Chapter 429: Don

Yin Song calmed his mind, picked up his brush, traced a few strokes in the air, then began writing on paper—not the content of the letter, but a newly composed invitation summoning heroes from across the land to unite in saving the people from suffering and fire.

A few characters in the letter could be matched for comparison; Pan Yun glanced and found them eight or nine tenths similar, the rest somewhat off.

But after one pass, when she picked up the brush again for the second attempt, the strokes grew consistent; Pan Yun didn't fully understand, yet she could see the horizontal, slanting, and vertical directions matched Lin Mengzhu's handwriting exactly.

By the third attempt, to Pan Yun's mortal eyes, the overall resemblance reached seven or eight tenths.

Pan Yun marveled, "Second Brother, you're incredible—unless you look closely, you can't tell it's fake at all."

Yin Song's smiling lips paused; he looked up and asked, "How similar do you say it is?"

Pan Yun: "Eight or nine tenths."

Yin Song lowered his gaze, frowning as he studied the characters on the paper, "Only seven or eight tenths?"

Pan Yun: "... Second Brother, I said eight or nine tenths."

Yin Song gave her a cool glance; Pan Yun sighed, "Second Brother, why do you look more and more like Big Brother when you're serious? Your earlier smiling face was prettier."

Yin Song continued tracing, unconcerned: "I was raised by Big Brother—if I don't resemble him, who should I resemble?"

Yin Song wrote another copy and showed it to Pan Yun: "How similar now?"

Pan Yun opened her mouth to answer, but Yin Song cut her off: "Honest answer."

Pan Yun: "Seven and a half tenths."

Yin Song frowned: "That shouldn't be right—even though it's truly only seven and a half tenths, ordinary people wouldn't notice, unless they're especially skilled in calligraphy or..."

Yin Song paused here, looked up at Pan Yun: "I heard Big Brother say your talisman arts are quite good?"

Pan Yun replied with modesty: "Not bad."

Yin Song understood.

He glanced at the copied characters, then handed the letter back to her: "Return it. This level of imitation is enough to fool those who don't know Lin Mengzhu well."

They intended to impersonate the Wu Lin Alliance, but not leave no escape route—should anyone investigate later, it would still be possible to reveal the letter as forged.

Pan Yun agreed, turning her gaze to another stack of letters.

Yin Song frowned at the ugly handwriting on them: "You want me to imitate this too?"

This was harder than copying Lin Mengzhu's script—for someone like Yin Song, it wasn't the good handwriting he feared, but the bad.

Because good handwriting follows patterns, but bad handwriting has no pattern at all.

Yin Song felt a headache coming on.

Pan Yun hurriedly said: "These few aren't urgent—their letters don't need to be returned."

Yet Yin Song fell silent for a moment; he didn't want to copy them, nor did he rush. After thinking, he rose, walked to the bookshelf, took down a book, and handed it to her: "Study it. Practice your writing—it's beneficial."

Pan Yun glanced at the cover: two wild, swirling characters—"Calligraphy Art." She opened it; the first line read: "Forgery is an art..."

Pan Yun: "Only someone who'd call forgery an art..."

Yin Song gave her a cool glance: "Throughout dynasties, many famous figures meticulously copied ancient texts and paintings—some even fooled the world. Dare you say it's not an art?"

"Yes, yes, it's an art," Pan Yun flipped through and blinked at the later sections: "Second Brother, why are there detailed methods for aging forgeries?"

"Read more. Study it. Of course, we don't do such things—but you must understand them, or you'll be the one deceived."

Pan Yun suddenly understood and nodded: "I get it—learning is to avoid being tricked."

Yin Song nodded: "Isn't life itself a pursuit of truth? Pursuing truth is avoiding deception—deception by swindlers, by commoners, by sages, even by oneself."

Yin Song tapped her forehead, turned, and walked out, calling loudly: "Yin Qingjun, no need to request leave—we'll leave after breakfast."

Pan Yun rubbed her aching forehead, muttered a few words, stuffed the letters into her space, returned to change into gray clothing, and wrapped her head and face completely.

The weather wasn't good today—the sky was gray and hazy; dressed in gray, adjusting her breath, Pan Yun stood beside the pillar, nearly merging with it.

Miao He ran past her carrying bought mutton buns, yet didn't notice her standing under the corridor.

Only after passing did he, perhaps catching her familiar scent, call out loudly: "Where's Little Master?"

Pan Yun remained silent, slipped soundlessly over the wall, and left.

She raced swiftly to the mansion from last night; without Pan Xiaohei guiding her, and having been here once before, she moved much faster.

She didn't enter through the front gate, but flew onto the roof, leaping across several rooftops until she reached the target.

When she arrived, the courtyard was noisy—the three heroes, just awakened, were shouting that they'd been attacked last night. People from the rooms on either side, still half-dressed, burst out and argued with them.

"Qian Ergou, I've tolerated you three brothers long enough. So you got a few bruises? Ever since you came back, you've been moaning like you've accomplished some great feat. Young Master Qu clearly saw Hu Jing and told you to follow him—and you still lost him. What good are you?"

"We're useless, you're useful? You were there too—you all fought. Only we three brothers kept up with Hu Jing. If he hadn't had allies, would we have been ambushed? Would we have been severely wounded?"

Pan Yun leapt down from the roof, stepped lightly forward, and hid behind a pillar. Just as she was about to push open Qu Le's window and slip inside, the door suddenly moved—she instantly released her grip, spun around, and leapt onto the pillar. In two breaths, her form merged with the pillar—unless someone touched it, no one could see her.

Qu Le burst out in his undergarments, hair a mess: "What's all this racket so early? Lost the trail? Go find him again. Shifting blame won't make Hu Jing appear by himself!"

"Young Master, we're not shifting blame—we were truly attacked. Last night, we were first drugged with incense, then had our necks slashed. Look—there are still marks on the back of our necks."

Qu Le frowned and stepped forward to inspect; the onlookers crowded in.

It was at that moment that Pan Yun slipped from behind Qu Le and slipped through the open door into the room.

Once inside, she went straight to the wardrobe—the bundle from last night was still there. She quickly opened it, pulled out two envelopes, compared their contents, then extracted the letters inside and arranged them in order.

To avoid mishaps and to gather more information, she reread the letters thoroughly under daylight.

!. Read

Outside, the crowd was discussing: "Those really are knife-blade marks."

"Could they be from yesterday's fight? Faking it as a night thief's doing?"

"Exactly—so many martial heroes live here. Which thief would dare come?"

"Even if one did, he'd target Young Master Qu—not you three paupers!"

The three heroes: "It must be Hu Jing's accomplice."

"Hu Jing is barely avoiding us—why would his accomplice do this? For what reason?"

The three heroes: "Revenge! Definitely—because yesterday we three brothers chased Hu Jing too closely, he was humiliated and angry, so he sent his accomplice to retaliate against us!"

"Hero Hu isn't that bored at all. He's broad-minded and upright — how could he possibly do something so petty?"

"Exactly. It must be that the three of you brothers want to take credit for it again. I'd say you've done enough, hasn't Young Master Qu already given each of you twenty taels yesterday?"

Pan Yun folded the letter back along its creases, put it into the envelope, returned the envelope to its original position, placed the seal back in the box, then closed the cabinet and quietly walked outside.

This morning she had used Qu Le's two seals to bang out over a hundred blank sheets — that would be more than enough.

Pan Yun slipped out of the room, dodged behind a pillar, swept a glance around, saw everyone was in the Three Heroes' brothers' room arguing, then flipped up onto the roof and sneaked off.

They were still arguing, voices drifting over continuously. The Three Heroes, apparently pushed too hard, simply swept their gaze across everyone: "If Hu Jing is so righteous and noble, why are you all still following along to capture him?"

First Hero: "Exactly — doesn't that make Lin Mengzhu and Young Master Qu the villains?"

Qu Le: "... What nonsense are you spouting? We're looking for Hero Hu to protect him. Right now Japanese pirates have infiltrated Great Ming to capture him. He's a man of our Great Ming's Wu Lin, and protecting him is the responsibility of our Wu Lin Alliance."

The others froze for a moment, then hurriedly agreed: "Exactly, exactly."

"So, Qian Ergou, the thing that happened last night — you three really did make it up, didn't you?"

The Three Heroes flushed red with anger and shouted loudly: "We didn't make it up — there really was a thief!"

"Then tell us — what did you lose?"

The three of them choked, unable to answer.

The moment they woke up they reached for their money and found it all still there, only the backs of their necks ached terribly — they could feel that whoever had struck them last night had quite a bit of strength. Everything else was perfectly intact...

Second Hero's eyes lit up and he shouted: "I know! The letters! The letters we wrote to our families, the letters our families wrote to us, and all the correspondence from the Wu Lin Alliance — they're all gone!"

Qu Le had been listening idly, but the moment he heard the letters were gone, his expression changed slightly and he turned and ran toward his room.

Everyone froze for a moment, hurriedly followed, but only stopped at the door and didn't go in.

Qu Le dashed straight to the wardrobe, flung it open with a swish, didn't even bother checking whether his luggage was still as it had been, and directly tore open the bundle. Only when he saw the two letters pressed at the bottom were still there did he finally let out a breath of relief.

Then he immediately took the letters out, gave them a pinch, and felt the thickness seemed a bit off.

After a moment's hesitation, Qu Le immediately pulled out the most important letter, skimmed through it at ten lines a glance, checked it over, found no problems, and only then fully relaxed.

Frowning, he went through his own luggage once. The banknotes were all there, the seals were there too, nothing was missing. Only then did he tuck the letters into his robes, close the door, and, with an unpleasant expression, say to the Three Heroes outside: "I know your contribution yesterday was the greatest — at least you managed to sketch out what Hu Jing looked like after his final disguise. I'll give each of you another fifty taels for your injuries. Is that enough?"

The Three Heroes had indeed come to join this commotion for the money, but now they weren't happy at all. The three stamped their feet: "Young Master Qu, why won't you believe us? There really was a thief last night."

(End of chapter)