From afar, Wang Chong caught sight of the city gates of Tongzhou Prefecture, and his heart eased greatly.
Half a day earlier, Yaglakar Yehu had caught up to him. Fortunately, this invincible commander of the great grassland had been alone; the two traded more than twenty blows, and Wang Chong found an opening to break free and flee.
Wang Chong could truly feel that his martial arts had advanced again. Though he was still no match for this long-established Innate Realm expert, he already felt far more confident than he had the first time.
Tongzhou Prefecture was, of course, different from Pengshan County. Its defenses were tight, soldiers crowded the walls from top to bottom, and everyone who came and went was questioned and searched closely. The moment Wang Chong showed himself, he heard someone hail him warmly—it was a brother of the Chrysanthemum-Killing Alliance. He recalled that the man was surnamed Zhu, given name Hongru. With a familiar face there in person, he entered the city with ease.
At last he had set foot in Tongzhou Prefecture, and Wang Chong let out a great breath of relief. These days, to guard against surprise attacks by the great grassland's killers, the whole of Tongzhou Prefecture was on the highest alert, as if facing a formidable foe. Not only had several thousand troops been deployed, but several hundred figures of the martial world as well. Even if Yaglakar Yehu's martial arts were twice as high again, he would never dare to risk coming in alone.
This was Wang Chong's first visit to Tongzhou, but he was not without a foothold. He had two places where he was to carry out his duties in Tongzhou Prefecture—after all, he was both the Director of the prefecture's Office of the Ministry of Justice and the Chief Constable of the Sixteen Prefectures of Tongzhou—but he very wisely chose to first go pay his respects to Li Qingge.
This female Divine Constable's expression was ghastly. Upon seeing Wang Chong, she brightened a little and said, "Brother Wang Chong, your fame is rising fast these days. You've rendered outstanding merit, and your future must surely be boundless."
Wang Chong gave an embarrassed laugh and asked, "How are things in the city now?"
Li Qingge drew a deep breath and said, "Not too good!"
"The Prince of Yan still hasn't shown himself. Only his cousin Wen Zhengxi is running things. This young master of the Wen family is extremely hard to deal with—he handed the martial-world men who've come from every direction to protect the Prince of Yan over to my command, yet he made countless demands."
Li Qingge rubbed the space between her brows and said, "There's another matter as well: White Chrysanthemum has struck again."
Wang Chong was greatly surprised and said, "With so many people gathered in Tongzhou Prefecture now, and with you holding the fort here, Divine Constable Li, how does he still dare to commit his crimes?"
Li Qingge said flatly, "Several leads all point to someone close to the Prince of Yan, but Wen Zhengxi refuses to allow any investigation, and right now I'm somewhat powerless."
"There's yet one more thing. The former Director of the Tongzhou Ministry of Justice and the Chief Constable of the Sixteen Prefectures may have been wrongly accused, and some of the evidence looks like it may have been fabricated. But the two of them refuse to say a word, and their attitude is very strange."
Wang Chong suddenly asked in return, "Divine Constable Li, why are you telling me all this?"
The case already involved the Prince of Yan, and the case of the former Director of the Tongzhou Ministry of Justice and the Chief Constable of the Sixteen Prefectures still had its twists and turns; it must reach up into the higher levels of officialdom. These were secrets he ought not to get involved in. For Li Qingge to tell him such things, she must have some purpose.
Li Qingge sighed and said, "I looked into your background, Brother Wang. I have several guesses, but only two of them are truly plausible."
"You are a secret envoy personally chosen by the Heavenly Empress, meant specifically to protect the Prince of Yan. Otherwise there's no way to explain how you were actually able to kill Nalihai and Wen Ducheng. That much could still be passed off as merely great skill in the martial arts—but you were even able to defeat Yaglakar Yehu. This man is an invincible commander who has defeated dozens of the current dynasty's generals on the battlefield, and his name is feared far and wide. On the strength of that one battle outside Pengshan County alone, you could rank among the top three of the current dynasty's famous generals!"
"Especially since you fought the Yaglakar cavalry in a pitched battle on the open flatland outside the city."
"Never mind the current dynasty—in all the dynasties past there has never been a precedent of ordinary foot soldiers routing grassland cavalry. In other words, you must have been personally taught from childhood by the greatest generals under heaven, instructed in the art of war!"
"And there's one more possibility—that you're a person secretly cultivated by that head of Wudang Mountain..."
"The Bitter Tea Daoist possesses world-shaking, heaven-startling power. Only if you came from his tutelage would your being so outstanding not seem utterly inconceivable."
Li Qingge fixed her lovely eyes on Wang Chong. Seeing that he had no intention of answering, she sighed faintly and said, "I won't probe to the bottom of it any further. But as for this matter, if you can help me, Brother Wang Chong, Qingge will be endlessly grateful."
Wang Chong felt a real headache coming on. He truly hadn't expected that the White Chrysanthemum case still had entanglements. He'd assumed the case had simply been let slide and closed for good, and that no one would ever bring it up again! After all, he and Li Qingge had, one after another, actually caught several White Chrysanthemums, which was enough to answer to anyone.
A thought suddenly sprang into his mind, and he thought to himself: "If there really is this lecher White Chrysanthemum, how could he still be committing crimes? Unless..."
"Someone has been using the name of White Chrysanthemum all along to stir up trouble, which is why he's struck again at such a critical time."
Wang Chong felt his mind was a tangled mess. After talking with Li Qingge for a while, he made a request, asking her to accompany him to take up his post. He had never been to Tongzhou before; without a seasoned veteran of the criminal-justice world like Li Qingge to back him up, it wouldn't be so easy to settle the affairs of the Tongzhou Ministry of Justice and the Chief Constable's office, nor would he be able to take his seat in that position smoothly.
Li Qingge naturally understood the crux of it and readily agreed. When she traveled about Tongzhou Prefecture, she naturally had the pomp befitting a Divine Constable invested by the imperial court. With a single word of instruction, she had two carriages and a ceremonial escort of over a hundred men arranged, and took Wang Chong first to the Office of the Ministry of Justice. With Li Qingge at his side, Wang Chong took over this government office with ease. Then he went with her to the prefectural office. The post of Chief Constable of the Sixteen Prefectures ranked far below the Office of the Ministry of Justice, had no separate office of its own, and required one to await orders at the prefectural office.
When Wang Chong arrived at the prefectural office, the prefect happened to be away, but the chief constables of several prefectures were waiting for him. Seeing Wang Chong, these chief constables behaved with genuine warmth.
When Wang Chong had been in Pengshan County before, constables from the various prefectures had also come to pay their respects, but they were all men of low rank—there hadn't been even an ordinary constable head among them, let alone a prefecture's chief constable. He had, after all, never mixed in official circles, so he hadn't sensed anything amiss. But now, as the chief constables of the various prefectures crowded around him, even though he was slow to catch on, he finally realized what was going on and cursed inwardly, "A pack of old foxes." Yet his face was all smiles, as though he didn't mind at all.
At the time, these chief constables of the various prefectures had only wanted to wait and watch. Not only had they not planned to go pay their respects to Wang Chong, their immediate superior, they hadn't even sent a single one of their subordinate constables. The constables who had gone to pay their respects to Wang Chong were all of the sort who received no favor from their superiors, had no connections, and had gritted their teeth and come to try their luck.
They also hadn't expected that Wang Chong would come up with the trick of conscripting these young junior constables. At the time, they had even secretly laughed at those constables: even with the Prince of Yan's backing, there was absolutely no way Wang Chong could give these young men an official start; being able to place even seven or eight of them would already be considered formidable. They all wanted to watch these constables make fools of themselves.
But then the situation shifted drastically. The great Yaglakar army actually slipped past the frontier garrison and broke through to Pengshan County, only to be crushed head-on by Wang Chong leading a motley rabble. And those young junior constables had, for nothing, gained enormous military merit.
You must understand, the Central Plains at this time were in a precarious, tottering state. Even the allied forces of the eighteen grassland tribes had been able to attack as far as Shangdu and Luoyang and carry off the two emperors, Qin and Hou, so that for the first time in a thousand years an Empress had appeared in the Central Plains. The current dynasty's ancestral principle of using civil officials to control the military was teetering on the brink of collapse. Although military commanders still had to be kept in check by civil officials, military merit was now extremely prized. For these young men, so long as they survived, not to mention securing an official start—even leaping in rank above their own elders and kin would be as easy as turning over a hand.
...Li Qingge: Wang Chong's identity is deeply suspicious...
...The chief constables of the various prefectures: Had we known sooner, we'd have thrown in our lot with Wang Chong too...
Chapter 72