Returning to the night, a quarter of an hour after Xu Qinghuan rescued Xu Zhan, a crisp sound rang out as a white porcelain teacup shattered on the blue brick floor.
Scalding tea splashed everywhere, and a few stray tea leaves clung to He Minghu's official boots.
This deputy general, who normally threw his weight around, completely lost his composure at this moment.
He Minghu's face turned beet red. He slammed his hand heavily onto the mahogany table, making the fruit bowl, which held only a few small fruits, jump.
"What did you say? Wang Biao is dead?"
"Chopped down by that wet-behind-the-ears little wench?!"
He Minghu's tone was fierce. He took a step forward, the murderous aura of a man who had rolled out of piles of corpses terrifying the orderly on the ground so much that he shrank back.
The orderly lay flat on the ground, his forehead pressed hard against the floor tiles.
"To answer Your Excellency, Boss Wang died on the spot. His head fell straight into the black water."
"Deputy Lieutenant Qian and the others didn't even dare to fart. They just watched helplessly as the imperial envoy had Xu Zhan carried away."
"Trash! You're all trash!"
He Minghu was so angry his chest ached, feeling as if he were about to vomit blood. He backhandedly drew the long saber at his waist.
The blade flashed with a pale, cold gleam under the lamplight as he made a move to chop at the orderly's head.
"What use is there for me to feed you useless freeloaders?"
"Thirty men! You have hundreds of garrison troops, yet you let them snatch someone away on your own turf?"
"Deputy General He, sheathe your sword."
Ma Jin'an, sitting in the guest seat, finally spoke.
He held a folding fan in his hand, his peacock-embroidered official robe giving him an air of scholarly refinement, but the sinister malice in his triangular eyes pierced deeper than a knife.
Ma Jin'an picked up his warm tea, took a sip, and spoke in a chilling tone.
"What's the use of impotent rage? Will chopping down a lowly orderly bring Wang Biao's life back?"
"Or make those thirty heavily armored guards disappear?"
He Minghu left his saber unsheathed, speaking with hatred: "Lord Ma, it's not your man who died, so it's easy for you to talk!"
"Wang Biao was my trusted aide. How many shady deals did he handle for us?"
"Now look what happened! Slaughtered in public by a little girl. Where do I put my face?"
Ma Jin'an folded his fan, slowly walked up to He Minghu, and lowered his voice.
"How much is face worth? Deputy General He, hey! What you should be pondering is the Emperor's Sword in her hand, and her ruthless style."
"Chopping heads off at will in a military town—if she wasn't confident, would she dare flip the table like this?"
He Minghu gritted his teeth: "Trump card? What trump card could she have?"
"Isn't she just relying on her father's little network in the capital?"
"This is North Suppressing City! With one word from me, I can make her die without a burial place!"
"You try touching her?" Ma Jin'an sneered.
"She's currently the imperial envoy. If you touch her openly, that's rebellion!"
He turned to look at the orderly on the ground, his eyes cold.
"Get out of here and tell Chen Kui and Qian Laosan to crawl over here."
"If they're slower than half a quarter of an hour, tell them to wash their own necks and bring their heads here."
The orderly felt as if he had been granted amnesty, scrambling and rolling out of the main hall.
In less than the time it takes two incense sticks to burn, Chen Kui and Qian Laosan were dragged into the deputy general's mansion.
Where was the arrogant swagger these two normally displayed in the death row?
Chen Kui was paralyzed on the ground, his official uniform stained with the black water of the death row, emitting a nauseating stench.
Qian Laosan was even worse off, his legs trembling like a sieve.
As soon as he entered the door, he fell to his knees with a thud, crying with a miserable face:
"Your Excellency, spare my life!"
"It's not that your subordinate didn't stop her, it's truly that the imperial envoy went on a killing spree!"
"She was holding the Emperor's Sword. If your subordinate dared to make a move, it would be a capital offense punishable by the extermination of my entire extended family!"
He Minghu walked over and kicked Deputy Lieutenant Qian over with one foot.
"Extermination of the extended family? You say that pretty smoothly now."
"I'm asking you, where's the confession? Where's the paper Xu Zhan pressed his fingerprint on?"
Deputy Lieutenant Qian shrank his neck, trembling as he fished out a piece of scrap paper from his chest. It was the very same confession that had been soaked in bloody water and thrown back into the water by Xu Qinghuan.
"This... this is it."
Ma Jin'an snatched the piece of paper and glanced at it under the lamplight.
His face immediately darkened.
The ink on the paper had completely bled out, the four large characters for "colluding with the enemy and treason" blurred.
Only that bloody handprint was exceptionally glaring and highly ironic in the dim light.
"This is the good deed you did?" Ma Jin'an slapped the scrap paper fiercely onto Qian Laosan's face.
"Pressing the print first and filling in the crime later, and you even let them catch the evidence in public."
"Qian Laosan, is your head full of black water?"
Deputy Lieutenant Qian lay flat on the ground, not daring to move an inch.
"Your subordinate deserves to die... but that Xu Qinghuan, she simply doesn't play by the rules!"
"She insisted that your subordinate said 'even if the Emperor comes, he has to bow down'... I wouldn't dare say such a thing even if you lent me ten guts!"
"If she says you said it, then you said it."
Ma Jin'an sat back in his chair, his fingers lightly tapping the table. He knew clearly in his heart that they had hit a tough nut to crack this time.
With this move, Xu Qinghuan not only rescued Xu Zhan but also pried a massive hole in the iron plate that was the death row.
With the charge of "rebellion" pinned on them, these local tyrants probably wouldn't even be able to sleep peacefully.
"Deputy General He." Ma Jin'an looked at the restless He Minghu.
"This matter cannot be resolved peacefully. That girl took the person back to the relay station, and next, she's guaranteed to send a memorial to the capital."
"We must sew the mouths of this North Suppressing City shut tight before the memorial enters the capital."
He Minghu stabbed his saber into the ground.
"Sew tight? How do we sew it?"
"She's hiding in the relay station with thirty heavily armored guards. I can't exactly lead troops to besiege the relay station, can I?"
A ruthless glint appeared in Ma Jin'an's eyes.
"Besieging it won't work, but if we can't touch her, can't we touch others?"
"Go tell the merchants in the city and the generals we have business dealings with."
"The imperial envoy has arrived and wants to audit the accounts and cut off everyone's path to wealth. This North Suppressing City needs to fall into chaos."
...
Compared to the oppressive atmosphere in the deputy general's mansion, the Commander-in-Chief's mansion of North Suppressing City presented a completely different scene.
A burly, imposing strongman, dressed in casual clothes, stood before a massive sand table, holding a long rod and casually prodding the little flags with it.
This person was none other than Commander-in-Chief Tie Lanshan.
Adjutant Zhao Hu stood to the side, recounting the events at the death row in full detail.
He didn't even leave out the details of how Xu Qinghuan drew her sword and forced Deputy Lieutenant Qian to kneel.
After hearing this, Tie Lanshan slammed the long rod heavily onto the sand table and said "good" three times.
"Good! Good! Good!"
He turned around, a meaningful smile appearing on his weather-beaten face.
"The Xu family's girl truly has guts. I've been in North Suppressing City for all these years, and this is the first time I've seen anyone dare to slap He Minghu's face like this."
A man in a green shirt walked out from behind the screen.
Holding a scroll in his hand, refined and gentle, he was none other than the military strategist Bai Yushu.
Bai Yushu walked over to the sand table, looked at the messed-up little flags, and spoke softly.
"General, this isn't just a slap to the face. With this single strike, He Minghu's prestige has dropped by more than half."
Tie Lanshan laughed heartily, his voice like a large bell.
"Good that it dropped! Only when the water is muddied can I fish in troubled waters."
"Those two bastards He Minghu and Ma Jin'an, relying on the backing of the Grand Secretariat, normally don't even put me, the Commander-in-Chief, in their eyes."
"This time they kicked an iron plate and got sorted out by a little girl. I feel great!"
Bai Yushu, however, wasn't so optimistic. He shook his head slightly, his eyes carrying a scrutinizing look.
"General, do not forget. Xu Qinghuan is not only here to save her brother, but she is also an imperial envoy from the Ministry of Revenue."
"The fact that she dared to kill someone in the death row prison shows she has no intention of playing by the rules of the local officials."
"That blade may have struck He Minghu, but the display of dominance was meant for us to see."
Tie Lanshan restrained his laughter, his brows knitting into a tight knot. "How so?"
"If she merely wanted to save Xu Zhan's life, she could have easily made a private deal with us."
Bai Yushu pointed at the location of the posthouse on the sand table.
"But she didn't. She stormed in with great fanfare, executed a man in broad daylight, and used the laws of the Great Qian Dynasty to suppress everyone."
"She is telling us that from now on, she will have a say in the rules of Zhenbei City."
Tie Lanshan scoffed coldly. "Listen to her? A greenhorn girl? On what grounds?"
"On the grounds of the Emperor's Sword in her hand."
Bai Yushu walked up to Tie Lanshan and whispered, "General, we must test her depths. We need to see if she truly has the ability to turn the tables, or if she just wants to save her brother and leave."
Tie Lanshan remained silent for a long time, looking at the crisscrossing lines on the sand table, weighing the options in his mind.
Zhenbei City was already deeply divided by factions. He Minghu and Ma Jin'an each controlled a piece of the pie. Although Tie Lanshan was the Commander-in-Chief, much of his actual power had been siphoned away.
If Xu Qinghuan could truly stir up this storm, it would indeed be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him.
But if this girl's appetite was too big and she intended to swallow him up as well, things would get ugly.
"Zhao Hu!"
Zhao Hu immediately straightened his back. "Here, General!"
"Tomorrow morning, take the token of the Commander's Estate and make a trip to the posthouse."
Tie Lanshan's gaze darkened.
"Tell the imperial envoy that I have prepared morning tea and invite her to the estate for a chat."
"Say that I wish to personally apologize to her second brother."
Standing to the side, Bai Yushu watched Tie Lanshan's back and pondered silently.
One was a deeply hidden old fox of the borderlands; the other was a decisive and ruthless princess from the capital.
In the distance, the faint sound of the night watchman's gong drifted over.
Clang, clang, clang.
All is well and peaceful.
