As for what Li Chi had said, Jiang Qianneng didn’t place much trust in it — because it was Cao Du who said it.

Cao Du… a man like that, how much could you really believe.

Was a man with such a terrible reputation terrible for no reason at all?

But within Gui Yuanshu’s heart there was a great deal of tumbling and turning. He might not even have realized it himself — that his perception of a person could change in just a matter of days.

“If only you weren’t Cao Du.”

Gui Yuanshu seemed to murmur it to himself.

Li Chi narrowed his eyes at him, then broke into a smile: “If I weren’t Cao Du, you’d be grinning from ear to ear.”

Gui Yuanshu looked at Li Chi.

Li Chi asked: “Stop giving me that innocent look. If I weren’t Cao Du, would you not arrest me?”

Gui Yuanshu also smiled: “If you weren’t Cao Du, of course I would arrest you — I am the Chief Justice.”

Li Chi gave a quiet affirmation and rose: “Think over what I said yourselves. Right now I’m going back to sleep.”

Gui Yuanshu suddenly asked: “Young Marquis — how long have you been in Daxing?”

Li Chi answered: “Not yet ten days. Why — does Minister Gui have questions?”

Gui Yuanshu shook his head.

After Li Chi left, Jiang Qianneng asked Gui Yuanshu: “Were you suspecting Cao Du? What were you suspicious of?”

Gui Yuanshu said: “Weren’t you also suspicious? And isn’t what you’re suspicious of the same thing I’m suspicious of?”

Jiang Qianneng asked: “So?”

Gui Yuanshu shook his head: “I don’t know either. I’m not even sure… maybe I thought about it and simply wasn’t willing to admit I’d thought it.”

Jiang Qianneng looked at Gui Yuanshu: “Whatever the case — what he just said, I’m interested in it. If he’s serious.”

Gui Yuanshu rose and walked to the window, watching Li Chi pass through the back gate of the Court of Judicial Review compound and vanish from sight.

“If only he were just Cao Du.”

Gui Yuanshu murmured to himself.

Jiang Qianneng asked: “Why did you ask him how long he’d been in the capital?”

Gui Yuanshu turned back to look at Jiang Qianneng, was quiet for a moment, then sighed: “Calculating roughly when he might disappear.”

—

A day later, Gui Yuanshu was sorting through case files when he felt a vague emptiness in his heart — as though something was missing.

He thought about it carefully and realized: that fellow Cao Du hadn’t come to bother him in a whole day.

At that, Gui Yuanshu paused.

Wasn’t it a good thing that the man hadn’t come to annoy him?

Or perhaps — precisely because this fellow had gone a full day without appearing before him, Gui Yuanshu felt that on this very day, the man must have gone and done something enormous.

The longer he spent with him, the more it seemed that beneath that casual, careless manner of Cao Du’s lived a danger that became clearer and clearer to see.

He even found himself thinking: if Cao Du suddenly turned up in the imperial palace to assassinate the Emperor, he probably wouldn’t even be surprised.

Just as he was mulling this over, Zheng Shunshun came rushing in from outside, looking decidedly unwell.

“Minister.”

Zheng Shunshun called out the moment he came through the door: “Something enormous has happened.”

Gui Yuanshu immediately stood: “What is it?”

Zheng Shunshun said: “His Majesty has summoned the Minister to the palace immediately. The palace messenger is still outside waiting. They say that today at the Hero Assembly there has been another major incident.”

Gui Yuanshu felt his scalp tighten. He hurriedly gathered himself and made for the Shiyuan Palace at the fastest pace he could manage.

Inside the Imperial Study, the Emperor stood looking out the window, and had gone a long while without a single word.

In the past few days, there had not been a single moment when the Emperor’s mood was anything but wretched. One major crisis after another had begun to shake the heart of this young ruler.

Above all, the matter of Jiang Qianneng — the Emperor’s mood had been going up and down, back and forth.

Every word Jiang Qianneng had said before him — not one of them had failed to cut like a blade into his heart.

He had expected that once Jiang Qianneng was dead, the case would be closed, and though the pain would linger, it would eventually pass.

But Jiang Qianneng had been spirited away. And from what Hui Chunqiu had reported, the people who took him were extraordinarily capable.

This left the Emperor with no choice but to suspect that Jiang Qianneng had never intended to go to his death — that it had all been a deliberate act.

And from there, another question arose: who were those people, and were they Jiang Qianneng’s own, or the people of someone behind Jiang Qianneng?

Yet even as the Emperor was wrestling with all of this, at noon the Hero Assembly erupted into another great uproar — and even now it had not been brought under control. The mood of those seventy or eighty thousand people, which had only just been stabilized, had exploded again in an instant.

If something wasn’t done to calm them, this incident could produce an even greater disaster than the last one.

—

Gui Yuanshu rushed to the Imperial Study, and on the way there the palace messenger gave him a rough account of what had happened.

Before Jiang Qianneng’s matter arose, he had offered the Emperor three recommendations — and Gui Yuanshu had been present for all three.

Two of those three had already been set in motion by Jiang Qianneng himself.

The first: hand the condemned criminals over to the people to deal with — to pacify the public outcry. The second: immediately draw four hundred thousand taels from the treasury and distribute it to the assembly participants, so they would know the earlier rumors were false.

The first had been personally overseen by Jiang Qianneng on the spot — he had brought the criminals to the Hero Assembly himself.

The second had also been set in motion by those Jiang Qianneng had dispatched.

Because His Majesty had personally given his word to it, Jiang Qianneng’s people had quickly drawn the four hundred thousand taels from the treasury.

Although Jiang Qianneng had run into trouble, the matter still needed to be seen through. Today the four hundred thousand taels had been transported to the encampment, tens of thousands of people had been assembled and formed into lines for the distribution — five taels per person.

But in the very moment of handing out the silver, it was discovered that the silver was counterfeit.

Every chest of silver had only a top layer that was genuine. Everything underneath was stone. By rough reckoning, of the four hundred thousand taels transported to the encampment, perhaps not even ten thousand taels of real silver had arrived.

—

In the Imperial Study.

The Emperor turned to face Gui Yuanshu: “When the silver left the treasury, everything was verified and confirmed — all genuine silver. But because of Jiang Qianneng’s matter there was a delay of one night, and the silver was stored at the Ministry of War during that time. When it arrived at the Ministry of War, the seals were all intact. But by the time the silver reached the Hero Assembly, it had become stone.”

Gui Yuanshu drew a slow, deep breath and bowed: “Your servant will investigate immediately and report to Your Majesty as soon as possible.”

The Emperor’s hand gripped the window frame. The muscles on his arm flexed in slow, rhythmic pulses.

“It seems there has not been a single moment of peace for the Emperor in these past few days.”

The Emperor was silent for a moment, then continued: “Go and investigate this case. Call your people back from the Hero Assembly.”

Gui Yuanshu bowed: “Your servant obeys.”

The Emperor raised a hand and waved him off — indicating he could go. Gui Yuanshu bowed deeply, then backed out of the room with a bow.

It was apparent that the Emperor was feeling somewhat drained — likely he had not slept soundly for a single day in this stretch.

Coming out of the Imperial Study, Commander Hui Chunqiu also followed him out. Gui Yuanshu asked: “Does Commander Hui have something else?”

Hui Chunqiu said: “Nothing in particular. I’m free right now, so I’ll come along with Minister Gui and see how a case is investigated — learn something.”

Gui Yuanshu smiled inwardly. A man like Hui Chunqiu would never follow him to investigate a case for no reason whatsoever.

The two walked side by side out of the Shiyuan Palace, making idle conversation along the way — and truly not discussing a single serious matter.

Once they were in the carriage, Hui Chunqiu seemed to become somewhat more somber.

“Commander Hui — whatever you want to say, there’s no need to hold back.”

Gui Yuanshu said: “If you want to ask me something, I’ll answer everything I know.”

Hui Chunqiu shook his head: “I simply cannot work out at all why silver could suddenly turn into stone with the seals still intact.”

Gui Yuanshu said: “Based on what I know so far, I have two rough theories.”

He looked at Hui Chunqiu: “First — the silver was already false when it left the treasury. Someone simply didn’t want people to know. If that’s the case, the one who lied is someone inside the treasury, and there is a serious problem with the treasury.”

“Second possibility — the silver spent a night at the Ministry of War, meaning it may have been swapped out while it was at the Ministry of War.”

Hui Chunqiu asked: “Then why were the seals intact?”

Gui Yuanshu said: “Has Commander Hui considered the possibility — that the seals were not tampered with because… they were all *replaced* with new ones?”

Hui Chunqiu was taken aback.

He truly had not thought of that.

He asked: “Are we going to the Hero Assembly’s encampment now?”

Gui Yuanshu shook his head: “No. Let’s take a look at the treasury first.”

—

The Ministry of Finance’s silver treasury was under heavy guard.

To enter the treasury and draw silver, an elaborate series of procedures was required — and the person drawing the silver could not actually enter. They waited outside while the silver was brought to them.

The silver brought out came in sealed, locked chests — verified by the treasury personnel themselves, not by whoever was collecting it.

So it was entirely possible that the silver had been false at the point of leaving the treasury — if so, there might be a serious underlying problem with the treasury, and they had no choice but to handle it this way.

The matter had been made to seem deliberately obscure, when in reality the treasury had long since been completely emptied out — there was no silver left to disburse.

Jiang Qianneng happened to be in trouble — giving the treasury personnel the perfect opportunity to push all the blame onto the Ministry of War.

—

Outside the treasury gate, Gui Yuanshu looked at the group of treasury soldiers blocking his path, his gaze drifting.

The general in command looked somewhat imperious. Without an imperial decree or the Chief Minister’s authority token, no one was permitted inside the treasury.

By all appearances, if Gui Yuanshu’s party took one more step forward, they would draw their blades.

Hui Chunqiu lowered his voice: “You didn’t request an imperial decree?”

Gui Yuanshu nodded: “I forgot.”

Hui Chunqiu let out a sigh: “So if we force our way in and they kill us, His Majesty couldn’t even stand up for us?”

Gui Yuanshu nodded again: “That’s right.”

But he smiled, and unhooked the long blade at his waist. He raised it in both hands above his head.

“I have no imperial decree — but I carry the Emperor’s personal blade. His Majesty’s oral decree: to see this blade is to see the Emperor himself. Those who refuse to open the treasury — I may execute first and report afterward.”

This put the treasury guards in a difficult spot.

Hui Chunqiu, reading the moment perfectly, unclipped his own waist token: “I am Commander of the Imperial Guard, Hui Chunqiu — accompanying this investigation under imperial order.”

And so the gates opened.

—

At the same time. The official lodging house.

Li Chi was reclining in a rocking chair, swaying gently, seemingly quite pleased with the weather today.

The last light of dusk was clinging on reluctantly, while Li Chi was already settling in to welcome the coming dark.

“Chief.”

Yu Jiuling came in, his voice lowered: “Confirmed — the silver is in the underground money house. I went in myself. The stored silver in that money house — it’s at least five million taels… the *Mountain River Seal* is the real treasury…”

Li Chi smiled: “Why are you complimenting the Mountain River Seal? It’s all ours anyway.”

Yu Jiuling asked: “What’s the next step?”

Li Chi smiled: “Tonight, you take some men, get into costume, and go to the Hero Assembly’s encampment to make some arrests.”

He took out a plaque and handed it to Yu Jiuling: “Take this with you. I spent all day without going out — just finished carving it.”

Yu Jiuling took it and looked. Then his face went blank.

The plaque bore the seal of the Chief Justice of the Court of Judicial Review.

Yu Jiuling said, with something resembling sympathy: “Are we really going to keep targeting him? We can’t keep piling everything on one person — it’s not quite right, is it.”

Li Chi smiled: “Go on. He can take it.”