Time entered the second year of Su Ming's exile.

Spring passed, autumn arrived, and the landscape of the capital underwent subtle changes amid undercurrents. The war in the Northern Frontier continued sporadically, and the Yongchang Marquis faction's influence swelled as military power became increasingly concentrated, threatening to become an uncontrollable force.

The Great Xing emperor on the dragon throne finally began to feel uneasy.

He needed a pawn—one without deep roots, with a clean background, yet clever enough and tough enough. A spike to be driven ruthlessly into what seemed like an impenetrable military interest group.

Thus, Xu Qing, that obscure figure buried in dusty archives at the Ministry of Revenue, nearly forgotten by all, re-entered the emperor's field of vision.

An imperial decree unexpectedly promoted Xu Qing from a junior clerk at the sixth rank to a sixth-rank senior clerk at the Ministry of Revenue.

This appointment stirred little commotion in the court. To the truly powerful, it was just another of the emperor's inconsequential balancing acts. What waves could a powerless upright official stir up?

But for Xu Qing, this decree was like a key.

A senior clerk at the Ministry of Revenue could now access the most core ledgers of military expenditures.

These were no longer dusty old accounts from years past, but real-time records currently in motion.

When Xu Qing first opened that volume wrapped in bright yellow silk brocade—the "Compendium of Military Funds"—under the personal supervision of the Minister of Revenue, he could barely control his trembling fingers.

He saw more, and he saw deeper.

He saw massive sums allocated under the pretext of "soldier rewards" ending up in jewelry orders for a certain noble's newly taken concubine in the capital.

He saw batches of "refined iron ore" supposedly purchased from the Southern Frontier, priced three times the market rate, with the transport caravan backed by the Yongchang Marquis's brother-in-law.

He saw the compensation for soldiers who fell at the front lines melt away like snow under a scorching sun as it passed through layers of distribution, leaving barely a tenth for the orphans and widows.

The darkness was more shocking than he had imagined.

Each time he flipped through the ledgers, it was like repeatedly flaying his not-yet-frozen conscience with a dull blade.

But he learned to hide deeper.

Before his colleagues, he remained that taciturn Xu Senior Clerk, just a man buried in his work. Facing the Minister of Revenue's scrutinizing and probing gaze, he always wore a dull expression as if to say, "I saw nothing; I'm just a bookkeeper."

He buried all his discoveries deep in his heart, only daring to sort out the tangled webs of interest at dead of night on a small sheet of grass paper, using the extremely obscure "code" Su Ming had once taught him.

He knew that what he held in his hands was a shocking secret capable of shaking the entire Great Xing dynasty. But he also knew that this was not yet enough to topple that deeply rooted tree.

He acted like the most patient hunter, quietly lying in ambush in the darkness, waiting for that one fatal strike.

But beasts always have sharper instincts than hunters imagine.

Year three, early summer.

When Xu Qing began to extend his investigation from false military expenditures into the realm of weapon manufacturing and the substitution of inferior goods, the Yongchang Marquis finally sensed that an invisible pair of eyes was staring fixedly at him in the dark.

Danger arrived uninvited.

It was an ordinary evening. Xu Qing was riding his old, half-worn carriage back to his residence from the Ministry of Revenue. As the carriage entered a secluded path along the moat, the two docile draft horses suddenly seemed startled by something. They let out a shrill whinny, broke free of their reins, and bolted madly forward.

The driver was scared out of his wits by the sudden turn of events and was thrown from the shaft on the spot, crashing down with a bloody head.

The out-of-control carriage, driven by immense inertia, hurtled straight toward the moat just a few yards away.

In that instant, Xu Qing's mind went blank. He only heard the harsh scraping of wheels over gravel and the dull thuds of his body hitting the wooden walls as the carriage violently jolted.

The icy river water seemed to rush toward him.

Just as the carriage's front wheels were about to leave the embankment and plunge into the bottomless water—

"Clang—"

A sharp clash of metal exploded like thunder in Xu Qing's ears.

Then he felt a tremendous force from the side. The entire carriage tilted sharply to one side and overturned.

"Boom!"

The carriage crashed heavily onto the hard ground, splintering apart.

Xu Qing crawled out from the wreckage, bruised and aching all over. A gash on his forehead was bleeding, and blood trickled down his cheek.

He looked up and saw a man in black, wearing tight-fitting martial clothes, standing before him with an unsheathed long blade. At the man's feet lay the iron axle that had connected the carriage to the horses—supposedly sturdy and solid—now neatly snapped in two.

The cut was as smooth as a mirror.

The man in black said nothing. He only shot a deep glance at Xu Qing, then sheathed his blade, leaped a few times, and vanished into the dusk.

Xu Qing knew—that was one of Liu Wenyuan's men, sent to protect him in the shadows.

But this was only the beginning.

A few days later, his loyal young bookboy, who had served him for years, was dragged into an alley while out on an errand. His arms and legs were broken, and he was beaten unconscious.

By the time Xu Qing arrived, the boy was barely breathing. With his last shred of strength, he pulled a crumpled slip of paper from his bosom and pressed it into Xu Qing's hand.

On the paper was a single line of small characters, written in blood: 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"Lord Xu, some things—knowing too much shortens your life."

That night, Xu Qing broke his routine and did not go to his study.

He locked himself alone in that humble servant's room that had once belonged to the bookboy. No lamp was lit. Deathly silence reigned.

He sat motionless in the boundless darkness.

From dusk until dawn.

No one knew what he was thinking.