They arrived slightly more sober outside the Mei mansion, and the Prince dispatched his guards to lurk across the road.
The three of them moved up against the side wall of the complex, shrouded in the half-dark.
"It's well-guarded, said Bai Li. "They run patrols all night and have fixed guards stationed every fifty metres. We'll need to time our entry with the patrols."
"Where's Mei Meili's courtyard? Does anyone know?" whispered the Prince.
"I know where all of the brothers' rooms are, so by a process of elimination I can make a pretty good guess where she must reside in the inner courtyards," Tan Bowen looked determined.
"I'm getting too sober to do this," Bai Li shook his head ruefully. "Can I say for posterity that this is a really bad idea."
"You can't back out now. I thought you were 'super-confident' in your lightness skills?"
"I am. What I'm struggling with is not my skills but my conscience. I'm about to spy on my good friends' sister in her own courtyard. I'm no better than a common peeping Tom. If one of my men did this and got caught, I'd whip him."
"Well don't get caught and suppress your conscience," Tan Bowen snapped. "We have a mystery to solve, and I'm not leaving until we crack it."
"Cracking your head is more likely."
The Prince crept back to them both. While they were arguing he'd snuck away and stuck his head through a dog hole in the wall.
He gestured in military hand signals; two guards, every five minutes, just passed by.
The three men scrambled over the wall and landed lightly in the garden of an outer courtyard.
Bai Li gestured for them to jump up onto the rooftops.
The Prince and Bai Li lightly ran and sprang onto the nearest tiled roof. Tan Bowen climbed onto a handrail and pulled himself up behind them.
The men crouched and silently ran across the buildings, Tan Bowen leading the way.
Ignorant of what was unfolding on the mansion's rooftops, Mei Meili had risen with the dawn.
She planned to attend the temple with Second Brother this morning, to light some incense for Lie Ma. She would take a bath before the visit to purify herself.
As the only girl in the family and confined for most of her waking hours to these courtyards, Meili had been given a beautiful, spacious and completely private courtyard.
It had two rooms opening onto it, a small garden pavilion, and a clear aqua pool that was fed by a hot spring.
This was a real luxury, as the pool stayed warm all year round, creating a micro-climate where blossoms could be found most of the year, and snow was confined to the tree-tops and outermost shrubbery.
Manni had filled the pool with fragrant petals and withdrawn after leaving her mistress in a thin white robe.
Tricky-Wu lay contentedly on a flat rock by the side of the pool, enjoying the warm steam rising from the surface, while keeping an eye on Meili.
She slipped out of her robe and sat on a ledge in the warm pool. It was a beautiful time of day, with a crescent moon still visible, in a sky that was a deep midnight blue, shading into just emerging orange.
Her long black hair cascaded down her back, glinting with hints of auburn. Tiny silver bells tinkled as she moved. Her father had gifted her a delicate pair of earrings that were her new favourites.
It felt wonderful to be free of her chest binding. It was starting to get quite painful. She didn't dare stop wearing it however, in case it encouraged her already disconcertingly large breasts to keep expanding.
It was onto this scene that Tan Bowen, Bai Li and the Prince happened, as they soundlessly raised their heads above the peaked roofline of Meili's courtyard.
She had her back to the men, but she stood, and her graceful figure was clearly visible in the half light. The curved rise of her ample bottom could just be seen peeking from the water.
She leaned forward to catch an early-flowering plum blossom as it dropped into the water, pressing it behind her ear.
The scene was otherworldly.
Tan Bowen wondered if it was real, or was this a water sprite or a goddess come to bathe in this perfect clear pool surrounded by plum blossoms, camellias and a light dusting of snow?
For a full minute not one of them moved or breathed; they were both shocked and captivated.
She half-turned towards the hidden watchers and looked up at the moon.
That face!
A line from Bai Juyi's poem sprang unbidden to Tan Bowen: "If she but turned her head and smiled, there were cast a hundred spells".
Such beautiful eyes, perfect brows, bow lips – a spell was most definitely cast over her unseen audience.
Her long hair covered her generous curves, allowing tantalising glimpses.
She reached behind her neck to push back her hair.
Bai Li, realising what was about to happen, clamped each of his hands firmly over the eyes of the Prince and Tan Bowen.
A fight broke out on the ridgeline as both men clawed and scratched at him in a panicked attempt to see.
Their scrabbling alerted Tricky, who leapt to his feet and growled in the direction of the noise.
Meili looked up in fright just as Bai Li pushed his two friends hard, sliding them down the steep rooftop in the opposite direction from her courtyard.
For just a split second, the eyes of Bai Li and Mei Meili met.
She let out a high-pitched scream and he disappeared in a flash.
Tricky snarled and growled, the cute ball of cream fluff suddenly fierce.
Meili fled from the pool, hastily pulling on her robe.
Manni was first on the scene, followed closely by Third Brother, then the household guards a few steps behind him.
"Get out!" Third Brother roared, seeing that his sister was lightly clad.
Manni ran to get her clothes. Meanwhile, Third Brother wrapped his little sister in his cloak.
"What happened?" he asked with concern. "Are you hurt?"
"No," she sobbed. "Someone was up there on the roof," she pointed at where she had seen Bai Li.
"What!!" Third shouted at the guards to watch over her, then he was up and after the intruder in a flash.
He couldn't have known he'd have no chance of catching up to the peeping Toms.
The three men ran like the hounds of hell were on their tails.
They had done a very, very bad thing to a young lady who was very, very protected by a tribe of brothers and a military father.
They would regroup to discuss what had happened later.
Right now, they all ran for their lives.