Chapter 800

Ten miles outside the city of Qinggui County, there was a long, narrow canyon that the locals called Yellow Snake Ridge.

The mountain walls on both sides were like giant rocks split by a heavenly axe, standing straight up three or four zhang high. The tops were covered with twisted, thorny shrubs, blocking out most of the sky and shrouding the small path at the bottom of the valley in a gloomy darkness.

Chu Ci rode a thin horse at the very front, followed by six newly recruited county yamen runners, each with a standard-issue single-edged saber at their waist and carrying measuring ropes and bamboo slips for measuring farmland in their hands.

His gaze was not on the road, but on the spring plowing registration book in his hand, his brows knitted into a knot.

Chen Wu.

The head of the runners walking behind him to his right trotted two steps and leaned close to the horse's head.

My lord, what are your orders?

Chu Ci flipped the registration book to one of the pages and pointed his finger at a line of handwriting on it.

That batch of grain seeds transferred from the official granary to Shiqiao Village yesterday, did you verify the quality with your own eyes?

Chen Wu's mouth opened, then closed again, a layer of unnatural hesitation appearing on his face.

Replying to you, my lord, this subordinate verified it, but the color of that batch of seeds was much darker than the batch sent to Liujiawan the day before yesterday. This subordinate pinched a few grains and rubbed them; the shells were brittle, as if they had been soaked in water and then dried.

Chu Ci's hand paused on the registration book.

Soaked in water and then dried.

He closed the registration book, stuffed it back into the cloth bag at his waist, and lowered his voice by half a point.

Seeds soaked in water will have dead embryos, and the germination rate after planting will not even reach twenty percent. This is someone tampering with the process at some point between the official granary and the distribution point.

Chen Wu's complexion changed.

My lord, are you saying it's those people from the Xie family?

Chu Ci did not respond, his gaze lifting from the registration book and sweeping across the towering mountain walls and shrubbery on both sides of the canyon.

The wind had stopped.

There should not be no wind in the valley at this time of year; even the weakest draft should be blowing in from the mouth of the valley, making those dry thorny branches rustle.

But at this moment, there was no sound at all.

It was as quiet as the inside of a coffin.

Chu Ci's pupils tightened.

"Magistrate Chu, what's wrong?"

Chu Ci did not look back, his lips barely moving as he spat out a few words.

"There is a smell of rust in the wind."

Lao Sun's complexion changed, his right hand reaching toward the saber hilt at his waist.

Chu Ci reached out and pressed his wrist.

"Don't move, keep walking, pretend you haven't discovered anything."

His voice was very soft, soft enough that only Lao Sun within half a step could hear it.

"The shrubs at the bend ahead have been trimmed; the cuts are fresh. The snow in the third rock crevice on the left cliff has been trampled."

Lao Sun's Adam's apple rolled, his voice tight.

"My lord, let's turn back; this place is not right."

Chu Ci shook his head.

"It's too late; turning back exposes our backs, and we'll die faster."

When he said this, his tone was calm to a degree that Lao Sun found unreal, as if they were discussing what to eat for lunch.

As soon as he finished speaking, the change occurred suddenly.

From the shrubbery on the left cliff, a black shadow fell silently, a three-foot-long narrow-backed curved saber clutched in its hand, grazing the moss on the cliff and bringing up a spray of green debris.

Immediately following were the second, third, and fourth shadows.

Six black-clad, masked figures erupted simultaneously from the rock crevices and shrubs on both sides of the cliff, like six awakened venomous snakes, sealing off this valley path that was less than three zhang wide.

The runners' reactions were a full beat slow.

Before their sabers could be drawn from their sheaths, the curved sabers of the two black-clad men in front had already reached their eyes.

Lao Sun desperately pulled his saber from its sheath, barely blocking the first strike, his web between thumb and forefinger splitting on the spot, fresh blood dripping down the saber hilt.

The second strike followed, his body hit by a giant force and stumbling back three steps, his back hitting the shaft of the handcart.

The six runners formed a barely passable circular formation, shielding Chu Ci in the very center, but every person's face was filled with despair.

They were not martial artists; they were just refugees who had been scratching for food in the fields a few months ago, recruited into the yamen by Chu Ci, and they had only learned how to hold a saber in the last half-month.

The six black-clad men opposite were each more than a level above them in skill.

The leading assassin was lean, his eyes exposed under the mask long and cold, and the hilt of the curved saber in his hand was wrapped in a circle of dark red leather of unrecognizable material.

He was not in a hurry to act, tilting his head and sizing Chu Ci up twice.

"The new magistrate of Qinggui County."

His voice was like sand grinding on an iron plate.

"Master Xie said, give you a quick one."

Chu Ci stood in the middle of the circular formation formed by the runners, his face pale but his back straight, a composure that was extremely inconsistent with his young face churning in his clear eyes.

"How much silver did Xie Pingya spend to buy my life?"

The assassin leader tilted his head, appearing somewhat surprised by this question.

"If you're interested in knowing, one hundred taels."

The corners of Chu Ci's mouth twitched.

"Only worth one hundred taels; it seems Master Xie looks down on me quite a bit."

The assassin leader did not want to talk anymore, flipping his curved saber, the tip pointing at Chu Ci's face.

"Talk less, die more comfortably."

His body leaned forward by half an inch.

Just at the moment when the curved saber was about to strike Chu Ci's face with a gust of wind, a moon-white figure fell from the cliff top.

There was no sound.

There was no warning.

Like a frost flower falling from the clouds, it landed lightly behind the assassin leader.

Hongye's toes landed on a protruding blue stone on the cliff wall, using the force to spin, her entire body drawing an extremely beautiful arc in mid-air, the skirt of her narrow-sleeved dress torn by the airflow into a blooming white rose.

Her right arm reached out from her sleeve.

The blade of the fine steel short sword, under the illumination of the single line of light in the canyon, shot out a silver light that made one's eyes ache.

First sword.

When the assassin leader felt the chill coming from the back of his neck, his curved saber was less than three inches from Chu Ci's nose.

But that three-inch distance, he would never finish walking.

Hongye's fine steel short sword cut horizontally from the left side of his back neck, the blade passing through the weakest gap between the cervical spine and the trachea, bringing up a fine mist of blood as it passed through the right side.

The entire process was eerily quiet, even the clanging sound of the curved saber slipping from the assassin leader's powerless hand and colliding with the gravel ground sounding particularly harsh.

Second sword.

Hongye's figure had already disappeared from the spot as the assassin leader fell, the moon-white afterimage drawing a straight line on the gravel mud road of the canyon that was so short it was almost indistinguishable.

The second assassin's reaction was fast enough; his curved saber blocked his own throat the moment he saw his companion fall.

But Hongye's sword did not go for the throat.

The tip of the short sword stabbed into the inner side of his elbow holding the saber from below, the artery there being precisely severed, and as the curved saber left his hand, Hongye's left hand gripped the back of his head, pushing him forward.

The unbalanced body collided with the third assassin who was returning his saber, and the two tangled together, falling onto the gravel ground.

Hongye's right foot stepped onto the back of the fallen man, leaping up with the force, the short sword flipping in mid-air at a dazzling angle, the tip pointing downward, nailing into the junction of the third assassin's collarbone and neck.

Three breaths.

Three lives.

The remaining three assassins finally reacted from extreme shock, and they chose the same action in unison.

Run.

But this canyon only had one road, and Hongye stood behind them.

When the fourth muffled sound came, Chu Ci had already closed his eyes.

Fifth sound.

Sixth sound.

Then the canyon became completely quiet, quiet enough that only the wailing sound of the spring wind blowing between the cliff walls remained, as well as one or two bird calls from somewhere unknown.

Chu Ci opened his eyes.

Six corpses lay scattered on the gravel mud road, the cuts on their necks as neat as if measured with a ruler.

Hongye stood beside the corpse furthest away, the fine steel short sword in her right hand hanging by her side, not a single drop of blood on the blade.

She wiped the blade with a strip of cloth torn from her sleeve, her movements as calm as if she were doing a household chore she repeated every day.

Chu Ci's legs finally softened ungraciously at this moment, but he bit his teeth, stubbornly refusing to let himself fall.

He took a deep breath, stepped over the corpses on the ground, and squatted beside the assassin leader, beginning to search.

His right hand pulled a carefully folded letter from the assassin leader's inner pocket, a lump of dark red fire wax dripping on the seal of the letter, with a private seal of the character "Xie" pressed on it.

Chu Ci unfolded the letter and scanned it twice, his mouth tightening.

"It really is something from the Xie family."

He tucked the letter into his bosom, his fingers continuing to search the assassin leader's body.

Not in the belt, not in the boot, not in the lining of the headscarf.

His fingers touched the innermost layer of the assassin leader's chest lining, his fingertips touching the edge of a hard, square object.

Chu Ci's brows jumped, and he picked the stitching of that lining open with his fingernails, pulling out an object wrapped tightly in three layers of oil paper.

After the oil paper was unwrapped, inside was a palm-sized cowhide ledger, with no characters on the cover, but the color of the cowhide had turned a dark yellow from being sweated on by hands from repeated reading.

Chu Ci flipped to the first page.

His pupils contracted rapidly when he saw the dense numbers and names on it.

Lao Sun, clutching his still-bleeding web between thumb and forefinger, leaned over, peeked at it, and looked completely bewildered.

"My lord, what is this?"

Chu Ci did not answer him, his fingers flipping rapidly through page after page of the ledger, and when he flipped to the last few pages, his fingers began to tremble.

Not because of fear.

Because of anger.

"Headcount ledger."

His voice squeezed out from between his teeth, every word carrying a biting force that made Lao Sun's back chill.

"The Xie family hid 9,732 people in a private estate in the deep mountains southwest of Qinggui County, all stripped of household registration and registered as tenant slaves under the Xie family name."

He flipped the ledger to one of the pages, his finger poking heavily at a line of numbers on it.

"Over 4,000 males, 70% of whom are in their prime. According to this ratio of conscription, the Xie family can pull out a private army of 3,000 at any time."

Lao Sun's face turned white.

Chu Ci closed the ledger, stood up, and turned to look at Hongye, who had been standing silently in the distance.

Hongye's expression was indifferent, the short sword already back in her sleeve, as if the massacre that had wiped out six people in three breaths had never happened.

Chu Ci cupped his hands and bowed, his voice pressing down with rolling killing intent.

"Many thanks to you for saving my life. May I ask if you were sent by the Pillar of State?"

Hongye nodded slightly, not saying much.

Chu Ci gripped the ledger tightly, turned his head, and roared at Lao Sun.

"Cut off the heads of these dead dogs, put them in bags, take this ledger, and split into two groups."

He pointed south with a finger stained red with blood.

"You take three people, take the Xie family's secret letter and the tokens from the assassins' corpses, and head straight for the private granaries of those three grain merchants east of the city, and seal them for me."

He pointed north again.

"The rest of you come with me, eight-hundred-li urgent dispatch, send the ledger to Tongwan City overnight."

Lao Sun nodded through gritted teeth and turned to assign personnel.

Chu Ci stood between the corpses and gravel all over the ground, clutching the cowhide ledger, the spring wind blowing from the canyon and moving his old gray long gown, cold sweat already soaking his back.

He looked down at the ledger in his hand, his voice lowered to a degree only he could hear.

"Nearly ten thousand lives hidden in one county, how many more are there under the whole of Xia Prefecture?"

He raised his head, his gaze crossing the sky above the canyon and casting toward the direction of Tongwan City.

That cowhide ledger stained with the assassins' blood would be placed on Chen Yan's purple sandalwood desk before tonight.

And the storm it would stir up would be ten thousand times more violent than anything Chu Ci could imagine at this moment.

In the study of the Governor's Office in Tongwan City, the wick of the copper oil lamp was trimmed extremely bright, the flame illuminating the room without a single shadow.

Chen Yan sat in the armchair behind the purple sandalwood desk, the cowhide ledger found in the Qinggui County canyon spread out in his hands, his fingertips slowly sliding over the dense names and numbers on it.

Zhang Wenqian stood in front of the desk, his hands folded in front of him, his gaze falling on Chen Yan's fingers flipping through the ledger, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Gao Jiong knelt on one knee by the door, his head pressed extremely low, waiting for Chen Yan to speak.

The study was quiet for about twenty breaths.

Chen Yan flipped the ledger to the last page, his finger stopping for three breaths on the summary number.

9,732 people.

He closed the ledger, his hands supporting himself on the desk, his body leaning forward by half an inch.

Then he laughed.

The laughter was not loud, surging up from the bottom of his chest, leaking out from the corners of his mouth one by one, like the crisp sound of ice cracking in a hot oil pan.

Zhang Wenqian's back tightened like a fully drawn bow in this burst of laughter.

The laughter stopped.

Chen Yan threw the ledger onto the desk, the cowhide cover hitting the purple sandalwood with a dull thud.

"Zhang Wenqian."

Zhang Wenqian's body leaned forward by half an inch.

"This subordinate is here."

Chen Yan tapped his fingers twice on the ledger cover.

"The Xie family in one Qinggui County dared to hide nearly ten thousand people. Tell me, across the twenty-eight counties under Xia Prefecture, how many living people are buried underneath when all the big and small powerful clans are added together?"