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墨書 Inktalez
Peddler Zhang collapsed on a bench, and an oiled paper bundle rolled out from his arms. Among the scattered pages, words like "Moon Harbor" and "Folangji" could be faintly seen. The most striking detail was the red stamp in the corner—"Anyone found privately cultivating foreign peppers will be dealt with according to the law."
Cui Xiaoman quietly grasped Lin Dahe's hand. Her palm was clammy with cold sweat, while her fingertips felt burning hot. Their gazes instinctively turned toward Beishan.
The dew of the early morning still clung to the blades of grass when Lin Dahe was startled awake by the sound of hooves outside the courtyard. He grabbed a shovel from beside the window and peered through the crack of the door—eight constables in dark uniforms had surrounded the pottery kiln, and the chief constable was striking the furnace with his scabbard, the sharp clinking sound startling crows from the locust tree.
"Where is Lin Dahe?" The chief constable unfurled a document stamped with the official seal. "I am here to enforce a decree to seal off your illegal glassware workshop!"
As Lin Dahe pushed open the door, he deliberately knocked over a water bucket. The splashing sound startled Cui Xiaoman next door; she rolled up her pant legs and climbed over the fence, her sickle glinting like silver in the morning light.
"Your Honor, please see." Lin Dahe pointed at the furnace. "I am only firing coarse pottery..."
"Nonsense!" The chief constable kicked over a drying rack. "Someone has reported that you are colluding with pirates!" He pulled out a cloth bag from his pocket and shook out several inferior glass beads. "Look at these; they are identical to those made in Japan!"
The beads rolled to Lin Dahe's feet. As he bent down to pick them up, he immediately recognized something was off—these were not Japanese goods at all but clearly inferior imitations made by the Zhou family! However, they had been intentionally crafted with wavy patterns that bore some characteristics of overseas craftsmanship.
"This pattern..." Cui Xiaoman suddenly interjected, "is known as 'Overseas Waves' by artisans from Jiangxi!"
The chief constable pressed his scabbard against her throat: "Do you dare to argue, you commoner?" He turned to Lin Dahe. "Someone saw Hu merchants delivering saltpeter to you!"
Lin Dahe's back broke out in cold sweat. Indeed, a limping merchant had come by two nights ago, but he had delivered quartz sand... Wait! He suddenly recalled Peddler Zhang's drunken ramblings—the Hu merchants from the Maritime Trade Office, saltpeter, and...
"My Lord." A one-armed veteran suddenly stepped out from behind a haystack, his copper badge gleaming under the morning sun. "The Northern Town Pacification Office is handling this case; may I have a word?"
The chief constable's expression changed dramatically. As he leaned closer to inspect the badge, his knees involuntarily buckled: "I did not know an official was here..."
"This kiln is bait," the veteran whispered. "Do you understand? We’re fishing for bigger prey."
While they were negotiating, Cui Xiaoman slipped over to the furnace to sift through ashes. The last batch of layered pottery she had fired last night was ruined, but she felt something hard in the ashes—a half-melted copper badge with melted resin still clinging to its edge.
"Deng... Zhou Wei..." She brushed off the charred ash from the badge and barely managed to make out a few characters. The back seemed to be engraved with a map, but high temperatures had distorted its lines.
Just as Lin Dahe leaned closer, urgent sounds of a gong echoed from the village entrance. The shepherd Zhuangzi stumbled in, having lost one of his straw sandals: "Bandits! Yangshu Gou is being attacked by bandits!"
The chief constable's face turned pale instantly. Yangshu Gou was only twenty miles away; even on horseback it would take less than an hour. He could no longer afford to investigate the kiln and hurriedly called for his men: "Quick! Return to town and report!"
"Wait." The veteran stopped him. "How many men do you have?"
"Nine including myself..." The chief constable suddenly realized, "Are you saying that officials want us mobilized?"
The veteran sneered and abruptly yanked at the chief constable's collar—revealing a scar as large as a bowl on his collarbone! "This is from soldiers who fled Liao Yang in the forty-seventh year of Wanli." His voice was icy cold. "What are you pretending to be—a constable?"
The chief constable's expression twisted into one of rage. He drew his waist knife in an instant but was struck on the wrist by Cui Xiaoman’s carrying pole. In that flash of blade light, Lin Dahe caught sight of an engraving on the hilt—"Dengzhou Wei Left Camp"!
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