Just moments before, Bian Lingbai had been instructing him to lure Helian Bo out for a rendezvous in the city outskirts; he genuinely didn’t seem to have planned on killing Duan Ling when they’d left Tong Pass. Only after they arrived had he resolved to kick Duan Ling over the edge of the cliff. The discovery of the treasure cave must’ve sparked the idea.
Duan Ling’s original plan had counted on the fact that, once he disclosed the treasure’s location, Bian Lingbai wouldn’t be able to resist returning. When Wu Du came back, Duan Ling could have him either poison the cave itself or set his gold centipede on Bian Lingbai here. Bian Lingbai would fall mysteriously ill, with no evidence of foul play. Under the guise of helping him seek medical attention, Duan Ling could bring the incapacitated general back to Tong Pass, giving him the excuse he needed to assume temporary control of the garrison.
Yet for all his calculations, Duan Ling had never expected Bian Lingbai’s thoughts to turn murderous the instant the treasure was within his grasp, especially when they were talking so amicably mere moments before. All considerations of how to lure out Helian Bo, or what he would do when Wu Du returned, had flown out of Bian Lingbai’s mind; his singular impulse was to kill Duan Ling on the spot. This was not a logical development. Duan Ling had grown accustomed to dealing with smart people—he’d honest-to-goodness underestimated Bian Lingbai’s level of stupidity.
Duan Ling dangled in the dark a while longer before attempting to edge to one side. He groped over the cliff face until he felt a protruding wooden dowel. It had been driven into the cliff wall and was barely long enough for a single person to stand on. Duan Ling grabbed hold and slowly pulled himself onto it. Unsure how far Bian Lingbai had gone, he had no intentions of rashly climbing back to the top of the cliff right away.
If Bian Lingbai was reasonable, he would station guards at the cave’s entrance. But reaching the guards waiting on the other side of the stream would take some time. If Duan Ling took this chance to slip out of the cave during this interlude, he might successfully escape. After a moment, he snuck over the cliff’s edge and ran toward the cave mouth as silently as possible.
Yet just as he neared the entrance, he overheard Bian Lingbai’s voice. “Keep a close watch on this place. Make sure no one goes inside…”
Duan Ling screeched to a halt and ducked back into the cave’s depths as a chorus of footsteps reverberated through the chamber. In his hurry, his foot slipped on the damp rocks of the path, and he almost tumbled right back off the cliff. The close call left him shaken, drenched in another wash of cold sweat. Fortunately, the soldiers’ footsteps stopped at the cave’s entrance.
He crept back to the precipice and peered down, following the tracks he’d spotted earlier. Nothing waited down below save for the dowel that had saved his life. With no clear path forward and enemies behind, Duan Ling forced himself onward. Hooking the bow over a jagged rock at the cliff’s edge for support, he tentatively put a foot down on the dowel and tapped it, finding it surprisingly sturdy. Assured that it would hold his weight, he fully stepped onto the dowel once again and looked down. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he spotted another dowel level with his own just a step away, nearly invisible in the darkness.
The dowels were set in such a hidden place that, had it not been for his fall, he would never have discovered them. When Duan Ling stepped gingerly onto the second dowel, he discovered more ahead: The bars formed a gallery road that led around to the left side of the cliff face, not toward the bottom as he’d previously assumed.
Step by step, Duan Ling followed the path to a raised platform over a hundred feet from where he’d initially fallen down. Water babbled nearby. The cavern was more spacious than he had first thought. He spotted a tunnel leading away from the platform, but as he walked toward it, his foot knocked into something that clattered on impact. He quickly moved to steady whatever it was he’d kicked. He groped around in the dark and found a pile of half-burned firewood and crude oil.
In no time Duan Ling had lit himself a torch and held it up to survey his surroundings. The platform showed signs of recent habitation, as if someone had been here not long ago.
But who?
He thought of the mysterious assassin who’d attacked Fei Hongde. Was it him—and were he and the man who’d come to the governor’s residence one and the same? If so, what was his objective? Duan Ling plunged into the tunnel and followed the path until it ended at a solid stone door. The lock had been broken in half by some sharp weapon and carelessly discarded on the ground.
Duan Ling pushed the door open. A hidden chamber spread before him lined with neat stacks of iron chests, several of their locks smashed and lids open. Duan Ling lit the fire pan inside the room. As the flames flickered to life, a dazzling golden glow filled the room, so brilliant he squinted his eyes against it.
Gold. The entire chamber must be filled with neatly stacked gold. Duan Ling selected one of the bars from the chest to inspect it, hardly believing his eyes. He began counting. If one bar was worth twenty taels, and each chest contained fifty bars, then the hidden chamber, with its fifty-six chests in total, contained a total of fifty-six thousand taels of gold!
Duan Ling nearly stopped breathing. Not even the National Treasury held so much.
And from what Duan Ling could see, gold might not be the most precious item contained within this room. A small rectangular hollow was recessed into the wall. Judging by the marks in the dust, it seemed something had been stored there—perhaps another item that had already been taken.
But what could be more precious than fifty-six thousand taels of gold? The print the item had left in the dust was only as wide as a palm. Duan Ling swiftly put together the facts: Firstly, someone had visited this place, and recently. Secondly, the visitor had no interest in the gold and took only one thing, perhaps the most important item, from the room. Was it the unknown assassin? After some thought, Duan Ling deemed this a reasonable assumption. If he himself had stumbled into this chamber, he wouldn’t wish to carry gold bars around either.
Still thinking, he made his way out of the hidden chamber, closing the door behind him and returning to the platform to scout for another way out. To his surprise, he found a rope secured to the platform that dangled down the cliff face, trailing toward the ground below. After a moment of hesitation, Duan Ling climbed down the rope.
How had all those chests of gold bars been transported into the chamber via the precarious gallery path? This question stumped him. Halfway to the bottom, the rope came to an end, and another opening appeared before him on the cliff face—this one just big enough for one person to pass through. With his torch held aloft, Duan Ling continued onward. A brisk breeze blew through the cave, and as Duan Ling walked, the chamber suddenly opened up to light.
Day and night were indistinguishable within the cavern. Duan Ling was shocked to discover that night had fallen while he was inside, and that the light he’d spotted was that of the stars. He’d emerged at the summit of one of the valley’s low hills, an overgrowth of tangled trees and bushes spread before him. Ahead, a path was carved through brush leading to the mountain’s peak—presumably cut by the assassin with his sword—and thorns littered the ground. There was even a cut tree serving as a trail marker. Duan Ling enjoyed an easy trek to the top, where he stopped and stood beside a large tree scorched black by lightning. He extinguished his torch to avoid attention, and when he looked below, he realized he’d come to the end of Qin Ridge. Not far in the distance was Tong Pass.
It was the third day since Wu Du had left.