Chapter 17: The Result

“Thanks,” Li Yongxun tossed a string of copper coins and quickly rose to follow. The pier was cluttered with goods, making it easy to find cover. She moved slowly, stopping and starting, drawing closer to the pier.

The sedan chair was carried all the way onto the wharf and stopped beside the ship from Ling’ao. Li Yongxun quickly ducked behind a pile of cargo, peeking out carefully.

A gangplank was lowered from the Ling’ao ship, and several large men stood guard around it. Someone helped a master-like figure from the sedan chair. He wore a scholar’s scarf, a wide robe, and a rare pair of black crystal spectacles. The master’s movements were clumsy; he fumbled about and had to be half-supported, half-carried by two men to even make it onto the gangplank. Li Yongxun wondered at the man’s strange movements. Was he ill?

She watched with great interest. A thought suddenly struck her—could this be Censor Gao? A jolt of excitement ran through her. That’s right! Her brother-in-law had said the two main beneficiaries of Censor Gao’s disappearance were the Portuguese and the Australian bandits. It made sense for either of them to have kidnapped Gao Shunqin.

She widened her eyes, studying the group. The more she looked, the stranger it seemed. The servants surrounded the master so tightly it was as if they were deliberately blocking the view. Their actions were highly suspicious.

Li Yongxun’s heart pounded. Though she had no concrete reason to believe the man was Censor Gao, the group’s strange behavior and the intoxicating possibility of achieving a great merit captivated her. The more she looked, the more certain she became.

Master Gao had truly been kidnapped by the Australian bandits! And now they were taking him to Ling’ao. The thought made her heart race. Just bringing back this news would be a great achievement! She had to report to her brother-in-law at once!

Visions of being rewarded for her merit filled her mind. Her brother-in-law would be pale with anger, but helpless. And her own family—the Lis had served as hereditary Jinyiwei for generations. When had they ever had such a glorious moment? This great deed might even earn her the rank of banner commander or platoon commander. She had heard that in the early days of the Ming, women had also served in the Jinyiwei, specializing in investigation and arrest.

Her splendid fantasy was cut short by a heavy blow to the back of her head. She fell to the ground with a thud, not even a grunt escaping her lips.

The Dengyingzhou was a 200-ton, three-masted Guangdong ship. This was the second vessel to bear the name. The first Dengyingzhou, a converted fishing boat, had been too small for significant cargo. After its modern diesel engine was removed, it had been refitted and returned to the fishery fleet.

The new Dengyingzhou was a former pirate ship, once under the command of Zhu Cailao. After its surrender to Ling’ao, it had been repaired and converted for freight transport on the Ling’ao-Macau route. Fully armed, it also served as an escort.

In a secret cabin below deck, a voice said, “It’s a woman!”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” said another man by the bunk. “You can tell by her ass. Do men have asses that big?”

Li Yongxun lay on a fixed bunk, her hands and feet shackled to the frame. After being knocked out with a rubber truncheon and smuggled aboard, she had been given a tranquilizer to prevent her from making a fuss when she woke. Several men now surrounded her with great interest. A young girl was carefully searching her, placing the items she found in a paper box.

There was not much on her person: a handkerchief, a small amount of loose silver, a powder box… The most eye-catching items were the small, embroidered spring-scabbard saber and a dagger she carried.

Li Yan drew the saber, examined it, then the scabbard. Besides the characters “Li” and “Qian,” there were no other markings, no affiliation or number. It was not an official weapon.

“This woman is probably named Li Qian,” he said.

“Why was she tailing us? And with a saber like this?”

“Because she’s this,” said Jiang Shan, who had been watching the search. He frowned and took a wooden token from the box. It was still warm. “This is a Jinyiwei waist token.”

“Jinyiwei?!” someone muttered. “Are there women in the Jinyiwei?”

“It’s hard to say,” Jiang Shan said, turning the token over in his hands. “It says it’s from the Foshan hundred-household office, an officer…”

“We can just ask her when she wakes.”

“The Jinyiwei are efficient. They found their way to Macau so quickly. Our smokescreen didn’t work.”

“This woman seems to be one of the two Jinyiwei who visited Huang Shunlong’s house yesterday,” Jiang Shan said noncommittally, stroking his chin. It was a pity he didn’t have the files on hand. He would have to wait until he returned to Ling’ao to check. Huang Shunlong’s attitude towards the transmigrators had become more cooperative in the past six months, and he had begun to provide information he had previously withheld.

But there was no need to wait until Ling’ao to identify her. Huang Tianyu was also on the ship, and hearing that a female Jinyiwei had been captured, he immediately ran over to see the excitement.

“Isn’t this the runaway girl from the Jinyiwei!” Huang Tianyu recognized her at once. This was the girl who had drugged him back in Foshan, costing him a bottle of tomato sauce and a bottle of chili sauce.

“You know her?” Jiang Shan asked curiously.

“Of course I know her. This little girl is full of tricks,” Huang Tianyu said, recounting his encounter with her on the road to Foshan with Liu San. “Liu San and I wrote a detailed report about it after we returned.”

“I must read it when I get back,” Jiang Shan said. He turned to Ke Yun, the security officer. “You watch her.”

“Yes, Chief!”

Jiang Shan and the others returned to the conference room in the sterncastle. “Although this girl is not a Jinyiwei,” he said, “she has close ties with them. Since her brother-in-law is a probationary centurion of the Foshan office and is now in Macau, the Jinyiwei must have sniffed something out.”

“So we were right to move Old Gao in time,” said Jiang Qiuyan, the Ministry of Health’s psychologist, who had come along to serve as an analyst during the interrogation. “The Ming Dynasty still has law enforcement power in Macau—though their reaction is much slower.”

Originally, the Executive Committee had intended to get rid of Gao Shunqin on the spot. But the intelligence department argued that as an important official who had served in both central and local government, Gao Shunqin possessed a deep understanding of the Ming regime’s high-level operations, its officialdom, and its social conditions. He was on a different level from their current contacts, like Wu Mingjin, and could be a valuable source of intelligence. Moreover, their mainland strategy had just begun; there was no need to rush into physically eliminating officials. Thus, with the Executive Committee’s approval, Gao Shunqin was moved to Ling’ao.

Li Yan asked, “What should we do with this girl?”

“Just toss her into the sea. Clean and simple.”

“No. This girl is of no use to us, but there are still many things that need to be interrogated clearly before we decide,” Jiang Shan said. “Besides, Ling’ao is short of women right now. We shouldn’t waste resources.”

“She needs to be nourished,” Huang Tianyu said out of the blue. Several of the men laughed maliciously. Li Yongxun was not unattractive, and her feet were not bound. It was just that her figure and face were both rather childlike.

Li Yongxun’s strange disappearance brought a mysterious end to the Gao Shunqin case. After two days of fruitless searching, Lin Ming had to ask the Xiangshan County Magistrate for help, lying that he had found traces of Gao Shunqin in Macau. The magistrate would not negotiate with the Portuguese simply to find his sister-in-law.

Hearing there was a lead on Censor Gao, the Xiangshan County Magistrate and Prefect dared not be negligent and came to Macau to negotiate with the Portuguese. The Macau Municipal Council, not daring to defy the Ming officials, ordered a city-wide search.

But there was no trace of either Gao Shunqin or Li Yongxun. From the tea stall owner at the pier, Lin Ming learned only that Li Yongxun had been there, asking about the people from Ling’ao, and had only left after seeing a group of Australians walk by. This greatly increased his suspicion of the Australian bandits. At his request, the Portuguese searched the Ling’ao warehouse, arresting a few men, but they were all local hires.

Just as he was about to press for a further investigation into the Australians’ businesses and ships, a message arrived from Guangzhou: Li Fengjie told him not to harass the Australians too much. He was terrified of provoking another incident like the shelling of Humen. With this news, the wind changed. The Xiangshan County Magistrate said that without evidence Gao Shunqin had been to Macau, it was inappropriate to continue the search. The Portuguese, too, became uncooperative.

Lin Ming was alone and at a disadvantage. He had never truly believed Gao Shunqin was in Macau in the first place, and he had found no clues. It was now impossible to continue searching for Li Yongxun under the pretext of searching for the Censor.

His face was ashen. His sister-in-law had most likely fallen into the hands of the Australian bandits. By now, she might have already been sent to Ling’ao. The matter had become exceedingly tricky. Not to mention that Ling’ao was now the bandits’ territory, even in the past, Qiongzhou was a pestilent land that officials avoided.

In the end, she was his relative. When her family had come to fetch her and failed, he had beaten his chest and promised to ensure her safety in Guangdong. Now she had been abducted. The bandits’ reputation for lechery was no joke. If something were to happen to her, he would have a hard time explaining it to his wife.

“Damn you, you bunch of fucking Australian bandits!” Lin Ming gritted his teeth. “I will wipe every last one of you out!”