."
"And if we simply found another cookhouse?" Ziling asked.
"Then perhaps that one's food is already poisoned too," Li Yunxiu said evenly.
"But — then couldn't we find him there?"
"He is always one step ahead of us. How would we ever find him?"
"Who is he? How can he be this good?"
"Who he is, I don't know. But I do know he is not as good as he looks."
"Eh?"
"The world has no shortage of poisoners. The ones who have carried the art to its summit are very few."
Li Yunxiu was teaching Wang Yu as much as answering her maid. "Poisons of metal and mineral, poisons of living things — they carry a color, or a stray odor. Slipped into food or drink, they can be caught by anyone who pays attention. That is why most poisoners paint their blades and darts instead.
Only a poison refined truly colorless and scentless can ride in food and drink and kill a real master without a whisper."
"And his doesn't qualify?" Wang Yu asked.
"Of course not. His poison carries a thread of sweetness. Red dates in the cool tea, the wheat smell in a bun — he needed those to bury the taste. That is how he fooled even Elder Yan."
Here she looked at Wang Yu, something unreadable in her eyes. "If not for you, I might not have caught it either."
The town was a busy one, and they had chosen the cookhouse at random. Even Li Yunxiu had not imagined anyone could poison the tea in the short window before they walked in.
That thread of sweetness was not quite date-sweetness — but with nothing to rouse her suspicion beforehand, whether she would have noticed in time, she honestly could not swear.
Ziling patted her chest in lingering fright — producing not the least ripple. "Come to think of it, you saved us all!"
"In that case, how about you two— ahem." Wang Yu nodded gravely. "A flaw known is a flaw guarded. From today, no more sweets for anyone. Better for the health anyway — it's never too early to take up clean living."
Li Yunxiu ignored the wisecrack and went on working the problem. "His poison has a flaw, and still he put it in food and drink. Which means he doesn't dare face us directly."
"His martial arts are no good!" Ziling supplied.
"But his lightness arts are not weak," Li Yunxiu said. "Or he could never have gotten ahead of us to lay the poison — without touching a single customer who came before us."
"And he is impatient. He refuses to give us one breath of rest." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "That is why he poisoned the bun shop as well, instead of waiting for a better opening."
Wang Yu listened in silence as the woman Top Scholar worked.
"His lightness arts are good enough to slip ahead of us and poison without a sound. Likely he can disguise his face as well — no one around him will notice a thing. We will never pick him out of a crowd.
A thief can try a thousand nights; no house can stand guard a thousand nights. It is a long road yet to Longshan Prefecture, and there may be more killers waiting on it. We don't have the time to grind against him."
Her eyes flickered; then she had Ziling lift the curtain, and spoke to the front. "Squad Leader Song — we change roads here. Off the post road. Find the small paths and follow those."
Song Yong wheeled his horse at once and led the carriage and column onto a side track.
***
The sun slid west, slanting through the ragged gaps of the canopy and laying a coat of gold across the world.
A breeze passed; leaves rustled; fallen leaves carpeted the ground. Hoofbeats broke through the insect-song and birdcall, followed by a chain of footsteps — a column of travelers intruding on all that quiet.
"Your Highnesses — a small farmstead ahead." Song Yong reined up to report.
Ziling lifted the curtain, and Wang Yu and Li Yunxiu both saw the so-called farmstead: no wall, only a waist-high wattle fence ringing three small buildings, one main house and two flanking rooms. From the yard came the tock, tock of wood being split, and a small child's laughter.
Li Yunxiu read the sky. "I'll go pay our respects to the owner. We'll make do here for the night. Camp outside the fence — do not alarm them."
"Yes!" Song Yong answered, swinging down from the saddle.
The three of them stepped down from the carriage and knocked at a wooden gate that blocked no one's view of anything.
The farmstead's owners had long since seen them coming — an old woodcutter, and a little boy with his hair tied up in a sky-facing braid. The boy ducked behind the half-built stove in the yard. The old woodcutter set down his hatchet and came to open the gate. "And who might you folks be?"
"Good evening, elder." Li Yunxiu gave a slight bow. "We took a wrong road and lost our lodging for the night. Might we impose on you until morning? Rest easy — our people will all stay outside the fence and won't disturb you. We leave at daybreak, and there will be a gratuity for your trouble."
The old woodcutter scratched his head. "What's a gratuity?"
Ziling translated. "A thank-you gift. Five taels of silver."
The old man's face split into a grin, and he waved his hands and hurried them inside. "Come in, come in, honored guests! Everyone has it hard on the road. I'll clear out the main house for you in a bit — it's a poor, rough place, so long as you don't hold it against us."
"You're too kind. A roof against the wind is more than enough." Li Yunxiu returned the courtesy as she entered.
Seeing his grandfather usher the strangers in, the little boy forgot his fear, came out from behind the stove, and stared at them with open curiosity.
In the yard, beside the half-built stove, lay piles of mud, straw fiber, and lime. The finished half of the stove still served: on the big fire-eye sat an iron pot, burbling away at something that trailed a genuinely appetizing smell.
The woodshed door stood open, stacked high with the old man's cordwood, fresh-split kindling scattered loose outside.
Against the side of the main house was a doghouse, a shadowy shape curled up inside; before it sat half a bowl of unfinished food.
Under the main house's eaves: a wooden hobby-horse, a rattle-drum, a wooden comb, and two very shabby cloth dolls.
The old woodcutter's tread was heavy, his legs none too sound. He had his grandson drag over some low stools and saw the guests seated, then ladled out bowls of thin congee and brought over a stack of dry griddle cakes baked earlier.
"You honored folk won't have had your dinner. It's only cured-pork congee — poor eating, but it fills the belly."
Ziling took the bowls and passed them to Wang Yu and Li Yunxiu.
Li Yunxiu lifted hers, breathed it in gently, took a small sip, and nodded her praise. "You are too modest, elder. This congee is delicious."
"So long as the honored lady likes it." The old man handed the boy a stack of cakes to carry out to the guards, and reaped a round of thanks.
As they ate, Li Yunxiu drew the old man into conversation, and soon had it out of him: his son and daughter-in-law had died in an accident, and he scraped a living cutting firewood, alone with his little grandson.
"You'd sell at Lujia Market, then — that's nearest?" she asked. "How is the firewood price these days? Enough to live on?"
"Lujia Market, that's right," the old man replied. "The court's spring ban is on — no cutting in the near hills — so deep-mountain wood like mine is selling well. A hundred catties brings five hundred coppers."
Li Yunxiu nodded, smiling. "That's not bad at all."
No one had eaten since morning, and hard cakes dipped in cured-pork congee vanished quickly; everyone ate their fill. If anything, it was the old man and the boy who each took only a small bowl and looked to be still hungry.
Ziling beckoned the boy over and dug a sweet out of her waist-pouch. "Walnut crisp, from Qiyun House in the capital. It's so good!"
The boy looked to his grandfather, took it with a word of thanks at the old man's nod, bit in — and his eyes went bright as lamps.
"Good?"
"So good!"
He nodded and nodded — then trotted to the stove, lifted a kettle down from the smaller fire-eye, filled three little bowls, and carried them over on a wooden tray.
"Grandpa boiled sugar-water for me. You drink it!"
"Thank you." Li Yunxiu received the sugar-water — then glanced at the old woodcutter. "We passed through Lujia Market just now..."
The sentence broke off mid-word as she moved. One hand locked the old man's wrist; the other flung the sugar-water, bowl and all, at the boy — then sealed the great acupoint at the old man's chest in the same motion.
The old woodcutter sagged slowly to the ground. The boy shrieked and sprang backward — light as a feather on his feet — but Ziling was already behind him, and dropped him with a single tap.
Li Yunxiu looked into the old man's shocked, furious eyes, and smiled.
"Caught you."