Chapter 64 - 2#
Does the Real Culprit Even Matter?#
It doesn’t. What matters is who ends up being thrown under the bus at this juncture.
The First Prince’s faction, other political factions, or someone deeper—those who wish to oppose the Xu family?
“Check all internal accounts of the Ministry of Works. Release every suspicious case that hasn’t been processed by us.” Zhou Bingjun of the Ministry of Works immediately ordered. “Send men to the Grand Court. Do everything possible to intercept them—the Grand Court cannot be allowed to submit any more cases to the Embroidered Uniform Guard!”
The officials of the Ministry of Works sprang into action. Several officers under Zhou Bingjun’s orders rushed to the various departmental archives. Little did they know that the moment they stepped out of the ministry’s gates, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, who had been keeping constant watch, were already tailing them.
Outside the Ministry of Works, Qi Hanzhou, who had been waiting in silence, noticed Zhou Bingjun’s movements. He turned his head to look at Ying Fusheng, who sat quietly beside him.
The latter wore a faint expression, his gaze passing through the carriage window to observe the officials entering and leaving the ministry. Every move these officials made was recorded by the Embroidered Uniform Guard’s watchful eyes.
The puppet master was too deeply entangled with the Xu family. It would be difficult for the Embroidered Uniform Guard to uncover everything through investigation. No matter how they probed, they would not only alert the enemy but also expose their own intentions to the informants constantly monitoring them.
But if the Ministry of Works conducted its own internal investigation—determining which cases involved the Xu family’s hands and which were secretly orchestrated by the puppet master—they would not need to distinguish anything themselves. The ministry could self-audit, and it would strike at the heart of the matter.
Whether the puppet master was using the Xu family or cooperating with them was irrelevant. For these people, suspicion and probing were the fatal factors.
Ying Fusheng smiled faintly. “You see, the clues we can’t uncover, the Ministry of Works will eliminate most of them for us. Doesn’t that bring the clues right to us?”
The Ministry of Works was scrambling to clean up the problematic hidden threads within its own faction. If the hidden threads didn’t want to be discovered, they would have to destroy the relevant evidence before the ministry’s men arrived. Such individuals would act faster than others, both in targeting their objectives and in executing their moves.
At that moment, Ye Xuanjiu appeared hastily, his expression grim. “Young General, we’ve locked onto the person.”
Qi Hanzhou and Ying Fusheng exchanged a glance. The real fish had taken the bait.
The case of the Minister of War was nothing but a decoy. Neither the old fox nor the puppet master would make a move on it.
But their target was never the military pay case itself. It was the hidden threads that had been forced into action by the fallout of the case.
No one wanted to be stained by the dirty water. Therefore, Zhou Bingjun and Grand Secretary Xu would investigate thoroughly.
If they were to investigate, they would have to examine everything from start to finish, layer by layer.
Ying Fusheng had instructed Shen Changcun to gather scattered cases from local post stations and send them to the Grand Court. For the suspicious Grand Secretary Xu, this would naturally direct his focus to related matters. The only way to investigate without omissions was to start from the Ministry of Works’ projects involving the post stations. But only the puppet master’s hidden threads would skip unnecessary, tedious processes and quickly locate the most critical items.
He would not go to departments like the Land Reclamation Bureau or the Water Conservancy Bureau. His target would only be the Ministry of Works’ core—the Ministry’s Directorate.
“Aside from Zhou Bingjun, there are three other Ministry of Works officials privately moving internal accounts. But only one went directly to the Ministry’s Directorate. His name is Xu Yong, a Deputy Minister of Works. He has handled many practical matters for the ministry and is one of the rare officials to emerge unscathed from the artisan cases.”
Ye Xuanjiu worked efficiently. He had already assigned men to keep a tight watch on Xu Yong. Still, when he identified the man, he felt a chill—because this person was a member of the Crown Prince’s faction and had never been on the Embroidered Uniform Guard’s secret list for surveillance. “Rumor has it that he was a military scholar who once served in the army. Later, he came to the capital and became a protégé of Grand Secretary Xu. He was recommended by Minister of Works Zhou Bingjun as a Vice Minister of War, but Hu Buyu arrived in the capital, and Xu Yong remained in the Ministry of Works.”
Ying Fusheng’s expression shifted slightly when he heard this name. He knew this man.
Xu Yong—in his past life, he eventually replaced Hu Buyu as Vice Minister of War, a member of the Crown Prince’s faction.
In the court, he appeared neutral, a rare pragmatist. Even as a Crown Prince loyalist, he seldom participated in corruption or framed others. Later, he became one of Grand Secretary Xu’s key protégés. Even at the end of his past life, Xu Yong remained a practical official within the Crown Prince’s faction, never among the targets that the Qi family and he had focused on.
It turned out to be him… Such a person, in the court, was most likely to become a “clean” and useful minister—a chess piece the emperor could deploy at will, and also a deeply buried piece for the Crown Prince’s faction. In his past life, the Qi family spared him because he was a rare military official who could handle civil affairs. The new emperor could step down, but a stable court still needed capable ministers.
“If he’s using a sleeper agent like this, the Embroidered Uniform Guard will have a hard time investigating.” Qi Hanzhou remarked.
Such a sleeper agent suggested that the capable neutral ministers trusted by the current emperor, the civil officials who swayed between factions, might also contain hidden threads of the puppet master. And these people would have sufficient contingencies.
No, something was off.
Ying Fusheng sat still, deep in thought.
He felt there was an aspect of this matter he had overlooked. The Ministry of Works had already lost so many officials. Xu Yong’s position as Deputy Minister of Works was not insignificant in the emperor’s eyes. Why would they risk having Xu Yong take such a bold move?
“I wonder why it had to be Xu Yong,” Ying Fusheng said.
Ye Xuanjiu: “Ordinary officials can’t access the department’s archives, right?”
Qi Hanzhou added: “Whether one can access the archives is just a matter of credentials.”
It would have been far more reasonable for Xu Yong to send a subordinate to act than to do it himself.
The Hebei slope case—the Crown Prince and the Xu family’s actions caught the puppet master off guard. That was the first failure.
This time, with the Minister of War case, the puppet master acted cleverly. But the Embroidered Uniform Guard’s closely watched informants made no moves. The most significant action was merely entering and leaving the Xu residence, and those involved were only the Xu family’s spies or undercover agents.
These moves were all slower than the previous handling of Consort Ning’s “broken seeds” incident in the palace. One reason was that the Embroidered Uniform Guard’s informants had been noticed. Another was that the critical chess piece, Shuangyue, had been removed, slowing their coordination. Given the puppet master’s ability, if he could detect the changes brought by Ying Fusheng’s rebirth, he should not fail to see the undercurrents in the court.
“Is it possible that the person orchestrating everything from behind is not in the capital?” Ying Fusheng suddenly asked.
Qi Hanzhou frowned at this unexpected point. “It’s not impossible.”
Only that could explain the puppet master’s and his agents’ erratic speed of action in the Eastern Palace and several recent old cases. Not being in the capital meant all schemes were executed through the Xu family and the hidden agents in the court. These agents had some autonomy, mostly waiting and watching, never intervening unless absolutely necessary.
That was why they needed to use the Xu family’s vast network. By lurking within it, the emperor’s suspicion would stop at the Xu family.
If the puppet master was not in the capital, then the agents he chose as sleeper cells would not be people who took risks lightly.
Just as Ye Xuanjiu was about to act, Ying Fusheng suddenly halted. “If that’s the case, are we the only ones watching Xu Yong?”
“Pull back the Embroidered Uniform Guard!” Qi Hanzhou realized something was wrong.
Someone else was watching Xu Yong too. Xu Yong was a chess piece that group had cast out.
If the Embroidered Uniform Guard acted, they would be exposed!
Ye Xuanjiu’s face turned pale, and he wanted to rush out.
But at that moment, Ying Fusheng grabbed him suddenly. “We will act, but not ourselves.”
-*
Inside the Ministry Works Directorate, officials were retrieving archives.
“Lord Xu,” an official said. “These are all the archives you requested.”
There were many files, but most were irrelevant.
Xu Yong took them, his expression calm as he offered a word of thanks. Among these decoy files, he found the one he truly needed. He carefully placed it, left a mark, and tucked it into an unremarkable corner. After finishing, he picked up another unrelated file and headed out.
As he passed by other Ministry of Works officials, his peripheral vision briefly caught the entrance of the Directorate. He looked down at the file in his hand, seemingly making a decision, then stepped out of the Directorate’s gate.
But as he stepped out, he noticed no Embroidered Uniform Guard at the entrance.
His heart paused. Had they miscalculated? Was the Embroidered Uniform Guard not paying attention to the Ministry of Works? No—if they hadn’t been watching, they wouldn’t have tested the ministry so many times.
But before he could take more than a few steps, the gate of the Directorate suddenly closed.
A figure approached from the side.
Xu Yong turned sharply and saw the ashen-faced Minister of Works, Zhou Bingjun.
Xu Yong’s expression flickered. He quickly composed himself. “Lord Zhou, what brings you here?”
Without a word, an official took the file from Xu Yong and handed it to Zhou Bingjun.
Zhou Bingjun opened it and saw that it was an irrelevant file—one not included in the list he had ordered to be investigated. “Xu Yong, I didn’t instruct you to look into this file, did I?”
These were archives Grand Secretary Xu had already dealt with. There were no issues with them.
“Lord Zhou, this is a precaution,” Xu Yong said, already prepared with an excuse. He hadn’t expected Zhou Bingjun to be the one coming. “The other archives are being handled internally. I brought this one out only to mislead the spies.”
“To mislead?” Zhou Bingjun asked, staring at Xu Yong. “I suspect you never intended to handle any archives at all.”
Just then, another official emerged from the Directorate, flipping through the files Xu Yong had just moved. Among all the files, not a single one was related to the Grand Court’s cases.
Xu Yong tensed. “Lord Zhou, I can explain this.”
His every move was meant to cover up the military pay case. The files Zhou Bingjun had ordered were all irrelevant—there was no need for him to tamper with them. He had only come here to confuse the Embroidered Uniform Guard or test their actions. Who would have thought Zhou Bingjun would appear?
“You can explain, or was this done intentionally?” Zhou Bingjun said coldly. “After you entered the Directorate, the Embroidered Uniform Guard made their move. Almost every official I sent to handle the archives was caught.”
“Only you remained untouched by their pursuit—why?”
Apart from the Directorate, every other department had been ambushed by the Embroidered Uniform Guard. The officers involved were all taken away. The attack was sudden; the Ministry of Works barely reacted. Only Xu Yong, who had gone alone to the Directorate, was left safe and sound.
“You didn’t check a single file, yet you made a special trip to the Directorate,” Zhou Bingjun said, his eyes fixed on Xu Yong. “It’s as if you knew exactly what was here and had to come personally.”
Zhou Bingjun’s voice was icy. His glare was unyielding.
Xu Yong’s expression shifted. The Embroidered Uniform Guard had never followed him!
He had been set up!