Xuanqing Guard

Shen Hao only ever thought about "choosing a side" back when he served as the Black Banner Battalion Commander in Li City.

At the time, under the influence of Chen Tianwen and Tang Qingyuan, Shen Hao had to face his own shortcomings, realizing he needed a patron to broaden his career path. So he sought out Jiang Cheng, then the Households Officer of Fengri City, and has been standing in Jiang Cheng’s camp ever since.

Calling it "taking on a teacher" isn’t wrong either—at least thirty percent of Shen Hao’s climb to his current status is thanks to being "Jiang Cheng’s disciple".

Don’t talk to me about contribution. That’s a basic requirement for promotion. But identity, with Shen Hao’s age and rank, is the real threshold. If you can’t cross that threshold, talking about merit is a joke.

And now, Shen Hao is enjoying himself on Jiang Cheng’s ship, without any intention of jumping ship. But there’s always someone eyeing him.

Switch sides or not?

Hell no!

So what if he’s a Prince? If you can’t become Emperor, you’ll always just be a Prince. Compared to Kuang Shengyuan, the pressure a Prince puts on Shen Hao isn’t even worth mentioning. And for a Prince to ascend the throne—that’s a difficulty so sky-high it doesn’t even need explaining.

Just look at the Emperor flexing his skills and power in the "Ma San Case", you’ll know he’s a terrifying and formidable ruler, the absolute peak in the Jingjiu Dynasty. His heart is definitely not "kind", because kindness isn’t enough to handle evil. To stabilize such a massive empire, a good-hearted king would be a disaster for the Dynasty.

Same logic, would such an Emperor hand over power easily, letting his heir take the throne? Dream on! If he doesn’t pick an heir he’s satisfied with, this won’t be over. So there’s bound to be another big drama over succession.

Shen Hao once specifically studied some of the official histories of the Jingjiu Dynasty, and the passages on imperial succession are all vague—calling it glossed over is no exaggeration.

Imperial succession glossed over? Like hell there’s no issue in that.

After digging up lots of supporting materials, Shen Hao concluded: In all the accessible records, whenever Jingjiu Dynasty power changed hands, it was always bloody.

Simple reason—the previous Emperor never had just one or two sons, some had twelve or thirteen, even the fewest had five or six, but by the time the new Emperor took the throne, less than one in ten Princes remained in the records. Where did the rest go?

Take the current Emperor, Yang Jian—he originally had four brothers, making five sons in total. But where are they now? Have you ever heard anything about Yang Jian’s imperial older or younger brothers?

Shen Hao even wondered if the royal family purposely raised their sons like raising gu poison—doesn’t matter how many die, as long as one survives?

With the southern situation so tense, the army ready to move, Shen Hao felt it was wiser to stay right behind Jiang Cheng as a pawn—overthinking things would only bring trouble.

This bout of mental gymnastics was exhausting. Shaking his head, Shen Hao stood up, prepared to leave work early and head home, have Li Erfu cook up something decent, and wash it down with a few drinks.

But just as he was getting up, his butt barely off the chair, he heard someone knocking outside, saying Lord Tang was looking for him.

In Fengri City Thousand Households Station, the only Lord Tang is Tang Qingyuan. Shen Hao sat back down, told the gatekeeper to let him in. He got along well with Tang Qingyuan, so he couldn’t just refuse to see him.

"Lord Shen, sorry to bother you!" Tang Qingyuan walked in with a grin, not standing on ceremony, picked a chair, and sat down across the table.

"Lord Tang got time for tea today?" Shen Hao chatted as he poured Tang Qingyuan a cup and handed it over.

"Oh, cold tea? Homemade?" Tang Qingyuan took a sip, smacked his lips a few times, praised it, then set it down, face not looking like he actually enjoyed it.

Shen Hao slapped his forehead and laughed, "I forgot you don’t like sweet stuff. Let me have Old Liu brew you a pot of hot tea."

"Forget it, forget it. I won’t be staying long, no need for tea."

"Tea still needs to be served." Shen Hao couldn’t just not offer a cup, that’d be rude. So he ordered Old Liu to bring in a pot of hot tea.

After Old Liu delivered the tea and left, Tang Qingyuan suddenly blurted out, "We found the guy."

Shen Hao understood, so he asked, "What’s the identity?"

"In his storage bag we found a money pouch with the Rice Field Three Spear Pattern. But aside from that, there’s no other proof."

"That’s not important—catch the guy and you can interrogate him, he doesn’t even need to talk. He’s a big, live human, how hard is it to trace him? Just go through the Royal Guard case files, you’ll find which branch he belongs to. He’s being interrogated, right?" Shen Hao took a sip of tea—now that they had the suspect, he figured the case was pretty much wrapped up.

But the awkward expression on Tang Qingyuan’s face made Shen Hao’s look change a bit.

"Seriously, Lord Tang? You found the guy, even searched his storage bag, and you didn’t catch him?"

"No, it’s just... he’s dead."

"Dead?! How’d he die?"

"Swallowed a poison pill, died, whole head burned up."

Shen Hao clicked his tongue, exasperated, "Should’ve guarded against that! Damn, that’s a waste." He really wanted to curse, but by now had to suppress his anger and not lash out at Tang Qingyuan. Still, the agitation in his True Qi showed exactly how pissed off he was.

"Yeah, sorry about this one. We could’ve figured out exactly who tried to kill you, but it ended up like this."

"So how did it happen? I can’t believe you’d screw up something this basic, Lord Tang."

"Well... Basically, the array wasn’t set up properly before we rushed in, tipped him off that something was wrong. We thought he’d resist, so we’d have time to set up and capture him alive. But who knew the bastard would just pop the poison pill without a word, and his head burned like a torch—dead in seconds. If the guys hadn’t chopped his head off, the poison pill would’ve burned up his whole body."

"You charged in before even setting up the array?!" Shen Hao’s tone spiked again, totally pissed at Tang Qingyuan’s reckless, unorthodox sudden attack.

"Yeah... sigh." Tang Qingyuan opened his mouth, but ended up just sighing, saying nothing.

Seeing this, Shen Hao frowned and asked, "Was it Lord Kuang’s order?"

"Yeah." Tang Qingyuan nodded helplessly, "He jumped in last minute, took over command. Guess he didn’t want to let go of the glory for handling the case. Looks like you get to see a joke first-hand."

"Joke my ass. He messed around, and now he’ll have to carry the blame—what good does it do him?" Shen Hao paused, then said gloomily, "Wasn’t he some ace investigator before? Why’s he screwing up so bad this time?"

"You know that was ’before’—how many years has it been since he actually handled a case? I swear he almost messed up the newest Summoning Talisman, would you believe it?"

Tang Qingyuan and Shen Hao were close; now, with the conversation at this level, he had nothing left to hide. Kuang Shengyuan’s involvement wasn’t something he brought up—it was Shen Hao who guessed it, Tang Qingyuan was just filling in details. Besides, he’d come today planning to say as much. The more people who know, the less likely he’ll be left holding the blame. He was sure Shen Hao wouldn’t help Kuang Shengyuan smear him.