20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
Xiao Shu
Islide off my horse and toss Yan Yi the reins, pausing to look up at the sign hanging from above the door.
The Pine Tree Inn.
So, it appears that I’m at the right place. The building seems fairly quaint, not at all up to Wen’s lavish expectations. I’m certain that he will complain about it later.
Quanyu sidles up beside me, chuckling as he takes in the inn lying in front of us. “Not quite the governor’s quarters now, is it? And Wen always says I have low birth… well, look who is sleeping in luxury tonight and who has to stay in a common inn.”
“You literally slept in a post house last night,” I say as I start forward, stepping through the door into the inn.
The interior is neat and orderly, exactly the place you would expect government officials on a special mission to stay.
Occupants sit at the dinner tables around the room, eating their supper.
A sign that reads, “A full stomach leads to an overflowing of the heart” hangs from a beam on the ceiling.
I exhale a sigh and start up the stairs to the back of the room.
Upstairs are where the private eating areas are located.
I duck into the first one on the right, and immediately spot Wen sitting there.
His lavish outfit and bright colors are a complete contrast to the humble inn’s decorations.
I stride across the room and take a seat on the cushion across from my cousin.
“Wen,” I say as way of greeting. I rest my sword against the table.
Wen serenely takes a sip of his tea, his eyes darting to Quanyu who entered the room right behind me. “Must he come as well?” he asks as he lowers his cup.
Quanyu offers Wen a rueful smile. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
I reach across the table as I pick up a cup and begin to pour some tea into it. “How was your journey?”
“Uneventful, unlike yours apparently. I shudder to ask why you arrived so late.”
I glance toward Quanyu. “We stopped to check in on one of our stores.”
Wen sighs, reaching up to scratch at his forehead, his finger curling there as he studies me. “So, you intend to heed none of my cautions? I told you to lay low and instead you wish to set up an outpost in yet another city?”
“With General Gao being stationed here, this may just be our only opportunity to do so,” I say, before blowing on my tea and taking a sip. “We can only set up in Yanzhou while I am here on official business. You know she would be too suspicious if we did it at any other time.”
“You just don’t want to risk ever running into her again,” Wen counters, his eyes pressed shut.
“That’s what I said,” Quanyu says with a smirk, wagging a finger at Wen. “You’re not actually as stupid as you look.”
Wen sighs. “Why must you waste air? You should just hurry up and stop breathing now.”
I clear my throat loudly.
Wen snaps his eyes open. “But anyway, since you decided to make a powerful general your ex-lover, now we are in this mess.”
“She’s hardly my ex-lover,” I grumble. “I turned down her proposal, remember.”
Quanyu shakes his head, blowing out a breath. “Still not sure why you would have done that. You’re a madman if you ask me.”
I stiffen, realizing that I’m getting dangerously close to helping Quanyu and Wen find common ground, that ground being their critique of my love life.
“If I had married Liying we would not be sitting here discussing smuggling. Because there is no way I could have continued to smuggle while married into the third family.”
“That’s true,” Quanyu says. He turns to Wen. “And are you mad because that was your only way to become the Fourth Lord? If boss had married up.”
“As if I would aspire to be something that petty.” Wen sighs softly as he reaches across and grasps the teapot, pouring himself another glass.
He taps his fingers against his fan resting on the table.
“If I really wanted to be the Fourth Lord then I would have the title already. Shu marrying up isn’t the only way I can gain that title after all. ”
Quanyu steps forward, shoving a finger into his face. “You!”
I hold up a hand cutting him off, smothering my smile.
What Wen said was not necessarily untrue, after all he was the one who nursed me back from the brink of death when I was ill from the loss of our family.
If he really wanted the title of our family’s lord, then he had ample ways to claim it by now.
I would never fight with my cousin; he could take the title from me easily.
And I think that’s what Quanyu fears and why he never trusts Wen, but what he doesn’t realize is that my loyalty to Wen goes both ways.
And part of Quanyu’s distrust is Wen’s fault for hiding his true emotions behind a cold and indifferent mask.
Still, I know that he is just as deeply devoted to me as I am to him.
How could we go through that, witness the slaughter of our whole family, and not vow to protect each other?
Besides, I know that Wen has never aspired to greatness. He never even wanted to join the family trade in hunting spirits. The only thing he ever wanted to do was look at the stars.
“There is a troublesome star in the sky,” Wen says, proving me right.
No matter what role he carries in the imperial court, or what mask of indifference he wears, he is always just my younger cousin, casting lots and obsessing over the stars.
“It arose the day that your marriage was announced.” He spreads his fingers apart, slowly walking them across the table.
“I believe it is directly tied with the Mu sisters.”
“A troublesome star is not a calamity star,” I argue as I lean forward. “I can trade trouble for profit.”
“I don’t even know why you bother with these stars. It isn’t as if they’re down here. How can they affect us?” Quanyu grumbles, folding his arms.
Wen slices him a glare before turning to me. “I will ask you to show caution, cousin. Do not risk everything because of a woman.”
“Fanqing doesn’t even have anything to do with this,” I say, sitting up a bit. Why is she even being brought up? She doesn’t have anything to do with my smuggling.
Wen rolls his eyes. “I meant Liying.”
“Oh.”
Quanyu snorts but wisely decides not to say anything.
Wen braces his arm on his knee and leans forward as he studies me. “Is there really no way to reconcile with her? I mean, we were all three friends when we were younger.”
“Not really,” I grumble, balling my hand into a fist. “Not since she set her mind on me someday becoming her man.”
Quanyu races forward so that he is standing next to me and drops to his knees, grasping the edge of my sleeve. “Boss, I have a really simple solution for you. Let me loose on her, I will make it so she is so in love with me that she will never ever think of you again.”
Wen and I both slide our gazes to Quanyu.
“She is a lady far above your worth,” Wen says slowly.
I pull my arm out of Quanyu’s hold and scoot slightly to the side. “What he means is that Liying is stubborn. What she sets her mind to; she will not change it lightly.”
Quanyu smirks as he leaps to his feet not the least bit plussed at all. He hooks his thumb into his waistband. “She has yet to face my full charm.”
“And that’s how we will keep it,” I mutter. I shake my head and hold up my hand. “Okay, that’s enough about Lying, you know I don’t even like talking about her.”
Wen frowns but says nothing.
I tap my fingers on the table. “You don’t need to worry, Wen’er.
We will just make the necessary connections for opening up trade in this city, contact sellers, and open up some networks.
We will then have everything ready at a later date to send in the Midnight Runners.
No one will ever be able to trace it back to us. ”
Wen sighs, reaching over and opening his fan. “You and your stubborn insistence to always do everything hands on.”
“I haven’t stayed in business this long because I cut corners. I establish the connections first, if I leave it to just anyone, we will end up betrayed, backstabbed, and double crossed.”
“Yeah, don’t lecture us. We will handle the smuggling,” Quanyu says with an offended sniff. “You just worry about keeping your partners off our backs.”
Wen presses his lips together. “It would be mindful to your health to not tell me what to do. Although…” he sighs deeply and turns to me, studying me closely as he fans himself slowly. “I do have an interesting bit of information about my partners.”
I feel my eyebrow rise.
“Ren Shang…” Wen drawls out, before he pauses and smiles to himself and shakes his head.
“What about the stickler?” Quanyu asks, leaning forward and bracing his fists against the table.
Wen ignores him, closing his fan and pointing it at me. “Is an old acquaintance of your wife’s.”
I stiffen at his words. Fanqing? Rigid, rule following Stickler Ren Shang, has a past with Fanqing? That just begs the question… what sort of past?
Wen always said that Ren Shang had a girl back home who he wanted to return to, who he always intended to marry… suddenly my stomach sloshes.
And I brought Fanqing to the very city Ren Shang is staying in.
“Sister-in-law?” Quanyu breathes.
“He seems close to both of the Mu sisters to be exact, but I’m sure you care less about Ehuang.”
I glance away, clearing my throat. I’m struggling to find my composure. I’m not sure why I’m so upset about this anyway. My marriage to Fanqing is entirely fake, so what does it matter if she did have a boy wanting to marry her?
Obviously, Ren Shang can’t do that now, but our contract did state that we could take on lovers. So, if Stickler Ren Shang would go for that… well, then who am I to refuse?
I curl my hand around the teacup so tightly that it splits in half, spilling the rest of my tea down my sleeve. I set the cup down on the table quickly, balling my hands into fists and resting them on my knees.
Wen watches everything with a little smirk that I would love to wipe off his face.
Quanyu whirls to me. “Boss, just say the word, I will beat the pulp out of him and make sure he never associates sister-in-law’s name with anything nice ever again.”
I hold up a hand, cutting him off. “Never mind about it,” I whisper hoarsely. We don’t even know if Fanqing is the person who Ren Shang is pining after.
He could very well be in love with… Ehuang. Or literally any other girl from his past.
Wen chuckles, shaking his head.
I turn a glower to him. “What?”
“I was just going to ask you how the case was going,” he says feigning innocence as he holds up his hands as if afraid I will strike him. I will admit, the thought already crossed my mind.
I feel my lip twist up in a sneer as I push to my feet. I pace to the window, tucking my hands behind my back. If there is one thing my cousin is good at, it is knowing me inside and out.
He knows just what to say to divert my anger. And that is to bring up the accursed spirits I hate more than anything. It was a spirit that destroyed the Xiao clan, and so as a Xiao I will not rest until every filthy spirit is wiped from existence.
“From the manner of the crime it seems that we are dealing with a fox spirit,” I say as I look out the window, studying the swaying branches of a tree growing outside.
They are calming and mesmerizing, I use them as an anchor to work though the rage that threatens to blind me with its white-hot fingers wrapped around my soul and instead turn it into a steely resolve.
Not every spirit is easy to classify, but there are some that so commonly associate with the elves of Da Xian that we have begun to understand their behaviors and commonalities.
Fox spirits are one of these spirits.
Cunning and wily creatures, they cannot resist fooling elves with their capricious shapeshifting ways.
But the truly vile thing about these fox spirits is their propensity to harvest livers.
Because it is through the consumption of a soul’s liver that they have truly mastered their shapeshifting and are then able to take on the form of the person whose liver they stole.
Which means that when we are hunting a fox spirit, we are not simply hunting one creature.
We are hunting all her potential victims. Every grave digger and beggar she consumed and hid the bodies of so that she could steal their lives.
Only a few bodies were discovered recently when the fox spirit was caught in the act and was forced to flee.
That was enough to alarm the public of Yanzhou and get me called here.
But they don’t realize how dire the situation really is. Because for every body found there at least three more hidden away by the fox spirit as she continues to hide in plain sight wearing her stolen faces.
To catch something that can change its face is truly difficult, however I suppose there is an advantage to this one. The bodies who were discovered all belonged to young beautiful women. This tells me one thing. The fox spirit is vain.
I turn on my heel and stride back to the table, picking up my sword. “But I will catch her just as I catch all her kind, and I will send her to her eternal rest.”
Wen smiles at me, for a second his masks slips and I see a glimmer of pride in his eyes as he looks at me. “How kind of you.”
I smirk slightly before I gesture with my head for Quanyu to follow me.
I stride out of the side room and start down the stairs.
I freeze however when I see a familiar figure in the main room of the inn below.
Dressed in a pink gown, the color of the blossoms on the tree that grows outside my window at home, with her hair pulled up and held back by glittering pins.
Mu Fanqing.
I pin myself against the wall to try to escape her notice.
“Why are you hiding?” Quanyu whispers. “It isn’t as if you’re doing anything wrong. You’re just visiting your cousin just like she was visiting her sister.”
My mouth opens but then I snap it shut. I don’t have a proper explanation for Quanyu.
And my mind is more focused on other things.
I didn’t see Ren Shang downstairs. I only see Ehuang with Fanqing.
I blow out a relieved breath as I lean forward, at least it wasn’t a secret meeting between old lovers.
As I watch, Fanqing steps out of the door of the inn. Almost without thinking I reach back and nudge Quanyu.
“Eh?” he asks with a frown.
“Go follow her,” I say with a nod of my chin. “Keep your distance if at all possible, but make sure she doesn’t run into trouble.”
I pretend I don’t see Quanyu waggle his eyebrows at me as he hurries down to the stairs and disappears out into the street after Fanqing. I don’t breathe a sigh of relief until he is gone.
After all, there is a creature that preys on beautiful women out there. One can never be too safe.