Chapter 421: Good Fortune and Misfortune Are Intertwined

Jin Yi Wei Ren Ze agreed; as soon as Wang Zhen left, he immediately surrounded the courtyard with his men.

He didn't know what else was inside the courtyard, but since Wang Zhen had said so, it must contain something of extreme importance, so he told his men: "Keep tight watch—no fly shall enter!"

Everyone responded in unison.

Deep within the courtyard, surrounded by all of them, a black cat silently leapt from the wall, landed lightly atop the chest, and raised its ears to listen closely.

After listening for a long time without hearing any other sound, it relaxed, squatted on the chest, scratched its face with a paw, and asked inwardly: 【Can I take it now?】

【Take it!】 Pan Yun said: "Leave nothing behind!"

Because Pan Yun said "leave nothing behind," Pan Xiaohei took even the table, stuffing his jade space to the brim.

He said: 【You must forge me a larger space.】

Pan Yun's spiritual sense clung to him; seeing what he had collected, she smiled broadly: 【I will! This time I won't smear your jade black with ink—I'll find a proper piece of ink jade, high quality, and make a space artifact just for you.】

Only then did Pan Xiaohei become happy.

After securing everything, Pan Xiaohei walked to the door, scrambled up the wall in two swift motions, leapt diagonally downward, and grabbed the lantern cord to swing down.

With a low boom, the secret chamber door opened; Pan Xiaohei leapt out, scaled the wall in a few bounds, and squeezed through the gap above the window.

The sound of the wooden rack's mechanism activating was loud; Ren Ze in the courtyard seemed to hear something, spun around sharply, and saw a cat dart out the window, racing straight up the wall.

Ren Ze's heart tightened; without thinking, he whipped out his embroidered brocade knife in a flash.

Pan Xiaohei leapt forward in one swift step; with a clang, the knife grazed its tail and embedded itself in the wall.

"Meow—!" Pan Xiaohei shrieked, shot onto the roof, slid smoothly along the ridge, and raced away hugging the eaves.

As Pan Xiaohei's front paws landed on the roof, Ren Ze followed instantly, stepping onto the wall, drawing his knife, flipping onto the roof, and chasing after it for a stretch; seeing how agile and fast it was, and how its black fur blended into the blue tiles, vanishing in a few bounds, he finally stopped.

He stood on the roof, pondered for a moment, then spun around and flew back to the courtyard.

His subordinates rushed over: "My lord, that was just a cat."

Ren Ze: "The seal just came out of the room—how could there be a cat inside?"

Wang Zhen disliked cats and dogs.

Ren Ze stared at the closed door, gripping his knife tighter, took two steps forward, and was immediately blocked by his men: "My lord, this is the seal's study."

He whispered: "The seal already forbids anyone near his study; after the theft, he'll be even more sensitive."

Ren Ze: "Didn't you hear the noise just now? Just a click—and then a heavy object moving, rumbling."

The men exchanged glances and all shook their heads: "My lord, are you tired?"

"Tired my ass—I just interrogated a few servants; I'm not hallucinating." Ren Ze turned in a circle: "If I don't check, I can't rest. If something went wrong and we're held accountable later, we'll all be implicated."

"The seal only ordered us to guard the courtyard, not enter it—we've done exactly that. A cat ran out—could the items have been stolen by a cat?" one Jin Yi Wei said: "My lord, we don't seek merit, only to avoid blame. The seal is like a cannon—light a fuse and he explodes. Let's not provoke him."

"Yes, my lord, all the brothers are watching. If something happens, we can all testify it occurred before our watch—none of our doing."

"Sigh, our boss has it hard. We think this way, but I fear the seal won't."

"So what if he doesn't? Could it really be tied to some short-haired beast?" muttered one Jin Yi Wei: "We're Jin Yi Wei—we serve the Emperor, yet now we're guarding a eunuch's courtyard…"

Ren Ze turned and glared at him: "Shut up. If you want to die, wait until we're apart to say that."

Everyone lowered their heads and fell silent.

Ren Ze took a deep breath, abandoned further investigation, and waved: "Return to your posts. From now on, not a single fly shall leave this courtyard!"

They responded and scattered.

Ren Ze glanced back at the door, then at the slightly open upper window, sighed silently, sheathed his embroidered brocade knife, and returned to his post.

Pan Xiaohei leapt across the rooftops like a free-flying, black bird, moving as fast as lightning.

It leapt onto the teahouse roof, slid down the eave, then leapt again, directly into the window ahead.

Pan Yun, seated by the window, smiled; as Pan Xiaohei soared through the air, she opened her arms.

Pan Xiaohei lightly tapped the windowsill with all four paws, then shot forward with a thump, plunging into Pan Yun's embrace.

Pan Yun's hands sank slightly; she immediately shifted to one arm holding it, the other turning it: "You're so heavy—like a cannonball. Aren't you due for a diet?"

Pan Xiaohei glared angrily, "Meow—!"

"Alright, alright, I won't forget your little fish. I just want you to eat less so it lasts longer—overeating makes you fatter."

Pan Xiaohei nuzzled its jade pendant, meowing: "Don't you want the things inside anymore?"

Pan Yun immediately turned and hurried away with it: "We must get home fast—I'm in bad luck; staying out is too dangerous." "Meow—" Pan Xiaohei lifted its tail and held it beside Pan Yun's face for her to see.

Pan Yun tugged its tail, inspected it left and right, frowned: "A blood mark? Did that Jin Yi Wei injure you?"

"Meow—the blade grazed me."

Pan Yun: "I'll take you home to heal right now, or you'll be worse."

Pan Xiaohei: "... I'm bleeding—shouldn't you compensate me with some little fish? To restore my cat-body?"

Pan Yun patted its chubby belly, solemnly said: "Xiaohei, don't forget—you're a spiritual realm spiritual awareness. Don't truly think you're a cat."

"You must control your eating habits. Cats that get too fat are truly unhealthy, dangerous—just like humans."

Pan Xiaohei: "I need seven jin of little fish. Don't care how long I take to eat them—I value this cat-body more than you do."

"Fine. Just know your limits."

Pan Yun paid, hugged Pan Xiaohei, and headed home; but as soon as she stepped out of the teahouse, not two steps later, a window latch on the roof clattered down with a crack.

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Pan Yun sensed something, instinctively stepped back—the latch brushed her scalp and thudded to the ground, bouncing twice before landing on her foot, as she and the attendant stared wide-eyed.

Pan Yun:...

No one else has this kind of bad luck.

The attendant who saw her out turned pale; the coins he'd barely warmed in his hand shoved them back into Pan Yun's palm, then bent over, snatched up the latch, and bowed repeatedly: "Forgive me, honored guest, forgive me! Our shop failed to maintain safety—please, go upstairs to the private room, I'll bring you top-grade tea and pastries, and summon the shopkeeper to apologize…"

Pan Yun looked at the tea money she'd just given out, waved her hand: "It's fine. Better it hit my head than someone else's. Tell your shopkeeper to inspect every window."

With that, she walked away.

The waiter hadn't expected Pan Yun to be so easy to talk to. He bowed to her twice in a row before snatching up the window latch and dashing back to find the Shopkeeper.

Pan Xiaohei widened his cat-eyes in her arms. "Didn't get hit, and saved the tea money — is your luck good or bad?"

Pan Yun: "That's what they mean by 'misfortune is where fortune leans.' The thousand-year-old Chinese proverb really isn't wrong."

Pan Xiaohei: "There's a second half too: 'fortune is where misfortune hides.' Your luck should be pretty bad right now, yet you suddenly saved a meal's worth of tea money — could some great disaster be waiting?"

Pan Yun glanced carefully to both sides, on guard against any calamity that might fall from the sky, while stubbornly insisting: "Impossible. I burned incense to Heaven last night and made it clear that all this ill-gotten wealth must be used for the people — how could I possibly be unlucky?"

She turned into an alley, wanting to avoid the crowds on the main street so bystanders wouldn't be caught in any disaster, and also to take a shortcut home.

Turn right, then left at the next alley mouth — and Pan Yun walked straight into someone.

Pan Yun figured it was her own bad luck, so she wasn't angry at all, didn't blame the other person for being so reckless as to not watch the road, and instead said: "Sorry…"

She stepped back at the same time.

The person who had darted out of the alley heard her voice and silently raised his head to look at her.

Pan Yun felt his silence was a little strange. She hugged Pan Xiaohei tighter and looked up — and fell silent at once. "Hero Hu?"

Hu Jing had already bent his back to apologize, and froze mid-bow at her words: "How did you recognize me?"

The Hu Jing before her had changed into a different set of clothes — ragged, filthy — even his hair hung in matted strands, his trousers had two holes at the knees, and below his calves only two or three strips of cloth dangled down.

In just half a day apart, his beard covered half his face, and even his height was different.

The once burly hero had become short and thin, looking even shorter than Pan Yun.

This disguise technique was no worse than the disguise manual Pan Yun had spent a fortune to buy.

If her innate ability weren't seeing through all falsehood to the truth, she really might have been fooled by Hu Jing.

Pan Yun gazed at him in amazement, and leaning closer caught whiff after whiff of stench — a smell you couldn't pick up without spending three years as a beggar.

Pan Yun stepped back, held her breath for a moment, then still asked: "Hero Hu, is this the only kind of disguise you know? Can you disguise yourself as other kinds of people? If you can, could you teach me?"

Hu Jing: …

He bent his shoulders and back again, and said in a low voice: "Someone's chasing me. I'll go first — you block them for me."

Pan Yun: "Who? Is it my clever, cute Senior Nephew?"

Hu Jing brushed past her at speed and vanished into the alley. "I shook that idiot off long ago — it's people from the Wu Lin Alliance. Hurry and block them for me."

The moment Pan Yun heard that, she immediately hugged Pan Xiaohei and headed deeper into the alley. She had barely taken a few steps when she ran into three heroes with blades at their waists, leading a small dog, sniffing their way as they ran toward her.

(End of chapter)