Chapter 1 Was the Original Plan Still On?

"Lord Ye, will today's itinerary be arranged as originally planned?" After the meeting of the Seven Seas Trading Company ended, Xing Siming stood beside Ye Tao and asked softly.

Ye Tao and Qi Zhentao were going to meet an informant that the Intelligence Bureau had been cultivating for a year to confirm a very important clue. Based on this clue, Ye Tao could decide whether to deploy forces against a certain person. Since both sides required detailed arrangements to ensure Ye Tao and Qi Zhentao understood the situation clearly and the planted informant wouldn't be exposed, Xing Siming had made extremely meticulous arrangements. However, Ye Tao and Qi Zhentao were both very busy, so Xing Siming was prepared not to disrupt their normal schedules.

"Just follow your arrangement," Ye Tao said decisively, looking at Qi Zhentao.

Xing Siming led Ye Tao and Qi Zhentao back to the courtyard where Ye Tao was staying in the same carriage. It was already late, and while dinner was being prepared as usual in Ye Tao's courtyard, Ye Tao and Qi Zhentao went out through the side door of the courtyard and entered the side door of the adjacent courtyard, boarding a waiting carriage. To reduce the risk of being discovered, there were only five guards accompanying them, but the guard team consisting of Liu Yong, Guan Huan, Zhou Rui, and Qi Zhentao's personal guards Qian Qian and Zheng Jing, while not guaranteeing a complete escape in any situation, had sufficient combat power and adaptability. Xing Siming, though unremarkable in appearance, was a true expert. And the arrangements Xing Siming made along the way were airtight.

After about half an hour, they arrived at a house near the port of Yuhang. The front of the house was a fruit shop, seemingly narrow, but the house was surprisingly spacious inside. In fact, it was the result of connecting two houses in the middle. This house was currently a rarely used property of the Intelligence Bureau, mainly used to temporarily receive mid- to high-level intelligence personnel who landed at the port of Yuhang and were then sent to other locations in Chunnan through the Intelligence Bureau's system. To arrange for Ye Tao and Qi Zhentao to meet with the Intelligence Bureau's personnel here, Xing Siming, although he felt it wasn't really necessary, still made some minor modifications—he covered the wooden boxes piled in the corner of the room with dark blue coarse cloth, and those boxes were filled with various weapons. Xing Siming even prepared a pot of tea in the room, a pot of good tea that seemed to him to be quite unnecessary.

Ye Tao and Qi Zhentao waited in the room for quite a while before the person who would explain the important things she had seen and heard that day arrived: Qing'er, a young girl who was only nineteen years old but had already worked in the previous Internal Affairs Guard system and the current Intelligence Bureau system for five and a half years.

Qing'er was currently the personal maid of Ji Zexiang, the top courtesan in Yuhang's extremely famous brothel, Embroidery Tower. Although she worked in a brothel, she was one of the few women in that brothel who had complete freedom of movement and personal autonomy. And another might be the brothel's madam, but whether the Embroidery Tower's madam, who actually had a very deep background, was free to come and go was a very serious question. Qing'er was born in the alley behind the Embroidery Tower, and many of the girls in the Embroidery Tower now knew Qing'er after being bought, and no one had any reason to suspect that Qing'er was a spy, or, according to the Dongping Intelligence Bureau's records, a level three field agent. In fact, after Qing'er's parents were killed eleven years ago in a small disturbance in Yuhang, two insignificant little people were discarded like worn shoes, Qing'er's grandfather, who helped the Embroidery Tower guard the various sundries piled up in the back alley, was recruited by an Internal Affairs Guard. In fact, that Internal Affairs Guard was just being kind when he investigated the whole incident, finding a reason to allow the old man to support the little girl, giving him a little money regularly. In fact, that Internal Affairs Guard didn't tell the old man that he was serving the Dongping royal family until the third year. At the beginning, the job was very, very simple, which was to meet with that Internal Affairs Guard once a month and roughly talk about what major events had happened in the Embroidery Tower in the past month, what important figures had come, and how many times... things like that.

The old man was illiterate, had no broad knowledge, and didn't react quickly, plus he had to take care of Qing'er, so the things he could find out were too limited. However, when the little girl Qing'er began to work as a very low-level handyman in the Embroidery Tower, this situation changed greatly. Qing'er was extremely intelligent, and since she knew that her grandfather was serving Dongping, and the Dongping spies had absolutely no goodwill towards those who were greatly related to the deaths of her parents, the young Qing'er took doing a better job for the Intelligence Bureau as an opportunity for her to avenge her family. So, at a young age, she helped her grandfather excellently complete the work of sorting out the lists of important visitors and sorting out the priorities of things. When she was chosen by Ji Zexiang to be her personal maid, she was only eleven years old, and at that time, although not a formal member of the Internal Affairs Guard, she had actually taken over her grandfather's job for a while.

After her grandfather died when she was thirteen years old, Qing'er devoted herself even more wholeheartedly to sorting out what happened in the Embroidery Tower and reporting it to that Internal Affairs Guard. Not only that, as Qing'er learned more and more words, and became more and more familiar with the girls in the Embroidery Tower and some of the guests, she was able to report more and more situations. As one of the most famous, oldest, and deeply connected brothels in Yuhang, the various things that happened inside, and the various entanglements of interests of the various people, their cooperation and struggles may not have been fully understood by the young Qing'er, but the things she reported, combined with the situations from other aspects, could allow people to see the whole picture more clearly. So, more than a year later, before that Internal Affairs Guard was promoted to become a regional负责人 and no longer specifically responsible for the affairs in Yuhang, he formally recruited Qing'er.

Although the job Qing'er was doing was so boring, so unimportant, and a little girl whose appearance, although not very good, was still decent, working as a handyman in a brothel was really quite dangerous and required a lot of courage. However, Qing'er, who had persisted, after waiting for so many years, finally reported a rather important thing. Although this matter was somewhat delayed, it seemed to be able to explain some situations. Qing'er knew that winning this opportunity to present the situation to Ye Tao and Qi Zhentao in person might not change her life trajectory, the Intelligence Bureau's system and Ye Tao and Qi Zhentao's jurisdiction were really far apart. And Qing'er's thoughts were not in gaining wealth, fame, and status, but in that she hoped to be able to stay in Yuhang for a long time, until she could send those who caused her parents to die innocently to hell.

It was very difficult to control the time for Qing'er to find an opportunity to come out of the Embroidery Tower without arousing suspicion at all. Although the Intelligence Bureau's people provided cover for her, allowing her to come out under the pretext that Ji Zexiang was going to a certain temple in the suburbs to fetch a talisman, she had at least two hours of free time. Needless to say, that certain temple was also an informant of the Intelligence Bureau. And while waiting for Qing'er to arrive, in order not to make Ye Tao and Qi Zhentao wait foolishly, Xing Siming roughly talked about Qing'er's resume. This little girl of nineteen years old had actually had a nearly ten-year career as a spy, which was really too touching.

"The one who recruited Qing'er and her grandfather was Mr. Jiang Zhiqing," Xing Siming finally said. Jiang Zhiqing now oversees the Intelligence Bureau's comprehensive reconnaissance and probing work against Northern Liao. Being able to be responsible for this work during Dongping's preparation period for attacking Liao, it can be imagined how lofty Jiang Zhiqing's position is within the Intelligence Bureau's system.

"Lord Ye, Elder Qi, Mr. Xing... I'm really sorry to have kept everyone waiting. It's really not easy to get away from the Embroidery Tower." After listening to Qing'er's bitter and profound story, seeing her smile and seem like a young woman who could be encountered anywhere in the market made everyone quite surprised.

"Miss Qing'er, there's no need to be polite. Everyone's time is limited, so let's talk about the situation that day again," Ye Tao said with a smile. Xing Siming pulled over a chair for Qing'er to sit down and quietly listened to Qing'er's third presentation of the whole incident. As a veteran intelligence officer, Xing Siming could only admire Qing'er's almost innate professional qualities. This third presentation was almost exactly the same as the first, without adding or subtracting any details, without adding any of her own judgments, and without concealing the fact that she had not seen and heard many things due to the various restrictions at the time. Qing'er left all the power of judgment to these adults she respected.

"That night, Xia Yu, who is Xia Family's fourth young master, came to Embroidery Tower. Embroidery Tower is an industry supported by Xia Family, but people from Xia Family rarely come to Embroidery Tower. Even if they come, it's usually not Xia Yu. Xia Yu generally takes charge of more important things in Xia Family. That day, two carriages came to Embroidery Tower. They didn't enter through the front gate but went directly into the Pearl Garden, which is Ji Zexiang's place, through the alley on the side. Ji Zexiang was also surprised to see Xia Yu's arrival, but she still served Xia Yu very diligently. At that time, what I found even stranger was that the person in the second carriage who came with them hurriedly got out of the carriage and went into the room without coming out again. The room where that person was located was separated from Xia Yu's room by one room. The guard was very tight," Qing'er said softly about what she saw that day.