The status of Jing'an Department was too sensitive. Its catching fire on this occasion would surely get attention from all sides.

Theoretically, at this moment, they should try to salvage those files in the hall first, then find a way to restore the communication function of the main watchtower and then dispatch troops to organize a defense. But the two superiors, He Zhizhang and Li Bi, were seriously ill and abducted respectively. Jing'an Commandant and the General of Lubi Army were in Yining Fang which was far away, and Curator Xu Bin was also missing. The whole situation of this leaderless department was chaotic.

Jing'an Department was paralyzed like a giant shot by a poison arrow who instantly fell to the ground unconscious.

A team of cavalrymen galloped over. Their shoulder pads were edged with leopard fur, which was a clear indication that they were crack Leopard Cavalrymen at the command of the Praetorian Guards Department. Crackintheir horsewhips, Leopard Cavalrymen roughly forced lookers-on aside and soon cleared an area near the scene of the fire, which was safe from the fire. Gan Shoucheng dressed in military uniform arrived, surrounded by a dozen personal guards.

The Praetorian Guards Department had no jurisdiction over places outside the imperial city, but Gan Shoucheng happened to be on an inspection tour nearby, so he hurried over.

Gan Shoucheng raised his head and silently observed the fire in the main hall, his tight face expressionless. A bodyguard stood beside him smiled, "Jing'an Department burnt our houses, and they got their payback after just a couple of hours. Karma is real... " Before he could finish his sentence, with a bang, Gan Shoucheng gave him a lash on the thigh and he jumped up in pain.

Gan Shoucheng growled at him, "Shut your stupid mouth!" At this moment, he felt no satisfaction of getting his revenge at all, only fear.

A while ago, his subordinates just found a couple of civil officials who survived. According to the account of a survivor, it was a group of masked men under the name of Termites who raided Jing'an Department, slaughtered many and destroyed a lot of things. Before any people outside the department noticed, they quickly abducted Sicheng Li and left. And they also sprayed large amounts of mountain tallow and set the hole main hall and wings ablaze before leaving.

Outsides would be shocked by the cruelty of those raiders, but Gan Shoucheng, who had been in the army for decades, felt chills run down his spine. The mastermind, who came up with this plan to launch an attack against the heart, must be formidably courageous and insightful.

This raid, in terms of both intelligence gathering, planning and the efficiency in execution, displayed high levels of professionalism. It was like an obscure military officer fought his way through thousands of troops and managed to cut off the head of the General-in-chief of the enemy. Gan Shoucheng believed that none of those Capital City Garrisons was able to do this, that even border armies didn't have this kind of combat effectiveness.

Compared with this, the embarra.s.sment of losing the bet to Li Bi and He Dong was nothing.

"Termites... Termites... " Gan Shoucheng repeated this name in a muted voice, not remembering any organization bearing it.

What would the outcome have been if it had not been Jing'an Department but the imperial city or one of the three grand palaces that this powerful organization had attacked?

Gan Shoucheng's hand holding a horsewhip started quivering involuntarily as he thought of this, horror bobbling beneath the surface. At this moment, a cavalryman galloped over and reported, "We found Commandant Cui." Gan Shoucheng said, "Tell him to report to me immediately." Cui Qi had been staying in the main hall of Jing'an Department, so he must know more details. But the cavalryman looked hesitant, "Well... I'm afraid you'll have to go there yourself, general."

Gan Shoucheng frowned, jogged the reins and left with the cavalryman.

Nearby Jing'an Department was a drugstore selling both raw medicinal materials and ready-made drugs. A dozen injured people were lying on carelessly laid tarpaulin, groaning in pain continuously. The storekeeper and a sales clerk were busy preparing benne oil in a big stone mortar, which was a drug for burns that could be prepared quickest. There were also a couple of kind-hearted residents busy carrying clean water around. At the gateway of the drugstore, several cavalrymen from the Praetorian Guards Department were guarding the entrance, forbidding people from approaching.

Gan Shoucheng opened the flies and walked inside. There were four people in the room. Apart from Cui Qi, there were two men and a woman on the side, dust and dirt all over their faces, among whom Yao Runeng was the only one Gan Shoucheng knew.

On the sight of Gan Shoucheng, Yao Runeng merely moved his eyes, his face ashened. He had never expected that situation in the main hall was ten times worse than that in the prison. When he saw the raging flames, he nearly lost his mind. His belief, confidence as well as the department he swore allegiance to were burnt to ashes just like that.

Gan Shoucheng's eyes swept across Yao Runeng and then rested on Cui Qi.

He was in a much worse condition than Yao Runeng was, lying bolt upright on a door plank. His lower abdomen was covered in blood, over which Styptic Powder was scattered. Gan Shoucheng could see with half an eye that by no means could he survive, since Styptic Powder was being washed away by blood before it took effect. On hearing footsteps, Cui Qi suddenly opened his eyes and feebly looked in Gan Shoucheng's direction, his mouth closed and opened.

Gan Shoucheng didn't quite like this traitor, but watching the miserable condition he was in, he had no idea what to say, so he directly stooped forward and asked, "Commandant Cui, who do you think those attackers were?"

After quite a while, an extremely feeble voice came. "Soldiers. All of them were soldiers... "

Gan Shoucheng's heart sank. He had been suspecting all along that given the precision and ruthlessness of those raiders' attack, there was no way they were not professional soldiers. There would probably be pandemonium in the Tang military.

"Do you know which region those servicemen were from?" Gan Shoucheng asked a further question.

Cui Qi closed his eyes and lightly shook his head. Seeing that his injury was so serious, Gan Shoucheng had to give up questioning and then made a few absent-minded remarks to comfort him. At this moment, Cui Qi spoke again.

"General Gan... I shouldn't have come to Chang'an."

"Huh?" Gan Shoucheng blanked.

"I came to the capital city because I thought I could win my spurs here, but I shouldn't have come. Chang'an turned me into a coward that I used to despise the most. Sixth brother, I want to return to Longshan. I want to return to Longshan..."

Staring at the ceiling, Cui Qi mumbled, two lines of tears flowing down his cheeks. People around him were silent. Suddenly, he gathered all his strength and yelled, "Cui Qi of Longshan! Cui Qi of Longshan!" Then the yelling came to an abrupt end and with that his breathing ceased.

Wen Ran silently crouched down and wiped Cui Qi's face with a handkerchief. She knew nothing about this man's previous deeds, but she had seen him valiantly fighting the enemies in the prison. Yao Runeng twisted his head aside, deep sorrow in his eyes, recalling that remark of Zhang Xiaojing: "When you're in Chang'an, you either become a monster like it or become devoured by it."

Gan Shoucheng stood up, held his left forearm horizontally before his chest and knocked his chest three times. This was a salute used by soldiers to show respect to their deceased fellow soldiers. Behind Gan Shoucheng, bodyguards also saluted in unison in the same way their general did.

Then a voice rang out in the room. " Listen to the most sorrowful tune on Hu flute, Played by purple-eyed, green-haired people of Hu. When the song ends, the notes linger, And the forces in distant Loulan lands suffer… In the sad tunes of Hu flute I see you move on, As Mount Qin gazes upon the clouds of Mount Long. The long night of a border city, dreams shrouded in gloom. Who would want to listen to Hu flute under the moon? "

This poem was about soldiers garrisoning border cities, in which the author expressed his grief and wish to go back home. People in the room turned their heads and saw that a young man with a squared face and a prominent nose was leaning against the wall in the corner, arms folded over his chest. It was he who recited the poem.

"You wrote this?" Gan Shoucheng asked. Cen Shen cupped his hands before his chest and said, "This scene inspired me. They're just a few crude sentences and they don't count as a decent poem. I'm Cen Shen from Xianzhou."

"The poem is pretty good but inopportune. Our country is in her prime. Why write a poem full of pessimism?" Gan Shoucheng casually made a couple of comments and then turned around and walked out of the room. Cen Shen said loudly from behind him, "Do you really think servility and compliments are all this flouris.h.i.+ng age needs? Seeing too many colors clouds people's judgement, and people cannot see hidden danger without sound judgement."

Gan Shoucheng stopped.

But it was not because he was shocked by Cen Shen's words -those were just cliché complaints of the intelligentsia -but because a horrific conjecture struck him as he heard Cen Shen's last remark.

Those people who attacked Jing'an Department carried mountain tallow with them clearly because they wanted to inflict destruction on the department, and they retreated immediately the moment they achieved their goal which seemed more like some kind of precaution than an act of revenge: Jing'an Department was like the eyes of Chang'an. Without its eyes, it was blind and its enemies could do whatever they want.

In other words, the raid on Jing'an Department was just a link in the chain. Those raiders must have a bigger target.

Gan Shoucheng's armor was wetted by a layer of cold sweat on the thought of this. There were not many targets bigger than Jing'an Department in Chang'an.

On thinking about this, he became too concerned to stay here and quickly walked out of the drugstore. The situation outside was still chaotic and flames were still blazing with no signs of abatement at all. Staff members of half a dozen different yamens (Offices of public officials in feudal China) mixed together yelling, each acting in his own way. n.o.body was in command, and the rescue operation and firefighting were very ineffective.

'Without a new superior, Jing'an Department is done for,' Gan Shoucheng thought.

He disliked Jing'an Department, but he had to admit that the role it played in locating enemies could not be replaced by any of other departments. If it was destroyed, that would be a terrible blow to the security of the whole Chang'an.

A huge, burning block of square timber dropped down and hit an ox-drawn carriage transferring the injured, sending a ripple of exclamation of horror through the crowd. The driver made a mistake. He parked the carriage too close to the scene of the fire.

A couple of patrol soldiers were making stretchers, planning to use them to transfer patients, but they happened to have blocked the path in front of the neighborhood  gate, and people carrying water sacks couldn't get through, so soldiers trying to put out the fire at the front had no choice but to draw back. Accidentally, they stepped on a couple of stretchers and broke them, which caused a quarrel.

Similar things were happening here and there on the scene, severely hindering the progress of the rescue operation.

Watching them making such stupid mistakes, Gan Shoucheng was driven beyond the limit of his forbearance. He took a step forward and raised his right hand. As the one of the highest rank on the scene, as long as he raised his arm in a call for action, the situation would take a turn for the better instantly, but after hesitating for quite a while, Gan Shoucheng put his hand down.

'A general of Praetorian Guards taking command of the defense of capital city? No. This is a great taboo. Under no circ.u.mstances should I do this. The man behind Jing'an Department is the Crown Prince. Only someone working for the East Palace can clear up this messy situation.'

'Hmm? Wait. Not necessarily.'