Chapter 33 With irrefutable evidence in hand, Lin Chen sets fire to Black Pine Village.

The wick of the horn lantern let out a soft crackle, the dim yellow flame flickering back and forth within the shade.

Lin Chen sat upright before a mahogany desk.

His fingertips pressed against the edge of a yellowed, handwritten ledger, flipping to the pages in the latter half.

The frayed edges of the paper exuded an air of antiquity.

The pages were covered in dense accounts written in tiny, regular script using secret codes.

He leaned closer to the desk, using the dim light to comb through the criminal dealings hidden behind the ink, word by word.

The Left Commandant peeked half his body in from the broken iron door, his neck craning forward quite a distance.

His shimmering silver fish-scale armor scraped against the stone walls in the narrow passage, producing a series of faint grinding sounds.

“Chief Constable Lin.”

The Left Commandant's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed a mouthful of dry saliva.

His gaze drifted back and forth between the room full of gold and silver and the ledger in Lin Chen's hands.

“The brothers outside have already prepared the carts,” the Left Commandant reported in a low voice, rubbing the back of his hands.

“It's just that there are too many chests and cabinets in this stone chamber; I'm afraid it will take some time to clear it all out.”

Lin Chen didn't even look up, his fingers lightly stroking the page.

His eyes scanned the contents of that page from beginning to end.

“No rush.”

Lin Chen's voice echoed in the cold stone chamber, carrying an overbearing Aura.

“The kerosene I asked you to prepare—has it all been brought up the mountain?”

Hearing this, the Left Commandant stopped moving, and his armor plates ceased their clattering.

A fine layer of sweat began to bead on his forehead.

“It's all ready. Ten full barrels of the finest Fierce Fire Oil, all placed on the open ground outside the Hall of Loyalty and Righteousness.”

The Left Commandant grew bold enough to lean forward half a step, intentionally lowering his voice.

“It's just that this subordinate has one thing he doesn't understand...”

“This Black Pine Stronghold is the sturdiest fortress among the surrounding peaks,” the Left Commandant continued after swallowing.

“Do you really intend to burn all the assets inside that can't be moved?”

Lin Chen flipped a page of the ledger, his fingertip pressing down on an entry containing the name 'Liu'.

“This fortress is filled with the blood and bones of the people of Qingxi County.”

Lin Chen looked up, glancing at the Left Commandant's bloated face.

“Keeping this place is like keeping a pile of filthy mud that can never be washed clean.”

Forced back half a step by that gaze, the Left Commandant even lightened his breathing involuntarily.

He had struggled in officialdom for many years.

He could naturally guess that the ledger in Lin Chen's hands hid a world of trouble.

“Chief Constable Lin, some old debts are best left unexamined so everyone can live in peace,” the Left Commandant advised in a hushed tone.

“But if they are truly unearthed, and it ends up causing an even greater disaster, the losses will outweigh the gains.”

Adopting the stance of an experienced veteran, the Left Commandant tried to subtly point out the stakes involved.

“Ma Biao has been entrenched in these mountains for five years. The big figures involved behind him...”

“...are not something that can be cut clean away with just your single blade.”

Lin Chen closed the ledger and crossed his hands on the desk.

He leaned forward, closing the distance.

“The people you speak of include County Lieutenant Liu Kun, who sits securely in the county yamen hall, right?”

Lin Chen's posture was extremely relaxed as he said this, without the slightest reservation.

The Left Commandant's face instantly turned ashen, and he waved his hands repeatedly!

The backs of his hands clattered chaotically against the armor plates on his chest.

“Please don't joke with this subordinate like that!”

“I'm just a gatekeeper; how would I dare to recklessly criticize the County Lieutenant!”

The Left Commandant stomped his feet in anxiety, his eyes darting fearfully toward the passage outside, terrified that walls might have ears.

“It's just that the waters in Qingxi County are too deep; the Zhao Family and the County Lieutenant's Office have long since become one.”

He pointed outside: “You've uprooted this Black Pine Stronghold outpost, and all those entrenched forces in the city are watching you!”

Lin Chen held the ledger between his fingers and tapped it twice against the wooden edge of the desk.

The wood let out two dull thuds.

“Then prick up your ears and listen carefully to what is written in this ledger.”

Lin Chen flipped to the pages toward the back of the ledger and read out the entries recorded there by the light of the lamp.

“Ninth day of the second month, fourth year of yongan: Code name 'Old Man Liu' took three thousand taels of silver for smoothing over the provincial evaluation fees.”

“Upon success, the south gate was opened wide to allow a hundred carts of pig iron through, with a ten percent commission.”

He flipped the pages further back.

The sound of paper rustling was amplified in the quiet space.

“October, fifth year of yongan: With a personal letter of guarantee from Old Man Liu, the county yamen's investigation into the Black Tiger Gang's kidnapping of people was quelled.”

“Black Pine Stronghold presented fifty ingots of pure gold and eight beauties.”

Lin Chen slapped the ledger onto the desk.

The heavy force kicked up a layer of choking dust.

“Adding all these various entries together—”

Lin Chen pointed at the ledger.

“This sanctimonious County Lieutenant Liu has siphoned off as much as tens of thousands of taels of silver from the Black Tiger Gang!”

Lin Chen stared at the Left Commandant's bloodless face, reciting every figure clearly, word by word.

“Does the Left Commandant think that since I've unearthed these tens of thousands of blood-stained taels...”

“...there is any reason to let him keep them in his stomach?”

The Left Commandant's legs shook uncontrollably.

The weight of his fish-scale armor pressed down so hard he couldn't even straighten his back.

He knew in his heart how much of a storm would be stirred if this ledger saw the light of day.

As long as this reached Magistrate Pei Qingxue's desk, Liu Kun wouldn't even have a chance to argue.

It would inevitably be a capital crime resulting in the confiscation of property and execution!

“And these few entries.”

Lin Chen used his fingernail to make a long crease on the corner of a page, exposing the hidden contents to the world.

“Every deal involving the smuggling of military equipment, and every escort provided to evade official inspections...”

“...is followed by a secret mark representing the Zhao Clan.”

He leaned his hands on the desk, his Aura flaring outward.

He emanated a pressure that made one's heart turn cold.

“The Zhao family in the city is the Black Tiger Gang's greatest protective talisman!”

“What they took in this secret ledger was a solid seventy percent of the profits!”

The Left Commandant's throat was dry; he could only swallow hard to relieve his tension.

“Do you mean to use this ledger to take down both Liu Kun and the Zhao family together?”

The Left Commandant's voice was terribly hoarse, and even articulating words seemed extremely difficult.

“This is simply poking a hole in the heavens!” The Left Commandant shook his head repeatedly.

“Even if your cultivation is now unfathomable, that old monster Zhao Cangyuan is still alive.”

“He is the only top-tier expert in all of Qingxi County to have stepped into the Tongmai Realm!”

Lin Chen did not respond.

He neatly tucked the ledger into an inner layer of his black martial arts attire.

“Before the law, there is no difference between the Tongmai Realm and the Body Tempering Realm.”

“There is only those who deserve to die and those who don't.”

Lin Chen stood up.

He stuffed the Low Grade Blood Tempering Pill in its sandalwood box, along with several wild mountain ginseng, into the leather pouch at his waist.

“Since this pool of water has already become so murky...”

“...I, Lin Chen, don't mind using the fastest blade to stir it completely upside down.”

He picked up the steel longsword leaning against the desk.

Passing the horrified Left Commandant who was retreating, he walked straight toward the stone steps leading to the upper level.

“Aside from the cash and fine weapons in this room, douse everything else that can't be taken, along with this entire treasury, in kerosene.”

Lin Chen's command echoed through the narrow passage.

It carried the forceful manner of a superior issuing orders.

“I want the foundation accumulated by Black Pine Stronghold over the years and those shameful torture devices to all rot in the fire today!”

“Along with their people, never to rise again!”

The Left Commandant didn't dare say a single word of dissent, scrambling back to the square in front of the Hall of Loyalty and Righteousness.

Straining his voice, he commanded his men to begin pouring the Fierce Fire Oil.

The soldiers of the City Defense Battalion nimbly loaded crates of silver and intact weapons onto mule carts.

Pungent kerosene was splashed by the barrelful onto the surfaces of the wooden pillars and roof ridges.

Lin Chen stood on the high platform at the very front of the square.

He looked down from above at the dilapidated grounds covered in blood and bones.

The autumn wind howled in from the depths of the mountain range.

Blowing his black robes into violent ripples behind him.

Ma Biao's corpse, split in two, still lay across the dried pools of blood on the ground.

Lin Chen stepped down from the platform.

The tip of his longsword dragged across the bluestone slabs, trailing a long sound of metal scraping.

He came before Ma Biao's remains and swung his blade down!

He sent the half-skull, still identifiable by its old scars, flying into the air.

Lin Chen tore off a piece of ragged cloth from a nearby lackey.

He wrapped the bloody, broken head and tied it into a heavy bundle.

This trophy, stained with dirt and blood.

Was precisely the bargaining chip he would use tonight to break open the decayed gates of Qingxi County.

“Is the kerosene spread evenly?”

Lin Chen held the dripping burlap bundle in his left hand and tilted his head to ask the Left Commandant, who was standing a few feet away with trembling legs.

“According to your orders, the Hall of Loyalty and Righteousness, the rear mountain stone treasury, and the side wings have all been doused with oil.”

The Left Commandant held a blazing torch with both hands.

The dancing firelight reflected off his face, which was covered in oily sweat, turning it bright red.

Lin Chen reached out to take the torch, tossing it twice in his hand to test its weight.

“Have all your men withdraw from the mountain.”

Lin Chen looked at the heavy mule carts filled with gold and silver, then toward the rugged mountain path winding toward the county seat.

“Take these supplies and enter the city through the most bustling main street.”

“I want everyone in Qingxi County to see with their own eyes the fate of the Black Tiger Gang's destruction.”

As if receiving a great pardon, the Left Commandant waved his arms vigorously.

Over two hundred soldiers of the City Defense Battalion escorted the long convoy, rushing down the mountain in a grand procession.

Once the crowd had gone far and even the sound of horse hooves had completely vanished at the end of the mountain path.

Lin Chen threw the torch in his hand upward with force.

The burning pine wood traced an orange parabola in the air.

It landed steadily in the pool of kerosene at the threshold of the Hall of Loyalty and Righteousness.

The fire climbed upward, fueled by the wind!

The pungent Fierce Fire Oil ignited immediately upon contact with the open flame, surging into a wall of blazing fire several yards high!

The flames raced frantically along the oil trails on the ground.

The fire swallowed the wooden eaves and carved stone pillars, consigning all those old things stained with evil to the flames.

The massive fire burned and spread recklessly halfway up the mountain.

The orange-red glow dispelled the descending twilight, lighting up the entire horizon.

Lin Chen turned around, carrying the bloody burlap bundle in his hand.

He did not look back at the century-old bandits' den collapsing in the inferno.

He only took three things from this mountain.

Ma Biao's broken head, a witness to the collapse of the old order.

The secret ledger that was about to reshape the entire layout of the county seat.

And enough cultivation resources for him to break through to a higher Realm.

He strode down the mountain path.

His black official boots stepped on the fallen leaves reddened by the firelight, making steady and heavy sounds.

The temperature of the mountain fire gathered into a fierce heatwave behind him, pushing against his departing silhouette.

Lin Chen let the scorching sparks flying through the air brush past his shoulders.

The firelight illuminated his young face, which was filled with a murderous Aura.

Carrying the ironclad evidence capable of subverting the entire officialdom of Qingxi County and holding the severed head in his hand.

He walked with great strides toward the city outside the mountains.

The soaring firelight lit his path down the mountain.

It would also bring an unavoidable and thorough cleansing to Qingxi County.