Xuanqing Guard

The tempests within the Temple Hall have never blown just once within the Ten Thousand People’s Palace; the storm spills beyond the palace walls, dispersing in every direction—never mere child’s play.

The matter of Commander Pang Ban of the Xuanqing Guard being given a five-day deadline by the Emperor during the court assembly has already stirred up heated discussion. Save for the common city folk, anyone even slightly well-informed has heard the news, and all are keenly waiting to see what spectacle will unfold.

At such a time, no one dares to speak recklessly in the open. Clearly, this is once again a contest of wits between the Civil Servants and the Xuanqing Guard. Who will win is yet unknown; those who rashly choose a side and speak out risk being remembered. In small circles or behind closed doors at home, people may whisper, but that is all.

And the very center of this event is the Qin Family. To the outside world, it is nothing but a show; within the Qin Family, it has become a deadly matter of life and death, urgent as fire singeing the brow.

One look at the Qin Family Mansion, now guarded as though a bamboo cage, suffices to know just how dire their situation has grown. Under usual circumstances, how would the Xuanqing Guard dare encircle the residence of a Fourth-Grade Official so brazenly? Their current arrogance amounts to treating the Qin Family as the walking dead.

Though the tension is palpable, three days have passed in the same manner. The Xuanqing Guards only encircle; they do not advance. Nor do they prevent members of the Qin Mansion from coming and going—though those who leave are discreetly tailed. It is only the teleportation arrays or passage out of the city that are strictly banned.

This strange standstill arouses much puzzlement. Word from the Temple Hall has spread all over these past three days already, and the Emperor’s five-day deadline is hardly a jest. If the time is exceeded, no matter how great Pang Ban’s reputation, he will have to pay with his head.

Could it be the Xuanqing Guard has run into some trouble, stalling further progress?!

This speculation only intensifies on the afternoon of the third day. The Qin Family gains hope for survival, while the Civil Servants—watching with bared teeth—also sense opportunity. Two days more. In two days, all will be revealed!

...

Still that same small courtyard, hidden within the Imperial City.

Shen Hao had not bothered today with any elaborate dishes; instead, he simply cooked himself a bowl of plain noodles for lunch. Zhang Liao still stood opposite him. Today, this fellow had brought his own meat pastries, and so he did not join Shen Hao’s modest noodle feast.

"So, you’re saying there really is some relationship between Qin Yurou and Chen Youwen? And not an ordinary one?" Shen Hao slurped a hefty mouthful, chewing as he asked Zhang Liao, voice somewhat muffled.

"Yes, sir. These days, the sugar workshops around Bai Dang Mountain have already changed hands, mostly taken over by local gentry and government-run shops. However, the people inside haven’t changed much: many old hands have been at this trade for a dozen, even twenty or thirty years. When questioned, quite a few could recall that there was once a man named Chen Youwen back then.

At that time, Chen Youwen was something of a figure in the sugar shops—one with no shortage of idle talk. But in those days, the Wen Family dominated, so those who knew the facts kept their mouths sealed. Now that the Wen Family is wiped out, these people are finally willing to speak up for the sake of some silver..."

The personnel Zhang Liao dispatched from Impermanence Department were actually insufficient, and he even had to borrow some from the Little Ghost Division; otherwise, it would have been much longer before he could gather these scattered bits of news.

According to Zhang Liao’s intelligence, there was once a rumor: A certain Wen Family matron set her sights on a sturdy, mature and cold-faced sugar workshop laborer. This laborer was already nearly fifty—not young to be learning the craft, so success should have been unlikely. Yet he was constantly favored, quickly promoted from odd-jobs to core apprentice, and within just over a year could personally operate the boiling vats, a privilege that normally took five or six years of seasoning.

This laborer was Chen Youwen.

And the matron in the rumors was none other than the Wen Family’s head wife, Qin Yurou.

From the very start, stories like this circulated quietly among the sugar workshops, not for the first time. Still, no one envied it. In the past, others involved with "a certain Wen Family matron" had gone missing; some said their corpses were seen in wild burial grounds or straw stacks beyond the city, tales told as if true or false. Believe it or not, it scarcely mattered—what everyone knew was that getting involved with that matron rarely ended well.

Later, after Chen Youwen had learned most of the sugar making craft in his second year, he did indeed disappear. Those familiar with Bai Dang Mountain said Chen Youwen was dead. Nowadays, unless prompted, they would have forgotten that the "laborer" had so hastily appeared and vanished around Bai Dang Mountain.

To the common folk, such stories sound utterly fantastical—would the grand matron of a Cultivation Race debase herself in a sordid affair? And with a non-tiered laborer, no less? But in Shen Hao’s eyes, such things are hardly rare.

From outside, the red walls and towering gates suggest lives above all others; those beyond always project their grandest desires onto these abodes, so it seems those red walls are filled with splendor.

But anyone who has glimpsed the world within knows better—the inside shares nothing with "splendor." Where there is magnificence, there is also filth.

There are too many joyless marriages brokered by alliance; all the more so when a High-Tier Cultivator is paired with a mundane woman who cannot cultivate. The chasm, unimaginably vast to outsiders, is real enough. Take just the matter of aging: a cultivator at seventy or eighty still romps in bed two or three times a night, whereas an ordinary man by that age wets his shoes peeing—there is no comparison. As for ordinary women, beauty fading with age is no joke.

And from another angle—rejected at home yet able to indulge outside—few, man or woman, can truly remain virtuous.

From what Shen Hao knows, so-called matrons sneaking out to seek young "wolves" or earth dogs are common indeed; otherwise, why would the Flower House’s special halls for female clientele be so popular?

"So, Chen Youwen and Qin Yurou were likely lovers?" Shen Hao finished his noodles, sipping the broth as he listened with interest.

"Yes, sir. But the Wen Family are all dead; those who truly know the facts can’t be found. Only scraps from the old hands at the sugar shops remain. What is certain is that Chen Youwen was undoubtedly involved with Qin Yurou, and it was thanks to her word at the local sugar shop that he learned in two years what takes others five or six years, eventually becoming a sugar master.

In addition, there’s word from the Jin Fengyuan workshop in the Imperial City: the reason Chen Youwen could become a sugar master as soon as he arrived was thanks to the Qin Family’s influence. But the one who handled it was not Qin Yurou herself, but a steward of the Qin Family’s main branch—named Huang Ping."

"Huang Ping? Is he still with the Qin Family?"

"Yes, always has been. Now the chief steward for external affairs of the main branch—quite a high position."

"Steward for external affairs? Then he’s often about outside, I suppose? Find an opportunity to bring him in for questioning. See whether it was Qin Yurou who helped Chen Youwen get into Jin Fengyuan.

Also, start compiling a dossier on Chen Youwen’s line."