Chapter 319: Night Investigation of the government office

In the middle of the night, Pan Yun snuck into the government office, and with familiar ease found the room that Constable Zhou had brought her into earlier that day. She didn't light a lamp; relying on the somewhat hazy moonlight from outside the window, she began to rummage through things.

She remembered where Constable Zhou had taken the case file. She searched that spot first and quickly found the very case file she had looked at during the day. She opened it and flipped through it; inside were still five sheets of paper. She stuffed it back in place, then reached to flip through the case files on either side.

Pan Yun quickly flipped to another case file.

Inside were still five sheets of paper. The reason Pan Yun had taken note of it was that there were only two simple lines on it, recording an address and a name, and, added afterward in vermilion brush, the four characters "died by suicide."

Pan Yun paused, then flipped to the next sheet. Five sheets of paper; three of them had "died by suicide" written on them, while the other two showed no trace of vermilion brush. She couldn't help but let out a small sigh of relief.

Pan Yun noted down their addresses, put the case file back in place and tidied it up, and was just about to leave when she caught a glimpse of the case files arranged neatly beside it. Her steps couldn't help but pause.

Since I'm already here, it hardly seems right not to take a few more things.

Pan Xiao Hei nimbly leapt from the rooftop onto the window, meowed at the room, and said: "These are case files, not money. Are you leaving or not? Someone's coming."

Pan Yun casually took down a case file from beside her and opened it, saying: "Who says these aren't money? As long as we can catch the criminal, all of this is money!"

"We didn't light a lamp, and as long as you don't make any noise, no one will know we're here."

Pan Yun read the records on the case file by the dim moonlight, and at one glance her brows lifted slightly. The case file on this person was far more detailed than Hua Buliu's.

A case of home invasion robbery and family annihilation. Not only was there a detailed account of how the crime occurred, there were also clear portraits of the criminal's face.

Pan Yun memorized the criminal's face, flipped to the next sheet, and seeing the bounty of one hundred taels underneath, couldn't help muttering to herself: "Such a high bounty, why don't they post it outside? Could it be that someone has already claimed the notice? But the criminal wasn't caught, so they could just post it again, right? Hua Buliu's bounty notice has been posted back and forth these past two days, hasn't it?"

Constable Zhou: ……If it weren't for the fact that every time they post one, you tear one down, they wouldn't have to go post them twice every day.

Pan Yun committed the information on this criminal named Chang Mingwei to memory, and was just about to flip through another case file when she heard the sound of tiles being lightly stepped on above her head.

Pan Yun immediately stuffed the case file back, and darted into the shadows.

Pan Xiao Hei, meanwhile, openly mocked her from the window: "I told you someone was coming, but you wouldn't listen. Now we're cornered, aren't we?"

Pan Xiao Hei sensed a gaze falling on it from the rooftop. It paid no heed, and even brazenly meowed a few more times.

It was just a cat; it didn't believe anyone would go so far as to harm a cat.

But the gaze that had slid away soon returned, and it felt the stare fixed on itself growing hotter and hotter and……strange.

Pan Xiao Hei's body stiffened, and it couldn't help twisting its head to meow loudly at Pan Yun inside the room: "Come save me——it really does seem to be a pervert!"

Pan Yun stood in the shadows without moving, waiting to see what the newcomer would do.

A figure nimbly flipped into the room, then turned to look at the black cat on the window watching him warily, and slightly furrowed his brow.

He didn't reach out toward Pan Xiao Hei, but cautiously swept his gaze around. Seeing no one, he slowly approached Pan Xiao Hei: "All the black cats in the world look the same; you shouldn't be Pan Xiao Hei, right?"

Pan Xiao Hei: ……

Pan Yun, standing behind him, just about to club him with a staff: ……

The palm-strike that had been chopping down lost its force. Pan Yun stood to his right and lightly patted his left shoulder.

He spun sharply to the left, at the same time drawing his sword with a clang, and shouted loudly: "Who's there?"

Pan Yun, quick-eyed and quick-handed, whisked the face cloth off his face in a flash from the right side, and replied in a ghostly voice: "Me!"

He stumbled back two steps in fright, and only then clearly saw Pan Yun standing at his rear side, and couldn't help crying out in surprise: "Pan Sanzhu, how come you're here?"

Pan Yun: "This is my Guangxin Prefecture territory; me being here is only right and proper. But you, a Henan person, running to my Guangxin Prefecture to do what?"

Qu Le: "The whole world belongs to the Great Ming; I'm a citizen of the Great Ming, free to go wherever I want. Is it any of your business?"

Pan Yun: "I can't manage that, but you're dressed in night-clothes, masked, breaking into the government office at night. As a good citizen, having seen this, I can't just ignore it!"

Qu Le felt guilty, but quickly recovered: "You're a good citizen? How come you're also breaking into the government office at night?"

Pan Yun said bluntly: "Who says I'm breaking into the government office at night? I'm here reading case files and got so absorbed I forgot to clock out!"

"Clock out?" Qu Le's face was full of doubt. "You work shifts at the government office? How is that possible? You're a Daoist Priest, and a woman at that!"

Pan Yun: "Who says a female Daoist can't do work for the government office? This poor Daoist has claimed the government office's bounty notice to capture criminals; can't I look up criminal information here?"

Qu Le had nothing to say; he believed her.

Mainly because Pan Yun was too self-righteous about it, and, moreover, she had no disguise at all. Apart from an extra hat on her head compared to before, she looked exactly the same as when he'd seen her by the sea in Quanzhou not long ago.

Pan Yun, seeing that she had the upper hand in momentum, folded her arms and leaned against the case desk, tilted her chin up, and asked: "Tell me, why are you breaking into the government office at night?"

"What breaking in? This is a night investigation! Do you even know how to use words?"

Pan Yun frowned.

Only then did Qu Le clear his throat lightly and say: "I ran away from home."

Pan Yun's eyes went blank. "And then? What does that have to do with breaking in——oh, investigating the government office at night?" "Of course it has something to do with it. I ran away from home, and my family refused to let me withdraw any more banknotes," Qu Le said. "I have no money on me, so I can only earn it myself."

"You earn money by coming to the government office?"

Qu Le: "Same as you, I claimed the notice to capture criminals, but I only have one portrait. I know the person's name, age, and household registration, and beyond that I know nothing at all. I simply can't find the person."

He said: "I asked Hero Hu. To catch a criminal, just knowing this information isn't enough; you also have to understand the case thoroughly."

"Why he killed people, why he wiped out an entire family, what kind of person he usually was, what his hobbies were——all of that has to be investigated. Then look into his relatives and friends, and based on these, deduce where he went. Only then is there a chance of finding him."

Qu Le said: "Hero Hu said that when you claim a bounty notice to capture a criminal, the difficulty of actually catching the criminal usually only accounts for thirty percent; the remaining seventy percent is how to find the criminal in the first place."

Pan Yun: "Who is the criminal on the bounty notice you claimed?"

Qu Le: "It's a criminal named Chang Mingwei. This man is extremely vicious; he broke into a house to rob, and actually killed an entire family of five."

Pan Yun: "How much is the reward on the bounty notice you claimed?"

Qu Le: "One hundred taels."

Pan Yun: "Have you found the person?"

!. read

"……No. If I could find the person, would I still be investigating the government office at night to look through case files?"

Pan Yun said: "I know this person's case file. I can help you find him. You go find the person, and when it's time to catch him I can help. The reward has to be split with me, half."

Qu Le: "I don't need your help catching him; I can do it myself. Although this man is fierce, he hasn't learned Wu Gong, only some hand-to-hand combat."

Pan Yun: "Not splitting the money? Then forget it. I won't give you the case file."

Qu Le: "If you won't give it to me, can't I find it myself?"

Having said that, he stepped past Pan Yun and went to flip through the case files.

Pan Yun turned her head and shouted out the window, "Someone come—"

Qu Le was scared out of his wits and hurriedly tried to cover her mouth, but how could he possibly touch Pan Yun?

Pan Yun slapped his hand down with one palm, shut herself up on her own, and looked at Qu Le with a face full of smugness. "The government office's gatekeeper isn't far from here. If I shout once more, I can definitely call someone over."

Qu Le couldn't help stamping his foot and gave in: "Fine, fine, isn't it just fifty taels? I'll give it to you!"

Only then was Pan Yun satisfied. She reached out, pulled a case file from the shelf, and tossed it to him. "I'll give you the time of one quarter-hour. Read it quickly. We definitely alarmed someone just now—someone will track this place down before long."

Qu Le nervously unfolded the paper and began to complain, "How could I possibly finish reading it in one quarter-hour? I still have to memorize it… Why did you have to shout just now?"

Pan Yun crossed her arms and said, "It's because you refused to cooperate that I shouted. Hurry up and read!"

One quarter-hour flashed by in an instant. Qu Le had only just reached the exciting part when the two of them heard footsteps drawing gradually closer.

Pan Yun snatched the case file back in a flash, stuffed them haphazardly into a paper bag, gave it a simple seal, and shoved it into the cabinet. Then, with one arm holding the cat and the other gripping Qu Le by the collar, she whooshed out through the window, tapped twice off the wall, and flew up onto the roof. After a few bounds, they had left the government office behind.

The gatekeeper, who had come patrolling with a lantern because he'd heard the commotion, only felt a shadow drift over his head. When he looked up, there was nothing in the sky at all—only the shadows of nearby trees swaying, looking almost like a person.

His footsteps paused briefly, and the wooden stick in his hand began tapping against the railing and pillars of the corridor, trying to use the sound to scare the person away.

Pan Yun carried Qu Le as she leapt across the rooftops, moving as though walking on flat ground.

Qu Le tried hard to open his eyes, but could only keep them open to a slit. The cold wind slammed into his face—he really couldn't open them any wider. Still, he did feel the awesomeness of Pan Yun's lightness skill. By the time he was set down on the ground, he still hadn't recovered.

Pan Yun dropped him with a look of disgust, then tossed Pan Xiaohei in her arms toward Seeing Miao Zhen.

Seeing Miao Zhen reached out to catch the cat, soothingly stroked Pan Xiaohei, and cooed at it a couple of times. Only then did Qu Le notice that Seeing Miao Zhen was present.

But he paid no attention to Seeing Miao Zhen at all. He whirled his head toward Pan Yun and asked, "Daoist Sanzhu, are you really Master Xuanmiao's junior martial sister, a disciple of the Sanqing Monastery?"

That was common knowledge back in Quanzhou. Sigh—mainly, when picking a fake name, she hadn't expected to run into a real senior martial brother and sister, so the cover was blown.

Pan Yun stopped bothering with the disguise and nodded. "That's right."

Qu Le asked excitedly, "Does your Sanqing Monastery still take disciples?"

He said, "I don't ask for much. I just want to learn the lightness skill you and Master Xuanmiao use."

Pan Yun: "The lightness skill my Fourth Senior Martial Sister and I use isn't something just anyone can learn…"

Qu Le: "I'm willing to pay money to join the monastery. Just let me learn your lightness skill."

"…Although it's not something just anyone can learn, if you put in the effort there's still hope. How much money can you offer?"

She and Master Xuanmiao both used primordial force, combined with lightness skill that took flight by riding objects. Although it was difficult, once internal force was trained to a certain stage, it could also be converted into primordial force—so it was entirely learnable.

(End of this chapter)