The next morning, we gathered outside the inn. Surprisingly, Luo Qingshan also appeared, instead of solving the inner demon that should’ve formed.
“What? You solved the inner demon?” I asked, shocked. I had expected to have a few days to do whatever underhanded methods that I wanted, but since she was here, I had to change the plans a little bit.
“Hehe, jealous? I killed it immediately after noticing its formation,” Luo Qingshan grinned, almost floating to the heavens out of pride, “A useless piece of shit that can only talk big can only look up to me.”
I’ve never actually solved a heart demon this fast. Actually, I hadn’t encountered a heart demon before. The only experience that I had dealing with heart demons was the time when shimei formed one from the betrayal she felt when her parents abandoning her. I solved it by treating her like my biological sister, and it eventually disappeared as if it had never appeared. It took about two years, and it was a shame that she couldn’t cultivate in that time. If she could, she’d be even stronger than me. Thinking about it, I suddenly felt uneasy.
“Hehe, whatever. Let’s go to Minister Xu’s house.”
Upon arriving at the mansion, I knocked on the door. There was a moment of silence before a man, who we presumed to be a servant, asked.
“Who are you, and why are you here?”
“We’re here from the Military Police, and we are here to check if you’re living well. Don’t worry, since we won’t touch a single hair nor thread in the house.”
We could only wait for a while as there was silence behind the door. After a while, we were about to leave, when the gates of the house slowly swung open.
“Haha, brothers and sisters from the Military Police, what brings you to this humble abode? Come in, come in!” The Minister was plump and sweaty, much like an emperor in the western empire, I think it was called Bruiting or something.
We walked down a hall, and into a living room. There were big sofas around the room, and exquisite paintings were hung on the wall. There was a normal looking bottle of wine hung on the wall.
“I see you’ve noticed the 1000-year-old wine that I bought from the current sect master of the Hundred Retard Mountain!” Minister Xu exclaimed, making my lip twitch.
“It’s the Hundred Divine Technique Mountain.” I said, making the Minister look at me in a way that said, ‘Is there a difference?’ Also, wasn’t the wine 800 years old? Why did it suddenly become 200 years old? Did I accidentally go into seclusion for 200 years? Wait, current sect master? Che, no wonder! That shameless old fart probably faked the age to increase the price further.
“Let me introduce ourselves. I am Wuxing Wuming, and I am the captain of the,” I scowled at the other three as I remembered what the name of my unit was, “hating Wuxing Wuming Unit.”
“It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard many a thing of your great deeds.” The minister shook my hand as he put on a hypocritical grin.
“Same to you. Let’s get to business. We’re here to ask for data about something that happened in this prefecture.” I put on a similar grin as I got down to business.
“Yes, yes, what do you need? I’ll give it to you directly.” The minister asked, a dagger hidden within his words. I knew that if it was related to him, he would likely order for our ‘disappearance’.
“No need for you to be in such a hurry. I’ll just need the records of your spending, sales, and income.” I replied casually, as if I was just asking about the weather. The minister’s smile stiffened as he heard what I said, making it look even more forced than it did previously. “Oh, and I’ll also need the tax records, and maybe a record of the transactions that you had with the assassins.”
His face turned cold as he heard my continuation. He knew that I knew that he had arranged for the assassination of Minister Li. I knew that, and he knew that I knew that.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not quite sure about what you’re talking about.” Minister Xu said, making a hand signal. At that moment, ten men entered the room, surrounding the four of us.
Sighing, I signalled for my comrades to attack. Tong Xun and Tang Yue both began their assault on the ambushers, each defeating five, while Luo Qingshan didn’t even react, looking shocked. Minister Xu also looked shocked at the ability of the two. He could only sit as I grinned.
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“Will you pass it over?” I grinned as I gave a hand gesture to order Tong Xun and Tang Yue to apprehend him.
“What? What are you doing? Stop! I order you!” The minister could only shout as he knew that he couldn’t defeat these two. After all, they had defeated ten elites that he had trained for a long time. Luo Qingshan still stood there, stunned. I had more or less expected that, since she hadn’t known about our plan.
“What the hell are you three doing? This wasn’t in the plan!” Luo Qingshan asked.
“You being here wasn’t in the plan.” I replied flatly. The two men beat up the minister once for every person that asked them to get revenge for Minister Li. They then tied him up and gagged him so that he couldn’t call for backup, not that he had any.
“Time to collect evidence. Take everything the hairs and threads. If you touch them, then you get capital punishment. Us Military Police have to keep our word.” I said calmly, making Luo Qingshan glare at me. Even the two meatheads were shocked.
“Wouldn’t we be punished?” The two of them had traces of fear thinking of Captain Su’s ruler, but I diffused their worries by reminding them that were collecting evidence.
Luo Qingshan shook me by the shoulder, and asked, “This isn’t quite appropriate.”
“What isn’t?”
“This robber-like behaviour.”
“What are robbers actually? They are just people. We are also people. So, there’s fundamentally no difference between us.” I replied, before collecting the paintings, books and records. I also collected the mansion’s financial records. Finally, I dragged Minister Xu out of the mansion.
By then, there was a crowd of people gathered outside of the mansion after hearing the commotion. At that time, a lady ran out of the house, which was quite weird. All of the servants were herded into a toilet by the three of us before we truly began our ‘evidence collecting’. The people of the crowd were shocked, recognising the lady as the one who killed Minister Li.
Damn, was this guy retarded? Why keep a known assassin within his house? Especially since he had authority, he should try and stay away from known criminals. Wait, is she maybe his spouse or something?
The lady threw a knife at me, which Tang Yue help me avoid by pulling me out of the way. Good brother, he knows that I cannot expose my strength, so he helps me out. Wait, that knife wasn’t aimed at my vitals. I had a bad feeling as I felt that there was something extremely wrong here.
Looking down to the right, I realised that Minister Xu had a knife stuck exactly in his carotid artery, and blood was flowing like a river. His body was already starting to cool. Shit, we lost someone who could testify. But why would the lady kill him? Unless there was some other bigger plot……
I realised my mistake. I had been thinking about this too simply, thinking that this was just a case of a corrupted politician. But this was much, much more serious. I immediately looked up in search of the lady, but she was already gone.
I immediately used my internal energy to probe the area, but there was no sign of her. It was unlikely that I could sense her in this crowd of people, since I hadn’t put some marker on her.
Fuck, I fucked up badly this time! At least I have some proof that this minister had commissioned a political assassination, and that would be enough for a 50-year sentence. I’m quite sure that the Imperial Court would purposely increase it till a life sentence to solve it. He wouldn’t be able to do any bad either way, but the one important difference is that live people can be tortured—dead people cannot.
Sighing, we hauled the dead body and ‘evidence’ to the inn, paid the bill, took back the horses, and went back to the Imperial Capital. We were all silent as we experienced our first failure, and on our first mission, no less!
Actually, I couldn’t care less that I had failed this mission. After all, life is just a bundle of failures and successes; one more or less won’t make a difference. I was just silent since I couldn’t think of anything to say.
This time, we didn’t rush as quickly, since we were in no rush. Hence, we only reached the Imperial Capital after a week of travelling. When we reached the Imperial Capital, I dismounted the horse, and went back to the manor immediately. Upon arriving at Captain Su’s room, I apologised for my failure before running through the whole event.
“You’re saying that you found out that he was the one who killed the late Minister Li?” Captain Su asked, “And Minister Xu was killed by the killer of Minister Li as you were detaining him?”
“Yes, that’s right.” I replied, “I suspect that there is a greater plan to this incident too, since he wouldn’t be killed if not.”
“OK, you can go first.” Captain Su sighed as she waved her hand to dismiss me. I could sense how tired she was, and felt somewhat sympathetic. Either way, I’m not paid to care, so I just went back to my shed. But as I left, Captain Su stopped me. “What punishment would you like for robbing a minister’s house?”
Fuck, this is a trap! Damn it, I should’ve left immediately instead of feeling sympathetic about it. “I didn’t rob a minister’s house. I was simply collecting evidence! I didn’t even break my words!”
“Didn’t you say that you weren’t going to touch anything when you entered?” Captain Su asked.
“No, I said that I wouldn’t touch a hair nor thread in the house.”
“You smartass, eat my ruler!” Captain Su said, smacking me with the ruler hard. I cried out as she prepared another strike. Technically, I hadn’t robbed his house, but I guess that Captain Su was the type to simply ignore technicalities. If you’re right to her, you’re right. If you’re wrong to her, then you’re wrong.
I could barely even walk back to my shed after the beating that occurred. I could only lie on the floor with a thin blanket, while it was snowing heaps of snow on the outside.