Chapter 623: One by One

"My lord, the things you asked me to investigate have all been found!"

Half-kneeling before Shen Yu, Liang Ruyue dared not raise his head, fearing he might be struck down with a single palm.

Upon returning from Luoyue Slope, Shen Yu had directly asked Peng Yan of the Palace Front Department to help investigate the matter of the Yan Family from back then.

Peng Yan had also worked under him for a period of time in the past; they had gotten along quite well, and Peng Yan's capabilities were not the least bit inferior to Liang Ruyue's.

Yet, unexpectedly, after Liang Ruyue accidentally learned of the matter Peng Yan was secretly investigating for him, he insisted on getting involved no matter what.

Liang Ruyue was now ranked among the upper echelons of the Black-Clad Guard and had many resources at his disposal; after so many years of deployment, the tentacles of the Black-Clad Guard had long since spread everywhere. With his help in the investigation, the matter was soon mostly cleared up.

Afterwards, Liang Ruyue even volunteered to bring the investigation results to report to Shen Yu, hoping only to receive his forgiveness, however little.

But some things, once done, are done; no amount of making amends can fix them.

"You've worked hard. From now on, we are square. You don't need to feel guilty about anything; you owe me nothing. You may go."

Taking the intelligence Liang Ruyue had gathered, Shen Yu flipped through it, then waved his hand to signal for him to leave.

From beginning to end, Shen Yu's expression was neither cold nor warm, very indifferent, just as if he were facing a stranger, polite yet with a hint of distance.

Seeing this, Liang Ruyue also knew that he could no longer follow by Lord Shen's side as he had before.

"Heh!" With a miserable laugh, Liang Ruyue slowly rose, stood up from the ground, and after casting a glance at Shen Yu, he pushed open the door and stumbled out.

From this day forward, he was merely a member of the Black-Clad Guard, and nothing more; behind him, there was no longer an absolutely safe and reliable back to rely upon.

While flipping through the information in his hand, Shen Yu pondered to himself. Regarding the matter of the Yan Family back then, besides that group of corrupt officials framing them, there must have been someone secretly fanning the flames.

Yan Ruyi was actually very clear about this point; the person manipulating things from the shadows was most likely those same people who had made him hold Shen Yu back.

But Yan Ruyi still chose to ignore all of this, because back then, when the very commoners he had risked his life to save finally wanted his life, his heart had already died.

The beliefs he once held in his heart had collapsed, his entire family had been slaughtered, and in the end, he was nothing more than a muddled, walking corpse.

His only remaining thought was that there was one thing he had to do. The other party had helped him preserve his life, allowing him to complete this task. Once done, he would pay for it with his life; this was the deal.

As for hatred or anything of the sort, it was no longer important. For someone whose heart was completely dead and who lived each day in a daze, even revenge could not stir any ripples within him.

Perhaps death was already the thing he had longed for most over these years; for him, death was more like a form of release.

As for whether those people were using this opportunity to threaten him, or whether the things he had to do went against morality—his heart was already dead, so how could he care about morality? After I die, what does it matter if the sky falls and the earth cracks?

"Changguan Marquis Mou Qing, Minister of Rites Chen Wenyue... all of them are people of high position and great power."

Holding this information in his hand, Shen Yu took a step that spanned a thousand miles, heading in the direction of the Capital. Most of the people who participated in that matter back then were now in the Capital, with a portion still in the provinces.

But without exception, every one of them was of high position and great power, and it even involved a behemoth: the Bolin Sword Sect.

Back then, when Yan Ruyi's disaster relief efforts went poorly, it was also something done deliberately by others. The disaster relief funds were embezzled, commoners starved to death everywhere, and many experts appeared to feed on human lives to enhance themselves.

In a year of disaster, commoners starved to death, and human life was as cheap as dust; a single life was not even worth a bowl of millet.

Those who could only hide in dark corners in the past now emerged one after another, even openly using the lives of these commoners to increase their own strength.

At that time, officials at every level exploited the situation layer by layer, embezzling the relief funds, causing the grain to never reach the hands of the commoners. With no food to survive, the commoners were liable to riot at any moment.

They feared chaos, so if someone helped them kill these rioters who were ready to revolt at any time and solved the hidden danger, why not? They were happy to be idle.

As for the fact that the commoners under their jurisdiction suffered heavy casualties, with less than one in ten surviving, that was even easier to brush off.

With such natural and man-made disasters, they were all just scholars without the strength to truss a chicken; facing those high-flying experts, even if they had the heart to kill the bandits, they were powerless to do so.

In the end, righteous sects like the Bolin Sword Sect ordered their disciples to come down from the mountains to slay the treacherous, gaining fame in the Jianghu. To put it bluntly, they were just using these evil experts to sharpen their blades.

In this way, the chaos there could not be quelled.

The more chaotic it was, the more it would highlight the nobility of the righteous sects. If it were not chaotic, how could they gain fame, and how could they make people grateful and sing their praises?

Then again, were the disciples of those righteous sects truly clean? Sometimes, when they wreaked havoc on people, they were even more ruthless than others. Because they cherished their reputations, they often acted even more decisively.

But when Yan Ruyi arrived, he began to provide disaster relief and tried to use his connections to mobilize the army to suppress the experts who were harming the commoners.

He even took action against the disciples of the Bolin Sword Sect, appearing cold and heartless, but he should not have, he absolutely should not have, injured the grandson of a Bolin Sword Sect Elder.

On top of that, those corrupt officials intentionally used Yan Ruyi as a scapegoat; the relief grain given to him only had grain on the very top, while everything underneath was sand and dirt.

Once the grain was gone, Yan Ruyi was directly branded a corrupt official, and without even a trial, he was thrown into prison.

These relief funds had been tampered with by people from top to bottom; so many people were splitting them, it wasn't just one or two people who had their hands in it.

Therefore, officials at all levels wanted Yan Ruyi to die, and the people of the Bolin Sword Sect also wanted Yan Ruyi to die; at that time, even Yan Ruyi felt it would be better if he were dead.

But the old master of the Yan Family was also famously stubborn, and even declared he would enter the palace to argue his case, saying he would prove his grandson's innocence no matter what.

Yet they did not know that for the Yan Family to seek a reversal of the verdict for Yan Ruyi, they were not facing one person, but an entire group, plus a Bolin Sword Sect standing there.

Compared to the Yan Family, which had no powerful Martial Artists, the forces behind those officials, as well as the behemoth that was the Bolin Sword Sect, were far too powerful.

At that time, the imperial court had not yet fully recovered from its weakness and pursued a policy of recuperation, avoiding provocation of those top aristocratic families and sects whenever possible.

In the end, they could only sacrifice Yan Ruyi, and along with him, the entire Yan Family was sacrificed as well.

The information Liang Ruyue gathered was very comprehensive, writing out the cause and effect almost with perfect clarity.

Moreover, it contained not only the matter of how they framed the Yan Family back then, but also various pieces of evidence of their corruption, oppression of the commoners, and seizure of fertile land.

This time, he had truly put in the effort, mobilizing almost all the power he could command, just to get this one thing done properly.

Unfortunately, although Shen Yu accepted the favor, he would never give him his trust again!

Silently sighing, Shen Yu put away the papers in his hand, and as he looked at the towering Capital before him, a flash of killing intent crossed his eyes.

"Let's start with the one with the highest rank. Changguan Marquis, a family of dukes and marquises, yet they could actually get their hands on the disaster relief grain."

"Of all the relief grain, they directly took half, and only then did others get to split the rest. If I don't kill such people, am I supposed to keep them for the New Year?"

"One by one, none of them will escape!"