The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 54

Huang Li was about to approach, build some goodwill, and ask Zhao Li what he should do about his nightmares when someone beside him snorted.

Lin Zhu stood nearby with his arms folded. He could not bear Huang Li’s anxious attempts to ingratiate himself.

After all, she was Lin Zhu’s own granddaughter!

As he thought this, Lin Zhu accidentally caught the fleeting distaste on Zhao Li’s face.

His heart sank.

He knew he had been in the wrong at Mount Jin. At the time, he had been too proud to apologize to a junior.

He could only watch Huang Li and Daoist Xuanxu bustle around her while Zhao Li looked at him with the blank unfamiliarity one gave a stranger.

Later, Daoist Xuanxu said that yin energy entering the body could cause terrible damage to a young woman like Zhao Li. It could shorten her life and even affect her ability to bear children.

Regret had kept Lin Zhu awake night after night.

By then, Zhao Li was already recuperating at the Pacification Office. He could not see her, and every gift he sent was returned untouched by Shen Yan.

When he glimpsed her in the palace yesterday, she had been covered in dust from her journey. He still did not know how well her body had recovered.

Today, Lin Zhu had shamelessly come along to see her condition.

He had been debating how to greet her and remind her to care for herself. Should he appear solemn or kindly?

Zhao Li cupped her hands to him, then turned and walked away.

She had no patience to spare him another glance or pause for even a moment.

Hearing Huang Li’s malicious laughter beside him only made Lin Zhu more depressed.

He decided to summon Zhao Huai tomorrow and give him another scolding.

“A-Li, how do you intend to break this Mother-and-Child Bane?” Daoist Xuanxu asked with a frown.

“Will you dig open the cellar at noon?”

Zhao Li shook her head. “The Mother-and-Child Bane is extremely fierce. Digging open the cellar would only set it free.”

A supernatural anomaly possessed no rational mind. Once released, it would slaughter indiscriminately.

“I will go down personally.”

The instant Zhao Li finished, several voices rejected the plan together.

“Absolutely not!”

She looked up in surprise.

Apart from Shen Yan and Daoist Xuanxu, the two Grand Secretaries who had come for the spectacle were frowning as well.

Even Eunuch Zhang looked concerned.

“It’s too dangerous. You cannot.”

Shen Yan had not expected her plan to be so risky. His brows immediately drew tight.

“The situation below is perilous. Going alone is too dangerous.”

Zhao Li knew their concern was well meant.

“It’s all right. I would not descend unless I were confident. There is no need to worry.”

When Shen Yan still looked ready to object, Zhao Li smiled at him.

“Lord Shen, you should have more faith in me.”

She was not someone who sacrificed herself for others.

Without confidence that she could escape, she would never take such a risk.

Zhao Li beckoned Shen Yan to bend down and whispered several sentences into his ear.

Shen Yan was taken aback, then frowned in thought for a long time.

At last, he nodded.

Once he agreed, Zhao Li left to make preparations in the worship hall above.

“Shen Yan, how can you allow A-Li to take such a risk?”

The moment Zhao Li departed, Lin Zhu jumped up anxiously.

Shen Yan looked at him coldly.

“This is an internal matter of the Jingning Guard. What does it have to do with Grand Secretary Lin?”

Ever since Zhao Li was injured at Mount Jin, Shen Yan had not shown Lin Zhu a pleasant expression.

“How could it have nothing to do with me?”

Lin Zhu wanted to say she was his own granddaughter.

But even he felt ashamed to speak the words.

He had failed to protect her at birth and allowed her to grow up far away.

Within months of bringing her home, his family had forced the child to sever ties and leave.

Now, when Lin Zhu remembered his former attitude, his entire face flushed with shame.

Still unaware of who that old man was, Zhao Li entered the worship hall.

Zheng Lian and the others were busy inside.

Lu Jianxing, the eldest and most steady, was directing the work.

Zheng Lian possessed the best martial skills and carried out every instruction immediately and in full.

Li Qing was physically weak but meticulous.

Lu Zhao had selected all three. They were unlucky men without backgrounds and with no hope of promotion or wealth.

Compared with agents burdened by complicated connections, Zhao Li currently found these three easy to work with.

Every miscellaneous object had been removed from the worship hall.

Only the altar table holding the white-jade lotus remained.

The bluestone bricks covering the hidden chamber had been lifted. Threads of cold air rose from the pitch-black opening.

No sound came from below.

Several roosters with proud combs waited inside cages.

Zhao Li took out a small case.

It contained a secret medicine made from her formula and refined by Daoist Xuanxu.

The medicine acted upon the pupils, temporarily allowing a person to see in the dark like a cat.

Naturally, it also had side effects.

Until the medicine wore off, the eyes could not adjust to ordinary light. Even the dimmest candle would appear painfully bright.

After taking it, one had to rest away from light for some time to avoid sudden blindness.

Apart from the medicine, Zhao Li had prepared another straw doll similar to the one from yesterday.

Its body was again made from rooster bones, its interior filled with incense ash and a rooster heart.

This time, however, its belly contained no Eight Characters of Birth.

Instead, Zhao Li had inserted a small, dried section of umbilical cord—the very piece she had cut away yesterday.

The second Chen son’s wife below would therefore temporarily mistake the doll for her child.

As for the infant who longed to return to his mother’s womb…

Zhao Li looked toward the human-shaped sack beside her.

Whoever incurred a debt should repay it.

Tilting her head, Zhao Li told Zheng Lian and Li Qing to cover her from head to foot in mengshi powder.

“Mengshi powder separates yin from yang. It can suppress my yang energy to the lowest possible level, preventing me from becoming the ghost infant’s first target inside the hidden chamber.”

Zhao Li slowly turned while Zheng Lian and Li Qing dusted her like cooks sprinkling cumin over meat.

She instructed everyone in the room.

“This situation requires concealment. Remember—do not open the Mind’s Eye.”

“When you use the Mind’s Eye to see something, it can see you as well.”

Zheng Lian, who had suffered the consequences yesterday, nodded obediently.

After checking that the mengshi powder covered her without any gaps and that the straw doll at her waist was secure, Zhao Li opened the medicine case.

Nine pills the size of a thumb lay inside.

Zhao Li looked at her hands, which were covered in mengshi ash, and was about to ask Zheng Lian for help.

A hand reached over and picked up one pill.

Shen Yan held it between his fingers and brought it to Zhao Li’s lips.

She paused, then lowered her head and opened her mouth to accept it.

Zheng Lian and Li Qing exchanged a glance and silently retreated two steps.

“Be careful.”

The young woman’s warm breath brushed Shen Yan’s fingertips, and he frowned.

“If you have not emerged within half an hour, I will order the hidden chamber blasted open.”

“You will hear rapid gongs before that happens. If you hear them, take cover. Do you remember?”

“Mm.”

Zhao Li held the pill in her mouth.

An intensely bitter and spicy taste immediately spread across her tongue.

She squeezed her eyes shut from the bitterness.

As expected of something made by Daoist Xuanxu. The flavor was a more reliable mark of authenticity than any anti-counterfeit label.

Zhao Li walked to the corner and lifted the human-shaped sack in one hand.

With fifteen points added to her constitution, carrying it one-handed was not difficult.

In those few steps, her eyes began to burn and sting. They pulsed gently with each breath, and red afterimages appeared across her vision.

The light inside the room also became painfully bright.

Narrowing her eyes, Zhao Li carried the sack to the opening and stepped down into the hidden chamber.