Chapter 466 — Abduction

The men who had abducted Jiang Yan...

These bandits claimed they had no idea who Jiang Yan was.

They had taken a hefty sum from someone, and per their instructions, disguised themselves as guards of a wealthy household. In full view of the onlookers, they declared that they were acting on their master's orders to seize a concubine who had eloped with one of the family guards.

Zhu Yicheng muttered inwardly, "This is bad." But the more they argued, the more entertained the spectators became. Some idle troublemakers even began maliciously egging them on, urging that the carriage curtain be yanked open to see what this wanton woman looked like.

Jiang Yan was scared witless on the spot. All the past she had been coerced into came flooding back to her mind.

She would sooner die than follow strangers again. Clutching Yinghong's hand, she begged without pause, "Let me die!"

Yinghong had been young when the Yingzhen Ducal Manor was purged, but she had lived through it, and she carried a composure and calm beyond that of an ordinary girl. Though she did not know who these men were, she knew that if Jiang Yan fell into their hands, it was not merely Jiang Yan's own reputation at stake, but the honor of the Yingzhen Ducal Manor, and even that of Song. If Jiang Yan would rather die, that might in fact be a mercy.

If the mistress died, the servant would be disgraced.

Naturally, she would not survive either.

At that thought, her hands and feet went weak, tears sliding down despite herself. Choking back sobs, she said, "Miss, we don't even have a pair of scissors with us. How—how would you even die?"

Jiang Yan was utterly lost, able only to murmur over and over, "I won't live anyway. I won't live."

Yinghong gritted her teeth and wept, "Miss, we cannot fall into their hands. Even if you die, those men will still find a way to disgrace the Yingzhen Ducal Manor. Let us run! With all these eyes upon us, the worst that can happen is we're cut down on the spot—at least we can keep our honor..."

Jiang Yan seized on it like a drowning woman clutching at straw, threw aside the carriage curtain, and leaped down. A searing pain shot through her feet, and she collapsed to the ground, unable to rise.

Yinghong spun about in frantic circles.

Jiang Yan pushed her, telling her to flee. "If even one of us escapes, that's one."

Even if she herself escaped, what awaited her was a fate more wretched than death.

Yinghong accepted her fate. Supporting Jiang Yan, she hobbled with her toward the outside.

But the river bandits had come prepared. They flung a fistful of quicklime powder at Zhu Yicheng and the others; not only Zhu Yicheng and his party, but even the bystanders were choked into screams and curses. Under cover of the confusion, the bandits pulled out damp cloths and wrapped them around their faces. Two exceptionally nimble brutes darted through the cloud of powder, hoisted Jiang Yan and Yinghong up like hawks snatching chicks, flung them into the carriage, and drove pell-mell for the city gate.

People along the road cried out and scrambled aside, then fell to whispering: "Whose carriage is that? Racing through a crowded street like that—doesn't he fear he'll run someone down? Why don't the Five Wards soldiers and constables stop him?"

A sharp-eyed one said, "Looks like the carriage of the Yingzhen Ducal Manor."

Some shook their heads; others quietly slipped away as if warding off disaster.

The guards at the west gate hesitated when they saw the carriage. By the time the screams for help from inside the carriage reached them, it had already burst through the gate... Meanwhile, a servant whom Zhu Yicheng had quietly shielded and sent off to the Yingzhen Ducal Manor to fetch reinforcements had arrived at the manor gates.

Song Yan gave a cold laugh and ordered Xia Lian, together with men from the Six Doors, to spread word among the jianghu of the capital: let each sweep the snow from his own doorstep, and hand over anyone of suspicious movements. He also borrowed troops from the Five Wards Military Command, and sent Chen Jia with his trusted men from the Embroidered Uniform Guard's garrison to pursue them out the west gate.

The jianghu of the Northern Metropolitan Region was thrown into an uproar.

The hot-tempered old veterans were hopping mad, veins bulging at their temples: "Which bastard is it that wants to use the Yingzhen Ducal Manor's heir to wash our northern jianghu in blood?"

And when the great names of the jianghu heard tell of the fire at the Yingzhen Ducal Manor, every face turned ashen. They had no choice but to set aside old grudges and gather. Regardless of the righteous or the underworld, they picked their best men and split into several parties to help Song Yan search. As for the masters of the Huapa Hall and the Xingmen and the like, to prove they had nothing to do with it, they rushed to send their disciples and grand-disciples to serve under the Six Doors and help gather intelligence.

In less than two hours, the men who had seized Jiang Yan were cornered in a small village on the road to Tongzhou.

By the time Song Yan arrived, those men were dead or wounded, with only a few left alive.

Even those had been deliberately spared by the capital's righteous and underworld factions, who feared Song Yan's suspicion and wished to prove their innocence. As for their testimony, not even the Six Doors dared question them, let alone the jianghu men.

And so when Song Chu walked into the woodshed where the prisoners were held, they vied with one another to "confess" everything.

The righteous and underworld factions both breathed a sigh of relief.

The Six Doors, however, found themselves in a bind.

What river bandit would dare take on a job without first casing the place? That tale could not fool even the magistrates of the Ministry of Justice, much less Song Yan.

And the difficulty did not end there—were the Six Doors to take these men into custody as well?

When immortals fight, it's best for us lesser imps to stay far away!

Several constables quietly shifted their steps, heads bowed, and slipped out of the woodshed.

Song Yan handed the men over to Chen Jia and went himself to see Jiang Yan and Yinghong, still lying unconscious with fright in the carriage.

But before Chen Jia's men could step forward, the prisoners bit into the poison hidden in their false teeth and killed themselves.

Chen Jia's lips trembled with rage. He cursed the jianghu men who made their living in the capital: "Such petty tricks are something I tired of playing long ago! Now the men are dead, and you're even more entangled in this than before!"

To those jianghu grandees grown cunning as foxes, such a trick as poison in false teeth was nothing at all. When they seized the men, they should have dislocated their jaws at once—how could they have killed themselves then?

The only explanation was that they knew this matter was not simple, and did not wish to be dragged into it, so every one of them turned a blind eye and played deaf and dumb.

The jianghu grandees smiled bitterly, and in private sighed to their closest brothers or disciples: "We had no choice in the matter!"

For a time, the jianghu folk in the capital suddenly grew far fewer.

All of this, of course, comes later.

When Song Shi learned that all of them had killed themselves, he nodded calmly and said, "Then burn them all, and scatter the ashes in the river to feed the fish!"

At these words, several of Chen Jia's men shuddered, and the looks they turned on him took on a shade of pity mingled with admiration.

Chen Jia flushed and gave a couple of awkward little coughs.

Song Yan went to the side room where Jiang Yan was resting.