Hidden Shadow – CH 164

Chapter One-Hundred-Sixty-Four: Tracking

“If we fail to complete the mission in a month, we will deliver twelve thousand taels of silver to your residence.” The attendant pocketed the ten taels of silver, bowed, and took his leave.

An Jiu watched him leave, lost in thought. She and Chu Dingjiang had been monitoring him for so long, yet they had never seen this man come or go. How did he appear? She wondered if Chu Dingjiang could keep an eye on him.

After sitting for a while, An Jiu left the teahouse. A light drizzle began to fall outside, and the sky darkened.

She left directly, casually finding an inn to stay in and await news.

Chu Dingjiang, lying in ambush, knew the mission was accomplished when he saw An Jiu leave. He focused intently on monitoring the teahouse, and half an hour later, two customers emerged together.

He had followed these two people before, but had no direct evidence that they were not from the Piaomiao Mountain mansion. However, based on his experience from numerous missions, he chose to trust his intuition and continue waiting.

If he missed this time, he would go back to Cui Linglong and wait; the assassins from the Piaomiao Mountain mansion would go there sooner or later after taking the job.

Regarding the question of who to kill, Chu Dingjiang considered various factors before finally choosing Zhu Pianxian. Whether Zhu Pianxian could save her life depended on her own fate. Chu Dingjiang never cared about the wishes of those he used, especially since Zhu Pianxian had received two thousand taels of silver and repeatedly claimed she would take responsibility… With such a legitimate reason, it would be strange if Chu Dingjiang did not exploit her to the point of exhaustion.

A light drizzle, like smoke and mist, tinged Yangzhou City in the twilight.

Two lanterns were hung at the entrance of Liu’s Teahouse.

Chu Dingjiang’s eyes lit up. During the time he and An Jiu had observed, this teahouse had never hung lanterns before; this must be the signal.

He looked around; only the nearby houses had lanterns visible, but all the doors and windows of these houses were tightly closed.

About a quarter of an hour later, the sound of cart wheels echoed on the stone path, growing closer and closer until it stopped near Liu’s Teahouse.

The man was hunchbacked. He slowly entered, his back bowed, and soon emerged, carrying a large wooden bucket. Throughout, he paid no attention to the lanterns above the door.

The man showed no sign of anything amiss, but this very silence made him seem odd. During this time, Chu Dingjiang observed that everyone else was normal, except for this hunchback, who remained impassive, seemingly remarkably aloof, yet with a subtle difference from ordinary people.

As he drove away, Chu Dingjiang also moved.

…

The outline of Yangzhou gradually faded into darkness, with scattered lights flickering in the velvety night.

A four-story building called Yunlai Inn was brightly lit; a dance performance was taking place in the lobby, and most of the guests were still enjoying themselves.

In a dark room on the third floor, nestled at the corner, a single crack in its back window facing the street was unnoticeable. A slender figure stood by the window, peering out through the gap.

An Jiu was used to observing the outside world like this.

In daylight, she could see the Qingfeng Restaurant from here, but now everything was shrouded in a white mist. A few specks of orange light pierced through, and the occasional footsteps echoed on the stone path below.

Outside, the place was bustling and noisy, but here everything seemed still, creating a stark contrast.

Footsteps approached outside. Six skilled individuals caught her attention.

When the footsteps stopped, a man said wearily, “Bring two buckets of hot water.”

An Jiu paused slightly. Hua Rongjian?

She turned to look at the closed door. The dim light outlined her delicate profile. After a moment’s hesitation, she leaped out of the window, following Hua Rongjian’s scent, and climbed to the foot of that room’s window.

The sound of a door opening and closing was followed by a deep sigh from Lu Danzhi.

“Danzhi, what happened?” Hua Rongjian asked anxiously.

An Jiu was somewhat surprised. Yangzhou City was not particularly large, nor was it small, yet they had run into each other again! But upon reflection, it was both a coincidence and an inevitability. Yunlai Inn was the most prestigious government-run inn in Yangzhou City; given Hua Rongjian’s personality, he would always choose the best place to stay when traveling.

A long silence fell in the room, but An Jiu had plenty of time and patience.

An attendant came in with water, and the sound of running water filled the room.

An Jiu realized that the two men in the room were Lu Danzhi and Hua Rongjian, and her expression immediately changed.

“Danzhi, something happened to Cui Yichen?” Hua Rongjian had already heard about the massacre of over a hundred people on a ship. To avoid trouble, he had not investigated it, but he already sensed that it was related to the “madman” Cui Yichen.

The answer he received was still silence.

Hua Rongjian kicked the bathtub hard, cursing under his breath, “You fucking called me all this way just to watch you bathe?!”

“He’s dead,” Lu Danzhi said hoarsely, like a frail old man.

This time, Hua Rongjian fell silent.

After a long while, he said softly, “What happened?”

“I used all my connections and finally found him in Bianjing, but…” Lu Danzhi’s throat tightened, and he suddenly sobbed.

He could not forget how the once-promising son of the Cui family, on whom the Cui family had placed so much hope, had tugged at his clothes like a child, begging for candy. Precocious children were often precocious; even when Cui Yichen was three or four years old, he had never done such a thing.

He also could not forget how Cui Yichen, though only around twenty years old, had aged prematurely like a man in his thirties or forties.

“The person I’ve wronged most in my life is my elder brother. This time… I thought I could save Xiaochen…” Lu Danzhi took a deep breath, barely regaining a sliver of reason from his endless pain, and recounted his experiences along the way to Hua Rongjian.

Lu Danzhi found Cui Yichen in Bianjing and discovered he was poisoned. Remembering a powerful sorcerer he knew, he tricked Cui Yichen into going south with him for treatment. Lu Danzhi never dreamed that the Liao woman would dare come to the Song Dynasty, and not only that, she brazenly boarded a passenger ship at the Bianjing docks.

Everything that followed was beyond Lu Danzhi’s control. He was shocked and heartbroken when he witnessed Cui Yichen taking an arrow for that woman.

So, that woman was undoubtedly Yelu Huangwu… Hua Rongjian was also extremely surprised, but seeing Lu Danzhi’s condition, he did not press him further, only saying, “Danzhi, it is all fate.” Hiding under the window, An Jiu silently wondered, if Hua Rongjian knew that his own mother had been murdered, but the murderer had given him his current wealth and glory, would he still be able to say, “It’s all fate” to comfort himself?

“Perhaps.” Lu Danzhi’s face was ashen, his dejected appearance even more pronounced than before.

Hua Rongjian looked at him like this and reached out to pat his shoulder.

“I urgently summoned you here because I want to tell you a few things and also ask you to do something for me,” Lu Danzhi said.