Chapter 430: How Much Do You Love Me?

"Who believes that? Didn't you guys get up in the middle of the night last night? We heard the door opening and closing."

"That's right, we did get up, and got beaten on our way back from the latrine."

Everyone looked unconvinced.

Seeing the three heroes still clinging to this matter, one man snapped, "If you really got beaten, you deserved it. Maybe it wasn't bandits—it was someone in this courtyard. Every night you three go out separately, one after another. Why can't you go together? The door opens and closes six times—aren't you annoyed?"

"That's right. If you weren't from the Wu Lin Alliance, I'd have already hit you."

"I've wanted to hit you too. Can't you three stop coughing up phlegm before bed? The whole courtyard echoes with your noise!"

"Could it really be someone from our own courtyard who did it?"

As soon as those words were spoken, everyone fell silent; the atmosphere grew strangely tense.

No way?

One of our own did this?

They glanced at each other, eyes sweeping over every person.

Qu Le mused, "If the three heroes aren't lying, and someone really sneaked into their room last night and knocked them out, then…"

He scanned them, his expression disapproving. "If you have grievances, speak them out and resolve them. Why resort to such underhanded tricks?"

Pan Yun dashed home, leaving the mess behind her.

She slipped back into her room, changed out of her blue cotton robe, put on her Daoist robe, and strode off to the dining hall, hands swinging.

Yin Song had just set down his chopsticks; he raised an eyebrow at her return. "Two qie? That was fast."

"You took two qie to eat breakfast, Second Master? Your pace is painfully slow."

Yin Song: "Are you planning to write those posts yourself? You don't need me?"

Pan Yun instantly switched to a smile, holding out the bowl of mutton soup she'd just poured toward him. "Second Master, try another sip? My bowl has more offal."

Yin Song waved dismissively and stood. "Qingjun, we're running out of time—go hire a carriage."

Yin Qingjun agreed and left ahead to hire a carriage on the street.

Pan Yun blinked. "Second Master, don't we have our own carriage?"

Yin Song frowned. "I was just about to tell you—since you're not going out much, rent out or sell your horses. Keeping them here is too expensive."

He added, "What kind of household are we? My monthly stipend is barely enough. How can we afford a horse?"

In Jingcheng, officials were sharply divided: the rich were extremely rich, the poor were truly poor.

Officials like Yin Song, sixth-rank clerks in a dead-end bureau, had to go out giving divinations and treating patients just to make ends meet.

For daily errands, they rented carriages on the street—about a hundred wen could take them anywhere in Jingcheng;

For official business, they simply used the horses and carriages from the government offices.

Besides that, they could rent horses and carriages from post stations or private merchant firms.

After all, Great Ming's rental business was quite developed.

Pan Yun had once thought they lived in hardship; now she didn't think so anymore, and nodded. "Renting carriages is fine. Keeping horses is expensive and labor-intensive."

Pan Yun turned to Tao Yanbai. "Who's on duty cleaning the stable today?"

Everyone looked up at her.

"Oh," Pan Yun retracted her gaze, lowered her head to sip soup. "It's my turn. Sigh… Do I have to bathe the horses too?"

Miao He: "Wash them for cleanliness, Little Master. They don't like cold water—use warm water and wipe gently."

Gently~~

Pan Yun said, "I think Second Master's right. Maybe we should find a good family and sell both of them."

Wang Cong looked up. "Little Master, when can I start running errands?"

Pan Yun thought a moment. "Tomorrow or the day after. Fine, we'll keep the horses for you."

The posts were all ready. Pan Yun focused on practicing calligraphy at home, flipping through the book Yin Song gave her, comparing his written samples with her own.

Honestly, whether she had a natural talent for calligraphy or because her talisman-drawing skills gave her an uncanny ability to imitate, she gradually found the rhythm—her characters grew steadily more refined.

Pan Yun placed the two sheets side by side, studying them with growing delight. "Good, good—I'm a genius."

Unlike Pan Yun's joy, Wang Zhen felt like he was roasting over a fire. Since last evening, his heart had been hanging, never settling.

He hurried to the palace, but the Emperor didn't see him, didn't punish him—just ordered him to wait outside and listen for summons. Yet he never appeared, not until afternoon, when the sun dipped low.

The civil and military officials were preparing to leave for the day; those serving in the palace gradually departed, glancing curiously at him as they passed.

Those glances cut into him like knives—worse than direct punishment.

The young Emperor only let him in after everyone else had left. His face showed little expression, but Wang Zhen knew—he was furious.

He hadn't lashed out only because he still needed Wang Zhen's status to counter the civil and military ministers.

His wavering heart sank at once. The once-arrogant Wang Zhen snapped back to reality, re-recognizing his true place.

He knew: if the Emperor already knew about the affairs outside the palace but held his anger, it was because he had no choice but to suppress it.

After all, he still needed to use this Grand Eunuch's name to oppose the civil and military ministers.

But what if one day he no longer needed him? Or if his patience reached its limit?

Wang Zhen shuddered, dared not think further. So as soon as he entered home that evening, he fell to his knees and confessed everything—admitting all his bribery. Through sobs and tears, he pleaded, "Your Majesty, I saw how you fret over finances, and since I have no talent for earning money, I resorted to this method to gather it."

He said, "I recorded every sum's source. I hold their secrets—Your Majesty can use them or arrest them as you wish. The money is stored in the treasury, meant to be presented on Your Majesty's birthday…"

The Emperor snorted. "You plan to present me with money I earned through bribery on my birthday?"

Wang Zhen immediately bowed his head. "Your Majesty, all wealth under heaven belongs to you. They give you money as tribute—how can that be called bribery?"

Whether the Emperor believed this "collecting bribes on my behalf" excuse or not, his expression visibly improved.

Seeing this, Wang Zhen pressed his advantage—condemning the thief who stole the Emperor's wealth, while revealing he had another stash hidden in a secret chamber, untouched.

So the Emperor sent the Embroidered Uniform Guard with Wang Zhen to retrieve the hidden treasure from the secret chamber.

Wang Zhen had thrown caution to the wind, determined to gamble everything to win back the Emperor's favor.

He knew that only if the Emperor continued to trust him and rely heavily on him could he continue his life of power and wealth;

once the Emperor's favor was gone, let alone wealth, he couldn't even keep his life.

Over the years, he had offended no small number of civil and military officials, and even those eunuchs and palace attendants in the imperial palace—plenty of them wanted him dead.

!. Read

He absolutely could not fall from power!

So Wang Zhen, his face solemn, gravely led his men to open the secret chamber door; upon seeing the empty secret chamber, Wang Zhen's vision went black and he nearly fainted.

His body swayed twice, but in the end he steadied himself through sheer force of mental fortitude, then stiffly turned around and asked the Embroidered Uniform Guard guarding outside the door, expressionlessly, "After I left, who entered this room?"

No one had entered—the second unsolved case in Wang Zhen's residence had occurred, and it was even stranger than the first.

The first one could still be deduced: the thief came in the middle of the night to steal, and at the time there were no guards outside the courtyard, so it was possible;

but this time, the Embroidered Uniform Guard were guarding outside the door—Wang Zhen had counted them off with his own feet just before, and the next moment they were gone?

So many things, moved in and out, and yet no one was disturbed?

"Could it be that a ghost did it?"

It was precisely this remark that made the Emperor somewhat suspicious of Pan Yun.

That was why last night Yun Yan led men to the door to search.

But nothing was found.

Yesterday there were even Embroidered Uniform Guard watching Pan Yun—she sat in a teahouse in the east of the city for an entire morning;

Wang Cong's movements were also easy to trace: he wandered around the west of the city the whole way, occasionally going to Chengnan, and that area was far from Wang Zhen's residence; although there were one or two quarter-hours in between when his whereabouts couldn't be found, in such a short time he couldn't have reached Wang Zhen's residence either.

And Yin Song and Yin Qingjun had been in the imperial palace the whole time, with colleagues to testify.

As for Miao Zhen and Miao He, they merely wandered the alleys near their home, telling fortunes and treating illnesses, with people around them the whole time.

After such an investigation, all the people of the Three Clarity Monastery were cleared of suspicion.

Except for the vanished Hu Jing.

But An Chen had said that Hu Jing seemed to be suffering heavily from wounds, lying still the whole time.

So the palace suspected that Pan Yun had noticed the Embroidered Uniform Guard prying at the rooftops and sent Hu Jing away.

But harboring a wanted criminal and stealing Wang Zhen's treasure were two separate matters.

Now the Emperor only believed that Pan Yun and the others had hidden Hu Jing; regarding the theft of the treasure, his suspicion of them had dropped to the lowest.

Although the Emperor was annoyed at Pan Yun for hiding Hu Jing, the impression of jianghu people not following rules was deeply ingrained; he was annoyed, but could understand.

A band of jianghu roughnecks, they speak of loyalty, they speak of affection and righteousness—coincidentally, he too was an Emperor who greatly valued affection and righteousness.

So he had the Embroidered Uniform Guard watch the people of Yin Zhai, wanting to find Hu Jing and interrogate him about the treasure map, but had no intention of dealing with Pan Yun and the others.

He could understand Pan Yun and the others, but could not understand Wang Zhen.

In his view, Pan Yun and her group were outsiders; their opposing him and standing on Hu Jing's side was forgivable;

but Wang Zhen?

He had treated him as Mr., as a father, trusting and looking up to him—and yet he had treated him like this.

One night passed, and there was not a single trace of the vanished treasure.

Not the slightest mark, so much so that the Emperor himself began to doubt: "Mr., was the treasure in the secret chamber truly stolen by someone? Or did Mr. transfer it in advance, then falsely borrow the name of bandits to deceive Us?"

Wang Zhen dropped to his knees with a thud, prostrating himself: "Your Majesty, I pledge my head on it—the treasure in the secret chamber is the same as that in the study, all stolen by thieves."

"Then tell Us, how did they, without anyone knowing or sensing, move the things past the eyes and ears of so many Embroidered Uniform Guard?"

Wang Zhen choked for a moment, then said: "Your Majesty, there are strange people in the world, so naturally strange things will happen."

The Emperor then took out a yellow talisman and said: "We also wish to test whether such strange things truly happen. Mr., come forward."

Wang Zhen raised his head to look at the yellow talisman in the Emperor's hand, his heart chilling, not knowing what the talisman did.

He walked forward trembling with fear.

The Emperor then slapped the yellow talisman onto his palm with a *pa*, then pulled him to the window's edge, bathed in the bright moonlight, and stared intently at him: "Moon, moon, please tell Us, how much of a place do We hold in his heart?"

You ask me how much I love you, the moon represents my heart—the incantation of the talisman drawn by post-modern people is just this down-to-earth; who knows whether an incantation is really needed

Good night

(End of this chapter)