Ze Tian Ji

An hour before all this occurred, at midnight, Chen Changsheng jumped from the window of the library, passed through the dense forest, and reached the kitchen on the other side of the lake. Taking a kitchen knife, he then opened the Yellow Paper Umbrella, jumped over the newly built section of the wall, and left the Orthodox Academy.

The South Stream Temple disciples realized that the target of their protection had vanished. It did not take too long for this news to reach the mansion in the suburbs of the capital and the courtyard in the alley of the Northern Military Department.

Early autumn crabapple trees naturally had no flowers to blossom, and it was still too early for leaves to fall, so its dense foliage gently rustled in the night wind. The starlight fell upon the crimson official’s robe and then reflected to below the crabapple tree. The leaves gently rising up and down were plated with a blood-red luster, transforming into a sea of blood.

”I don’t like any sort of variable that is beyond my control, and I hope that all of you can remove this variable as soon as possible. In other words, all of you have only one night to find him.”

Zhou Tong stood on the steps, gazing expressionlessly at the dense mass of kneeling officials in the courtyard. ”Afterwards, I don’t care what method you use, but you must kill him.”

The officials in the courtyard silently dispersed like a tide, leaving behind only a solitary crabapple tree and two officials dressed in crimson official’s gowns.

There were very few officials who were qualified to stand on the same level as Zhou Tong, and Cheng Jun was one of them. As a powerful minister similarly deeply trusted by the Divine Empress, in the so-called Eight Tigers discussed amongst the populace, he was only beneath Zhou Tong.

”To invade the Orthodox Academy in the middle of the night to assassinate someone is one thing. He’s left the Orthodox Academy, and if we still want to kill him in the capital, that would be an open killing…the Pope will not let us go.”

Cheng Jun was a high official of the Grand Court of Revision, yet he had none of the dignity of someone charged with maintaining the laws of the Great Zhou. His face was like an inverted triangle, his nose drooped and his lips were thin. Merely based on his face, he was an extremely loathsome person.

The officials that the Divine Empress used at the very beginning were all those who had been excluded from the bureaucracy, the once-disappointed. This was because, at the very beginning, those officials who truly possessed integrity and talent were not willing to vow their loyalty to her.

”Besides the Empress, who in the world would be willing to let us go?”

A faint smile hung over Zhou Tong’s face. Under the starlight, his face seemed even paler. He did not seem like a living person and his smile was all the more strange and terrifying.

……

……

When news that Chen Changsheng had left the Orthodox Academy arrived at this mansion, the Tianhai clan’s discussions hurriedly concluded as they all speedily dispersed. With this dispersal, the will of the clan was spread to the entire capital. From the Imperial Guard to the mansions of the capital, countless people plunged into the darkness in an attempt to find Chen Changsheng and then kill him.

Tianhai Chenwu walked under an autumn tree and gazed at an extremely distant ball of light, not speaking for a very long time—that place was the Dew Platform, the place where the Empress most enjoyed spending time.

Gazing at his father’s back, Tianhai Shengxue was also quiet. He felt that there was something off about today. Killing Chen Changsheng was naturally not a very difficult task, but it should not have made the entire Tianhai clan suddenly stir to life like a hurricane, because this array of forces was too great, because they would not necessarily find Chen Changsheng. On the contrary, this would only put the other side on their guard, even giving them a sort of notification, but why?