Only after Jiang Chen and his companions had passed beyond the gates of the Justice Enforcement Bureau did Shan Cha step out once more, standing with his hands clasped behind his back in silence.
"Sir." His trusted right-hand man fell in close behind him, speaking low. "Are we just going to let these Academy whelps swagger around like that?"
"It is still your own ineptitude!" Shan Cha snapped. "You dawdle and dawdle over one case and never reach a result — that is the only reason there is room for them to interfere!"
Only those cases that the Justice Enforcement Bureau could not resolve would appear on the Dao Merit Board in the first place. This was to avoid any blurring of authority against authority.
"These Academy disciples are spoiled and pampered. What do they know of investigating a case?" his subordinate sneered. "Let them wear themselves out for nothing!"
Shan Cha gave no answer, only calling over the slanted-browed cultivator and dressing him down once more, then carefully questioning him about the particulars of what Jiang Chen had asked, before waving a hand to dismiss him.
"Since time immemorial it has been our Bureau that does the swaggering. There is no way we suffer being trodden upon! Since that hard stone Dong took charge of the Maple Forest City Dao Academy, it has grown less and less presentable." Shan Cha's voice turned cold. "Director Ji is soon to make an inspection tour of the commanderies. Once the old man reaches Maple Forest City, who have we to fear?"
His standing was not high enough that he knew Ji Xuan had already come and gone, driven away in shame by Song Hengjiang on the banks of the Clear River.
"Exactly!" his subordinate chimed in at once.
Shan Cha gave another cold snort. "The Zhao family moved to our city not long ago, and yet they are so wildly wealthy — their origins cannot be above suspicion. These past few years they have been obedient enough, paying due tribute, and so we turned a blind eye and let them be. But now this young pup of a Zhao dares to swagger so! Very well, let us look into the family's background. We shall see whether they can bear the scrutiny!"
Though the Bureau's writ covered supernatural cases alone, who was to decide what was supernatural and what was not?
Because the two spheres of authority overlapped, in cities where the city lord held a firm hand the Bureau deferred to him, while in cities where the city lord was weak the Bureau went its own way.
And in the Clear River Commandery, because Director Ji Xuan was so overbearing, the Bureau offices in the various large cities each held a greater or lesser share of autonomy, and every last one of them was fattened and sleek.
"Your subordinate obeys!" The trusted man could not help but laugh darkly, already scheming over what broth he might skim for himself.
...
The slanted-browed man's grading of the task had followed proper procedure, untainted by personal motives, and free of any deliberate malice.
At least, that was the conclusion Jiang Chen and his men reached in their investigation.
At the time, the task had arisen because a family in Dujia Town had been murdered.
However one read the traces left at the scene, the killer's cultivation could not reach above the ninth-rank Roaming Meridian realm. The slanted-browed man had graded the task as eighth-rank, taking into account the unpredictability of heretical path demon-cultivators' whereabouts, as well as the various incidents that had befallen the Maple Forest City domain of late, and had already folded in a margin for risk.
The Maple Forest City branch of the Dao Academy, for its part, fielded two eighth-rank Zhou Heavenly realm cultivators and three ninth-rank Roaming Meridian realm cultivators. Such an arrangement, sent against a task of that level, should have been all but guaranteed of success.
But the outcome brought the heaviest loss of Dao Academy disciples since the Xiaolin Town massacre — a full four disciples perished. Consider that, in prior years, the inner sect of the Maple Forest City Dao Academy took in only about ten new disciples every year.
Every Dao Academy disciple was a pillar of the state. That was precisely why the Maple Forest City Dao Academy took the matter so seriously, sending out Jiang Chen and his fellows to investigate after the Justice Enforcement Bureau had come up empty-handed.
Leaving the Bureau, the third stop on their rounds was the Zhang clan estate.
This was a decision the three had reached together, and their reasoning was clear.
From Fang Lin, to the Justice Enforcement Bureau, the next thread was Zhang Xizhi — the squad captain who had led that fatal task.
Though he was dead, the information he carried had not died with him.
Among his family and friends there yet lived a Zhang Xizhi remembered.
The Justice Enforcement Bureau sat north of the city lord's residence, not far from it, close by Greenwood Avenue.
Strictly by geography, coming from the Fang estate, one would visit the Zhang estate first and the Bureau second, as the roads lay conveniently in that order.
Yet Jiang Chen and his fellows chose to detour all the same, because the order of fact mattered more than the order of geography.
The Zhang clan now stood as the first among the three great surnames, yet walking into their estate one did not sense an ounce of arrogance or overbearing air. On the contrary, the Zhang kinfolk they met along the way were all well-mannered, and once they learned their visitors were Dao Academy disciples, someone offered readily to lead the way.
Jiang Chen and the others split into three paths: one to Zhang Xizhi's home, one to the home of Zhang Xizhi's dearest friend, and one to the home of the clan elder.
Jiang Chen went to the clan elder's home.
The home of Zhang Xizhi would naturally yield the most leads, and Zhao Yan was the one least liable to let such leads slip through his fingers.
By seniority of the clan line, the Zhang clan elder ranked in the grandfather's generation relative to Zhang Yuan — though Zhang Yuan belonged to a different branch.
Of course, given Zhang Yuan's present strength, he had naturally risen to be counted among the main line. Had it not been that his ambitions lay elsewhere, the position of the next clan head would all but be his for the taking.
As a rising star of the Maple Forest City Dao Academy, Jiang Chen found that the Zhang clan elder made a point of carving out time to help him sort through everything bearing on Zhang Xizhi, in support of his task.
The two chatted for a while, but reaped no great harvest. Jiang Chen was just preparing to take his leave when, from outside, a voice sounded: "Young Master Zhang Yuan is back!"
Zhang Yuan entered the courtyard on the heels of the voice, first offering a bow of respect to the clan elder. "Yuan has come to greet his honored elder uncle."
His courtesy was impeccable.
The clan elder sat upright, raising a hand in a gesture of ease, his smile kindly: "You work hard at your cultivation; a trip home is not easy to spare. There is no need to come see me every time."
"It is only fitting." Zhang Yuan smiled and, turning, greeted Jiang Chen as well: "Junior brother Jiang, have you come to my home as a guest?"
Jiang Chen would never presume on seniority, and had long since risen to stand to one side. Now he only smiled wryly: "It must be that I have been assigned a task, has it not? Whether it came from Vice Dean Song or Dean Dong, I could not say."
There was no way he was going to ask Dean Dong about that, nor would Dean Dong have paid him any heed. Dean Dong was the head of the Dao Academy, not anyone's nursemaid or wet nurse.
"Oh?" Zhang Yuan grew interested. "What difference does it make?"
A great difference, in fact! If it was Dean Dong, then it meant he was being valued. If it was Song Qifang, then it might well mean trouble was being stirred up for him.
"There is little to it." The frictions with Song Qifang were not something Jiang Chen cared to discuss, and he turned aside: "I have come empty-handed today, so I shall not trouble you overlong. Once this task is done, I will seek you out, senior brother Zhang, for a drink."
"Very good." Zhang Yuan smiled, then took his leave of the old clan elder: "Honored elder uncle, I shall be going home, then."
The old man laughed genially: "Off with you, off with you. Keep your mother waiting too long, and she will come blaming me again."
A "next time" with no set time, uttered by a grown adult, usually means never.
...
Zhang Yuan came out of the clan elder's courtyard and made for his own home. Along the way, those kinfolk who greeted him he acknowledged with a nod. Yet the handkerchief he held over his mouth never once moved aside. The kinfolk did not mind in the least, knowing his fastidious nature.
Zhang Yuan's home was not especially large, but with four courtyards nested within its walls, neither could it be called shabby. His father held the title of a steward within the clan; his duties were few, yet his silver was not.
Given Zhang Yuan's present strength and his prospects to come, there was no one in the whole clan who would dare to slight his family.
Before he had even set foot into the courtyard, his servants came out to greet him.
"Young Master, you are back. It is time to eat now! The master and the mistress are both waiting."
Indeed, his household would have begun preparations the instant he set foot upon the clan grounds.
Zhang Yuan nodded and made his way toward the heated dining hall.
His parents were, as ever, seated at the head of the table waiting for him.
His father was a man of rigid temperament. He was pleased at seeing his son, but his face gave little of it away, and he only said, blandly: "Sit."
His mother, for her part, smiled at him and slid a dish of perch to just before his seat: "Yuan, come, taste it."
Zhang Yuan walked to his place, glanced at the stool, and could not help dabbing at an oily spot with his handkerchief — a drop that had spilled when the dish was set down — before folding the handkerchief up whole and laying it aside.
He soon heard his father's voice, carrying an edge of anger: "What has come over you? I told you plainly that Yuan was coming home for a meal today, and that you were to have the servants scrub everything down well. You cannot even keep a stool clean!"
His mother's voice still held its grievance: "I tidied it in and out, time and again..."
"It's all right, it's all right." Zhang Yuan smiled as he smoothed things over. "Let's eat, shall we?"
The three sat down to eat together, dividing the round table into three even shares, each taking up one corner.
Mutual respect, as between guests.