“How old are you to be here?”
“Officially I entered the Thousand Gates when I was thirteen, but the first time I came to the Thousand Gates was when I was ten.”
I did the math, that’s almost nine years.
I said, “Has this room always been like this?”
“Yes, it has always been. I was training in the back of the mountain at that time and I found a secret passage unintentionally, but as soon as I went in it, I would be knocked out and sent out. I went to report it to my master, saying that we were hiding bad people in the back mountain, but when my master saw how young I was, he would threaten me, telling me to keep my mouth shut or he would beat me up, and saying that there were no bad people or caves at all, and warning me not to say anything to anyone about it.”
I smacked my lips and said, “So early, you can really hide your heart.”
Moon Fullbow shook his head, “But if it really was my hallucination and I was mistaken, why can’t this be told to anyone else?”
I laughed bitterly, “Your master just wanted to fool you because of your young age, but I didn’t expect to meet a logical genius like you.”
Yue Man Gong said, “At that time I was young and had both respect and fear for my master. If Qianmen didn’t want me, I would have nowhere to go. So I dared not ask more questions. Later, when I grew up, I vaguely felt that this matter must be a secret part of the Thousand Clans, especially when I later learned more about my uncle and your mother, and knew about my Thousand Clans’ many bloody and tearful past, I felt even more that there must be a reason why Master was hiding this secret that could not be exposed. Master trusted me so much that if he was going to tell me, sooner or later he would tell me, and if not, it must be a secret that he could not tell me and that he would take to his coffin.”
Master Hu was so lucky to have recruited such a frugal disciple, if he had recruited me and Zhao Zichen as his disciples, I’m afraid the bottom of the Thousand Doors would have been turned upside down for us just to find out what this was all about.
Yue Man Gong said, “What’s going on underneath.”
I stared at Yue Man Gong’s face, poured the water next to him into my palm, then rubbed it against his face, which was not deformed.
Moon Man-bow was so angry that his face turned red, and I said hurriedly, “Don’t get angry in a hurry yet, but be careful. For what is going on in here must not be known to outsiders.”
Then I told Moon Man-bow the truth of what I had seen at the bottom.
When I heard the back, Yue Man Gong was so shocked that he couldn’t close his mouth, especially when I said that the drawer caught fire as soon as I pulled it open.
“It looks like the owner of the house has put something very important in the drawer and must not let anyone get to it.”
I nodded and said, “Yeah, and by the way, how was the fire in there?”
In fact I knew how big the fire was, it could have melted the pig iron, and if we hadn’t run in time, we would have been cold by now. But I still had my heart set on hoping that something hadn’t been burnt off.
The floor of the ground floor, the ceiling downstairs, was burnt to pieces and the fireman’s steel expanded after the heat and was poured with water so it collapsed. I couldn’t get through to your phone, but I could get through to Yi Yi’s phone, so I guessed you two must not be inside the fire, or else the phone would never work in such high temperatures. I know what you’re thinking, since that drawer is where the fire started, there’s no way there’s anything left, did you get anything out of it?”
“There really was.” I remembered when Moon Fullbow mentioned that, and tapped my pocket, luckily, it was surprisingly still there.
I pulled out the small vial with the label torn out and handed it to Moon Man Bow, who opened it and sniffed it too.
“What kind of medicine is this?”
“It needs to be identified tomorrow before we can say anything.”
“All right.” Moon Fullbow said, “I’ll press on with this matter, Master is hiding in the hospital these days and refusing to come out in order to avoid your questions. It’s just as well that I’m presiding over the affairs of the sect, so I’ll be able to figure out anything I want to.”
At this time, a question popped up in my mind, I was tempted to ask Yue Man Gong, but after opening my mouth for a moment, I didn’t ask it out.
Moon Man Bow saw that I had something to say and asked me back what was wrong.
I shook my head, “When will Xiao Gong bring the food over?”
“Yes, it’s been a long time, I’ll ask. By the way, do you know who the people are that are holding you?” Moon Fullbow asked.
I said in a cold voice, “Who else could it be, it’s definitely that fake baldy, Yun Dye.”
“Looks like we’ll have to find a way to guard against him a bit in the future, this man is more indolent than we thought, and will strike whenever he finds the opportunity.”
“That’s right, and what exactly is his purpose in lurking among us? I don’t believe the Yun family has gone to great lengths to arrange for someone to come in just to cause trouble.”
Just as I finished speaking, Moon Fullbow made a no-speech gesture to me.
I stopped talking because I also heard footsteps outside the house, who was it? Who was eavesdropping?
“Brother Zhang, senior brother, I’ve brought the rice, help me open the door.” We both sighed with relief when we heard it was Xiao Gong’s voice.
Yue Man Gong admonished, “You can’t tell anyone about today’s incident.”
He opened the door of the room for Xiaogong, who brought over a lot of dishes, carrying two food boxes in one hand, one with six layers, and he was like carrying two towers.
I looked dumbfounded, and I said, “So many? You’re not here to feed me, you’re here to feed a reinforced company.”
Xiao Gong said, “Oh, you’re injured, so eat more, we don’t have so many dishes in the Thousand Gate.”
But Moon Man-bow frowned and circled back, “No Komiya, you used to prepare dinner with the utmost precision, as many servings as there should be, and there was no banquet today, so how could there be extra dishes?”
Xiao Gong said, “I don’t know, it was still made for that many people, but two extra portions came out, so I brought them all to Brother Zhang.”
“Two copies?” I said, “So you received the food according to the number of people?”
“That’s not true. But I will prepare the meal according to the number of people eating, we don’t charge for this meal, so how can we ask people to receive the meal according to their heads, there’s no need, they’re all from their own families.”
Komiya’s words made both Tsukimanbow and I giggle for a moment as a serious problem occurred to both of us at the same time.
If Komiya cooked according to the number of people each time, then this number was according to the actual number of people, so it was evident that the two people who usually lived in the bas*ment were the ones who mixed in here to eat.
Today these two people didn’t come to get their meals, so there were fewer people.
These two people could have been disguised or used some other method, in any case so that no one ever suspected them.
But yesterday, these two men had clearly fled to the back of the hill, so why was it that when Komagoya confirmed the number of people, he could unequivocally confirm that there were no fewer people?
Someone had pretended to be one of the Thousand Sect’s sons and blended in with the crowd, and yesterday there were so many people that they didn’t recognise them, and they just happened to take the two places that were missing yesterday.
