Chapter 469: Exposure

Across the street not far from Taihe Tower, there was a breakfast stall. Although the sky was only just beginning to brighten, several early-rising customers were already seated at the stall.

The breakfast stall was run by a middle-aged couple; the woman had a rosy face and a full waist, while the man was thin and lean. They had only just set up the stall a short while ago.

Amidst the rising steam, the couple was busy...

Yet, in the midst of such busyness, the man would occasionally cast glances toward the entrance of Taihe Tower. When he had first set up the stall, he had noticed a waiter waiting there. Some time had passed since then, and the waiters at the entrance of Taihe Tower were gathering in increasing numbers, shouting and clamoring, but the main doors of Taihe Tower remained tightly shut, showing no sign of opening.

The man brought a bowl of wontons and a steamer of buns to a certain table, but then he quickly walked over and said to the woman, who was wrapping wontons with "shadowless hands," "You keep busy for now, I'm going across the street."

"I'm busy here! What are you running around for?!" the woman scolded the man, though her hands, which were wrapping wontons, did not stop.

This was a technique she had practiced for years; it was so fast it was almost dazzling. One hand used a spoon to scoop the filling, the other wrapped the skin around the filling and pinched it shut. Her hands moved in and out of sync, already possessing a certain rhythm.

However, she was not a Martial Artist. There are many talented people in this world who, in reality, never have the opportunity to learn martial arts.

The man ignored the woman's scolding and, with a turn of his head, headed across the street.

The woman shot a glare at the man's back and sighed. She had no choice but to stop wrapping wontons for a moment. She dumped all the wrapped wontons into the pot at once, then carried several steamers of buns over to the tables, where a few customers were already sitting and waiting.

After serving the buns and returning to the stall, the wontons were nearly cooked. With nimble movements, she lined up four bowls in front of the steaming pot, quickly tossed several kinds of seasonings into the bowls, and then, with one large ladle, scooped up enough wontons for four servings. With a shake of the ladle, the four bowls of wontons were ready; she added the broth and served them...

Meanwhile, the man arrived in front of Taihe Tower. With a gloomy expression, he scanned the doors and windows all over the tower. As he walked, he wiped his hands with his apron. From time to time, waiters would go up to knock on the doors, but the inside of the building was pitch black and deathly silent.

Suddenly, the man walked slowly to a certain side of Taihe Tower. He turned slightly and looked up toward a certain spot. He saw that under the high eaves, the hanging pigeon cage had an empty bottom, and the entire cage was now a transparent structure of crisscrossing wires.

The man's heart skipped a beat; the early warning had been triggered, but he had not received it.

What this meant was self-evident!

The man's complexion turned extremely ugly. He quickly turned around, crossed the street, and returned to the stall.

Seeing him return so quickly, the woman rolled her eyes at him and said, "Take these few bowls of wontons over. We're so busy we can't even touch the ground, and you're still running around?!"

The man said with a gloomy face, "I have something to take care of. You watch the stall for a moment."

Upon hearing this, the woman was stunned for a moment, but the man had already untied his apron and strode away.

At this moment, a customer at a table began to urge them, "Hurry up! I've almost finished the buns, and you still haven't brought the wontons? Are you trying to choke me to death?!"

"Coming right up!" the woman replied, picking up two bowls of wontons.

However, her eyes were slightly red. Soon there would be more and more people; how could she handle it all by herself?

In the dim light of dawn, the man walked quickly into a small alley. He turned into the alley, took a look, and seeing that there was no one there, he suddenly unleashed his movement technique. His figure flashed swiftly, and he sped away with a whistle...

This man guarding the wonton stall was clearly a master of concealment; his movement technique was not the least bit weak...

Zhu Peng drove the carriage to the entrance of an alley. Duan Rong's figure flickered, and he leaped out of the carriage, vaulted over the alley, and arrived in front of a private residence.

Duan Rong's Divine Sense swept inside, and he was slightly taken aback. The bedding in the room was turned over and in a mess, but there was no sign of anyone.

He suddenly leaped, his figure flashing into the room like a ghost. His eyes moved, and he reached out to touch the inside of the bedding; there was still residual warmth. The person on the bed had clearly left only a short while ago.

Moreover, the room was in disarray everywhere; before that person left, they were clearly searching for something.

Duan Rong stood there and sighed softly. The matter had been exposed earlier than he had imagined.

"It seems that over at Taihe Tower, Ge Rusong must have arranged other measures."

There was nothing to be done about it; after all, Ge Rusong was a crafty and calculating fellow who had been in charge of the Office of Transmission for many years.

Duan Rong surmised that if one place came up empty, then likely every place would come up empty.

This lead regarding Taihe Tower could probably only be dug this deep.

That night, they had captured over twenty people at Taihe Tower and another thirty-plus people from far and near across Shenyun Prefecture.

With one sweep of the net, they had caught nearly sixty people.

Furthermore, many of them were experts in the True Qi Realm, and many had been lurking for years. For Ge Rusong, these people could be considered the fruits of his painstaking cultivation, yet they had been wiped out in one night by Duan Rong.

Since they had come up empty, Duan Rong flashed out of the private residence.

It was a case of "pulling up the radish and bringing out the mud"; although the radish roots had broken off in the mud, he had managed to fulfill Zhu He's order to pull them up by the roots.

Duan Rong flashed out of the alley. Zhu Peng was sitting on the carriage, and seeing Duan Rong return empty-handed, he frowned and asked, "Where are the people you captured?"

"The room was empty," Duan Rong said. "The people have already withdrawn."

"Withdrawn?!" Zhu Peng was slightly surprised. This was the first time they had come up empty, and it was only dawn; many people were still asleep.

"Let's go. We're heading back!" Duan Rong said, and he ducked into the carriage.

Zhu Peng turned the horse's head, and the carriage rumbled back the way they had come.

Duan Rong sat inside the carriage with a weary look in his eyes. Since the information that Taihe Tower had been taken down was already exposed, there was no need for him to hide or cover things up anymore. It was time to bring this matter into the open and make a proper scene of it.

Duan Rong rubbed his temples. Although he was very tired at this moment, he could not rest yet; there was still much to be done.

Zhu Peng drove the carriage from the corner into the Back Courtyard. The two of them had gone to a place further away; some carriages that had gone to closer locations had already returned and were parked there in a mess. Clearly, they were not the only ones who had come up empty.

Duan Rong and Zhu Peng walked into the secret chamber beneath the Rockery, where seven or eight people were surrounding Zhu Cheng to report.

As soon as Zhu Cheng saw Duan Rong enter, he immediately pushed through the crowd and walked over, cupping his hands and saying, "Sir, there is a situation!"

Duan Rong glanced at the people who had just been surrounding Zhu Cheng and said indifferently, "All came up empty, right?"

"Yes!" Zhu Cheng's eyes flickered slightly.

A night had passed, and the secret chamber was already filled with a thick, bloody stench. Duan Rong walked slowly to a Stone Chair, sat down, and said, "Zhu Cheng! Everyone has been busy all night; send someone outside to buy some breakfast. Let's eat our fill first."

Since the matter of Taihe Tower being taken down had already been exposed, there was no point in being anxious about interrogations or arrests; going now would basically result in coming up empty.

Zhu Cheng was slightly startled. He still had quite a few people on his side who hadn't been interrogated yet, and the arrests here had run into problems. How could Duan Rong act as if nothing had happened and instead tell him to send people to buy breakfast?

However, Duan Rong was the Principal of this matter. Since he had spoken, Zhu Cheng could only comply. He quickly pointed to a few people and told them to go buy breakfast.

When those people heard there was breakfast to eat, their eyes all lit up. They had been busy all night, and their stomachs had long been growling.

At the wonton stall diagonally across from Taihe Tower, some customers were already sitting there, tapping on the tables and cursing. The woman was wiping away tears while dropping wontons into the pot.

"Coming, coming!" She was just turning around with two bowls of wontons when a figure flashed beside her; it was the thin man who had returned.

The man reached out to take the wontons and immediately walked toward the cursing customers. As he set down the wontons, he apologized with a smile, "Sorry for the delay, sorry for the delay! Kept you waiting!"

Seeing the man like that, the resentment and anger in the woman's heart were instantly swept away. She immediately began wrapping wontons again, and the man also busied himself around the stall. The cursing in front of the stall soon subsided...

In the faint light of dawn, within the Endless Great Mountains of the Changliu Mountain Range, banks of mist drifted and swirled...

A lush, verdant mountain peak, half-hidden in the mist, was none other than Qingling Peak, where the Office of Transmission was located.

Inside a secluded room among the pavilions on the peak.

Lv Zhongtang, Ge Rusong, Sun Fuga, Zheng Yi, and Xu Qie, these five people were discussing matters in the room; news from Shenyun Prefecture had already been sent back.

The result from the Pharmacist sent by the Medicine Pavilion was that Li Shensi had not been poisoned. This result was clearly beyond the expectations of the five of them.

Ge Rusong's gaze was grave, and the expression on his face was clearly somewhat unnatural. He looked at Sun Fuga and asked, "Elder Sun, is the Pharmacist you sent reliable? Could it be that some poisons are difficult to detect, and he missed them?"

Upon hearing this, Sun Fuga merely kept a gloomy face and did not answer.

Lv Zhongtang glanced at Sun Fuga and said, "Since Elder Sun personally selected the person, how could there be a mistake? I fear the problem lies elsewhere."

Seeing Lv Zhongtang speak this way, Sun Fuga's expression eased slightly. He looked at Ge Rusong and said, "Regarding Pharmacist Guo's attainments in the Poison Path, this old man dares not boast that he is peerless under heaven, but in the region of Qingzhou, there should be no one who can surpass him."

Once Sun Fuga said this, Ge Rusong's pupils could not help but shrink, and he said, "Then that is truly strange!?"

Sun Fuga thought Ge Rusong was still questioning Pharmacist Guo's examination results, and a flash of anger crossed his face as he said, "Since Pharmacist Guo examined Li Shensi and found no poison, then there was no poison. On this point, this old man trusts him. If Elder Ge does not trust our Medicine Pavilion, you may send your own people to examine him again."

Zheng Yi, however, laughed and said, "Elder Sun, do not be angry! What Elder Ge finds strange is likely not that Li Shensi was not poisoned, but if Li Shensi was not poisoned, then by what means did Duan Rong kill Li Shensi? To be able to make him delirious and hallucinatory, and fall off a cliff to his death?"

Ge Rusong said, "That is exactly what I meant, Elder Ge. Elder Sun, please do not misunderstand. My earlier lack of decorum was because I was anxious and confused; I had no intention of offending you."

Sun Fuga's expression finally eased significantly, but the doubts lingering in everyone's hearts at this moment were even heavier.

There was silence in the room for a short while.

Lv Zhongtang frowned slightly and asked in a deep voice, "We made our move in the Elder Council, insisting that Duan Rong used poison to kill Li Shensi. Now that the examination result is like this, how are we to end this? Do you all have any brilliant ideas?"

As Lv Zhongtang spoke, his gaze swept over Ge Rusong, as if there or not; after all, it was he who proposed making the move in the Elder Council.

"There must be something fishy about this!" Ge Rusong's eyes were deep, and he said as if in thought, "Duan Rong has only been a personal disciple for half a year, yet he was able to use some method to make Li Shensi strangely fall off a cliff, and even concocted that story about the Rhinoceros Immortal to dissipate the pressure of public opinion in the marketplace. Even if Li Shensi had died of poison, his methods are already enough to make one wary. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to make a move in the Elder Council and pin it on him."

"However, Li Shensi did not die of poison!" Zheng Yi chimed in.

Ge Rusong turned his head to look at him and said, "Therefore, it is even more terrifying. This shows that this brat's methods are difficult even for us to see through. And he is merely a junior who has not even achieved the Qi Cyclone Realm."

Xu Qie suddenly said, "Elder Ge, don't forget, when he was testing in the Yougu, he was only half a step away from stepping on the platform! He was almost the first person in hundreds of years. This kind of guy cannot be judged by common sense to begin with. And..."

Xu Qie's eyes drooped slightly, and he paused as if in deep thought. Everyone looked at him, and he raised his eyes and continued, "After discussing him last time, because I was curious about this brat, I went to the Office of Transmission's database, pulled his files, and studied them. Do you all know that in his three years as an Outer Sect Disciple, this brat actually earned a great reputation as a 'divine detective' in the Southeast Four Prefectures?"

Upon hearing this, Ge Rusong sneered. He had naturally already seen these files on Duan Rong, but he hadn't paid them any mind. "That's just a godforsaken, remote place like the Southeast Four Prefectures... and a 'divine detective' at that! It was just a few trivial criminal cases. That whole thing about some beautiful woman plotting to kill her husband, and having an alibi... what is all this? If I didn't know better, I'd think I was listening to a storyteller in a teahouse."

Ge Rusong didn't take Duan Rong's so-called reputation as a divine detective seriously at all, and continued, "Yang Sixuan solved many strange cases back in the day, and I never saw anyone call him a divine detective."

Xu Qie did not mind the contempt in Ge Rusong's eyes and sighed, "Elder Ge, do you still remember the first Tainted Blood case that occurred in Xiangu County three years ago?"

Ge Rusong was slightly stunned. In that case, he was so eager for merit that he almost caused a disaster. Although he eventually forced Wei Ziyang, one of the five Total Altar Dharma Envoys of the Filthy Blood Sect, to self-destruct, an Inner Sect Disciple also died on the spot, for which Chu Qiushan had even rebuked him in public.

Ge Rusong looked at Xu Qie and said nothing; he did not know what Xu Qie's intention was in suddenly bringing this up.

Xu Qie said, "The person who first uncovered that major Filthy Blood Case was Duan Rong!"

"It was him?" Ge Rusong's brow twitched. That case had been botched in his hands, and he hadn't followed up on it afterward, handing it directly to Jiang Zhe to handle. He really hadn't paid attention to who had initially uncovered the case.

"Exactly!" Xu Qie said, "I carefully looked at a few of the cases he handled, and every one of them was brilliant. This child's reputation as a divine detective is definitely not unearned!"

Ge Rusong's expression was cold and stern. He had indeed only glanced at those trivial criminal cases and hadn't paid them any mind; after all, the amount of information reported to the Office of Transmission every day was immense! If it hadn't been for the fact that he wanted to take Duan Rong as a disciple that day and pulled his files, he wouldn't even have known about these. What he valued in Duan Rong was merely his talent of being half a step from the platform.

Ge Rusong was just about to say something, but suddenly stopped, his face turning as cold as frost. The others also stopped at the same time, because their Divine Sense had already swept over someone coming toward the corridor.

A few breaths later, the sound of rustling footsteps echoed at the entrance.

"Knock, knock, knock." Three soft knocks sounded.

Ge Rusong's voice was cold and contained anger as he said, "Come in!"

The door opened gently, and a middle-aged man dressed as a scholar in a green robe walked in slowly.

As soon as the man entered, Ge Rusong glared at him and said, "Chen Yu, did I not give you instructions? When we are discussing matters, no one is allowed to come and disturb us!"

The man bowed to everyone in the hall at the door and said, "Disturbing the lords' discussion, this lowly one deserves to die!" Only then did he look up at Ge Rusong and say, "Reporting to you, my lord, Taihe Tower has fallen!"

"What!?"

Ge Rusong stood up abruptly, his hair and beard fluttering without wind, and the tables and chairs beside him turned into powder, while above his head, there were faint spatial fluctuations...

A dignified Elder, actually losing his composure in extreme anger...

(End of chapter)