You put me in charge of the prison and turned all the female prisoners into female military goddesse

The night was deep, and the side courtyard was so quiet that only the chirping of insects could be heard at the base of the wall.

Lu Jing sat at the table, turned up the oil lamp a little, and spread out four rolls of silk in front of him, with a brass key on top.

The fine lines on the key handle gleamed dimly under the light.

He picked up the first volume and, holding it up to the light, flipped to the last line of strange words and read it twice.

Then, he picked up the second volume and compared it.

I went over "three zhang in the Chen position" and "four steps in the Qian direction" in my mind over and over again, but I always felt that something was missing to string these fragmented pieces of information together.

knock knock.

There was a gentle knock on the door from the outside, and Chang Qingzhou's voice came in: "Lord Lu, it's me."

"Enter."

When Chang Qingzhou pushed open the door, she was still holding half a half-eaten flatbread in her hand.

She saw the silk and keys spread out on the table, took a few steps over and sat down, asking indistinctly, "Still figuring it out?"

"I don't understand," Lu Jing pushed the key towards her.

"This key looks textured, but when I tried to match it to the directions written on the silk, none of them aligned. It's like something's missing to guide me."

Chang Qingzhou stuffed the last bite of the flatbread into her mouth, swallowed it with force, then reached out and took the key, looking at it over and over several times.

Suddenly, she reached out and touched the side of the key handle, her brow furrowing: "There's a crack here."

Lu Jing leaned closer and looked in the direction she was pointing.

Sure enough, there was a very fine, dark slit on the side of the key handle, which was almost invisible unless you looked closely, as if there was some thin piece inside.

"Can you pry it open?" Lu Jing asked.

Chang Qingzhou pulled a thin iron skewer from behind her waist; it was the "tool for making a living" that she had casually mentioned during a previous chat.

She inserted the pointed end of the metal skewer into the seam and gently twisted her wrist.

With a soft click, a piece of copper the size of a fingernail popped open from the side of the key handle!

Embedded inside was a very thin and tiny strip of paper.

Chang Qingzhou used an iron skewer to pick out the slip of paper and spread it on the table. The paper contained only two lines of small writing: "Mud conceals the true face, water washes it clean."

Lu Jing stared at those eight characters for several breaths, then looked up at Chang Qingzhou, who was also looking at him.

Neither of them spoke, but they were thinking roughly the same thing.

"The key itself is fake?" Chang Qingzhou spoke first.

"Or perhaps this key is only used to open another lock."

Lu Jing folded the note and put it in his pocket. "Mud covers the true face, water washes it clean—meaning this key is covered in a layer of mud, and only after being soaked in water will its true form be revealed."

"Soak it now?" Chang Qingzhou stood up and went to get the basin of water.

"Tomorrow," Lu Jing said, carefully rolling up the silk. "Let's sleep tonight; we need to keep an eye on their training tomorrow."

Chang Qingzhou nodded, yawned, turned around, pushed the door open, and went out. The door panel tapped softly in the night breeze before closing again.

The next morning, just as dawn broke, the courtyard was already bustling with activity.

Ji Tangtang squatted by the well, brushing his teeth with a boar bristle brush dipped in tooth powder, his mouth full of white foam as he mumbled something to Mu Jiangli.

Mu Jiangli stood three steps away from her, hands on her hips.

He was holding a piece of flatbread wrapped in oil paper in his other hand, munching on it slowly, with an expression that said, "I can't hear you."

"What exactly were you doing down there under the stands yesterday?" Ji Tangtang rinsed his mouth with cold water, stood up, and pointed at Mu Jiangli. "Don't try to fool me with 'observing the battlefield.'"

"I'm watching you," Mu Jiangli said, swallowing the last bite of the biscuit and patting the crumbs off her hands.

"I just want to see if you get thrown down, whether you land face-first or butt-first."

"you--"

"Alright, alright!"

Ye Qingqing walked over from the side and easily separated the two people, one in each hand, as if she were plucking two straws.

"Lord Lu told Lieutenant Fang that there will be no physical training this morning, but teamwork training. If you two keep arguing, you'll both have to carry logs together."

Ji Tangtang and Mu Jiangli both shut up at the same time, rolled their eyes at each other, but neither of them said another word.

Wen Lanxiang came out of the main room, holding a wooden board with a few simple standing diagrams drawn on it with charcoal sticks.

She walked to the middle of the courtyard, propped the wooden plank on the ground, and coldly swept her gaze over the female prisoners who had gathered around her.

"In yesterday's battle against the Flying Cavalry Camp, we held our ground head-on and successfully flanked them, but there were three instances where our transitions were a beat too slow. If the opponent had been an experienced player, those three slow transitions would have created three openings."

She pointed to three spots on the wooden board, then looked up at Qin Liniang and Liu Zhezhi, "When you two switched positions, your steps were too big. Next time, take half a step back; moving in and out at the same time will be smoother."

Qin Liniang nodded, and Liu Zhezhi also clasped his hands in response.

Lu Jing stood under the eaves watching this scene without making a sound to disturb it.

After Wen Lanxiang finished speaking, she took out the key and the note she had pried out the night before from her bosom and walked towards Chang Qingzhou's room.

As he passed the well, he slowed down and shouted to Chong Jitang, "After you finish brushing your teeth, hurry up and run a couple of laps. Don't just squat there and slack off."

Just as Ji Tangtang was about to open his mouth to refute, Lu Jing had already turned the corner and entered Chang Qingzhou's courtyard.

Chang Qingzhou was squatting under the eaves, filling a clay pot with water using a bamboo tube.

Hearing footsteps, he turned around and saw Lu Jing. He put down the bamboo tube, pointed to the earthenware basin, and said, "I was just about to look for you. The water is ready."

Lu Jing handed her the key, and Chang Qingzhou took it, holding the key handle and immersing the copper-inlaid side in the water.

The two people squatted by the basin, staring at the water. The clear water covered the key, and a few extremely fine grayish-white mud threads floated up from the joint and dispersed in the light.

Chang Qingzhou held her breath, flipped the key over, and soaked it for a little while longer until the mud threads stopped floating completely before taking it out and drying it with her sleeve.

"Take another look." She handed it back to Lu Jing.

Lu Jing took it and held it up to the sunlight, then froze.

The messy patterns on the original key handle were revealed to be the real engravings underneath after the mud shell peeled off.

Those were two rows of extremely neat inscriptions, as fine as if they were engraved with a needle tip.

But it is clear enough that the arrangement corresponds exactly to the four directions written on the silk.

"It's done," Lu Jing said, gripping the keys tightly as he stood up. "Once we get the map, we can locate the item based on its position."

"Something?" Chang Qingzhou tilted her head to look at him. "Aren't you curious what it is?"

"It would be a lie to say I'm not curious," Lu Jing said, putting the keys back in his pocket, "but there are more important things to do right now."

He had barely finished speaking when a series of hurried footsteps came from the front yard.

Immediately afterward, Sun Rendi's voice came from over the courtyard wall, slightly out of breath: "Captain Lu! Chief Fang requests your presence in the council hall; the Flying Tigers have sent a message."

Lu Jing and Chang Qingzhou exchanged a glance, but neither of them said anything more.

Lu Jing patted the dirt off his knees and strode outside. As he passed the corridor, he casually picked up the outer robe hanging on a pillar and put it on.

When he crossed the courtyard and turned into the council hall, Fang Shengtian was sitting in the main seat flipping through a gold-leafed invitation, his expression not very pleasant.

Upon seeing Lu Jing enter, he placed the invitation on the table and tapped the tiger head pattern on the cover with his thumb: "It's from the Flying Tiger Battalion. They say they're holding a joint archery competition in three days and they're asking our Flying Cavalry Battalion to send people."

"How many people are we sending?" Lu Jing pulled up a chair and sat down.

"There's no limit to the number of participants, but the post says it hopes 'the newly recruited women of your camp will compete on the same stage,'" Fang Shengtian emphasized the phrase "newly recruited women," his expression a mix of sarcasm and worry, "it's aimed at you."

Lu Jing didn't reply. He reached into his pocket and touched the edge of the key. The inscription on the key pressed against his fingertips. He thought for a moment and said, "Then let's go."

Fang Shengtian looked up at him, and Lu Jing added, "Since they want to test, then let them test openly. They can't hide it. We might as well go and see what they're really up to."

Fang Shengtian looked at him for two seconds, nodded, put the invitation away in the drawer, got up, picked up the teapot on the corner of the table, poured Lu Jing a cup of tea, and pushed it towards him: "Brother Lu, well, how should I put it?"

"What's wrong?"

"He's steady, but also pretty crazy." Fang Shengtian smiled.

Lu Jing picked up his teacup, took a sip, and didn't respond to the conversation.