Chapter 813: Casting Roles

“Within the past eight months, a little over two hundred households have newly moved into Heishui City. Most of them are refugees who fled from the northwest, while some came in from outside the state.” On the northwestern front, Dong Haoming’s rebel army and the Yuan forces were locked in fierce battle. Ordinary civilians who did not want to be caught in the crossfire had no choice but to abandon their homes. “The conditions you gave me were: foreigners, a group of at least seven or eight people, bought a residence locally but never registered as residents, seemed to have nothing much to do, yet clearly weren’t short of money.”

The criteria He Lingchuan had given were already highly specific.

“And?”

“There really is one group that fits almost perfectly.” Situ Han popped a wonton into his mouth. “There are a dozen or so of them. Sure enough, they arrived almost eight months ago. Their accents are from somewhere else, though I couldn’t tell where. They stayed at Baixi Inn for five or six days and spent money very freely. I happened to be on patrol a few times back then, so I remember them. Later, they bought a large residence in Heishui City and settled down. Publicly, they claimed they’d come here to do business and even took over a carriage station, but they barely run the place. They never go looking for customers either. Any real merchant who operated that way would’ve starved to death long ago.”

“What else do they usually do?”

“Well, they mostly stay inside the residence and rarely interact with outsiders. They do pay their taxes every six months, though, always right on time, never late. Their leader’s surname is Zhang, Zhang Lianhai. That guy’s an arrogant bastard. He always looks down his nose at people. Whenever he goes out, he has at least three or four attendants following behind him. The brothers guarding the city gates also said they often see them coming and going through the north gate.”

“Through the north gate?” He Lingchuan pondered. “Heading north?”

“Yup. They’ll be gone for days at a time.” Situ Han said, “To the north is the Hongya Route.”

He Lingchuan smiled. “And so is the Panlong Desert. Ever since strange phenomena started appearing there, have they been going north more often?”

“Exactly. They only came back two days ago!” Situ Han waggled his eyebrows. “Eldest Young Master, guess which residence they bought.”

“Where?” Seeing Situ Han grin from ear to ear, He Lingchuan suddenly had a bad feeling. “Damn. Don’t tell me...”

“Yep. Your old home!”

When He Lingchuan’s eyes widened, Situ Han hurriedly corrected himself. “Pah, pah, pah! What am I saying? Your former residence! Former residence!”

He Lingchuan let out a long breath, feeling oddly annoyed.

So these people had occupied his old nest.

When the He Family moved to Xia Province, they had never intended to return, so they had entrusted others to sell their local properties.

Then again, this proved that these people had decent taste. Madame Ying had personally designed the He Mansion’s layout and landscaping, after all. It was one of the finest residences in all of Heishui City.

He Lingchuan asked about several other details.

Situ Han could answer all of them.

He was practically a local snake both on the Hongya Route and inside Heishui City, with connections on both sides of the law. If anything unusual happened in the city, ordinary households might not notice a thing, but Situ Han would almost definitely have heard about it.

“Oh, right. There were originally only a dozen or so of them, but at some point, quite a few unfamiliar faces started showing up.”

He Lingchuan’s gaze sharpened. “They brought in more people?”

“That part I’m not too clear on. My brothers and I have been out a lot lately.” Situ Han had his own official duties. He could hardly spend every waking moment watching this group. At that, he glanced left and right, then lowered his voice again. “Eldest Young Master, I’ve also finished that other thing you asked me to do.”

“No one noticed?”

“How could anyone trace it back to us?” Situ Han grinned. “When have rumors ever come with roots people can dig up? Besides, the Panlong Desert really has been full of strange phenomena lately. It’s not like we were making anything up. We just went to crowded places and mentioned it a few extra times.”

The fact that the strange happenings in the Panlong Desert had spread so quickly was partly thanks to him.

Satisfied, He Lingchuan patted him on the shoulder and slipped him another banknote. “Well done. Give this to the brothers as compensation for their trouble.”

The wontons were finished, and so was the extra giant bowl of broad noodles he had ordered afterward.

Situ Han wiped his mouth. “I’m heading back to work. If you need anything else, just give the word!”

With that, he sprang up, insisted on paying the bill, and left.

He Lingchuan had barely returned to the inn when the Soul-Stealing Mirror asked, “Who exactly did you tell that Situ fellow to investigate?”

“People from the Heavenly Palace.”

“Huh?” The Soul-Stealing Mirror had never expected to hear those words in a remote frontier city of Yuan. “The Heavenly Palace?! We’re dealing with the Heavenly Palace here too?”

“Yep.” He Lingchuan needled it, “What are you scared of? We’re in Yuan now. The envoys of the Heavenly Palace don’t have the home-field advantage here.”

They might carry the words “Heavenly Palace” in their title, but here they were merely outsiders. There was no way they could throw their weight around as they did in Lingxu City.

Has this stupid mirror gotten traumatized from the beating we took from the Heavenly Palace on Mount Xu?

The mirror immediately bristled. “Scared my ass! I just don’t understand what they’re doing here!”

“They’ve been here for a long time.” As soon as He Lingchuan entered the room, he set up a barrier, then used the mirror to sweep the surroundings. “I caused the Tianluo Star to flare at the Qianxing City ruins and again at Baishajue. Then I stole the lid of Generous Pot from Mount Xu. Which of those things didn’t involve Generous Pot? The gods have known for a long time that Generous Pot is hidden in Panlong Desert. It’s only expected that they’d send people here to investigate, and it’s not like those people would be pulled out after just a few days.”

Even if they could not retrieve Generous Pot, that did not stop the Heavenly Palace from leaving people behind to watch the place.

“So that’s why you limited the search to the last eight months?” The Soul-Stealing Mirror thought about it. “Wait, how did you know they’d buy a residence here?”

“If you had to live in an inn for several months, could you stand it?” He Lingchuan knew exactly what sort of inns Heishui City had.

Sure, I could.

I’m only a mirror. I just stay wherever my owner stays. What difference does the lodging make?

He Lingchuan seemed to hear its silent grumbling and slapped the mirror. “I’ve dealt with the people of the Heavenly Palace plenty of times. They consider themselves superior to everyone else. They never skimp on food, clothing, lodging, or anything else. We saw Bai Ziqi’s entourage all the way from Baishajue back to Lingxu City. Even Fushan Yue didn’t put on as much of a show as he did. Do you seriously think that those Heavenly Palace envoys could tolerate the tiny, cramped inns in Heishui City?”

If they intended to monitor Panlong Desert long-term, of course they would find somewhere comfortable and settle in.

The Heavenly Palace gave its field envoys ample funding. How could they possibly be short on money? That was also why their commercial cover was so halfhearted. Any local with sharp enough eyes could see something was off.

So even before He Lingchuan personally arrived, his prior dealings with the Heavenly Palace had given him enough of an understanding to remotely direct Situ Han and identify their people.

The mirror found the whole thing bizarre. “What do you even want with the Heavenly Palace people?” Anyone else in a situation like this would avoid the Heavenly Palace like the plague.

“The stage has already been set,” He Lingchuan said calmly. “How could this performance go on without giving them a role?”

* * *

The next day, He Lingchuan had Qiu Hu and the others switch mounts to camels. They left through the north gate and entered the Hongya Route.

Since the stated purpose of this trip was to “evaluate the Hongya Trade Route,” he still had to do the work expected of him.

He Lingchuan first needed to take Hu Qin and the others along the Hongya Route for an on-site inspection, then return to Heishui City and verify the tax records from previous years.