Chapter 1876 - Out with the Old, In with the New (Part 12)

The time was half past six in the evening. In August, daylight still lingered. Outside Golden Flower Temple, the Australians' newly trained constables—now called police—had surrounded the place three layers deep, impenetrable. The baojia heads and ward leaders of several nearby wards had also brought out "public order activists" to stand watch outside and maintain order.

Several nearby street corners were blocked with barricades. Everyone entering or exiting was questioned; suspicious individuals were temporarily detained until the local ward head or baojia head could come vouch for them and take them back.

Ordinary citizens could only watch from a distance. Those with good information were chattering to people around them, swearing that the sorcery case had been solved and the Guandi Temple faction was the culprit. This citywide roundup was to catch the main criminals and bring them to justice.

The raid on Guandi Temple had taken more time than anticipated. The beggars gathered in front hadn't resisted; seeing police approach, they scattered in all directions. They were captured one by one at various street corners. Those who climbed roofs, scaled walls, or jumped into rivers to escape got bullets for their trouble, becoming a row of corpses covered with reed mats at the foot of the temple wall. The rear residence had required more effort; police had to use tear gas to drive out the weeping and wailing women and servants.

Overall, the operation had met little resistance—not even token opposition. Before the iron fist of the dictatorship, the beggars proved quite pragmatic.

The main gate of Golden Flower Temple stood wide open. The bloodstains on the steps were still fresh—left by someone who hadn't been pragmatic enough and had been run through with a bayonet.

The Guandi Temple faction's upper and lower ranks inside the temple had all been cleared out and taken away. Police and National Army soldiers now moved in and out of the temple gate, conducting a comprehensive search under the direction of the Planning Institute's Special Search Squad.

Under a kapok tree at a street corner, a folding table had been set up. This was the command post for the Elements. In cracking down on local evil forces, the key was "punish the ringleaders"—Gao Tianshi was already dead and couldn't enjoy the treatment of "having his evil deeds exposed" through a public trial, but since his son was still Chief Beggar, the "ringleader" label would naturally be pinned on him.

Cui Hantang wore a Daoist robe, his body hung with various demon-subduing and evil-dispelling talismans. Fanning himself, he watched the search process. As the two Elements leading the Golden Flower Temple team, besides serving as chief and deputy team leaders, Daoist Cui had a special mission: according to the sorcery case investigation, the Guandi Temple faction was deeply implicated and might have secrets hidden in their lair. He was to "take a look."

There was also an unstated reason: since the Guandi Temple faction was deeply involved in the sorcery case, Daoist Cui was there to bolster the courage of the young police force—the naturalized citizens of Guangzhou weren't like those in Lingao; feudal superstition still had quite a market here.

Sitting beside him drinking tea was the newly arrived "prosecutor" Shen Ruiming. This was his first time participating in such an arrest operation, and everything felt novel to him.

Though called "command," actually Cui and Shen only gave orders and set the general direction. The actual execution was handled by senior naturalized police officers.

By now, work was winding down. As the latest report came in, disappointment appeared on both Cui's and Shen's faces—this raid on the Guandi Temple headquarters had been a failure!

Not only had Gao Lingxiang not been captured, but even his wife and children were all at large. Only a few concubines had been left behind.

Gao Tianshi had three surviving sons and two daughters. The daughters were already married off. Of those caught in the Gao residence, only Gao Tianshi's fourth son, Gao Lingquan—a locally famous wastrel and young thug—was found. When police burst in, he was fooling around with one of Gao Tianshi's concubines. Terrified into a puddle, he could barely climb off the woman.

Though Gao Lingquan was quite notorious among local wastrels, he wasn't a key figure.

As for the still-uncaptured Gao Lingda, his presence was even more negligible. His wife, when asked about her husband, looked indifferent—seemingly completely unconcerned about whether he lived or died.

Several of the Gao family's trusted secretaries who handled important affairs had also vanished without a trace.

Having just arrived, Shen Ruiming didn't yet have a direct sense of the Guandi Temple faction and was somewhat confused by this result. But for Cui Hantang, who had been directly involved in the sorcery case, this was truly disappointing.

Preliminary interrogation of the arrested revealed that all these people had left just in the past two days. Gao Lingxiang's wife and children had gone "to visit her parents," they said. As for Gao Lingxiang himself, he had still been at Golden Flower Temple issuing orders yesterday; only this morning had his room been discovered empty.

From this, it appeared Gao Lingxiang had fled in great haste, and his movements had been secretive—even the surveillance posts watching from outside the temple hadn't noticed. He must have received quite accurate information before fleeing.

Cui Hantang muttered: "I think Mayor Liu is going to blow his top..."

Not a single important figure had been caught. Even someone as unfamiliar with local conditions as Shen Ruiming knew something had gone very wrong: "I think there's been a leak."

"There's a spy!" Cui Hantang gritted his teeth.

"That's certain!" Shen Ruiming nodded. He had already read many of the sorcery case files and vividly remembered Han Yue's betrayal. It seemed the traitors in the municipal government weren't limited to Han Yue alone.

Just then, more than a dozen women in mourning clothes were escorted stumbling past. Each face was dark and grief-stricken. Cui Hantang called out to the escorting police:

"Who are these people?"

"All Gao Tianshi's concubines," the policeman said.

"This beggar chief had over a dozen little wives!" Shen Ruiming exclaimed in surprise.

"What's surprising about that? Gao Tianshi was the 'standing prefect'—what's a few extra wives?" Cui Hantang surveyed these women casually: from middle-aged women in their forties to teenage girls, every age group was represented. Some plump, some slender, each different—what they had in common were bound feet.

"What a waste, this Gao Tianshi!" Cui Hantang watched the female prisoner column gradually recede, feeling it was a pity. Patting his belly, he said, "The New Daoism happens to need female disciples..."

Shen Ruiming cut him off mid-sentence: "Our judicial department has plenty of cadres who still don't have wives!"

"Damn it, I was just talking. No need to be so eager."

As the two bantered, a policeman came to report that the interior had been cleared of personnel. Would the two chiefs please come in to inspect?

Walking through the main gate, they saw the temple grounds were quite extensive, but the buildings were dilapidated and crumbling—walls fallen, roofs collapsed. By Executive Council standards, they were all hazardous structures. Inside the main gate, along the path, the corridors and side halls on both sides housed beggars. According to investigation, hundreds of beggars lived permanently here—the filthy conditions could be imagined.

The beggars had just been rounded up. Inside and out, their discarded tattered clothes, reed mats, and various broken pots and jars still littered the place... A foul stench permeated the air. Cui Hantang recalled that Liu San had told the municipal government several times that the temples and ancestral halls where beggars congregated could become major sources of summer epidemics. He couldn't help frowning.

Passing through the first two courtyards, the third was much better. The main hall here was where the Chief Beggars "conducted business"—complete with a judge's bench and punishment implements. The staff that symbolized the Chief Beggar's authority, the "imperially bestowed divine staff," was being carefully removed from its base by several policemen.

This "staff" aroused their great interest. The yellow cloth cover outside had rotted through and crumbled at a touch; in many places, it had been rewrapped and patched with yellow cloth. At the top, where seal strips covered the opening, stamps were visible. The seal strips were quite new—according to the date, they had been replaced at New Year. Neither of them could read seal script and didn't care to know what it said. They ordered the soldiers to open the cloth cover and see what this "imperially bestowed dragon-head staff" really looked like.

Regarding this "imperially bestowed staff," the Elements had all heard its legends: that it was a gift from Zhu Yuanzhang himself, transported by special envoy from Nanjing, made of rosewood, its entire body carved with dragons... Moreover, the staff was said to have spiritual power—whenever Guangzhou faced danger, it would manifest miracles... The tales were fantastical, so Cui Hantang very much wanted to see the object's true face.

But as soon as the cloth cover was pulled back a bit, bare wood showed through. Though aged and darkened over the years, the rough, unsanded, unpainted texture was still quite clear.

From the wood grain, it was obviously not rosewood—not even hardwood. Probably just common pine or cypress.

Pulling the cloth cover up further, more bare wood appeared—no carved dragons, not even a coat of paint. At the top, where legend placed the dragon head, there was no dragon head at all—just a roughly hewn block of wood fixed on top with nails.

"This is the imperially bestowed staff?!" Shen Ruiming looked at the "staff" before him, truly surprised.

The Elements hadn't really believed the "imperially bestowed staff" legends. Even if such a thing had once existed, the chances of it surviving to the present were slim—it had probably been remade at some point.

But they hadn't expected it to be this crude. In Cui Hantang's words, "the forgery shows absolutely no sincerity"—no wonder no one had ever seen the yellow cloth cover opened.

"Damn it! This is just a thick stick!" Cui Hantang exclaimed. "This is the Gao family heirloom?!"

For over two hundred years, the Gao family had dominated the Chief Beggar position in Guangzhou, relying on the supreme authority of this "imperially bestowed staff." Whether or not the thing had ever really existed in history, with their wealth they could easily have made "a staff that looked real."

Just like this—fooling everyone with a wooden pole from who knows where, not even painted, wrapped in yellow cloth to become the symbol of Gao family authority—and using it for several hundred years. A strong sense of absurdity welled up in Shen Ruiming's heart.

"Chief, what do we do now?" The police and soldiers also found it hard to believe. After a moment of silence, one policeman asked tentatively.

"This thing," Cui Hantang stroked his chin, "is too thick and long to use as a club. Too thin and short for building houses. I figure besides using it for firewood, it's no good for anything else..."

(End of Chapter)