Chapter 634: Undercurrents Stir

"I don't believe it!"

Wensiluo finally lost his composure, his handsome face flushed bright red.

In his memory, the teacher has always been stern and cold; whether the closest students or anyone from ParrasFloatingCity, they are always trembling before the teacher, not daring to even breathe. Anyone who performs poorly or dares any disrespect will never meet a good end.

He cannot imagine anyone daring to insult the teacher face‑to‑face!

And they even called the teacher a petty person!

The others in the council were also skeptical; Duke Hong Shi is known for his harsh temperament, and the Empire's upper echelons have heard of him to varying degrees. Even though Lei En is a student of Anxiwodasi, strong in power and backed by a patron, being so brazen before Duke Hong Shi is likely courting death.

"Believe it if you want, or not."

Lei En's gaze swept over everyone's faces, then returned to Wensiluo, and said calmly, "You can ask Kai'ersitong right now whether I'm bragging. But as I estimate, you struck that petty man's sore spot, so you can't avoid his punishment; it depends on whether you have the courage."

He flashed a malicious smile, as if watching a play.

Wensiluo was squeezed so hard he couldn't muster a rebuttal.

He wanted to expose Lei En's falsehood on the spot, but seeing Lei En's complete indifference, doubt arose.

Most importantly, Lei En hit the nail on the head.

The teacher, after ParrasFloatingCity was attacked, was forced to land, and to this day the perpetrator hasn't been identified; countless flames of anger have been bottled up with nowhere to vent. Who now dares to provoke him?

Is this because they think they have a long life?

Ge Nie Wu Si and the legendary Wizards, seeing Wensiluo fall silent, began to believe that Lei En truly cursed Duke Hong Shi to his face, and were instantly shocked.

Lei En's reputation in their eyes rose again.

If Duke Hong Shi is a petty man, then Lei En is a ruthless one!

After the Supervisory Group was formed, this was its first internal clash, and Lei En achieved a complete victory. Whether in momentum, strength, or verbal attack, Wensiluo had no means to retaliate; the two weren't even opponents of the same rank. Duke Hong Shi clearly miscalculated.

Ge Nie Wu Si welcomed this, stepping forward to smooth things over: "Speaker Lei En, please choose your words carefully; we must retain a certain respect for the Holy Soul Wizard. Sir Wensiluo, please take a seat promptly."

Lei En gave a noncommittal nod.

Wensiluo had just stood up to rebuke Lei En, but then faltered, standing there unable to descend, and took the opportunity of the Consul handing over a step to sit down again.

The atmosphere in the meeting room eased slightly.

Ge Nie Wu Si continued to chair the meeting, discussing with everyone to finalize the Supervisory Group's charter.

For example, during each quarter's financial audit, the first‑floor office hall must always have at least two Supervisory Group members present to monitor; also, the reporting of audit results—whether to forward them to the Supreme Council and how the procedure proceeds. If a dispute cannot reach consensus, Supervisory Group members raise their hands to vote, with the majority prevailing, while the Consul as group leader holds two votes.

Upon hearing that the Consul holds two votes, Wensiluo's expression shifted imperceptibly.

Lei En let out a cold laugh in his mind.

The Soul Eye saw Wensiluo's emotional fluctuations were intense, clearly targeting the two votes Ge Nie Wu Si held. If he could win over Ge Nie Wu Si and Ou Ti Lu Ke, plus himself and Sage Kai Lan Na, that would be five votes to control the Supervisory Group.

The calculation is sound, but it can only remain a thought.

Wensiluo still doesn't know that Ge Nie Wu Si has already shifted to the Mo Du faction; unless Ge Nie Wu Si doesn't wish to be re‑elected as Consul next term, he couldn't possibly defect.

Ou Ti Lu Ke also has his own ideas and isn't so easily bought.

The meeting concluded in just half an hour.

As Consul, Ge Nie Wu Si has many daily matters to attend to and cannot linger here; after the discussion he rose and left.

The other members also dispersed, leaving only Lei En and Ou Ti Lu Ke to guard the hall.

The two went downstairs, each taking a seat on opposite sides of the hall.

Lei En watched the financial accountants busy, his phone library already opened, having copied hundreds of thick ledgers onto his phone, then opened them for browsing within his view.

After a brief glance, he stopped.

Nai Se's ledgers are convoluted and massive, numbers vast as smoke, and the accounting methods are rather outdated, with many items vastly different from the previous era. Not being an accounting professional, he couldn't understand much, so there was no point wasting effort on them.

Leave professional matters to professionals.

Ai Xi Lei has served as Finance Minister for nearly twenty years; if she can't even spot a few accounting issues, she might as well crash headfirst to death.

However, Lei En has a way to determine whether Nai Se's ledgers are forged.

He randomly selected a dozen‑plus ledgers and began statistical analysis on his phone. Regardless of the truth of the items—taxes, revenues, or other entries—he only examined the numbers, tallying the leading digit of each number from 1 to 9.

This is a simple method to detect fabricated data, called Benford's Law.

Lei En had studied this before.

From a collection of real‑life data, numbers beginning with 1 appear about 30% of the time. An ordinary person guessing would assign a probability of one‑ninth, yet the actual rate is nearly three times that. The larger the leading digit, the lower its occurrence probability.

In plain terms, numbers starting with 1 occur more often than those starting with 2, which in turn occur more than those starting with 3, and so on.

By this pattern, numbers starting with 9 appear the least, comprising less than one‑twentieth of the total.

Any dataset conforming to this rule is generally authentic.

Ai Lun E Si also uses base‑10, and its ledgers derive from real‑life data, so Benford's Law applies.

Lei En had previously searched the library; the mathematics of Ai Lun E Si's world lags far behind the previous era, and no one has yet discovered this law there.

After a little over two hours, the statistical analysis of the randomly selected ledgers was completed.

Lei En looked at the results on the screen and couldn't help shaking his head.

In fact, halfway through the count he already knew the outcome: numbers starting with 1 were still the most frequent, but their share was noticeably low, just over 20%. Numbers starting with 2 were also scarce, just over 10%, almost the same as those starting with 3.

The subsequent counts for leading digits 4 through 9 were also completely off.

Normally this forms a smooth descending curve; plotting these ledgers' data would produce a line chart that looks like a roller coaster!

Nai Se's ledgers are fake beyond falseness.

Lei En would bet that if the ledgers aren't forged, he'll eat all those hundreds of books. He can't pinpoint which parts are falsified, but knowing the result suffices.

In the office hall, the sound of pages turning and writing continued without pause.

Dozens of financial accountants were focused on their work, their minds on the ledgers, occasionally looking up to jot notes on nearby paper, then compiling them for Ai Xi Lei.

Lei En observed these accountants, and his Soul Eye detected several with abnormal emotions.

He didn't alert anyone, silently noting their names.

Near evening, Ai Xilei handed a freshly written document to Lei En, reporting, "Lord Count, this is today's summary of issues found in the ledger; please review."

Lei En noticed the accountants in the hall all perked up their ears, so he greeted Otiluke, signaling him to stay and keep watching, and said, "Follow me."

The two went to a room upstairs.

Ai Xilei followed behind Lei En; before entering, she took advantage of Lei En's back to quickly and quietly tidy her clothes and hair, adjusting her expression.

Lei En was fully aware of her actions, but pretended not to know, and after sitting asked, "How's the situation?"

Ai Xilei replied, "At the moment it's just some minor issues."

"Hmm…" Lei En lowered his head to flip through the material in his hand; indeed, as Ai Xilei said, only some ledger entries didn't match, the amounts were small, the total problems found all day added up to only a few thousand Gold Shields, easily brushed off as recording negligence.

He skimmed through quickly, but his brows furrowed.

In today's ledgers, a portion overlapped with the ledgers he had extracted, meaning Ai Xilei hadn't discovered any false accounts.

Lei En looked up at her; his soul‑eye confirmed that this female wizard had no ulterior motives.

Loyalty was fine; the issue lay in ability.

With Ai Xilei's many years of financial experience, even the counterfeit accountants hired by Nai Se, no matter how skillful, wouldn't miss everything. The problem shouldn't be Ai Xilei herself, but those few emotionally unstable accountants, who colluded to cover the ledger gaps, even slipping past Ai Xilei.

Needless to say, those people had already been bought off or coerced by Nai Se.

"Lord Count…" Ai Xilei seemed to sense something and grew inexplicably nervous.

Although she was much older than Lei En and already a Legendary High‑rank wizard, Lei En's past battle record and status, with just a glance, gave her immense pressure, feeling more uneasy than facing the Consul.

Lei En asked lightly, "When did you notify those accountants of the reassignment?"

"Five days ago," Ai Xilei hurriedly replied.

Lei En nodded; five days was enough for Wizard Nai Se to do many things. He considered a moment, then softly uttered several accountants' names, "Stop here for today; tomorrow, for the people whose names I called, find a reason to transfer them elsewhere and temporarily replace them with a new batch."

Ai Xilei immediately grasped Lei En's meaning.

These accountants had issues.

She gritted her teeth and said, "Lord Count, rest assured, these people will no longer appear before you. I will thoroughly reorganize the finance department and report the matter to the Consul, removing them completely."

"No need, they're just ordinary people; they can't resist Nai Se's intentions," Lei En didn't want to take out his anger on ordinary folk.

Ai Xilei breathed a sigh of relief privately.

These people were her capable subordinates; if she dismissed them all at once, the finance department would suffer a severe blow, and her own work would be hard to continue.

"Thank you for your leniency, Lord Count." She expressed sincere gratitude.

Lei En waved his hand, solemnly saying, "These ledgers definitely have problems; they must be uncovered."

"Yes, sir!" Ai Xilei replied in a coquettish voice.

The next day, Lei En kept watching. Those problematic accountants didn't appear; among the temporarily reassigned accountants, two were also insiders, whom he identified before the audit began and sent Ai Xilei to dismiss.

After purging the team, the ledger issues were exposed in less than half a day.

Ai Xilei exercised her ability, followed the clues, and quickly uncovered a series of forged data, compiling a document within two or three hours that involved amounts reaching hundreds of thousands of Gold Shields, no longer a trivial sum.

Moreover, more fake ledgers were found, and the numbers kept rising.

"Well done!"

Lei En praised Ai Xilei, making her face light up with excitement.

Today's rotation involved Lei En and Sage Kairanna; he handed the material to the other for review, and without waiting for the alchemical sage from Fu Kong Cheng to react or say anything, he directly said, "I'll notify the supervision team to come immediately."

A moment later, all members of the supervision team arrived.

Lei En passed the material around the conference room; Ge Nie Wusi and the Legendary Wizards all wore solemn expressions, while Wen Si Luo pursed his lips, unable to utter a word.

"Over a million Gold Shields unaccounted for; this isn't a minor issue," Ge Nie Wusi said gravely. He had already discussed with Lei En and knew what to do, raising his voice, "I propose we immediately summon the Nai Se Elders and the relevant Nai Se wizards for an in‑person interrogation."

Several Legendary Wizards of the Mo Du faction were already prepared.

Wen Si Luo, Sage Kairanna, and Otiluke were shaken to the core.

The interrogation Ge Nie Wusi mentioned was actually a trial, skipping several steps of the supervision team's prior procedure and fast‑forwarding to the final stage.

Wen Si Luo and the Nai Se Elders secretly devised a delay plan, using various means to push the fifteen‑day review deadline, but unexpectedly faced the toughest test on the second day.

"Consul, beginning the review with an immediate in‑person interrogation is too hasty. If it's merely a ledger oversight, shouldn't we wait a few more days to confirm?" Wen Si Luo offered his reasoning, then solemnly said, "I oppose this proposal."

As soon as he finished speaking, Lei En raised his hand and said, "I agree."

Then three other hands rose as well; Alamanse, Andro, and Sidney Rickman all said in unison, "I agree."

The proposal was initiated by Ge Nie Wusi; with Lei En and three others, it became settled.

Kairanna and Otiluke, who hadn't spoken yet, felt helpless; their two votes no longer mattered.

Although Wen Si Luo had anticipated such a scene, actually watching events head toward the worst outcome left him with a pallid face, fists clenched under the table, unable to think of any solution.

Ge Nie Wusi nodded heavily.

He ignored Wen Si Luo and Kairanna, directly called Ai Xilei in, ordering, "Notify the Nai Se Elders; within an hour, report to the Temple of Truth for the supervision team's interrogation."

Ai Xilei obeyed and left.

Soon, several Nai Se wizards from the room next to the first‑floor hall hurried back to Fu Kong Cheng to report to the Elders.

Before the interrogation began, the news had already spread throughout Nuosiruier.

Countless residents inside and outside the Imperial Capital looked up, gazing at the floating Nai Se city suspended in the sky; though the sun blazed, it seemed as if a massive shadow was looming, about to trigger violent upheaval.

(End of chapter)