Chapter 26: The Ombudsman’s Office

Most of the government offices of the ministries in Kyoto that dealt with the nation’s political affairs were concentrated in the area to the east of Tianhe Avenue, where not too many civilians lived, and the roads were extraordinarily wide, on both sides of the road were many wooden buildings that were either beautiful or hallowed, and inside these buildings were the decentralized centers of power that held the nation’s authority. For example, the old military headquarters is located at the entrance of the road, the entrance placed a huge and incomparable stone lion, every day facing the sunrise with teeth and claws, in the light and shadow phantom, but in fact, it looks a little strange, like prehistoric behemoths, and can not be how to reflect the military might of the country of Qing.

And the real center of power in Qing, is in the northern city of the heavy deep palace, the palace building is not taller than the ministries Yamen, in addition to that towering into the sky of the watchtower. But the thick palace wall and the inside of the broad and incomparable square, creating an extremely sacred feeling.

Qing officials actually know in their hearts, the palace that the majestic His Majesty, and will not be entangled in the specifics of the officialdom, so for them, the entire Qing bureaucracy, the most terrible place, the place of the greatest power, neither the various departments of the Yamen, nor the palace – but the west side of the city that the square, the outer walls coated with a layer of gray and black, looks eerie. a layer of grayish-black, eerie-looking building.

It was here that the Supervisory Court was established. The Kingdom of Qing practiced a three-court, six-ministry system, with the three courts being the Supervisory Court, the Educational Court, and the Military Court, which had been upgraded from the old Military Department. Among these three chambers, the one with the most power was the Procuratorate, which possessed independent investigative powers, arrest powers, and even trial powers by decree in certain incidents. And no other organization has the power to regulate it.

In a sense, it was a beast without reins, and was like a secret secret service in the hands of His Majesty the Emperor. No, I should say that the Supervisory Yuan was originally the secret service that the Emperor had put in the open.

Just the officials of Qing Guo are always worried, this term of His Majesty the Emperor is heavenly and talented, and can also subdue that insidious President Chen and the countless secret agents of the Supervisory Yuan and the terrifying strength of the dark bottom, but in case …… that future, who will pull the reins of this beast? What’s more, the officials who suffer from the suffering of the Supervisory Yuan are always slandering in the dark bottom, the Supervisory Yuan is not a beast, just a sinister and despicable wild dog.

At this time, in that room of the Supervisory Yuan that did not have a ray of light, there was a very stable and secretive conversation.

“The assassins in the Tanyuu Harbor fire were indeed an establishment of the Academy, under the jurisdiction of Dongshan Road. And organizational matters in the field have always been under the responsibility of the Fourth Branch. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has found out that one of the officials of the Fourth Division is a distant relative of that Second Mistress of Your Excellency’s house, so this mission should be arranged down that way.” Feisuke said in a hoarse voice as he looked at the dean.

“Identity?” This was the thing the old man was most concerned about.

Fei Suke narrowed his eyes, his slightly brown pupils filled with uncertainty, “I believe that among the eight people who know about this matter, no one will leak it. And although the five great men were the young lady’s personal followers, but he seldom made a move back then, there is no one in the world today who has seen him in person, the only person who met with him, Ye Liuyun, is now a generation of grandmasters, and even more unlikely to have run off and traveled to Tanyuan State, there are no such coincidental things in the world, so there is no need to worry about others deducing his identity because of the five great men.”

The dean’s fingers were withered and his knuckles protruded, gently tapping on the desktop in thought, “Back then, when I wanted you to kill all the black riders who saw the Five Bamboos that night, you pleaded with me for leniency, but now that I think about it, it’s still not right.”

Feisuke smiled, a hint of inexplicable color flashing through the pupils of his eyes that had turned slightly brown from too much immersion with the poison, “A lot of people had already died that night.”

Feisuke, at least on the surface, was not too afraid of the old man in front of him, after all, his status and seniority were there, and hissed with a smile, “Unnecessary killing is extremely stupid, you forget that the lady used to say so back then.”

“Oh.” The old man smiled back, as if thinking of many pleasant past events, but it was with such a smile that he issued a very eerie and airy command.

“East Mountain Road takes orders from four places, and since the paperwork is fully signed, there is nothing wrong with the procedure, so East Mountain Road is not responsible for this matter. The rest of you deal with it as you please.” He smiled and muttered to himself, “To actually use my power to kill someone I’m trying to protect, is this a coincidence, or are some people testing something? That Second Mistress, she seems to be quite something.”

He continued, “Going around saying that Ruohai is not well supervised, signing indiscriminately, not his own son to kill blindly, nonsense stage! Suspend him for three years director’s salary, and then send his eldest son, the one called Yan Bingyun to the north, get two high grade goods before being allowed to come back.”

After saying this, the dean picked up the document that had already been drawn up by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the desktop, wrote down the final conclusion, and then signed his big name – Chen Pingping.

Fei Suo wanted to laugh every time he saw the dean’s dry and ugly signature, but he had to hold it back. He knew that this feminine-flavored signature would cause several high-ranking officials to die, would cause the son of an even higher-ranking official to miserably sneak into an enemy country and have to get particularly valuable information before he was allowed to return home, which was only worse than death.

The old man smiled to himself, ”Fan Jian and I grew up together, I can’t imagine that I have to worry so much about his family’s affairs now. You have someone competent go and check if there is any connection between that second wife and that one.”

Fan Jian was the first name of Earl Sinan, the very father of Fan Xian.

Fei Jie frowned, his slightly brown gaze trembling slightly, “Impossible, they should have thought that baby had died long ago.”

“You misunderstand me, I also believe that it is impossible for them to know that Fan Xian is the young lady’s son.”

The abbot smiled, “His Majesty has always asked for distance between the nobles, the civil officials and us, and back then, when you were sent to Tanyuu, although it was very covert, there was still a possibility that the other side would find out after all. I think that whether it’s the Empress Dowager or the Chancellor, they are all curious about our courtyard’s relationship with Earl Sinan, and it’s only right that those forces hiding in the shadows take advantage of the Second Mistress’s hand to test our and Lord Fan’s reaction to this matter, so let’s not overreact, okay?”

Fei Jie suddenly had a suspicion that about the Tanyu assassination incident, maybe it was because Lord Dean had once intentionally leaked out some wind.

The old man pushed his wheelchair to the window, lifted the corner of the black cloth, looked out the window, and said faintly, “Also, regarding the matter of the chest, regardless of whether or not Five Bamboos has told the truth, but as long as it doesn’t fall into the hands of the enemy in the north, it’s fine.”

“It’s a pity we don’t know exactly how big that chest is and what it looks like.” Fisuke came to his side and followed the old man’s gaze out the window.

“After I go to hell, you come early to play cards with me.” Dean Chen said with a smile.

Knowing that Lord Dean was far from being as old as he appeared, Fei Suo laughed, “I’m a good person, I’ll go to heaven in the future.”

A black shadow floated like the wind from the corner of the chamber, pulling the black cloth down to stop the overly strong sunlight from shining on the old man’s body. This person moved without a single sound, the same expert who had killed the staff-wielding mage with a single sword strike outside the capital many years ago.

Fei Suo pointed at the black wind shadow and said, “I guess he will come to play chess with you.”

Outside the window was a bright sunny day, and the glazed tiles on the several halls of the palace in the distance were shining with a superb golden light.

When the pedestrians on the road in front of the window passed by the entrance of the Supervisory Academy, they all subconsciously detoured to walk on the opposite side of the street, as if they were afraid of being tainted by the darkness of this place.

At the entrance of the Procuratorate was a wide monument made of stone material, on which were written a few words, painted in real gold: “I hope that the people of Gyeonggook will all become unruly people. The heart that does not yield when mistreated by others, the heart that does not suffer setbacks when attacked by calamities and evils; the heart that does not fear correction if there are wrongdoings; the heart that does not pander to jackals and tigers ……”

The inscription was three words: Ye Qingmei.

No one knew who Ye Qingmei was, but all the residents of Kyoto knew that when the Supervisory Yuan was established, this stone plaque stood here, forever golden and bright, echoing the golden-colored eaves of the Imperial Palace in the distance …… seeming to hide all the darkness in those two buildings.