I traveled back to the Southern Song Dynasty and was actually outmaneuvered by Yue Fei.

Chapter 010: List

The spearhead pierced through the gray-clad man's left chest, and blood dripped down onto the bluestone slab.

The man in gray lowered his head and looked at his chest, a strange expression on his face, as if something he couldn't understand was happening inside him, and he was trying to figure it out.

The tip of the spear twisted and was pulled back.

The gray-clad man's body trembled as the spear tip rotated, his lips parted as if he wanted to say something, but his body swayed and leaned forward.

Knees should land first, followed by the entire upper body.

When he fell, Zhao Bozong saw the person standing behind him.

Yue Yinping.

She held a long spear. The shaft was straight, and the tassel was worn down to just a few dark red threads, hanging sparsely below the tip. Her face was expressionless.

The man in gray lay on the ground, his fingers still moving as if trying to grab something, then he stopped.

Zhao Bozong leaned against the dead wall, his knees trembling.

Yue Yinping wiped the tip of her spear on the gray-clad man's clothes, then walked up to Zhao Bocong, leaned the spear against the wall, and squatted down.

"hand."

Zhao Bozong looked down at her hand. Her right palm was pierced by the broken end of the stick. Only now, when she asked, did the pain spread from her palm.

Yue Yinping tore off a corner of the mourning clothes, grabbed his hand, pinched the end of the splinter with her thumb and forefinger, and pulled it out.

Zhao Bozong frowned slightly but remained silent.

She threw the splinter on the ground, wrapped a strip of cloth around his palm, tied a knot at the end of the cloth, and pressed it with the back of her hand to make sure it wouldn't come loose.

"The hand holding the gun must not be injured."

Zhao Bozong looked at her. Her eyelashes drooped, with a tiny snowflake clinging to them, slowly melting into water.

He suddenly realized that this was the first time he had seen her at such close range.

In her cell at Dali Temple, Yue Yinping sat in the corner, the light coming through the window only enough to illuminate half of her face.

She stood in the middle of the crowd at the entrance of Dali Temple. Through hundreds of heads, he could only see the hem of her mourning clothes and the marks from the shackles on her wrists.

She was probably fifteen or sixteen years old. Historical records do not mention Yue Yinping's birth year, and her age at the time of Yue Fei's death is a blank.

Zhao Bozong stared at her face, trying to find Yue Fei's shadow in it.

Historical records describe Yue Fei's appearance as "possessing superhuman strength, able to draw a 300-jin bow before reaching adulthood," "having piercing eyes," and "being loyal to the country even after being stabbed in the back."

No one has recorded what shape Yue Fei's eyes were, whether his nose was high or low, or whether the corners of his mouth turned to the left or right when he smiled.

He looked for a long time but couldn't find the answer; she was just herself.

Yue Yinping looked up, and their eyes met. She didn't look away.

"If you really retrieved the wooden bird," she said, "and really put the evidence in the coffin—then you're not Qin Hui's man, you're the one my father chose."

Zhao Bozong didn't speak. He lowered his head and looked at the bloodstains on the strip of cloth wrapped in his palm. Suddenly, he thought of how Yue Fei had cut a piece of paper in half and written two letters the night before he left for Fengbo Pavilion.

One letter was for his daughter, and another was for a boy he had only seen once.

He didn't know if the boy would come, whether the boy would help his daughter, or even if the boy would live to adulthood.

But he still wrote it. Because he had done all the arrangements he could, and then waited.

He waited for someone he had only seen once to walk into the prison cell of the Dali Temple nine years later and see that letter.

"Your father... doesn't recognize me." Zhao Bozong's voice was hoarse. "Nine years ago, he came to see me, but only glanced at me. How did he know I would come?"

Yue Yinping did not answer the question. She picked up the gun from the wall and planted it on the ground with the tip pointing downwards.

The gun barrel was stained with the gray-clad man's blood, which was seeping down the wood grain, staining the barrel with alternating light and dark colors.

"After my father met you in Shaoxing two years ago, he came back and said something to my mother."

She paused, then said, "He said: 'This young man has a clear and upright gaze, and possesses the qualities of a benevolent ruler. After my death, this young man will surely clear my name.'"

"Just one glance?"

"Yes, just one glance."

Zhao Bozong's back left the wall of death. He straightened up, his right hand wrapped with a strip of cloth, and his left hand, tucked into his sleeve, touched the wooden bird's wing.

"On the list," Zhao Bozong said, "there are still twenty-two people."

Yue Yinping's fingers tightened on the gun barrel.

Do you want to know who they are?

The draft in the alley had stopped. The gray-clad man's body lay on the bluestone slab, blood seeping from two wounds on his chest and back, pooling on the slab, the edges slowly congealing. Zhao Bozong stared at the pool of blood.

"I want to know," he said.

Yue Yinping took out the paper from the lining of her mourning clothes and unfolded it. The paper was very thin, and the dense writing was visible through the dim light of the alley.

Index of evidence—every letter from Qin Hui's collusion with the Jin dynasty in the eighth, ninth, and tenth years of the Shaoxing reign: when it was written, to whom it was written, what its contents were, and where the originals are hidden.

Zhao Bocong had already seen the index; it was inside the wooden bird, under the candlelight, but Yue Yinping turned the paper over.

The list is on the back.

Twenty-two names. Not twenty-three. The first name—Zhao Bocong—has already been removed from the list.

But that's not all.

The vast majority of the twenty-two names on the list were crossed out with thick ink.

It wasn't the kind of light ink that Zhou Sanwei used. No matter how thickly the light ink was applied, you could still vaguely see the outline of the strokes when you brought it close to the candlelight. Each radical and component had a half-open door.

The names in front of me were neatly and cleanly covered up, with a single stroke of thick ink covering the entire name on the paper, so that even the edges of the strokes could not be found.

He returned the list to Yue Yinping. "Who painted it?"

"Zhou Sanwei." Yue Yinping folded the list and stuffed it back into the compartment. "He said that Qin Hui's men would find this list sooner or later. The light ink wasn't enough; it had to be completely covered up. But he left something for you."

"What is it?"

"The original list. The one with the light ink is a copy. He didn't erase the original; he broke it into three parts and gave each part to three different people. Each part only has a portion of the names on it. That way, even if Qin Hui got one of the parts, he wouldn't be able to piece together the complete list."

"Where are those three original documents?"

"The first copy is in Zhijia's hands, and the second copy is in Zhu Fu's hands."

She paused. "The third one—Zhou Sanwei didn't give it to anyone. He hid the third one in a secret location within the Dali Temple. That list will be given to you personally by himself—or his successor—when the time is right."

Zhao Bocong remained silent for a long time. Zhou Sanwei split the original list into three copies, altered the copies with light ink, and left them as bait for Qin Hui.

Before he died, he changed the light ink to dark ink and erased the last recognizable trace on the copy.

"How many names are on the list that Zhijia has?"

"Eight people, from the intelligence network. Tea shop owners, dockworkers, cooks—people you haven't met yet."

What about Zhu Fu's share?

"Eight people, all from the military. Niu Gao, Li Bao, Dong Xian, Sun Yan—those you've heard of but haven't met yet."

"What about the portion from the Dali Temple?"

Yue Yinping fell silent. The breeze through the alley began to flow again, causing the hem of her gray-blue dress to sway slightly.

"Six. The one from the Dali Temple is from the imperial court. Feng Yi, Zhang Quwei, and four others. Zhou Sanwei didn't tell anyone."

He said the four men were in extremely dangerous positions—some were hiding beside Qin Hui, others were hidden within the Imperial Guards, and only you could find their names.

Zhao Bozong lowered his head and looked at the strip of cloth wrapped around the palm of his right hand.

All he knows now are the few names on Zhou Sanwei's copy that have been covered up with light ink, and even then, only a handful are recognizable to the light ink.

The rest of the names were covered up with thick ink, and the original documents were scattered in three places. The copy from the Dali Temple was still in a place he didn't know, waiting for "the time to come" for Jiang Shixiong or Li Yanxian to hand it to him personally.

"Why did you run away when you were on horseback?" Yue Yinping asked.

Zhao Bocong looked away from the strip of cloth. "The sound of the Imperial Guards' hooves is too synchronized."