Aoyama

Chapter 412 The Seal of the Three Mountains Society

Chen Ji admitted that the woman was right.

Liao Zhong was left with only one option: to flee.

In the dimly lit barn, a ray of moonlight shone through the uncovered roof, illuminating the slowly shifting dust motes in the air.

Madam Lu watched Chen Ji quietly, neither urging nor in a hurry, waiting for Chen Ji to make a decision.

After a long while, Chen Ji asked, "If Liao Zhong were to go to Datong, which road would he take?"

Lu closed his eyes and pondered, saying, "Go around Wutai Mountain and cross Tianfeng Ridge."

Su Zhou added from the side, "We can also go through Hengshan. Although there are bandits there, Liao Zhong is a Dao Seeking Realm official, so even if he loses an arm, we don't need to be afraid."

Madam Lu shook her head: "The entire road to Hengshan is Hu family territory, he won't take any risks."

Before Su Zhou could say anything more, Madam Lu interrupted, "Don't listen to her. If she had any brains, she wouldn't have gone to Luocheng alone to seek revenge."

Su Zhou gritted his teeth: "I don't want to implicate others... What you can think of, the eunuch party can naturally think of as well. They will definitely set up many obstacles on the way to Datong."

Lu ignored her and only looked at Chen Ji.

At this moment, Chen Ji made a decision: "How do I leave Changping?"

Lu said calmly, "You just need to come with me, and I will find a way to get you out of Changping."

Chen Ji suddenly asked, "What do you want from helping me like this?"

After a moment of silence, Madam Lu said, "I helped you capture Liao Zhong, so you owe me a favor. You have to repay that favor after you take control of the Chen family. You are not qualified to talk to me about these things now."

"Okay." Chen Ji hesitated for a moment: "What should I call you?"

Madam Lu looked at him: "Please provide the document."

Su Zhou suddenly realized: "So you are Ping Zhao. No wonder a Dao Seeking Realm Grand Master I don't recognize suddenly appeared... Aren't you only active in the Jinling area? Why are you in the north?"

Lu closed his eyes, ignoring everything.

Seeing this, Su Zhou muttered under his breath, "You damn woman, what are you strutting about for!"

At this moment, the sound of horses' hooves came from outside the capital's granary, as if a vast army was approaching.

Lu pushed open the door and leaped lightly onto the roof like a swallow.

Dressed in black, she hid behind the roof and peered out. She saw a large group of people approaching with torches and weapons, blocking the gate of the capital's granary completely.

The Emperor's Army was assembling at the granary. Someone put up a barricade in front of the granary gate and shouted: "The granary is a restricted area. No unauthorized personnel are allowed to trespass. Anyone who violates this rule will be killed without mercy!"

Su Zhou quietly crept up to her side and questioned, "Didn't you say that the eunuch faction couldn't search this place?"

Lu remained expressionless: "There is one exception."

"what's the situation?"

“Someone is carrying the royal command flag.”

……

……

"The royal command flag is here."

Wearing a black cloak, Xuan She held aloft the royal command flag and slowly rode his horse toward the capital granary.

On the tower of the capital's granary, the archers of the Long-Long Army held their bowstrings taut, but did not fire: the golden royal banner gleamed in the torchlight.

The black snake, its face pale, said in a soft, sinister voice, "The person in charge, come out and speak."

The gate to the capital granary was opened only a crack, and the commander of the Wansui Army stationed there strode out alone, glaring at them coldly: "What brings you here to my capital granary in such open brass? Didn't you see what's written on my gate?"

The commander of the Wansui Army pointed to two tall wooden plaques in front of the gate, on which were written sixteen large characters in red paint: "Be extremely careful with fire in the granaries; any negligence will result in the execution of the entire family."

Xuan She smiled and adjusted the collar of his cloak: "To remain neither servile nor arrogant even before the royal banner, the domineering reputation of the Longevity Army is well-deserved. However, I am only here to capture a wanted criminal and do not wish to make things difficult for you. I will have the Secret Service personnel extinguish their torches and search inside later, ensuring there is no fire hazard."

The commander of the Wansui Army said coldly, "My granaries are patrolled day and night by Wansui Army soldiers. How could a wanted criminal have infiltrated them? What, does the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs not trust my Wansui Army?"

Xuan She explained slowly and deliberately, "This criminal is no ordinary person. He is also protected by a Dao Seeking Realm official, making it easy for him to evade ordinary soldiers."

The commander of the Wansui Army retorted again: "Every granary is sealed with two seals, one from the Ministry of Revenue and the other from the capital granary, so that criminals have nowhere to hide."

Xuan She smiled and said, "We won't search those granaries that are sealed off."

The commander of the Wansui Army frowned: "Oh? What do you want to search?"

Xuan She's smile faded: "Tonight, my secret service will only search those twelve rat-inducing granaries."

The rat shed is infuriating!

Why bother searching for this nonsense?

The commander of the Wansui Army was suspicious. He glanced back at the capital granary and then at the imperial edict flag, still reluctant to let them pass: "Do you all know that if a spark enters the granary, nine generations of one's family will be implicated? In the seventeenth year of the Jianing era, the Tongzhou granary fire resulted in the execution of 132 officials. I, Li, do not wish to follow in their footsteps."

Just then, another group of people arrived from behind Xuan She.

Wu Xuange stood side by side with Xuan She, his face solemn, as he pulled on the reins.

When the commander of the Wansui Army saw him, he was immediately taken aback: "Brother Wu, didn't you go to the Imperial Guard? How did you become a eunuch... how did you become a Jie Fan Guard?"

Wu Xuange appeared to still be injured and said weakly, "Brothers, we are also here on orders to capture the wanted criminal who attempted to assassinate the Crown Prince. The royal decree is here, please let us pass."

As he spoke, the guards behind him, torches held high, ran towards both sides of the granary, one guard every fifty paces, seemingly intending to completely surround the granary and prevent anyone from escaping. The commander of the Wansui Army considered for a moment: "Granted!"

With a wave of his hand, the gates of the capital's granary were fully opened.

Xuan She raised his hand, and hundreds of spies extinguished the torches with sand and drew their swords from their waists.

He whispered to Wu Xuange, "Make sure to guard the outer perimeter and don't let anyone escape."

Wu Xuange's expression was indifferent: "You don't need to teach me how to do things. I'll take your dog's life sooner or later."

Xuan She was not offended and spurred his horse toward the capital granary: "It seems that Lord Wu still does not understand how to be an official in the capital, but it doesn't matter, he can always learn."

……

……

On the roof of the granary, Su Zhou said in a low voice, "Judging from the number of people, the Jie Fan Guard and the secret agents have all been mobilized here. They must be certain that we are hiding in the capital granary. You were just now so confident..."

At this moment, Su Zhou was surprised to find that 'Pingzhao' had left the roof at some point.

She turned to search, only to see that the other person had already sneaked up to the wooden fence of Jingcang, smashed a wooden plank with their bare hands, and made a hole big enough for a person to crawl through.

Su Zhou's expression changed, thinking that Lu was going to abandon her and run away again, so she quickly jumped off the roof.

But as soon as she landed, she saw that Madam Lu had already turned back, brushed past her, and walked towards the east side of the capital warehouse.

Su Zhou was taken aback: "Where are you going?"

As Lu passed by Chen Ji, she whispered, "Follow me."

Chen Ji glanced back at the hole in the wooden fence and realized that this 'certificate' was trying to create the illusion of breaking down the door and escaping: "Won't it be too easy to be found out? We climbed over the fence when we came in."

Lu led the way, calmly passing through the narrow alleys between the granaries and barns. Without turning her head, she said, "Xuan She is very clever and arrogant, but also suspicious by nature. If a clever person is also suspicious, he will be outsmarted by his own cleverness. To deal with this kind of person, you must first make him feel that you are not as clever as him."

Chen Ji then asked, "Why don't we just escape?"

Lu casually explained, "Xuan She is a cunning man. He came to the main gate of the capital warehouse to alert Xuan She. There must be some skilled men lying in ambush outside."

Chen Ji suddenly asked, "Have you had many dealings with him?"

Lu paused slightly, then continued walking forward: "I've had some dealings with them in Jinling."

Lu led Chen Ji and Su Zhou through the spacious Jingcang warehouse, heading straight east. Gradually, Chen Ji came across a small temple.

“This is the Granary God Temple, dedicated to Han Xin, a military strategist of the Han Dynasty. It was the place where granary officials checked their rolls and distributed tokens. The main hall has a stele commemorating a bountiful harvest, and the side rooms contain the ‘Granary Calendar.’” Lu explained, “Changping is a major coal-producing county with a network of underground mine tunnels, and this Granary God Temple is built on top of one of those mine tunnels.”

Chen Ji glanced at Lu's back. This man was extremely impatient with Su Zhou, but surprisingly patient with him.

Lu walked to the front of the Cangshen Temple and knocked on the door, but only three knocks came out.

With a creak, someone pulled open the temple door from the inside: "Who is it?"

Lu took out a square seal from his belt, stamped it with cinnabar on his palm, and showed it to the people in the Cangshen Temple: "The seal of Lord Qi, the Three Mountains Association will come to the rescue in an emergency."

Chen Ji was taken aback. The Three Mountains Society?
Yes, the Three Mountains Society consists of remnants of the three Imperial Guards, and naturally they are still connected with the Emperor's Army. This is why the Three Mountains Society has been able to stand firm in the capital.

The people inside the temple peered through the cracks at the cinnabar mark on her palm, then quickly opened the temple door: "Come in."

After the three squeezed in, the middle-aged man in the temple poked his head out and looked around before closing the door.

Two ever-burning lamps were lit on the offering table in the Granary God Temple, which were probably the only open flames in the capital granary at night.

The middle-aged man asked in a low voice, "What do you want?"

Lu said calmly, "Send us away from Changping."

The middle-aged man was silent for a moment: "Does Lord Qi know about this?"

Lu remained calm and composed: "Act according to the seal."

The middle-aged man nodded: "Okay."

He walked behind the shrine, opened it, sat down on the stone platform, revealing a hole: "Go, follow the triangular markings of the mine tunnel, and you can go all the way to the Yongding River, where boats are ready."

……

……

Inside the capital's granary, the Black Serpent spurred its horse straight to the granary where the Rat-Killed Demon resided. It searched the first one—nothing. The second—also nothing. The third, the fourth…

When he finally pushed open the door of the seventh house, he saw the roof tiles that had been removed and a sliver of moonlight shining through.

The black serpent said menacingly, "So you were indeed hiding here."

At this moment, Jie Fanwei shouted, "The wooden fence has been opened, and the criminal may be escaping to the north."

Xuan She listened without expression: "A petty trick, incredibly stupid. Don't chase after them to the north, it's just a smokescreen."

He left the rat-killing warehouse and was about to search other places when he returned to the rat-killing warehouse and looked at the map that Lu had drawn on the ground by the moonlight.

The black snake squatted down in front of the map. It saw three routes drawn on the map: one to Datong, one by sea, and one to Guyuan.

Guyuan and the sea route are drawn in a very rough manner, but Datong is drawn in extremely detailed manner.

There are three paths. If we want to pursue them, we need to split our forces into three groups. If Xuan She wants to achieve something, we must gamble on which path Chen Ji will take.

Xuan She pondered for a moment, glanced up at the uncovered roof, and suddenly ordered, "Send word to block all passes leading to Guyuan!"

(End of this chapter)