The White Lotus Sect laborer had all ten fingernails and toenails ripped out from the roots. His left eye was sealed shut with wax, already blinded, while his right eye remained intact.
Just as transparent wax was about to drip into his right eye, the laborer confessed, "...The Hall Master is... Wen Si Niang, the madam of Red Sleeve Brothel. When officials and nobles come to Red Sleeve Brothel to discuss matters, the walls have ears—everything is recorded by Wen Si Niang's underlings and sent to the sect leader. The sect leader offers Ming intelligence to Anda Khan in exchange for protection of the White Lotus Sect."
Red Sleeve Brothel was right by the shore of Pool of Accumulated Water!
The night before last, Sect Leader Zhao Quan held a banquet on a decorated pleasure boat at the lakeside tavern, even inviting the top courtesan of Red Sleeve Brothel to perform songs and dances!
Lu Bing said, "Immediately send a pigeon post to Commander Lu, ordering her to surround Red Sleeve Brothel at once."
Lu Ying was closest.
Lu Bing watched the lightning flashes and torrential rain. "In this weather, carrier pigeons easily get lost. Release several more, and also dispatch fast horses at full gallop. We must not let the message fail to get through."
Having served many years in the Embroidered Uniform Guard, Lu Bing was meticulous down to the smallest detail. His subordinates acknowledged the order and departed.
Just then, guards brought the confession of the technician from Wang Gong Factory. This man feared death and confessed before any torture was applied.
It turned out he was lecherous, frequently visiting low-class brothels to find cheap prostitutes. In any case, he would never go to places like Red Sleeve Brothel where a single pot of tea cost a tael of silver.
One evening five years ago, he was stopped on the street by an unfamiliar woman. She was shabbily dressed and thin, but quite beautiful. The woman told him that if he would just give her a full meal, she was willing to sleep with him once.
He bought her a basket of steamed buns. She devoured them ravenously, wrapped the leftovers in a handkerchief, and indeed led him to a small shack outside the city where vagrants gathered.
The woman took the initiative to remove her clothes. Beneath the crude dress was a rare beauty. He immediately pounced on her, gave her some coins, and took her three times.
Later, whether from exhaustion or some other reason, he lost consciousness. When he woke up, he was still lying on top of the beautiful woman, his hands gripping her neck. The beauty's eyes were wide open, her tongue half protruding—she had already stopped breathing, her body cold.
Panicked, he got up to flee, but a man entered, blocking him in the shack. The man claimed to be the woman's husband and threatened to drag him to the Shuntian Prefecture Yamen to accuse him of raping and murdering his wife.
Not even wearing clothes, he knelt and begged for mercy, kowtowing until his forehead bled. The man finally relented, saying he only needed him to cooperate in one matter—not only would he not press charges, but he would also give him money, enabling him to enjoy beautiful women from across the land in the future.
In reality, after that incident, he was left with deep psychological trauma. He couldn't even get erect anymore, and his wife despised him, sleeping in separate rooms. How could he find women?
Following the man's demands, he claimed the man was his distant cousin, whose family had all died, coming to the city to seek refuge. He introduced this "cousin" to the recruiters at Wang Gong Factory, even bribing them with money to place the "cousin" in the factory's scrap warehouse to do odd jobs.
Over these five years, every month he would deliberately "scrap" over a dozen fully functional firearms, sending them to the scrap warehouse. Then after work, he would "visit" his distant cousin's home to repair the firearms.
As for who the "cousin" really was or where the firearms were sent—being cowardly and timid, he never dared to ask anything.The technician wept bitterly, tears and snot streaming down his face. "...He gave me some money, but I didn't dare use it! Besides, I'm already 'useless' now—what would I even spend it on? I dug a hole under the floor tiles beneath my bed and hid all the silver there. I haven't spent a single coin."
The jailer could hardly believe it. "Over a dozen items every month? For nearly five years? Almost a thousand items? You wouldn't have enough heads to chop even if you had a thousand! How could you be so obedient? Completely under their control?"
The technician sobbed, "At first, my cousin said it would only be for a year—that he wouldn't come to me after that. But one year turned into another, and two more years followed. At first, he threatened me with that female corpse. Later, he said since I'd already stolen for a year, the amount was enough to get me beheaded anyway."
"Just last month, I couldn't take it anymore. I told my cousin that if he kept pushing me, I'd go mad—I'd rather die. He told me to hold on a little longer, that by the end of the year, he would definitely stop coming to me. I thought, since I'd already come this far, I might as well see it through to the year's end. But who would have thought... the Embroidered Uniform Guard would show up!"
"Now I'm filled with regret. I shouldn't have lost control of myself and followed that wild woman on the roadside to that shack to do those shameful things. If I had done it just once and left, maybe none of this would have happened. But I was lustful and did it three times. I shouldn't have been so terrified of my cousin that I knelt and begged for mercy. It was their honey trap—that woman was probably strangled by my cousin and framed. If I had rushed out of the shack back then, my cousin wouldn't have dared to stop me. Then I wouldn't have been blackmailed into stealing firearms..."
The rest of the confession was filled with the technician's remorse. Enraged, Lu Bing slammed the confession onto the desk. "As a man, if you can't control that three inches of flesh, what use is it? If you can't control it, then don't keep it! Chop it off!"
The jailer acknowledged the order and left. A guard entered, carrying a cage with two drenched pigeons and two wax-sealed thin bamboo tubes in his hand.
The guard reported, "While our men were searching the laborer's house, two pigeons flew one after another to the nest under the eaves. We captured the pigeons and found bamboo tubes attached to their legs. These are carrier pigeons."
The guard opened the bamboo tubes, each containing a note and a white pill. The note read: "Your identity has been exposed. The Cult Leader has bestowed this medicine to help you ascend to the World of Eternal Bliss. After swallowing the pill, release the carrier pigeon immediately to report back."
The other bamboo tube contained an identical note and pill.
The guard continued, "We were very lucky. Their two carrier pigeons got lost during the stormy night and only flew back after we captured the laborer. Otherwise, the laborer would have taken the pill and killed himself, the technician would have known nothing, and we would never have found out that ** Hall is the madam of the Red Sleeve Brothel."
Lu Bing read the note repeatedly, his brow furrowed. With years of experience in this line of work, his sharp instincts were unmatched. Outside, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, and his mind buzzed with chaos. Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning splitting the night sky, Lu Bing realized what the note truly implied. His hand went slack, and the note fluttered to the ground.
The guard, thinking Lu Bing was having another stroke, hurried to summon Imperial Physician Song.
"Stop!" Lu Bing roared. "Send a Pigeon Post immediately! Release all the carrier pigeons we have! Tell Commander Lu not to approach the Red Sleeve Brothel—only set up barricades nearby. Do not enter! Do not enter! Do not enter! No matter what happens, do not go near!""Dispatch all fast horses to deliver the same message, in case the carrier pigeons get lost."
That old fox Lu Bing had discerned the intentions of the White Lotus Sect's dian.
Since the madam of the Red Sleeve Brothel was the dian who established the Myriad Goods Trading Company, she would know about the secret tunnel and the contact persons. While the fisherman was diverting Lu Ying's pursuers at the Pool of Accumulated Water, Sect Leader Zhao Quan had already quietly gone to the Red Sleeve Brothel to seek dian's protection.
dian and the Sect Leader were preparing for the worst, anticipating that if Wu Dianyong—one of the Four Great Disciples and their strategist—could not withstand the torture and confessed, revealing the Sect Leader would be minor (after all, Wu Dianyong didn't know who dian was or about the secret tunnel under his bed). They could simply discard the strategist as a pawn.
But if Wu Dianyong disclosed that the firearms in the underground warehouse of the Myriad Goods Trading Company came from two custodians at the Wang Gong Factory who had stolen them, implicating the laborer and the technician, then the laborer would be arrested by the Embroidered Uniform Guard. The laborer was dian's man, and he knew that dian was Wen Si Niang, the madam of the Red Sleeve Brothel. The Embroidered Uniform Guard would surely deduce that the Sect Leader was hiding in the Red Sleeve Brothel.
With the nighttime curfew in place, movement was nearly impossible, so dian could only send a carrier pigeon to instruct the laborer to take poison and eliminate himself, thus silencing him. The note also urged the laborer to release the pigeon immediately after taking the poison to confirm receipt, ensuring dian's identity remained concealed.
However, on a stormy night with thunder and rain, carrier pigeons are easily startled or lost. The pigeon arrived about half an hour late, by which time the laborer had already been captured by the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
dian, having waited for half an hour without a reply from the laborer, would certainly guess what had happened.
These traitors who betrayed their country, harmed their own people, and followed a cult would not trust their subordinates' loyalty, especially given the Embroidered Uniform Guard's notorious reputation for torture.
So dian would prepare for the worst—that the laborer had revealed the secrets of the Red Sleeve Brothel.
Given the White Lotus Sect's madness, they would not resign themselves to capture. Thus... the Red Sleeve Brothel by the Pool of Accumulated Water had now become a trap!
Waiting for Lu Ying and her team to enter, so they could all perish together!
The thought of Lu Ying falling into a trap—and it was I who had sent the message, intending for her to achieve a great merit by capturing dian herself, but now the Red Sleeve Brothel was a death trap lying in wait for its prey—weighed heavily on him.
If anything happened, it would be I who had personally harmed my precious daughter.
At this realization, Lu Bing grew frantic with worry and could no longer remain stationed at the Imperial Guard Office to command. He stood up, put on a lined jacket, donned a bamboo hat and a straw rain cape, and ordered, "Bring me the Akhal-Teke horse bestowed upon me by the Emperor."
He intended to ride personally to the Pool of Accumulated Water to stop Lu Ying.
His guard hurriedly advised, "The rain is heavy and the wind fierce outside. Lord Lu, your health cannot withstand this. It would be better to take a carriage."
"No, the carriage is too slow, far inferior to my steed," Lu Bing replied, picking up his Embroidered Spring Blade. "I have been summoned by the Emperor on countless such nights to handle affairs and ease His Majesty's worries. Even in heavy snow or on icy roads, I went without fail. As a father, can I not gallop through the stormy night for the safety of my own daughter?"
Knowing that Lu Bing's mind was made up, the guard brought the imperial Akhal-Teke horse. There were only two such horses in the capital, one belonging to the Jiajing Emperor and the other to Lu Bing. Even Yan Shifan did not possess one.The Akhal-Teke Horse possessed an elegant and slender build, significantly smaller than ordinary Dayuan warhorses. Her entire body was pale gold, emitting a golden glow even in the darkness. Aside from a golden mane on her neck, she had almost no hair elsewhere, and her skin was extremely thin. Holding a lantern close, one could even see the blue veins beneath her coat.
She was truly a divine steed, almost too magnificent to ride.
Lu Bing fed the Akhal-Teke Horse a handful of salted beans before swinging onto her back and tightening his legs against her flanks. "Giddyap!"
The golden steed immediately shot forward on her slender limbs, swift as lightning, vanishing into the night in an instant.
The guards stared in awe. Perhaps this was the legendary divine horse they had heard of.
While Lu Bing raced across the ground, a flock of carrier pigeons flew through the stormy sky.
The Akhal-Teke Horse’s speed actually rivaled that of the pigeons!
Thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, the wind grew fiercer, and the rain poured more violently, howling like demons.
Pigeons, being timid, began dropping dead from heart attacks mid-flight, one after another falling from the sky.
More and more pigeons died of fright, strayed from the flock, got lost, or simply landed on rooftops or tree branches as "deserters."
The number of pigeons in the stormy night sky dwindled, their formation disintegrating and thinning layer by layer—much like the author’s receding hairline, growing sparser and sparser.
But as the carrier pigeons faded from the night sky, Lu Bing, astride the Akhal-Teke Horse, pressed on relentlessly, riding with increasing courage and speed!
The golden steed was now in full stride, excitedly breaking through the heavy rain curtains. Her slender limbs moved at an imperceptible speed, alternating and galloping so rapidly that her hooves seemed barely to touch the ground.
Lu Bing looked as if he were riding a golden, everlasting bolt of lightning, cleaving through the night and the rain as he charged toward the Pool of Accumulated Water!
Author’s Note: Wang Daxia (whining): Look! Look at someone else’s dad!
On the Jinjiang Forum, the author is called "Gugu," meaning pigeon. Although Lan Zhou’s updates are more regular than a menstrual cycle and she has hardly ever "pigeoned" her readers, her hair resembles the pigeon flock in a storm—thinning and falling out more and more. Since embarking on this irreversible path of writing, Zhou’s hair has been breaking up with her left and right. What remains is basically true love—though who knows how long that true love will last. Zhou needs your comments for comfort.
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