There was a saying that circulated in the criminal underworld of Quecheng: Better to hand yourself in at the yamen than to scale a palace wall.
The meaning being that the palace walls of Quecheng were simply too difficult to climb — layer upon layer inside and out, high in some places and low in others, uneven and treacherous, to say nothing of the risk of being cut down by the Imperial Guards within. Men would sooner turn themselves in than attempt it.
And now, standing at the base of the Tian family’s courtyard wall, Xiao Nanhui found herself thinking that those petty criminals in the capital perhaps had not seen much of the world. Against the wall before her eyes, that palace wall was absolutely nothing.
The Tian family’s outer wall stood a full two zhang high by the most conservative estimate. The wall bore the marks of being patched together and built up again and again. Despite all those additions, the surface had been scraped smooth and lacquered with a coat of tung oil — even a mouse would slide off it, let alone a person climbing up. Looking further to the top of the wall, it was densely studded with iron nails an inch long — not even a bird could land there, let alone a human foot.
The Tian family had truly spared no expense. The last private well that had not yet gone dry in Suyan’s eastern city was guarded to the death behind these walls of iron and bronze. Her lightness skills were not strong enough to risk it.
Was there really no crack to slip through?
Hmph. How could there not be?
Wherever there are people, there are gaps to exploit — that was an eternal and unchanging truth.
Xiao Nanhui found a secluded spot across the street from the Tian family’s rear gate and hunkered down. She spent several hours there, eyes fixed unblinking on that rear gate, not letting a single sound or movement escape her notice.
At last, the long summer day of the Jizhou region neared its end. As the sun set, the rear gate of the Tian estate creaked open a crack.
A quick-looking young manservant peered through the gap in the gate, and after confirming there was no one around, carried a large wooden barrel out from inside and set it on the stone step at the rear entrance. Then he scurried back inside in a flurry and was not heard from again.
Xiao Nanhui waited a while longer, and once she was satisfied that all was quiet, she walked up to the stone step.
Only when she got close did she notice that a string of copper coins was pressed beneath the lid of the barrel — not many, but enough to be a meaningful sum in this impoverished city. Xiao Nanhui was puzzled, and casually lifted the lid, immediately regretting her decision.
A stench hit her full in the face. She hastily replaced the lid.
A thoroughly genuine barrel of “liquid gold,” that was.
The odor was still circling in her nasal passages. Before she could recover, heavy footsteps came from the end of the street, and she quickly retreated to her earlier hiding spot.
Before long, a middle-aged man carrying a shoulder pole hurried up and stopped at the stone step. With practiced ease, he wrapped a cloth around his nose and mouth, poured the entire contents of the barrel into his two large buckets, set the empty barrel back in its place, pocketed the copper coins with satisfaction, and left whistling a cheerful tune.
When he had walked far enough away, Xiao Nanhui returned to her position. She looked left and right, then reached into an inner pocket in her clothing and drew out a string of copper coins, carefully counting out several pieces.
This was the last string of copper coins she had left on her. It was not much, but every coin had been painstakingly hidden and preserved across a grueling journey, and it bore a weight entirely different from the silver that came easily back in Quecheng.
She steeled herself and pried off two more copper coins from the now sparsely populated string.
When something must be done, one must be willing to be ruthless.
Xiao Nanhui put the remaining coins back in the inner pocket and set the ones she had just taken beside the empty barrel. She thought again, picked them back up, hopped off the step, walked a few paces, and scattered them on the ground not far from the rear gate.
The night began to spread through Suyan’s eastern city; a crescent moon climbed into the sky.
The temperature around her had dropped considerably, but the air was still so dry it was like swallowing a blade when you breathed in through the nose.
It was the same young manservant again. As usual, he carried the empty barrel back inside, and was just about to close the gate when his whole body suddenly froze.
In the moonlight, across the street — its surface coated a dark gray by yellow sand — something was glinting.
He hesitated, looked left and right again, then looked back toward the courtyard behind him, finally satisfying himself there was no one, before darting quickly forward to investigate.
It really was money. Scattered across the ground were more than ten copper coins — roughly the same count as those he had set out on the barrel earlier.
Perhaps the night soil collector had been careless, and the money hadn’t sat steady and fell off. It was a back alley, rarely visited, and now that night had fallen, it was entirely plausible that no one would have noticed.
If you weren’t careful yourself, you can’t blame me.
The manservant congratulated himself on his good fortune and picked up every last copper coin, tucked them into his sleeve, turned back through the gate, closed it securely, and acted as though nothing had happened at all.
What he had failed to notice, however, was this:
In the moment he had stepped off the stoop to collect those scattered copper coins, a shadow that had been pressed flat against the gate’s bracket in the darkness peeled itself free and slipped, without a sound, through that door crack.
~~*
Once inside the courtyard, Xiao Nanhui began quietly memorizing the route she had taken, while taking care not to alert anyone in the compound. She moved cautiously.
Yet as she made her way through, the entire courtyard was dead silent. It was already night, true, but for a wealthy household that could afford lamp oil, it was far too early for sleep. Not to mention the household members and their mistress — she hadn’t even seen a single servant. It was genuinely strange.
Estimating the direction of the water well, Xiao Nanhui began from the outer perimeter and worked her way inward toward the heart of the estate. It didn’t take much effort. But when she actually arrived at the well, she found she had been thinking too simply. There was indeed a rope hanging from the well, but when she pulled it up she found no bucket on the end. Nor was there one anywhere in the vicinity. Xiao Nanhui wasn’t satisfied and went through a few of the unoccupied rooms nearby — she couldn’t find a single vessel that could hold water, not even a flower vase.
This was no coincidence.
On reflection it wasn’t hard to understand the reasoning: the well was right there, and no matter how vigilantly it was watched, there would always be moments of inattention. Far better to control access from the containers themselves — anyone who wanted to draw water each day had to apply for an authorized wooden bucket and bring it to the well. That was the only way it was permitted.
This wealthy household’s life, it appeared, was not much better than anyone else’s.
Xiao Nanhui stared down into the well at the clear, glittering water below, and at the moon reflected in it, and let out a long sigh.
Getting a drink of water was truly not easy.
Fortunately, she had some skills to her name. Troublesome as it was, it was not entirely without a solution.
The rope at the well had already seen some fraying and probably could not bear a person’s weight. Xiao Nanhui set her bag down beneath the stones beside the well, untied the water skin and fastened it to the rope, lowered it down into the well, then backed herself up and descended into the well too — bracing herself with arms and legs against the well walls, inching her way toward the bottom.
The well walls were covered in a fair amount of green moss, slick and difficult to grip. She nearly slipped several times but held on through sheer force. By the time she reached the bottom, her whole body ached all over — more exhausting than an army march by several measures.
The water at the bottom was the clearest she had seen in days. Xiao Nanhui gasped for breath, untied the water skin that the rope end had been tied to, drank her fill greedily, then refilled the water skin to the brim, re-tied it to the rope, and prepared to climb back up before pulling the water skin up with her.
By the time the whole ordeal was done, she looked up at that crescent moon framed by the well mouth — it was already past midnight.
If she ever had to do this a second time, she really wasn’t sure she could manage.
Right as she was thinking this, the rope dangling above her suddenly moved.
Before she could react, her water skin went shooting upward along the rope with a whoosh. She reached out to grab it — and missed.