The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 83

“Time to go home. Time to go home.”

A gray-white film covered Yang Jian’s eyes as he repeated the words mechanically.

Zhao Li cautiously relaxed the hand pinning him.

The man who had struggled without pause now moved only his fingers.

“Tie him up first.”

Zhao Li eased the foot restraining him.

Zheng Lian and the others were drenched in sweat from resisting his strength.

Head Constable Xing, who had watched the entire scene, finally recovered. He removed the rope binding a nearby vegetable basket.

Working together, the men tied up the muttering Yang Jian.

Zhao Li quietly told Shen Yan what had happened before his arrival.

“Lord Shen, barring any surprise, this should be a monster from the Western Regions. It has some connection to moonlight and Sichuan chinaberry fruit.”

As she spoke, her thoughts raced through every creature that might match.

Then Shen Yan said, “It’s a moth-woman—a Nü’e.”

“What?”

The unfamiliar name fell squarely within a gap in Zhao Li’s knowledge. It was probably a species unique to this world.

She looked at Shen Yan and waited for him to continue.

Shen Yan casually discarded the blood-streaked bench leg and accepted a Sichuan chinaberry fruit from Zhao Li.

“During the Libao era of the previous dynasty, a small kingdom in the Western Regions presented a peerless beauty as tribute. She was called Nü’e. Her skin was said to be as soft and white as snow cream.”

“Emperor Ling of the previous dynasty adored her so completely that he nearly cast aside the entire imperial harem.”

Shen Yan thought as the fruit rolled between his fingertips.

“But three years later, Emperor Ling personally ordered that peerless beauty burned alive.”

Zhao Li frowned but did not ask how he had identified the creature.

Shen Yan was not the sort to stop a story halfway. He soon explained.

After the previous dynasty fell, warfare swept through the palaces. Most imperial books and secret records burned, though a small number escaped into private hands.

Shen Yan’s uncle, Shen Zhixing, loved books. His subordinates therefore used every means available to collect rare and incomplete volumes for him.

And since Shen Yan’s work in the Jingning Guard frequently involved confiscating estates and exterminating households, he inevitably came across precious books of his own.

Once, he had obtained half a scroll of *Floating Cloud Floss*, written by a palace eunuch of the previous dynasty. It recorded numerous secrets of the inner court, some true and some false.

“According to *Floating Cloud Floss*, the Western Regions beauty favored by Emperor Ling ate only vegetarian food and never touched meat. At each full moon, she exposed herself to moonlight for half a quarter of an hour.”

“She also loathed Sichuan chinaberry fruit. Once, an imperial physician included it in a prescription. The beauty flew into a rage and ordered him flayed and stuffed with straw.”

Understanding dawned on Zhao Li.

“Moonlight and Sichuan chinaberry fruit. It does match. Emperor Ling must have discovered something strange before he burned her himself.”

Shen Yan nodded. “The record says the Western beauty regularly bore multiple children. In only three years, she produced more than a dozen sons and daughters.”

More than a dozen in three years?

Zhao Li calculated and felt her scalp crawl.

“Later, Emperor Ling ordered every one of those princes and princesses, male and female alike, dismembered at the imperial ancestral temple,” Shen Yan continued. “People of the time believed he had gone mad.”

He gave a quiet laugh.

“Now it seems Emperor Ling was not mad. He had simply discovered that his favorite consort might not have been human.”

Zhao Li listened thoughtfully.

The Nü’e of the previous dynasty could not have displayed abnormalities as obvious as Yang Jian’s.

An appetite and monstrous form like this would be impossible to conceal. She certainly could not have remained beside an emperor for three years before anyone noticed.

Zhao Li sighed.

Who knew how many unknown things like this they would encounter in the future?

She glanced at Shen Yan.

Fortunately, she had an intelligence chief like him beside her.

“Lord Shen, does *Floating Cloud Floss* record anything else the Western beauty feared?”

Zhao Li was now almost certain the moth-woman was an insect-type monster.

Insect monsters were notoriously unintelligent.

But their vitality was tenacious, their reproductive ability terrifying, and they were difficult to kill.

In an era without firearms, surrounding and killing one through human strength alone might cost countless lives.

Zhao Li looked around at those present.

Zheng Lian and Head Constable Xing had wrapped Yang Jian from neck to ankle in layer after layer of hemp rope.

Not a patch of flesh remained visible. The excessive thoroughness looked almost comical.

Yang Jian squirmed on the ground like a silkworm pupa and muttered, “Home. Go home.”

Whether the desire belonged to Yang Jian himself or the parasites inside him seeking the protection of their mother was impossible to tell.

Shen Yan frowned and considered for a long time before shaking his head.

“*Floating Cloud Floss* was only half a damaged scroll. That passage was all it contained about Nü’e.”

Seeing Zhao Li’s disappointment, he asked, “From Yang Jian’s account, the original form was a black silkworm cocoon. Might camphor, mugwort, or other insect repellents have some effect?”

Zhao Li shook her head. “Unless they are its fated natural counter, the effect will be negligible.”

She would love to pour a bucket of tetramethrin over the creatures, but that was impossible here.

They still did not know the situation in Jiahui Ward.

If Yang Jian had become this hungry, what had Zhang E been eating to sustain herself?

Yang Jian had said she devoured fatty meat, but Zhao Li could not be sure what kind of meat it truly was.

In the worst case, Jiahui Ward had already become Zhang E’s dining hall.

“Do not overthink it. Act directly,” Shen Yan said.

He removed the Commander-in-Chief’s badge from his waist and gave it to Zhao Li.

“You will command the brothers in the Guard. I will go to the palace, ask His Majesty to mobilize the Capital Garrison and the city-defense crossbows, and find records concerning Nü’e as quickly as possible.”

Zhao Li gripped the badge. “Yes.”

“Be careful. Adapt to the circumstances and never take risks lightly.” Shen Yan looked deeply at her. “Do you understand?”

Only after Zhao Li obediently nodded did he whistle for his mount and swing into the saddle.

With two guards, he galloped toward the palace.

Zhao Li watched him leave, glanced at the badge in her palm, and spun it once on a finger.

Then she called to Zheng Lian and the others.

“Time to work.”

The Jingning Guard was causing trouble again!

The people of the capital discovered in horror that, after arresting White Lotus believers throughout the city only days ago, the emperor’s Jingning Guard hounds had launched another major operation.

Large numbers of personnel converged on Jiahui Ward and surrounded it completely.

Shengjing contained sixty-four wards. Any disturbance encompassing an entire ward was considerable.

At the rear office of the Five Cities Military Patrol Office, a registrar was drinking wine and eating peanuts when he heard the news.

He sprayed wine across the room.

After hastily splashing cold water on his face, he gathered men and rushed to Jiahui Ward.

From a distance, he saw Jingning Guard officers in black fish-patterned uniforms driving the residents out.

The registrar had sharp eyes. He immediately spotted a familiar man running around the perimeter and working himself to exhaustion.

“Old Xing!” he called in a lowered voice.

Head Constable Xing had been ordered about so thoroughly by Zhao Li that he had forgotten he belonged to the Five Cities Military Patrol Office.

He was helping soothe the forcibly evacuated residents.

As a grassroots constable who worked among the wards, Head Constable Xing commanded some respect.

He stood amid the crowd. “Don’t panic. Don’t—”

Faced with countless mouths demanding answers, his temper snapped.

He ripped out his long saber.

“All of you, shut the hell up!”