Chapter 74 Jianghu
The Red Lane is full of colors at night.

The alley is decorated with lights from beginning to end, as if every day is a newlywed couple, with drunkenness every night and sorrows vanishing, and red sleeves waving everywhere in the building.

Jinfang became famous because it used gold foil and gold powder to paint each of its beams and pillars golden in this bright red color. The Qianqiu Pavilion caisson in the building is inlaid with gems, which is magnificent and dazzling.

This practice is common in Jinling, but it is unique in Luocheng.

In the corner outside Hongyi Lane, the dark clouds slowly disappeared into the darkness. Chen Ji quietly climbed up the eaves with his hands, and with just a slight effort he jumped up and stood steadily on the eaves.

With another light leap, he grabbed the eaves of the pavilion with both hands and swung himself onto the roof.

His right leg was injured and he could not use it well, but fortunately he had now lit twenty-six fires and could easily climb the stairs with his arm strength alone.

Chen Ji squatted down and looked around quietly. The crowds of people downstairs were like a flowing river, and the grey gable roofs upstairs were like hills rising one after another.

The roof ridges are like mountain ridges. The one facing Red Lane is the bright sunny side, while the other side is the dark shady side.

After making sure that there was no one around, Chen Ji walked slowly on the shady side of the roof. He stepped lightly on the grey tiles, fearing to disturb the people downstairs. Fortunately, the Red Dress Alley was already noisy, so the tiny footsteps were nothing.

As he walked, his eyes passed over the roof and looked down at the Red Lane downstairs.

The old traces on the grey tiles walked in the night, while Baili and the prince in Hongyi Lane walked in the lights, as if they were two parallel lines that would never intersect.

He turned his head and stared at the footsteps of Bai Li and the Prince, wanting to see where the Prince was going. He only thought in his heart that it must not be Jinfang, as there would be danger there.

At this time, hawkers were seen coming and going with their shoulder poles. Princess Baili stopped and picked up a savings box from the shoulder pole. The box contained side dishes mixed with maltose and plum sauce. She picked them up with bamboo sticks and ate them while walking.

Amid the crowd and all the red, Bai Li and the prince were both dressed in white, like two pieces of mutton-fat jade hidden in the turbulent waters of troubled times, attracting special attention.

The next moment, Chen Ji heard the sound of tiles rolling in front and behind him.

He turned around suddenly and saw two men in black with long swords on their hips climbing up from downstairs with a ladder.

On the lonely rooftop, Chen Ji was startled, and so were the two men in black.

I don't know if this elite man in black is from the Secret Service or the Military Intelligence Department. He climbed to the roof and wanted to overlook Red Lane from a high vantage point to observe and stand guard... but he happened to meet Chen Ji!
In an instant, two men in black drew their swords silently, and one after the other stepped on the tilted gray tiles to attack.

Chen Ji cursed in his heart that he was unlucky. When he climbed up just now, he was worried that someone might have the same idea as him, so he made sure that there was no one on the roof before he climbed up.

At that time he was still wondering in his heart why no one came to occupy such a good observation post position. The Military Intelligence Department and the Secret Service Department had really poor awareness of small-scale battlefield layout.

Who would have thought that the other party didn't think of this place, but came too late!

There was singing and dancing in the red room downstairs, but there was murderous intent in the night upstairs. None of the three people shouted or spoke, as if they were afraid of being discovered by the outside world.

Chen Ji ran quickly. He tried his best to control himself and ignore the pain in his legs. He ran like a normal person. He ran out of the encirclement before the two men in black surrounded him and avoided the danger of being attacked from both sides.

However, these two men in black were also experienced in battle. After seeing through Chen Ji's intention, they immediately changed their movements and worked together to block his direction of movement.

The roof was so small that Chen Ji had no way to retreat unless he jumped off the roof.

He stood on the edge of the eaves, looking at the height of more than six meters, then thought of his injured leg, and after careful consideration, he decided to step back.

While he was thinking, two elite soldiers had already arrived in front of Chen Ji and slashed at him with their swords at the same time!

Two long knives came towards him like a pair of scissors, and the red light in the alley was reflected on the blades of the long knives!
In the blink of an eye, Chen Ji's swordsmanship instinct engraved in his bones seemed to be awakened, and the sound of a hammer forging suddenly burst out in his heart. He swung his sword twice back and forth as fast as thunder.

Chen Ji was faster than the two men in black. Although he drew his sword later, he was the first to arrive. The trajectory of his sword was like a white deer in the forest, light and natural.

The clanging sounds of metal clashing were drowned out by the noise of Red Lane, but a black-clad man's forged steel sword broke, and the broken blade fell on the tilted tiles, sliding down the roof into the dim courtyard behind. Although the other black-clad man's sword was not broken, it was also shaken out of his hand.

Chen Ji was startled, and the two elite soldiers were also startled again.

The pupils of the three people suddenly contracted, as if they had seen something incredible.

Inlaid gold.

Chen Ji once asked Feng Huai what this move was that made the hand hurt by hitting the blade. Feng Huai replied that it was the inlay of gold, using clever force to find the flaw and break the blade. If it weren't for the special material of whale, it would have broken long ago.

And now, a junior apprentice in the clinic who should have fled in panic under the siege, used his honed instinct to attack with the short knife used in the clinic to chop medicinal materials, cutting one knife off and knocking one knife away. If Chen Ji was not a little unfamiliar with using the inlaid gold on an outsider for the first time, I'm afraid both knives would have broken at the same time.

The two men in black looked at each other. They just felt that tonight was a little weird. It was okay to meet a swordsman of this level on this remote rooftop, but why did this swordsman want to run away just now? Why was this swordsman more shocked than them? !

Little did he know that when Chen Ji was fighting with Feng Huai, he felt that he had no strength to use. The opponent had no flaws and often suppressed him. When he was fighting against someone like Feng Huai, he always felt a sense of powerlessness and frustration, and even wondered if he didn't have the talent for sword training.

But when he changed his opponent to someone other than Feng Huai, everything seemed different.

The two men in black lowered their heads to take another look at the broken blade, a trace of fear rising in their hearts, but since they had come here, there was no reason to retreat.

The two men, with the firm will cultivated in the bitter cold land, threw away the broken sword at the same time and pulled out daggers from their waists to stab.

The two men cooperated well, one feinted and the other attacked, one real and one fake, blocking Chen Ji's possible escape route.

However, Chen Ji suddenly felt that compared with Feng Huai, these two people were full of flaws.

When two daggers stabbed at him one after the other, Chen Ji gently turned his body to avoid the trajectory of the two daggers, and he grabbed one of the men's wrists with his left hand, pulling him like an iron clamp so that he could not retract the dagger.

With a light flick of his right hand, the blade cut the tendons of the other man's hand. With a clang, the dagger fell on the gray tiles on the roof and rolled into the yard under the eaves.

The man in black with his tendons cut retreated quickly.

Chen Ji pulled the other man's wrist, like pulling a puppet, and chased the retreating man in black, urging his body to move forward with the knife. The short knife stabbed into the heart, spleen, and liver again and again, and finally wiped off the neck.

Another man in black had his wrist clamped and pulled, so he could only stagger to keep up. He watched his colleague being stabbed again and again, but he couldn't even stand steadily.

Before he could figure out how to break free from Chen Ji's wrist, he saw the cold knife light suddenly reverse and slash across his neck under the moonlight. Blood lightly splashed on Chen Ji's charcoal-stained face, and he slowly let go, letting the man in black slowly kneel down.

Chen Ji searched the bodies. He knew that all the spies under Jin Zhu carried a copper whistle that could imitate bird calls to transmit information, but these two did not have it.

This is Manager Yuan’s man.

……

……

The wound on his leg was stinging, but he hadn't felt it during the fight just now. Now Chen Ji realized that the old wound had been torn during the fight.

Chen Ji wiped the blood off his hands so that they wouldn't be slippery when he held the knife, but it was no use.

He lowered his head and tore off a piece of cloth from the hem of his clothes and wrapped it around his hands. He then raised his head and looked over the rooftop into the Red Dress Lane. He saw several people from the martial arts world gathered around the Prince and Bai Li, and they were chatting happily with each other.

But they saw Princess Baili and the prince had already walked to the gate of Jinfang. Miss Yan'er walked out of the gate and welcomed them in with a smile.

As expected, he was going to Jinfang.

Chen Ji sighed in his heart, stood silently on the roof, and looked around quickly.

He no longer cared about the Prince and Bai Li, and had to find Manager Yuan as soon as possible.

In Hongyi Lane, more and more people walked into the Jinfang, but there was no sign of Manager Yuan. I wonder if he didn't come or had already gone in?
and many more.

Chen Ji saw people gathering in the darkness outside Hongyi Lane. Hundreds of spies with long swords on their waists were divided into two teams and surrounded from the front and back of the lane. Among the crowd, Jin Zhu also put on a light armor, without the warm smile of the past, more like a general in front of the palace.

Further away, Chen Ji actually saw five hundred Jiefan Guards with their horses' hooves wrapped in sackcloth. Each of them wore a straw hat and raincoat, and stood quietly in the darkness outside the alley with a gun in hand.

The leader held his sword across his saddle, standing still.

Lin Chaoqing...

Lin Chaoqing is here too!

Chen Ji felt that Jin Zhu was too cautious. He had just found clues about the missing firearms from the craftsman supervision, but he actually cooperated with the Chief Criminal Department and directly transferred the Jiefan Guards from the Mengjin camp!
At the entrance of Hongyi Lane, Lin Chaoqing sat on his horse and said calmly, "All the twelve zodiac signs of the Secret Service are impulsive and reckless. The last time Jiaotu Yunyang mediated Fanwei, he was thrown into prison. I wonder what will happen to you, Master Jinzhu, this time?"

The Golden Pig chuckled: "How can I be the same as them? I have found the thief from Jing Dynasty, and not only the external thief, but also the internal thief."

"Oh? Lord Jinzhu is very strict about his words, and there was no sign of leakage before," Lin Chaoqing sneered, "After you came to my Mengjin camp, you kept clamoring to eat the big carp from the Yellow River, and asked me, Jiefanwei, to catch fish for you. I thought you only cared about eating. With the lessons of Jiaotu and Yunyang, if you don't tell me what you want to do this time, I, Jiefanwei, will not take action."

Jin Zhu smiled and said, "Commander Lin, please don't say such angry words. You are the commander of the Yuzhou Chief Criminal Division, so I naturally need to let you know why Fan Wei came to mediate. Commander Lin, what do you think the thieves of Jing Dynasty want to steal the most from our Ning Dynasty?"

"Military deployment diagrams, court secrets, firearms."

"That's right. Zhou Chengyi had been trying to instigate officials of the Craftsmen's Bureau to rebel, which means their biggest target was firearms. So after I arrived in Luocheng, the first thing I did was to monitor all saltpeter and sulfur sales, and the second thing was to track down the inventory and accounts of the Craftsmen's Bureau. A few days ago, I found that the inventory of firearms in the Craftsmen's Bureau did not match the account books, and several drawings were missing. Then I followed the clues and arrested six people, some from the Cao Gang and some from the Craftsmen's Bureau. Finally, I found that the batch of lost firearms had flowed here, Hongyi Lane."

Lin Chaoqing was puzzled: "There are so many brothels in Hongyi Lane, which one is it? Do you know that those who can do business in Hongyi Lane have a strong background? You won't ask Jiefanwei to search all the brothels, right?"

Jin Zhu chuckled, "I set up a trap earlier and caught twelve spies alive in the Chaocang gambling house. Eleven of them committed suicide by taking poison, and the last one who survived turned traitor. He told me that he had been instructed by the Military Intelligence Department to come to the Jinfang to pick up a batch of goods. Logically speaking, the thieves of the Jing Dynasty should not be stupid enough to trade twice in the same place, so I only arranged a few secret agents to monitor this place at the beginning, which was considered a casual move. Who knew that today, another suspicious person suddenly transported a batch of goods into the Jinfang, and I caught him."

Lin Chaoqing no longer questioned it, he knew that the Golden Pig was a favorite of the Minister of Internal Affairs and had made great contributions. The reason why the other party was still the lower nine zodiac signs was not because of lack of ability, but because the relationship between the Golden Pig and the Pegasus was too good, and the Minister of Internal Affairs did not allow the relationship between the upper three zodiac signs to be so good.

Some people speculate that if the sick tiger abdicates in recent years, it may be replaced by the golden pig.

But Lin Chaoqing knew that with the character of the Prime Minister, as long as Tianma was alive, Jinzhu would never have a chance.

He thought for a moment and then said, "Master Jinzhu, the Jiefan Guards are at your disposal tonight. Just don't make any mistakes."

"Your words are enough," Jin Zhu made a few gestures to his spies.

Dense spies rushed into Red Lane to arrest people. For a time, the place was in chaos. Guests in restaurants and brothels fled in panic for fear of being affected by this incident.

They wanted to escape from Hongyi Lane, but were blocked by the cavalry of Jiefanwei at the north and south entrances of the lane, and could not leave at all.

Chen Ji was hiding on the roof when he suddenly saw the Prince, Bai Li and those chivalrous knights running out of the Gold House. Seeing that both roads were blocked, they simply rushed into the restaurant opposite the Gold House, at Chen Ji's feet, trying to pass through the restaurant lobby and escape by climbing over the wall from the backyard!

The six spies discovered their attempt to escape and immediately gave up on capturing the others and chased them into the restaurant with knives.

Chen Ji stood on the edge of the eaves and looked down, but saw the martial artists around the prince come to the backyard and jump over the more than two-meter-high wall with just a flip.

The prince shouted across the wall in the backyard: "Hey, give us a hand, help us get over it!"

The Jianghu people stopped, one of them jumped up, lay on the top of the wall and stretched out his hand and said: "Grab my hand, I will pull you up."

But before the prince could grab his hand, he saw six secret agents chasing him in with knives...

"Come on!"

The next moment, the heroes left the prince and Baili behind and ran away into the alley outside the courtyard wall without a trace.

Chen Ji frowned, there was something fishy about this matter.

If the prince came here just for fun, then he just needs to stay here honestly and wait for the Secret Service to interrogate him.

Once the matter is investigated, those who are not suspects will be fine.

Why risk running away?

(End of this chapter)