84: Chapter 84 Beijing News Public Opinion, [Skynet] Insight

The night sky outside the capital had long been dyed a deep red by the soaring flames.

It swayed in the night breeze, emitting a faint light.

Chen Ran sat leisurely on a wooden chair, using the lamplight to flip through a volume of unofficial history he had scrounged from somewhere.

He read very slowly, completely unaffected by the turbulent events outside.

After reading a few pages, Chen Ran stretched out widely.

He walked to the window and pushed open the dust-covered lattice.

The night breeze, carrying a trace of an extremely faint bloody scent, blew across his face.

"Coo-coo."

A highly piercing pigeon whistle sounded in the night sky.

A grey carrier pigeon descended from the pitch-black night sky and landed steadily on the windowsill.

From the sleeve of his uniform, Chen Ran fished out a slip of paper rolled into a thin tube.

It was covered in dense, tiny characters.

The content on the paper was precisely the intelligence gathered from those few ruffians at the time.

Although there wasn't much information about the mastermind behind the scenes, Su Qinghe was a smart woman; she should be able to understand it upon seeing the information.

Chen Ran stuffed the paper into the tiny bamboo tube on the pigeon's leg and sealed it with special sealing wax.

"Go."

With a gentle lift, the carrier pigeon obediently flapped its wings and flew high, soon merging into the deep night.

The next morning, as the first rays of dawn appeared.

The streets and alleys of the capital immediately exploded with noise, following the crisp cries of the newsboys.

The front page of today's Capital News prominently featured two pieces of heavy-weight news.

The first was that the Red Lotus Witch, Jiang Mengli, had broken through the capital's defense lines and escaped last night, causing the imperial court's high-ranking officials to be furious, ordering a city-wide martial law and search.

But the imperial court still didn't know who had done it, so they could only increase the bounty for that defecting Demon Suppression Division commander several times over.

Chen Ran, squeezed into the crowd, shook his head slightly after seeing the news.

The Demon Suppression Division would likely never find that missing commander.

The second was a personal clarification announcement from the talented woman of Wenxin Hall, Su Qinghe.

This announcement was written with flair and clearly refuted the various rumors about Wenxin Hall from the past few days, and at the end, it even directly attached the detailed accounts of the secret rumor-mongering by the Tongwen News Agency.

Every single shady transaction was exposed under the sunlight.

The public opinion in the entire capital was in an uproar, and the prevailing wind began to shift drastically.

The onlookers looked at one another.

"I told you the talented woman Su Qinghe was being slandered, didn't I?"

"Bullshit, you were the one talking the loudest yesterday!"

Several members of the crowd began to discuss it again; this might be the only activity in their daily lives that could relieve their boredom.

In the Southern City of the capital, on the street where the Tongwen News Agency was located.

Chen Ran had changed into plain cloth clothes and wore a wide bamboo hat on his head, covering most of his face.

He was like the most ordinary laborer, silently blending into the bustling crowd.

His sense of presence was extremely low; no one could notice the man in the bamboo hat within the crowd.

Chen Ran leaned against a stall selling candied haws, watching the busy courtyard ahead with cold eyes.

Inside the Tongwen News Agency, there was a strong, pungent smell of printing ink.

The workers were bare-chested, sweating profusely as they went in and out.

With papers flying about, the entire courtyard was as busy as a giant beehive.

Although Su Qinghe's sharp counter-attack article had spread throughout the city and public opinion was starting to lean in one direction.

However, the other party clearly did not intend to stop there; several ruffians who spent their days on the streets were squatting at the corner, having taken scattered silver given by others, continuing to diligently spread rumors smearing Su Qinghe.

"What clarification? I think it's just a forgery made by a cornered dog!"

The ruffian rasped in a broken voice, trying to guide the thoughts of the onlookers around him.

Chen Ran pressed down on his bamboo hat to block the somewhat dazzling sunlight.

He did not choose to sneak into such a place with many people and prying eyes, where it would be very easy to get exposed.

Chen Ran bypassed the main street and stood at a remote and deserted alley entrance.

He slowly closed his eyes.

Deep within his Dantian, that incredibly thick True Qi began to surge madly like a raging sea.

[Heavenly Net], activate!

Chen Ran did not hesitate and directly poured in his remaining five years of cultivation, activating the Yao Race innate Divine Ability he had obtained from the Spider Spirit back then.

[Cultivation available for investment: 5 years → 0 years]

[You have consumed 5 years of cultivation; you are more proficient in using the innate ability "Heavenly Net"]

Hum.

A strange vibration, inaudible to ordinary people, rippled through the air.

Invisible tentacles of perception expanded rapidly outwards like mercury pouring onto the ground, directly covering a range of a hundred zhang.

And it had not yet reached its limit; it was still continuously expanding outwards.

Finally, it expanded for another full hundred zhang before stopping.

This was a wonderful experience, like looking down on the mortal world from high above, a dimensional reduction strike.

The range of perception far exceeded any previous time, and the clarity was also much higher than before.

A massive amount of market noise, like a flood breaking its banks, poured into Chen Ran's mind.

"Steamed buns, hot, thin-skinned, big meat buns..."

"Did you hear? Widow Wang let Old Wang from next door in again last night; that sound, tsk tsk..."

"Stop spouting nonsense; it was clearly Old Li, the butcher from the street, I saw it with my own eyes!"

"Bullshit, I saw with my own eyes yesterday that Widow Wang was drinking tea at the teahouse; she didn't return home all night."

Speaking of this, the three people fell into a brief silence, then seemed to realize something.

"Hmm?"

Chen Ran frowned slightly, and the corners of his mouth couldn't help but twitch twice.

The daily life of the common people in this capital was truly unexpectedly colorful.

He quickly composed himself and blocked out all those messy gossip noises.

His attention, like a focused beam of light, was entirely concentrated on the direction of the courtyard where the Tongwen News Agency was located.

With a slight movement of his mind, he began to precisely lock onto those specific keywords.

"Wenxin Hall".

"Su Qinghe".

Soon, the chaotic background noise around him was completely filtered out.

Several deliberately lowered conversations were transmitted into his ears with absolute clarity.

Deep within the Tongwen News Agency, inside a sealed secret room where even the windows were blocked off.

The oil lamp was dim.

Li Zhe sat on the grand chair in the main position, his expression extremely ugly.

He was the manager of the Tongwen News Agency and one of the main masterminds behind this public opinion storm targeting Wenxin Hall.

"Manager Li, the counter-attack from Wenxin Hall is too fierce; they even exposed the details of who paid us!"

A sharp-mouthed, monkey-cheeked worker stood before the table, anxious like an ant on a hot pan, "Our accounts are so confidential, how could they have been leaked?"

"What are you panicking about? If the sky falls, there are taller people to hold it up!" Li Zhe snorted coldly and slapped the armrest.

He picked up the teacup on the table, took a big gulp, and a trace of ruthlessness flashed in his eyes.

"The lord above has given instructions: no matter what means are used, Wenxin Hall's reputation must be completely ruined; they must never be given a chance to turn things around."

Li Zhe put down the teacup and ordered through gritted teeth: "Notify the brothers below, increase the effort, and continue to print urgent tabloids."

"But..." another slightly chubby accomplice wiped the sweat from his forehead, looking somewhat hesitant.

"Manager Li, if we make such a big move, what if we alert the enemy and provoke the person that Su Qinghe was talking to yesterday?"

The chubby accomplice swallowed his saliva, his voice trembling, "I heard that day in the city, even the constables from the Six Doors were respectful to him; that was a lord from the Demon Suppression Division."

"Our small frames won't be able to withstand a single slap from him."

Hearing this, Li Zhe let out an extremely arrogant sneer, as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world.

"A lord? That really cracks me up."

He waved his hand contemptuously, his face full of mockery and disdain for the chubby accomplice's cowardice.

"I long ago spent a lot of money to send people to the Demon Suppression Division to inquire; the person following Su Qinghe that day was not some high-ranking Young Master, just a guy from the Demon Suppression Division's Internal Affairs Department responsible for supervising prisoners."

"A bum who guards the door in the celestial prison, taking that meager monthly salary, what kind of big waves can he stir up?"

Li Zhe leaned back into the chair, sneering repeatedly, "I guess he was just borrowing the reputation of the Demon Suppression Division to act like a fox exploiting a tiger's might that day; such a small character is not worth worrying about at all."

"The current task is to serve those above well; as long as it's done, we can earn enough money for a lifetime..."

The few people in the news agency looked at each other upon hearing this.

"Manager Li is right; just the reward money from these few days is enough for us to spend for three years; I dare not even imagine how to spend it later."

The tense atmosphere was swept away, and everyone chatted happily about their future lives.

"So that's how it is; I was overthinking it."

The chubby worker rubbed his head, his tone also relaxing.

"When it's over, I'll treat everyone to drinks at the best tavern in the city!"

But they had no idea that these conversations were crossing the distance of a hundred zhang without missing a word, falling with absolute clarity into the ears of the man standing in the remote alley entrance.

Chen Ran stood quietly at the alley entrance and slowly opened his eyes.

He gently exhaled a breath of turbid air and dissipated the Heavenly Net Divine Ability that had been shrouding the surroundings.

Subsequently, he lowered his bamboo hat, turned, and merged into the bustling crowd, just like an ordinary passerby.

Night fell again, and as the lights came on, they draped a layer of prosperity over the capital.

The Tongwen News Agency finally ended its exhausting, mind-numbing busyness for the day.

Li Zhe, satisfied, tucked away a newly received, generous reward, humming an unbearable, lewd tune, and wobbled along the road home.

Although Wenxin Hall had bit back strongly today, catching him off guard.

He considered his response appropriate; not only had he stabilized the situation, but the important figure above had even rewarded him with an extra fee for his hard work.

As long as this heavy silver was earned, who cared about some talented woman of the capital or not.

He skillfully crossed two bustling streets and turned into a dead-end alley he was used to walking through.

This was the only shortcut to his outer residence.

The alley was very dark; there wasn't even a single lantern for illumination, only a dim crescent moon overhead, barely casting a little faint light.

Li Zhe, fueled by the alcohol, had only walked a few steps in when his light footsteps suddenly paused.

A slightly chilly night breeze blew through the alley, bringing a barely perceptible, bone-chilling cold.

He was stunned to find that in the depths of the pitch-black alley ahead, he didn't know when, but a silent black shadow had appeared.

The black shadow had its back to the moonlight, wearing a wide bamboo hat on its head, with its face completely indistinguishable.