Wang Daxia said, "It's too late now. The food box has already been taken inside. We've missed our chance to drug it."
Lu Ying slapped her forehead in frustration. "If only I had realized earlier, we could have found an opportunity to administer the drug at the Lakeside Inn."
Ding Wu comforted her, "No one could have predicted this. Things can't always go exactly according to plan."
After calming herself, Lu Ying ordered her subordinates, "Send a pigeon post immediately to inform Lord Lu."
Upon receiving the message, Lu Bing thought to himself, "Fortunately, I prepared a backup plan by having Head Lane completely surrounded - not even a bird could escape it." He immediately wrote a reply, telling his daughter to remain calm and proceed with the original plan, as he had reinforcements ready.
By the first watch, all the lights in the shop had been extinguished. The night watchmen and warehouse guards had all fallen asleep on their makeshift beds. Perhaps the rainy weather made for good sleeping, as the dozen or so people on night duty had gone to bed earlier than usual. The rain beating against the roof tiles was quite hypnotic - after just a few routine comments about women before bed, they were yawning continuously and fell asleep almost as soon as their heads touched the pillows.
Wu Dianyong, having accompanied Boss Wang for dinner, returned to the inn carrying the leftovers. He gave some tips to the attendants and asked them to return the food box to the Lakeside Inn. Indeed, he didn't care for sweet foods and had only eaten a few bites to please Boss Wang.
Of course, one never eats their fill when dining with superiors, so he sat down in the inn's main hall and ordered a bowl of eel noodles and two steamed crabs. Just as Wang Daxia had observed, he had a cat's tongue and particularly enjoyed fresh aquatic foods.
The opportunity had arrived.
When the kitchen served the dishes, Wang Daxia ordered the undercover agents to add "Lanke Dream" to the eel noodles.
Wu Dianyong first finished the eel noodles to satisfy his hunger, then slowly picked up his crab tools to extract the crab meat, enjoying the delicacy and indulging his preferences.
Wu Dianyong was an expert at eating crabs. After finishing both crabs, he even reassembled the dismantled shells to form complete crab shapes.
Finally, he drank a cup of warmed yellow wine to counter the cooling nature of the crab, completing the perfect meal.
Wu Dianyong went upstairs to his room, belching contentedly. The inn attendants had already prepared his bath, with an extra bucket of hot water beside the tub.
Wu Dianyong undressed and settled comfortably into the bath. Perhaps due to the yellow wine, his eyelids felt heavy and he could barely keep his eyes open. Placing a bath towel behind his neck, he decided to take a short nap in the tub.
The moment he closed his eyes, he lost consciousness, returning to an infant-like sleep.
All of this was observed by the undercover agent hiding on the roof beam.
Wu Dianyong, having gained weight in middle age, slid down from the edge of the tub while unconscious, his head submerging in the water without any reaction.
The drug was extremely potent. When added to food and drink, it took effect after a while, but when administered directly in the eel noodles, it knocked him out within fifteen minutes.
Fearing Wu Dianyong might drown, the undercover agent jumped down from the beam, pulled the unconscious man out of the water, and tied him up with ropes.
Meanwhile, several signal arrows shot into the sky, emitting green light that was quickly swallowed by the heavy rain. The Embroidered Uniform Guards stationed throughout the northern city began their operation, arresting all suspects without a single one escaping.
At the Myriad Goods Trading Company, undercover agents fed the guard dogs some drugged meat bones to incapacitate them, then infiltrated the shop to capture the night watchmen separately.One person covered mouths while four others handled the binding. Except for one exceptionally strong man who woke and resisted—only to be immediately subdued—everything proceeded smoothly. All the night watchmen were captured in their sleep.
In the tunnel, Wang Daxia, nearly fully submerged in water, shifted the final brick blocking the warehouse entrance. Water gushed from the tunnel into the storage room as he squeezed through the opening. Using a glowing blue fluorite for illumination, he stared in shock at the warehouse's contents—it was filled entirely with firearms!
Moreover, these weren't crude, homemade weapons. The wooden crates were clearly marked "Wang Gong Factory."
Wang Gong Factory was the imperial arsenal, exclusively producing firearms for troops responsible for capital defense.
All firearms required gunpowder to operate, so Wang Gong Factory maintained permanent stockpiles of thousands of tons of gunpowder. Due to the extreme danger, it was located in Coffin Lane in the remote southwest corner of Beijing's inner city, surrounded by four imperial temples—Dinghui Temple, Cheng'en Temple, Huguo Temple, and Yuanhong Temple—where unauthorized personnel were forbidden to approach.
The air hung thick with the pungent scent of gunpowder. Wang Daxia wiped cold sweat from his forehead, grateful for Lu Ying's foresight. Anticipating that firearms might be stored underground, she had insisted he discard his flint and other ignition tools, instead providing him with a glowing blue fluorite from her family collection.
Had he used the flint, even a single spark landing on these firearms would have brought unimaginable consequences.
If these weapons ignited, the explosion would be powerful enough to obliterate the entire Myriad Goods Trading Company!
The water leaking from the tunnel was but a drop in the bucket compared to the warehouse's massive stockpile, doing nothing to mitigate the danger.
Despite their preparations, Wang Daxia's legs trembled with fear: I can't die here. If I die, Wei Caiwei would truly become a widow.
Just then, knocking came from outside. "The warehouse guards are all tied up. Should we open the door now?"
Wang Daxia rushed to the door. "Open it quickly! I need out now! This place is full of Wang Gong Factory goods—I don't dare stay another second! Everyone stay back and keep all ignition sources away!"
Survival came first!
The door opened and Wang Daxia bolted out like a startled rabbit.
The final target was the suspected White Lotus Sect leader Zhao Quan, known as Boss Wang.
Boss Wang resided in Wu Dianyong's small courtyard. Under cover of the rain, Lu Ying personally led elite Embroidered Uniform Guard members over the walls using grappling hooks and ropes.
Lu Ying first subdued the elderly servant attending Boss Wang in the courtyard. The old man had been squatting by a small stove heating water but had succumbed to the drug's effects, collapsing unconscious on the ground. With no one adding fuel to the stove, the fire was nearly extinguished.
Reinforcements dispatched by Lu Bing had also surrounded the compound, ensuring not even a fly could escape—complete airtight security.
Boss Wang's bedroom was in the east wing, where lamplight glowed through the window!
Having eaten food from Lakeside Tavern that evening, he alone remained awake—the only White Lotus Sect member unaffected by the "Lanke Dream."
Intending to capture him alive, Lu Ying crept to the window and listened intently. The clattering sound of abacus beads came from within.
Boss Wang was doing accounts.
His window was fitted with expensive Western glass—readily available merchandise from the Myriad Goods Trading Company.The only drawback of the glass was that Lu Ying couldn't slice through the window gauze or Korean paper pasted on the windows like the Embroidered Uniform Guard usually did to release knockout smoke inside.
Shattering the glass would create too much noise and alert Shopkeeper Wang, so knockout smoke couldn't be used.
There were two options now: first, break down the doors and windows to capture him, or second, wait for Shopkeeper Wang to fall asleep and quietly pry open the doors and windows to enter.
Just as Lu Ying was contemplating the next move, the sound of the abacus from the bedroom ceased, followed by Shopkeeper Wang's yawn.
A shadow moved against the window as Shopkeeper Wang stood up from behind his desk, stretched, and said loudly, "Old Man Li, why isn't the bathwater ready yet? I want to bathe and sleep."
Old Man Li, who was supposed to be heating the water, had already been knocked unconscious and naturally didn't respond.
Lu Ying glanced at a subordinate skilled in vocal mimicry, who immediately lowered his voice and replied in an elderly tone, "It's ready. Should I bring it over now?"
The heavy rain was pouring, and the sound of the rain distorted voices, especially through a closed door.
Shopkeeper Wang didn't suspect anything and said, "Bring it quickly."
The Embroidered Uniform Guard swiftly stripped Old Man Li's clothes and put them on. Then, pouring hot water from the stove into a bucket, he carried the hot water in his left hand and another bucket in his right, approached the door, and knocked. "Boss, open the door."
Two rows of Embroidered Uniform Guards stood on either side of the door, waiting for Shopkeeper Wang to open it so they could rush in and capture him alive.
Shopkeeper Wang walked to the door but didn't open it immediately. Instead, he asked through the door, "This rain just won't stop. I wonder if tomorrow will be sunny or rainy?"
"Old Man Li" replied, "Only heaven knows."
Hearing this, Shopkeeper Wang immediately withdrew his hand from the door bolt.
Sensing something amiss when Shopkeeper Wang didn't open the door right away, Lu Ying peered through the window and saw him turn and run toward the canopy bed.
Damn it! The earlier remark, "I wonder if tomorrow will be sunny or rainy," which seemed like casual conversation, might have been a code phrase. "Old Man Li" had been exposed!
Lu Ying immediately made a charging gesture. His subordinates smashed the doors and windows with a large iron hammer, rushing in through both the window and the main entrance.
Shopkeeper Wang leaped onto the bed, activated a mechanism, and the bed collapsed. He disappeared into a black hole as the bedboard flipped back up, looking no different from an ordinary canopy bed.
Lu Ying pointed at the bedboard. "Smash it!"
After several hammer blows, the wooden bed frame cracked, but there was still an iron plate beneath.
Wang Daxia swung an axe, fiercely hacking at the iron plate until he finally tore a gap in it. Shining a torch inside, they saw a twisted black hole like a slide—Shopkeeper Wang had slid down through it.
Lu Ying was the first to jump in, with Wang Daxia close behind, holding a shield. The two slid to the bottom, and Wang Daxia, raising the shield, led the way. He warned his pursuing Embroidered Uniform Guard companions, "I found firearms from Wang Gong Factory in the warehouse. Shopkeeper Wang must have firearms ambushed below. Be extremely careful."
The tunnel was narrow, allowing only one person to pass through, but it was solidly built, with walls made of blue bricks—no wonder it hadn't collapsed despite the rain.
Wang Daxia charged ahead with his shield raised, while Lu Ying shot arrows into the darkness ahead. However, the tunnel twisted, and the arrows struck the walls, with no dull thuds or screams of impact.Ahead, a breeze suggested they were nearing the exit, but Wang Daxia spotted a spark in the darkness of the tunnel, writhing and crawling like a venomous snake flicking its tongue, drawing closer and closer.
Wang Daxia recalled the firearms stored in the Wang Gong Factory arsenal and instantly understood what the twisting, crawling spark was.
There was no time to run. Now, he had to gamble. Wang Daxia swung his shield and hurled it fiercely at the spark!
The shield struck the spark precisely, extinguishing it, and the tunnel returned to darkness.
When the others rushed over, they discovered the spark was a long fuse connected to a fist-sized cannon at its end. Once ignited, the cannon would explode, collapsing the narrow tunnel and burying all pursuers alive!
Damn it!
Lu Ying picked up the cannon as a precaution and continued the chase forward.
Wang Daxia was the first to burst out of the tunnel’s end, which opened into a wardrobe. The wardrobe doors were wide open, indicating that Boss Wang, upon escaping the tunnel, had immediately lit the cannon’s fuse, confident that his pursuers would be buried alive. He hadn’t even bothered to close the tunnel entrance.
This was also a bedroom, with half the bedding draped on the floor, suggesting the person stationed here had been startled awake from sleep.
Wang Daxia rushed out the door and found it was a fisherman’s house. A shed in the yard was piled with fishing nets, and the house stood right beside the Pool of Accumulated Water. It seemed this fisherman was also a member of the White Lotus Sect, guarding the tunnel.
The muddy path showed two clear sets of footprints leading to a dock by the lake, where several fishing boats were moored.
Just then, a bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating the dark, rainy night as bright as day. Wang Daxia and Lu Ying saw a fishing boat braving the rain, sailing across the misty, vast expanse of the Pool of Accumulated Water.
Lu Ying leaped onto a fishing boat. "Split into two groups: you row and follow me in pursuit! Wang Daxia, go immediately and mobilize the night patrol of the Northern City Military Command to guard the shores of the Pool of Accumulated Water."
Author's note: Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or irrigated with nutrient solutions between 2020-08-10 02:34:02 and 2020-08-10 18:50:46~
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