"Fang Heng once said that after his parents died, the only one in the entire Fang clan who bore him sincerity was his grandfather."
It was Ling Chuan who offered this explanation as they took their leave.
Fang Lin's grandfather had not died abruptly, and he had been buried long ago. None of them had the power to conduct an examination of the dead through a soul tablet. And however strange Fang Zesheng's surrender of authority might have seemed, this visit had not been the moment to press the matter. Once Ling Chuan had paid his respects, the three of them chose to leave.
"Enough, who doesn't know you by now, chief?" Zhao Yan curled his lip. "Nothing but an old good man."
Ling Chuan dealt with everyone with genuine sincerity, while Zhao Yan, aggrieved on Jiang Chen's behalf on the one hand, was quick to smooth things over on the other.
Jiang Chen only smiled and let the subject drop. He would not take such a thing to heart.
"So what is the Dao Academy thinking?" he asked. "The Justice Enforcement Bureau turned up nothing, and now they send us to investigate. Aren't they just stirring up trouble? And I don't get on with the Fang clan at all."
"Perhaps that is exactly why the Dao Academy assigned this case to us," Zhao Yan said.
"The Dao Academy suspects Fang Lin?" Jiang Chen frowned.
"Is he not worth suspecting?" Zhao Yan countered. "Weigh him by combat, and he has no combat. Weigh him by wit, and he has even less. How is it that a squad of four all died, and only he lived?"
"I think he keeps his card fairly close to his chest these days," Ling Chuan said, offering the fair word. "And besides... he never went up the mountain."
"He says he never went up the mountain, but who can know?" Zhao Yan spread his hands.
...
Leaving the Fang estate, the second stop Ling Chuan's squad made was the Justice Enforcement Bureau.
Or, to be precise, the office of the Justice Enforcement Bureau within Maple Forest City.
The tasks on the Dao Merit Board drew from plentiful sources. The Ministry of War, the Justice Enforcement Bureau, the Dao Academy itself, and even the royal court could all post tasks upon the board.
The task Fang Lin had taken part in had been initiated by the Justice Enforcement Bureau, and it was the Bureau that had judged its rank.
For an eighth-rank task, the Dao merit reward hovered between one hundred and five hundred points. The reward the Bureau had set for this particular task was only one hundred and fifty points — which placed it at the lower end of eighth-rank difficulty. This plainly did not match the truth of the matter.
Two eighth-rank cultivators and two ninth-rank cultivators had all fallen in battle. A task of such difficulty ought at the very least to rank among the top-tier of eighth-rank, and thus reward a full five hundred points of Dao merit.
In fact, the investigation task that Ling Chuan and his fellows had taken up this time carried three hundred points of Dao merit, and they were only responsible for the investigation, not for whatever came after. One might allow that a third of that came from the surcharge attached to a designated task, but even so, it was a level ranking that made sense.
...
As an official body that handled supernatural cases, the Justice Enforcement Bureau had grown accustomed to holding its nose in the air.
Three Dao Academy cultivators came before it bearing a task from the Dao Merit Board to verify some information, and not a single soul in the entire Bureau deigned to pay them any mind.
Try as handsome Zhao Yan might, every female cultivator in the Bureau looked down her nose and never once glanced his way.
Ling Chuan went from person to person, asking without any sign of weariness, swallowing countless cold looks, until at last he found the very man he sought.
The cultivator who had graded that task's rank was a Roaming Meridian realm practitioner with slanted brows.
At that moment he sat behind the counter and, across the upright bars of the partition, scribbled with his brush, his face set in deep impatience: "What business have you?"
Being turned away again and again inside the Bureau had not soured Ling Chuan's manner.
He still only smiled, gracious and proper: "We are disciples of the Dao Academy, come on account of Case Bing-Wu. Four of our fellow disciples perished on that task..."
"Bloody Case Bing-Wu again!" The slanted-browed man suddenly hurled his brush aside. "Is there no end to this?"
It may be that he had been stewing for a good while, and that it struck him these three young faces could be pushed around with impunity. In any case, he burst into fury without warning: "That bloody one interrogates me, and this bloody one interrogates me too. I've already had a year of my stipend docked — what more do you want?"
Spittle flew in all directions as he slapped the counter and bellowed on.
Ling Chuan drew back a little, still meaning to speak.
Then a hand crashed through the upright bars of the counter, seized the slanted-browed man by the collar, and hauled him bodily outward, using his very face to batter through every last slat.
He was dragged bodily out over the counter.
"What do we want?" Jiang Chen had long been nursing his displeasure, and here he had swallowed an entire bellyful of rage. Now, caring nothing for bearing or restraint, he towed the slanted-browed man along and said, "Because of your negligence, the Dao Academy lost four disciples! Dead! All of them gone, nothing left! You had your stipend docked for one year — do you think that is some great tragedy?"
The slanted-browed man was struck utterly dumb.
His own outburst had barely ended before the Academy lad had laid hands on him. He gathered his Dao essence on the instant, only to have it crushed raw and hard.
It was not that he lacked the will to resist; it was that he had no room to resist at all.
The gap in strength was far too vast!
"Hey, hey, hey! What do you think you're doing?"
The other cultivators of the Bureau, drawn by the commotion, came rushing over.
"This is the hallowed ground of the Justice Enforcement Bureau — how dare you carry on so?"
A moment ago, when questions were being asked, the whole Bureau might have been a haunted house, hushed on every side, every face blank as a board.
But no sooner had a little trouble broken out than everyone came scurrying forth.
Ling Chuan's form flickered, and he planted himself before them.
"We have accepted a task from the Dao Merit Board, charged with investigating the full truth of Case Bing-Wu. Every person involved must cooperate while the matter is under examination!"
He was good-humored, yes, because his bearing was large — but that did not mean he was a coward.
When he had accompanied Jiang Chen to Riverwatch City back then, he had gone prepared to bleed out on the spot, a crimson splash upon the road.
Now, standing before the crowd, his expression was stern, his Dao essence coiled but not unleashed.
The Bureau cultivators all started. But the Dao Merit Board was an instrument of the state; when cultivators performed tasks under its banner, all parties were bound to cooperate — such was the rule.
So if the incident that day had arisen from the slanted-browed man's refusal to cooperate, the Academy cultivators could claim a measure of legal justification for their outburst.
"But that still doesn't give you license to run amok!"
"Exactly — how will you pay for the public property you've wrecked?"
Whatever the case, they had to uphold the face of the Bureau.
"Pay for it?" Zhao Yan smiled and stepped forward. "A few slats of wood like these — what are they worth?"
"This is Bureau property! What do you take it for?" the man sneered. "You'd have to shell out a hundred or so gold, at the very least!"
His intent was to make these youngsters back down and learn some measure of restraint.
For though to cultivators Dao-essence stones were the true hard currency, the needs of food, clothing, shelter, and travel could still not do without gold and silver. A hundred gold was no easy thing to lay hands on.
Little did he expect Zhao Yan to break into a long laugh on the spot.
"Fine!" He turned to Jiang Chen. "No need to hold back on him, third brother. Let's smash a full ten thousand gold's worth. Consider it redecorating for the Bureau!"
"..."
"..."
As the Bureau cultivators traded uneasy glances, a middle-aged man with a gloomy face appeared from within.
If it isn't Young Master Zhao!" he said with a smile that did not reach his eyes. "Come to flaunt your wealth at my Bureau, have you?"
This man was Shan Cha, head of the Maple Forest City Justice Enforcement Bureau — a sixth-rank Soaring Dragon realm cultivator.
"Bureau Magistrate, it would not do to say that." Fearing that Zhao Yan's temper might goad the conflict further, Ling Chuan answered first: "We are all disciples of the Dao Academy. We accepted a task from the Dao Merit Board and came to the Bureau simply to inquire into a case, as the proper procedure requires. But this person here refused to cooperate and even flew into a rage without cause. To keep the matter from escalating, my junior brother had no choice but to subdue him."
He turned aside: "Let the man go, third brother. What is this in front of Magistrate Shan?"
Jiang Chen smiled, and truly let his grip slacken, setting the slanted-browed man firmly back on his feet. He even patted his shoulder: "Are you all right?"
The man was still shaken, and only mumbled, "Fine, fine."
His earlier fit of fury could not be pretended away by anyone. So when Ling Chuan put it that way, the Bureau cultivators truly could not find fault with him.
"Right, if it's all proper procedure, then everyone disperse." Shan Cha waved the crowd away, then looked at the slanted-browed man. "These fine scholars of the Dao Academy have come on an errand from the Dao Merit Board. Whatever questions they have, answer them well, understand?"
"Understood, understood," said the slanted-browed man.
Only then did Shan Cha nod and walk away, hands clasped behind his back. From start to finish, he paid not the least mind to the matter of Zhao Yan paying for the damage.
"Wretched, we've been marked down by him now," Zhao Yan said, all smiles.
He said the word "wretched" with not a shred of fear upon his face.
Jiang Chen wore an equally indifferent expression. They were all the cream of the Dao Academy's disciples; the future lay wide before them.
Should they one day join the Bureau, so long as their cultivation kept pace, their standing could only tower above Shan Cha's. And should they choose not to join, then there was even less to worry about.
As for now — if Shan Cha wished to play some underhanded game, surely he did not think Dean Dong would fail to shield his own?
"We ourselves have nothing to fear," Ling Chuan said quietly, merely dropping a word of caution to Zhao Yan, for he could not speak plainly in front of the slanted-browed man. "What we worry over is that we might not be able to look after our own affairs at home. Third brother, best you get on with your questions."
From start to finish, he voiced not a single reproach for Jiang Chen's rashness or Zhao Yan's insolence. Not even when they had, in an unguarded moment, offended a man of real power like Shan Cha.
For the three of them were brothers together, and whatever any one of them did, whatever stance he took, they would all of them share the weight of it.