238: Chapter 238 Commissioner's Concessions, Information Exchange

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan arrived at the Blue Moon Island Pier shortly after the mid-morning hour.

Unlike last time, he came alone today—no entourage, no briefcase, and no inspection order stamped with the official seal of the Inspectorate.

He was not wearing his military uniform either—instead, he wore dark gray casual clothes, with no rank insignia or Inspectorate cloud patterns on the cuffs.

His left hand was still covered by that ultra-thin black sea-serpent skin glove.

After stepping onto the stone embankment, he did not head toward the Formation Affairs Room.

He stood on the Pier for about five breaths, looked up at the windows of the Lords Mansion, and then walked directly toward it.

Leng Feng met him at the entrance of the Lords Mansion, his sword hanging at his waist, its scabbard buckle fastened this time.

In the Chart Room, Lu Changyuan sat behind the chart table.

There were no ledgers on the table, no formation records, and no Spirit Stone consumption accounts.

There were only two cups of freshly brewed tea—coarse pottery cups, with the steam from the tea rising in faint white mists in the morning light.

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan entered and sat down opposite Lu Changyuan.

His posture was different from the last inspection; last time, his briefcase was at his feet, his back straight—the posture of official business.

This time, he leaned back half an inch, resting his right leg over his left, his left hand placed on his knee; casual clothes, a private visit, and his posture had shifted to a private one as well.

"Lord Lu, if it is convenient, I would like to take another look at your islands Spirit Stone accounts for the array bases."

"Special Commissioner Wei has already seen them."

"I have seen them, which is why I want to see them again."

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan picked up the teacup, though he did not drink, twirling the rim against his fingertips.

"After looking at them last time, I had an impression of the consumption figures from the third test in the accounts.

The difference between that figure and the previous two was exactly fifteen percent.

For a routine test in a Formation Affairs Room, the difference in consumption across three tests being perfectly uniform, save for one uneven instance—this distribution is far too reasonable."

"Reasonable—is that not good?"

"Too reasonable—that is what makes it unreasonable."

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan placed the teacup back on the table, right on top of the Blue Moon Island defense markings on the chart table.

"The Spirit Stone consumption of an array base during actual operation should have more scattered figures for each test.

Yours are scattered just right; it is as if someone laid out the numbers first, then mixed in one real set."

Lu Changyuan looked at him without speaking.

The Chart Room was silent for about five breaths.

Outside the window, the masts of the fleet at the North Corner Berth swayed gently in the morning breeze, the pennants at their tops fluttering toward Blue Moon Island.

The tide was receding, and after the waterline retreated, the base of the Killing Array eye on the reef wall briefly revealed the silver-gray luster of the Spirit Stone groove edge.

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan shifted his gaze from Lu Changyuan's face and swept a glance over the paper scrolls piled on the chart table.

A corner of the rubbing of the outer Array Pattern of the seal from Leng Feng's fourth exploration of the abyss peeked out from a bamboo tube.

The edge of the rubbing, the convergence direction of the ancient abyssal vein lines, and the way the Array Pattern of the coral box's double-ring sealing array converged—one could tell at a glance they were from the same era.

Lu Changyuan caught this gaze.

He pulled the rubbing from the bamboo tube and spread it out on the chart table.

On the rubbing, the three partial line paths of the ancient abyssal vein outside the Main Hub of the seal—the stacking direction of the array ink, the curvature of each pattern's convergence, and the twenty-four nodes on the coral box—were identical.

"Is Special Commissioner Wei interested in this?"

"The underwater abyss exploration of Blue Moon Island covers a much deeper area than I anticipated."

Lu Changyuan did not respond to this.

He pushed the rubbing nearly half a foot toward Special Commissioner Wei Yuan.

The bottom right corner of the rubbing was marked with the exploration date and the underwater depth—sixty li.

The depth of the periphery of the seal's Main Hub completely overlapped with the target exploration areas of the three lines in the ledger: "Recording Patterns," "Exploring Veins," and "Marking Entrances."

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan looked at the rubbing and fell silent.

The silence lasted for about twenty breaths.

Within those twenty breaths, the only sounds in the Chart Room were the extremely low-frequency sound of the receding tide flowing down the reef wall outside the window and the fine scratching of Su Qingli's charcoal pencil drawing array diagrams in the adjacent Formation Affairs Room.

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan was calculating.

His fingers tapped lightly on his knee, the rhythm very slow, with nearly three breaths between each tap.

After twenty breaths, he lifted his left hand from his knee and placed it on the chart table.

Back of the hand down, palm up, then he flipped it over.

After flipping his hand over, he peeled the leather glove off his left hand, one section at a time.

The movement of removing the glove was very slow; first the thumb, then the index finger, then the middle finger, and finally the ring finger and little finger.

As he reached the web of his thumb, the leather glove slid gently over a burn scar, revealing the full extent of the scar in the morning light.

Above the web of his left thumb was an old burn scar.

The radial tearing lines at the edge of the scar spread nearly two fen from the center of the scar.

A compression burn—a red-hot metal object pressed down from above, causing the skin tissue to instantly carbonize before healing.

The scar left after healing had irregular edges and was nearly two shades darker than the surrounding skin.

On the second knuckle of his finger was a faint ring of an old callus, a mark worn from years of wearing a ring.

He left his left hand on the table without pulling it back, the burn scar facing up.

"Lord Lu."

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan's voice had not changed, but his speaking speed was nearly half as slow as before.

"What is it you want?"

Lu Changyuan looked at that hand for about three breaths, then pulled a piece of paper from under the chart table, on which three lines of text were written.

"First, the exploration data for the three lines coded 'Recording Patterns,' 'Exploring Veins,' and 'Marking Entrances' in the ledger—the exact location of the abyssal vein and the flow of the water spiritual power."

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan did not nod or shake his head.

His eyes remained fixed on Lu Changyuan's face, his pupils contracting to less than half their normal size in the morning light, unmoving.

"Second, from today on, the Inspectorate will no longer conduct any form of inspection on Blue Moon Island within the fortress, including both formal and informal ones."

"Third—whenever Special Commissioner Wei has operations involving the Blue Moon Island defense zone—whether from the Inspectorate or from the ledger side—you must inform us in advance."

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan read the three lines from beginning to end.

When he saw the third line, his fingers tapped lightly on the table, the spot he tapped being directly below the third line.

"The first two—can be done. The third—"

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan withdrew his left hand from the table and put the leather glove back on.

The movement of putting the glove on was just as slow as when he took it off—thumb first, then index, middle, ring, and little finger.

The burn scar on the web of his thumb disappeared after being covered by the leather glove.

"The third—I have neither agreed nor disagreed."

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan stood up and finished the last sip of tea in the cup; the tea had already gone cold.

Lu Changyuan did not press for an answer; he folded the paper with the three lines written on it and tucked it back into his inner sleeve pocket.

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan walked to the door of the Chart Room and paused for a step.

During that pause, his left foot stepped on the threshold, and the tip of his right foot angled outward by nearly ten degrees, as if he wanted to turn around, but he didn't.

Then he stepped over the threshold and walked toward the Pier.

Leng Feng walked into the Chart Room after Special Commissioner Wei Yuan had walked away.

He stood at the doorway for a moment, his gaze sweeping over the teacup Special Commissioner Wei Yuan had used, then resting on Lu Changyuan's face.

"He conceded too quickly.

The first two—he agreed almost without hesitation.

The third—when he said 'I have neither agreed nor disagreed,' he wasn't hesitating; he was treating the third item as a reason for our next meeting.

He needs to keep the third item so that he can come again later without needing to find a new excuse."

Lu Changyuan turned over the teacup Special Commissioner Wei Yuan had used.

At the bottom of the cup, beneath the tea dregs, was a faint circle of dark green powder.

The particles of the powder were nearly ten times finer than the tea dregs, and the color was not any shade produced by brewing tea leaves.

The dark green powder was arranged in a small, regular ring at the bottom of the cup, the ring about half an inch in diameter, with extremely fine burn marks on its edges.

It was used micro-array powder—not sprinkled in, but dropped into the bottom of the cup from his fingertips after being crushed by his fingers.

A micro eavesdropping array—the array base was only the size of half a grain of rice, and once activated, it could record all sounds within a zhang into the array path.

After being crushed, the array path was destroyed—the array powder turned dark green, stuck to his fingers, and dissolved into the tea from his fingertips while he drank.

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan had crushed it while drinking tea—he had crushed his own eavesdropping array that he had placed himself.

During the negotiation, he had been operating on two lines simultaneously: his mouth was negotiating terms, while his fingers were activating the eavesdropping array to record the entire conversation.

But he had crushed the array before the conversation ended; it wasn't because he was afraid of being discovered—it was because there was no need to keep recording.

"He wasn't conceding."

Lu Changyuan placed the cup on the windowsill, bottom facing up, the dark green powder residue gleaming with a very faint, dim light in the sunlight.

"He was testing—testing how much we actually have in our hands.

He had activated the eavesdropping array before entering the door; what he wanted to record was not the content of the negotiation, but the way I spoke.

A person holding key evidence speaks differently from a person without evidence.

He heard it all—confirmed it—and then crushed the array."

"Confirmed what?"

"Confirmed that we have the ledgers in our hands—but they are not complete.

He doesn't know if we have the Complete Manual—so he only agreed to the first two items.

He didn't agree to the third item because he still needs time to judge—to judge if what we have is enough to directly topple him.

Now he knows—"

Lu Changyuan withdrew his hand from the bottom of the cup.

"We have enough—but not enough to directly topple him.

That's why he didn't agree to the third item.

Therefore—he will come again.

Next time—he will come with terms."

Leng Feng looked at the dark green residue on the bottom of the cup on the windowsill and was silent for a moment.

"At that time—will he propose the terms, or will we?"

"Whoever proposes first—is at a disadvantage."

Lu Changyuan sat back down at the chart table, flipped over the paper with vertical lines Shen Qinghan had previously drawn, and wrote one character on the back: "Wait."

"He is more anxious than we are now.

The ledgers are in Blue Moon Island's hands—he doesn't know if they are complete.

Commander Tie Zhan's inspection order hangs over his head—he doesn't know who is watching.

Shen Qinghan's life or death—he cannot be sure.

With these things added together—Special Commissioner Wei Yuan's patience cannot last too long.

The next time he comes—it won't be to test; it will be to talk."

Outside the window, there was no one left by the railing of the seventh Inspectorate special ship at the North Corner Berth.

The deck was empty—all the personnel in casual clothes on the ship had withdrawn into the cabin.

On the Pier, only the sentries of the Royal Capital Fleet were pacing back and forth outside the berth.

The main force of the Haiyuan Clan was fifty-four li away—having shifted nearly half a li further to the east.

The speed of the shift was getting slower and slower—but the direction was stable.

On Su Qingli's Receiving Formation, the time interval of that intermittent, extremely low-frequency fluctuation had shortened again, from three hours down to less than two hours.

Something was slowly waking up.

Lu Changyuan took the Spirit Essence from his Storage Pouch.

It was the size of a fist, flickering between blue and white, the rhythm as slow as breathing.

He held the Spirit Essence up to the afternoon sunlight outside the window and took a look.

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan had taken a step back.

The Haiyuan Clan was still waiting—the thing they were waiting for was waking up.

The window of opportunity for Blue Moon Island—might be even shorter than expected.

The Killing Array must be raised before that.

He put the Spirit Essence back into his Storage Pouch and walked toward the Formation Affairs Room.