Chapter 18 The Guest Who Never Returns

Outside the Zhou residence, there were boiling shouts and flames. Inside the Zhou residence, more than a dozen secret spies' war horses were tied to trees in the yard. They were disturbed by the restless atmosphere and stamped their hooves anxiously.

Someone pushed hard at the door of Zhou's mansion, and the door with the bolt horizontally shook and rumbled.

Yun Yang looked at Chen Ji: "The Liu family may be able to break into the door in less than a quarter of an hour. No one can guarantee what will happen by then. Can you find evidence within a quarter of an hour?"

Another quarter of an hour passed.

Chen Ji asked himself, can he really decipher the secret of this book in a quarter of an hour? Impossible.

His face was hidden under the gray cloth covering his face. He lowered his head and thought for a moment before responding, "A quarter of an hour is not enough. I need at least..."

Outside Zhou's house, someone shouted angrily, interrupting his thoughts: "Listen, everyone inside, come out and explain to us quickly. If you have evidence, show it. If you don't have evidence, let the murderer pay with his life!"

Yun Yang tucked the hem of his robe into his belt, casually pulled out a long knife from the waist of the spy beside him, and walked towards the door: "Qi Tiao, Wu Bing, guard the door for me. Jiao Tu, you go and watch the back wall. Anyone who dares to break in will be regarded as treason and will be killed without mercy! Chen Ji, I'll give you a quarter of an hour to find evidence, otherwise we will die here together!"

Chen Ji no longer hesitated, turned around, closed the door and went into the house, blocking out the noise from outside.

He opened the "Four Books and Commentaries" copied by Zhou Chengyi, and quickly screened it with all the ancient secret letter techniques he remembered to see what method the other party was using to transmit information.

Is it Tibetan writing? No.

Is it the word verification method? No...

Is it the method of character analysis?

The so-called "character analysis method" is used to hide information, such as using Qianli grass as the character "Dong" and Shiri Bu as the character "Zhuo".

If it is the word analysis method, it will be troublesome. It is not difficult to crack, but the workload is extremely large, and it cannot be cracked without a few days!
Time passed by minute by minute, and the gate of Zhou Mansion could be pushed down by the excited crowd at any time. In this cool autumn day, a layer of fine beads of sweat seeped out of Chen Ji's forehead.

It’s not the method of character analysis. Chen Ji searched for a long time but couldn’t find a clue that matched the method of character analysis!

How to do?
Chen Ji closed the book and thought...

and many more!

The answer to solving a problem is often not in the problem itself!

Chen Ji had an idea in his mind, and he turned back to look for books on the bookshelf, one, two, three... The more books he looked through, the brighter his eyes became.

At this moment, the noise outside gradually subsided, and the quietness after the noise had a strange feeling.

Someone shouted through the door, "Liu Mingxian of the Liu family, please open the door and see Master Yunyang."

The spies looked at Yunyang silently.

Jiaotu whispered, "Liu Mingxian, the son of Elder Liu, the grandson of Old Master Liu, is now the head of the second branch of the Liu family and the current magistrate of Luocheng, a fifth-rank official."

Yun Yang pondered for a moment, then threw the long knife in his hand to a secret agent: "Open the door, don't weaken the prestige of our Secret Service!"

With a creaking sound, the vermilion lacquered door slowly opened inward. Hundreds of people outside were holding torches, waiting quietly.

Liu Mingxian stood on his horse among the crowd, standing out like a crane among chickens.

But he was seen wearing white linen, a mourning hat on his head, his eyes were red, and even the brown horse under him had a white silk flower tied on its chest.

Yun Yang walked forward and finally stopped at the threshold: "Master Liu, you gathered hundreds of people in the middle of the night to besiege the Secret Service Department. Are you planning a rebellion?"

"I dare not," Liu Mingxian said hoarsely, holding the reins tightly. "We are just here to ask Master Yunyang why you arrested my family members for no reason? Do you have any evidence?"

"Of course!" Yun Yang said firmly.

"Then take it out and let us see. If my Liu family member is really guilty, I will punish him as you wish!"

Yun Yang shook his head: "I can't show it to you now. This matter involves confidentiality and needs to be presented to the Minister of Internal Affairs."

Liu Mingxian rode his horse forward and confronted Yun Yang in the gate. He said angrily, "Then there is no evidence! If I let you send me away like this, where will the dignity of my Liu family, a family of nobles for generations, be? How can the old master rest in peace? How can I explain to the Queen Mother?"

"Lord Liu, I advise you not to take the blame for treason on yourself," Yun Yang was unwilling to pay any more attention and retreated step by step back into the shadow of Zhou Mansion: "Close the door, if anyone dares to break into Zhou Mansion, they will be charged with treason!"

The door closed again, and Liu Mingxian's face was illuminated by the flickering firelight, making it look a little hideous: "The eunuch party is a disaster for the country, they are nothing but the henchmen of the poisonous prime minister... Call Liang Gou'er and be ready to break the door at any time."

The young man hesitated for a moment: "Second Uncle, Liang Gou'er was drinking in Hongyi Lane at night. He might have fallen asleep in some girl's room... Do we need to use him?"

Liu Mingxian sneered, "It takes a thousand days to raise an army, but it only takes one day to use it. Let him come here quickly with his broken sword. If I don't see him later, I will cut off his wine money and the herbs he needs for cultivation. Come, get some firewood and pile it at the base of the Zhou mansion's wall, and then set it on fire to force them out!"

……

……

Yun Yang, who was walking back quickly, was not as calm as before: "Jiaotu, the other party has murderous intentions!"

Jiaotu blinked: "Liu Mingxian wants to rebel?"

Yun Yang sighed, "He didn't bring the Luocheng troops here tonight, and it's obvious that he's just treating it as a family matter. If he's determined to avenge his grandfather, he might be exiled afterwards, but you and I would have died in vain. This kind of thing can be big or small, and how to define it is just a matter of words from the officials in the temple. Civil officials stealing the country! No wonder Jin Zhu said that this credit is a bit hot when he left Beijing, he's really smart..."

Jiaotu blinked again: "What should we do? Let's run away before they surround the back wall." Yunyang hesitated: "If we run away like this, where is the dignity of our Secret Service?"

Jiaotu rolled his eyes and said, "Then I'll run away by myself."

Yunyang: "Let's run together!"

"But there is a problem here," Jiaotu looked at Chen Ji with a smile, "What about him? It's no problem for the spies to fight their way out, but if there are experts hidden in the Liu family team, bringing him along would be a burden."

As they spoke, the two looked at each other, and then looked at Chen Ji together.

Yun Yang picked up the two volumes of "Four Books and Commentaries" on the table with an expressionless face: "Throw it here. The book has been taken. Someone in the Secret Service will naturally be able to decipher it."

Jiaotu said: "We have to kill this guy, otherwise if he falls into the hands of the Liu family, they will know that we have no evidence, and he will become a witness."

These two sly characters changed their attitudes faster than turning the pages of a book, and had already decided to abandon Chen Ji. Jiaotu gestured to the spies, and saw more than a dozen spies silently put away their knives and quickly retreated to the back wall, even abandoning their war horses.

Yunyang and Jiaotu thought that Chen Ji would cry and beg them to take him with them, but he didn't.

Chen Ji stood in front of the bookshelf, taking book after book and flipping through them quickly, as if he didn't hear the conversation between Yun Yang and Jiao Tu.

He did not look at every book carefully. He just glanced through most of them and then threw them on the ground, as if he was looking for something with a clear purpose.

There was a thick layer of books thrown under Chen Ji's feet, almost buried up to his knees.

Finally, he threw all the books to the ground and fell into deep thought.

Just as Jiaotu was about to silence him, Chen Ji suddenly asked, "Don't you two want to find evidence of the Liu family's children collaborating with the enemy?"

……

……

Chen Ji closed the book in his hand and stepped out from the pile of books.

Yunyang and Jiaotu looked at each other in bewilderment. Jiaotu asked curiously, "Why do I feel like he's a little different from that night?"

“It’s different.”

"Hey," Jiaotu tilted his head and looked at Chenji: "Have you cracked the secret in that book?"

Chen Ji said confidently: "I already know where the evidence of Liu's children colluding with the enemy is."

Yun Yang was puzzled: "Are you lying and wanting us to take you away?"

Chen Ji said: "I am just a little apprentice in the clinic. Even if I trick you into taking me out, won't you still kill me?"

Yun Yang looked at him with a half-smile: "Then tell me where the evidence is?"

Chen Ji tightened the gray cloth covering his face and calmly analyzed, "Tonight is a struggle between the foreign relatives group and the Imperial Household Department. The Minister of Internal Affairs clearly knows that you are not good at handling such situations, but he did not send someone more worldly-wise. He wants to use your personalities as a knife to chop at the Liu family. If you two run away without finding evidence, I'm afraid you will be punished when you return to the Imperial Household Department, right?"

"Threaten me?" Yun Yang narrowed his eyes.

"Lord Yunyang, even if I tell you where the evidence is now, you probably won't know how to find it without me," Chen Ji responded.

On the other side, Jiaotu had already made a decision. She called a secret agent over and said, "Qi Wan, take him with you and save his life!"

Everyone evacuated to the back wall of Zhou's mansion. Jiaotu nimbly climbed over the wall and stood guard outside. When she said, "No one is here, hurry up!"

Yun Yang then stood at the foot of the wall and used his hands to make a ladder, sending one spy after another onto the gray tiles of the wall.

When it was Chen Ji's turn to climb over the wall, he stepped on Yun Yang's hands with his left foot, suddenly stopped and said seriously: "Master Yun Yang, this contribution is so great that you can't imagine it."

Yun Yang sneered: "You want to step on me for a while on purpose? Do you really think I can't see it? Get out of here!"

After saying that, he exerted force with both hands and pushed Chen Ji onto the top of the wall.

However, just as they all turned over, they saw a group of Liu family members carrying dry firewood, preparing to set fire to Zhou's house. When the Liu family saw the Secret Service, they shouted angrily: "Hurry up, they are trying to escape from the back!"

The Secret Service did not want to fight and quickly went out into the deep alleys of Los Angeles. Yun Yang lowered his voice and asked, "Where should we find evidence now?"

Chen Ji asked, "What was the name of the scholar who died in the inner prison?"

"Liu Shiyu!"

"Go to his house first!"

Chen Ji followed the spy and ran wildly on the streets of Los Angeles.

The cool night breeze blew along the bluestone pavement of Los Angeles, making everyone's clothes flutter and their hair messy.

There was darkness ahead and shouts of killing behind. At a certain moment, Chen Ji felt as if he had become a stranger in this world who would never return.

(End of this chapter)