novelAbuy Chapter 073: Discovery
Chapter 073: Discovery
On the afternoon of December 25th, another light snow fell in Lin'an City.
The snow was light and melted as soon as it hit the ground, but the wind was strong, blowing the red lanterns on the Imperial Street askew.
Xiao Bieli squatted in the ruins of the old watchtower opposite the Dali Temple and checked the plush rabbit in his arms again.
He re-sewed the rabbit back together, fixing the loose eyes and cleaning the dirty ears.
He put the rabbit back in his arms and turned his gaze back to the Dali Temple across the street.
A whole day had passed since he last saw Xiao Jinluo.
......
Noon.
As was customary, the bronze bell on the astronomical observatory rang twelve times to signal the noon time.
The bells of all thirteen watchtowers in Lin'an City rang simultaneously, their long, drawn-out tones drowning out the hawkers' cries on the Imperial Street, echoing slowly under the clear winter sky.
No one noticed that during the twelve chimes, the copper bells at five locations—the East Watchtower of the old camp in the southern suburbs, the west wall of Deshou Palace, the former site of Shunhe Tea Shop in Wazi Lane, the outer wall of Cining Palace, and the outer watchtower of Dali Temple—sounded one more time after the twelve chimes.
Between the tenth and eleventh notes, there was a very short vibrato.
That's the test signal for the dark bell tongue.
The jailers in the Dali Temple were busy changing shifts for the afternoon, and no one noticed the extra ring of the copper bell. The inspectors of the Imperial City Guard were warming themselves by the fire in the alley, and they paid no attention to it either.
But Xiao Bieli heard it.
He was squatting in a small alley outside the three gates of Dali Temple, wearing a gray cotton-padded jacket stolen from a second-hand clothing store. His stubble hadn't been shaved for three days, and he looked no different from any other low-level porter in Lin'an City who was just trying to make a living.
He waited for three days and three nights, hoping for an opportunity to sneak into the Dali Temple.
Wan Qixie arranged for very tight security around the Dali Temple.
Eight Imperial City Guards were on duty at the main gate. The east gate was the passage for prisoners to enter and exit, staffed with four jailers and two wolfhounds. The west wall was three zhang high, with iron caltrops embedded on top.
Rushing in directly would be suicide.
But Xiao Bieli noticed other details.
The Dali Temple has two delivery times per day for supplies.
Vegetables and grains were delivered at dawn, and clean clothes and winter bedding were delivered at noon.
The vehicles transporting supplies were supervised by eunuchs from the Cining Palace. After entering the prison area, they would stop in a designated open space for about the time it takes to drink two cups of tea, where the prison guards and eunuchs would count the supplies in front of them.
At noon, the quilt cart came from the direction of Cining Palace, stopped briefly at the east gate of Dali Temple, and then went inside.
The carriage was large, and the axles were heavy, causing the door sill to sink by half an inch. As the wheels rolled over the stone slabs, Xiao Bieli noticed that a corner of the carriage curtain was blown up by the wind, and inside there was not only a quilt, but also a person.
A man dressed as a eunuch was much more robust than an ordinary eunuch.
The man crouched in the pile of quilts, peering out through the gap in the carriage curtain. His gaze paused for a moment as it swept over the watchtower on the outer wall of the Dali Temple.
That wasn't how ordinary eunuchs looked; it seemed like they were marking things.
Xiao Bieli made a mental note of this.
He retreated to the depths of the alley, took off his gray cotton-padded coat and wore it inside out, and pulled out a cloth bag from behind a broken wooden barrel in the corner of the alley.
There was a knife in the bag, but it wasn't the waist knife he brought from Yue Fei's army; that one had been confiscated in the Jin camp long ago.
He bought this from a traveling knife seller after saving up copper coins for half a year during his exile.
The knife was worn out; the scabbard was made of bamboo, and there was a shallow crack on the blade. However, the edge was ground very thin.
He hung the knife on his waist, concealing it with the hem of his cotton-padded jacket, and then walked towards the east gate of the Dali Temple.
He wasn't going to rush in; he was going to ask something.
The jailers at the east gate were changing shifts for the afternoon.
The newly appointed jailer was a fat man in his forties, his face red from the cold. He sat in the gatehouse, rubbing his hands and cursing the awful weather.
He heard someone knocking on the window, looked up and saw a disheveled porter standing outside, his right hand hidden under his cotton-padded coat and a copper coin clutched in his left hand.
"What do you do?"
"Delivering something." Xiao Bieli placed the copper coins on the windowsill. "Give this to a little girl inside named Xiao Jinluo. This is a delivery fee—more if it's not enough."
He took out two more copper coins from his pocket and placed them on the windowsill; they totaled three coins.
The jailer looked down at the three coins, then looked up at Xiao Bieli.
The person he saw had sunken eyes, chapped lips, and a cotton-padded jacket covered in dust, but when he looked at people, he resembled a knife placed on a table.
The jailer swallowed hard. "Do you even know what the Dali Temple is? Sending things here—"
"I know," Xiao Bieli said softly. "It's just a ragdoll rabbit; it won't cause you any trouble."
He took the plush rabbit out of his pocket and placed it on the windowsill.
The rabbit's ears still had water stains left from yesterday's dusting, and one eye was newly sewn, but the stitches weren't straight and were a bit crooked.
The jailer remained silent for a long time.
All he saw was a man, a man so poor he only had three coins left, who was about to deliver a tattered rag doll rabbit to the Dali Temple for his sister.
There are millions of such people at the bottom of society in Lin'an, and every day someone is arrested, imprisoned, or forgotten.
He picked up the plush rabbit and put it back.
"You can leave now," he said, "before I call anyone to come and get you."
Xiao Bieli didn't move. "If you won't help me deliver it, I'll go in and deliver it myself."
"Are you crazy? You'll be killed if you take one step in!"
"Yes, so you'll have to deliver it for me." Xiao Bieli pushed the plush rabbit forward a bit. "If you deliver it in, I won't go in."
The jailer stared at Xiao Bieli for a long time, so long that the wind outside the gatehouse made him shiver.
Then he grabbed the plush rabbit from the windowsill, said gruffly, "Wait here," and turned to walk into the prison area.
Xiao Bieli stood outside the east gate without going in; he kept his word.
The prison guard walked through the prison corridor, past the medium-sized cells, and into the lower-sized cells.
As he slipped the plush rabbit through the gap in the iron fence, Xiao Jinluo was sitting on a straw mat weaving a small horse out of straw.
The moment she saw the plush rabbit, she jumped up.
"A rabbit!" She picked up the plush rabbit and hugged it to her chest, checking its ears and eyes. Then she looked up at the jailer, her almond-shaped eyes sparkling. "Uncle, this was sent by my brother, right? Where is my brother? Is he outside?"
The jailer was overwhelmed by her barrage of questions. He put on a stern face and said, "I don't know who sent it. Once it arrived, I put it away," and turned to leave.
Xiao Jinluo held the plush rabbit and stood in front of the iron fence for a long time. Then she looked down at the rabbit's newly sewn eyes and gently touched the crooked stitches with her hand.
"Brother," she whispered, "thank you."
The deputy commander of the Imperial Guard in the opposite cell watched the whole scene from beginning to end. He didn't say anything, but just leaned against the iron bars and finished the bowl of thin porridge in his hand.
......
The Qin Mansion's signing room.
Tian Ruyi has been working for four consecutive days.
His mental state was actually better than on the first day, because he finally found a weakness on the third night.
To be precise, it's not a flaw, just a detail that's "not perfect".
The laundry worker from the Prince of Puan's mansion went out of the city twice between May and September of the twelfth year of Shaoxing.
The travel permits she used each time she left the city came from the records of the Imperial Clan Court, and the names and household registrations on the permits were genuine.
However, Tian Ruyi made a precise comparison of the time.