Chapter 84 The Governor's Mansion's Hidden Lines Erupt: The Person Trusted for Twenty Years Became a Pawn Planted by the Wang Family

Governor's Mansion, inner courtyard study.

Nangong Xiong had been sitting in this chair for an entire night.

The tea cup on the long table had its water changed four times; layers of water stains had formed on the cup's wall, and the bottommost ring had completely dried, leaving a yellowish-white alkaline mark.

Three items were spread out before him.

On the far left was a neatly bound booklet.

The cover recorded the movements of Guard Captain Uncle Zhao over the past six months. Every page was marked with dates and destinations, the handwriting belonging to a hidden agent of the Internal Affairs Division.

In the middle was an interrogation record of the servants in the Governor's Mansion's inner courtyard—three thin pages, each line stamped with the red wax seal of the Internal Affairs Division.

On the far right was a letter.

The letter had been recovered from a hidden compartment in Uncle Zhao's private residence, tucked beneath a loose brick under the bedboard. It was wrapped in three layers of oilcloth, with a wax seal pressed over the opening.

The wax seal wasn't large—about the size of a fingernail—but the pattern was carved extremely deep.

A golden eagle treading upon a horizontal blade.

Nangong Xiong's gaze lingered on that wax seal for a long time, so long that the candle burned down by nearly half. Wax dripped along the edge of the bronze stand, congealing into a small puddle on the table surface.

He took another letter from the drawer on the left side of the table—a secret missive seized from the Medicine Elder's headquarters half a month ago. He spread it out on the table and placed the two letters side by side.

The two wax seals had identical patterns.

A golden eagle treading upon a horizontal blade.

The private seal of Steward Wang Zhong from the Wang family's inner courtyard.

Nangong Xiong's finger pressed onto that wax seal, his strength increasing bit by bit until the color of his fingernail turned from blood-red to pale white.

His breathing grew heavy for two beats, the flare of his nostrils visible to the naked eye.

The candlelight in the study flickered three times, suppressed by the aura he unintentionally leaked. The flame shrank to the size of a bean, cowering on the wick for two breaths before stretching out again.

The unintentional pressure of a Divine Treasury Realm expert caused the two calligraphy paintings hanging on the four walls of the study to billow. The tassels at the ends of the scrolls swayed for a long time before coming to a stop.

He had sat in this study for an entire night.

Day had broken.

The study door was gently knocked twice from the outside.

Steward Lv of the Internal Affairs Division stood outside with a hunched back, his voice lowered to a minimum.

"My Lord, the person has been brought."

Nangong Xiong put the two letters into the drawer, locked it, and tucked the key into his robe.

He picked up the cup of tea that had gone completely cold, brought it to his lips, and took a sip.

The cold tea entered his throat, bitter and astringent.

He set down the tea cup, his voice betraying no trace of emotion.

"Let him in."

When Uncle Zhao was led into the study by two personal guards, his steps were steady and his armor was immaculate.

He wore the Guard Captain armor that had accompanied him for twenty years. The iron plates were polished bright, not a single copper rivet on the pauldrons was loose, and the leather buckles on the bracers were fastened perfectly.

After entering, he knelt on one knee before Nangong Xiong, his right fist pressed against the armor plate on his left chest in a standard Guard Captain's salute.

"For what matter has My Lord summoned this subordinate?"

His voice was steady, his tone carrying just the right amount of respect, exactly the same as every routine report over the past twenty years.

Nangong Xiong looked at him.

He looked for a long time.

So long that the leg Uncle Zhao was kneeling on began to go slightly numb, and a layer of fine sweat broke out on his forehead.

Nangong Xiong did not speak.

He simply took the secret letter from the drawer and pushed it forward across the table to the edge. Then, he picked it up with two fingers and let go.

The letter fell.

The paper flipped in the air, landing wax-seal-up on the floor tiles before Uncle Zhao's knees with a very soft 'thud'.

The pattern of the golden eagle treading on the horizontal blade was clear in the candlelight.

Uncle Zhao looked down and saw the wax seal.

The change in his body began with his shoulders.

First, his left shoulder slumped half an inch, followed by his right. Then his spine bent, segment by segment. The back that had been held straight for twenty years collapsed into an arc within three breaths.

The honesty and composure on his face were torn open from within, revealing something old and grey beneath—a fatigue ground down over ten years and a deathly silence that only comes when one reaches the end of the road.

The study was silent for five or six breaths.

Nangong Xiong spoke.

"You have followed me for twenty years."

His voice was extremely soft, so soft that even the personal guards standing watch outside could not hear it.

Uncle Zhao's forehead was pressed against the floor tiles; he did not say a word.

Nangong Xiong's fingers rested on the armrest, his fingertips slowly grinding into the grooves of the wood grain.

"Yao'er has called you Uncle Zhao since she was a child."

He paused for a beat, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"When she was five and fell from horseback, you were the one who caught her."

Uncle Zhao's shoulders trembled.

Nangong Xiong's fingers gripped the armrest tightly, his knuckles protruding one by one from the force, their outlines clearly pushing up from beneath the skin.

"And then you sold her movements to the Wang family."

As these words fell in the study, the candlelight flickered again.

Uncle Zhao's forehead remained pressed against the floor tiles. His posture shifted from kneeling to prostrate, hands braced on either side of his body, ten fingers clawing at the gaps between the tiles as dust squeezed under his fingernails.

The silence in the study lasted for a long time.

Long enough for a section of the candle to drip away, the wax flowing from the bronze stand to congeal into a small lump by the table leg.

Uncle Zhao spoke.

His voice was shattered into fragments, each word catching in his throat several times before being spat out.

"My Lord, my wife and two children were taken away by the Wang family ten years ago."

Nangong Xiong's fingers stopped on the armrest.

Uncle Zhao's forehead was still pressed against the tiles, his voice muffled against the floor, carrying a rotten air that had been festering for ten years.

"They said it was to take care of them, that they were helping me settle my family."

He swallowed hard, the sound of his Adam's apple moving being exceptionally clear in the quiet study.

"But every year, someone would send me a letter with a lock of a child's hair inside."

His shoulders were shaking, the armor plates clinking softly.

"The length of the hair was different every year, getting longer and longer, showing that the children were growing up."

He paused for a beat, his breathing twice as heavy.

"They said as long as I was obedient, my family would be safe."

The study fell silent again.

Nangong Xiong closed his eyes.

His chest was heaving significantly. With every breath he took, the candles in the four corners of the study were pressed down into tiny beans of light, the flames cowering against the wicks, not daring to stretch.

His fists clenched and loosened on the armrests, repeating the cycle seven or eight times.

Two deep crescent marks were pinched into the wooden surface of the armrests by his nails.

Then he stood up.

The chair was pushed back half a foot, its legs scraping against the floor tiles with a short screech of friction.

He walked over to Uncle Zhao and looked down at the middle-aged man prostrate on the floor.

Uncle Zhao did not look up.

Nangong Xiong's voice had returned to calm. Each word was articulated clearly, without trembling or fluctuation.

But that calm was heavier than anger, pressing down on Uncle Zhao's back and causing his shoulders to slump another half-inch.

"Your family—I will send people to investigate."

Uncle Zhao's fingers tightened further in the cracks between the tiles.

Nangong Xiong's gaze fell on the back of his head, lingering for two breaths.

"But the information you leaked nearly caused my daughter's death."

He put his hands behind his back, his left hand gripping his right wrist with great force, making the wrist bone emit a 'crack'.

"This debt, I will not wipe away."

Uncle Zhao's body lay flat on the ground; he did not beg for mercy or offer an explanation.

He simply raised his forehead slowly from the tiles, revealing a face so grey it had lost all color, his lips trembling twice.

"This subordinate deserves death."

After those four words were spoken, he knocked his forehead down again with a 'thud,' leaving a red mark on the tile surface.

Nangong Xiong turned his head toward the door.

"Take him away."

The two personal guards outside pushed the door open, grabbed Uncle Zhao's arms from both sides, and lifted him from the floor.

Uncle Zhao did not struggle.

His legs dragged across the floor tiles, the sound of his boot soles scraping against the cracks being heavy and dull.

When he reached the study door, his footsteps paused for a beat.

"My Lord."

Nangong Xiong stood behind the long table and did not turn around.

Uncle Zhao's voice drifted back from the doorway, so hoarse it was almost breaking.

"Ten years ago, when the Wang family first found me, it was through a clerk in the Government Office's Punishment Room who acted as the intermediary."

He paused for a breath.

"That clerk is named Zhou Pingan; he is still on duty in the Punishment Room."

With those words, he was escorted out of the study by the two personal guards. The sound of footsteps grew more distant along the corridor, finally disappearing in some direction deep within the inner courtyard.

The study was empty.

Nangong Xiong stood alone behind the long table, staring for a long time at the spot on the floor tiles where Uncle Zhao had knelt.

That floor tile had a water stain on it, a drop of sweat from Uncle Zhao's forehead; its shape was irregular, and the edges had already begun to shrink inward.

He watched the water stain dry bit by bit until only a faint, circular mark remained on the brick's surface.

Then he walked to the long table, pulled open a drawer, took out a blank piece of stationery, smoothed it out, and lifted his brush to dip it in ink.

The tip of the brush left three lines of characters on the stationery.

The handwriting was upright and powerful, with horizontal and vertical strokes perfectly straight, the brushwork showing not the slightest tremor.

After finishing the last character, he blew the stationery dry, folded it, placed it into a bamboo tube, and sealed it with wax.

He took his private seal from his waist and pressed it into the wax.

He walked to the study door and handed the bamboo tube to Steward Lv, who was waiting outside.

"Send it to the East Courtyard and give it to Lin Chen."

Steward Lv received the bamboo tube with both hands, bowed, and withdrew.

Nangong Xiong stood at the doorway and looked up at the sky.

The morning light was already bright; the sun rose above the roofline to the east, casting sharp outlines on the corridor pillars and eaves of the inner courtyard.

He stood for three breaths, then turned back into the study and closed the door.

He picked up the cup of tea on the table, which had gone completely cold, and drained it in one gulp.

Then he spread out a second sheet of stationery and lifted his brush.

The content of this letter was much longer than the first, filling two whole pages.

After he finished writing, he folded the stationery and locked it in the deepest part of the drawer.

He did not give it to anyone.

**East Courtyard.**

The afternoon sun leaned toward the west, and the canopy of the old locust tree above the courtyard wall cast a patch of mottled, broken shadows that swayed back and forth on the bluestone slabs of the training ground.

Shen Yue walked in from the courtyard gate, holding a wax-sealed bamboo tube and a folded list in her hands.

Her face was slightly flushed from the sun, a thin layer of sweat hung on the tip of her nose, and her pace was two beats faster than usual.

"Centurion Lin, it's from the Governor's Mansion."

Lin Chen walked out of the duty room, took the bamboo tube, broke the wax seal, and pulled out the stationery.

He unfolded it.

It was in Nangong Xiong's own handwriting and contained only two sentences.

Uncle Zhao has been apprehended; the Wang family matter enters the next stage as of today.

Lin Chen read these two sentences twice, his gaze lingering an extra breath on the words "Uncle Zhao."

Uncle Zhao.

The commander of the Governor's Mansion guards, the closest head guard by Nangong Xiong's side, the "Uncle Zhao" whom Nangong Yao had grown up calling by that name.

He was one of the Wang family's people.

Lin Chen held the stationery close to the candle flame in the duty room; the edge of the silk paper was licked by the flame, and the orange light danced twice between his fingers, swallowing the lines of characters one by one.

The ashes fell into the bronze basin, curling into two thin black shells.

He withdrew his hand from over the bronze basin and picked up the list to unfold it.

Thirteen names, each followed by their cultivation level and original department.

They were all Cultivators from the Governor's Mansion's personal guards who had volunteered to transfer to the Patrol Division; the lowest cultivation was Blood Refining Realm Late Stage, and the highest was Tongmai Realm Middle Stage.

Lin Chen looked through the thirteen names from beginning to end, his finger tracing a light line under the last name.

He folded the list and walked out of the duty room.

Under the old locust tree, Zhou Tie was leaning against the trunk wiping his spear shaft; hearing footsteps, he looked up.

Lin Chen handed the list over.

"Process all of them within the day."

Zhou Tie took the list and glanced at it, the muscles at the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.

"Centurion Lin, including these thirteen people..."

"One hundred."

Lin Chen finished the number for him.

Zhou Tie's fingers tightened on the spear shaft; he said nothing more, tucked the list inside his breastplate, and turned to walk toward the courtyard gate.

Zhao Gang's head popped out from behind the moon gate of the backyard, his eyes darting between the backs of Lin Chen and Zhou Tie; his mouth opened and closed, then closed and opened again.

He rushed out from behind the moon gate, his face flushed red.

"One hundred people!"

His voice was so loud that the plaster on the courtyard walls flaked off, and a Grey Sparrow dozing on a branch of the locust tree was startled into flying away.

"We're at full strength!"

Shen Yue stood by a pillar in the front courtyard, the five fingers gripping her sword hilt slowly relaxing.

She didn't shout; she simply leaned her back against the pillar and let out a long breath, her chest heaving twice before she calmed down.

She raised her hand and wiped the corner of her eye with her sleeve.

The movement was very fast, so fast that Han Shan, who was passing by, saw nothing.

In the evening, the sun sank to the other side of the city wall, and a layer of orange-red clouds piled up on the horizon, dyeing the walls and rooflines of the East Courtyard with a warm border.

The courtyard gate was wide open.

Thirteen people walked in one after another from outside.

Each wore the standard armor of the Governor's Mansion guards, their plates polished clean, weapons hanging at their waists, their steps synchronized.

Walking at the front was a square-faced man in his early thirties with thick eyebrows and large eyes, a tough jawline, and a standard long saber at his waist, its scabbard engraved with a Governor's Mansion serial number.

He walked up to Centurion Lin, cupped his fists in salute, and spoke in a resonant voice.

"He Jian, Deputy Captain of the Governor's Mansion guards, acting on the orders of the Governor, leading twelve guards to report to Centurion Lin."

Lin Chen nodded.

"Go to Zhou Tie to be registered in the records."

He Jian acknowledged and led the twelve men toward the middle courtyard.

Zhou Tie had already set up a small table inside the courtyard gate, with the register spread out and a brush in his hand, counting the people one by one.

Instructor Qi Boyuan stood at the edge of the training ground with his hands behind his back.

His white hair was dyed a pale orange by the last rays of the setting sun; wrinkles crisscrossed his aged face, and his lips were tightly pursed.

He watched the number of people increase one by one, from the first to the fifth, from the fifth to the tenth, and from the tenth to the thirteenth.

As the last person walked past him, his hand tightened behind his back and then relaxed.

Three years ago, when he was thrown into the Jail, not a single soldier was left under him.

Today he stood here, with one hundred people by his side.

He lowered his hands from behind his back and rubbed his temples; a glint of moisture flickered in his cloudy eyes, but he forcefully blinked it back.

Lin Chen stood in the very center of the middle courtyard's training ground.

The hundred people were divided into four squads based on their cultivation levels, forming a formation under the command of Zhou Tie and Instructor Qi Boyuan.

The front row consisted of the backbone Tongmai Realm Cultivators, seventeen people standing in a horizontal line with even spacing.

The second row was the elite Blood Refining Realm Late Stage, twenty-three people, slightly wider than the front row.

The third row was the main force from Blood Refining Realm Early Stage to Middle Stage, thirty-five people, occupying more than half of the middle section of the training ground.

At the very back were the new recruits with the lowest cultivation, twenty-five people, standing at the edge of the bluestone slabs.

The formation was rough, with several uneven spots in the horizontal lines and columns that weren't quite straight.

But with a hundred people standing there, the training ground, thirty paces square, was filled to the brim.

Bluestone slabs were beneath their feet, and the sky was above their heads.

Every single person's back was held perfectly straight.

Veterans from the old Patrol Team, wronged prisoners released from the Jail, grassroots soldiers transferred from the City Defense Battalion and the Garrison Division, and guards from the Governor's Mansion.

They came from different backgrounds, had different experiences, and had different expressions on their faces.

But there was only one reason for standing in this courtyard.

Lin Chen walked to the front of the formation, his gaze slowly sweeping across every face from left to right.

He did not give a lecture.

There was no impassioned speech, no promises, and no empty talk.

He only said one sentence.

"From tomorrow, the East Courtyard has work to do."

Then he turned and walked back to the duty room.

Behind him, a hundred people cupped their fists in unison.

The sound of fists striking breastplates merged into one, dull and orderly, echoing twice within the courtyard walls, vibrating even the empty slots on the weapon rack until they hummed.

Zhao Gang stood under the corridor, rubbing his hands vigorously, his grin nearly splitting his face to his ears.

Shen Yue leaned against the pillar, her fingers resting on her sword hilt, her gaze sweeping across those hundred faces, looking at them one by one, very slowly.

The door to the duty room closed.

Lin Chen sat at the desk, placing black abyss horizontally on the surface, his palm resting on the scabbard, feeling the coarse texture of the stingray skin.

The sky outside the window darkened bit by bit.

The shadow of the old locust tree retracted from the courtyard wall until only the very tips of the branches still held a sliver of light.

In the distance, in the direction of the Patrol Division Main Courtyard, a window lit up.

It was the window of Director Wang Gang's study.

The light shone from behind the window paper, a dull yellow, not large, but it never went out.

It remained lit for the entire night.