Siheyuan came through and sent Jia Zhang to prison

Unbeknownst to him, news of his arrest had already spread like wildfire, fluttering over high walls and landing on the desks of those truly in power. At that moment, in a small, blue-brick building with a courtyard in the south of the city, the stove burned brightly, and the air was filled with the fragrant aroma of fine tea. Several people dressed in brocade robes sat around an eight-immortal table, their fingers tapping the surface with a dull, rhythmic sound.

The person sitting in the main seat twirled the lid of his teacup, the rim clinking together with a crisp sound, but his eyes were as cold as ice: "Jiang Hu knows too much; keeping him around is a menace." His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable resolve. "We must shut him up completely before he can open his mouth."

A thin-faced man nearby immediately nodded in agreement: "What you say is true, sir. This chess piece has been used and should be thrown away anyway. Now it might even ruin things, so it can't be kept." The others also nodded in agreement, and no one uttered a single word of objection. In their eyes, Jiang Hu was nothing more than a worn-out chess piece. They had let him get involved in some dirty business because they knew he had something to hold over him. Now that this chess piece was going to roll off the board on its own, there was naturally no reason to keep it.

The iron door of the cell suddenly creaked open, the rusty hinges making a teeth-grinding scraping sound, interrupting Jiang Hu's thoughts. He opened his eyes abruptly and looked warily at the doorway, only to see a jailer pushing a hunched figure into the cell.

It was a ragged beggar, his tattered cotton-padded jacket so worn that the black cotton fibers were showing through. His hair was a tangled mess of withered grass, matted together and covered in mud. His face was smeared with a thick layer of filth, barely revealing the outlines of his eyes. He reeked of a sour, rotten smell, a mixture of rotten vegetable leaves, sewage, and sweat, which made Jiang Hu frown. The man walked with a limp, his left leg clearly weak, and his trousers were stained with dark red dirt, as if he were injured.

Jiang Hu subconsciously shifted his position to the side, trying to get as far away from the beggar as possible. He sized the man up and down, noticing that the man kept his head down, his chin almost touching his chest, and his clothes were so dirty it looked like he'd been pulled out of the mud. He was clearly a lowly person struggling to make a living on the streets. People like that usually end up in jail for stealing steamed buns from a dumpling shop, or for getting in the way of some powerful figure; they're not worth worrying about.

He withdrew his gaze, closed his eyes again, and didn't bother with it anymore. They were all birds in the same cage anyway; neither should complain about the other's dirty feathers. The cell door slammed shut again, the heavy iron lock falling with a dull thud. In the cramped space, only the two men's breathing remained—Jiang Hu's heavy, rapid breath, and the beggar's weak, drawn-out one, occasionally mingled with the footsteps of the patrolling guards outside. The sounds echoed through the deathly silent corridor, only to bounce back against the thick walls, carrying an indescribable oppression, like heavy, dark clouds before a storm.

The damp, musty smell seeped in through the cracks in the wall, like countless tiny, slimy insects, sticking to his skin. Mixed with the fishy stench emanating from the haystack in the corner, it made Jiang Hu cough incessantly. Each cough felt like a blunt object crushing his chest. He huddled on the haystack at the innermost part of the dilapidated temple. His once glossy silk jacket was now covered in mud and straw, the frayed edges of the cuffs drooping. On his exposed wrists, several bluish-purple bruises stood out starkly in the dim light—the marks left from the struggle when he was tied up and thrown into the carriage.

A whole day had passed. Ever since those masked men stuffed him into a black cloth bag and threw him into this drafty, dilapidated temple, he had screamed until his throat was hoarse, as if he had swallowed sand, but not a single person had appeared. The wind outside swirled snowflakes, howling and lashing against the broken windowpanes, the sound shrill and mournful, much like the wailing of a ghost from legend, sending chills down one's spine. Jiang Hu wrapped himself even tighter, but his thin clothes offered no protection from the cold, and his teeth chattered uncontrollably—not entirely from the cold, but more from fear.

He knew exactly what he was carrying. That tiny leather notebook, no bigger than a palm, contained far more than just accounts. It detailed who received how much in bribes, who colluded with which merchant, who mixed sand into the relief grain… those shady deals, those secrets that could nail someone to the pillory of shame, filled the entire notebook. It was his last bargaining chip, a sword hanging over those people's heads, and his only hope for survival.

"They can't abandon me, they absolutely can't..." Jiang Hu repeated to himself, his knuckles turning white from gripping the book so tightly. "If I spill this book, nobody will get away with it! Even if I die, I'll take a few of them down with me!"

Night fell like ink, and the light in the dilapidated temple grew dimmer. Only a few pale rays of snow shone through a hole the size of a bowl in the roof, casting an irregular patch of light on the ground, swaying in the wind like a peering eye. Jiang Hu's eyelids grew heavier and heavier. He hadn't slept for two days and two nights, enduring the rush and the shock; his body was long past its limit. His consciousness, like cotton wool soaking in water, gradually sank, and he was about to drift into sleep.

"Director Jiang."

A hoarse voice suddenly exploded in his ear, like a rusty piece of iron scraping against rotten wood, both rough and grating. Jiang Hu shuddered violently, the hairs on his body standing on end as if pricked by needles. He peered in the dim light of the snow and saw a beggar in a tattered cotton-padded coat squatting in front of a haystack. His hair was like a tangled mess of grass, covered with mud and ice shards, and his face was covered with a thick layer of grime, making it impossible to make out his features. Only his eyes shone brightly in the dim light, gleaming with an indescribable shrewdness.

"Who are you?" Jiang Hu's voice trembled with shock. He instinctively shrank back, his back slamming against the cold earthen wall, causing him to gasp in pain. The wound on his arm was also aggravated, and the burning pain made him grimace.

The beggar didn't reply, but just stared at him and repeated, "Director Jiang."

The address was like a thunderbolt, shattering the panic in Jiang Hu's heart. His heart skipped a beat, then a surge of joy welled up inside him—this address, this timing, it must be someone sent from outside! They really hadn't forgotten him! Jiang Hu struggled to sit up straight, his voice trembling with excitement: "Did they send you? Did they come to rescue me? Tell me! Where's the car? Where are you? Where are you?"

The beggar slowly shook his head, his murky eyes fixed on him like a butcher examining meat on a chopping board: "The people above sent me to ask you if you've said anything you shouldn't have in the past two days."