Qingshan

Chapter 76 : Chapter 76

Chapter 76: The Explosion

"Who's up there? Seize him!"

The agents looked where Jinzhu pointed. On the rooftop of a tavern, a pitch-black face was peeking over the ridgeline, spying on Red Cloth Lane.

One agent flinched. "Is that a man or a ghost?!"

Jinzhu smiled up at Chen Ji on the rooftop. "Playing tricks in the dark. Surround him."

The Secret Spy Division had come up empty tonight. Jinzhu wore his smile like a mask, but rage was already churning beneath it. A Jing Dynasty mole had been planted right under his nose. If the other Zodiacs found out, they would laugh themselves sick.

The next moment, Chen Ji watched helplessly as dozens of agents swarmed in and sealed off the tavern beneath him, airtight.

Some began scaling the outer walls. Chen Ji pried up tiles and hurled them down, smashing the climbers' heads bloody.

Others hauled over tall ladders and tried to climb up that way.

Chen Ji went to the ladders and heaved with all his strength, toppling each ladder along with the agents clinging to it. Every ladder they raised, he sent crashing down.

But there were too many of them. More ladders appeared, more climbers came, and he was one man. He couldn't watch every side at once. It was only a matter of time before they broke through.

He was a lone fortress, besieged on all sides.

Lin Chaoqing called lazily from below. "Need my Trouble-Solver Guards to step in? If your agents can't handle him, Lord Jinzhu, we'd be happy to take the burden off your hands. With this many eyes watching, if the Ceremonial Directorate can't even deal with a single Jing Dynasty agent, the word on the street will be rather unflattering."

Jinzhu smiled. "No need to trouble the Trouble-Solver Guards. My Secret Spy Division will handle this."

With that, he unstrapped his light armor and handed it to a subordinate. Then he went to capture Chen Ji himself.

Chen Ji caught this from the corner of his eye, and his heart sank. If Jinzhu came up personally, there would be no escape. He tore open the cloth bundle on his back and pulled out two bamboo tubes.

The next instant, Jinzhu came barreling toward the tavern, each stride covering several zhang.

At the base of the building, Jinzhu launched himself upward. His heavy frame shot off the ground and landed on the second-floor railing.

One kick off the railing, and he soared straight onto the roof.

For a Grand Enforcer of Jinzhu's caliber, scaling a building several meters tall was no different from walking on flat ground. He had long since transcended the limits of ordinary men.

But the moment he cleared the rooftop, he saw the black-faced figure opposite him holding a match in one hand and a bamboo tube in the other. The fuse on the tube was already burning.

Chen Ji had not thrown it immediately after lighting it. He waited, patiently, until the fuse had almost burned down to the end -- and only then did he hurl it at Jinzhu, who had just landed on the roof.

Get down!

Chen Ji threw himself flat on the tiles and clamped both hands over his ears.

Jinzhu saw the bamboo tube arcing toward him and instinctively went to kick it away, but before it even reached him, it detonated.

A thunderous boom. Jinzhu threw his arms over his head as the massive shockwave blasted him clean off the roof.

The explosion cracked across the sky like a bolt from a clear heaven. The fireball lit up the darkness overhead as though a wrathful god had hurled down divine flame, blazing and absolute.

Beyond Red Cloth Lane, the thunder rolled outward for blocks. Over a hundred guard dogs erupted into frenzied barking, and the whole of Luocheng seemed to jolt awake.

Inside Red Cloth Lane, patrons and singing girls alike went stiff with terror. Scores of them dropped flat to the ground, shrieking in panic.

They were not the only ones -- even the Trouble-Solver Guards' warhorses reared in fright, hooves clattering on the flagstones, nearly throwing their riders.

Lin Chaoqing's own mount tried to rear, but he forced it down with sheer pressure.

The Commander of the Chief Punishment Division looked up, his expression grave, his sharp eyes flashing beneath the brim of his bamboo hat. Jinzhu, who had reached the rooftop only moments ago, was tumbling through the air like a kite with its string cut, plummeting from several meters up.

His once-immaculate cross-collar robe was in tatters -- sleeves blown to shreds, trousers missing half their length, his whole body a ragged mess, like a busted sack of cloth.

An agent screamed: "Catch him! Don't let him hit the ground!"

Over a dozen agents dove for the spot where Jinzhu was about to land, managing to catch him just before he smashed onto the flagstones.

Several sharp cracks rang out. The agents who caught him felt their arm bones snap under his crushing weight, their backs buckling from the impact.

The whole group collapsed in a heap, but at least Jinzhu hadn't slammed into the stone.

"My lord?!"

"Lord Jinzhu!"

These agents had served under Jinzhu for years. They were as close as brothers.

Whatever cruelty Jinzhu showed to Jing Dynasty spies, he was genuinely good to his own people -- generous, attentive, and skilled at winning loyalty.

But now Jinzhu lay with his eyes shut, face blackened, not even breathing.

Grief swept through the agents on the spot.

"Cough, cough, cough -- what are you crying about? What are you howling about? I'm not dead yet." Jinzhu slowly opened his eyes and sat up, his face a mask of shock. "What the fuck -- since when does gunpowder hit this hard? The stuff in our Crafts Supervisory is nothing like this!"

When he'd seen the bamboo tube and its fuse, he had already braced himself. He'd guessed it was gunpowder, and that the blast would hurt. But he had never imagined the explosion would be this powerful -- orders of magnitude beyond what he'd expected.

This thing was nothing like the gunpowder he'd seen before. Not even close.

Jinzhu looked down at his ruined clothes. Every inch of his body screamed with a searing, burning pain. His bones felt like they'd been shaken apart, his organs shifted out of place.

If not for his high cultivation, he would have been killed on the spot.

Strange. Had someone inside the Crafts Supervisory developed something new and kept it secret, then sold it to the Jing Dynasty's spies?

If the Jing Dynasty got hold of this, the Ning Dynasty was finished.

Jinzhu forced himself to his feet. "Move! Now! Catch that man! If he slips away right under my nose, how am I supposed to face the Inner Minister?"

But when he raised his head, the rooftop was empty. Chen Ji had long since leapt across to another building and fled.

Lin Chaoqing glanced at him from atop his horse. "Lord Jinzhu, having survived a disaster, good fortune must lie ahead. But next time you lack certainty, kindly refrain from summoning my Trouble-Solver Guards from Mengjin Camp. We're heading back."

...

...

Red Cloth Lane fell quiet.

Jinzhu dispatched half his agents to track the black-clad, black-faced fugitive... though he knew in his heart the man was probably long gone.

He led his trusted men to the tavern's back courtyard and stood in silence, looking down at the six agents who had died there.

"All blade wounds... West Wind, you're the best with a saber. Examine them," Jinzhu said, his face expressionless.

The agent called West Wind crouched down, silently apologized to his dead comrades, and stripped the clothes from their bodies.

He rinsed the wounds with clean water and studied them closely. "The killer used a short blade. The edge is odd -- it doesn't seem particularly sharp. It doesn't even look like a weapon designed for killing..."

"What kind of blade?"

"My lord, there are too many types to say. The killer seems to have simply grabbed whatever was at hand. But his technique is devastatingly precise -- every wound struck a vital point, clean and efficient. This is a veteran blade master. Without years upon years of grueling practice, you couldn't produce cuts this clean."

"What's more, he's extremely cautious. He clearly knows that a single stab rarely kills immediately, so he followed up with multiple strikes to other vital points on each victim."

The other agents sucked in a collective breath. "Cold-blooded bastard."

Jinzhu frowned and swept his gaze around the courtyard. Then he stopped. "Wait -- why are all these sabers broken?!"

West Wind stood and looked. Six sabers lay scattered across the courtyard. Five of them were snapped in two.

He picked up a broken blade, found the matching hilt, and pressed the two halves together. Only then did everyone see the clear notch at the break point.

West Wind's voice was disbelieving. "My lord, these were severed with a single strike each. Our Secret Spy Division's sabers are forged from hundred-fold steel. The killer used nothing but a short blade, and he broke them in one blow?"

Jinzhu turned to him. "Have you ever seen this kind of technique?"

West Wind shook his head. "Never. Could it be Liang Gou'er?"

Jinzhu scoffed. "Not Liang Gou'er. If Liang Gou'er were here, he wouldn't need to bother breaking their swords. Besides, Liang Gou'er's spine has been broken -- he wouldn't dare oppose my Secret Spy Division... So who is it? A blade master this skilled doesn't just crawl out of the ground."

He stood in the silent courtyard, scanning the blood and the bodies.

Whoever it was had killed six agents single-handedly. They were undoubtedly an enforcer. But Jinzhu had seen plenty of enforcers, and very few with saber technique this refined.

Wait. The Jing Dynasty's Military Intelligence Division had a Division Officer who specialized in short blades, didn't they?

Earlier, Treasure Monkey had led a team to apprehend him in Jinling, but the man had cut down over a dozen agents and escaped by leaping into the Qinhuai River. And the weapon he'd used was a short blade.

Jinzhu's entire body burned with pain, and countless iron shards were embedded in his skin. Every step was agony, his bones rattling like they'd come unglued.

He should have gone for medical treatment immediately. But the thought of gunpowder this powerful falling into Jing Dynasty hands -- of it being turned against Ning Dynasty border troops in the future -- drove every thought of his own injuries from his mind.

Jinzhu snarled, "West Wind -- take my waist badge and find the Luocheng Garrison Command. I want every gate in the city sealed. East Wind -- intercept the Trouble-Solver Guards. Tell them to get to the canal docks now. No ship leaves for three days."

His voice dropped to something cold and hard. "Find him. Turn Luocheng upside down if you have to. Dig three feet into the earth. But bring that man to me."