18. The Guest Who Never Returns
Outside the Zhou Mansion, there were boiling shouts and flames. Inside the Zhou Mansion, more than ten secret spies' war horses were tied to the trees in the yard. They were disturbed by the restless atmosphere and stamped their hooves anxiously.
Someone pushed hard at the door of Zhou's mansion, and the door with the bolt horizontally shook and rumbled.
Yun Yang looked at Chen Ji and said, "The Liu family might be able to break into the house in less than a quarter of an hour. No one can guarantee what will happen then. Can you find evidence within a quarter of an hour?"
Another quarter of an hour passed.
Chen Ji asked himself, could he really decipher the secrets of this book in just a quarter of an hour? Impossible.
His face was hidden under the gray mask. He lowered his head and thought for a moment before responding, "A quarter of an hour won't do. I need at least..."
Outside Zhou's residence, someone shouted angrily, interrupting his thoughts: "Listen up, whoever's inside, come out and explain everything to us immediately. If you have evidence, produce it. If you don't, the murderer will pay with his life!"
Yun Yang tucked the hem of his robe into his belt, casually pulled out a long knife from the waist of the spy beside him, and walked towards the door. "Qi Tiao, Wu Bing, guard this door for me. Jiao Tu, you go watch the back wall. Anyone who dares to break in will be considered a traitor and killed without mercy! Chen Ji, I'll give you a quarter of an hour to find evidence, otherwise we will die here together!"
Chen Ji no longer hesitated, turned around, closed the door and went into the house, isolating himself from the noise outside.
He opened the "Four Books and Commentaries" copied by Zhou Chengyi and quickly screened it with all the ancient secret communication techniques he remembered to see what method the other party was using to transmit information.
Is it Tibetan calligraphy? No.
Is it the word verification method? No...
Is it the method of character analysis?
The so-called "character analysis method" is used to hide information, for example, Qianli grass is the character "Dong", and Shiri Bu is the character "Zhuo".
If it's the word analysis method, it's going to be troublesome. It's not difficult to crack, but the workload is extremely large, and it won't be cracked in a few days!
Time passed by minute by minute, and the gate of Zhou Mansion could be pushed down by the excited crowd at any time. In this cool autumn day, a layer of fine beads of sweat seeped out of Chen Ji's forehead.
It’s not the method of character analysis. Chen Ji searched for a long time but couldn’t find a clue that matched the method of character analysis!
what to do?
Chen Ji closed the book and thought...
etc!
The answer to solving a problem is often not in the problem itself!
A light bulb went off in Chen Ji's head, and he turned back to the bookshelf to look for books again, one, two, three... The more books he looked through, the brighter his eyes became.
At this moment, the noise outside gradually subsided, and the quietness after the noise had a strange feeling.
Someone shouted through the gate, "Liu Mingxian of the Liu family, please open the door and see Master Yunyang."
The spies looked at Yunyang silently.
Jiaotu whispered, "Liu Mingxian, the son of Elder Liu and grandson of Old Master Liu, is currently the head of the second branch of the Liu family and the current magistrate of Luocheng, a fifth-rank official."
Yun Yang pondered for a moment, then threw the long knife in his hand to a secret agent: "Open the door! Don't weaken the prestige of our Secret Service!"
With a creaking sound, the vermilion lacquered door slowly opened inward. Hundreds of people outside were holding torches, waiting quietly.
Liu Mingxian stood on horseback among the crowd, standing out like a crane among chickens.
But he was wearing white linen, a mourning hat on his head, his eyes were red, and even the brown horse under him had a white silk flower tied on its chest.
Yunyang walked forward, and finally
He stood still inside the threshold and asked, "Master Liu, you gathered hundreds of people in the middle of the night to besiege the Secret Service Department. Are you planning a rebellion?"
"I dare not," Liu Mingxian said hoarsely, gripping the reins tightly. "We are only here to ask Master Yunyang why you arrested my family members for no reason? Do you have any evidence?"
"Of course!" Yun Yang said with certainty.
"Then take it out and let's see. If my Liu family member is truly guilty, I will punish him as you wish!"
Yun Yang shook his head: "I can't show it to you now. This matter involves confidentiality and needs to be submitted to the Minister of Internal Affairs."
Liu Mingxian rode forward, confronting Yunyang from inside the gate. He shouted angrily, "Then there's no evidence! If I let you send me away like this, where will the dignity of my Liu family, a family of nobles for generations, be? How can the old master rest in peace? How can I explain this to the Queen Mother?"
"Master Liu, I advise you not to take the blame for treason on yourself," Yun Yang said, unwilling to pay any more attention. He retreated step by step into the shadow of the Zhou Mansion. "Close the door. Anyone who dares to enter the Zhou Mansion will be charged with treason!"
The door closed again, and Liu Mingxian's face was illuminated by the flickering firelight, making it look a little ferocious. "The eunuch party is harming the country. They are nothing but the henchmen of the poisonous prime minister... Call Liang Gou'er and be ready to break down the door at any time."
The young man hesitated for a moment. "Second Uncle, Liang Gou'er was drinking in Hongyi Lane last night. He might have fallen asleep in a girl's room by now... Do we need to use him?"
Liu Mingxian sneered, "An army needs to be raised for a thousand days before it's needed in a single moment. Tell him to come here quickly with his broken sword. If I don't see him later, I'll cut off his wine money and the medicinal materials he needs for his cultivation. Come, get some firewood and pile it against the wall of the Zhou residence. I'll set it on fire to force them out!"
…
…
Yunyang, who hurried back, was not as calm as before: "Jiaotu, the other party has murderous intentions!"
Jiaotu blinked: "Liu Mingxian wants to rebel?"
Yun Yang sighed, "He didn't bring the Luocheng troops with him tonight, clearly treating this as a family matter. If he's determined to avenge his grandfather, he might be exiled afterwards, but you and I would have died in vain. This kind of thing can be big or small, and how to define it is up to the officials in the court. Civil servants stealing the country! No wonder Jin Zhu said this trip was a bit hot to the touch when we left the capital. He's really smart..."
Jiaotu blinked again and said, "What should we do? Let's run away before they surround the back wall."
Yun Yang hesitated: "If we just run away like this, where will the dignity of our Secret Service be?"
Jiaotu rolled his eyes and said, "Then I'll run away by myself."
Yunyang: "Let's run together!"
"But there's a problem here," Jiaotu looked at Chen Ji with a smile, "What should we do with him? The spies can fight their way out without any problem, but if there are experts hidden in the Liu family team, bringing him along would be a burden."
As they spoke, the two looked at each other, and then looked at Chen Ji together.
Yun Yang picked up the two volumes of "Four Books and Commentaries" on the table with an expressionless face: "Leave it here. The book has been taken. Someone in the Secret Service will naturally be able to decipher it."
Jiaotu said, "We have to kill this guy, otherwise if he falls into the hands of the Liu family, they will know that we have no evidence, and he will become a witness."
These two treacherous individuals turned against each other faster than the pages of a book, having already decided to abandon Chen Ji. Jiaotu gestured to the spies, and saw more than a dozen of them silently sheath their swords and quickly retreat toward the back wall, abandoning even their horses.
Yunyang and Jiaotu thought that Chen Ji would cry and beg them to take him with them, but he didn't.
Chen Ji stood in front of the bookshelf.
He took book after book from the bookshelf and flipped through them quickly, as if he didn't hear the conversation between Yunyang and Jiaotu.
He did not look at every book carefully. He just glanced through most of them and then threw them on the ground, as if he was looking for something with a clear purpose.
There was a thick layer of books thrown under Chen Ji's feet, almost buried up to his knees.
Finally, he threw all the books to the ground and fell into deep thought.
Just as Jiaotu was about to silence him, Chen Ji suddenly asked, "Don't you two want to find evidence of the Liu family's collaborating with the enemy?"
…
…
Chen Ji closed the book in his hand and stepped out from the pile of books.
Yunyang and Jiaotu looked at each other in bewilderment. Jiaotu asked curiously, "Why do I feel like he's a little different from that night?"
"It's different now."
"Hey," Jiaotu tilted his head and looked at Chen Ji, "Did you crack the secret in that book?"
Chen Ji said confidently, "I already know where the evidence of the Liu family's collaborators is."
Yun Yang was puzzled: "Are you lying and wanting us to take you away?"
Chen Ji said, "I'm just a little apprentice in the clinic. Even if I trick you into taking me out, won't you still kill me?"
Yun Yang looked at him with a half-smile: "Then tell me where the evidence is?"
Chen Ji tightened the gray cloth covering his face and calmly analyzed, "Tonight's a struggle between the foreign relatives and the Imperial Household Department. The Minister of Internal Affairs knew you weren't good at handling this kind of situation, but he didn't send someone more sophisticated. He was going to use your personalities as a knife to strike at the Liu family. If you two run away without finding evidence, I'm afraid you'll be punished when you return to the Imperial Household Department, right?"
"Threatened me?" Yun Yang narrowed his eyes.
"Lord Yunyang, even if I tell you where the evidence is now, you probably won't know how to find it without me," Chen Ji responded.
On the other side, Jiaotu had already made a decision. She called over a secret agent: "Qi Wan, take him with you and save his life!"
Everyone evacuated to the back wall of Zhou Mansion. Jiaotu nimbly climbed over the wall first and stood guard outside. When she said, "No one's here, hurry!"
Yun Yang then stood at the foot of the wall and used his hands to build a ladder, sending one spy after another onto the gray tiles of the wall.
When it was Chen Ji's turn to climb over the wall, he stepped on Yun Yang's hands with his left foot, suddenly stopped and said seriously: "Master Yun Yang, this contribution is so great that you can't even imagine it."
Yun Yang sneered: "You want to deliberately step on me for a while longer, right? Do you really think I can't see it? Get out of here!"
After saying that, he exerted force with both hands and sent Chen Ji to the top of the wall.
However, just as they had all turned over, they saw a group of Liu family members carrying dry firewood, preparing to set fire to the Zhou Mansion. When the Liu family saw the Secret Service, they shouted angrily, "Hurry, they're trying to escape from the back!"
The Secret Service was not interested in fighting and quickly moved out into the deep alleys of Los Angeles. Yun Yang lowered his voice and asked, "Where should we find evidence now?"
Chen Ji asked, "What was the name of the scholar who died in the inner prison?"
"Liu Shiyu!"
"Go to his house first!"
Chen Ji followed the spy and ran wildly on the streets of Los Angeles.
The cool night breeze blew along the bluestone pavement of Los Angeles, making everyone's clothes flutter and their hair messy.
There was darkness ahead and shouts of killing behind. At a certain moment, Chen Ji felt as if he had become a stranger in this world who would never return.
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