"Don't be afraid, brother. Is there a hidden compartment or a secret passage leading to other rooms in this room?"
“To answer your question, young lady, our shop is a legitimate business, and such things are absolutely unheard of.” After saying that, he seemed to remember something and said, “Oh, by the way, I heard that gentleman in the room talking to himself, but I didn’t pay attention.”
Dugu Liang still rewarded him with silver and asked him to prepare a good meal.
Old Qi sat down without any ceremony and started chewing on peanuts, his face quite smug: "Look at you, I was invited here, but this person just ran away on his own."
Dugu Leng hurriedly clasped his hands in greeting: "Senior, I will find my elder brother as soon as possible. Please grant me some more time."
"If your brother were killed..."
"Pah! Pah! Pah! You old man, how rude of you! My husband is treating you to fine wine and food, and you still speak so disrespectfully! I'm going out to find my brother right now. If you can't cure his illness, I'll pluck your beard and use it as a calligraphy brush for my master!"
"This young lady has quite the temper. I'll wait here, old man." Old Qi, far from being angry, laughed heartily. I gave Dugu Liang a reassuring look and then left the inn alone.
Finding someone in such a big town is not easy, but the blankets were still warm when I touched them. Someone who is holding a strong and healthy person hostage probably can't have gone too far.
As soon as I stepped out of the inn, a pretty young girl blocked my way. She had her hair in two buns, wore a silk dress, and had a delicate jade pendant hanging from her waist.
"Miss, are you looking for someone?" she asked with a smile.
"Where is he?" Judging from the girl's composed demeanor, she must know something about him.
"Please come with me, Miss." She lowered her voice and glanced around to make sure there were no suspicious people before pulling me into the sedan chair.
The young maid was very cautious along the way, and after many twists and turns, she arrived at the back gate of a mansion, which was the same back gate of the Shen mansion she had just visited. The young maid hurriedly bowed and said, "I should have asked you to enter through the main gate, but the matter is urgent, so please bear with me."
"It's alright." I got out of the sedan chair and followed the little maid into the Shen family's residence from the back. After passing through the back garden and two corridors, we were greeted by a lake covered with lotus leaves and pink flowers. In the center of the lake stood a house, surrounded by white curtains. Clouds obscured the sun, and thick white mist filled the air, making it look like a fairy pavilion in a celestial palace.
A flower boat on the lake took my daughter and me to the lakeside cottage.
"Our young lady is waiting for you inside. I'll be serving her outside." After the maid finished speaking, she knocked on the door three times, and a melodious voice came from inside.
"Please come in."
Dugu Liang was not in this room. The woman sitting on the mahogany chair put down her embroidery needle, stood up and curtsied: "I apologize for impudently inviting you to my residence, young lady."
"If you invite our fourth young master to your residence, I will come even if you don't invite me."
"I think you've misunderstood, young lady. Dugu Liang isn't with me."
"Oh?" I laughed. "You must know who kidnapped Dugu Liang, otherwise you wouldn't have sent a maid to wait at the door the moment I entered the inn."
“That’s right. As soon as Dugu Liang entered Fan Hua City, many figures from the martial arts world flocked there. I couldn’t help but pay attention.” The woman invited me to sit down and said, “My name is Shen Sujun. Dugu Liang has done me a favor, so I had no choice but to save him.”
I felt more confident and rubbed the teapot on the table with my palm: "Miss Shen rarely goes out, so why would she care about matters of the martial world? I think someone must have given her some pointers in secret, otherwise how would she know to invite me here?"
What do you mean?
"This teapot looks like an ordinary teapot, but it actually has a hidden secret. There are two teapots inside. As long as you lift the lid, you can switch the tea inside. Your cup is a fragrant Biluochun, while mine is a Biluochun with sleeping potion added."
Shen Sujun's expression didn't change at all; in fact, she seemed somewhat relieved. She immediately stood up and knelt down, a gesture I hadn't anticipated, leaving me dumbfounded as she kowtowed: "So Sujun still doubted you, Miss, but you are indeed no ordinary person. If you can save Dugu Liang, I am willing to serve you like a slave."
From the study next door, the sound of the beaded curtain sliding came through, followed by a playful sigh: "Cousin, I told you long ago, Liu Ruyan wouldn't be stupid enough to drink your sleeping potion tea."
Shen Suxin was still the same as before, with no makeup, wearing a tight-fitting outfit, and always carrying a sword.
"Suxin, what brings you here?" Seeing an old acquaintance for the first time, she felt no surprise.
“Have you forgotten that I’m a constable? This place isn’t safe, so of course I’ll stay here.” Shen Suxin pulled me around, looking me up and down. “You haven’t changed at all.”
"Stop talking now. How did you know that Dugu Liang had been kidnapped?"
"That's how it is. A month ago, I received news that many martial arts figures were heading to Prosperous Flower City. It's said that they gathered together to obtain something priceless, but to get that thing, they had to find Dugu Liang. So after you settled in the inn, I sent my men to keep an eye on it. After you left, my men saw a furtive person carrying someone out of the inn. Sure enough, after a quiet investigation, they found that Dugu Liang was gone."
"What is it? What does it have to do with Dugu Liang?"
"They say Dugu Liang has gone mad, and only Dugu Liang and one other person know the whereabouts of that thing. If we capture Dugu Liang, we can lure the other person out. Or, if Dugu Liang recovers from his madness, we can get the information directly from Dugu Liang."
"But a month ago, we hadn't even decided to come to Prosperous City. Who knew we were coming here?"
"Haven't you noticed that something's been off in Fulong Town these past few months, Ruyan? There are a lot of martial artists loitering around Dugu Manor, waiting for Dugu Liang to come out. Last month, they intercepted a carrier pigeon and found out that Dugu Liang was coming for medical treatment, so they all rushed to Sangxiang Town."
"So the message my master sent me by carrier pigeon was leaked." I asked, puzzled, "What kind of treasure do they want? And who is the other person who knows the whereabouts of the treasure?"
Shen Suxin shook her head in confusion: "It's an Ice Silkworm Heavenly Robe. That person is very strange. No one knows if he's a man or a woman. His disguise skills are extremely powerful. He can disguise himself as anyone. My uncle, Shen Tianya, has been retired from his official post for many years. Recently, a strange thing happened in the town. Many girls have gone missing. The constables in the yamen are incompetent, so they summoned me. I happened to encounter Dugu Liang's matter, and I couldn't ignore it."
Shen Suxin playfully held up a handkerchief while Shen Sujun, who was secretly shedding tears, said, "Don't worry, Liu Ruyan and I are here. Even if you have seven or eight benefactors who have been kidnapped, we can still rescue them."
Shen Sujun then stopped crying and started laughing.
3
Old Qi is indeed a very difficult old man. Dugu Leng is drinking with him in the room and can't leave his side for a moment, so the task of finding Dugu Liang falls entirely on my shoulders. Fortunately, Shen Suxin has some subordinates who are efficient in their work. They said that someone saw Dugu Liang's shadow in the mulberry fields outside the town.
Shen Sujun was anxious, but following along would only be a burden, so Shen Suxin and I hurriedly left for the mulberry fields outside the town. There's a reason why Sangxiang Town is called Sangxiang Town. Over a decade ago, all the men in the town went to war, and the women, in order to survive, began to cultivate mulberry trees and raise silkworms extensively. This place, rich in natural beauty and talent, produced many skillful young women. The town's silk embroidery became famous, and thus, the name Sangxiang Town spread far and wide.
"Such beautiful weather, how come there's not a soul in the fields?"
Shen Suxin shook her head: "In the past year, girls have been disappearing in this town. They are all girls who pick mulberry leaves, so no one dares to come to the fields to pick mulberry leaves."
"That's strange. Weren't any unidentified corpses found?"
"No, it's like they vanished into thin air."
Suddenly, light footsteps sounded from behind. Shen Suxin and I exchanged a glance and leaped up into the tall tree above. A woman hurriedly ran into the mulberry field and hid trembling under a mulberry tree. However, her method of hiding was far too clumsy. The burly men with fierce faces who had been chasing her spotted her thin figure at a glance and shouted, "Where are you hiding, you little hussy..."
Shen Suxin hates seeing women being bullied the most. Before I could stop her, she jumped down from the tree and stood in front of the burly man: "Oh, bullying people! I can't just stand by and do nothing."
The burly man was startled: "Where did you come from, daring to meddle in my business?"
"Stop talking nonsense and taste my fist."
Without a word, Shen Suxin started fighting with the burly men. Those men were no match for her; after three moves, they were exhausted and fled in a panic. She clapped her hands triumphantly and said, "I've taken care of them. Why were they chasing you?"
The woman was so frightened that her face turned pale. After she calmed down, a sickly red flush appeared on her face. She stared at us blankly for a long time before she came to her senses and burst into tears.
"Don't be afraid, girl. Tell us what's wrong, and we'll definitely be able to help you," I said, patting her back gently to comfort her.
The woman cried for a long time before slowly regaining her composure and saying, "My name is Cherry, and I live in Lijiazhuang, a few miles from this town. About ten days ago, I came to the town market to sell some silk to supplement my family's income. When I finished selling and was heading back, it was already dark. When I reached the main road outside the town, I suddenly felt a numbness in my body and then I knew nothing more. When I woke up, I was in a large courtyard with many girls around my age. They were picking mulberry leaves, raising silkworms, and spinning silk day and night. We were being looked after by an elderly woman who directed us to do this and that. It wasn't until the evening that I heard one of the girls say that she was from Dahuaishu Village outside the town and had also been captured and taken there. It turns out that the girls there were the girls who had gone missing from the town in recent years, and they had been secretly imprisoned."
"Imprisonment?" Shen Suxin's interest was piqued. "What kind of place is that? How did you escape?"
"I don't know where that place is. The reason I escaped is that a man in black broke into the courtyard today. That man in black was extremely skilled in martial arts. The matriarch in charge couldn't defeat him, so she threw me, who was trembling, to the man in black as a shield. I thought to myself, 'Oh no!' But the man in black didn't kill me. Instead, he pushed me away. The matriarch in charge angrily drew her sword and stabbed at me. I was accidentally stabbed, and then the man in black saved me and left."
"You still can't see clearly what that place is?"
“I fainted from the pain. When I woke up, I was near this mulberry field. Then those men caught up with me, so I hurriedly ran in and then I met you.”
Only then did I notice that Cherry's arm was covered in blood, and blood was still seeping out. Shen Suxin stomped her foot in anger: "If only I had caught those lackeys and questioned them properly, it's probably too late to catch them now."
"There's no rush. It's more important to take Cherry back to the manor to treat her injuries."
After saying that, Shen Suxin and I took Cherry back to the Shen residence. Shen Sujun was not at the Lakeside Villa. Her clever maid, Xiaohong, treated Cherry's injuries and told us, "Madam has asked Miss to go to the flower hall to do needlework. She teaches Miss embroidery at this time every day." Shen Suxin instructed Xiaohong to take good care of Cherry and then took me to the flower hall.
Although Madam Shen was already in her forties, she still retained her charm. She was completely unaware that we were already standing in front of the flower hall, and was still earnestly explaining the embroidery technique to her daughter.
"Auntie." Shen Suxin grabbed an apple and stuffed it into her mouth without any politeness: "Auntie spends all day teaching Sister these things. It would be more practical to let her learn kung fu."
"You little girl, how will a woman get married if she doesn't know needlework? Those things like wielding swords and spears are for men." Madam Shen looked up, saw me, paused for a moment, then smiled: "This young lady must be the Miss Liu Ruyan that Jun'er mentioned, right?"
"Yes." I curtsied. "Greetings, Madam."
"No need, no need. Is there any news about that young master Dugu?"
"No." I sighed. Dugu Liang must be getting impatient. I should go back and let him know I'm safe before we discuss it further.
4
Back at the inn, Dugu Leng stood in front of his room like a wooden statue. I patted him on the shoulder, and he stared straight at me, saying, "This room is wrong."
"Something's not right?" He always had this neurotic expression when he was thinking, so I wasn't surprised and pushed him into the room, asking, "What's wrong?"
“This room is not right. Although Fourth Brother is crazy, the chances of him being kidnapped without anyone noticing are almost zero, given his martial arts skills.”
"Perhaps he was drugged, which is why he didn't struggle."
Dugu Leng shook his head and slowly paced back and forth in the room: "It doesn't seem like it. I checked the teacups, and there was no trace of sleeping potion around the room. Besides, even if they had drugged him, it's impossible that no one would have seen them helping him out of the room."
"That's it. When I went out to look for him today, I met Shen Suxin, a Jianghu constable. She has been keeping an eye on the inn because she was afraid that something might happen to Fourth Brother. Her men saw one person helping another leave the inn furtively."
Dugu Leng nodded: "This is the trick used by the person who kidnapped Fourth Brother. He ordered his men to walk out from the front of the inn, while he led Fourth Brother out through another door."
"You mean there's a secret passage in this room?"
Dugu Leng paced back and forth on the floor. Suddenly, he squatted down and tapped here and there. I chimed in, "There are also side rooms downstairs. Could it be that they dug through the floorboards and escaped?"
"Why isn't that possible?" Dugu Leng smiled wickedly and grabbed my foot, startling me so much that I spilled the tea I was about to drink onto the floor.
"Dugu Leng, you're asking for it." My fist swung out but he gripped it firmly. "Look at this tea." The tea meandered on the ground, flowing along the cracks in the floorboards, seeping into the base of the wall and disappearing. Dugu Leng chuckled. "It seems there is indeed a mystery in this inn."
The wooden plank was movable; it had been removed from the thick plank and then reattached. Below the plank was the downstairs wing room, whose layout and decorations were exactly the same as the one upstairs. Dugu Leng and I jumped down and immediately saw Dugu Liang lying on the bed, fast asleep, with some white powder settled in the teacup beside him.
“That makes sense.” I sighed. “This person must have used the identical layout of the two rooms, upstairs and downstairs, to first drug Fourth Brother, then move him directly from the upstairs room to the downstairs room. They made us think that Fourth Brother had been kidnapped from the inn, and then moved him away when we all left the inn. When Fourth Brother woke up, he didn’t notice anything unusual, drank water laced with sleeping potion, and fell asleep again.”
“There are a few things that don’t make sense,” Dugu Leng said after checking that Dugu Liang was just asleep and not injured. “First, the partition above must have been prepared before we came to the inn. Second, this is the only inn in town. That person assumed we would stay here, but how did he know we would stay in the room he had planned in advance? Third, all the tea in the inn was brought in by the waiter. If a stranger had come in and drugged us, Fourth Brother would have noticed. The waiter who was guarding the door couldn’t have said he didn’t hear anything unusual inside. This means that the person must be someone from this inn. Fourth Brother met him with us without any suspicion, and the waiter is under his command.”
"The innkeeper?!"
Dugu Leng made a shushing gesture and whispered, "Since he didn't harm us immediately, Fourth Brother is probably safe for the time being. Let's not alert him. Let's go up and pretend we didn't notice anything. Tell me in detail what happened outside the shop today."
Just then, we heard a knock on the door. We used our light-footed skills to return to our room upstairs. Through the crack, the innkeeper brought in some food. He cautiously peered into the doorway before taking out a small white porcelain medicine bottle from his pocket and placing it on Dugu Liang's nose. A moment later, Dugu Liang rubbed his head and slowly woke up.
"Young master, it's time to eat. I've brought some food. Please eat."
"Seventh Brother?" Dugu Liang looked around and asked, "I want Seventh Brother. I want the beautiful fairy maiden." As if waking from a dream, he grabbed the innkeeper's hand and said, "That fairy maiden must be your daughter, sir. Junior Dugu Liang greets Father-in-law."
The innkeeper chuckled, his eyes darting around as a plan formed in his mind: "My dear son-in-law, please rise. Why are you calling me father-in-law before the marriage proposal is even finalized?"
Dugu Liang chuckled, "Then this junior will immediately send someone to propose marriage." He was about to leave when the innkeeper grabbed him, "Don't rush, haven't we already brought the betrothal gifts and a suitable son-in-law?"
Did you bring it?
"Yes." The innkeeper's eyes suddenly lit up: "Have you forgotten? It's that Ice Silk Celestial Robe. Only fairy maidens are worthy of wearing that robe."
Dugu Liang was stunned for a long time before clapping his hands and laughing: "I remember, I remember, I brought the Ice Silk Heavenly Robe, but the fairy took it away."
"Liu Ruyan?" The innkeeper exclaimed in surprise. He looked around cautiously before regaining his amiable expression and said, "Let's not talk about it now. Finish your meal and go to sleep. Your seventh brother won't be back for a few days. He instructed me to take good care of you."
Dugu Liang believed him and devoured all the food on the table. After being persuaded by the innkeeper to drink a cup of tea, he finally fell into a deep sleep.
After confirming Dugu Liang's safety, I recounted the events of the day to him in detail. Dugu Leng laughed heartily in my ear, whispering, "Go to the Shen family again now..."
The nights at the Shen family home were exceptionally quiet, yet a sense of unease lingered within that quiet. I climbed over the high wall to reach the small pavilion in the middle of the lake. After Shen Suxin arrived at the Shen family home, she and Shen Sujun lived in the pavilion, in an east wing and a west wing, separated by a front hall and a study.