It was deep in the night. The back wall of the Zou County Magistrate’s residence was perfectly still; an old crow perched on the privet tree inside the courtyard wall, dozing peacefully.
A gust of night wind passed — and into that stillness came the first hint of movement.
The old crow was startled awake. It turned its head, and where a moment ago there had been nothing but bare wall-top, a head had appeared. The crow gave two sharp cries and flew away.
The head was wrapped in a peach-red handkerchief, through which two large eyes blinked. A low curse was muttered: “Wretched bird.” The head’s owner cocked an ear and held still for a moment; detecting nothing unusual, she gave a signal to the person still at the base of the wall.
Shortly after, another head appeared atop the wall — this one wrapped in a jade-green handkerchief. The voice that came with it was plainly hesitant. “Are you sure this is all right?”
The red handkerchief replied with full conviction: “Years of experience moving through the jianghu tells me that a face covering is simply to keep people from seeing your face. The color doesn’t matter.”
The green handkerchief still wavered. “But—”
Before the word was out, the red handkerchief had already vaulted over into the county magistrate’s compound — light as a swallow.
The green handkerchief had no choice but to follow.
---
The Zou Mansion was a genuine inner compound, vast and deep. It had been designed from the beginning in the style favored by ancient nobility, with large and small courtyards and pavilions interlocking in elaborate complexity — large enough to house a hundred people, each entirely undisturbed by the others.
The master of the Zou household also had a particular fondness for the garden aesthetic of Wancheng, and had spent considerable silver on artificial rockeries and landscaped scenery. The potted plants and greenery throughout the garden had been arranged with great care, and numerous covered walkways and decorative screens had been constructed according to what was described as an auspicious feng shui formation. Generously speaking, one might call it “a new scene at every ten paces.” Put less generously: a labyrinth of traps.
The night itself draped this great garden in flickering ghost-shadows; and amid all that inky darkness, a pale, shifting white suddenly appeared. The white moved slowly along a corridor — and because it had no light, the figure nearly walked into a pillar more than once, and nearly missed a step and stumbled more than once besides.
At last, this blob of white arrived before the master’s chamber door. It peered furtively in all directions, then slipped silently inside.
The moment the creaking wooden door closed behind him, Hao Bai immediately tore the damp cloth from his face, drew a deep breath, pressed a hand to his wildly pounding heart, and crept on tiptoe into the inner room.
This was the chamber Zou Sifang had occupied before he fell ill. Hao Bai had not been in this room during the day; he had no idea what the interior looked like, and if he wished to avoid lighting a lamp and waking anyone, he would simply have to feel his way through.
He examined every object he could reach, lifting even the heavy burnt-porcelain flower vases for a look. He went through each drawer, opened every multi-compartment box one by one, and after the better part of an hour was already gasping and exhausted from his labors. It was clearly his first time at this sort of rummaging enterprise, and he had very little idea what he was doing.
He leaned against the wall to catch his breath, then steeled himself to keep searching — when he raised his head and saw a silhouette projected on the window lattice.
Black against the darkness. The outline of a person.
He was so frightened his soul nearly left his body. He lurched backward, lost his footing, and collided with the cabinet behind him. Before he could react, he watched helplessly as a bronze basin the size of a washbasin wobbled on the cabinet’s edge — and fell.
Clang.
A thunderous crash reverberated through the room.
A moment later, lights flared instantly in the western annex; voices could be heard approaching.
The silhouette on the window lattice had vanished without a trace. Hao Bai moaned inwardly, with no time to tidy the scene. He fled through the door.
---
Not far from the western annex, inside a rockery garden, a speck of jade-green and a speck of peach-red wove their way through the mossy streams and artificial scenery, moving swiftly.
“Did you hear something just now?”
“Maybe — you tell me first: where exactly are we?”
Xiao Nanhui felt the handkerchief pressed against her face growing stuffier by the moment. How could something filched from a pleasure house have such poor ventilation?
They had been circling this garden for a good while and could not find their way out.
Bolao finally lost patience and hissed under her breath: “Didn’t you study the map? How are we still lost?”
She looked about on all sides, equally at a loss. “I did study it — but the map didn’t have this many rocks.”
Bolao was a quick-tempered person; turning in circles had already made her irritable. “Nonsense! Rocks are rocks and buildings are buildings — how could you have misread them?”
Xiao Nanhui snapped back: “It’s pitch black out here — what in the world can you see clearly?! I said to study the layout properly from the wall before climbing in, and you simply wouldn’t listen!”
“Looking now isn’t too late.”
With that, Bolao leaped into the air and caught hold of the pine tree beside the artificial rockery; in a few bounds she was perched on the roof of a nearby building, one hand shading her eyes as she scanned in all directions.
Xiao Nanhui was not as light-footed and genuinely dared not risk caving in a roof tile by following her up. All she could do was fret anxiously below.
“Hey, can you see yet?”
Bolao did not answer. The Zou Mansion at night was evidently not as quiet as one might have imagined. Just as Bolao was beginning to wonder if she had been mistaken, a dark shadow flashed past not far from her very eyes — swift as a wisp of smoke.
Bolao froze, then immediately dropped back down.
She moved to meet her — about to demand an explanation — when Bolao clapped a hand over her mouth and said in the smallest possible voice: “There’s someone else here.”
Her eyes went wide, and the very next moment she saw that dark figure skim over the rockery and vanish.
Then torchlight flared not far away, and the muffled voices of the Zou Mansion’s guards filtered over.
“Looks like they went that way. You few — check the annex. The rest of you, come with me.”
Xiao Nanhui and Bolao exchanged a look and took to their heels.
The Zou Family’s guards were evidently not ordinary hired muscle — their skills would have been considered exceptional even in the jianghu. Add to that the two women’s unfamiliarity with the grounds, and they could feel the pursuing footsteps growing ever closer.
Bolao stopped and spoke with exaggerated gravity: “We need to split up. You go that way, I’ll go this way. See you later.”
See you later? See you where?
Before Xiao Nanhui could react, the other person had already put ten paces between them in an instant.
Which is to say: master and servant, birds of the same wood — when disaster strikes, each flies in its own direction.