This was not far from the government bureau; the moment word spread of a "giant monster carrying a snail shell on its back," the constables rushed over in record time.
The constable leading them took one look from behind the wooden hoardings, broke into a cold sweat on his palms, and hurriedly spun around to bark orders: "Have the mystics set up the escape-art prohibition! Quick, hurry, move it!"
Wasn't this the legendary snail-toad that had terrorized Chiyan? That it had actually shown up in Lingxu was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
Catching it would bring promotions, rank, and a meteoric rise—a full package deal!
They had brought several mystics along specifically for this. At the command, they fanned out to bury magic artifacts at the four corners around the perimeter of the freight depot.
Rumor had it this great beast was a master of burrowing underground; neutralizing its signature skill would trap it like a turtle in a jar!
Seven or eight versions of rumors about the snail-toad circulated through Lingxu City, but unfortunately, not a single one accounted for all of its abilities—such as the tongue strike unique to frogs and chameleons!
The head constable yelled a few orders at the top of his lungs to his men. But the moment he finished assigning the tasks, the sound of tearing air suddenly whipped in from behind.
Before he could react, he was snatched backward.
Annoyed by his racket, the snail-toad flicked out its tongue in plain view of everyone, reeled him in, and swallowed him whole in one gulp!
The distance between them was a full twenty feet, and the toad's tongue smashed through two wooden planks as it shot forth.
Such speed utterly shattered anyone's stereotype of snails as sluggish creatures.
Seeing that the creature possessed a ranged attack, the surrounding crowd shrieked in terror and scattered in all directions.
The snail-toad smacked its lips as if savoring the flavor, then plunged headfirst into the ground, vanishing without a trace.
The mystics had not even finished laying out their escape-prohibition array before their quarry had already slipped away.
Casualties: one officer killed in the line of duty.
After night fell, Nanxinzhuang remained brightly illuminated.
The sensational news was spreading like wildfire: the demon killer from Baishaqu had appeared in Lingxu City. The South City Bureau immediately mobilized all its forces to interrogate every eyewitness.
The children had long since scattered to the winds. Sister Liu, as the person who first discovered it, was questioned again and again.
"Your Honor, I've said it so many times already!" From obedient cooperation at the start, to having a parched throat, to growing rather impatient: "I don't know when the monster got here! All I know is that when I saw it, it was crouched inside the warehouse. I accidentally bumped against the boards, and when it turned around, it had something dangling from its mouth! Looked like grass, or maybe herbs."
The constable held up some medicinal herbs for her to see: "Is it this herb? Are you sure?"
"Probably?" Sister Liu scratched her head. "I'm no physician. How could I identify it so closely? Isn't the warehouse full of it anyway?"
"What kind of goods does the Baisong Freight Depot usually store?"
"I don't know! Cartloads come in and cartloads go out every day. Who pays attention to that?" Sister Liu looked bewildered. "They didn't hire me to guard their gate."
That made good sense, so the constables hauled in several warehouse hands who looked after the compound and subjected them to rigorous interrogation.
The hands were scared out of their wits, swearing they had never seen any snail-toad. During the torrential rain, they had all been sound asleep indoors, completely oblivious that such a behemoth had entered the yard.
"Then what about the prunella spikes in the warehouse? Where did they come from?"
"Those are just... cargo." All they did was load and unload shipments and watch the compound. How could they know where the owner sourced his goods?
Finally, the manager of the Baisong Freight Depot was brought in.
He flatly denied storing prunella spikes, but the manifest the constables had uncovered in the warehouse clearly stated:
"Prunella spikes, one thousand three hundred jin, ... placed in storage."
The date of receipt and the origin of the herbs were soaked through with water, the ink smudged into an illegible blur.
Because it involved the elixir of immortality case, the South City Bureau dared not delay and rushed a report up the chain.
With major cases of this magnitude, official efficiency was remarkably swift.
Before long, the behind-the-scenes owner of the Baisong Freight Depot was unearthed—and it turned out to be none other than Senior General Nian Zanli, the surrendered general of the Yuan Kingdom and Governor of Xunzhou!
...
Before dawn broke, the Nian Manor received unexpected guests:
Huo Ji'an of the Court of Judicial Review, Duyun Emissary Bai Ziqi, and a squad of heavily armed troops under their command.
Nian Zanli had always been an early riser. Having just finished washing up, the news that two high officials had arrived at his doorstep sent a sudden jolt through his heart.
Why these two?
When the Court of Judicial Review got involved, it was never good news—to say nothing of a Duyun Emissary.
Nian Zanli dared not be neglectful and went outside to welcome them: "Emissary Bai, Lord Huo, what wind blows the two of you here?"
Huo Ji'an asked him, "Is the Baisong Freight Depot in Nanxinzhuang yours?"
"...I purchased it early this year." Nian Zanli's heart sank. Trouble had occurred at his residence on Xiangmai Street only a few days ago, and officials had already come to question him once. He had sensed something amiss back then, but no one had come looking for him afterward. What was this now?
He asked cautiously, "Did something happen at the Baisong Freight Depot?"
"Lord Nian, please come with us," Bai Ziqi said with a smile. "We can talk at leisure on the road."
"Ah? What is this?"
The silent palace guards immediately closed in around him.
There were few people at dawn, but with such a massive show of force outside Nian Manor, the passing pedestrians stopped in their tracks to stare.
Along the street outside Nian Manor were taverns and inns that operated through the night.
He Lingchuan sat by a second-floor window, sipping wine and nibbling on appetizers, taking in every detail of the scene below.
He had arrived as soon as night fell and secured an ideal vantage point, specifically to watch this opening spectacle.
Though the light was dim, with his sharp eyesight he could clearly see Nian Zanli surrounded by palace guards, the expression on the man's face shifting from confusion to shock, and then from shock to utter helplessness.
Bai Ziqi still showed him some deference, having a carriage brought up and inviting him inside.
Nian Zanli appeared agitated, but Huo Ji'an took a step forward and murmured a few words to him. Nian Zanli deflated like a punctured leather ball, looking back over his shoulder with every step as he climbed into the carriage.
The carriage then set off slowly, heading northeast.
Surrounded in the center by the soldiers, the procession moved with imposing momentum.
He Lingchuan swirled his cup and raised a toast in that direction: "Senior General Nian, have a good journey."
He had come here specifically to see Nian Zanli off, and as he had hoped, the rumbling carriage carried away all of Nian Zanli's grand ambitions.
Sunrise was only two hours away; he hoped Nian Zanli would make the most of it while he could.
In all likelihood, Nian Zanli wouldn't see many more sunrises for the rest of his life.
Neither the imperial dungeons nor the prisons of the Heavenly Palace ever saw the light of day.
"A major crisis for the Yuan Kingdom has been resolved. Congratulations," the soul-snatching mirror laughed from his chest. "Will he ever get out?"
"Probably not." He Lingchuan's mood lightened considerably as well.
Once targeted by the Heavenly Palace, Nian Zanli would be lucky to escape with his life, stripped of everything. Invade the Yuan Kingdom? Hah, he'd better worry about saving his own neck first.
"Since his heart was set on recognizing Beijia as his master, then whether thunderbolts or gentle dew, all of it is imperial favor, and he must endure every drop."
The soul-snatching mirror sighed. "By getting rid of Nian Zanli, you've averted a catastrophic disaster for the Yuan Kingdom. A pity the Yuan Kingdom knows nothing about it!"
Nian Zanli's bid to borrow troops had fallen short at the eleventh hour, sparing the Yuan Kingdom more than one wave of military catastrophe.
For that feeble state, it might now scrape by for another few years.
"This trouble began with me and ends with me. It's only fair. Besides, whether the Yuan Kingdom knows or not, I don't care." He Lingchuan tilted his head back, downed the wine in his cup, tossed down a silver ingot, and rose to leave.
Of his four major tasks in Lingxu City, he had completed two right on schedule.
Next, he would go all out for the Mount Xu Plan!
...
Visitors who had been to the Heavenly Palace would hear tour guides mention that there was also a prison on Tianshu Peak, where villains who offended the gods were detained, known as the Yang Palace.
Located behind Zhaixing Tower and strictly off-limits to idle onlookers, it was essentially a cavernous underground dungeon hollowed out from the belly of the mountain, with only a single passage for ingress and egress.
Of course, the gods of Beijia defined the word "offense" rather broadly. If commoners uttered a few disrespectful words in their daily chatter, the deities turned a deaf ear, as Lingxu City prided itself on an atmosphere of freedom. But if you followed up with actual deeds, you were likely to be held accountable.
When the Yang Palace was first established, it was said that all living beings were equal in the eyes of the celestial gods; hence there were no ranks, and all prisoners were treated alike.
Over time, however, distinctions inevitably emerged among the inmates. After all, some bore heavier crimes, some held greater secrets, and others... were simply of far higher status.
Thus, after so many years, the cells in the Yang Palace had gradually been divided into several tiers.
The highest-tier cell lay at the deepest recess of the Yang Palace. Sunlight actually reached it, though not through a ventilation aperture. After all, magical abilities in this world were bizarre and myriad; escaping through an opening the size of a palm was hardly unheard of.
Here, a vast pane of colored glaze separated the cell from the outside world. Daylight easily passed through, and a prisoner sitting behind the pane could even gaze out upon the magnificent mountain vistas behind Tianshu Peak.
Naturally, ordinary prisoners could never enjoy such treatment.
The person occupying this cell now was National Preceptor Qingyang.
As a top-tier felon, she enjoyed a thirty-square-meter private cell with a scenic view. Though this was the deepest part of the Yang Palace and carried the damp, earthy scent typical of a cavern, the floor was not damp in the least. The cell had been thoroughly cleaned before she was brought in, and there was not a rat or flea in sight.
For whatever reason, even behind bars, National Preceptor Qingyang received extraordinary treatment.
After being transferred here from Lingxiao Palace, she confessed everything to the Heavenly Palace exactly according to what she had worked out with the Demon Emperor.
How she had hunted demons, how she had refined the elixir of immortality, and how she had distributed it through Qingfu Temple over the years—all of it she recounted truthfully.
What the Heavenly Palace wished to know boiled down to two things: first, the source of the divine blood, which she pinned entirely on Dong Rui.
Second, the clientele who purchased the elixir of immortality. National Preceptor Qingyang simply claimed the ledgers and registers had been destroyed in the fire at Qingfu Temple, with no backup in existence.
Beyond this, she said not another word.
She had been personally escorted by the Demon Emperor, and the Heavenly Palace knew full well that thorough discussions had already taken place between the two. If National Preceptor Qingyang said the ledgers were gone, then gone they were, lost beyond recovery.
Given her extraordinarily special status and her standing with the Demon Emperor, the Heavenly Palace subjected her to no torture.
No matter how turbulently the winds of change blew outside, the Yang Palace remained perpetually lifeless, sealed off from the world.
In the afternoon, an attendant from the Heavenly Palace came to deliver food.
He was permitted only as far as the entrance. The food basket had to be handed over to the jailers for inspection to ensure no contraband or slips of paper were concealed within before it was passed to the prisoner.
"National Preceptor Qingyang, time to eat."
Having verified everything was in order, the jailer unlocked the wicket door and slid the food basket inside.
Chapter 673