In the awning boat sailing on the canal at night, three volumes of "Records of Visits to the Ming Yi" filled with annotations are exuding the fragrance of ink. Gu Jingchen, a Confucian classics teacher, had just bundled the manuscript into his arms when his black night-walking clothes were torn in. The silver-threaded bat tattoo shone coldly under the moonlight, which was the symbol of the Qing court's secret agent "Shadow Guard".
Huang Yanqiu's copper flute and silver needle have not yet been unsheathed, and the boatman's body has fallen into the canal; behind the table that Lu Henian overturned was a secret letter of wax pills to and from the remnants of the Nanming Dynasty. When the assassin's short knife was pressed against Gu Jingchen's throat, no one noticed the piece of bamboo that slipped from his sleeve - it was a fragment scraped from the prison shackles ten years ago.
The river breeze that came in through the hole in the cabin door was mixed with the smell of reeds and blood. The three volumes of forbidden books contain arguments that can subvert the government and the opposition, and the mud marks on the soles of the pursuers' boots are pointing to the city of Shaoxing three hundred miles away. When the oil lamp suddenly went out in the draft, they finally understood: the canal tonight was just the first light of the sword to light up in the long night.
