Gone Missing

After Chen Pingkang turned around, there was no doubt that this was an old man in his twilight years.

He was extremely skinny, his skin was dry, his cheeks were sunken and age spots covered any skin one could see. His gaze was also cloudy and dim…

Qi Yan felt his heart sink as he instinctively glanced at Wen Yuansi.

This had to be real. This man was really about to die.

“My dear, someone has come to visit you.”

Qi Yan was shocked by how frail Chen Pingkang looked, but his wife seemed to find that he was in rather good spirits. She helped him to pull the blanket away, then got him to sit up so that he could see the two young men at the end of the bed.

Chen Pingkang’s gaze slowly moved to rest on Wen Yuansi and Qi Yan. He stared at them for a long time, as though he was trying to figure out who they were. The two young men had no idea if he recognized them or not, but the next moment, the old man suddenly went into a coughing fit.

Cough cough! Cough cough!

It was as though there was a bit of phlegm stuck in his throat, or he choked on his own saliva. Chen Pingkang’s eyes widened as he choked so hard he could barely breathe. Everyone in the room quickly got moving too. Some patted his back, some ran to get him some water. The room was suddenly bustling with activity.

Qi Yan subconsciously hid himself behind Wen Yuansi.

Chen Pingkang looked like he was using every ounce of energy to cough, and his body was all tensed up. It felt like the moment he relaxed, he was dead. It was simply too terrifying for Qi Yan.

Wen Yuansi started to look quite grim as well.

But a few moments later, Chen Pingkang displayed what it meant by the miracle of life, or how resilient a human truly was.

He had coughed hard, he had spat out blood, he had run out of strength to sit up and his voice was hoarse. He lay back down again, but he wasn’t dead. His breathing was slow and shallow, but he was still alive.

“Ah…” He couldn’t really speak, but he managed to point a trembling finger at Wen Yuansi.

Wen Yuansi immediately bowed formally. “Perhaps you don’t know who I am. My name is Wen Yuansi and I was an official in another city. I heard you give a lesson many years ago and benefitted tremendously from it, so I’d always wanted to visit you and thank you for the lesson but never got the chance to. I was recently transferred to Bianliang and heard you were ill, so I felt that I had to visit you quickly. I’m sorry for coming so suddenly. Please forgive me if I’ve disturbed you.”

Since he had already introduced himself, Qi Yan had to as well. He took a step forward and pointed to himself. “I’m Qi Yan, the Little Monkey of the Qi family. You were the one who nicknamed me that, do you remember?”

Chen Pingkang’s cloudy eyes seemed a little watery, then he slowly shut his eyes and let out a sigh.

After a while, he waved a hand about.

Madam Liu, who was seated next to him, dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief and said quietly, “He says thank you for remembering him and even coming to visit him. But he’s a man who is about to die and he won’t be able to help you anymore.”

“We are just here to visit him so that we might feel better about ourselves, we couldn’t possibly dare to hope for anymore,” said Wen Yuansi as he looked rather worriedly at Madam Liu. “How is his condition? Is he able to sleep and eat properly? What did the doctor say?”

Madam Liu was surprised for a moment at how sincere his questions were, but she quickly snapped out of it and smiled. “What a good child you are. It’s hard to find young people like you these days…”

Wen Yuansi was a little embarrassed by her comment and turned his head slightly.

Then, she answered his question, “When one grows old, you’d suffer from a whole host of ailments, but none of them are fatal. But once you get a cold, all the illnesses in the world will befall you… Like his illness now. Medicine can’t really help him anymore, so he just has to take care of himself. If he takes care of himself, then he’d manage to live for a few more days. If he doesn’t, then…he’d go without anyone noticing.”

“Both of you are still young and you don’t understand. Many times, the doctor is just trying to comfort the listeners. When things reach this point, how much of what he says is true and how much isn’t is no longer important.”

The word “doctor” made her look out at the sky. “Speaking of which, I think the doctor’s about to arrive.”

Qi Yan secretly threw Wen Yuansi a knowing look.

That’s right, he had already found out beforehand when the doctor usually came. They had purposely chosen to come at this time in hope that the doctor would turn up as well.

Wen Yuansi shook his head slightly at Qi Yan to remind him not to give anything away.

The doctor’s surname was Bai and he clearly looked like one of those old, slow-moving doctors. His hair was all white, he walked slowly and moved very slowly too. Even the way he asked after Madam Liu took a very long time.

But while he moved slowly, his movements were extremely steady. He administered every acupuncture needle quickly and precisely, so the patient did not suffer needlessly. Prescribing medicine was even faster. It only took him a few strokes to write down all the medicines needed for the next few days as well as a few special instructions.

Everything was done very smoothly and without a hitch. It was slow, but no action was wasted.

He also only said what was necessary and nothing more. Once he was done, he packed his things and got up to leave.

Qi Yan was immediately anxious. They hadn’t asked him a single thing yet! How could they let the doctor go!

“Dr. Bai, wait! Old Mr. Chen…”

Dr. Bai stroked his beard slowly and calmly for a moment, but did not say anything. He just sighed deeply, waved one hand about, then turned and walked away without stopping.

Madam Liu sighed as well. “Actually, he told us a long time ago that we should start preparing for his last days…”

In the end, Wen Yuansi and Qi Yan did not get anything else out of their visit to the Chens’. Chen Pingkang looked like he had been ill for a long time and it didn’t look like he was putting on an act. The doctor was someone who had been practicing for a long time, given how familiar he was with what to do.

Qi Yan was still a little indignant. “It might sound rude of me to say this, but I still think there’s a problem somewhere. Why do all the clues point to him, but when we get to him, he’s so ill, he’s on the brink of death? Is that really a coincidence?”

Wen Yuansi looked calm. “But it would be really hard to put up such a realistic act.”

Making sure your actual body looked the part was already hard enough.

“Then could there be a…special sort of drug that makes one look sick after eating it?” Qi Yan started getting imaginative. “Even something as mystical as Millet’s Dream exists, so wouldn’t it be possible for those weird doctors to come up with such a drug?”

Wen Yuansi sighed. “Putting on a pretense doesn’t mean he’s not ill at all. I don’t think Chen Pingkang is pretending to be sick. Even if he had to take a drug to make himself look like that, that is a drug that will eventually kill him.”

They were still nowhere near the truth. They felt that they had to include one more possibility: there could be yet another person behind the scenes.

…

The development over the next few days didn’t go too well either.

Zhao Zhi investigated the lead that the crown prince provided about the eunuch Li Qi, but all he found was that such a man did exist and he had a timid personality. He maintained a low profile and seemed invisible most of the time. He never did anything to attract any attention, so nobody took notice of him. He was given some major responsibilities by Empress Chen for a while, but that was about it. Nothing else happened after that, since he wasn’t outstanding at all. The other palace workers laughed at him for being someone doomed to remain a small fry for life and nobody even cared to bully him.

His disappearance was quite sudden and it happened when he was working.

His daily job was to deliver water to the places that required water every morning and every night. Everything in the palace had to be done according to the rules set by the employers, and whether the employers sincerely liked something or not, or whether they truly needed something or not didn’t matter. They fought to get things they were not supposed to have, and they also fought over the type of things they were supposed to have.

People above a certain position in society with money and power would start to want things that were special, things that others couldn’t get. For example, they might want fresh spring water from only this one particular mountain. The more effort it took to get it, the better. Whether the water was delicious was secondary. It was vital that this item highlighted their status and their influence.

Since what the employers were after was status, the servants just had to make sure they fulfilled this requirement and keep their employers happy. As long as the job was done in the correct way and results came back within the expected time period, nobody cared how you did it. Even if one got a little distracted, took a break in between or asked a colleague to take over, nobody would accuse you of slacking.

Perhaps the eunuch had eaten something he shouldn’t have that day and suffered a little diarrhea, so he asked a junior eunuch he was familiar with to stand in for him, then ran off by himself.

And because it was quite common for such things to happen, the junior eunuch did not say now and agreed to help, thinking that his senior just wanted to take the time to relax. And when he had completed the task and his senior had failed to return, the junior eunuch wasn’t too bothered. He just assumed his senior was simply having a little too much fun.

After all, the next two days were Li Qi’s off days. Nobody would expect to see him during these two days.

On the fourth day, however, it was time for Li Qi to come back to work. He failed to appear for work and the man in charge of the chores blew his top, thinking that the old eunuch was slacking off. But he gave the old eunuch a chance and waited till the next day.

But Li Qi still didn’t appear the next day.

This time, the man in charge felt that something was amiss. And no matter how hard everyone searched, they simply couldn’t find Li Qi.

A lot of people worked inside the palace and it was normal for one or two to go missing sometimes. One might have accidentally fallen into a well or something. The lives of servants weren’t worth much, so when the man in charge failed to get answers even after a few days had passed, he didn’t probe further. He was afraid that Li Qi might have gotten into some trouble and he didn’t want to get involved.

The crown prince was in a position where his every move was watched at all times, so there were many things he couldn’t do. But not Zhao Zhi.

But no matter how hard Zhao Zhi tried to investigate this matter, despite going to where Li Qi was last seen and following any clues he could get, the old eunuch seemed to have completely vanished. He wasn’t sighted anywhere and his body hadn’t been found dead somewhere either. The only thing Zhao Zhi knew was that the eunuch’s clothes were still hanging outside to dry and he hadn’t finished eating when he disappeared, which meant he hadn’t planned on disappearing.

The other lead given was with regard to the Ministry of Rites. His investigation led him to one man, Zhou Tongxing.

Zhou Tongxing was now 41 years old. 22 years ago, he passed the imperial exam and started working for the Ministry of Rites. But he was young then and could only learn from his seniors by following them around. He had no position or power back then.

After he worked at the department for a few years, he was transferred to another city. He achieved some results and was transferred back to Bianliang. After moving from one department to another, he eventually found himself back at the Ministry of Rites. He worked hard at the Ministry of Rites and remained there until now. He was now a Rank 4 official and while he wasn’t particularly high ranking, he was a senior who could do many things.

He had an odd personality and was difficult to read, so most of the people around him didn’t quite understand his mannerisms or speech. But he was very knowledgeable and efficient, so while nobody really cared to be friends with him, they were very willing to be his colleagues.

And just when Zhao Zhi had finally narrowed everything down to this one person and was about to hunt Zhou Tongxing down to question him, a piece of news arrived at this critical moment. Zhou Tongxing had died.

He was dead.

Of all times, now?!

It was as if a thunderstorm was occurring directly on Zhao Zhi’s face.

But Qi Yan was surprisingly excited. He flung his folding fan aside and rubbed his palms as he hopped up and down. “Being dead is fine with us! We’re best at dead people?”

Zhao Zhi threw him a death stare. “We?”

“No, no, I’m talking about our Tangtang! Tangtang’s the best at this!” Qi Yan immediately turned to stare excitedly at Song Caitang. “If there’s a body found in suspicious circumstances, then there’s a killer. If there’s a killer, then this killer must be linked to someone somehow, and we’ll get new clues! As long as we can crack this case – I have a really, really good feeling that once we crack this case, then it doesn’t matter if what we’re investigating occurred five or ten or even twenty years ago! All the secrets will come to light and we will find the truth!”

Song Caitang was used to this line of work and wasn’t afraid of a murder case. But the way Qi Yan looked at her kind of frightened her. He looked like a thief that had suddenly spotted the most valuable treasure in the world!

Wen Yuansi straightened his clothes and stood up first. “Let’s go then. The weather’s not great, but work still has to be done.”

Zhao Zhi snapped his fingers and got his men to prepare some raincoats and umbrellas.

The first rain of the summer fell suddenly and very hard, as though the pearl curtains above the clouds had collapsed and hurtled down on the ground below. The raindrops hit the tree leaves, the rooftops and the ground very hard, and they were accompanied by blinding lightning that made the water resemble pearls.

The pearly drops poured down, torrent after torrent, and refused to stop. They seemed to be cheekily provoking the humans, as though they were saying, come out and play if you dare! We’ll strike you so hard, you’d cry!

The smell of the wet mud and the sheer humidity were enough to make anyone do a backflip. Nobody would ever want to go out in such weather.

But Zhao Zhi and his three companions were ready. They exchanged glances and nodded. “Let’s go.”

They had hit wall after wall in their investigation, so they really hoped that this time, things would go smoothly.