The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 32

The fourteenth year of Longqing, fourth lunar month.

Shen Yan had taken an unyielding stance and forced Zhao Li to recuperate quietly in Pear Garden Courtyard.

Not only had he confiscated her badge, but even Lu Zhao was stopped outside when he came to visit.

Daoist Xuanxu came more often than Lu Zhao. Several times, he arrived carrying pills and tried to ask Zhao Li about Nether Script.

But Nether Script was a complex system. How could it be explained in a few casual sentences?

Daoist Xuanxu still had some sense of propriety. After three or four visits, he became too embarrassed to return.

He merely instructed Zhao Li to take her medicine properly and visit the Imperial Astronomical Bureau once she recovered.

On the fifth day, at the start of summer, Zhao Li ate tea cakes and drank the Seven-Family Summer Tea that Matron Wan had brewed with jasmine, crabapple, rose, osmanthus, clove, sandalwood, perilla, and apricot.

She thought she could continue lazing around for another month.

Then Shen Yan arrived with a face dark as thunder, followed by a miserable-looking Lu Zhao.

One glance at their expressions told Zhao Li something had happened.

Three Jingning Guard agents had disappeared while investigating a case in a ward south of the city.

For two days, their comrades had practically stripped a layer from the ground, but found neither living men nor corpses.

The matter had therefore become anything but ordinary and landed on Lu Zhao’s desk.

Lu Zhao came knocking on her door.

Her days of paid leave had been interrupted. Zhao Li did not particularly want to return to work, but lives were at stake and her superior stood directly before her, so she put on a properly dedicated expression.

She changed into her black fish-patterned uniform and followed the two men to Xingping Ward, where the incident had occurred.

Xingping Ward stood in a desirable part of the city. Its residents were families with property and steady incomes.

Zhao Li leaned out of the carriage and opened her Mind’s Eye.

Yin-Yang Sight distinguished life from death, while the Mind’s Eye read the qi of all beneath heaven. The saying exaggerated somewhat, but the Mind’s Eye truly could be considered an advanced form of Yin-Yang Sight.

It had been a required subject in Zhao Li’s previous life, and she had recently worked hard to regain the skill.

The moment her Mind’s Eye opened, the world changed.

Heaven and earth turned hazy and gray. Enormous vortices occasionally appeared within the ashen clouds overhead, as though something rolled and swam inside them.

Every building and person in her field of view became a hollow outline.

Only the colored vapors representing life and fortune remained solid, constantly shifting.

Looking around, she saw several drifting wisps of gray smoke that signified misfortune and terrible luck.

But there was no black corpse miasma.

The word *ci* referred to bones not yet fully decayed. Corpse miasma was the unique vapor released by human remains before they had completely rotted away.

Its absence allowed for only three possibilities: the missing men were alive, they had not died here, or they were dead but had left no corpses.

The first was the best possibility.

The third was the worst.

After confirming this, Zhao Li pressed lightly between her brows and closed the Mind’s Eye.

The ability was useful, but looking around carelessly could invite terrible trouble.

The act of “looking” could be sensed.

While you looked at them, they could look back at you.

With poor luck, one might accidentally glimpse some vast existence and either go mad on the spot or have one’s perceptions twisted until the body instantly mutated.

“There is no corpse miasma within this area.”

Zhao Li hopped down from the carriage.

Beside her, Shen Yan silently withdrew the hand he had raised to support her.

Lu Zhao noticed and immediately turned his head away with a solemn expression.

Then he took out a jade pendant and was about to place it in his mouth when Zhao Li stopped him.

“Lord Lu, I saw you use that jade to open Yin-Yang Sight last time. If I am not mistaken, is it a remnant left by some supernatural anomaly?”

Lu Zhao smiled bitterly. “That is right.”

Complex emotions appeared on his face.

“A year ago, I traveled to Liaodong on official business with a squad of brothers. On our return journey, we accidentally entered a haunted village.”

“In the end… out of the whole squad, only I survived and obtained this.”

With another bitter smile, Lu Zhao raised the jade pendant. “Holding it in my mouth lets me see those things, but…”

It made his skull ache with cold.

“This is dead jade. To an ordinary person, it is trash not worth bending down to pick up. But it seals and concentrates yin resentment. Its yin energy is extremely heavy. You must not use it again.”

What Zhao Li did not say was that prolonged contact with such yin objects would make it difficult for a man to father children.

It would also make him bald!

“This is a visualization method for opening the Mind’s Eye.” Zhao Li drew a sheet of xuan paper from inside her robe. “Once you learn it, it will be far superior to that jade. I copied the restrictions onto the paper as well.”

“How could I possibly accept such a thing?”

Lu Zhao grinned and rubbed his hands. Even as he protested, he accepted the paper and tucked it into his sleeve.

“I’ll treat you to a roast-duck banquet at Fuju Restaurant!”

His practiced movement left Zhao Li staring.

She reminded him, “Lord Lu, you must remember the restrictions of the Mind’s Eye!”

“I know, I know.”

Lu Zhao paused. “May I teach it to others?”

Zhao Li nodded without hesitation. “Of course.”

According to *The Great Way of Qingyuan*, a falling star had struck the Kingdom of Shanshan in the Western Regions five years ago.

That meteorite from beyond the heavens was probably the source of the spiritual resurgence.

From the day it fell, this world had begun to change.

In the future, supernatural incidents would frequently occur in every corner of the world.

Zhao Li needed a stable environment in which to retire, and no single person could create such stability alone.

“Is that so?” Shen Yan asked. “Then may I learn it too?”

Lu Zhao silently retreated one step.

“Of course.” Zhao Li nodded.

Shen Yan’s expression eased slightly.

“I will also treat you to… anything you wish to eat.”

“There’s no need!” Zhao Li waved a hand.

She already relied on Shen Yan for food, housing, and daily expenses. Her boss was so generous; she could hardly be stingy in return.

Shen Yan pressed his lips into a line.

The Jingning Guard served as the emperor’s personal force. Three grown men vanishing beneath the walls of the imperial capital constituted a major case by any standard, so the entire ward had been sealed under martial control.

Jingning Guard agents guarded every gate in and out.

As soon as Shen Yan’s party arrived, someone came forward.

It was the mature-looking Lu Jianxing.

After saluting the three of them, he led them into the home of Xingping Ward’s headman.

The two-courtyard brick residence had been converted into a temporary command post, with Jingning Guard agents constantly entering and leaving.

Before long, the trembling ward head brought in several snot-nosed children.

Winter had left every small face red and chapped.

The children were too young to share the ward head’s fear. They immediately began talking over one another.

It turned out that on the evening in question, they had been riding broomsticks and playing constables and thieves.

Around dinnertime, their mothers stood outside their homes calling them to eat.

Laughing, the children straddled their brooms and bounced toward home.

Then they saw three officials in uniform walking into the abandoned house at the end of the street in a very strange posture.

The oldest child was no more than eight. They stammered for a long time without explaining what had been strange about it.

Finally growing frustrated, the oldest pulled two others over to demonstrate.

He stood at the front. The children behind placed their hands on the shoulders ahead of them until the three formed a line.

“Like this! Just like this!”

The three imitated what they had seen as they spoke.

“Their eyes were rolled up too. Like this!”

Like marionettes, they took several stiff steps, moving each arm with the leg on the same side.

Their eyes rolled back to expose the whites, and little tongues protruded from their mouths.