Chapter 61. Irrefutable Evidence! The Special Envoy's Face Changes in Court!

No one in the great hall spoke.

Special Envoy Wang De's words, "Do you plead guilty?", still lingered beneath the rafters, not yet dispersed.

Lin Chen stood in the center of the hall, his right hand slowly rising.

He did not reach for the hilt of his blade.

Instead, he reached into the inner lining of his martial arts attire and took out a booklet from the outermost pocket.

"The Special Envoy says that I am guilty of crimes deserving death for every single one of my actions."

He straightened his body, his gaze meeting Special Envoy Wang De's eyes.

"This subordinate dares to ask the Special Envoy to first review a few things."

As the words fell, a series of hurried yet orderly footsteps echoed from the direction of the back hall.

Clerk Zhou walked quickly in through the side door, clutching a stack of documents as thick as a city brick.

That stack of documents was tied with three loops of hemp rope.

On the cover of the top layer, the vermilion seal of the Qingxi County government office was stamped, the ink still fresh.

Clerk Zhou moved the documents to the front edge of the official desk and presented them with both hands.

He placed them less than a foot from Special Envoy Wang De's right hand.

His movements were efficient.

His positioning was precise.

He stepped back three paces, his hands at his sides, silent.

Special Envoy Wang De's gaze shifted from Lin Chen to that stack of documents, but he did not touch them.

"What is this?"

"The complete evidence of the Zhao family's crimes."

Lin Chen's voice was flat, as if he were reporting the weather to a passerby while on patrol.

"The original account books have already been placed before you, my lord."

"This stack is a transcribed copy, accompanied by thirty-seven witness testimonies, twelve pages of inventory of material evidence, and seven volumes of joint petitions from the victimized commoners."

He raised his right hand from his side, his index finger pointing vaguely at the first page of the documents.

"First point: The Zhao family has been privately excavating the Qingxi Mountain Range Spirit Mine and smuggling Spirit Stones out of the territory for over twenty years."

"The miners' roster, mining records, and transport route maps are all inside."

Special Envoy Wang De's eyebrows twitched.

It was extremely subtle, difficult for an ordinary person to notice.

Lin Chen saw it.

He did not stop.

"Second point: The Zhao family keeps Death Warriors, numbering no less than a hundred, and privately stores a large amount of military equipment."

His finger moved down an inch.

"Third point: The Zhao family colluded with the Black Tiger Gang to hire killers, burn upstream dams, and create a flood."

"This caused three villages to be submerged, resulting in one hundred and seventeen deaths."

"The names of the deceased, causes of death, and witness testimonies are on pages seven through nineteen of the copy."

The five fingers of Special Envoy Wang De's right hand lifted from the armrest, clenched, and then relaxed.

Lin Chen's gaze remained fixed straight ahead.

He did not evade, nor did he confront.

It was as if he were reading a handover record for a night shift.

"Fourth point: Seven days ago, the Zhao family used beast-luring incense to summon a Yao Beast to attack the villages outside the city, causing dozens of casualties among the commoners."

He paused for a beat.

"That same night, the Zhao family's Old Patriarch Zhao Cangyuan personally led Death Warriors to attack the county government office and broke into the Magistrate's study to assassinate him."

"This resulted in the Magistrate being seriously injured and several bailiffs dying in the line of duty."

He tilted his head slightly and looked at Magistrate Pei Qingxue, who was standing on the right.

Magistrate Pei Qingxue did not speak.

She merely pulled up the cuff of her left sleeve by two inches.

On the back of the hand beneath the cuff, black-purple lines had not yet completely faded.

In the light of the great hall, those lines looked dark and dull, as if someone had drawn them on with charcoal.

Special Envoy Wang De's gaze swept over the back of that hand and paused for half a breath.

Then he looked away.

"The above four points all have accounts that can be checked and people who can testify."

Lin Chen's voice finally dropped by half a tone.

"The Special Envoy just said that I am guilty of crimes deserving death for every single one of my actions."

"This subordinate would like to ask a question—"

His gaze was fixed directly on Special Envoy Wang De's face.

"A treacherous clan that keeps Death Warriors, privately excavates Spirit Mines, murders commoners, and attacks the county government office to assassinate a court official—"

"According to the great qian code, what crime is that?"

The great hall was silent for five breaths.

Special Envoy Wang De's right hand rested on the armrest.

The sash of his flying-fish robe, gripped between his thumb and index finger, was unconsciously twisted into a knot.

He released the sash.

His right hand lifted from the armrest, his five fingers spreading out and then clenching tight.

His finger bones ground against the calluses on his palm, emitting a series of clicking sounds.

"You, a ninth-rank head bailiff."

His voice raised by half a degree, his tone shifting from an anvil to a file.

"How dare you recklessly discuss the great qian code here?"

Lin Chen did not back down.

Nor did he raise his tone.

He simply bent down and picked up the shark-skin account book that had scattered on the floor tiles.

He dusted off the cover.

Then he walked to the front edge of the official desk, organized the account book and the stack of document copies, and placed them on the edge of the desk with both hands.

His fingertips were less than a fist's distance from Special Envoy Wang De's hand.

"Special Envoy, everything this subordinate has done is in accordance with the great qian code."

His voice was as flat as a bowl of water without ripples.

"Every crime committed by the Zhao family is clearly recorded in the account book."

"Every step of this subordinate's law enforcement is clearly written in the case files."

He took a step back, placed his thumb on the copper mouth of his scabbard, and rubbed it lightly in a circle.

"The Special Envoy can choose not to look at this evidence."

Lin Chen's voice paused for a moment before he continued.

"But the great qian code must be enforced by someone."

Special Envoy Wang De's Adam's apple rolled.

He sat behind the official desk, the muscles at the corner of his eyes twitching at an extremely subtle frequency.

His gaze shifted away from that pile of documents and swept across the outside of the hall.

Thirty-six armored personal guards were still standing on the steps outside the door.

Hands on their sword hilts, eyes looking straight ahead.

He calculated in his heart.

It seemed he would have to forcibly arrest them today.

As for the evidence?

If the people were dead, the evidence would be waste paper.

Special Envoy Wang De's right index finger tapped the armrest one last time.

"Eloquent and deceptive."

He stood up and pushed his chair back by half a step.

The legs of the chair scraped against the stone tiles with a harsh, sharp sound.

"Since you refuse to plead guilty—"

He clasped his hands behind his back, lifted his chin, and looked down at Lin Chen in the hall from a high position.

"Then I can only help you plead guilty."

He turned his head and shouted toward the door.

It was not loud, but it was enough to penetrate the entire front courtyard.

"Come, seize him for me."

The air at the entrance tightened.

Ten armored guards surged into the great hall from outside, the sound of their boots hitting the stone tiles merging into one.

Standard-issue sabers were drawn in unison.

Ten flashes of blades crossed in the hall, sealing off Lin Chen's front, back, left, and right.

Ten blades approached simultaneously.

Lin Chen's blade also left its scabbard at the same time.

The movement was not large.

His right hand gripped the hilt, his thumb pushed the guard, and the blade slid out two-thirds from the scabbard.

True Qi of the Early Stage Tongmai Realm poured into the blade, and the Xuanyue Shield lit up a layer on his body.

The dark golden halo was thin yet heavy, like a living iron shell.

The blade swept across.

There were no flashy Moves, no explosion of Raging Thunder Blade Saber Intent.

It was just the simplest horizontal slash.

But the True Qi of the Tongmai Realm attached to the blade edge, forming a transparent Qi blade three inches from the body.

The ten standard-issue sabers slashing toward him were all deflected.

The crisp sound of metal colliding exploded in the great hall.

The ten armored guards were simultaneously shaken back three steps, their boots plowing white marks into the stone tiles.

Two of them had their tiger's mouths split, and their hilts slipped from their hands.

The standard-issue sabers bounced twice on the floor tiles and rolled into the corner.

One slash forced back ten armored guards at the Peak of the Blood Refining Realm.

Lin Chen sheathed his blade, the sound of the guard clicking into place particularly clear in the silent great hall.

He did not look at those ten guards.

His gaze remained fixed on Special Envoy Wang De's face.

Special Envoy Wang De's pupils shrank.

His right hand had already pressed onto the hilt of the saber at his waist.

True Qi of the Middle Stage Tongmai Realm churned within his body, ready to erupt at any moment.

"Special Envoy Wang, wait."

A calm, measured female voice sounded from the right.

Magistrate Pei Qingxue took two steps forward from her position in the hall.

Her spine was straight, her left arm hanging naturally at her side.

Her voice was three points steadier than Lin Chen's.

"If the Special Envoy wants to arrest people, this subordinate will not stop you."

She stopped at the side of the official desk, and her right hand took a piece of silk folded extremely small from her sleeve and placed it on the desk.

"But this subordinate has already prepared three other copies of this evidence."

Special Envoy Wang De's fingers tightened on the saber hilt.

Magistrate Pei Qingxue did not look at his hand.

"One copy is stored in the secret files of the county government office, stamped with the Magistrate's seal and co-signed by three head clerks."

Her voice was neither fast nor slow, each word enunciated clearly and decisively.

"One copy has been entrusted to three respected elders of this county for notarization and sealing."

"The locations of the sealed items are in the respective homes of the three elders, and they do not know about each other."

She paused for a beat.

She raised her gaze, meeting Special Envoy Wang De's pupils directly.

"The third copy—"

The air in the great hall froze at this moment.

"Is already on its way to the Censorate in the capital."

The fingers Special Envoy Wang De pressed on the saber hilt stiffened one by one.

The Censorate in the capital.

These four words crashed into his ears like four red-hot iron nails, one by one nailing into the back of his head.

If the evidence were only in Qingxi County, the Wang family would have a hundred ways to make it disappear.

Bribe the handlers, replace the files, burn the archives with a fire.

The Wang family had been playing these tricks for over a hundred years; they were too familiar with them.

But once it entered the doors of the Censorate.

This matter could not be settled by the internal official documents of the Nanyang Prefecture Governors Mansion.

The Censorate had direct access to the Emperor.

Those censor officials were like mad dogs.

If they caught onto a case, they could impeach the parties involved until their ancestral graves smoked.

Special Envoy Wang De bit his back molars.

The muscles on his face were extremely tight, the lines below his cheekbones as hard as if carved by a knife.

He slowly released the hand pressing on the saber hilt.

Then he sat back in his chair.

He did not speak.

His right hand opened the cover of the stack of document copies on the official desk.

One page.

Two pages.

Three pages.

Every time he flipped a page, the muscles at the corner of his eyes twitched.

Accounts, witness testimonies, material evidence, confessions—they were arranged neatly and were logically clear.

This was not something thrown together in a rush.

It was something someone had spent a long time accumulating, one stroke and one point at a time.

When he flipped to the eleventh page, his fingers paused.

That page recorded the transcribed copy of the Spirit Mine transport route map.

He recognized a few of the transit points marked on the route.

Because for those few points, the surname column of the handler contained the same character.

Wang.

Special Envoy Wang De gently closed that page.

The great hall was so quiet that the rustling sound of pages turning could be heard.

He finished flipping through all the documents.

He closed the cover and clasped his fingers together on the desk.

He looked up at Lin Chen and Magistrate Pei Qingxue standing side by side in the hall.

The layer of arrogant condescension on his face had completely faded away.

Hidden within the taut muscles below his cheekbones and his unconsciously clenched knuckles were other things.

He picked up the token from the desk and put it back into the brocade pouch at his waist.

He stood up.

He tugged at the hem of his flying-fish robe, smoothing out the creases pressed by the back of the chair.

"I will take this evidence back to the Prefecture and let the Governor decide."

His voice returned to that official, hard tone.

But the interval between his words was shorter than when he had first entered the great hall.

It was as if he were afraid that if he paused for one more breath, he would reveal something.

"Before the Governor makes a final verdict—"

His gaze lingered on Lin Chen for two breaths.

Something was churning in the depths of his pupils.

It was not anger.

It was colder and heavier than anger.

"Lin Chen, you had better pray that these things can withstand investigation."

He turned and stepped out of the great hall threshold.

The golden hem of his flying-fish robe raised an arc behind him, like a flag being pulled by its tail.

Thirty-six armored guards followed behind him.

The sound of their boots hitting the stone road of the front courtyard was hurried and chaotic, much looser than when they arrived.

Lin Chen stood on the steps of the county government office front courtyard, his gaze following them until the Flying Tiger banner at the city gate could no longer be seen, only then did he withdraw it.

Magistrate Pei Qingxue walked up from his left and stood at the edge of the steps.

"This hurdle is considered passed."

Lin Chen moved his thumb from the copper mouth of the scabbard and let it hang at his side.

"Not necessarily."

Magistrate Pei Qingxue turned her head to look at him.

Lin Chen's gaze was still fixed in the direction of the East Gate, not withdrawn.

"Special Envoy Wang De came with great fanfare, bringing thirty-six armored cavalry, under the banner of the Prefecture, putting on a pose of coming to interrogate."

His voice was very low, audible only to the two of them.

"Yet he returned empty-handed."

"Returning to the Wang family, he will inevitably be unable to explain himself."

He turned his head to look at Magistrate Pei Qingxue.

"I fear tonight will not be peaceful."