68: Cousin Su Wenfu Rides South
Cousin Su Wenfu departed Cloud Sky City on the morning of the tenth day after the homecoming.
He rode alone, in the plain dark traveling robes of a clansman on a household errand, with a small careful preceding silver belt-pouch, a sealed letter of credit to the second branch's southern accounts, and a careful preceding small private memorized list of seven names — the first three on his mother's hidden list south of the kingdom's central plain, plus four further names Cousin Su Lin's notebook had identified as *displaceable south*.
He had been instructed, by Su Yan's preceding small private briefing, to spend the careful preceding small private hour of the next four months on three specific tasks.
The first task was to *map* the kingdom's south-eastern foothills. Cousin Su Wenfu would, by his preceding preference, travel in the small unhurried courtesy of a household liaison conducting routine agricultural visits to the second branch's south-eastern holdings. He would, by the cover of those visits, *survey* the foothills' substrate by the small careful preceding ordinary instruments his mother's seven cultivation books had taught Su Yan how to construct, and which Cousin Su Wenfu had, in the past three weeks, been carefully preceding-time taught to operate.
The second task was to *quietly recruit* small careful preceding additional members for the southern branch of the Voiceless Inheritance. Cousin Su Wenfu's standing target was *eight further members* by the close of the four months, drawn from the south-eastern foothills' careful preceding small private displaced-cultivator population.
The third task — by Su Yan's preceding preference, by Cousin Su Wenfu's careful read of the briefing — was to *locate the City of the Voiceless*.
The City of the Voiceless was — by Su Yan's careful preceding read of his mother's hidden cellar's geography books, by the careful preceding small private mention in the third pendant-layer of his mother's preceding letter ten years ago, and by the careful preceding small private cross-reference with Master Lou's intercepted notebook — *somewhere* in the kingdom's south-eastern foothills, in a careful preceding small private underground site that the kingdom's standing botanical record had filed as *uninhabited*.
The City of the Voiceless was, by every careful preceding read, the careful preceding small private *secondary Hollow Veil facility* in the kingdom of Beicang. It had been — by the careful preceding small private hour of nine months of accumulated Bureau intelligence — *abandoned* by the Hollow Veil chain for the past three years, after Master Lou's preceding-time superior had been promoted out of regional command. The careful preceding small private facility had, by the careful preceding small private hour of three years, *no preceding active operatives*.
It would — by Master Qing's careful preceding small private teaching at the upcoming first quarterly meal — *retain* the substrate-traces of every preceding small private occupant the careful preceding small private facility had held during its preceding small private operational decade.
Including, by Su Yan's careful preceding small private read, *Lin Wanyue*.
If Cousin Su Wenfu could *locate* the facility — and *enter* it — by the careful preceding small private hour of the next four months, the careful preceding small private substrate-traces could be — *gathered* — and *brought back* — for the careful preceding small private calibration of Master Qing's substrate-anchor pair.
The substrate-anchor pair would, by the careful preceding small private hour of Master Qing's preceding teaching, *connect* — by some small careful preceding small private private substrate-mathematics Sebastian Yan was still, by his own preceding read, learning — *the City of the Voiceless's preceding residual substrate-traces* with the careful preceding small private substrate-traces of *the eastern continent's central facility* that the seventh book of his mother's preceding cellar set described.
The two anchors, when paired by the careful preceding small private hour of the next seventeen months and ten days, would *open* — by the careful preceding small private hour of one substrate-cultivator's preceding small private extraction — a small careful preceding precise unhurried preceding *teleport corridor* between the two facilities.
Cousin Su Wenfu would not, by Su Yan's preceding preference, conduct the careful preceding small private substrate-trace gathering himself. He had been instructed only to *locate* and *map*. The gathering would be, by Su Yan's preceding preference, a *separate trip* he and Linglong would conduct, in approximately three to five months, when Master Qing's preceding teaching had calibrated the careful preceding small private substrate-anchor calibration sufficient for the gathering.
Cousin Su Wenfu's saddlebags were packed.
He inclined his head — small, formal — to Su Yan at the eastern wing's outer gate at the morning's first hour.
"Cousin."
"Cousin Su Wenfu."
"By my own preceding preference, I will return — by the careful preceding small private hour of four months from this morning — with the small careful preceding three findings the careful preceding small private hour of the briefing has calibrated for. If I do not return by the careful preceding small private hour of four months and seven days, I will, by my own preceding preference, have failed at one of the three. If I do not return by the careful preceding small private hour of five months, I will, by my own preceding read, *not be returning*. In that careful preceding small private case, by my own preceding preference, please *send Hua Lin* — and his three best — *to retrieve my preceding small private private notebook from the safe-house in the village of Mei-cun, southeast of the kingdom's central plain*. The notebook will, by my careful preceding preference, contain the careful preceding small private intelligence the careful preceding small private hour will, by some preceding small private accident, have failed to permit me to deliver in person."
Su Yan inclined his head.
"Cousin Su Wenfu. By my own preceding preference, *do not fail to return*. The careful preceding small private hour of the careful preceding small private next four months, by every preceding small private bookkeeping of mine, *requires you*."
Cousin Su Wenfu inclined his head — small, formal.
He mounted his horse.
He rode south, at the unhurried pace of a household liaison on a routine agricultural errand, through the eighth district's outer gate and onto the broad east road in the small careful preceding cool morning of the late spring of the kingdom of Beicang of the Azure Cloud Continent.
Su Yan watched him go from the eastern wing's small careful preceding outer porch.
In his chest, the ember pulsed — slow, considered, *grave* — and the dry voice, very quietly, said: *He will, by my read, return. Trust him.*
Su Yan inclined his head, in the small careful preceding morning light, in the direction of the ember.
The careful preceding small private fourth quarter's preceding small private preceding piece — *the City of the Voiceless* — had, by the small careful preceding small private hour of one cousin's preceding small private departure, *been activated*.