Chapter 145 The Dilapidated Temple in the West of the City: The Blood-Soaked Choice of the Fourth Chess Piece

When Zhou Tie rushed over from the other end of the corridor, he hadn't had time to grab his iron spear, and was clutching a standard short blade he had taken down from the wall.

"Inspector."

Lin Chen had already stepped out of the courtyard gate, his boots striking the stone bricks without pause, his figure darting toward the west side of the city.

Driven by the True Qi of the Middle Stage of Core Formation, his speed was nearly twice as fast as it had been three days ago, and the night wind rushed in from both sides, pressing his robes against his back.

Shen Yue followed closely behind to his right, her breathing short, her pace nearly a jog.

Zhou Tie gritted his teeth as he pursued from behind, tucking the short blade into his waist, his legs aching, barely managing not to be left behind.

The three of them passed through two alleys, avoided the patrol lanterns of the City Defense Battalion, and turned into the most secluded dead-end alley in the west city.

At the end of the alley stood a ruined temple, housing a headless Earth God statue.

The temple door hung crookedly on its hinges, one half of the door panel rotted through, and the night wind poured in through the hole, blowing debris inside to roll across the floor with a hollow sound.

Shen Yue slowed her pace, bypassed the side of the main hall, and pointed toward the rear hall.

"She is in the side room; she could still speak when I arrived."

Lin Chen scanned the perimeter of the ruined temple.

"What about the people pursuing her?"

Shen Yue's voice was low in her throat.

"Before I came over, I laid a false trail at the alley entrance, leading them toward the south of the city for a while; that should delay them."

Lin Chen didn't ask further, his footsteps not stopping as he bypassed the main hall, stepping on broken tiles and withered grass to reach the door of the side room.

Half of the side room's roof had collapsed, and moonlight leaked in through the hole, illuminating a curled-up shadow in the corner.

Tao Donger was huddled in the deepest part of the corner.

The grey robe of the pharmacy apprentice she wore was soaked through with blood, a long bloody gash trailing from her left shoulder to her back, the fabric at the wound rolled open, a piece of white bone visible through the gap in the flesh.

Her face was bloodless, her lips purple, and her chin was stained with blood that had flowed from the corner of her mouth, now dried into a dark brown crust.

The moment she heard footsteps, her body shrank two inches further into the corner.

Her two hands grabbed the broken bricks at her feet, two of her nails split, the gaps filled with blood and mud.

Her eyes stared at the door.

First, fear.

Then, bewilderment.

Lin Chen crouched down, his knees touching the broken bricks on the ground, his right palm facing downward, pressing three inches above the wound on her left shoulder.

Golden Core True Qi seeped from his palm, warm and enduring, spreading inch by inch along her severed Bloodline, sealing the several critical bleeding points.

Tao Donger's body trembled, her mouth opened, and a short, thin gasp of air escaped her throat.

That warmth stopped her teeth from chattering.

Her breathing shifted from rapid to steady, the heaving of her chest subsided, and her eyes gradually regained focus from their dazed state.

Lin Chen withdrew his hand, his back of hand stained with a layer of blood seeping from her wound, glistening dark in the moonlight.

"Who slashed you?"

Tao Donger's teeth clicked twice, her lips trembling as she squeezed out the words.

"Wang... Wang Family people."

She swallowed, her Adam's apple sliding up and down.

"The pharmacy manager, with two guards, locked the door from the outside when we entered the backyard."

Lin Chen's gaze fell on her face, not rushing her.

Tao Donger's fingers loosened from the broken bricks, then grabbed them again, the blood on her fingertips leaving several dark red scratches on the brick surface.

"The manager said he was going to send me to a place."

"I asked where, but he didn't speak."

"The two guards behind him held ropes and sacks in their hands."

She paused, squeezing a puff of air from her throat.

"I knew then."

Zhou Tie stood at the door of the side room, short blade in hand, something blocking his throat.

"Knew what?"

Tao Donger didn't look at him, her eyes fixed on the fabric on her knees, soaked black with blood.

"Those who followed them never came back alive."

Her voice was so thin it was almost breaking, yet every word was forced out.

"There used to be an apprentice in the pharmacy named Chunsheng, who came a year before me."

"One night, the manager also said he was sending him to a place."

"The next day, his bunk was cleared out, and all his things were thrown away."

"The manager said he ran away."

She lifted her hand from the broken bricks, looking at her split nails.

"But I smelled the scent of blood in the cracks of the well cover in the pharmacy backyard."

Lin Chen tapped his finger on his knee.

"How did you escape?"

Tao Donger's shoulders shrank, and the corner of her mouth twitched in pain.

"When the manager turned to get the sacks, I climbed out of the kitchen window."

"The window was small, and I am thin, so I could squeeze through."

Her hand touched the location of the wound on her left shoulder and back; upon touching the edge of the exposed flesh, all five fingers recoiled.

"The guard behind chased me out, and his blade slashed my back."

"I fell into the alley, scrambled up, and ran."

"They chased me for three streets."

Her voice broke at this point.

"I hid behind a low wall next to a cesspit; they found it too smelly and didn't squat down to check."

Zhou Tie slapped his short blade against his palm, his teeth grinding audibly.

Lin Chen didn't answer, his right hand reaching into his bosom, pulling out an object.

A palm-sized cloth tiger.

The stitches were so coarse that thread ends poked out from the seams, cotton was exposed through a hole under its belly, and a character was embroidered on the tiger's head with red thread.

It was crooked, the strokes not quite right, but recognizable.

Dong.

Lin Chen held the cloth tiger in his palm and placed it before Tao Donger.

Moonlight fell through the hole in the roof, shining right on the tiger's head, making the character embroidered in red thread glow.

Tao Donger's eyes widened to their limit at that moment.

Her breathing skipped a beat.

Her entire body tensed from her curled-up posture, both hands suspended in mid-air, ten fingers opening, closing, then opening again.

Her lips were trembling.

Not from cold.

It was a tremor rising from the very bottom of her chest, uncontrollable, even the muscles in her chin and neck were shaking along with it.

"This is..."

Her voice scraped out of her throat, carrying a fractured trailing note.

"This is what my mother made."

Lin Chen pushed the cloth tiger forward half an inch.

The moment Tao Donger's fingers touched the rough fabric, all ten fingers curled, clutching the cloth tiger into her palm.

Her knuckles protruded from under her thin skin, pale white.

Tears gushed from her dried eye sockets, streaming down along the blood scabs and grime on her cheeks, dripping into the bloodstain on her knees, re-wetting the dried dark brown color.

Lin Chen waited until she grasped the cloth tiger before speaking.

"Escort Officer Lu Qingshan asked me to bring you a message."

Tao Donger's sobbing stuck in her throat.

She looked up, her face a mix of tears and blood scabs, a pair of red, swollen eyes staring at Lin Chen's face.

Lin Chen's voice was low, every word landing on the broken brick floor of the side room.

"When your mother sewed the cloth tiger, she used the red thread she unpicked from her wedding dress."

"Because the family could no longer afford new thread."

Tao Donger's mouth opened.

No sound came out.

She bent over, her forehead smashing onto her knees, her shoulders heaving as she shook.

The sobbing squeezed out from the bottom of her chest, muffled and choked, yet every sound shook the residual dust in the side room, causing it to fall in rustles from the wall cracks.

She pressed the cloth tiger against her chest, ten fingers embedded into the gaps between the fabric and cotton, clutching it so hard her entire arm was trembling.

Zhou Tie turned away, facing the pitch-black courtyard outside the side room.

The short blade was in his hand, the veins on the back of his hand bulging from the base of his fingers all the way to his wrist.

Shen Yue stood beside the door frame, her hand resting on the hilt of her blade, motionless, her lips pressed into a line, her gaze fixed on the open wound on Tao Donger's back.

She cried for a long time.

Outside the side room came the sound of a wild cat climbing over the wall, then it vanished.

When Tao Donger's shoulders stopped heaving, she raised her head.

Her face was a mess of tear tracks and blood scabs, her eyes swollen to mere slits, yet her gaze was surprisingly clear.

"Inspector Lin."

She wiped her face with her sleeve; the blood and tears on the cuff mixed together, smearing into a dark red patch.

"I know what you want to ask."

Lin Chen looked into her eyes without speaking.

Tao Donger swallowed, her teeth chattering, but every word was bitten out clearly through her teeth.

"There is a secret room under the pharmacy."

Zhou Tie's body turned back at the door.

"You enter from under the rockery next to the well in the backyard."

"Push the third stone of the rockery to the left, and there is a stone staircase."

Her fingers tightened two degrees on the cloth tiger.

"The secret room stores the original letters between the Wang Family and the Provincial Administration Commission; not a single one was burned."

"They are all locked in an iron cabinet."

Lin Chen's finger stopped on his knee.

"How do you know?"

Tao Donger's mouth twitched, the gesture indistinguishable between a bitter smile or pain.

"I was at the pharmacy for three years; the manager made me scrub the floor."

"I have scrubbed the stone steps of the secret room, and I have seen him open the lock of the iron cabinet."

She paused for a beat.

"The key is in a hidden compartment in the manager's belt, made of copper, a bit larger than a fingernail."

Zhou Tie squeezed half a word through his teeth, then swallowed it back.

Lin Chen did not interrupt her.

Tao Donger's voice trembled, but her speaking speed was faster than before.

"There is one more thing."

Her eyes stared at Lin Chen's face, the moonlight making the watery gloss in her eyes flicker.

"Wang Chongyuan comes to the pharmacy once a month on the fifteenth, using the back door, never entering the front hall, going straight down to the secret room."

Lin Chen's thumb rubbed a circle on his knee.

"Who does he meet in the secret room?"

Tao Donger's voice dropped another notch.

"A person in green robes, from the Provincial Administration Commission."

"Every time, he arrives half a quarter of an hour earlier than Wang Chongyuan, and the manager personally receives him at the back door."

Her fingers twisted on the cloth tiger.

"I eavesdropped once."

The side room was quiet for two breaths.

"The person in green called him Master Wang."

"He said, Lord Chen's intention is to continue the cooperation."

"Accounts follow the old path, people follow the new path."

"It doesn't matter if Grey Sparrow's line is broken; there are other lines."

Zhou Tie's short blade handle spun in his palm, the tip pointing down at the ground, his fingers gripping it until his knuckles cracked.

"That line with the Provincial Administration Commission has never been broken."

His voice was half-hoarse.

Lin Chen stood up, his knees leaving the broken brick floor, his trouser legs stained with a mixture of dust and blood.

"Are you willing to write down what you have said into a testimony?"

Tao Donger looked up at him, the moonlight falling through the broken roof, illuminating the tear tracks on her face like deep gullies.

"I was taken to Qingyun Ridge at seven years old."

Her voice was so hoarse it cut her throat.

"Changed my name, learned to speak, learned to recognize people, learned to write the things they taught me to write."

"They said my name was Tao Jiu, and I almost believed it."

She took the cloth tiger from her chest, held it up to her eyes, staring at the crooked 'Dong' character on the tiger's head.

"But the name my mother embroidered for me is Donger."

She lowered her hand, resting it on her knee, her fingers still shaking, but her eyes no longer dodged.

"I will write."

Lin Chen extended his right hand.

Tao Donger looked at that hand for two breaths, then released her left hand from the cloth tiger and placed it on Lin Chen's palm.

Bone and skin, almost no flesh.

Lin Chen helped her up from the ground.

Her body was frighteningly light, and she was still trembling when she leaned on his arm, but the right hand clutching the cloth tiger had never let go from start to finish.

He turned his head to look at Shen Yue.

"Are the pharmacy manager and those two guards still in the west city?"

Shen Yue nodded.

"My informant last saw them split into two groups at the south city intersection."

"One group toward the river, one group toward the market."

"No need to follow them."

Lin Chen placed Tao Donger's hand into Shen Yue's palm.

"When we search the Wang Family Main Residence tomorrow, we will take down the pharmacy at the same time; the manager won't escape."

Shen Yue caught Tao Donger's hand, closing her palm, wrapping it securely, with the same force as when she received Zhang Xiaoyan.

Zhou Tie stepped aside from the door frame, returned the short blade to his waist, and his gaze paused for a beat on the still-bleeding wound on Tao Donger's back.

"Let's go back and treat your wounds first."

His voice was deep and soft, the same tone he used when speaking to that curled-up child in the stone room last night.

The four of them climbed out over the back wall of the ruined temple, winding back toward the Patrol Division along the narrowest alleys of the west city.

Moonlight leaked through the gaps in the clouds for one last ray of light, spilling onto Tao Donger's face.

She walked two steps, her pace faltered, and her knee gave way outward.

Shen Yue supported her from the side.

Tao Donger steadied herself, looked down at the cloth tiger in her hand, moved her lips twice, her voice so thin only Shen Yue could hear.

"Sister, are those children at Qingyun Ridge still alive?"

Shen Yue's hand tightened slightly on her shoulder.

"Alive, all fourteen of them, in the side courtyard of the Governors Mansion."

Tao Donger's steps did not falter again.

Lin Chen walked in front, and that notification sound deep in his mind rang out in the night wind.

[Detected that the host has successfully awakened a key witness and obtained core intelligence on the collusion between the Wang Family and the Provincial Administration Commission.]

[Instant reward: 1,500 points.]

[Current accumulated available points: 12,000 points.]

He suppressed the notification sound, his gaze crossing the outline of the rooftops ahead, scanning toward the pharmacy in the west city.

In the distance, a few dog barks drifted over, mixed with scattered footsteps, floating this way from the south of the city.

The Wang Family people were still searching for Tao Donger.

They would not be able to find her.

Lin Chen's fingers rubbed over the cold ridge on the scabbard of the black abyss blade, his pace not slowing.

Tonight, Sun Qi had already left the city with Blacksmith Li's broken nail and the secret code.

When the sun rises again, Wang Chongyuan will discover that it wasn't just one Tao Donger who escaped.