Danger In The Night

At night, the moon shone brightly in the sky.

The round moon seemed to have an endless supply of energy as it illuminated the world as brightly as the sun in the day. Everything could be seen clearly.

Between 11pm and 1am was the quietest time of the night. And while everyone was fast asleep, a monk would make his rounds with a lantern in hand.

The monks took turns to patrol the temple grounds every hour once the sun had set. They would walk around the entire temple to listen carefully to the sounds around them, carefully discerning if any of these sounds were anomalies. They also went through the various pathways to make sure the candles in the lamps fixed onto the outer walls of the accommodations did not go out.

The candles were good for two things. One was to allow the worshipers to have light in the night, whether they were meditating or just enjoying the scenery. They would have sufficient light to see where they were going and give direction. Secondly, the candles glowed in a warm and peaceful manner around the temple like prayer lamps, which gave it a sacred sort of aura.

It was the 15^th of the month, so the moon was perfectly round and there was more than enough light coming from it. But the temple rules were to be strictly followed. The lamps that ought to remain lit had to be checked properly.

The patrolling monk walked slowly, but confidently.

From time to time, he would stop and relight any candles put out by the wind.

All the candles in the temple were placed in specially made lamps. The lamps were carved from large rocks. They were broader on the bottom and a little narrower on top, slightly more than four feet in height and resembled cranes with a bowed head. The candle was placed where the crane’s eyes would be. The neck blocked the wind and the eyelids blocked the dust. In most cases, it would not be put out by the billowing wind and would not give off any sparks either.

Song Caitang’s guest residence was the innermost one of the pavement outside.

To Old Madam Li, Song Caitang was a young lady who needed privacy, so she purposely arranged for her to have the quietest and least disturbed residence.

Safety wasn’t a problem. Old Madam Li, Wen Yuansi, Governor Zhang and all their subordinates were staying in the same area. Guards were placed all around the residences, so if something was happening at Song Caitang’s residence, it would be discovered immediately.

The patrolling monk was meticulous in his work. When he came to the outside of Song Caitang’s residence, he noticed that a lamp had gone out. He took out a hemp rope from the pouch around his belt, then used the candle in his lantern to relight it.

Seeing that the lamps in the area were all lit and there was no unusual noise in the vicinity, the monk was assured and walked away.

But not long after he left, something happened to the candle in the lamp.

It had just been relit and glowed a warm orange color, but before long, the light dimmed for a moment before suddenly becoming extremely bright. It even crackled very quietly.

The noise had appeared very suddenly and quickly, and it began giving off sparks.

Pak! The lit rope dimmed and a burning smell filled the air. Two small but very bright balls of fire flew out of the lamp and came straight for Song Caitang’s residence!

One flew toward the roof, while the other flew toward her window. Judging from its speed and velocity, it was definitely going to pierce through the paper window pane and fly into the room!

Tianhua Temple was a temple that opted for minimalist design. The east side accommodations were the less luxurious ones, so their design was even more minimalistic.

The roof had tiles, but very few. It was just one thin layer and was held together by a lot of cement made from grass and bamboo. In order to make the rooms airy, the windows were very large, but they didn’t have high quality chiffony curtains that could block the wind while letting light in like the homes of wealthy families. The windows here were covered in paper.

The paper was thick, could barely block any light and was blown by the wind all day. The paper was so dry.

So, imagine what would happen if those balls of fire landed on these!

In the darkness, a intelligent pair of eyes suddenly flew open.

A tall and muscular man came flying through the air diagonally, his deep eyes focused on the two balls of fire. He flicked a weapon out from his sleeve, which hit the ball headed for the roof and forced it to change direction and crash onto the ground. At the same time, he leaped upward quickly toward the window, intending to stop that ball of fire…

He was moving at high speed and was about to get to the ball when the window suddenly opened and a teapot came flying right out!

The man was highly skilled in martial arts and under normal circumstances, he would have been able to move aside in time to dodge this flying teapot. But his focus was on the fire and he was moving too quickly to stop, plus he really didn’t expect anything to suddenly come flying at him either. He couldn’t dodge it at all!

And for some reason, this teapot was super accurate. It hit the ball of fire, causing it to fly backward instead. But because it was heavy, the impact did not cause the teapot to fly back toward the window. It continued on its trajectory and flew straight…

…and smashed onto the man’s face.

Pak! PIANG!

Two sounds, one muffled and one crisp. The teapot had hit his face, then hit the ground and broke.

Song Caitang looked out of the window to come face to face with Zhao Zhi.

Two lines of blood came flowing out of Zhao Zhi’s nostrils. No matter how highly skilled one was in martial arts, and no matter how classy or lofty one looked, once they had a nose bleeding like this, they would look hilarious.

Zhao Zhi, however, did not look the least pleased.

Song Caitang’s smile was stiff, “Ah…did Surveillance Commissioner Zhao decide to come all the way here to…admire the moon?”

Zhao Zhi gnashed his teeth.

But he didn’t have the time to talk to Song Caitang. The ball of fire her teapot had smacked away had somehow hit the one he smacked away. The two balls struck each other, causing sparks to fly and one of them changed directions to bounce toward Song Caitang’s face!

Zhao Zhi noticed that Song Caitang was holding teacups. She probably thought that the teapot wasn’t enough and was prepared to use these to attack him. He snatched them from her and threw them at the balls of fire.

Song Caitang just stared at him. What was this domineering action about?!

During this time, the two of them briefly exchanged glances.

When Song Caitang saw what he did, she realized what was going on. Something terrible was about to happen to her and Zhao Zhi had seriously saved her life this time. But what had she done? She had offended him even further!

This man was a surveillance commissioner after all, so if he decided he didn’t like her face, he could decide to not let her join the investigation team! Oh no!

She bit her lip and glared at him. You didn’t say anything when you came to help, so I was just trying to defend myself! I didn’t expect to hit you smack in the face! I…I was in a desperate situation too!

He raised an eyebrow in return. I wouldn’t have known whether you were awake or not! What if I frightened you to death by suddenly shouting? Did you think I was too bored? So I’ve come to let you call me a nosy parker again?

“If you didn’t put on that grouchy face and say such annoying things, I wouldn’t have said those things! I’m not unreasonable!”

Song Caitang realized she shouldn’t have said that after she blurted it out. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, “I’m sorry.”

But before she could say anything else, Zhao Zhi suddenly came toward her, reached out to her and pulled her right out from the window.

His movement was quick but not rough. Her waist hurt a little from being gripped very hard, but she didn’t feel uncomfortable anywhere else.

Once she caught her balance again after they had landed, she realized why he had done that.

Something in the yard had exploded, so there were at least three to five tiny balls of fire flying toward the window. If Zhao Zhi hadn’t pulled her right out, she would have died and not just become disfigured!

“Thank you…” Song Caitang sighed to herself, “I’m sorry about what happened just now. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Whether he was mean or not didn’t matter. Zhao Zhi had saved her life.

Just like before, once he had put her down safely and she could stand properly, he retracted his arms and moved several steps away from her, as though he couldn’t stand her, as though he didn’t want to be associated with her in the slightest and didn’t even want to be caught standing in the same area as her.

ARGH! How irritating! She nearly started sniffing her clothes to check if she had some terrible body odor!

Zhao Zhi broke his silence, “That doesn’t sound like what you would say.”

Which one? Thank you? Or sorry?

Song Caitang looked down, “That’s because you’re biased against me and you don’t know me well enough.”

“I’m not interested.” Zhao Zhi’s response was icy, “Miss Song, instead of thinking about these useless things, why don’t you think about who on earth you’ve offended.”

The cogs in her brain moved quickly, ignoring the part about “useless things”, “You’re saying this isn’t an accident.”

Someone was trying to hurt her!

She wanted to ask how he knew and how much he knew, as well as whether he had turned up here by coincidence or not, but she didn’t get the chance to ask.

Once Zhao Zhi was certain she was in a safe location, he ignored her and turned to continue fighting the fire.

There were too many balls of fire now and they were headed in other directions besides her own residence. Some sparks had lit up the firewood by the wall, the straw on the roof… It looked like Zhao Zhi wanted to help the others staying in the area too.

Song Caitang straightened her clothing out and frowned deeply.

“Young Mistress!” Qingqiao came running over while panting. Her eyes were red and she looked like she was on the verge of tears, “I couldn’t find you in the room…”

“Don’t worry, the heavens are watching over me, so I’m fine.”

Given how chaotic the situation was, they didn’t need to shout for help. Everyone could see the fires…

True enough, Wen Yuansi brought some men over in no time. Shouts of “Get water!” and the like could be heard as more and more people joined in the firefighting effort.

The tall and muscular figure in the fire…had disappeared out of sight.

For the first time, Wen Yuansi wasn’t able to maintain his usual well manicured look. His hair was a little messy and his collar wasn’t buttoned properly. He also looked very anxious.

Song Caitang smiled, “Magistrate Wen, don’t worry, I’m fine.”

“I’m glad you’re fine…”

Wen Yuansi checked her over and was relieved to see that she was indeed, perfectly fine. She wasn’t hurt, she was in good spirits and wasn’t traumatized by what happened.

There were more than enough people to help with fighting the fires, so he did not join them. He asked Song Caitang what happened and went to take a look at the blackened lamp in the yard that had exploded. He furrowed his brows when he heard that Song Caitang was the first one to be attacked.

“I thought those good-for-nothings would only make life difficult but wouldn’t try to kill anyone. If the investigators create a new case, how many cases would we have to investigate? How are we going to find evidence like this? Isn’t that making things even worse for themselves?! I can’t believe they dared to do this!”

He was basically saying that the provincial governor’s men were behind this.

Song Caitang fell into deep thought.

Those people…while it was true that they despised her and were her opponents, there was no need to actually kill her. They could have just injured her so that she couldn’t help. This fire ball attack was quite serious. If Zhao Zhi hadn’t arrived in time to intervene and she didn’t have the habit of waking up around this time of the night, things might have ended really badly.

She had just arrived in this place and didn’t have a feud with anyone who would want her dead…

A bold guess formed in her mind. Could it be the murderer?

The murderer had seen her conduct the autopsy and felt that she was trouble, since she might have seen something that could be a major clue, so…

But that seemed kind of extreme too.

Was she really that important?

She couldn’t reach any conclusion, so she didn’t tell Wen Yuansi about this guess of hers.

During this time, Wen Yuansi had already prepared a new place for her to sleep in, “It’s just by the side, a short distance from here. It’s nearer the front and it might be a little noisy, but it’s definitely safe. Besides the monks, my men will also take turns to keep watch at night.”

Song Caitang nodded and smiled, “Thank you so much, Magistrate Wen.”

Wen Yuansi paused for a while before speaking again in a low voice, “You’ve suffered such an attack because I invited you to come here.” When he realized that he had made the atmosphere gloomy again, he smiled, “Thankfully, it was discovered in time and the fire isn’t too bad, so I’ve got enough people to attend to it. It must be tiring for you to stand here and there’s no point in staying here, so why don’t you head to your new residence to rest?”

Song Caitang nodded in agreement, “Sure.”

“I’ll walk you there.”

“No need, you have urgent matters to attend to.”

Song Caitang walked off with Qingqiao. When she came to where onlookers had gathered, she heard a voice in her ear.

“Shameless!”

“You’re shameless for seducing the magistrate!”

The voice was coming from a very young lady with a round face and almond-shaped eyes.