Chapter 65 The Governor's Envoy is Imprisoned, Shaking the Entire City!

Pei Qingxue did not wait until dawn.

She returned to the back hall and lit three thick candles.

The candlelight spread a small patch of warm yellow light, just enough to illuminate the desk and the stack of blank official documents in front of her.

The brush was dipped in ink, hovering above the paper.

It paused for two breaths.

Then she set the brush down.

The first official document: 《Criminal Detention Order》.

"Special Envoy Wang De, dispatched by the Governors Mansion, at the Hour of the Rat on the seventeenth day of the fourth month in the thirteenth year of the Anping era."

"Carrying a poisoned weapon, he snuck into the restricted area of the Qingxi County Yamen to assassinate a court official, Chief Constable Lin Chen of Qingxi County."

"His actions constitute multiple crimes, including assaulting a court official, entering the Yamen with a poisoned weapon, and seeking personal revenge."

"In accordance with the great qian code Article 73, he is to be detained first, pending sentencing after review by the Censorate in the capital."

Pei Qingxue finished writing the detention order, set down the brush, and blew on the ink.

She took the county magistrate's official seal from the drawer, dipped it in vermilion paste, and stamped it squarely on the signature line.

The sound of the seal hitting the paper was extremely soft.

But when she pressed it down, her wrist was as steady as if it had been nailed to the desk.

Once this seal was stamped, it was no longer just a matter of locking one person up.

It was the final layer of pretense between Qingxi County and the Wang family of the Prefecture being torn away.

Pei Qingxue put the seal away and began to write the second official document.

This one was a secret letter containing supplementary evidence, addressed to the Censorate in the capital.

Before leaving, Lin Chen had written down the key points of Wang De's confession one by one and left them on her desk.

The handwriting was sloppy, but the time, location, and names of those involved in each point were clearly stated.

Comparing the notes, Pei Qingxue compiled the content into the secret letter point by point.

She wrote from the Zhao family's Spirit Mine to the Wang family's secret passages, and from the layout planned twenty-three years ago to the order to silence witnesses that Wang De had personally confessed to tonight.

Each point was accompanied by the source of corroborating evidence and cross-referencing numbers.

By the time the sky turned white, she folded the secret letter and stuffed it into a specially made bamboo tube.

The bamboo tube was sealed with wax, and the outside was wrapped in three layers of oil paper.

Pei Qingxue walked to the side door of the back hall and handed the bamboo tube to a thin figure waiting outside the door.

The person took the bamboo tube, said nothing, and turned to disappear into the last remnants of darkness before dawn.

This was a secret line she had buried in her first year as the magistrate of Qingxi County.

A private mail route that did not pass through any official courier stations or official roads.

The Zhao family couldn't find it.

The Wang family couldn't find it either.

Dawn broke.

Two new notices were posted on the bulletin board at the entrance of the Qingxi County Yamen.

The first was the detention notice for Wang De.

It was written straightforwardly, using words that the common people could understand.

Special Envoy Wang De from the Prefecture, snuck over the wall into the County Yamen in the middle of the night, holding a poisoned blade to kill Chief Constable Lin.

He was caught on the spot and is now locked in the dungeon awaiting trial.

The second was a report on the Zhao family Spirit Mine case.

It was even shorter, only three lines.

The crimes committed by the Zhao family have a mastermind behind them.

The Qingxi County Yamen has obtained conclusive evidence and has submitted it to the Censorate in the capital.

On the day the truth comes to light, justice will surely be served to the people of Qingxi.

Less than half an hour after the two notices were posted.

The entrance to the Yamen was surrounded by three layers of people.

Some were squatting on the ground, pointing and reading word by word.

Those who were literate nearby helped read it out, and with every sentence read, the crowd would buzz.

"The Special Envoy from the Prefecture... wants to kill Chief Constable Lin and the Magistrate?"

"Good heavens, how much nerve does that take..."

"What nerve? He's a person from the Wang family."

"Do you know the Wang family? The Wang family that runs the Prefecture."

"Then, then isn't Chief Constable Lin..."

"What are you afraid of?"

"Old Patriarch Zhao Cangyuan of the Tongmai Realm, his head was chopped off by Chief Constable Lin and hung at the gate."

"This Wang fellow, isn't he also captured just the same?"

The buzzing spread from the Yamen entrance along the main street.

In teahouses, wine shops, vegetable markets, and in front of blacksmith shops.

Everyone was discussing the same thing.

Some slapped the table and cheered.

Some shrank their necks and shook their heads, saying this time they had really poked a hole in the sky.

More people remained silent.

They didn't understand what the Prefecture or the Wang family was.

They only knew one thing.

That young constable surnamed Lin had never been afraid of anyone since his first day as a Patrol Officer.

In the deepest part of the dungeon.

Wang De was locked in a stone cell three steps square.

The iron shackles on his wrists were tied to iron rings on the wall, and the chain was just long enough for him to sit, but not to stand straight.

The knife wound on his left shoulder had been crudely bandaged.

The bandage was the coarsest hemp cloth, and the medicine was the cheapest hemostatic powder.

The bleeding had stopped, but no one could manage the burns left in his Meridians by the Space-Rending Thunder Intent.

Wang De leaned against the stone wall, hearing the commotion coming from outside the prison gate in the distance.

The sound of the official document being read was muffled, separated by three iron doors.

He only heard a few words clearly.

"Assaulting a court official... detained pending trial..."

The corners of Wang De's mouth twitched.

He closed his eyes.

There was no fear on his face.

It was a kind of numbness, the feeling of having nothing left to lose after being pushed into a dead end.

He knew he was finished.

But he knew even better that the Wang family would not let this matter just pass.

A ninth-rank constable had locked up a member of the Wang family.

A female magistrate of a small county dared to submit black Materials on the Wang family to the Censorate in the capital.

This wasn't just a slap in the face.

It was stabbing a knife into the spine of the Wang family.

What would the Wang family do?

Wang De didn't dare to think.

But he was clear that when that old man got angry, he would never send just one person.

The iron shackles rattled on his wrists.

The cold iron pressed against his skin, grinding out a circle of red marks.

He stared at the moldy ceiling of the stone cell, a very low laugh squeezing out of his throat.

It didn't sound like laughing.

It sounded more like he was reciting his own eulogy.

In the duty room of the Patrol Division.

Lin Chen bolted the door from the inside.

The window lattice was closed tight.

The gaps were stuffed with old cotton wool.

From the outside, the duty room looked abandoned; not a sliver of light leaked out.

He sat cross-legged on the floor tiles in the center of the duty room.

His long saber lay horizontally across his knees.

The cracks on the blade could not be seen in the darkness.

But when his fingers slid along the spine of the blade, he could feel those uneven, broken patterns.

This saber had followed him from killing in the Body Tempering Realm to the Tongmai Realm.

From the vegetable market in South City Lane to the front yard of the Zhao family.

Use it a few more times, and the blade would break.

Lin Chen moved his hand away from the saber and placed it on his knees.

He closed his eyes.

The System panel lit up in his field of vision.

"[Current Cultivation: Early Stage of Tongmai Realm]"

"[Current Accumulated System Points: 16,600 points]"

The leap from the Early Stage to the Middle Stage of the Tongmai Realm.

Following the path of normal cultivation, given the grade of his Xuan Yue Immovable Body and the density of his True Qi, it would take at least two to three years of grinding.

Two years.

He didn't have two years.

In three days, the Wang family's people would arrive.

They might be in the Ningdan Realm.

Or they might be a team strong enough to flatten this small county.

No matter who came, they certainly wouldn't be weaker than Wang De.

Lin Chen looked at the numbers on the panel for three breaths.

Then he silently recited in his mind.

"Invest all points into Cultivation Technique deduction, to break through to the Middle Stage of the Tongmai Realm."

A line of text flashed in his field of vision.

"[Consume 15,000 points to deduce "Xuan Yue Immovable Body" to the Middle Stage of the Tongmai Realm!]"

"[Deduction begins!]"

1,600 points remained as a reserve.

The remaining 15,000 were all thrown in at once.

The effect came quickly and fiercely.

The dark golden True Qi in his Dantian Qi Sea began to surge.

The lead ball that usually hung quietly on the inner wall of his Dantian swelled violently, then was pressed back by an invisible force.

It swelled again.

And was pressed back again.

Repeatedly.

Each time more intense than the last.

The Qi Circulation route simulated by the System appeared clearly in his consciousness.

On the wall of every meridian, the number of times, the force, and the angle at which the True Qi should flush were marked.

Precise to the point where it couldn't be more precise.

Lin Chen guided the True Qi according to the route.

The first round of flushing.

The wall of the Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian emitted a muffled sound under the crushing of the True Qi.

Like grinding an iron pipe with sandpaper, the stinging vibration traveled from his shoulder to his fingertips.

A dull pain.

It was the kind of dull ache that seeped out from the gaps in his bones. Not intense, but continuous, never stopping for a moment.

The second round. Foot Yangming Stomach Meridian.

The moment the True Qi rushed in, his stomach spasmed.

A wave of sour water surged up from his esophagus, which he swallowed back down by force.

The third round. Hand Shaoyin Heart Meridian.

This one was the most ferocious.

The moment the True Qi was injected, his heartbeat suddenly accelerated to three times the normal rate.

Blood surged toward his forehead.

His temples throbbed, and his eardrums were filled with the sound of his own heart beating like a drum.

Lin Chen bit down on his back molars.

His gums ached and went soft, but his spine did not bend even half an inch.

The next six rounds were more violent than the last.

As each meridian was flushed, the original layer of True Qi sediment on the wall was stripped away, and new, purer True Qi filled it in.

The old paint was scraped off, and new paint was applied.

The whole process was violent and direct.

A layer of thick, dark liquid began to seep out from his body surface.

Like diluted ink, it carried a pungent, fishy odor.

That was the Impurities accumulated on the walls of the Meridians, squeezed out by the high-purity True Qi and discharged from his pores.

His martial attire was soaked through.

It stuck to his skin, wet and cold.

The ninth round ended.

The walls of the twelve main meridians had all been polished once.

The originally rough inner walls became smooth and dense, and when the True Qi flowed through, the resistance dropped sharply.

Like changing a dirt road into a stone road.

But this was not the end.

The key to the Breakthrough from the Early Stage to the Middle Stage of the Tongmai Realm did not lie in the number of Meridians.

The twelve main meridians had long been fully opened.

The key lay in the volume of the Dantian Qi Sea and the density of the True Qi.

The Dantian in the Early Stage was like a water vat.

The Dantian in the Middle Stage was like a well.

The same total amount of True Qi was compressed into a smaller space.

The density doubled. The quality doubled. The output power doubled.

The System simulated a compression route.

Lin Chen recovered all the True Qi into his Dantian.

Then he began to press inward.

Like using a jack to compress a spring.

The first layer of compression.

The inner wall of the Dantian withstood it. The density of the True Qi increased by twenty percent.

The second layer of compression.

The inner wall of the Dantian made a tiny creaking sound.

Like the hoops of an old wooden barrel being stretched to the limit.

Cold sweat seeped from Lin Chen's forehead.

It wasn't pain.

It was a feeling of being too full.

His entire Dantian felt like it had been filled with molten lead, hanging heavily in his abdominal cavity.

The third layer.

The System's Qi Circulation route flashed a red light in his consciousness.

"[Warning: Dantian wall pressure is nearing the limit, it is recommended to slow down the compression speed.]"

Lin Chen didn't stop.

He slowed down the speed, but he didn't stop.

The True Qi in the Dantian was crushed, compacted, and crushed again, layer by layer.

The dark golden True Qi mass shrank from the size of a fist to the size of a chicken egg.

Then it continued to shrink.

It shrank to the size of a pigeon egg.

The inner wall of the Dantian was trembling violently.

Lin Chen bit his teeth so hard that a small piece of enamel chipped off his left back molar.

The metallic taste and the taste of blood mixed together, pouring into his throat.

Press again.

The last layer.

The dark golden True Qi mass trembled violently.

On the inner wall of the Dantian, a new, denser True Qi membrane grew from the surface of the Qi Sea.

It wrapped around the dark golden True Qi core that had been compressed to the extreme.

Like installing a shell for a bomb.

It was stable.

[ Deduction Complete! ]

[ Xuan Yue Immovable Body Breakthrough: Tongmai Realm Middle Stage! ]

[ True Qi density increased by 100%, Xuanyue Shield defense increased to withstand a full-strength strike from the Tongmai Realm Late Stage! ]

[ Counter-shock effect upon being hit increased to 30%! ]

[ Current System accumulated total points: 1600 points. ]

Lin Chen opened his eyes.

The duty room was pitch black.

He looked down at himself.

His entire body was covered in a layer of black, filthy fluid, so foul-smelling that even he couldn't stand it.

His martial attire was ruined, sticking to his skin, and could be wrung out like a wet rag.

He stood up.

Lin Chen raised his right hand and spread his five fingers.

A wisp of dark golden True Qi thread condensed at his fingertips.

It was twice as thick as the wisp from the Tongmai Realm Early Stage.

The color was deeper and heavier.

It emitted a matte luster in the darkness, like molten gold that had cooled and become embedded between his fingers.

Tongmai Realm Middle Stage.

The same Realm as Old Patriarch Zhao Cangyuan and Special Envoy Wang De.

Lin Chen retracted his True Qi back into his Dantian.

That cluster of dark golden core spun quietly for a circle before sinking back to the bottom of his Qi Sea.

He walked to the water vat in the corner of the duty room, scooped up six full ladles of cold water, and poured it over himself from head to toe.

Most of the black, filthy fluid was washed away.

The water flowed into the cracks of the floor tiles, carrying an indescribable stench as it trickled toward the lower areas.

He changed into a clean set of martial attire.

He fastened his belt and hung his long saber.

He pushed open the door latch of the duty room.

Sunlight poured in.

The afternoon sun.

He calculated the time.

From closing the door for seclusion at the Zi hour last night to now, it had been nearly fourteen hours.

It should be the afternoon of the second day outside.

There was no one in the side courtyard.

The wind blew over the courtyard wall, carrying the smell of stir-fried food and the shouting from the street.

It was unrealistically lively.

Lin Chen stepped over the threshold of the duty room and stood under the sunlight.

The sun hit his face, his shoulders, and his scabbard.

The Qi energy around his body was completely restrained.

Standing there, he looked no different from an ordinary young constable.

He was even more inconspicuous than he was a few days ago.

Because the higher the density of True Qi, the better the effect of restraint.

Standing there, if one did not probe him with True Qi, anyone would only think...

Lin Chen's thumb rested on the copper mouth of the scabbard and rubbed it for half a circle.

Less than a day since Special Envoy Wang De was captured.

At most, there were two more days until the next wave of people from the Wang family arrived.

Two days.

He looked down at the long saber in his hand.

The intersecting cracks on the blade were exceptionally clear in the sunlight.

The Realm Breakthrough had been completed.

It was time to replace it with a better saber.

Lin Chen's gaze crossed the courtyard wall and fell in the direction of the armory behind the County Yamen.

The County Yamen armory.

Half of the iron-clad gate of the storehouse was open.

Sunlight cut in from the doorway, illuminating the first two rows of empty racks.

Most of the Zhao family's gold, silver, and Spiritual Plants had already been moved away, and the remaining scattered items had been reorganized by category.

When Lin Chen walked in, a lean old man in his fifties was squatting in the corner, organizing the weapon rack.

Armory manager, Old Chen.

He had managed the storehouse at the County Yamen for twenty years; he managed it when the Zhao family was in power, and he still managed it after the Zhao family fell.

He didn't care who was in charge; he only cared whether the serial number of every item entering the storehouse was correct.

"Chief Constable Lin."

Old Chen stood up and brushed the dust off his knees.

"The Magistrate has already sent word, saying that you would come to pick out a suitable weapon."

Lin Chen untied the refined steel long saber at his waist and placed it on the table in front of the rack.

The cracks on the blade had nowhere to hide under the light.

From the spine to the edge, a dozen large and small cracks were distributed across it. Some were already a third of the depth of the blade's thickness.

Old Chen glanced at the cracks and smacked his lips.

"This saber of yours really can't be used anymore."

He extended a finger and tapped next to the longest crack.

"I'm afraid that if you swing it one more time, it will break right here."

Lin Chen did not refute.

He had the same judgment in his own mind.

Old Chen turned and walked to the weapon rack, pulling a saber from the slot in the first row.

The scabbard was wrapped in sharkskin, and the copper mouth was finely crafted.

"These are all fine sabers just confiscated from the Zhao family, forged with refined steel layers, much better than the standard sabers of our County Yamen."

Lin Chen picked one up and drew it half a foot to take a look.

The blade was smooth and clean, with fine forging patterns.

He fully unsheathed the saber, held it with his right hand, and held it horizontally in front of him.

True Qi surged from his Dantian, flowed along the Meridians into his right arm, and then permeated from his palm into the wrapping of the handle.

The moment the True Qi of the Tongmai Realm Middle Stage flowed through the blade, the blade surface emitted a very faint hum.

It was not resonance.

It was more like a wail.

Under the infusion of the Tongmai Realm True Qi, the blade reached its limit of pressure.

The edge of the blade slightly deformed, and a curl almost invisible to the naked eye appeared on the edge.

Lin Chen returned the saber to the scabbard and placed it back on the rack.

"Too soft."

Old Chen was stunned for a moment.

In Qingxi County, this could be considered a top-tier saber.

He didn't say much and took out two more from the second row.

One was a Hundred-Refined Steel saber sealed in the Zhao family storehouse, and the other was a meteorite iron scimitar used by the bandit leader of Black Wind Ridge.

Lin Chen infused them with True Qi one by one to test them.

The Hundred-Refined Steel saber could barely hold up, but the vibration of the blade showed that its limit was only at the Tongmai Realm Middle Stage.

Going any higher, it was still not enough.

The material of the meteorite iron scimitar was hard enough, but the shape of the scimitar did not match the style of his Shadowless Thunder Blade.

If forced to use it, every slash would require extra effort to correct the trajectory.

After testing several, none were particularly suitable.

Old Chen, standing nearby, rubbed his hands, his expression looking a bit unnatural.

"Chief Constable Lin, besides these, there is only one last good saber left in the storehouse."

As he spoke, he walked a dozen steps deeper into the storehouse and stopped in the corner farthest inside.

A separate iron rack stood in the corner, and a rectangular nanmu wood box was placed horizontally on the rack.

The box was different from the three boxes containing Cultivation Techniques from the Zhao family.

It had no secret locks and no copper nail reinforcements.

But the four corners of the box were wrapped with four sealing strips.

Old Chen stood in front of the box but did not touch it.

"I heard that this saber was bought by the third-generation head of the Zhao family for six thousand taels of gold from a wandering swordsmith."

His voice subconsciously lowered by half a notch.

"Forged from Black Gold Profound Iron, the blade weighs fifty-one catties. The swordsmith said this saber could withstand the infusion of Ningdan Realm True Qi without damage."

Lin Chen's gaze fell on that box.

"Then why was it sealed?"

Old Chen's hand recoiled slightly.

"It is said that there have been a total of three people who have used this saber."

He held up three fingers.

"The first was the third-generation head of the Zhao family himself, at the Peak of the Blood Refining Realm. He carried the saber for less than a year before he suffered Qi Deviation during a fight and died suddenly."

One finger was retracted.

"The second was a Guest Elder invited by the Zhao family, a Loose Cultivator at the Early Stage of the Tongmai Realm. After using it for three months, he suddenly went mad while practicing with the saber at night, slashed his own left arm, and never dared to touch the saber again."

Another finger was retracted.

"The third was Old Patriarch Zhao Cangyuan."

When Old Chen mentioned this name, his voice paused for a beat.

"He tested it once himself and said that the Saber Intent was too intense; if one could not harmonize with it, forced use would only invite backlash."

"He ordered it to be sealed that very day."

The last finger was retracted. He rubbed his palms, which were full of sweat.

"It is said that it has been eleven years, and no one has touched it since."

Lin Chen stared at the box for three breaths.

Then he reached out and tore off the four sealing strips.

The box lid opened.

Inside was lined with a layer of dark gray velvet padding.

A long saber lay on the padding.

The scabbard was pure black.

There were no decorations on the surface of the scabbard, only a dull, matte black that barely reflected light.

The handle was wrapped in ink-colored ray skin, and the guard was a simple circular piece of iron, with the edges of the iron polished extremely thin.

The entire saber looked completely inconspicuous.

Even a bit ugly.

Lin Chen reached out and grasped the handle.

The first feeling upon contact was its weight.

The weight of tens of catties, through the wrapping of the ray skin, felt solid and heavy in his palm.

The distribution of the center of gravity was just right, falling two inches forward from the junction of the handle and the blade, exactly at the point where the lever arm was greatest during a slash.

The person who forged this saber was definitely a craftsman who truly understood blades.

Lin Chen lifted the saber out of the box.

His right thumb pushed open the guard.

The moment the blade left the scabbard.

The air in the storehouse changed.

A biting, metallic sense of oppression diffused from the blade.

It had nothing to do with True Qi or Saber Intent; it was the sense of spatial compression inherent in the Black Gold Profound Iron material itself.

The blade surface was a very deep gray-black, with forging patterns so dense they overlapped.

The cutting edge of the blade shimmered with a very faint, cold silver light in the sunlight.

Lin Chen slowly infused the True Qi of the Tongmai Realm Middle Stage into the blade.

The dark golden True Qi flowed across the spine, the blade surface, and the edge.

There was no humming. No wailing. No trembling from being unable to bear the pressure.

The blade was like a riverbed that had been parched for eleven years, swallowing every wisp of True Qi he infused into it.

A very faint dark golden halo floated on the blade surface, blending with the black-gray background of the blade, feeling heavy and substantial.

Lin Chen increased the force of the True Qi infusion by another 30%.

It was still very stable.

The corners of his mouth twitched slightly, feeling very satisfied.

Old Chen stood two steps away, watching the hand of Lin Chen holding the saber and the dark golden halo on the blade.

It was said that when Old Patriarch Zhao Cangyuan tested the saber back then, the blade began to repel the True Qi as soon as half a percent was infused.

The gray-white True Qi and the Black Gold Profound Iron material were like two snakes colliding, neither yielding to the other.

Old Patriarch Zhao Cangyuan gave up after testing it for less than ten breaths.

And this young man in front of him.

After the True Qi was infused, the blade did not show even the slightest reaction of repulsion.

Lin Chen returned the saber to the scabbard.

The sound of the guard returning to its position was extremely light.

So light that there was almost no sound.

The fit between the scabbard mouth and the blade was seamless.

He took the old saber off the table and put it into the nanmu wood box.

Then he hung the Black Gold long saber at his waist.

The moment the copper buckle fastened, the weight of the scabbard sank against his left hip.

Just right.

"Does this saber have a name?"

Old Chen shook his head.

"The swordsmith didn't leave a name. However, the Zhao family privately called it 'Evil Artifact'."

Lin Chen's thumb rested on the edge of the new scabbard mouth and rubbed it for a circle.

The texture of the scabbard surface was completely different from the old saber.

Cold, dull, carrying an indescribable sense of weight.

"Then from now on, it shall be called black abyss."

After speaking, he turned and walked out of the storehouse.