Chapter 22: Brothers Are Busy

  The sky was late, and tonight's dinner was still noodles. Yang Fan ate a bowl of noodle soup with a loud noise, and put it on the windowsill, while opposite him, Tian Ainiu was still eating elegantly, and that bowl of noodles was still full, as if she hadn't eaten a single strand yet.

  Yang Fan couldn't help but laugh and say: "After all, you're a woman, with such a fragrant face, yet you eat so slowly."

  Tian Ai Nu looked at Yang Fan with a pitiful expression: "Do you know what 'xiāng pēn pēn' is?"

  Yang Fan said: "Isn't it fragrant? Ning's noodles in this Xiwen Lane are well-known for being delicious."

  "Heaven loves the slave," sighed Tian Ai Nu, "a frog in a well cannot converse with the ocean, a summer insect cannot converse with ice."

  Yang Fan said: "You've been boasting about your culinary skills being so good, why don't you show off your skills and let me take a look."

  Tian Ai Nu gave him a clever glance and said: "A skilled woman can't cook without rice, what do you want me to use to show off my skills?"

  Yang Fan smiled and said: "Alright, this is easy. I'll buy some ingredients tomorrow and see the skills of this clever woman."

  After chatting for a while, the sound of night watchman's rattle could be heard faintly from the street, it seemed to be around two o'clock. Tian Ai Nu stood up and said: "I won't chat with you anymore, I'm going back to rest."

  Yang Fan also stood up and said: "You sleep, I'll go out for a walk."

  Tian Ai Nu asked vigilantly: "Where are you going?"

  Yang Fan said: "Play cards, otherwise what will we use to buy chicken, duck, fish and meat tomorrow?"

  "Are you lucky?"

  "Haha, if you want to change your taste tomorrow, it's best to pray that my luck is good."

  Yang Fan walked out of his own courtyard and stood under the gate for a moment, cautiously scanning around before heading forward along the long alley. After walking for a while, he suddenly felt some movement and became vigilant. As he turned a corner, he quickly glanced back and caught a glimpse of a slender figure flashing out of the darkness.

  "Who is Tian Ai Nu?"

  Yang Fan was slightly dazed, with thoughts turning in his mind, but his feet did not stop, and he continued to walk forward.

  Tian Ai Nu quietly followed behind, only to see Yang Fan walking away, looking around cautiously and finally arriving at a long alley. He looked left and right, spat on his palm, took a few steps back, let out a soft "hiss" sound, and then used the momentum to dash towards a wall of a house.

  "Wow!"

  A large piece of crumbling mud wall skin fell off, and Yang Fan fell to the ground with a thud. He lay on the ground, not daring to move, and after a while, seeing that no one had been startled, he slowly got up, "Ptooey" as if spitting out the mud in his mouth.

  The hidden Tian'ai Nu quickly covered her mouth, afraid of laughing out loud.

  Yang Fan looked around cautiously, then continued to climb the wall with renewed effort. This time he succeeded, using all his strength to climb over the high wall of the compound. Panting heavily, he flipped over the top of the wall. Tian Ai Nu shook her head lightly and slipped back into their dwelling.

  Yang Fan pretended to steal something, wandering around the courtyard for a few rounds, then climbed over the wall from another side and continued to shuttle through the alleys, making a show of looking for his next target. After doing this for about half an hour, he was sure that Tian Ai Nu had left, so he quickened his pace and hurried to where he really wanted to go.

  Yang Fan passed by several houses and came to a secluded place. This was the corner of a residential street, at the end of the alley, with two households on either side, both facing the main street on the other side, leaving only the back door in the middle of the alley, making it exceptionally quiet.

  At the end of the alley, a dragon-claw paulownia tree grew, over ten zhang tall, with dense branches and lush leaves. Yang Fan glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then suddenly sprang up, like a nimble monkey, leaping straight up, flying onto the top of the tree, hiding among the foliage, and now even more so, no one saw him.

  At the top of the tree, there was a place supported by several branches, where an oilcloth package was placed. Yang Fan opened the package and put it on in the tree, and soon he transformed into another image.

  A suit of green light armor, a green hood on his head, dressed to perfection, a short sword inserted into the leg strap, a short knife inserted in the waistband at the easiest place to draw out, took a deep breath, scanned around from the treetop, Yang Fan flew out of the tree crown, lightly landed on the roof of a house, ran through the rooms, and rushed away.

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  "Mom, I'm going out."

  Ma Qiao got up from his seat at home and stretched his waist, saying to his mother.

  "Off you go, off you go! You're always sneaking out at night, be careful or the Duke of Wu will catch you and give you a good scolding!" Ma Qiao's mother said with a mix of annoyance and concern.

  Ma Qiao said: "Mother, don't worry, I'm a neighborhood officer, originally it's my job to help the Wu Hou and others with things. Everyone is familiar with each other, even if they bump into me, they won't do anything to me. My son just met up with Yang Er and a few close friends for a short while, played some leaf cards, and will be back soon."

  "Uh, you be careful yourself, playing cards is just for fun, no betting allowed!"

  Ma's mother reminded her of something, scratched her hair with a needle, and then lowered her head to carefully thread a strand of pig bristle through the small hole drilled in the cow bone, and then took out the prepared hemp rope for bundling. Next to it was a set of drilling tools and a large pile of cow bones that had been drilled, which were freshly made by Ma Qiao.

  Ma Qiao always returned home to help his mother with household chores, a habit he had since childhood. At that time, Ma's mother often made shoe insoles for people to earn money and support the family. Every day, Ma Qiao would help his mother piece together small pieces of cloth into the shape of shoe insoles at home, busy until sunset before going out to play with the neighborhood kids.

  From young to old, he has been helping his mother with things. Now that he has become a shop assistant and earns a salary, although the income of a shop assistant is very meager, according to him, helping the masters do things occasionally brings some unexpected wealth, so the family situation is much better than before. However, the old man cannot idle away, the son grew up and should get married, naturally he wants to help him save his dowry, so he still works hard every day.

  The horse's mother heard that toothbrushes are now profitable and popular on the market, so she asked her son to spend money buying one back and carefully pondering for a while. Then he bought some raw materials back and tried to make his own toothbrush.

  The horse mother knew that her son was filial and obedient, so she didn't worry about him doing anything bad. She just instructed him with a sentence and then went to work with peace of mind. However, what she didn't know was that in her eyes, her son was still the same filial and obedient good son, but he had already grown up into an adult and was no longer the innocent child he used to be.

  Everyone has their own little secrets, and a grown son is even less likely to share all his secrets with his old mother.

  Ma Qiao walked out of the house door, closed the door, stood quietly in the courtyard for a moment, and then slipped away into the night.

  Tonight there is no moon, and the starlight is dim.

  Ma Qiao sneaked through the alleys, although there were Wu Hou patrols in the streets at night, but the Wu Hou usually only patrolled the main streets and wouldn't walk into the alleys, so he didn't expect to be bumped into.

  In the dark alley, he was familiar with every step, but Ma Qiao didn't see him. A vague figure was crossing over the rooftops in the darkness. The figure flying across the rooftops was Yang Fan, who also didn't notice Ma Qiao sneaking along the wall.

  Ma Qiao stealthily approached a door, looked back to make sure no one was in the alley, then pushed the courtyard gate with his hand. The gate wasn't locked and creaked open with a "squeak". Ma Qiao slipped inside, quietly closed the gate behind him, and tiptoed towards the main house, calling out softly as he walked: "Yin Yin, Yin Yin..."

  The door opened, and a figure wrapped in a fragrant breeze rushed into his arms. Two scorching hot lips were pressed against his mouth, kissing him fiercely. The woman's voice was breathless as she said, "You little rascal, making me wait so anxiously, why did you come so late!"

  Two people hugged each other, kissing while frantically removing each other's clothes with a high-difficulty move into the room. The door closed, and a piece of Ma Qiao's pants was pinched in the door gap, followed by a woman's coquettish sigh, and that corner of her clothes "swished" away.

  In an instant, the creaking of the bed, the slapping sounds of flesh colliding, and the intermittent, disjointed, and ambiguous moans began to emanate faintly from the room, as dry firewood blazed fiercely.

  "Hmm, hmm......"

  This is not a pig's cry, but Ma Qiao's unique laughter that is different from ordinary people.

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  Yang Fan quietly appeared at the Xia Guan Gate, which was also known as the Great Tang Ministry of War.

  Yang Fan quietly waited in the shadow of the wall corner, waiting for that patrol team to pass by, then turned into a wisp of smoke, and suddenly flashed under the shadow of the long corridor. His feet barely touched the ground, and he flew out like a bird, along the corridor, without touching the dust, disappearing at the end of the corridor, like a ghost.

  He was no longer the first to return to the Ministry of War, and he was already very familiar with the terrain here. Yang Fan slipped into the back courtyard, hid in a relatively desolate courtyard, turned over and rushed into the yard, looked back, and then jumped up to the second floor railing, stretched out his hand, and nimbly flipped over.

  The imperial court has infinite power, but they can't do some things, and it's impossible to penetrate the nine layers of the earth. Just like an assassin hiding in the vast ocean of people, even if it's just Luoyang City, they don't have the ability to dig three feet underground to find that assassin. They would even need to mobilize the Wu Hou and Fang Ding to complete a city-wide search.

  Similarly, the ants living under the nine lands wanted to take a glimpse of the news on the imperial court above the nine heavens, even if it was a top-secret message among the many officials on the imperial court, it was also an impossible task. Yang Fan only had one clue, that was the official with the law patterned wrinkles and eagle nose.

  This person wore a blue official robe that year, only an eighth or ninth rank small official. Yang Fan couldn't possibly draw a portrait and post it on the streets to find someone, nor could he hold the portrait and ask people all over the street. It's even more impossible for him to sneak into the mansions of Tang officials one by one to observe their appearance. Based on this clue, the hope is really too slim.

  Moreover, over the years, as Wu Zetian's power has become increasingly concentrated, officials in the court have risen and fallen with the wind and rain. Many officials have been demoted or even exiled due to their failure in the struggle for power. Who knows whether that young official in a green robe from back then is now rising high in the clouds, or has been banished to the border regions, or perhaps has even had his family's property confiscated and his head chopped off?

  Even if that minor official in the capital had been transferred to a local government position, he would have no way of investigating it. Therefore, although Yang Fan's deepest impression was only the appearance of that cruel official, he did not put the focus of his investigation on finding this person, but rather started with that army.

  It's like looking for a needle in a haystack to find an eighth- or ninth-rank official with deep wrinkles on his forehead from years ago, but it would be much easier to find a guard who had gone out of the capital on official business. From those numerous stacks of documents and letters, one could always find some clues.

  Yang Fan infiltrated the Ministry of War's document storage department, where official documents and files were kept. More than 300 imperial guardsmen left the capital on official business. The mobilization of so many troops would have been recorded by the Ministry of War if it was ordered by the imperial court. If the order to massacre the village did not come from the imperial court, then the mobilization of so many troops out of the capital would also require a pretext for leaving the capital on official business, which would still need to go through the Ministry of War; otherwise, it would be tantamount to treason.

  So Yang Fan believed that as long as the Imperial Guard was not disguised as mountain bandits, they would definitely leave a record.