by San Bei Jiu
Yan Ching in Luoyang (Yan Ching’s account)
5th day
Night Owl and River Ghost had arrived in Luoyang this morning after a mad dash over a vast distance. With the Shadows network we had been able to arrange fresh horses for them at every stop; they travelled without rest for the past one and a half days. I have yet to receive news from White Fan.
I went to Mister Kuan’s study to report my finding; they were anxiously waiting for it. I smiled and told Mister Kuan, “The bad news is that your thousand gold pieces had been spent.”
He just waved me on and said, “Tell me the important information, what have you came up with?”
I said, “As I had expected, it all leads back to Luoyang, as of now, we know who dug the tunnels, but we do not know the person behind it. We know the person who rented the shop house was from Luoyang, but we do not have his identity yet. We have the identity of several people who had been to the shop house, and we are having them followed.
But we have an important clue here as we suspect the communication centers in Guan Yu temple, we will check that out. My friends had arrived, one of them specializes in burglary, and he would be able to check on the temple tonight. They had travelled a vast distance without rest; I want them to rest first.”
The General said, “A burglar?”
I replied, “Yes, you do have a problem with that?”
He said, “No, no, I was just curious. Do whatever you need to do, just get the statue back.”
He added, “If you need my army to round up everybody in the temple I could do it. Do you need it? Do you need more manpower? If you do just say so, I have another brigade of five thousand just outside the city walls.”
I replied, “I thank you Sir for this offer, I do not need them at the moment, we cannot afford to alert the enemy before we safely retrieve the statue, if they destroy it, it all over for us. I am anxiously waiting for one more source of information before I can take decisive action. We pray that the information reaches us in time.”
I added, “I will give it another day or two, if my northern source yields no result, then we think about storming the temple.”
I left the two worried old men to their misery while I went to check on the Guan Yu temple myself. I sat opposite the temple in a tea shop; I sent two of my top men inside (pretending to be worshippers) and check out the surrounding. I could not go in personally because being the head of security for the Kuans I was probably easily recognized.
Guan Yu temple was a medium size temple, it was operated by a few Taoist priests and the temple was quite popular among the locals of Luoyang. It was probably fifty to a hundred years old; such temples were common all over the Kingdom.
Meanwhile I had the Shadow Syndicate working on two groups of people; the few Taoist priests in the temple and the few people that the young Master Zhang (the grave robber’s son) had spotted coming out of the shop house. I should be getting some information soon. For now, I watch….
