Chapter 788

The three iron-wrapped brick walls at the entrance of the Forging Valley gradually disappeared into the thick fog and night behind him, the horse's hooves crushing the broken ice on the mountain road and making a series of crisp sounds.

When Chen Yan dismounted, only a few lonely bronze oil lamps were still swaying in the cold wind in the corridor of the inner courtyard of the Governor's Office, casting dim halos.

The collar and cuffs of the dark gold tiger-pattern martial garment he was wearing were covered in rust dust and sulfur burnt smell drifting from the Forging Valley, and even his hair was covered in a layer of fine black ash.

Hongye took the reins from his hand and handed them to the Beiwei Death Guards waiting at the bottom of the steps, while she followed silently half a step behind.

Chen Yan had just stepped onto the first stone step of the corridor in front of the study when his footsteps paused.

The heavy purple sandalwood door of the study was slightly ajar, and the light leaking from the crack was several times brighter than on an ordinary night.

Gao Jiong was already kneeling in front of the purple sandalwood desk in the center of the study.

His knees seemed to have grown out of the stone cracks, nailed motionless to that Persian carpet, his hands held high above his head, holding a sealed bamboo tube wrapped in layers of black oilcloth.

There were a few drops of dried, blackened blood on the seal of the bamboo tube.

That was the mark used only for the highest-level urgent secret scrolls within the Mingjing Si, meaning the hidden agent delivering the letter had encountered interception and killing on the way.

Chen Yan pushed the door and entered, not bothering to change out of the martial garment covered in rust, and walked straight to the Grand Master's chair behind the desk and sat down, tapping his fingers on the desk surface twice.

Gao Jiong knelt forward half a step and handed the bamboo tube up with both hands.

"When did it arrive?"

"Less than a stick of incense after the Zhuguo set off for the Forging Valley, the No. 3 hidden agent in Qinghe County risked being chased and killed and losing an arm to send this thing into the city gate."

Gao Jiong's voice was pressed very low, and that dark, hawk-like face looked even more angular under the lamp light.

"This subordinate has verified the secret mark on the seal and confirmed it is the No. 3 hidden agent's own blood seal; it has not been swapped."

Chen Yan unscrewed the wooden stopper of the bamboo tube, pulled out the silk book rolled into a thin strip inside, and slowly unfolded it on the desk surface.

The handwriting on the silk book was extremely sloppy, obviously written in a hurry during violent bumping or fleeing, and several strokes were broken into ink dots because the force was unstable.

Chen Yan's gaze swept from the first line of the silk book to the last line, not fast or slow, his breathing always steady.

Hongye stood by the door, the five fingers of her right hand resting loosely on the hilt of the short sword in her sleeve, her gaze not looking at the content of the silk book.

It was quiet in the study for about ten breaths.

Chen Yan closed the silk book, stroked the thin silk back and forth twice with his fingers, and suddenly pulled a curve at the corner of his mouth.

That smile was as cold as if it had just been fished out of a quenching pool.

"The Qi State people have learned to be smart."

Gao Jiong's eyebrows jumped.

"Does the Zhuguo mean..."

Chen Yan threw the silk book onto the desk, crossed his fingers to support his chin, and leaned back into the back of the Grand Master's chair.

"After this Duke wiped out that bunch of idiots from the Shadow Department in the refugee camp, they finally realized that head-on collision is a dead end."

His fingers tapped rhythmically on the chair armrest, each tap in the same spot.

"So they changed their tactics; they are not attacking from the outside anymore, but drilling out from the bone gaps of this Duke's own people."

Gao Jiong's pupils contracted.

"It is written very clearly on the silk book; the remaining spy network of the Qi State Shadow Department has not been wiped out. Using the large amount of gold and silver provided by the Qi State gate clans, they have secretly infiltrated several remote counties around Xiazhou where the emperor is far away."

Chen Yan unfolded the silk book again, his index finger pointing at a line of handwriting on it.

"They spent a lot of money to bribe the greedy landlords and small officials with real power at the grassroots level, letting this bunch of parasites short-change when measuring new fields, provide inferior goods when distributing farm tools, and layer-by-layer deduct and make things difficult for the Qi State refugees when calculating grain subsidies."

Gao Jiong's teeth gnashed with a creaking sound.

"These animals want to provoke a blood feud between local farmers and incoming refugees."

Chen Yan's finger left the silk book and leaned back on the chair, the things churning in those eyes looking like two rolling furnaces under the reflection of the lamp light.

"More poisonous than a blood feud."

His voice dropped another notch.

"What will happen when refugees are pushed to the limit? They will feel that the 'Seeking Talent and Flow Decree' issued by Chen Yan is a piece of deceptive waste paper, will feel that the Xiazhou and Qi State governments are rotten to the core, that the fields distributed are fake, the taxes exempted are fake, and the official status promised is also fake."

His index finger tapped heavily on the armrest.

"Once the hearts of the two hundred thousand refugees are scattered, the population foundation that this Duke built up with months of rations will be like a pile of rotten wheat straw, which can be burned to ashes with one fire."

A layer of fine cold sweat seeped out on Gao Jiong's forehead, and his body leaned forward half an inch.

"Zhuguo, this subordinate will immediately mobilize all hidden agents of the Mingjing Si in various counties to close the net overnight!"

Chen Yan raised a finger.

That finger shook slightly in mid-air, and Gao Jiong's mouth closed immediately.

"What's the rush?"

Chen Yan's tone was as flat as a pool of frozen dead water.

"If you close the net now, you will only catch a few clowns who took Qi State silver; those truly rotten roots under the water surface will instead shrink back into the mud because you startled the snake."

He stood up and walked to the giant Northern Frontier military sand table in the center of the study, his fingers sliding slowly over the area representing the counties around Xiazhou.

"Do you know what kind of people this Duke hates the most?"

Gao Jiong knelt where he was and did not reply.

"What this Duke hates the most is not the assassins of the Qi State; for those idiots who rush up with knives, this Duke can solve them with faster knives."

Chen Yan's finger stopped at the location of a certain county on the sand table, pressing down hard with his fingertip, pressing the small flag representing the local government into the sand pile.

"What this Duke hates the most are those parasites who wear the official skin this Duke bestowed upon them, eat the salary this Duke allocated to them, but turn around and treat this Duke's people as fat sheep waiting to be slaughtered."

He turned around, the light in those eyes cold to the point of making one's spine feel cold.

"This kind of person, this Duke wants to pull out with his own hands."

Gao Jiong's body shook.

"The Zhuguo wants to personally..."

Chen Yan ignored his surprise, strode back to the desk, and tapped lightly on the stack of unprocessed official documents.

"Your Mingjing Si hidden agents continue to watch, only watch, not move; record every person who took Qi State silver, the flow of every sum of stolen silver, and every detail of deducting from refugees clearly for this Duke."

He took a green long gown from the coat rack that was exquisitely crafted but did not show off, shook it open in his hand, and looked at it against the light.

"This Duke is going out of the city tomorrow, without an entourage, without alerting Zhang Wenqian and any high-ranking officials."

He draped the green gown over the back of the chair and turned to look at Hongye by the door.

"You change into civilian attire tomorrow morning and follow this Duke."

Hongye nodded slightly without asking more.

Gao Jiong swallowed a mouthful of saliva, hesitated for a moment, but still opened his mouth.

"Zhuguo, this subordinate dares to ask, which county are you preparing to go to?"

Chen Yan reached out and pulled the bottom-most scroll from the stack of bamboo slips on the desk; it was the new policy implementation report submitted by various county yamens a few days ago. He turned the bamboo slip to a certain page and drew a heavy line across the few lines of text on it.

"Go to this one."

Gao Jiong leaned in and took a look; two words were written on it impressively.

Qinghe.

Chen Yan threw the bamboo slip back onto the desk, making a dull wooden sound.

"The report from this county is written the most beautifully; the whole page is about peace and prosperity, singing and dancing, refugees living and working in peace, not even a single complaint."

The cold smile at the corner of his mouth surfaced again.

"Two hundred thousand mouths poured in, fields were re-divided, interests were completely reshuffled; in just half a month, the grassroots execution could actually not see a drop of blood."

He reached out and extinguished the brightest oil lamp on the desk; darkness surged up from the corners of the study, swallowing most of his figure.

"The cleaner the place, the thicker the pus buried underneath!"