Only a quarter of an hour.

Very short.

Chen Ji no longer wasted words. He quickly searched the study room, his gaze pausing on the scattered books and rice paper. He quickly flipped through the books on the bookshelf.

“The rice paper is all blank, and the books are all ones you can find on the market. There’s nothing hidden inside,” Jiao Tu reminded him.

Chen Ji turned and went into the courtyard.

This was a two-section courtyard. He carefully observed every detail, trying to find any trace of activity. Chen Ji knew in his heart that he had no real confidence in finding a clue. He had only said that because he was facing a group of ruthless snakes and scorpions. If he didn’t say anything, he might die immediately.

As time passed minute by minute, Yun Yang gradually lost patience: “Too slow, too slow. We need to add a game. Do you see the parasol tree in this courtyard? For every leaf that falls while you’re looking for clues, I’ll stab you with a needle.”

Just as he finished speaking, a leaf fell from a branch.

Yun Yang raised his hand, pinching the withered yellow leaf in the air. He sighed, “Your luck is really bad.”

Saying that, he walked up to Chen Ji and stabbed a needle into the young man’s tiger mouth.

Chen Ji’s face suddenly flushed red. He bent over because of the intense pain. In the cold autumn, large drops of sweat beaded on his forehead and fell one after another.

He cursed Yun Yang, calling him a pervert, but he couldn’t alleviate the pain at all.

Yun Yang said slowly, “Any time lost because of the pain is also included in that quarter of an hour.”

Chen Ji leaned on the parasol tree and slowly straightened up. He moved step by step into the kitchen. He had to find a clue before the second leaf fell!

In the kitchen, there was nothing more than a stove built with blue bricks and a pile of jars containing seasonings.

The room inside was clean and tidy, with nothing extra.

Chen Ji checked all the jars and then walked out of the kitchen. However, as soon as he walked out, he stood still.

He murmured to himself, “I always feel like something isn’t right, like I missed some detail.”

Yun Yang leaned against the kitchen doorframe, yawning, and played with the silver needle on his fingertip: “You’re almost out of time. It looks like I wasted a quarter of an hour.”

Chen Ji still stood in place, trying hard to think what detail he had just missed!

While thinking, another leaf fell from the parasol tree. Yun Yang again stabbed a needle into the back of his ear.

In an instant, Chen Ji bent down and squatted on the ground, curled up like a shrimp and unmoving, almost fainting.

But this time, without waiting for Yun Yang to urge him, he already straightened up and returned to the kitchen. He carried out two jars, both containing fine white crystal powder.

Yun Yang glanced at them curiously: “Two jars of salt, what’s the problem?”

“Why would one kitchen have two jars of salt?” Chen Ji said, pinching out a bit of fine white powder from one of the pottery jars and rubbing it on his fingertip: “This isn’t salt.”

“Not salt?” Yun Yang was curious. He and Jiao Tu were good at killing people and covering it up, shifting blame, and claiming credit. In finding clues, they were still weak.

Chen Ji held out his finger to Yun Yang: “Taste what it is.”

Yun Yang said without spirit: “You’re quite cautious, boy. What if it’s poisonous? I’m not tasting it.”

Jiao Tu laughed.

If it weren’t for the corpses on the ground, this snake and scorpion girl’s laugh would have been quite cute.

Yun Yang’s face turned cold: “Hurry up and taste it.”

Chen Ji pinched a bit of white powder and put it in his mouth: “It’s extremely astringent when it enters the mouth, with no obvious flavor.”

He fell into deep thought.

What is this thing?

Chen Ji quickly searched his memory, trying to find the answer in some books he had read.

Wait, this is alum!

Some books on military intelligence science mentioned that alum is one of the main materials used for writing secret letters in intelligence warfare.

When writing with alum water, the writing traces disappear after drying. This spy technique originated in the thirteenth century and was frequently used by spies during World War I and World War II.

Chen Ji thought for a long time and was sure he had found the answer: Jing Dynasty spies used alum to write secret letters. Zhou Cheng Yi hid this stuff at home and put it with salt to confuse people. Putting it so close to himself, in such a convenient place, indicates that secret letters came and went very frequently. Then… Zhou Cheng Yi’s home must certainly have the secret letters that he and other spies used.

He immediately took the vinegar jar from the kitchen and returned to the study room. He spread out the snow-white rice paper on the table one by one, tore off a piece of cloth from his body, dipped it in vinegar, and gently wiped every part of the rice paper.

He continuously wiped five or six pieces of rice paper, but he didn’t get the answer he wanted. Time passed minute by minute. In the cold autumn season, fine beads of sweat appeared on Chen Ji’s forehead.

He turned his head to look at Zhou Cheng Yi, only to see his face calm and unpanicked.

Could it be that he had guessed wrong?

No, absolutely not wrong!

At this moment, a cold wind blew, and the withered yellow leaves on the parasol tree fell like rain. Yun Yang smiled: “Your luck is not good enough…”

“Found it!”

“Hm?” Yun Yang’s gaze was drawn over.

When Chen Ji wiped the twelfth piece of rice paper, the place where the light yellow vinegar liquid had been wiped showed a line of red words: “Li Ji Sweet Water Shop in Li Jing Lane, East City. If in danger, go there immediately.”

When Yun Yang saw these words, his eyes suddenly lit up: “This is a new base built by Jing Dynasty spies. Perhaps a high-ranking official from the Jing Dynasty military intelligence department has come to Luo City!”

Saying that, he looked at Jiao Tu: “Big merit!”

Jiao Tu thought for a moment: “Kill this boy, and the merit belongs to us.”

“No, I promised not to kill him. Anyway, he’s not a member of our secret spy department. The merit will always be counted on you and me.”

“Alright…”

In contrast, Zhou Cheng Yi, the Jing Dynasty spy, had a face like death.

He no longer disguised himself and immediately drew a hidden soft sword from his waist belt, pouncing towards Chen Ji, actually wanting to fight to the death and kill people.

This Jing Dynasty spy attacked quickly. In the blink of an eye, he shed his previously wretched posture and became fierce like a beast.

Chen Ji flew back in retreat. The other side, Jiao Tu, suddenly leaped up like a ghost shadow, fluttering like a butterfly.

She blocked Zhou Cheng Yi’s path. Their figures flashed past. She stabbed Zhou Cheng Yi’s waist with a silver needle between her two fingers, like a dragonfly skimming the water.

With a bang, Zhou Cheng Yi lost strength and fell to the ground, raising a cloud of dust.

It was also at this exact moment that a surge of icy air flowed out from Zhou Cheng Yi’s body. In the night, it was like a gray-white, flowing dragon, drilling into Chen Ji’s body.

This was a feeling he had never experienced in his seventeen years of life. The ice flow was like the water of a glacier on a snow mountain, clear and pure, wandering nonstop in his blood.

Where did this ice flow come from? Why did it come? Chen Ji didn’t know.

The scenes he had witnessed tonight, which would only appear in movies in the past, showed that this world was completely different from the world he knew!

Chen Ji observed Jiao Tu and Yun Yang and discovered that these two people didn’t seem to have seen the scene just now. Could it be that only he could see it?

Yun Yang saw that Zhou Cheng Yi had no more ability to resist and turned to look at Chen Ji with interest: “How would you, a medical hall apprentice, understand these things?”

Chen Ji explained without thinking: “Alum can be used in medicine and has effects like stopping bleeding, treating ulcers, and relieving pain, so I have some understanding of this substance.”

“Oh?” Yun Yang pinched some alum from the jar and put it in his mouth: “Just right, I’ve been feeling a bit irritable recently and have an ulcer in my mouth.”

Jiao Tu stood straight on Zhou Cheng Yi’s back: “What time is it now, and you’re still chatting? First send people to Li Jing Lane and finish off that Li Ji Sweet Water Shop.”

Immediately, eight black-clothed men who were waiting for orders mounted their horses and galloped straight towards Li Jing Lane.

The crisp sound of horse hooves stepped on the midnight blue stone road, tearing apart the quiet night.

Chen Ji asked: “Can I go now?”

“Um… probably not,” Yun Yang shook his head.

“Regret?”

“That’s not it either. Just now I only said you could live, but I didn’t say I would let you go,” Yun Yang dusted off his clothes: “I must take you to the inner prison and interrogate you properly.”

“Interrogate about what?”

“For example, why would you, a medical hall apprentice from Jing Wang Fu, appear at Zhou Cheng Yi’s mansion at midnight? Could it be that Jing Wang has already connected with the northern Jing Dynasty through Zhou Cheng Yi, intending to use the power of the Jing Dynasty to plot a rebellion?” Yun Yang spread his hands: “You see, I have many questions to ask.”

Jiao Tu enticed: “Although Zhou Cheng Yi is just a small county magistrate, if you can expose Jing Wang, we will give you glory and riches!”

Chen Ji secretly sighed. His situation seemed more complicated than he could have imagined.

Where was the Jing Dynasty? Who was Jing Wang?

Were the social connections of the deceased so complex?

He replied: “I came to deliver medicine and was innocently caught up in this.”

Chen Ji answered this way because he had seen two packs of medicinal materials in the kitchen labeled “Tai Ping Medical Hall”. They were wrapped in yellow paper and placed next to the sand pot stove in the kitchen, still unpacked.

Yun Yang shook his head: “This is just your side of the story. I only believe the answers I get through interrogation.”

Chen Ji changed the subject: “You want to catch that high-ranking official from the Jing Dynasty military intelligence department?”

“The people sent to catch him have already left.”

“You won’t catch that person at the sweet water shop in Li Jing Lane. That’s obviously just a place used to assist Zhou Cheng Yi’s escape. There won’t be any high-ranking official there.”

Yun Yang’s face showed thought: “Do you have other clues?”

Chen Ji closed his mouth and did not speak.

Yun Yang came up to Chen Ji and lightly touched his shoulder socket with the fine silver needle held between his middle finger and index finger.

In an instant, Chen Ji felt a heart-piercing pain invade him. In just a few breaths, sweat had already soaked his clothes. Although the pain came quickly, it also went quickly. In a few more breaths, it disappeared without a trace, as if it had all been an illusion.

Yun Yang said casually: “I have many more of these methods. In all these years of traveling the Jianghu, the people who can endure my three needles are countable.”

Yet Chen Ji still closed his mouth and did not speak.

Yun Yang stabbed another needle into the back of Chen Ji’s hand. The young man’s body trembled uncontrollably, but he didn’t make a sound.

Yun Yang continuously stabbed two more needles, but Chen Ji still didn’t say a word.

“He can endure this?” Yun Yang exclaimed.

The next second, a piece of broken porcelain suddenly appeared in Chen Ji’s palm. He trembled and wiped it towards his neck artery!

That piece of broken porcelain had actually been hidden in his palm all along.

The piece of broken porcelain stopped abruptly as it reached his neck. Yun Yang had grabbed Chen Ji’s wrist: “Threatening with death?”

“Forget it, if we delay any longer, a big merit will slip away,” Jiao Tu held up three fingers: “I swear by my mother’s name, as long as you tell us the intelligence to help us two gain merit, I will return your freedom.”

Yun Yang held up three fingers: “I also swear by my parents’ names. If I lie, may they fall into endless hell forever.”

Chen Ji remained silent, thinking about the value of this oath.

People in this era should be superstitious, so oaths carry a lot of weight… No, he still couldn’t believe it.

But if he showed enough ability, made himself useful enough, could he gamble his life on it?

Finally, he panted and said: “That rice paper must have had the alum water writing on it when it was bought. Eight out of ten, it was personally written by the Jing Dynasty big figure you mentioned. So, all this time you’ve been looking for clues, you shouldn’t have gone to Li Jing Lane, but found the shop that sells that rice paper. This shop is the most important intelligence channel.”