Chapter 204: The People on the Painted Barge

The madams and managers of the brothels were known for their insatiable greed. As long as enough money was paid, they would hide anyone. A brothel was a relatively closed-off little world. Words from the outside didn’t get in, and words from the inside didn’t get out. There were countless notorious outlaws who would spend a few hundred taels of silver to hide in a courtesan’s private chambers, eating, drinking, and making merry for months without stepping out the door, waiting for the authorities to slacken their guard before making their escape.

Zhao Tong agreed with his assessment. Further interrogation of Jia Le had revealed that recent letters from Hao Yuan carried the scent of cosmetics.

The fragrance was faint, but as a young girl with a budding heart, she was very sensitive to it.

Although the letters had all been burned, under the relentless, round-the-clock interrogation that was like a juicer, Jia Le was forced to recall many details. For example, the letters were written on high-quality stationery, not the kind used by ordinary scholars, but something from a lady’s boudoir. The ink also lacked the foul smell of the cheap ink Hao Yuan used for his accounts in the past.

Clearly, there was a woman where Hao Yuan was hiding, and this woman did not live in poverty. If he was hiding in a brothel, it would fit these details perfectly.

Zhuang Haoren, as a “refined degenerate” who had long frequented brothels as a “hanger-on,” was very familiar with the dark secrets of the trade. Therefore, from the very beginning of the hunt for Hao Yuan and his associates, Zhuang Haoren had focused all his attention on the brothels. He had been a hanger-on, was well-acquainted with the people in the brothels both inside and outside Hangzhou, and had men and money at his disposal. He quickly brought all the brothels in the city and by the West Lake under surveillance.

However, Hao Yuan was not hiding in any of them. Not only was he not there, but none of his subordinates were either. Although there were a few suspicious characters hiding in the brothels, none of them were their targets.

This put a great deal of pressure on Zhuang Haoren. He had thrown in his lot with Master Zhao but had yet to achieve a single merit. Not only would he be unable to face Master Zhao of the Sticky Poles, but even within his own Black Dragon Society, his leadership would not be convincing.

He racked his brains, wondering if his deduction was wrong. He had, after all, spent many years in the underbelly of Hangzhou society and knew the world of its rogues and vagabonds very well. After several days of deep thought, he finally discovered a blind spot he had overlooked: the painted barges on the West Lake.

Although the West Lake was outside the city walls, it was only separated by a single wall, and traffic between the two was extremely convenient. The painted barges on the lake were busy, sending people in and out of the city gates every day to pick up and drop off clients. With the frequent flow of people and goods, simply placing a few lookouts at the city gates might not reveal anything unusual.

If Hao Yuan was hiding on a painted barge, drifting amidst the lake and mountains, not only would it be difficult to find him on the water, but even if he were found, capturing him would not be easy. As soon as he set foot on shore, he would be in the mountains surrounding the West Lake. If he hid anywhere in there, it would take hundreds of men to search the mountains to find any trace of him.

However, Zhuang Haoren wasn’t entirely confident about this. The painted barge business was also a form of prostitution, but it was a different circle from the brothels in and around Hangzhou. Most of its practitioners were the “Nine-Surname Boat People.”

The Nine-Surname Boat People were an outcast class in the Ming Dynasty, a more insular and closed-off group. As long as they paid their taxes on time, the government generally did not interfere in their internal affairs. Consequently, the outside world knew very little about them.

Although the Nine-Surname Boat People engaged in a “lowly” profession and would occasionally take advantage of their clients on the river, they rarely sheltered outsiders.

For them, the line between “insider” and “outsider” was very clear. The idea of them “sticking their necks out” and risking trouble with the law for an outsider seemed highly improbable to Zhuang Haoren.

But if the Nine-Surname Boat People were indeed sheltering Hao Yuan, then Zhuang Haoren would be at his wit’s end. No matter how wide his reach, he had no way of getting any useful information from them.

Zhuang Haoren thought it over and over, but couldn’t come up with any brilliant strategies. He had to resort to the clumsy method of stationing men at the various painted barge docks around the West Lake to watch day and night for any abnormalities.

After seven or eight consecutive days of this, he finally noticed something strange. Someone reported that a particular painted barge was behaving suspiciously. Every morning, it would dock near the Bai Causeway and send someone ashore to make purchases. Then it would drift on the lake. At dusk, when all the other boats were returning to their moorings, this one would set sail for the Yanggong Causeway and moor there for the night.

Although the Yanggong Causeway area wasn’t exactly a wilderness, it was very secluded, consisting mostly of villas of the wealthy and temples or nunneries. This painted barge was not a private boat of a rich family, so its behavior was suspicious.

Zhuang Haoren immediately sent someone to inquire about the barge’s background and learned that it was named the “Fragrant and Drizzling Rain Boat.” It belonged to a madam named Mei Niang. Previously, it used to moor outside the Yongjin Gate at night or when there was no business.

“What a coincidence, I know this boat!” Zhuang Haoren recalled after hearing his subordinate’s report. Master Zhao had chartered this boat several times to entertain guests. However, Master Zhao wasn’t particularly interested in pleasure boating, and with the recent increase in villa affairs over the past six months, he hadn’t called for the boat again.

Zhuang Haoren had heard that Master Zhao was once quite interested in Mei Niang’s “daughter,” Meiyan’er, but for some reason, his interest had cooled. This had caused Mei Niang to visit the villa several times to pay her respects, trying to find out how she had offended Master Zhao to the point that he had “cut off all contact.” In traditional business, this was a very serious matter.

“This Master Zhao of ours is sometimes frighteningly astute, and at other times, completely clueless about worldly etiquette. I really can’t figure him out…” Zhuang Haoren thought, deciding to first investigate the boat thoroughly.

He paid off a few small skiffs that sold goods on the West Lake to keep an eye on the “Fragrant and Drizzling Rain Boat.” Then he personally went to the Bai Causeway to watch and see what the people from the barge bought when they came ashore each day.

Although the men on the skiffs didn’t see any men on the barge, after a few days of surveillance, Zhuang Haoren was confident: besides the boatmen and pimps, there were other men hiding on the barge!

The “Fragrant and Drizzling Rain Boat” had been doing business here for many years. How many people were on board, how many men, how many women, how many adults, how many children—all this could be clearly ascertained. Their daily food expenses and rice consumption were fixed quantities. A painted barge was for pleasure, not a cargo ship; the fewer unnecessary things on board, the better. Ingredients were bought fresh daily. Even daily necessities like rice, salt, and charcoal were not stored in large quantities.

After a few days of tracking and investigating the shops where they bought their ingredients and groceries, Zhuang Haoren obtained detailed purchase quantities. He quickly analyzed that the “Fragrant and Drizzling Rain Boat” had more people eating on board these days!

The boat hadn’t recently hired new staff, nor had it been chartered by any tourists. If there were guests, they would have to buy exquisite, high-end ingredients for banquets, and good wine would be indispensable.

Zhuang Haoren felt this was a clue. After further investigation, his confidence grew, and he went to report to Zhao Tong.

“…Besides the food, I spent some silver to bribe an old woman who does odd jobs and laundry for them on shore. According to her, among the clothes sent for washing these days, there seem to be more men’s clothes.”

“What kind of clothes?”

“That’s the strange part.” Zhuang Haoren said excitedly. “Besides the two boatmen, there’s only Mei Niang and one servant woman who does rough work and purchasing. The extra men’s clothes are definitely not the kind the boatmen wear—they are the kind of long gowns made of cheap silk worn by senior shop assistants or private tutors… As you know, sir, such people don’t have the money to visit painted barges.” Zhuang Haoren then took out a piece of paper. “I asked about the approximate size of the gown and trousers, and it’s just the size Hao Yuan would wear!”

Zhao Tong nodded. Based on Zhuang Haoren’s investigation, it was almost certain that the “Fragrant and Drizzling Rain Boat” was hiding a man of similar build to Hao Yuan. But it was still hard to say for sure. It would be best to confirm it.

“Should we have someone charter the boat to test the waters…” Zhuang Haoren suggested.

“No, that will alert them,” Zhao Tong shook his head. He thought for a moment. “Can you get one of the people from the boat and have them identify him from the portrait?”

“I’ll figure out a way,” Zhuang Haoren quickly promised.

“We’ve been trying to catch Hao Yuan with portraits at all the city gates of Hangzhou for days now. The people on the boat have probably seen them. If that man is really Hao Yuan, the people on the boat must have received a great benefit from him…”

“I understand. If the soft approach doesn’t work, we’ll use the hard one…”

“Try not to alert the snake in the grass,” Zhao Tong said. “He’s willing to give benefits, and so are we. I’ll send a few more men with you.”

For this reason, he had been squatting at this painted barge dock for several hours. The “Fragrant and Drizzling Rain Boat” had been docking here every two or three days to let the servant woman go ashore to deliver clothes and buy food.

Just as he was getting bored, a vendor who had set up a stall on the Bai Causeway suddenly waved his fan. Zhuang Haoren’s spirits lifted immediately. The painted barge was coming!

Sure enough, the “Fragrant and Drizzling Rain Boat” slowly sailed in from the lake.

A boatman stood at the bow, lightly poling with a bamboo pole. The barge swayed gently as it approached the dock. From the outside, the boat looked perfectly normal.

The boat docked, and as soon as the gangplank was down, a servant woman in a blue dress came off, carrying a large, lidded wicker basket. She looked to be in her late thirties, with her hair in a loose bun and a coral hairpin. Though her youth was faded, her movements and expressions still held a trace of her former coquettish charm. Zhuang Haoren knew she was once a courtesan on a painted barge herself. Having grown old with no savings, she could only work as a servant on a barge to get by.

Zhuang Haoren tilted his head, signaling to the Sticky Pole members on the shore: the target has appeared. A few of them nodded imperceptibly and silently followed her.

To prevent any leaks from being monitored, although the area had been cleared beforehand, the Sticky Pole members waited until she had dropped off the laundry and was heading into the city. They then covered her mouth and nose and stuffed her directly into a small sedan chair, which then headed into the city.