Chapter 375: Spiriting Her Away

"Miss Chen, this is the outfit the young master ordered me to prepare for you. Allow me to help you wash up and change!"

A comely maidservant with a small topknot hairstyle stood a few paces before Chen Yuanyuan, holding a wooden tray with both hands, speaking to her with a smile in her eyes.

On the wooden tray lay a mink-and-fox fur jacket with a smooth pelt, a pleated skirt of muted color embroidered with gold-thread walnuts, and beside the garments a delicately crafted gold hairpin, a pair of jade-green earrings, and jade pendants, seven-piece trinket sets, and other assorted ornaments.

"Thank you for your trouble, sister. I'm feeling a bit unwell at the moment. Would you kindly set the clothes aside? I'll change on my own after I rest a while."

Chen Yuanyuan, who had been lounging lazily on the brocade couch, slowly rose and parted her rosy lips to speak in a soft voice.

The maidservant turned and set the tray on a small side table, then turned back to curtsy to Chen Yuanyuan before gliding out of the room on light footsteps and pulling the door gently shut behind her.

After the maidservant left, Chen Yuanyuan returned to the brocade couch, slipped off her embroidered shoes, and curled up on it. Propping her delicate chin on her hand, she knitted her distant-mountain brows, and a feeling of helpless bewilderment rose in her heart, gradually spreading through her entire body.

When the conflict broke out in the troupe today, she had been removing her makeup in the back courtyard, so she didn't know what had happened out front. Only after that brief but fierce fight concluded did one of her fellow sisters who had been peeking from behind the curtain come running to tell her.

While Chen Yuanyuan was still trembling with fear, Mama Liu came to her room. After hugging her and weeping bitterly, she wiped her tears and told her to pack up quickly—the servants of the Zou household would soon come to take her into Suzhou city.

Chen Yuanyuan, who had long known this day would come, felt both terrified and helpless, yet also somewhat relieved and expectant. After tearfully bidding farewell to Mama Liu and the few close sisters in the troupe, she arrived at the Zou household with a heart full of tangled emotions.

Ever since her uncle by marriage had sold her to the opera troupe, Chen Yuanyuan had known that her future fate was not something she could control.

In recent years, as she began taking the stage and her name spread far and wide, she came into contact with more and more things and learned more and more, and her heart grew even clearer.

In a few more years, she too would be like those beautiful senior colleagues before her—bought out by wealthy merchants or great households and taken into their mansions as concubines. If she was lucky, she might bear children for the man and have someone to rely on and keep her company in old age; if she was unlucky, she would spend her remaining years in lonely desolation once her beauty faded and no one wanted her, perhaps not even leaving a tombstone behind when she died.

Speaking from her true heart, Chen Yuanyuan did not dislike Zou Shu or Gong Ruofu—deep down she even harbored feelings of fondness and admiration.

The Zou family was a distinguished house of Jiangnan, and Zou Shu had the looks of a handsome, dashing man about town. Being taken as a concubine by such a handsome young gentleman was a hundred times better than being treated as a plaything by some crude, unlettered merchant.

Though Gong Ruofu was somewhat older than Zou Shu and slightly less handsome in appearance, in terms of family standing and background he was a cut above.

Moreover, Gong Ruofu was brilliantly talented in letters. He had once composed several ci poems specially for her, his admiration for her leaping off the page, and reading them made one's heart flutter.

But since Zou Shu had already won the race this time, she would simply leave everything to fate.

The next afternoon, around the hour of wei, inside the Suzhou office of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, Centurion Xu Liang was reporting the intelligence he had gathered to Wang Ancheng.

"Reporting to the Chiliarch: yesterday, following your orders, your subordinate investigated the persons involved in the Peach Blossom Mound affair, and has now roughly ascertained the situation. After yesterday's fight concluded, servants of the Zou household brought the woman surnamed Chen into the mansion. According to reports, the young master of the Zou family redeemed her for eight hundred taels of fine silver. Your subordinate sent men to keep watch on the Zou mansion and discovered the Zou household steward going to the new residence alley in the north city to make contact. Afterward, several dozen men searched everywhere for the boat that had docked at Peach Blossom Mound yesterday, and this morning they located the inn where Chiliarch Tian had lodged. Finding nothing there, they are now searching the city for his whereabouts!"

"What of that woman surnamed Chen? Does she truly have exceptional looks?"

Wang Ancheng nodded and then asked.

This had to be ascertained clearly—he couldn't just take Tian Wan's one-sided word for it.

Don't go snatching and grabbing only to end up with someone of poor character and appearance—where would they put her then?

"Though your subordinate has not seen her in person, as she frequently takes the stage, all who watch her are utterly captivated. As for her character, all say she is gentle and charming, noble and refined, with no bad reputation whatsoever—this is the consensus after questioning several dozen people!"

Xu Liang clasped his fists and saluted in reply.

Only then did Wang Ancheng relax.

"Chiliarch, how should this matter be handled? Should we arrange some means to implicate the Zou family? From what your subordinate knows, the Zou family has abundant wealth—truly a fat sheep! If we could use this opportunity to uproot them entirely, then…!"

At the mention of the Zou family's money, Xu Liang rubbed his hands together, his long horse-face brimming with excitement and his eyes gleaming with greedy light.

"This matter must not be blown out of proportion for now. The most urgent task at hand is to snatch that woman surnamed Chen out of the mansion as quickly as possible, then send men to escort her back to the capital together with Tian. Inform the Regional Military Commissioner of the matter as well. As for the Zou family—we'll find an opportunity to deal with them next year. Go make the arrangements. Tonight, spirit that woman surnamed Chen out of the mansion, notify Tian of the plan, and once it's done, return to the capital overnight! Remember—you must not have any intimate contact with her, on pain of death!"

"Your subordinate obeys!"

That night, around the hour of zi, beneath a sky shrouded in thick clouds where one couldn't see one's hand before one's face, several dark figures slipped under cover of darkness to the wall outside the rear residence of the Zou mansion on Sweet Water Lane in the south city.

It was the time when people were in the deepest sleep; the alley was empty of any soul, and all around was utter stillness.

"Old Four, go!"

The Platoon Leader leading the team gave the order in a low voice.

At the command, a lean officer carrying a rope hook straightened up, swung his arm in a full circle, and let fly. With a soft clatter, the finely forged steel hook caught precisely onto the bricks atop the wall.

The officer pulled down hard on the rope with both arms to test it, and once he confirmed it was secure, he gripped the long rope, braced his feet against the wall surface, and climbed hand over hand. In a moment he had gained his footing atop the wall, which stood over ten feet high.

As the rope swayed, two more officers of lighter build climbed up after him, while the men outside the wall gathered near a side gate not far away.

The officer on the wall hauled up the rope hook, then hooked it over the inner side of the wall's top. The three men descended one after another to the ground.

The rear residence of the Zou mansion was a back garden. The night watch boy had long since fallen asleep like a dead pig inside the tightly shuttered watch room.

One of the three officers crept to the watch room door and crouched down, while the other two followed the route they had scouted during the day, making their way along the garden's covered corridor toward the inner quarters.

The small courtyard where Chen Yuanyuan was staying was quite secluded, some distance from the main courtyard where Zou Shu resided.

Because his wounds had not yet healed, Zou Shu had come to visit Chen Yuanyuan once during the day but had held back and not consummated the matter. He merely instructed the maidservants to attend to her well, granting her the same monthly allowance as the principal wife, before leaving with lingering reluctance.

Chen Yuanyuan, deep in sleep, suddenly sensed what seemed to be a commotion in the outer room. She opened her eyes, hastily sat up clutching the bedclothes, and asked in a soft voice: "Sister Qingyuan, sister Yuanzhi, are the two of you there?"

Before the two maidservants in the outer room could respond, the cotton curtain keeping out the cold was suddenly thrown open, and a gust of cold, damp air swiftly filled the once-warm room. Immediately after, a dark figure slipped inside.

Startled, Chen Yuanyuan was just about to scream when the man who had entered forestalled her with a low shout: "Silence! Or die!"

A spark of flame instantly brightened the pitch-dark room. The officer, holding a tinder lighter, stepped forward to the bedside and shone it inward—a face of stunning, peerless beauty appeared before his eyes.

With a soft gulp, the officer froze for a moment before swallowing a large mouthful of saliva. Steadying himself, he spoke in a low voice: "Are you Miss Chen? Do not be afraid, miss, and do not make a sound! Change your clothes and follow me!"

Half an hour later, a passenger boat moored at the canal docks outside Suzhou city slowly got underway, sailing north against the current. In the cabin, Chen Yuanyuan, her heart full of fear and unease, sailed toward an unknown future.