Chapter 40: Viceroy

Zhou Yun stepped out of the inn on Ninth Street, Residential District Eighteen, Zone Nine.

Yesterday, he and Leina had silently trailed the old woman named Nama Kar.

Zhou Yun even changed his face several times, pretending to brush past her as he walked.

This allowed him to observe Nama Kar at closer range.

The mathematician and actuary had dark-yellow skin, slightly sunken eye sockets—typical features of the Terra subcontinent.

Her eyes held no madness, nor the cloudiness common in the elderly; instead, they radiated an unusual vitality.

As if countless numbers spiraled and rotated within her pupils, converging into their very core.

Beyond this, Zhou Yun detected no other anomalies.

She showed no psychic signature, spoke clearly and rationally, and committed no blasphemous acts.

She merely lowered her head occasionally, rapidly scribbling calculations in her notebook, as if solving something.

Zhou Yun cautiously glanced at its contents.

It was indeed dense with mathematical formulas, function graphs, and derivations.

Zhou Yun, in his past life, had held a university degree—he could barely understand a fraction of it.

Yet he found nothing amiss.

As for Leina, she was even worse off.

She had only learned basic mathematics as a child from Nama Kar.

She could manage accounts for the Undercity gangs, but faced with real math, she was utterly lost.

Even the sequence “387,420,489” she still couldn’t remember.

Zhou Yun always felt this sequence was suspicious, but he could never pinpoint why.

Neither of them found any sign of Nama Kar’s corruption, so they had no choice but to stay.

Zhou Yun stood on the street outside the inn, glancing at a small church nearby.

According to Leina, this church had been built by Zone Nine residents pooling their own funds.

It housed statues of the Emperor and Saint Guilliman, and a vial of crimson sand from Bar, regarded as a holy relic.

Zhou Yun had insisted on staying at this inn, despite its distance from Nama Kar’s residence, precisely because of this church.

If true Chaos corruption existed, this small church in Zone Nine might resist some of it.

And further, Zhou Yun had arranged to meet the Viceroy in this church.

Zhou Yun entered the church.

No electric lights illuminated the interior; only candles blazed fiercely beneath two towering stone statues, casting a hazy orange glow over the space.

One statue depicted the Emperor, holding a blade wreathed in flame, gazing into the distance.

The other showed an angel, thrusting a power spear into a serpent coiled upon the ground.

Blessed speakers played sacred prayers; incense anointed with holy oil diffused a faint fragrance throughout the church.

Some people sat on chairs, heads bowed in prayer.

A priest of the Ecclesiarchy bowed his head devoutly and whispered to Zhou Yun:

“Son of man, do you confess your sins to the Emperor?”

“Son of man, do you beg for Saint Guilliman’s mercy?”

If I wanted Saint Guilliman’s mercy, why not ask the winged figure in the white light at my corner?

Whether it was his imagination or not, Zhou Yun felt he had grown brighter since entering the church.

“I’m here for the Viceroy.” Zhou Yun ignored the priest’s preaching and cut straight to the point.

The priest gave a slight nod, gesturing for Zhou Yun to go upstairs.

“Son of man, all earthly authority, however vast, is but a fragment of the Emperor’s radiance.”

The priest said to Zhou Yun as he ascended:

“Son of man, no glitter of wealth compares to the brightness of an angel’s feather.” “I strongly agree,” Zhou Yun nodded.

It was almost blinding him.

Zhou Yun glanced at the winged figure in the white light at his corner—it had grown even brighter.

As if the church allowed him to press more firmly into the material universe.

Hearing Zhou Yun’s sincere agreement, the priest’s gaze toward him softened considerably.

He pointed out the room where the Viceroy waited.

Zhou Yun nodded in thanks, pushed open the small door of a confession booth upstairs, and stepped inside.

A gaunt, weary old man with dark circles under his eyes sat in one corner, flipping through the Holy Scriptures.

Viceroy Asford, current head of the Flax family, Augustus Flax.

Zhou Yun narrowed his eyes slightly.

The Viceroy had truly come face-to-face with him.

Augustus Flax was an extremely cautious man—he rarely exposed himself to danger.

Zhou Yun sat across from him.

“So you’re still a devout believer of the Empire,” Zhou Yun said, a hint of mockery in his tone.

Augustus Flax closed the book in his hands and placed it aside.

“Faith in the Emperor brings me peace.”

!.read

Augustus Flax brushed off Zhou Yun’s mockery with casual ease.

He looked at Zhou Yun, every muscle on his face moving with precise artifice to assume an assessing yet courteous posture.

Training, Zhou Yun sensed traces of rigorous discipline on him.

It must have been years of relentless conditioning.

The Empire’s nobility enjoyed privileges, but they were not mere idle parasites; their lives were far from easy or pleasant.

In truth, they were mostly exhausted and overworked—many nobles, even Viceroys, died of exhaustion at their posts.

The Emperor’s privileges came with corresponding responsibilities.

Nobles underwent brutal training from birth.

Every moment of their days, every gesture, every expression, was rigidly planned.

They spent each day learning knowledge needed to govern planets, piety and combat, etiquette and social conduct.

They were not even permitted to show fatigue.

This cycle repeated endlessly until they were forged into beings capable of bearing the Emperor’s privileges and duties.

Viceroys especially—managing an entire massive planet with nothing but a human brain was a task nearly beyond human physiological limits.

The Augustus Flax before him was a bastard—he had abandoned all governance of the Undercity.

But that didn’t make him a waste—he still bore the marks of his former training.

“You and that illegal psyker—what are you doing in the Upper City?”

Augustus Flax fixed Zhou Yun with his gaze:

“What are you following Nama Kar, the actuary, for?”

Zhou Yun was not surprised.

While trailing Nama Kar, he had noticed someone else tailing them.

Obviously, the Viceroy’s spies.

“I suspect she’s a heretic, corrupted by Chaos.”

Zhou Yun narrowed his eyes, smiling slightly:

“Would you be willing to lend me a squad of PDF? I’ll remove this problem for you.”

I’m stuck on writing—next chapter might be delayed.

(End of Chapter)