Translator: DragonRider

  He saw Mageer, in the pavilion, riding on Wen Ran’s body and tearing off her clothes with exhilaration. Back at Xiuzheng Fang, Mageer had felt burning with desire. Just now when he carried Wen Ran to flee all the way here, as the surface of their skins rubbed against each other and her body fragrance sneaked into his nose, he couldn’t hold it back any more. Wen Ran desperately wriggled to get rid of him, yet the powerless resistance couldn’t at all withstand the monstrous intrusion, so she had no choice but to cry ‘daddy’ to beg for the impossible rescue.

  Cao Poyan pulled Mageer off the woman, smacking him heavily in the face. Was this the right time to do it?! Did he have any sense of priority?

  Mager, eyes blood-red, roared and dashed over to grab Cao Poyan’s shoulder. Cao Poyan stepped aside and gave him a fist in the throat, making him too painful to speak a word. Mageer then remembered that Cao Poyan was exactly the couch who taught the newbies fighting techniques when he had just become a member of the Wolf Guards.

  “Now the warehouse is short of hands. All of you three go and fucking work hard there. Do not make me any troubles when we’re only one step away from Kailu Hodo!”


  Mageer pulled up his trousers with both disappointment and resentment, leading his two men to the warehouse. Wen Ran lay on the ground and couldn’t stop puffing. Her chest went up and down violently and hair messed up. Cao Poyan leaned over to help her up, but she raised up on her own arm, picking up a gravel on the ground and slamming it to his forehead. Cao Poyan never expected that under such circumstances, this woman should try to fight back. He leaned to one side and easily escaped her attack, then lifted up his foot and kicked on her wrist. And the gravel flew toward the well and plopped into water.

  This time, Wen Ran really became desperate. The murderousness of this guy before her was much stronger than that on the gangsters of the Fires Gang and that pig. She rubbed her wrist, in an attempt to relieve the pain, and dejectedly closed her eyes after finding that the man was slowly reaching into his pocket.

  Unexpectedly, what Cao Poyan took out wasn’t a knife but a portable boxwood casket.

  He opened it. On the left was a dressed-leather ink bag, and on the right was a short writing brush and a scroll of deckle-edged paper. This casket was specially prepared for a long journey and could be used as a small table to write on the back of a camel or a horse.

  Cao Poyan quietly unfolded the paper scroll, poured out some ink from the ink bag and dissolved it with well water, and then handed the writing brush to her. Wen Ran didn’t know what his trick was and refused to take it. Cao Poyan repeated his action for a few more times, saying in rigid Tang language, “You’re dying. Leave your father a letter, or he will be very sad.”


  The man’s words pushed Wen Ran’s heart into the abyss. What did he mean?

  Cao Poyan knew that soon she would fall to the hand of General Yousha and suffer a miserable end of her life. But just now her pitiful look of crying ‘daddy’ seemed to trigger some part of his heart—not the part as Turkish wolf guard, but the part as a father.

  This woman was the prey of General Yousha. Even if Cao Poyan rejected, he didn’t dare to act against the order and release her. All he could do was to give her a chance to leave a letter before death.

  Wen Ran suddenly came to the realization that these foreigners weren’t of the same group with the Fires Gang. Obviously, he mistook her as Wang Yunxiu and intended to kill her. Wen Ran hurriedly shouted, “I’m not her! I’m not her! My name is Wen Ran.”


  But Cao Poyan didn’t believe it at all. He thought that the girl was merely finding an excuse to deny this cruel reality. He slowly pulled out the dagger from his waist, and, with a puff, stabbed it into the ink bag, suggesting her to stop futile struggle. It would be better to write down her last words.

  Wen Ran bit on her lips, clenched the writing brush again, but tears uncontrollably rolled down from her eyes. In four hours, she had been kidnapped twice, exhausted physically and mentally, and now was cornered to such a despair. She couldn’t hold on any longer. Fatigue, horror and fear of death came at her at the same time to smash her mental defense.

  The horrible thing that had happened to her family last year began to play in her mind, and she was in the same terror. But for her savior’s painstaking protection, she was afraid that she would have lost her mind long ago. Grievance flooded out of her heart. ‘What did I do wrong? I just wished to live a normal life!’


  Suddenly, Wen Ran threw away the writing brush and knocked Cao Poyan with her head. His body shook a little but didn’t move at all. Then Wen Ran took out a fragrance purse and threw at him, which exploded a smoky cloud at his chest. Cao Poyan took the opportunity to grab her in the arm and pressed her down near the well.

  Wen Ran burst into crying.

  Cao Poyan didn’t get irritated. He regarded it as a good sign which indicated that her resistance was collapsing. Just like the yellow sheep on the grassland—when they realized that there was no escape from the wolf group, they would kneel on their front legs and bleat in despair.

  Therefore, he, not angry, drooped to pick up the writing brush and put it back into Wen Ran’s hand. Then there came a rumbling sound from the warehouse. It sounded like a big bucket rolling down onto the ground.

  Cao Poyan was distracted over to the sound. In a second, when he got back to the pavilion, it was vacant. Wen Ran was already out of sight.

  *

  A dozen of scouts violently opened the round lid of the row of wide-mouthed big vats and began to stir the liquid inside with a wooden stick. The ends of these sticks were split and curled up. When they were lifted up from the vats, there was damp brown oil hanging on the ends.

  This was freshly squeezed flax oil which still carried fragrance. Sun beams shot through the work shed overhead. The several oil squeezing machines had all shut down. The half-naked workers stood on one side, arms folded, numbly watching scouts’ inspection, having no idea of what was going on.

  Nor far from them, several auditing officials held oily account books, checking the amount of the piles of rapeseed cakes, turnip seed cakes and sesame. In the warehouse at the backyard, another batch of officials were counting more cans, even including the stoves used for oil processing.

  The owner of the oil mill rushed out and firstly pissed off at the chaotic situation. Then, after an official called him over and whispered to his ear, his attitude changed dramatically, nodding and bowing.

  Similar things happened simultaneously at a dozen of oil mills in Chang’an city. No stone was left unturned. Be it an imperial-owned or a private oil mill, all had undergone thorough searching and were demanded to reveal the details of their transactions within one month. Some of the owners who had a backup connection tried to protest but were mercilessly suppressed.

  These transactions and inventory figures were all submitted to the hall of Jing’an Department. There, Xu Bin led dozens of statistical officials, burying themselves in calculation and double-checking whether these figures were in accordance with the records of customs declarations.

  “My lord, no discrepancy.” Xu Bin held the scrolls, on which the ink was still damp, and reported it with discretion to Li Bi who stood before the sand table.

  “What?” Li Bi sounded a little irritated.

  “Within one month, the transactions over two hundred kilograms of oils of various kinds, except for those provided to the imperial palace, have been traced to physical inventory. There is no suspicious point—here is the list.”


  “What about the warehouses outside the city?”


  “The oil declarations at the city gates have always been arranged to an independent category for stricter inspection. There……there is no suspicious point either.” Xu Bin was inclined to stutter when getting nervous.

  Li Bi’s face pulled long as he slammed the horsetail whisk on the edge of the sand table, “No abnormality! No abnormality! Hem, when the fire starts, let’s see what you can say!” Xu Bin drooped and lowered his head, not daring to make a reply. Nor did he know what to reply. He knew that his boss was in fact venting out anger instead of reprimanding him.

  Actually, not only Sicheng Li, everyone in the hall was getting nervous. Trivial incidents such as accidentally overturning ink slab, tripping over flat floor, unconscious sighs, knocking of teacups against books, dropping of paper onto the floor happened more and more frequently.

  Xu Bin understood that these were signs of high pressure. Since nine o’clock in the morning, bad news had kept coming, and each increased their workload by multiple times and permitted shorter time duration. These statistical officials used to finish their work per day or per month, but now in Jing’an Department, the workload was measured by hour.

  Today, the entire Jing’an Department seemed to be sitting on a sizzling stove, fidget about what was going to happen.

  He was a mere curator. What could he do? Xu Bin turned to look at the sky outside the hall, only hoping that his dear friend could send back good news as soon as possible, so that these drowning calculating officials would breathe a sigh of relief.

  At this moment, Li Bi’s voice sounded again, harsh and grumpy, “Go on checking it out! When the oil finishes, go to check firewood! Then charcoal! Then forage, paper, bamboo, silk! All flammable staff must go under thorough inspection!”


  To this unfeasible request, Xu Bin didn’t make a protest but agreed reverently, then handed the scrolls to Tanqi, bowing as he left. Certainly, now Sicheng Li was on fire. It would be no less than suicide to talk back at the moment. Later he himself would calm down and figure it out.