In the courtyard of the Li Mansion, Li Yuliang lay in a spreading pool of blood. His lips trembled and his pupils were losing focus. Through the failing blur of his vision he could see the guards converging on him, and at the far end of the corridor, a graceful, elegant woman had pushed past her attendants and was running toward him. The gold hairpins in her hair caught the sunlight.Li Yuliang could no longer see her face clearly, but he knew his aunt had come. He smiled, a broken, faint smile, and his awareness faded entirely.Sun Huang led the second escort team to the modest inn in a small side alley where escort teams often stayed. It had no signboard and no pretension of any kind. The tables in the lobby were covered in a layered sheen of old oil stains.There was nothing to be done about it. Prices in the prefecture capital were considerably steeper than those in the county towns. Even a moderately decent establishment charged prices that stung. Sun Huang was well paid by escor

Luan Jingfu, seeing that Ruan Fengshan had no intention of speaking, took it upon himself. "Yesterday, at the Xiaoman Dragon Lantern Festival, Young Master Ruan Jing wanted to see the lanterns and would not be dissuaded. Lady Chunying could not refuse him, so she carried him out herself with the maids to watch the festival. He was lost in the street crowd.""Lost?" Sun Huang's face went blank with surprise.A visible shock moved through everyone in the hall.Young Master Ruan Jing was the most precious thing Ruan Fengshan had in the world.Ruan Fengshan was past forty. He had taken several wives and concubines without any of them producing children. Then a maid who had come as part of a dowry unexpectedly became pregnant by him and gave birth to a boy, who was named Ruan Jing.The maid's name was Ma Chunying. Ruan Fengshan had been overjoyed. He removed her from her status as a servant and took her as a concubine, and made her father a doorman at the Yuanshun Dart Bureau.As the sayin

Mo Qian cupped his fists and turned to leave. They had no rank and no right to negotiate.He turned and found Lu Feng still standing there in a stupor, and reached out and knocked him on the shoulder. Lu Feng came back to himself, cupped his fists, and followed Mo Qian out."Mo Qian, what are we supposed to do?" Lu Feng whispered urgently the moment they were out of the Juyi Hall. "This isn't sending gold. This is sending us to our graves!"Mo Qian looked at Lu Feng, whose face was a picture of resentment and fear, and said, "Your life means everything to you, but it means nothing to anyone else. Pull yourself together. Fear will only get you killed faster."As Mo Qian and Lu Feng left the Juyi Hall, they passed Sun Huang and his group escorting Xu Shouxian toward the flower hall in the rear courtyard. Xu Shouxian's expression was cold and unbending, like a scholar being marched to the execution ground with his dignity intact.Xiao Zongting followed behind them. When he spotted Mo Qia

After repeated attempts, Mo Qian eventually managed to take the Black Tiger Ascending the Mountain and Leopard Drilling Through the Forest techniques, break them apart, and fit them into the structure of the first move.The three elements fused, but the first of the three nameless moves remained the soul throughout. It led and shaped the Black Tiger Ascending the Mountain and Leopard Drilling Through the Forest, and what came out was something new that retained the essence of the original techniques while being transformed by the elemental form beneath them.After the fusion, the first move had a strangeness to it, and Mo Qian realized that the resulting technique had a cyclical structure.The Leopard Drilling Through the Forest connected into the Black Tiger Ascending the Mountain, which connected back into the Leopard Drilling Through the Forest.Cycling endlessly, without a breaking point.And this was determined by the original structure of the first nameless move itself.Mo Qian

As a result, the mass grave held the restless spirits and uneasy dead of those who had met unusual ends.At this hour, it was the deepest, darkest part of the night. There was no moon in the sky. Only a great star hung alone overhead.Mo Qian drove the dart cart along the official road by lantern light and turned into the mass grave.In the darkness, countless burial mounds rose from the ground like steamed buns. Here and there, ghost lights drifted faintly in the night wind, scattered and sparse.Mo Qian sat on the cart, looking slowly around him, his ears alert to every sound.The moment the cart turned in, two heads appeared from behind a tomb not far away. Both men were dressed as servants. On the tomb beside them lay a third man, short and heavyset, who asked the two of them, "Did you get a clear look? Who is driving the cart?""It looks like Mo Qian, the apprentice escort from the second escort team," one of the servants answered."Looks like?" the short man asked, his face tigh