Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Inspection
This small, nameless town didn’t demand travel permits.
Even so, Grandpa Ling refused to stay at an inn.
“We look poor,” he told Ling Jin Sui. “If poor people stay at an inn, it means they’re carrying money. That invites wolves.”
“In towns we buy what we need. For a night, we borrow shelter at a temple or monastery. A few coins of incense money is enough.”
Ling Jin Sui agreed wholeheartedly.
She’d learned the hard way—she’d walked straight into an inn before and lost her donkey for it.
Grandpa Ling truly was an old hand.
As for why bandits had caught him, it could only be rotten luck.
During those hours, Ling Jin Sui quietly tested the laboratory’s rhythm.
Once every two hours, she could enter for ten minutes.
The potato she had removed had restored back into six.
Anything she carried on her could be placed inside.
But anything brought in from outside would not replenish after use.
It could only be stored—a true pocket space.
Even so, it changed everything.
Food stored inside wouldn’t spoil.
Heavy items could be hidden instead of carried.
The only problem was the delay between entries.
It was inconvenient—and she feared Grandpa Ling might notice her slipping away.
For now, she kept their newly bought goods in ordinary bundles.
She and Grandpa Ling each carried one pack, and it was manageable.
By late afternoon they reached an old, worn-down Daoist temple.
Grandpa Ling leaned close and spoke as if sharing a secret.
“I can get you an ordination paper.”
Ling Jin Sui’s eyes widened.
“How?”
Grandpa Ling stroked his goat beard and delivered the answer with a smug smile.
“Pay money and buy it.”
Ling Jin Sui stared.
“So… a fake paper?”
Grandpa Ling looked offended.
“How is it fake? The temple issues it. You’re a Daoist novice. That makes it real.”
When Ling Jin Sui’s expression turned even flatter, Grandpa Ling chuckled under his breath.
“Just don’t go to big prefecture cities. Small places don’t check that hard.”
Then he glared, as if remembering his dignity.
“You child. Your grandfather is a genuine Daoist.”
Ling Jin Sui bit back her laughter.
Traveling with Grandpa Ling—even on the run—was strangely, unexpectedly lively.
Grandpa Ling even bargained over the “paper,” dropping the price from two taels to one tael and six qian.
He threw in a few white-flour cakes, and in return demanded a stack of talismans.
With a few more coins, they stayed the night.
They bathed, ate hot noodle soup, and washed their clothes.
Grandpa Ling also acquired a whisk and fashioned a signboard himself, painting bold characters into the equivalent of: Divine Calculations.
He made Ling Jin Sui carry it.
The weight wasn’t heavy, but her conscience was.
“Grandpa,” she whispered, “what if someone really asks you to read their fortune?”
Ling Jin Sui’s scalp tingled.
“Then don’t go giving people talisman water. If anyone insists, let me soak it.”
Grandpa Ling laughed.
“Relax. We read fortunes. We don’t treat illness.”
When they left the next day, they looked every bit the Daoist and the Daoist novice.
Ling Jin Sui kept her ordination paper tucked close.
If anyone questioned her, she could slap proof in their face.
Grandpa Ling made her memorize Dao De Jing and Nan Hua True Classic, just in case they met someone who took doctrine seriously.
He drilled her on how men walked and spoke, and along the way told stories from his youth roaming the roads.
Even with danger close behind them, the journey felt less bleak with him beside her.
Then they reached a checkpoint.
Travelers lined up in a long, restless queue.
Ling Jin Sui stayed close behind Grandpa Ling and spoke as little as possible.
Several constables held portraits and compared faces one by one, questioning people.
Grandpa Ling and Ling Jin Sui traded a glance.
Their hearts tightened.
Was the hunt for them?
Ling Jin Sui flicked her eyes toward the woods.
Grandpa Ling glanced at the stationed troops and gave a small, subtle shake of his head.
Too many soldiers.
No way out.
They began to shift in the crowd—not pushing forward, but drifting back.
In a few moments, they had let others pass ahead of them and found themselves near the rear again.
Before they could decide on anything, a soldier rode up holding a portrait and began inspecting the back of the line.
He looked at Grandpa Ling.
Then at Ling Jin Sui.
The seconds stretched thin and endless.
Ling Jin Sui’s palm prickled, ready to open the laboratory and grab anything that could buy them distance.
But the soldier only glanced twice, showed no suspicion, and moved on.
Grandpa Ling and Ling Jin Sui released careful breaths, but unease remained.
If they didn’t know who the portrait showed, they couldn’t know what danger it represented.
When their turn came, the soldier only glanced at their ordination papers.
Then, unexpectedly, he held up the portrait toward them.
“Have you seen this man on the road?”
The drawing was rough, lines thick, but the eyes were unmistakable—phoenix eyes, sharp and elegant.
Ling Jin Sui recognized him at once.
It was the man she and Grandpa Ling had hidden in the reeds two days earlier.
They had been hunting him.
Grandpa Ling didn’t show even a flicker of surprise.
“This old man hasn’t seen him.”
Ling Jin Sui shook her head quickly too, acting timid and afraid to meet the soldier’s gaze.
The soldier didn’t press them.
He waved them through.
They didn’t look back until they had walked three li beyond the checkpoint.
Only then did Grandpa Ling speak in a low voice, wry with feeling.
“You were right.”
Ling Jin Sui blinked.
“About what?”
Grandpa Ling sighed.
“Men by the roadside can’t be rescued. If we’d dragged him along, we’d have invited disaster.”
Ling Jin Sui let out a muffled laugh—and a faint, uneasy worry.
That man really was trouble.
Had he even survived?
Farther from the checkpoint, other travelers finally began to speak openly.
Some swore the man in the portrait was a murderous bandit with several lives on his hands.
Some called him a woman thief.
Some insisted he was a bandit, full stop.
The stories contradicted each other so badly that Ling Jin Sui believed none of them.
Constables and soldiers were chasing him, yet they didn’t even announce his crime clearly, and the portrait carried no name.
Trouble—and mysterious trouble at that.
Still, caution stayed sharp.
Best to reach Jiang Nan quickly.
By the time they arrived at the ferry, they were hungry again.
They sat at a grass-roof tea stall by the water and paid five coins for a pot of tea and four flatbreads.
Grandpa Ling chatted easily with the shopkeeper and passing travelers, fishing for news about Jiang Nan and Chang An without ever asking directly about Father Ling’s case.
When the shopkeeper heard they meant to go to Jiang Nan, he waved a hand as if swatting a fly.
“Then you can’t go for now. Luo City has flooding. Boats heading to Jiang Nan have all stopped running.”