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

Chapter 017: When did you carve those words?

On the sixteenth day of the first month of the twelfth year of Shaoxing, Zhao Bocong moved out of the palace.

The Prince of Puan's Mansion was next to the Qin Mansion. The mansion's gate faced south, directly opposite a narrow alley, at the end of which was the Imperial Street.

From the gate of the mansion to the main gate of the Qin mansion, there were a total of forty-seven steps, which Zhao Bocong counted.

The moving party was short. Zhao Bozong had lived in the palace for nearly ten years, but he didn't have much to take with him.

The book box made up most of the space, there were only two clothes boxes, and the rest of the miscellaneous items were packed in a bamboo basket.

The soldiers who moved the house were chosen by Li Yanxian. They were all former members of the Third Division of the Left Wing of the Imperial Guard. They didn't speak while moving things, occasionally exchanging glances with something in their eyes that Zhao Bozong couldn't understand.

When the last oxcart was full, Zhao Bocong stood inside the palace gate and glanced back.

Zhao Gou did not come to see him off. After saying those things in the palace yesterday, Zhao Gou seemed to think that was enough.

I'm telling you all this because you'll be sitting in this position someday.

Now go, go to the neighborhood next to Qin Hui, and learn how to live under the hunter's nose.

The oxcart rumbled along the Imperial Street and soon arrived at the Prince Puan's Mansion. The gate was newly painted, and a plaque hung above the gate with the four characters "Prince Puan's Mansion" written by Zhao Gou himself. The characters were in gold, with rounded strokes that showed no sharpness.

Zhao Bocong dismounted and stood under the plaque, looking up at it for a while.

Qin Hui would pass by this plaque every day when he went out and returned home. The characters on the plaque were written by Zhao Gou, who hung them here so that Qin Hui would see them twice a day.

"Your Highness," Li Yanxian said, stepping out of the mansion gate and kneeling on one knee, "everything is arranged inside. I've left four people here, working in two shifts. They're all my own men."

Zhao Bozong nodded and walked into the mansion. The courtyard was not large, with blue bricks paving the ground, and a plum tree in each of the four corners, its bare branches stretching towards the sky.

The lattice doors of the main hall were open, revealing a desk, a round-backed chair, and an empty bookshelf.

Zhao Bozong walked to the desk and sat down. The desk surface was new, coated with a thin layer of lacquer, reflecting the shadows of plum branches outside the window.

The study in the Prince of Puan's mansion was not large. The book boxes that had been moved from the palace had been unsealed, and the classics, histories, philosophical works, and literary collections were being stacked on shelves.

He sat down at his desk, took the wooden bird out of his sleeve, and brought it close to the window paper. He had been examining the engravings on the inside ever since he returned from the Dali Temple the previous night.

I changed the angle of the wooden bird, letting the light shine obliquely on the inside of its wings. The marks left by the knife tip became fully visible in the oblique light.

Each stroke begins with a tiny backflip, the blade pauses slightly as it pierces the wood grain, then the force is applied, pushing to the right, and the blade flicks upward as it is finished. That is not Yue Fei's swordsmanship.

Zhao Bocong had seen Yue Fei's handwriting. The twelve characters inside the wax ball read: "Young friend Bocong: If you see the silver bottle one day, please believe her."

The structure is broad and spacious, the brushstrokes are steady and deliberate, the beginning of each stroke is concealed, and the ending stroke is returned to the starting point, with each stroke written with ease and composure.

The force and rhythm of Yue Fei's knife carving and brush writing are different, but the way they end is the same—the last stroke of the character "她" in "请信她" is a vertical hook that pauses for half a beat and then lifts, which blends with the cinnabar fingerprint pattern on the back of the wax ball.

I also observed his work habits: he exerts himself until the very last moment, then naturally stops, rather than abruptly ceasing.

But the carvings on the inside of the wooden bird are not like this.

Each cut inside has an upward flick at the end, as if the carver did not stop immediately after finishing a stroke, but let the tip of the knife slide forward a very small distance along the grain of the wood.

That wasn't a natural pause after exhaustion; it was an additional cut made after the carving was finished.

Yue Fei would not have added that final blow.

Yue Fei's calligraphy reads, "I have written this far, and my strength has been exhausted." Any more would be superfluous, and any less would be incomplete.

The person who added that cut was imitating. And she imitated it very well.

The structure, stroke thickness, and spacing of the characters when Yue Fei wrote "The sun shines brightly" are so well imitated that they are almost indistinguishable from the original.

But she couldn't imitate Yue Fei's way of sheathing his sword. Because the imitator copied the sample stroke by stroke, checking each stroke against the sample after finishing it, and adding a stroke if it wasn't right.

That final strike was the opening.

Zhao Bocong turned the wooden bird over. The outer edge was engraved with the inscription: "Bocong, my friend, the Northern Expedition awaits you." There was also a very small return stroke at the point where the knife was sheathed.

The inside and outside were carved by the same hand, the same person, the same knife, and in the same afternoon.

After she finished carving the inside, she turned the wooden bird over and carved the outside.

After she finished carving, she held the wooden bird in her palm and looked at it for a long time, probably even blowing away the wood shavings. Then she stuffed the wooden bird under the pillow in the Duke of Jianguo's mansion, left her bedroom, and knelt outside the Dali Temple for three days.

The door was pushed open.

Zhao Bozong didn't look up. Footsteps moved in from outside the threshold; the cloth shoes clattered almost silently on the blue bricks.

The hem of a gray-blue rushi (a type of traditional Chinese dress) swept in from the edge of the door frame, was blown up by the draft, and then fell back down.

She didn't leave. Or rather, she left and then came back.

Yue Yinping stood in the center of the study. She wore a gray-blue ruyi (a type of traditional Chinese dress), and she carried no gun; the spear was probably left on horseback.

Her right hand hung at her side, her fingers slightly curled. It was the posture she had been using for a long time, holding a gun; her fingers were used to that curve, and she couldn't relax them even when her hand was empty.

Zhao Bozong placed the wooden bird on the desk, with its head facing her.

"You carved the inside too."

"Yes," she said.

"You said the inner side is carved by Yue Fei with the words 'The sun shines brightly in the sky.'"

"I made it up."

Zhao Bocong's fingers stopped at the edge of the desk.

"My father didn't see you nine years ago." Yue Yinping's voice was very calm. "In the second year of Shaoxing, he was not in Lin'an, but in Xiangyang. At that time, the Yue Family Army had just recovered the six counties of Xiangyang, and he was reorganizing his troops in Xiangyang."

The day you were chosen to enter the palace, he was reviewing troops at the Xiangyang drill ground. I told him he went to see you, but that was a lie. I also told him he came back and told my mother that this young man had a clear and upright gaze, the appearance of a benevolent ruler, but that was also a lie.

She paused, looking out the window at the wind blowing through the plum branches.

"I need someone to help me, and you just happened to appear. You are a seventh-generation descendant of Emperor Taizu, an adopted son of the emperor, and live in the palace, which is closest to the Dali Temple."

I had Zhou Sanwei investigate your background. You entered the palace at the age of seven, and you had no one associated with Qin Hui.

Every day when you leave the palace, you go to the Imperial Street, to the teahouses, to the bookstores; no one follows you. You are the most suitable candidate.

"That's why I was targeted by the man in gray—"

"I deliberately made you the target." Yue Yinping's voice remained flat. "I knelt outside the Dali Temple for three days and used the secret signal for three days."

Kui Shun was being closely watched in the drainage ditch and was unable to move. I needed someone to distract Qin Hui's spies.

When you were standing in the crowd looking for someone, I glanced at you. The man in gray followed my gaze and found you.

From that moment on, you were no longer a young member of the royal family watching the spectacle; you were the one making contact with the daughter of a disgraced official.

Qin Hui will have you brought to the Dali Temple to interrogate me because Qin Hui believes you are one of my men.

"After I entered the Dali Temple, you told me there was evidence in the wooden bird. You told me to go back to my residence to retrieve the wooden bird—"

"At that time, the wooden bird was still empty." Yue Yinping's voice suddenly dropped a notch. "Three days ago, Zhou Sanwei went to the Duke of Jianguo's mansion, cut open the wooden bird's belly, and stuffed in evidence."

But instead of putting the wooden bird back under the pillow, he placed it under the mat and wrapped it in coarse linen.

Because he wasn't sure if you'd return. If you didn't, the wooden bird was safer hiding under the mat than under the pillow.

Zhao Bozong looked into Yue Yinping's eyes. "When did you carve those words?"