Chapter 796

Shhh shhh shhh!

Rain pelted the eaves densely, like silkworms devouring mulberry leaves.

The mist rising from the courtyard continuously gathered, yet made no sound.

The men lying in wait outside—Qiu Mingyuan and his crew—had not noticed a thing.

All who saw it fell into grim silence.

Any technique draws upon the manipulation of heaven’s gang and earth’s sha qi; the process inevitably produces some disturbance—howling yin winds, trembling ground—all caused by the flow of gang and sha qi.

Such control was something he had never seen in his life.

Soon, the mist coalesced into a human shape.

No features could be made out; only the silhouette suggested an old woman leaning on a cane.

Li Yan narrowed his eyes and clenched his fist tightly.

His greatest fear had been that the enemy had more than one Earth Immortal—and now, the worst-case scenario had come true.

“Follow old woman…”

The mist-formed figure spoke in a withered voice, then let out a cold chuckle:

“If you can’t keep up, the deal is off!”

Before the words had fully faded, a wisp of vapor shot skyward and sped away, astonishingly fast.

It was a tactic—to catch them off guard.

Yet all of this had been anticipated by Kong Shangzhao.

Li Yan’s face grew grave; he nodded to the others, then surged forward with a powerful step, leaping into the air as he formed hand seals and activated the Northern Emperor’s Divine Step. The jia ma strapped to his legs instantly grew hot.

A furious wind erupted in the sky, and Li Yan’s figure vanished within it.

At the same moment, footsteps sounded.

It was Qiu Mingyuan, rushing over with his men; upon seeing the scene, he grew frantic: “Where are they?”

Seeing their expressions, he guessed the truth and could not suppress his anger: “This is sheer madness! You’re all seasoned Jianghu folk—how could you be fooled by such a trick? You’re walking straight into a tiger’s mouth!”

He himself was seething with rage.

Though the capital was thick with officials, he held real power in the Commandant’s Office—but since arriving in Jinling, everything had slipped beyond his control, and despite treating Li Yan with courtesy, the man had begun to distrust him.

As the situation grew worse, his face darkened sharply.

“Commandant Qiu, don’t be angered…”

Kong Shangzhao’s expression remained calm as he spoke low and steady: “The Commandant’s Office is full of eyes. The earlier incident likely involved enemy spies. At this critical moment, not a single mistake can be allowed.”

“Oh?”

Qiu Mingyuan was no fool; his eyes lit up instantly. “What have you found?”

Seeing that Kong Shangzhao and the others said nothing, he understood at once and ordered his men to withdraw.

After a long while, the elite soldiers stationed outside saw Qiu Mingyuan stride out and issue a stern command: “Take my seal and go to Assistant Director Chu of the Northern Garrison Office. Immediately close all city gates, forbid anyone from leaving, station troops at every street intersection, impose a curfew, and arrest anyone found wandering at night!”

The men stared at each other in shock.

One bowed and said: “Your Excellency, a sudden curfew…”

They were caught in a bind. Jinling was a vast city; enforcing a sudden curfew would require troops to enter, stirring panic among the populace and provoking the local officials.

“Shut up!”

Qiu Mingyuan’s eyes brimmed with murder as he growled: “The Emperor sent me to Jinling not to play pretend with them. If something catastrophic happens, every last one of you will lose your heads. Anyone who objects can come speak to me himself!”

“Yes, Your Excellency!”

Seeing his fury, no one dared speak further; they all dispersed quickly.

This emergency military order was like a spark into an oil cauldron—the silent, oppressive night of Jinling ignited instantly.

The towering city gates creaked open, and black-clad riders flooded in like a tide.

Countless hooves pounded the blue stone paving, thundering like rolling drums.

Assistant Director Chu Zhenyue of the Northern Garrison Office was a ruthless man by nature, and his entry into the city was thick with sha qi.

Boom boom boom!

After the army entered, the heavy gates slammed shut with a screeching grind of winches.

Iron-bound gate bars dropped into place, severing all connection between inside and outside.

Squad after squad of armored soldiers deployed along the streets, their heavy footsteps echoing on the wet stone pavement, accompanied by brutal shouts: “Curfew in effect! Return to your homes immediately! Violators will be charged as traitors!”

Lanterns were violently extinguished; shops slammed their doors shut.

Civilians scrambled into their homes, too terrified to step outside, peering through window slits at the cold gleam of iron armor.

The music and song from the pleasure boats on the Qinhuai River ceased abruptly; the glow of lanterns and the sound of oars were replaced by the grim array of soldiers.

Inside the Jinling Prefectural Office, officials not implicated gathered together.

The Silk Bureau had been raided, the Wang Fu had suffered a shocking explosion, and the heads of the Lu and Xie families had been brutally killed. Already on edge from this string of events, their faces were now ashen, whispering among themselves with bitter resentment.

“This is madness! Absolute madness!”

“Has Qiu Mingyuan gone mad? Mobilizing such force, sealing the entire city—what does he think of Jinling’s stability?”

“The Wang Fu massacre remains unsolved, the Lu and Xie families have lost their pillars—he does nothing to calm the people, but adds fuel to the fire! This isn’t quelling unrest—it’s inciting it!”

“If the people rise up, let’s see how he handles it!”

Of course, they dared voice these complaints only in private.

Everyone could see that approaching Qiu Mingyuan now would mean certain death.

In the treacherous waters of officialdom, they were no fools.

No one wanted to be the first to stick his head out—but after such an event, submitting a memorial to the court was inevitable.

Though this move would fully alienate the Jinling bureaucracy, it was exactly as Kong Shangzhao had predicted: this thunderous action had decisively severed the Jianyi Sect’s countless “eyes” scattered throughout the city.

The low-level informants, driven by hatred or petty gain, now had no choice but to stay indoors.

In southern Jinling, a desolate, abandoned stretch of land.

Kong Shangzhao, Lin the Fat, and a squad of elite Commandant’s Office men chosen personally by Qiu Mingyuan raced through muddy back alleys beneath the torrential rain.

Rain washed over broken walls and rubble; the stench of rotting earth and decay surged into their faces.

Their target was the key discovery Kong Shangzhao had made during the day.

The ruins of the Suolong Well beside the former course of the Yanzhi River.

Qiu Mingyuan had already been informed en route; now his face was even darker.

Though the event dated back to the Song Dynasty, both the Commandant’s Office and the Enforcement Hall had skilled investigators—yet no one had uncovered this until now, which meant someone had covered it up.

No wonder Pei Zongti had sighed to him before arriving in Jinling: “Though Great Xuan has ruled for a hundred years and seems to burn with prosperity, its body is riddled with sores—and the old maladies of the previous dynasty, left behind when countless factions pledged loyalty, have only now begun to fester.”

Now, they were surfacing one by one.

Suddenly, the Emperor’s cold expression flashed into Qiu Mingyuan’s mind.

And the other covert force moving in the shadows…

He shuddered, and a chilling suspicion took root.

After this, Jinling—and indeed the entire Jiangnan bureaucracy—would suffer dearly…

“Here it is!”

The voice snapped Qiu Mingyuan from his thoughts.

Kong Shangzhao wiped rain from his face and pointed to a deep, bottomless ancient well, surrounded by a low stone railing.

The well’s mouth was covered by a thick, moss-clad blackstone slab, entwined with faded, rotted silk ribbons that still radiated a sinister crimson hue. Around the railing, faint but complex and eerie inscriptions of talismanic script were visible on the ground.

Though worn by time, it still emitted an unsettling, icy chill.

“The Earth Vein Map shows this is the Xun position node of the ‘Fire Locking Yin Array,’ the very ‘live knot’ left by Zhao Changsheng. Earlier today, we noticed many civilians setting up tea stalls nearby—we didn’t know if any of them were enemy spies, so we imposed the curfew…”

As he spoke, Kong Shangzhao knelt down, carefully examining the talismanic inscriptions revealed by the rain.