A divine healer, a general, a young marquis! Who can rival them!

Once the turmoil at the Zhao residence had subsided, Yang Huteng began to compose himself, and his gaze returned to the thread hidden among the myriad silks.

The thread that originated from the Wan family bypassed the pawnshop's hidden stakes and pointed all the way to the prefectural magistrate's mansion in the west of the city. Ever since the willow leaf was hung at the entrance of the prefectural magistrate's mansion, this thread has become cold again.

These past few days, Liu Ye had been intentionally or unintentionally observing people in the city. She had an unfamiliar face and looked like an inconspicuous village maid. Carrying a small vegetable basket, she would blend into the crowd without anyone giving her a second glance. There was a renowned doctor in the city, Yang Hu, whose face everyone recognized, and Qin Ying was a dead person who dared not show her face. Only Liu Ye could secretly watch over people on the street.

"Nothing much has happened at Hengfeng Pawnshop these past few days," Liu Ye whispered to Yang Hu as she returned through the snow. "We used to see men carrying loads of secondhand goods every few days, but they haven't come out these past two days. That hand must have noticed the person watching him."

Yang Hu's heart sank!

That hand is very sensitive. Before, when the warehouse in the north of the city was being watched, he withdrew from the warehouse and moved to the pawnshop, which was secretly manned in the city. Now that the pawnshop is being watched, he has hidden this line again!

Layer upon layer of protection, leaving no room for leakage!

Yang Hu ran this line through his mind over and over again—

The goods from Wanchouzhuang were transferred to a warehouse in the north of the city for repackaging. The silk went in, and the military equipment wrapped in oilcloth came out. They traveled out of the city and to a small courtyard behind a mountain outside the city, where they were transferred to packhorses and headed north to the hands of the barbarians beyond the pass.

Now, the hidden stakeouts at the warehouses in the north of the city and the pawnshops in the city are being watched. The line is like a frightened snake, crawling back into its hole segment by segment!

"The more careful you are, the more it means there's something you can't afford to lose hidden beneath this line!" At night, in the back garden, Qin Ying wiped the knife in his hand.

"Fear creates openings!" Yang Hu said. "Even though the thread has gone cold, that hand still has a lot of things in the city. Can it just be moved like that? To escape, we need to find a way to leave a trace, right?"

Although the line was cold, Liu Ye didn't stop moving. Disguised as a country maid, carrying a small empty vegetable basket, she quietly and discreetly searched for something in the west of the city.

As a result of this search, some interesting things were discovered!

"The Prefectural Magistrate's residence hasn't been peaceful these past two nights!" Liu Ye said in a low voice. "In the latter half of the night, a car with an out-of-town accent silently entered the gates of the Prefectural Magistrate's residence. It came with something inside, but left empty. This has happened for two consecutive nights."

Yang Hu and Qin Ying exchanged a glance, both sharing the same thought.

"It's moving things!" Yang Hu thought, "The pawnshop's connection has been targeted. On one hand, it's hiding the connection to avoid trouble. On the other hand, it's taking advantage of the night when no one is around to move its shady stuff from the prefectural governor's mansion out, cartload by cartload. Once the stuff is moved and hidden, it'll be hard to find."

Qin Ying had seen these methods when she was in the army, and a chill crept into her eyes. "Transferring military equipment and account books! Either they're afraid of being investigated, so they hide them somewhere else first, or the person feels that this line can't be protected, so they're going to wipe out the beginning and end now and jump off a building."

"Jumping off a building..."

Yang Hu repeated the word.

He knows best who he is. Once that hand is severed from its head and tail and jumps off the building, the bracelet that was so hard to find will break. At that time, the Wan family silk shop, the pawnshop, and the prefectural governor's mansion will all become dead knots. Trying to dig out that hand will be as difficult as climbing to heaven.

"But that's not enough," Yang Hu said without any hurry. "The goods are being transported out of the prefectural governor's residence, and it's not necessarily the prefectural governor himself. It could be some steward in the residence using the prefectural governor's prestige to run a business outside. Or it could be the prefectural governor himself, who is just a plank placed there. We don't even know what we're moving or where we're moving it to. If we force our way in and investigate, we'll alert him, and that would be a loss."

Qin Ying nodded. She thought of Zhao Tongpan, who had frightened Qin Ying so much that he had slunk away. He was a coward and didn't dare to show his face now. Perhaps he had a reason to open the door to officialdom.

But we can't take this step yet; we'll wait until the clues are more solid.

"On the night they surrounded and attacked my parents," Qin Ying's voice was very low, "the military inspection tokens at each pass, the checkpoints at each location—they bribed the patrol routes, sold off the true situation at each pass, and turned a major crime of colluding with the enemy into a charge of 'bandit raid.' The person wielding this power was no small official. A mere prefectural magistrate couldn't bear that responsibility!"

"So we can't scare it!" Yang Hu said. "There are still people above us. If we startle it now, we'll only scatter the small fry around the prefectural governor's office. The real hand will retreat, and we won't be able to find it anymore."

He frowned again. "Willow Leaf," he said, "did you see anyone from the Prefectural Magistrate's residence watching you when you were in the west of the city today?"

Liu Ye thought for a moment and said, "A servant who was guarding the corner glanced at me, and I saw him pick up his basket and walk away without stopping."

Yang Hu's brows furrowed even more. "Liu Ye," he said, "follow that carriage from a distance, just remember the route. But don't go too close. There are so many sword-wielding servants at the entrance of the Prefectural Magistrate's mansion; they're all formidable. That finger in the death row has the ability to silence people and turn the living into the dead. It would be easy for him to take your life. Just keep your eyes on the distance and don't let anyone notice you. You absolutely cannot become the second servant who drowned in the river after handing over the bundle."

Liu Ye nodded. When she was chasing barbarian bandits deep in the mountains, she was a master at seizing people, and she could handle this weight.

"That hand is about to escape, isn't it?" Yang Hu stood in the corridor, looking at the pitch-black west side of the city. "The more it tries to cover its tracks, the more afraid it is, but every time it moves, it leaves a trace..."

"No matter how clear the ruts are, you can't build an iron chain to control them," Qin Ying said.

"You can't rush the iron chain out," Yang Hu said. "Examining this line is like diagnosing a patient. The lesion is deep inside. If you just grab a knife and stab there right away, you'll miss and the patient will be scared and back away. You have to feel the pulse inch by inch to understand it, remember the grooves and crevices it reveals. Only when the most fatal line is revealed can you insert the needle and call it a needle."

Qin Ying glanced at him and remained silent. For the past few years, she had been the only one investigating such a major case. Now, however, a young doctor, not surnamed Qin and completely unrelated to her, was by her side, guiding her step by step down this treacherous path to its end.

Another snowy night came, covering the houses in the west of the city in white. Nothing could be seen clearly, but on the dark road, a creature was seen frantically pulling its hand away from the ground. It was eager to wipe away every last bit of its body before anything happened.

Furthermore, he eagerly buried all those ruts and secrets, waiting for the other party to reveal the most crucial point before finally striking with his needle.

This wasn't a contest, and no one said it aloud. Under the snow-covered ground, the light in the house in the west of the city stayed on night after night.