TWWDS - Chapter 31

Chapter 31

When Yan Kaixian accepted Chao Qingxiu's order, she did not actually understand what had happened. Instinct alone told her to trust the Gang Leader's judgment. Without wasting any more words, she clasped her hands in salute, vaulted cleanly over the wall, and vanished before anyone could see where she had gone.

Chao Qingxiu stood and glanced at the badly frightened teahouse owner. It would not do to remain there and interfere with his business, so she took out a string of coins and set it on the table.

Though she had never led a gang in her previous life, she knew that when a superior went out with subordinates, the superior was best to show some initiative and pay the bill.

Chao Qingxiu remembered the address her client had given her and walked at an unhurried pace along Northwest Long Street toward Zhou's Pharmacy. When the residence gate came into view in the distance, she heard the door creak open from within.

The person who opened it was Yan Kaixian. Fresh blood marked the hem of her clothes. When Chao Qingxiu walked over, Yan Kaixian saluted and reported, "Everything happened just as the Gang Leader predicted." Then she stepped aside to clear the way.

Inside the vast Zhou's Pharmacy, the silence was unnatural, broken only by the chirping of birds. Chao Qingxiu entered the main hall and saw a gray-haired old physician who looked frail and unsteady.

His clothes were covered in creases and tears, as though he had been bound and had only just been released.

Yan Kaixian introduced him: "Dr. Zhou, this is our Gang Leader Chao of the Zizhuo Gang."

Chao Qingxiu stepped forward, dispensed with pleasantries, and came straight to the point. "It is not safe here yet. May I ask, Dr. Zhou, whether there is anyone in the city whom you can trust?"

Dr. Zhou looked at her and did not respond for a long moment. He seemed wholly unable to take in anything from outside himself. Chao Qingxiu patiently asked again. Only then did some life return to his glazed eyes, and after a moment he said in a hoarse voice, "Chief Constable Tan in the city is my friend."

"Sister Yan, go invite him here. I will remain and guard this place."

Yan Kaixian went off to do as she was ordered.

Dr. Zhou's body trembled faintly. Chao Qingxiu studied his complexion and knew the strain came from exhaustion of body and mind, not from any internal or external injury. She said nothing further. A quarter of an hour later, Yan Kaixian brought a constable. Chief Constable Tan went directly into the hall, spoke a few words with Dr. Zhou, then saluted Chao Qingxiu. "Thank you, heroes, for your timely intervention. You have saved every life in my old friend's household."

"I dare not claim such credit." Chao then asked, "Dr. Zhou, earlier, there seemed to be someone who had gone to Chunhua Pavilion..."

Dr. Zhou snapped, "That man is my good-for-nothing disciple!"

"Please do not be angry, Dr. Zhou. You have been under an intolerable mental strain. You should rest and regain your strength."

Chief Constable Tan joined in the persuasion. "Brother Zhou, go and rest first. Leave the rest to me and these two heroes, would that be best?"

Dr. Zhou had already been utterly exhausted. Seeing his old friend, he suddenly let go of the tension he had been holding in his chest. His head spun, and he could no longer hold on. He gave a weak nod and was helped back to his room to rest.

Only then did Chief Constable Tan give Chao Qingxiu a detailed account of what had happened in the Zhou residence.

Dr. Zhou was naturally somewhat reclusive and had never cared for company. He had not taken an apprentice until ten years earlier, when a former classmate surnamed Sun died and entrusted his granddaughter to his care, thus giving him his first student. The student's talent was admittedly mediocre. Fearing his medical arts would be lost, Zhou intended to take on another apprentice, but his first disciple conceived something evil and joined forces with outsiders to harm him. Chao Qingxiu had uncovered his scheme beforehand.

After the matter inside the residence had been settled, Yan Kaixian finally found time to voice a question that had long weighed on her mind. "Gang Leader, did you sense that something was wrong from what that idler said today?"

Everything that happened afterward, Yan Kaixian could understand. The one thing she could not was how Chao Qingxiu had detected the problem inside the house while still nearly a third of a mile away.

"Exactly," Chao Qingxiu said. "Sister Yan, do you remember what those two men said?"

Yan Kaixian recalled, "At first, they said nothing. Later, one of them said to the other, 'It is getting much too late. There are only forty-five minutes until 5 p.m., and Qiuyue Tower should be nearly over.'"

Even after the incident, she had turned the remark over and over in her mind, yet had still failed to understand what secret it concealed.

Chao Qingxiu smiled. "That is precisely the point."

Yan Kaixian could not help glancing at Chao Qingxiu.

Yan had long known that Chao Qingxiu's discovery of the truth behind the late Gang Leader Shangguan's death had been no mere fluke, but a demonstration of her ability. Even so, each ordinary day together only deepened that earlier impression.

Thus, although the Gang Leader might go out and enjoy herself, she never for a moment relaxed her observation of her surroundings or her powers of thought.

Chao Qingxiu said, "The man said, 'It is getting much too late. There are only forty-five minutes until 5 p.m.' The description was exact in every respect, which proves he had been carefully calculating the time in his head. And since they merely sat where they were, doing nothing beyond what was necessary, they were probably waiting for something."

By now, the hour was no longer early. With Dr. Zhou's authorization, Chao Qingxiu had temporarily taken charge of the entire residence and arranged two guest rooms for her party near his quarters. She and Yan Kaixian were now walking toward them.

On the way to the guest rooms, Chao Qingxiu continued explaining to the Zizhuo Gang's senior hall master. "Besides, they had only a rough range for when the person they were waiting for would appear, and they expected the event to take place sometime that afternoon. Sister Yan, do you think a time forty-five minutes before 5 p.m. is too late?"

Yan Kaixian thought for a moment, then answered, "I do not think it is that late, Gang Leader."

"I think so too," Chao Qingxiu said.

Since that period began at 5 p.m., the remark placed the time at 4:15 p.m. Even in her previous life, Chao Qingxiu had not finished work at that hour. It was also early summer, and there was still a long stretch before sunset. Besides, Great Xia's trade was flourishing, no curfew was imposed, and Huashui City offered plenty of entertainment. Even spending a whole night out was perfectly normal.

Chao Qingxiu said softly, "So I began wondering what they were waiting for."

"Suppose some event was to occur at a certain time, such as a school letting out for the evening. If they wanted to wait for it, they would be best off staying near the place where it would happen, or at least somewhere they could see that place. The two men were crouched in front of an abandoned house, and neither their position nor their view was advantageous. Therefore, what they were waiting for could only be connected with the area directly in front of them."

"The most immediate thing in front of them was the teahouse. But if they were watching the movements of someone inside, that does not quite make sense."

Yan Kaixian could not help asking, "Why not?"

Chao Qingxiu explained, "The idlers and the teahouse were about fifty paces apart, neither too far away nor too close. Nothing blocked the space between them. What is more, the teahouse was crowded with people, while few people were around the idlers. It would have been easier to watch the idlers from inside the teahouse than to watch the patrons from the abandoned house."

"And if they truly meant to watch one particular person drinking tea, they could simply have sat inside the teahouse and watched from nearby. Moreover, even under that assumption, it still would not explain why the idler had stressed how late the hour was.

"If they were watching the teahouse as a whole, the same logic would apply."

Chao Qingxiu continued slowly, "It does not look as though they were watching the teahouse, which leaves only the road beside it. But the same problem remains. Why did they not sit inside the teahouse and keep watch there?"

"This teahouse is at the north end of the city, in a secluded spot where few people come. Anyone visiting to pass the time is therefore more likely to be a regular. In other words, the customers and the owner probably know one another."

"The two men were outsiders. If they mixed with the locals and struck up a conversation, they might leave everyone with the impression that strangers had come to the teahouse. They were not interested in the teahouse itself; they simply wanted to avoid having any contact with the people inside. So they chose a spot neither near nor far and waited there for one or more passersby on the road."

"Because it was afternoon, the person they were waiting for was more likely to be coming to the city's north end than leaving it. Following that line of thought, what would that person be coming here to do?"

"If they were paying a visit, arriving only in the afternoon would have been discourteous. More likely, they had come to transact business. They did not need to come early, but if they came too late, that would be inappropriate. This explains why the two men emphasized how late the hour was. A visit after 5 p.m. could indeed be considered a little late."

"Things do not always go according to plan. After making a rough estimate of when the person they were waiting for would arrive, they waited a long time, only for that person never to appear."

Perhaps as the night deepened, Yan Kaixian found it increasingly difficult to read the emotion behind Chao Qingxiu's words.

Chao Qingxiu said, "Think about how the two men looked and behaved at the time. Though they felt the hour was very late, they never set out to search. That proves the person they were waiting for did not live in Huashui City, or even in its outskirts."

After all, Huashui was a small city. It was no more than two or three double-hours from the city's northern edge to the outskirts.

"Still, the person those idlers were waiting for could not have lived nearby, yet could not have lived too far away either. Otherwise, it would have been difficult for the idlers to estimate when that person might arrive. This lets us judge that the journey from the person's point of departure to Huashui City took roughly two or three days."

Having reasoned this far, and combining it with the fact that the men had stayed around the abandoned house near a major road, Chao Qingxiu was highly confident that the person they were waiting for had to be herself.

A faint shock passed over Yan Kaixian's expression.

She had long been a seasoned veteran of the martial world, yet she had never encountered anyone like Chao Qingxiu.

From only a few words, Chao had already formed a clear judgment of another person's intentions.

Chao Qingxiu said, "There is one more thing they mentioned: 'Qiuyue Tower should be nearly over.' On the way to Northwest Long Street, we already learned that Chunhua Pavilion was the place where the performance would be ending. Chunhua Pavilion stages performances only during the Wei and Shen hours in the afternoon. That shows the two men were not very familiar with the local situation. I had wondered whether they planned to leave once their target arrived, so they could go watch a performance at Chunhua Pavilion instead of waiting there. But they had used the words 'should' and 'nearly over.'"

"They were exact about the time, but they had only a rough estimate of the situation at Chunhua Pavilion or Qiuyue Tower. This proves they did not care about the matter very much, or at least were not particularly interested. They did not sound like people who had heard of it for years and had long wanted to go see the performance."

"Not interested, yet they mentioned it anyway, and placed it immediately after 'It is getting much too late. There are only forty-five minutes until 5 p.m.' This shows that the performances in the southern part of the city were very likely connected in some way with the person they were waiting for."

"From our earlier assumptions, the two of them were most likely waiting for you and me. Could they have meant to take us to see a performance after we arrived?" Chao Qingxiu shook her head and quickly rejected her own hypothesis. "No. The man's words showed concern that time was running short. The emphasis was on the 5 p.m. deadline, not on the broader period from 3 to 7 p.m. Yet the performance at Chunhua Pavilion had already begun. Even if we left immediately, we would catch only the end. Qiuyue Tower would be the better place. So these two men could not have intended to take us to see a performance."

"The matter is connected with a performance, but not with watching one. For now, there is no need to consider what the performance is. We should approach the problem through the people and places involved."

"Both Chunhua Pavilion and Qiuyue Tower are fixed venues in the southern part of the city. Their locations do not change with the hour. Only the people do."

"The people at Qiuyue Tower who are connected with a performance fall into two groups: the performers and the audience. Chunhua Pavilion has three groups: the performers, the audience, and the people who pay."

"Of these, only two groups are connected with the time, especially the 5 p.m. deadline: the performers and the paying customers inside Chunhua Pavilion."

"These two groups have one thing in common. Throughout the performance, both are surrounded by onlookers."

"Let us examine the performers first. By 5 p.m., they will have finished. If the performers at Chunhua Pavilion wanted to prolong the performance, they would always find a way to do it. After all, both establishments have the same owner, so attempting to move the performance temporarily to Qiuyue Tower at the last minute would be safer."

"The person paying is the only one who attracts attention solely while the performance is under way. Once the performance ends and the onlookers disperse, the attention focused on this person will fade as well."

Chao Qingxiu said, "Thus, I dare to guess that the person was using this arrangement to provide themselves with an alibi."

At the same time, Chao Qingxiu also thought inwardly, I would never have thought to approach the problem from this angle on my own. The Detective System is to blame.

Chao Qingxiu continued, "However, if my guess is correct, the person who needs an alibi must come from a wealthy family and be able to spend money without counting the cost. This person should also be poor at socializing, with few carousing companions, and may even have done something that raised suspicion. Otherwise, there would be no need to go to such lengths."

Though the Gang Leader's words contained several unfamiliar terms, Yan Kaixian still understood perfectly well what she meant. "So, Gang Leader, you think..."

Chao Qingxiu said, "The two idlers were waiting for someone two or three days away who had come to transact business. They had kept track of the time so they could provide an alibi for their target, who was to be at Qiuyue Tower. They had chosen Northwest Long Street as their place of watch. Considering the expense of Chunhua Pavilion, the household involved must have been wealthy. Sister Yan, you should remember that this is the north end of the city. Apart from Dr. Zhou, what wealthy household would be willing to settle here?"

Once her reasoning had brought her this far, Chao Qingxiu naturally could not ignore the strangeness of her surroundings.

Fortunately, amid the misfortune, there was some good fortune. Given Chao Qingxiu's appearance at the time, even if her face did not look familiar to them, others would find it very hard to guess that she had come to act as the bodyguard.

After all, the Zizhuo Gang seldom sent anyone, and Chao Qingxiu was dressed like an elegant scholar. She even carried a snack in her hand, which did little to match the image people generally expected of an escort.

The two idlers had been exposed for two reasons. On the one hand, they talked too much. On the other, their target had not paid enough attention to her professional appearance while traveling.

Chao Qingxiu said, "Whoever needs an alibi is most likely involved in a grave, time-sensitive crime. We can set theft aside for now. After all, even if we discovered that something was missing the moment we entered, it would be difficult to suspect us."

Yan Kaixian said slowly, "...so it is murder."

Chao Qingxiu smiled. "Naturally. If men from the escort agency walked in, and Dr. Zhou collapsed and died on the spot, and an examination confirmed that he had died only moments ago, what would other people think?"

Yan Kaixian gave a bitter smile. "If so, the wisest thing I can do is follow the Gang Leader and run."

Chao Qingxiu laughed. "But for exactly that reason, I thought Dr. Zhou might not be dead."

After all, they did not know when our side would arrive. If the Zizhuo Gang came too late and the attackers acted too early, it would have been very difficult to frame Chao Qingxiu, who had only just arrived, with a corpse that had already gone cold. The safer course was to make certain that the escort team had arrived before killing Dr. Zhou.

At this, Yan Kaixian was filled with admiration and said sincerely, "The Gang Leader truly has a gift for foresight."

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