The sound of a whistle so piercing it made his ears ache reached Jinshi's ears.
Jinshi felt the thread of tension in him loosen just slightly. The whistle protocol was straightforward: a long blast meant the objective had been found, short bursts meant trouble, and one long, unbroken note meant everything was in order.
From the single long, sustained tone that ended after just one blast, he could tell that nothing had gone wrong — or at least, that was how it was being handled.
Jinshi passed through the long corridor. Recalling the floor plan he had studied beforehand, the grand hall and office lay ahead, followed by the living quarters.
Behind Jinshi was — Bashen.
This was the position Gaoshun was supposed to occupy, but Gaoshun had his own duties to attend to. Whenever Bashen took on his father's work in his stead, he developed the habit of tensing his right shoulder.
"Don't overwork yourself."
Jinshi spoke in a voice only Bashen could hear.
Behind Bashen, two more military officers trailed as escort.
"Then please, allow me to go first."
Jinshi understood what Bashen was getting at. From a tactical standpoint, he wanted to have guards flanking Jinshi both in front and behind.
Jinshi let out a soft laugh and moved to push open the heavy doors, when a sudden, unpleasant premonition struck him.
He told everyone to step away from the doors.
The moment he opened them, he pressed his body flat against the wall.
In that same instant, accompanied by a sound that split his ears, a bullet streaked past Jinshi's side.
"What the —!?"
Bashen's face contorted with alarm.
"This is within the expected range."
If they were producing gunpowder, it stood to reason they would have matchlocks on hand. Outside, the weather was poor, and matchlocks — which were finicky to ignite — had limited utility in the field. Even within the fortress, they could only be deployed in spaces with a certain amount of room.
And just as Jinshi had anticipated, inside the hall men were scrambling to reload their weapons.
"Let's go!"
At Jinshi's shout, the men inside clutching their matchlocks hastily drew their swords, but it was already too late. Matchlocks were weapons that required several people to rotate their use. Having failed on the first shot, they had no time to reload.
There were roughly five men in the hall, all wearing fine kimonos. Among them was a familiar face. The distinct smell of gunpowder filled the cold stone-floored room.
"Where is Shishou?"
Everyone here was surely a member of the Shi clan. There were no subordinates left behind from the defeated forces, and deploying the matchlocks seemed to have been a last-ditch effort.
"Have nothing to say?"
"N-no! We didn't mean for any of this to happen!"
One of the men blurted out. He stared desperately at Jinshi, spittle flying from his mouth, lunging forward with such force that Basen immediately pinned him down.
"We were just being deceived!"
With his face pressed against the floor, he kept talking.
"Spit it out already!"
Irritated, Basen pressed the man's face down further.
"There's evidence that you embezzled the kingdom's funds and squandered them on this fortress! And arming yourselves like this—you know perfectly well what that means!"
Basen pressed the bare blade of his sword against the man's neck. The man, froth gathering at the corners of his mouth, contorted his face in terror.
"I-I don't know! We were told it was for the kingdom. We were just doing it for the kingdom's sake..."
With a heavy thud, the sword struck the floor. Stone and steel clashed, sending sparks flying. The man's eyes rolled back and he stopped speaking entirely. A wet stain began spreading across the floor.
The other men remained silent, perhaps unwilling to present such a pathetic sight, but nothing but terror floated in their eyes.
He couldn't tell them to stop looking at him like that.
No matter how pitiful a face they made, the decision had been made—something he could not overturn.
The least Jinshi could do was bear the brunt of their gaze, serving as the target for their desperate emotions.
"How kind of you. If we're all headed for the execution block anyway, it would be a mercy to simply put us out of our misery."
A heavy, deliberate voice approached, accompanied by the thudding of measured footsteps.
Basen and the attendants tensed.
A portly man moving with unhurried ease arrived—Shishou. In his hands, he held a matchlock.
Jinshi regarded the man often called an old fox.
"You're awfully calm for a man in your position, Shishou."
Jinshi drew a document from within his robes. It was the official decree bearing the Emperor's seal, ordering the capture of the Shi clan.
Shishou, still moving with the same deliberate calm, raised his matchlock.
"Has your mind gone to mush?"
One of the retainers whispered.
He had apparently concluded that Zichang had no fire source, so there was no way the weapon could be used.
Jinshi instinctively grabbed Ma Shan's hand and that of another retainer, then dropped flat to the floor.
A gunshot rang out. The bullet struck the wall and ricocheted, and in a stroke of terrible luck, hit the foot of a clan member who had been lying nearby. Screams echoed through the great hall.
"Pathetic. You were doing test shots and hunting beasts with it yourself, weren't you?"
Zichang said to the one who had screamed.
"I was itching to try it on a human already — what a shame."
Jinshi thought the voice held not a shred of emotion. Could it be his imagination that it sounded like someone reciting stage lines in a flat monotone?
"Hmm, is this the end of it, then? If only I had a little more time."
With that, Zichang tossed aside the wheellock he had been holding. Then, looking at Jinshi, his face softened for just an instant.
What was he trying to say?
Jinshi couldn't press him on it.
Even if he could have, this man would never have talked.
"Go!"
Still collapsed on the floor, Ma Shan gave the order.
Blood sprayed through the air.
Three swords pierced Zichang's corpulent torso in rapid succession.
Zichang let out no scream, merely looking upward.
Red foam spilled from his mouth, his eyes bloodshot.
Yet he did not fall. Instead, he kept gazing up and spread both arms wide.
Was it laughter, or a curse?
There was nothing on the ceiling — or was he looking at something beyond it?
Jinshi couldn't tell.
Without leaving behind an answer, Zichang drew his last breath.
If there was one word to describe it, it was anticlimactic. That was how it ended.
In the corridor beyond the hall, there were lightly dressed women and gaudily dressed men.
The women chattered away, asking who was inside and begging for their lives. The men insisted they were different from the women, who were members of the child clan, but they themselves were not.
Jinshi understood the desire to be saved, but he turned his face away from the ugly sight of them selling out one another and left the capture to his subordinates.
Former Senior Consort Loulan and her mother Shenbi were said to be in the innermost room.
"There's nobody here."
Masen had entered before Jinshi.
Inside, there was one large bed and several long chairs lined up. Scattered clothing, the lingering scent of incense, overturned wine, and a pipe. Even without seeing it firsthand, one could imagine what kind of activities had taken place here.
The dizzying fragrance made Jinshi instinctively throw the incense burner away.
Something like dried grass spilled out of the incense burner. If the apothecary's daughter were here, she could have told him what kind of effect it had.
"Where did they go?"
There was no one in the adjoining rooms or on the terrace.
"Did they jump outside?"
While the others headed for the terrace, Jinshi tilted his head.
The room he had entered and the room next to it — structurally, they should be the same size, yet something felt strangely off.
The inner room seemed narrower. Jinshi went back and forth between both rooms. The inner room had only one entrance, and the side opposite the terrace was a wall.
With fewer pieces of furniture, it should have felt more spacious, but the distance from the wall to the terrace was somewhat shorter.
When Jinshi returned to the first room he had entered, he looked at the chest of drawers placed against the wall. The difference in size between this room and the adjacent one happened to match the width of the chest.
"..."
Jinshi opened the drawers. Among the gaudy garments, he reached toward the back. The chest looked sturdily built, but the back panel behind it felt strangely thin. When he pressed on it with some force, he noticed the panel shifted upward.
Jinshi climbed into the chest of drawers, got on all fours, and stuck his head through to the other side. Where there should have been a wall, an open space stretched out.
There was a hidden passage.
And faint light could be seen.
"Aaah."
He heard a voice tinged with mischief.
A gun barrel was thrust in front of Jinshi's face. Loulan stood inside a hidden passage that led deeper within. Compared to the firearms Jinshi was familiar with, the weapon had a rather complicated design. It resembled the gun Shishou had fired earlier, but was even smaller and could be carried through narrower spaces. The fact that they had been manufacturing not just gunpowder but new-model firearms as well was truly startling.
"For convenience's sake, I'll be calling you Lord Jinshi."
Loulan said, keeping the gun trained on Jinshi.
Loulan was covered in soot, her hair singed. The candle in her hand flickered every time she spoke.
"Would you mind coming with me?"
"And if I refuse?"
"Well, that's exactly why I'm threatening you."
There was something almost refreshing about her brazen tone.
Jinshi examined the new-model firearm. While noting the structural differences from conventional models, he raised both hands.
"Understood."
With that single word, he decided to follow Loulan.
The passage Loulan had found wasn't on any of the diagrams Jinshi had studied. Since it was meant to be hidden, putting it on a map would have defeated the purpose. Or perhaps Shishou had newly renovated it.
Since the corridor was narrow, Loulan walked backward while keeping her gun trained on Jinshi. It would have been simpler to make Jinshi walk ahead, but she was probably wary of him snatching the firearm when they passed each other.
"You really are being obedient about this, aren't you?"
"You were the one who told me to follow you."
When Jinshi answered so flatly, Loulan let out a quiet laugh. He found, strangely enough, that she looked far more human than she ever had in the Rear Palace.
"It wouldn't exactly be difficult to take this from me, now would it?"
"..."
While he couldn't say for certain, Jinshi believed he could probably disarm her.
He said nothing of the sort, replying only with silence.
The air in the narrow passage must have been thin, because the candlelight was dying. Just as it was about to go out entirely, they reached the hidden room.
Inside, there seemed to be proper ventilation holes—the candle that had appeared to be snuffed out flickered back to life.
Illuminated by the wavering flame were two women besides Loulan. One was a girl with features strikingly similar to Loulan's, a blue bruise marking her face. She was likely Shishou's other daughter— Shisui.
Jinshi surmised.
And then there was another middle-aged woman to behold. She was dressed flashily and wore gaudy makeup, Jinshi observed. The sight was entirely unbecoming of her age, reminiscent of Loulan as she had appeared back in the Rear Palace.
The room held only two chairs and a single desk.
"Loulan, that man is..."
"Yes, Mother. I brought him along to grant your wish."
Loulan's mother, Jinbi, narrowed her eyes sharply and glared at Jinshi.
"You must have hated this appearance for so long. Is it because he reminds you of someone, or perhaps because you've always been jealous of someone far more beautiful than yourself?"
"Loulan!"
Jinbi shouted at her daughter. Loulan, however, did not so much as flinch — instead, it was Shisui who trembled.
"That joke went too far. Now then, before we fulfill Mother's heart's desire, shall we enjoy a little entertainment?"
Loulan placed a candlestick on the desk and tucked a letter opener into the sash of her robe.
And then, in a clear and resonant voice, she began to weave a tale.