Chapter Ninety-One: Infiltrating the Gambling Den

After entering the royal capital of Radiant Sun, Jiang Chen set his sights on a residence in Willow Lane. The front courtyard was to be used for a breakfast shop, while the rear quarters would house the four of them. Yet to the outside world, only Jiang Chen, Wu Yue, and Duanmu Qing were seen coming and going as usual; Han Yuyang had to keep himself in deep seclusion, and when he did go out, he chose the night whenever possible, doing his utmost to conceal his traces.

He was a wanted criminal posted by imperial decree. No one would ever have imagined that he would have the nerve to run all the way to the royal capital.

That night, after saying a word to Wu Yue, Jiang Chen pushed the door open and strolled unhurriedly into the depths of Willow Lane.

The reason this street was called Willow Lane was because more than a dozen houses of pleasure stood along it. By the hour of lamplight each day, countless heavily painted women of the night would dress the lane in gaudy splendor, their laughter and song weaving a dreamlike spell over all who passed.

Murmuring a little tune under his breath, Jiang Chen walked past one girl after another. He paid no heed to their alluring calls, his gaze fixed straight ahead. His true destination was the gambling den nestled among those houses of pleasure.

That morning he had followed the man with the snake-head tattoo on his chest all the way to the gambling house, where the man had entered with practiced ease.

Jiang Chen guessed that the man either worked there or was a complete gambling addict. In any case, he needed to go in and find him, and get to the bottom of what was going on.

“Stop right there. Take it out and let me have a look. If you don’t have it, then get lost!”

Two burly men standing at the entrance of the gambling house blocked Jiang Chen’s way like a pair of guardian gods.

Just as Jiang Chen was wondering what they were talking about, another well-dressed man happened to come by. He raised the ring on the finger of his right hand, and the two hulks immediately stepped aside without another word and let him in.

It seemed that this ring was the token allowing entry into the gambling house, but Jiang Chen had known nothing of it. So merely to enter the place, there were already such strict rules.

This only made Jiang Chen more interested in the place.

“I forgot to bring it. I’ll go back and fetch it.”

Using that as his excuse, Jiang Chen circled the gambling house once, only to discover that it was enclosed on all sides by high walls. Clearly, it had been carefully designed to guard against outsiders trying to scale the walls and sneak in.

Ordinary walls were nothing to Jiang Chen, but these four walls were absurdly high. Without a place to gain leverage, there was nothing he could do.

Why would an ordinary gambling den be made so mysterious? Perhaps that alone meant it was not so ordinary after all.

After studying the terrain around him, Jiang Chen fixed his attention on the brothel next door, a place called Drunken Life Tower. If one leaped from a room on its third floor, one could easily clear the high wall and land in the inner courtyard of the gambling house.

Having made up his mind, Jiang Chen walked straight into the brilliantly lit Drunken Life Tower.

“Oh my, young gentleman, you’re truly a handsome one. One look and I can tell you’re a refined scion from an illustrious family, well read and well bred!”

A matron with rather rough features promptly came forward with ingratiating enthusiasm. After Jiang Chen told her he wanted the third-floor private room, she grew somewhat troubled.

“Sir, how unfortunate. That room is already occupied. Why don’t I lead you to another instead? It’s larger, and much more comfortable...”

But Jiang Chen said firmly, “I want that room.”

With that, he ignored the madam’s anxious efforts to stop him and made straight for the third floor.

Standing outside the room, Jiang Chen heard the madam say, “Sir, sir, don’t be rash. Hear me out first.”

“Do you know who’s inside? It’s none other than Yu Yuanliang, the son of Minister Yu of the Ministry of Justice. That man is not someone to provoke. It’s not that I look down on you, sir, but in the entire royal capital, there are truly not many who would dare stand against a young master of his standing.”

The madam’s words were already as tactful as she could make them, all to preserve Jiang Chen’s dignity.

Yet to infiltrate the gambling house, entering this room was unavoidable. Jiang Chen naturally did not want to stir up unnecessary trouble, but at present he had no choice but to do so.

“All right, I was only joking just now. Yu Yuanliang and I have been close friends since childhood. Even if I go in now and interrupt his good time, he won’t say a word about it.”

“Get back to your work. You’re not needed here.”

Without knocking, Jiang Chen pushed the door open as though nothing were amiss and went in.

“Who are you...”

Yu Yuanliang’s voice came from within, but the words had barely left his mouth before they cut off abruptly. After that, the room fell quiet, as if, just as Jiang Chen had said, the two of them were indeed very close friends.

The madam pressed her ear to the door, trying to catch some sound from inside. Just then a girl came out, her face perfectly normal.

“Yingying, those two inside...”

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing. They’re both fine. Young Master Yu specifically instructed that no matter what happens, no one is to disturb us.”

The madam let out a breath of relief and then looked at Yingying. “My dear girl, how hard this must be on you.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

With that, Yingying shut the door. Behind her, Yu Yuanliang was already lying unconscious on the floor, while Jiang Chen, who had been standing in the room just moments earlier, was nowhere to be seen.

A stack of one-hundred-tael banknotes sat on the table. Yingying carefully picked them up and tucked them into her close-fitting undergarment.

“Interesting.”

She glanced toward the open window. From here, one could easily observe what was happening inside the gambling house. Of course she knew that Jiang Chen had used her room to slip into the inner courtyard.

One hundred taels was enough to seal her lips. As for when the young master Yu on the floor would wake up, that was another matter entirely.

Jiang Chen slipped smoothly into the gambling house. He discovered that the interior was divided into four sections, like a field marked into squares, with the center being the inner courtyard where he now stood.

From the sounds coming from within, the two rooms on the western side seemed to be the places where gambling was openly conducted, while the rooms on the eastern side were deathly quiet, even carrying a faintly eerie air.

The more mysterious a place seemed, the more likely it was hiding some secret. Jiang Chen moved directly toward the eastern rooms, and before long he noticed that one of them was lit by a somewhat dim oil lamp.

Only this room had a light on, which meant someone was inside.

Jiang Chen lowered his steps. The pace he took now was as soft and silent as a kitten’s, and no one noticed his presence.

“Since Yu Wenshi is so ungrateful, let him taste some hardship. Tell him that if he does not do as we say, the Yu family will soon face a bloody calamity!”

“But he is a minister of justice, and he is often accompanied by many elite soldiers from the Ministry of Justice. He will not be easy to deal with.”

“Hmph. Do you need me to teach you even this much?”

Through the window paper, Jiang Chen saw that the man kneeling on the ground was the same one from the morning. The other man, the one issuing orders to him, gave Jiang Chen a strangely familiar feeling.