Chapter 7
Three quarters past midnight.
Shengjing City had long since fallen into a dead silence. The sound of clappers pierced the dense darkness, carrying a bone-chilling chill as they struck the towering walls of the Prime Minister's residence, like knocking on an icy coffin lid. The bloody reek of the daytime assassination seemed to have lingered, and the atmosphere within the Prime Minister's residence felt darker and colder than at midnight. All the bright lights were extinguished, save for a faint ray of light, barely enough to pierce the darkness, glimmering from behind the window lattice of the "Jingguan" study.
In the study, the candlelight was as dim as a bean.
Gu Linzhi didn't sit behind his desk, but stood with his hands behind his back before the enormous map of Dayong. His dark uniform blended into the shadows, his figure towering like a solitary peak. Only the candlelight outlined his cold, stone-like profile. His gaze, as if piercing the barriers of time and space, rested lingeringly and intently on the patch of frozen ground in the north, deeply circled in cinnabar ink on the map—the spot where the Jingbei Army had died.
The air was filled with the scent of ink, the bitterness of herbs, and... a faint, yet lingering, odor of rust. Qing Feng, his arm bandaged, stood silently in the shadows of the study corner like a staunch rock, his breathing carefully slowed. His sharp gaze, like an unsheathed blade, warily scanned every inch of darkness cast through the cracks in the doors and windows.
Time, in the monotonous ticking of the clepsydra, was cut into countless tiny fragments, and each moment was as heavy as a lead block.
“Knock…knock…knock…”
A series of extremely light knocking sounds, with a peculiar rhythm of three long and two short, like a ghostly whisper, came from an unremarkable hidden door on the inside of the study, integrated into the bookshelf. The sound was very soft, but in the dead silence, it was as clear as thunder!
Qing Feng's body tensed instantly, the veins of his hand pressing on the hilt of the sword at his waist exposed, and a cold light flashed in his eyes! Gu Linzhi's gaze remained calmly fixed on the map, but in his eyes, as deep as a cold pond, beneath the ice, a subtle ripple finally appeared.
The secret door slid silently inward, leaving a gap just wide enough for one person to pass through.
A thicker odor, a mixture of old blood, sweat, and the dust and frost of a long journey, suddenly poured into the study! Then, a tall, burly, yet slightly stooped figure, wrapped in the cold air outside, stumbled in like a wounded tiger returning to its nest!
The man wore a half-worn, dark gray, coarse cotton robe, stained with mud and snow, with faint traces of dark red blood smearing the edges. His hair was a mess of gray, and his face was furrowed, etched with the marks of frost and deep fatigue. Yet, his eyes shone with a startling brilliance, like charcoal stars burning with the last flame of life, filled with sorrow, anger, and a near-mad determination! It was none other than General Han Zhenshan, the former deputy commander of the Jingbei Army, who had retired fourteen years earlier!
The moment he stepped into the study, his eyes were fixed on the dark figure standing in front of the map. That look was like a wandering soul that had finally found its way home, or like a dying warrior seeing the final battle flag!
"General!" A hoarse, dry, blood-tinged roar erupted from the depths of Han Zhenshan's throat! This address wasn't addressed to the powerful minister of the dynasty, but to the soul of the Northern Frontier Army, who had fought shoulder to shoulder in that bloody snowstorm fourteen years earlier, only to watch helplessly as his comrades succumbed to hunger, cold, and the blades of their swords.
Han Zhenshan didn't even salute. He stumbled forward a few steps, each one heavy as if on broken ice. His withered hands clutched a heavy, long bundle wrapped tightly in oilcloth, soaked with body heat and sweat, across his chest, as if it were the only thing keeping him alive. His body trembled violently from the extreme excitement and the exhaustion of the long journey, and his breathing was as heavy and rapid as an old bellows.
Gu Linzhi turned around slowly.
In the candlelight, he saw Han Zhenshan's appearance clearly. The bloodstained robe, the bloodshot, sunken eye sockets, the face twisted with extreme pain and repression... Every trace silently told of the torment he had endured for fourteen years and the heavy burden he had carried on this journey.
There were no pleasantries, no greetings. Gu Linzhi's gaze, like an icy probe, fell on the oilcloth package Han Zhenshan held tightly in his arms. Inside was the ironclad evidence he had been waiting for fourteen years, enough to overturn the entire Shengjing and even the Great Yong court!
"Have you brought the things...?" Gu Linzhi's voice was low and steady. It rang out in the silent study, but it had a penetrating power like the sound of metal clashing, instantly suppressing Han Zhenshan's heavy breathing.
Han Zhenshan suddenly raised his head, his eyes, like charcoal fire, fixed on Gu Linzhi. A hoarse sound emanated from his throat, as if endless grief and injustice were about to burst forth! He stopped talking, and with his hands trembling like dead leaves in the wind, he began to untie the layers of oilcloth on his chest, which were repeatedly soaked with sweat and blood, with great difficulty and incomparable solemnity!
Layer after layer of oilcloth peeled away, revealing an equally old, heavily frayed hardcover volume within, and... a broken blade! The cover was dark brown, hard cowhide, devoid of any writing, yet permeated with a strong smell of blood and dust. The broken blade, about a foot long, had a thick, broad blade, its edge covered in finely curled edges and notches. The leather wrapped around the handle had long since worn to a glossy black, and the fracture was jagged, as if it had been shattered by a tremendous force!
“Plop!”
Han Zhenshan's legs could no longer support him, and he fell heavily to his knees on the cold, hard golden brick floor! His knees collided with the ground with a dull thud. He held the hardcover booklet and the broken blade high above his head, as if holding the most sacred offering, or as if holding the still-warm corpses of himself and his thirty thousand comrades! His head bowed deeply, his graying hair tangled over his shoulders. His body trembled violently with extreme grief and suppressed sobs, and from his throat emanated a low, broken roar like that of a wounded beast.
"General... General Gu..." Han Zhenshan's voice was hoarse like sandpaper, and every word sounded like a blood clot squeezed out of his chest, "General... General... I am ashamed of my brothers!!" He raised his head suddenly, and in his bloodshot eyes, turbid old tears rushed out like a flood that broke through the dam, flowing freely along his wrinkled and weather-beaten cheeks, and falling on the mirror-like gold bricks, spreading dark water stains.
"This... is the account book Zhao Tiezhu, the former warehouse officer of the Jingbei Camp, wrote in his blood on his inner garment before he starved to death! He... he secretly recorded the exact amount of grain entering the warehouse! He hid it... hid it beneath his frozen corpse! This knife... belonged to Liu Heizi, the captain of the Vanguard Battalion! He... he was leading the last dozen or so men to cover their retreat... and the Di people's heavy hammer broke his knife... and with it... his life!!"
Han Zhenshan's voice was choked with sobs, and he couldn't stop crying. The huge grief almost tore him apart:
"Thirty thousand brothers... thirty thousand lives! They didn't die under the swords of the Di people... They... They starved to death! They froze to death! They ate... They ate grain mixed with sand and moldy rice... and even... even poisonous grain... Their intestines were pierced and their stomachs were rotten... They died of pain!!" He tightly grasped the broken blade and the blood letter, his knuckles creaking with the force, as if he wanted to crush this ironclad evidence that carried endless blood and tears, and as if he wanted to draw his last strength from it.
"Fourteen years... a full fourteen years! I've been like a stray dog... hiding from place to place... pretending to be crazy... just for... just to wait for this day! Waiting for an opportunity... to deliver this blood certificate... earned by my brothers with their lives... into your hands!!" Han Zhenshan slammed his forehead heavily on the golden brick floor. There was a dull "bang", like the death knell for the dead souls!
"General! I... on behalf of the 30,000 brothers of the Jingbei Army who died with their eyes wide open... I beg you! I beg you to seek justice for them... Blood debt... must be paid with blood!!"
The last four words, like a tearful cry, carried with them fourteen years of pent-up hatred and endless sadness, resounded in the silent study! The sound was like the roar of thirty thousand wronged souls from the depths of hell, shaking the candlelight and causing dust to fall from the bookshelf!
Qing Feng's knuckles were turning white as he gripped the hilt of the knife. The wound on his arm had burst open from the force, and blood seeped through the bandage again. He gritted his teeth, suppressing the roar of grief, anger, and murderous intent that surged from his throat. His eyes were already red!
Gu Linzhi stood there, like an unmelted iceberg. The candlelight cast flickering shadows on his face. Deep within those eyes, as deep as a cold pond, the ice finally broke apart! No longer was there cold calculation, no longer was there deep forbearance, but a raging rage that could incinerate the world and reduce everything to dust... A raging flame! The flames roared silently, threatening to break through the shackles of his icy body!
He walked slowly, step by step, toward Han Zhenshan, who was kneeling on the ground and sobbing. Every step he took on the gold bricks echoed heavily and clearly, like a war drum beating on the bones of a dead soul.
He stretched out his hands.
Those hands, with distinct joints, were slender and powerful. They had once wielded a pen to review the landscape and a sword to bleed blood on the battlefield. Now, with a strength as heavy as a mountain and a barely perceptible tremor, they steadily and solemnly took the blood-stained hardcover volume and the heavy broken blade from Han Zhenshan's hands!
It felt cold to the touch! The rough texture of the hardcover booklet seemed to still hold the warmth of Zhao Tiezhu, the frozen body of the Warehouse Officer; the cold metal texture of the broken blade seemed to be soaked in the scorching blood of Captain Liu Heizi! This coldness, like the hottest magma, instantly scorched his palm, followed his blood vessels, and reached the bloody storm deep in his heart that had been buried for fourteen years!
Gu Linzhi's fingers slowly brushed across the coagulated, dark brown, long-dried bloodstains on the cover of the hardcover booklet. That blood came from a small, despairing warehouse officer who bit his finger in despair, sacrificing his life to reveal the truth! His fingertips gently touched the jagged crack on the broken blade. That crack bore witness to the tragic death of a brave captain, shattered by a heavy hammer!
He slowly opened the hardcover booklet.
In the dim candlelight, what caught my eye wasn't neat ink calligraphy, but dense, twisted, struggling, dark red handwriting that resembled ghostly scribbles! It was a scene of hell, carved stroke by stroke with frozen fingers, bitten fingertips, dipped in one's own blood, in despair and cold...
"In the winter of the eleventh year of Tianyou, on October 27th, three batches of military rations were deposited into the warehouse, totaling 50,000 dan. Signed by: Shen Ziqing, Director of the Ministry of Warehouses. Inspection: Beige gray, with a pungent musty smell. Crushed into powder, with over 30% sand and gravel mixed in!"
"On the third day of the eleventh month, fodder was distributed to the vanguard camp. After eating, over a hundred soldiers suffered from vomiting and diarrhea. They suspected the rice was poisonous! Reporting this to the superiors, they denounced it as 'spreading evil and misleading the troops, shaking the morale of the army,' and issued twenty lashes!"
"On November 11th, heavy snow blocked the mountains. Our food reserves were exhausted! We had to eat moldy rice, grass roots, and tree bark to fill our stomachs. The number of people falling ill in the camp increased day by day, their stomachs clenched like knives, and they wailed incessantly..."
"On November 21st, the Di people attacked the pass! The soldiers went to meet the enemy on an empty stomach! Exhausted... Exhausted... Zhao Tiezhu's last words..."
Every word bleeds with tears! Every line bleeds with tears! The twisted, struggling handwriting, like the withered hands of thirty thousand wronged souls reaching toward the heavens, silently denounces the heinous crime that has been deliberately concealed! Behind the cold numbers lies the tragic scene of countless young lives desperately struggling in hunger, cold, and excruciating pain, until they were silently annihilated!
Gu Linzhi's hands, gripping the booklet and the broken blade, were white-knuckled and trembling from the extreme force applied. The raging rage burned and roared silently in his eyes, nearly consuming his sanity completely! But he suppressed it with all his might. He closed his eyes, almost hearing the howling wind and snow across the northern wasteland, mingled with the dying screams and agonized groans of countless comrades!
Fourteen years of forbearance! Fourteen years of waiting! Fourteen years of donning the mask of a powerful official, treading cautiously and cautiously in the heart of the power vortex of Shengjing! For this moment! For the heavy evidence in my hands, soaked in the blood of my comrades!
The study was deathly silent. Only Han Zhenshan's suppressed sobs, like a wounded beast, lingered in the flickering candlelight, adding to the sorrow.
a long time.
Gu Linzhi slowly opened his eyes. The rage in his eyes had been forced back into the deepest part of his soul, frozen again into a resoluteness colder and harder than ten thousand years of black ice... a determination that was strong enough to tear the sky apart and crush mountains and rivers!
He placed the bloodstained booklet and the broken blade solemnly on the desk. The cold sandalwood surface, reflecting these two pieces of evidence, bearing so much blood, tears, and injustice, emanated a chilling, murderous aura.
He turned around and his eyes fell on Han Zhenshan, who was still kneeling on the ground, heartbroken.
"General Han," Gu Linzhi's voice was low and clear, with a power that penetrated the soul, and every word was as heavy as a thousand pounds. "Please stand up."
Qing Feng immediately stepped forward, endured the severe pain in his arm, and carefully helped Han Zhenshan, who was almost exhausted.
Gu Linzhi's eyes swept over Han Zhenshan's dusty, bloodstained old robes, and he said in a deep voice: "Qingfeng, take the old general away. Use the best medicine and the most appropriate people to take care of him. I want to see all the injuries on the old general healed. The old general's safety," he paused slightly, his tone suddenly becoming sharp, like a sword drawn from its sheath, "is your life!"
"Yes! Master, don't worry! I guarantee it with my life!" Qing Feng said firmly, his voice hoarse but full of power.
Han Zhenshan, supported by Qingfeng, stumbled toward the side room. He kept looking back, his tear-soaked eyes fixed on the blood-stained letter and the broken blade on the desk. His lips trembled, and in the end, he let out a long sigh filled with endless sorrow and hope.
Gu Lin was the only one left in the study room again.
The candlelight danced, casting his tall figure on the huge map behind him, covering the Jiangnan water network, shrouding the Shengjing Palace, and finally, pressing heavily like a mountain on the vast frozen land of the northern border.
He slowly walked to the desk.
His gaze, like the most precise chisel, once again scrutinized the blood-stained hardcover volume—"Records of Border Defense (Incomplete)." Zhao Tiezhu, the name of a humble warehouse officer, now weighed heavily on his mind! His fingertips gently brushed across the few lines on the title page, also written in blood, but even more sloppily, as if written in the final moments of his life:
"There's something fishy going on with the grain! The signatures are fake! Transport Commissioner Zhou Kang, Minister of Warehouses Shen Ziqing, and Minister of Revenue Zhang... are all... rats! Behind this... is... Xie..."
The writing stopped abruptly here, covered by a large splash of dark red blood.
Thanks!
A surname! A surname with an unmistakable meaning! Like a flash of lightning in the darkness, it instantly illuminated the poisonous dragon lurking in the depths of the fourteen-year bloodbath, manipulating countless puppets!
The corners of Gu Linzhi's lips slowly curled up into an icy arc filled with endless murderous intent.
Xie Yong.
It’s you!
He slowly raised his hand and tapped his fingertips lightly on the cold rosewood table.
Deep.
Deep.
Deep.
Three soft sounds echoed in the silent study, like the beat of a death drum, or like the horn that started the final battle.
"Mo Ya." Gu Linzhi's voice was not loud, but it seemed to come from the Netherworld Abyss, with a chilling feeling that froze everything.
In the shadow at the edge of the door, a figure slid out silently like a ghost, knelt on one knee, and buried his head deep in his chest.
"master."
Gu Linzhi's eyes did not leave the bloody letter and the broken blade on the desk, his voice was cold without a trace of warmth:
"First, use our deepest 'nail' in the Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple. Seal all the files, corpse compartments, and evidence from the cases of Chen Bingzhi's sudden death, the seven murders in Changlefang, and... today's assassination at the Prime Minister's residence... no matter whether they are obvious or hidden. Within three days, I want them all to appear on my desk intact."
"Secondly," he tapped his fingertips lightly on the blood-stained 'Records of Border Defense,' "transcribe in cipher every signature and transfer record mentioning 'Transport Envoy Zhou Kang,' 'Minister of Warehouses Chen Ziqing,' and 'Minister of Revenue Zhang Xian,' as well as... these few lines of blood on the title page. Send this transcript to the residence of Feng Zijing, the Right Censor-in-Chief of the Metropolitan Censorate, before sunset tomorrow. Let him 'accidentally' discover it."
Feng Zijing! A stalwart of the Qingliu (clean and honest) faction within the imperial court, he had a long-standing feud with Xie Yong's faction. With his unyielding character, he earned the nickname "Iron Face"! More importantly, he had a teacher-student relationship with a certain old censor, who was implicated in the "Jingbei Military Grain" case and ultimately died of depression.
This transcript is not evidence, but a spark thrown into the frying pan!
"Third," Gu Linzhi finally raised his gaze and landed on Mo Ya's lowered head. His eyes were like two sharp swords tempered with ice. "Find out what's happening with Shen Ziqing in the Ministry of Justice's prison. I want to know who he's been meeting, what he's said, what he's eaten, and even... what he's muttering in his sleep. Also, use the secret agents we've planted in the Cao Gang to keep a close eye on all the grain transport ships sailing from Jiangnan to Shengjing, especially... the express ships carrying special 'cargo'."
Mo Ya's heart was pounding! His master was... going to attack with two methods! On the one hand, he was using the transcript to ignite the court, luring Feng Zijing, the "iron-faced mad dog," to attack the Xie clan officials; on the other hand, he was keeping a close eye on Shen Ziqing, the living criminal, and any remaining Jiangnan suspects who might have escaped! This meant Xie Yong wouldn't have any chance to breathe or destroy any witnesses!
"Yes!" Mo Ya's voice was rigid, but it carried a chilling murderous intent.
"And," Gu Linzhi paused, his gaze fixed on the impenetrable darkness outside the window, as if he had penetrated through the numerous buildings and glimpsed the seemingly aristocratic and peaceful Xie Mansion. "Keep a close eye on the Xie Mansion. I want to know who has the secret box that was fished out of the abandoned well in Changlefang... right now. 'Ghost Hand Zhang'... should have some news by then, too."
"Ghost Hand Zhang"... that unconventional person who only cares about money and not people, and is proficient in ingenious mechanisms! Xie Yong really asked him to open the secret box!
"I understand!" Mo Ya responded in a deep voice.
"Go." Gu Linzhi waved his hand, his gaze returning to the desk, onto the blood-stained "Record of Border Defense" and the heavy broken blade.
The black crow retreated silently and merged into the shadows.
The study returned to dead silence.
The candlelight flickered, its shadows flickering on Gu Linzhi's stern face. He slowly reached out his hand, his fingertips lightly brushing the jagged cracks on the broken blade. His movements were gentle, yet they carried a force as heavy as a mountain.
Fourteen years of blood debt.
The cries of 30,000 dead souls.
The chess game in Shengjing has reached the moment when the truth is revealed and life and death are decided!
He picked up the black iron token on the desk, representing the highest order from the Prime Minister's Mansion, and slowly stroked the cold, embossed python pattern on it with his fingertips. Then, he gently placed the token on the blood-stained "Border Guard Record."
The black iron talisman holds the truth written in blood.
It was like a cold authority finally being pressed on the bloody wound that had been sealed for fourteen years!
Gu Linzhi slowly closed his eyes.
On the desk, the candle flame suddenly jumped, bursting into a tiny lamp flower.
Outside the window, in the distant sky, there seemed to be a dull thunder that foreshadowed the coming storm... the Jingzhe thunder.
The sky of Shengjing is about to crack.
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