The Double

He hurriedly tugged at Jiang Li, hoping his niece would see the error of her ways, and said, "Jiang Li, what do you say? Shall we go back now?"

Jiang Li turned around, looked at Ye Mingyu’s arm, and replied, "Alright, uncle, let’s go home first to find a doctor to reapply the medicine. It won’t do to leave the wound bandaged like this. Tonight, everyone can have a peaceful night’s sleep." Since Jih Heng declared that Feng Yutang’s men would not come causing trouble, it meant someone would ensure the safety of Ye Mingyu and his party—at least within these seven days in Tongxiang, Jiang Li could walk the streets without fear of being suddenly assassinated.

Ye Mingyu was originally unconcerned about his injury, but seeing Jiang Li’s concern for him, he felt a stir of emotion and immediately began to exclaim "ouch, ouch," grossly exaggerating his pain. He said, "It hurts so much, I really need to find a doctor for proper bandaging. Let’s go, Jiang Li, back home first." He thought, as long as Jiang Li’s attention was diverted to him, she would naturally not worry about that troublesome Duke. Right, he also had to find out tomorrow just how important a Duke was.

Jiang Li found Ye Mingyu’s sudden delicateness odd, but thinking he was truly in pain, she said no more and helped him back to their residence in Green Stone Lane first.

Bai Xue and Tonger had been standing at the gate, craning their necks in wait. The entire day had passed into night without any sign of Jiang Li and Ye Mingyu returning. The two maids were so worried they couldn’t eat or sleep, but seeing the group return safe and sound all of a sudden, they were nearly moved to tears. Jiang Li ordered them to prepare hot water for bathing and food, and sent an uninjured person to summon a doctor to take care of Ye Mingyu’s men first.

While Bai Xue was cleaning Ye Mingyu’s wound, Ye Mingyu asked Jiang Li, "Jiang Li, now that Peng Xiao and the others have been rescued and we have the archives in hand, what’s our next step? Do you mean we should go and seek out the Tongxiang citizens, family by family?"

"Yes," Jiang Li nodded. "Uncle, you should rest well tonight, and tomorrow morning we shall start our inquiry from house to house. There are only five hundred and sixty-eight households. Although we may not be able to cover them all, asking one more household is still better."

"So we’ll spend these five days doing this?" Ye Mingyu asked.