The following morning the usually bustling and lively city was deadly quiet.

The corpses wearing guard uniforms, or remains of guard uniforms, were carefully separated from the bloody pile by specially chosen civil servants; then whatever remained was figured out to belong to filthy xiaren criminals, who marched out against the sect, and properly incinerated in a giant bonfire in the middle of the market plaza.

Thus the plaza was now known as Bonfire Square, and the events of that night-a Bonfire Night, and more informally, the Bonfire Massacre.

It was also the beginning of major administrative and legal changes within not just the city of Kiyi, but all the other lands controlled by Wuyun sect. No longer confident with leaving civilians to their own devices, the Supreme Leader proclaimed assuming direct control over political matters and the economy.

The guard was disbanded and reorganized as auxiliary servant wing of the sect; Wuyun representatives replaced bureaucrats, and merchant guilds were now required to report their income directly to the sect, and pay additional taxes based on esteemed revenue; the income from that went into forming and arming a special reaction task force composed of mundane pureblooded humans, who had absolute authority to operate outside the law and arrest, interrogate and even kill anyone they deemed suspicious at their judgment. Its name was Heiyiwei, the Black Clad Guard, named so after characteristics black robes they wore, which unlike those of former guard, were often additionally reinforced with lacquered leather worn underneath the baggy clothes.

Perhaps the ones hit hardest were yaren, who were blamed for everything that transpired in recent days; additional restrictions on the movement of persons and goods were introduced for those who weren’t pure, and a nationwide census of mixed populations was commenced. Perhaps even more importantly, when the (heavily censored and edited) news of Bonfire Night spread over the central lowlands, a wave of hate, racism, and vigilante justice aimed at the mixed breeds swept the middle kingdom. The newly appointed sectarian government silently allowed for it to happen, as yaren were seen as undesirable and foreign elements that posed an existential threat to law and order.

And within the city of Kiyi, a new enterprise was undergoing; by the orders of the head of the city’s intelligence department, Mei Rulan, all the entrances to the sewers were to be sealed or blocked; that was a rather gargantuan task, as the underground tunnels were decades old, and available maps were fragmented and in many cases outdated; but none dared to disobey the ice-cold gaze of the one called the Scarface, and within a couple of days, the underground maze was completely sealed from the outside world.

Why such orders were given, nobody knew, and nobody dared to inquire; it was sectarian business, and in this day and age, the word of the sect is the law. She led a cohort of guardsman inside through the only entry point left unsealed, and they began meticulously searching every nook and cranny of the tunnels, even going as far as banging on the walls; to what end, nobody knew.

And then they found it.

On the far end of the southeastern tunnel, nearby where water drained outwards below the city wall, there was now quite a majestic, round hole, leading outside.

“By the heavens! What happened here!?” exclaimed the young guardsman, the very same one who not long ago was incarcerated and anxiously awaited his execution.

Being confined in the dungeons during the night riots not only spared him the fate of being slaughtered by a mob of angry xiaren, but they even freed him after taking over the guard outpost, mistakenly assuming that being imprisoned there meant that he too, is the enemy of the system. And the following day, due to massive shortages of manpower and a personal recommendation of Mei Rulan, he was one of the first men promoted to form the foundation of local Heiyiwei!
And now he did his best to suck up to his superior, striking the iron while it’s still hot, so to speak.

He quickly examined the surroundings and found significant traces of black, tar-like substance all around. Soot? No..that was…

“Black powder! They must have blown the wall to smithereens with black powder, and escape!”

Mind you, the young guardsman didn’t quite know who “they” are, but using the power of deduction he figured out they are sealing the tunnels because they are looking for someone-most likely a group of people-as the traces of powder waste suggested that at very least a whole barrel must have been detonated here, and it was unlikely that single person would be able to transport such a heavy load of explosive substance this deeply into the underground waterway maze.

Proud of his deduction, he glanced at the dark-skinned woman with scarred face, eager for praise, a headpat or perhaps even a promotion. However, she just sighed, and dismissively shook her head.

“These walls were build to last. Even in the weakspots such as this one, a black powder explosion should not be capable of dealing a significant amount of damage to their structure, regardless of the amount of fire medicine used.”

She pointed to a pile of bricks nearby. These very bricks composed the wall not long ago; but now they were neatly aligned one next to the other nearby. She told him to closely examine them.

Nervous, he did as he was told; and indeed, upon having a closer look, he made some curious, though disturbing observations.
Only one side of each brick was stained in black tar; but perhaps most surprisingly, their internal structure was undisturbed; there wasn’t even a single crack!

“I don’t understand…”

“It’s almost as if someone carefully picked them apart, removing them with surgical precision from the rest of the wall, careful not to collapse everything; then neatly put them to the side, and left outside….”

She gazed at the endless planes stretching south as far as the horizon. This event must have occurred yesterday, or perhaps the day before yesterday, while they were busy pacifying the riots; there was something else at the play, something she missed; were the riots just a distraction for that?

Once again Mei Rulan felt like she fell into a webway of some unknown mastermind, like she was just a puppet playing to some unknown tune; she gritted her teeth in frustration, cursing that suffocating feeling of powerlessness that once again overcame her.

“…Construction workers, madam?” asked the guard, innocently.

“….Excuse me?”

“Construction workers. They must have sneaked some construction workers in, and dismantled the wall when we weren’t paying attention, right?”

Her jaw momentarily dropped down in utter astonishment.

“You…really are a moron, you know?”

“Ehehe, thank you, madam!”

“No need to thank me, that’s why you were promoted in the first place.”