As he made his way along, Chen Denglong, Deputy Commander of the Phoenix Spirit Guard and Minister of Military Affairs, nearly went mad from the various reports he received.
In barely half an hour, the Seventh Guard Second Brigade's act of parading through the streets with coffins had spread throughout Phoenix City and beyond.
What spread even more fervently were the slogans shouted by the Seventh Guard Second Brigade, along with the white banners written in blood.
By now, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of versions had already emerged.
Yet every version of these rumors was unfavorable to him, the Minister of Military Affairs.
All versions were built upon the claim that he had withheld the death compensation of fallen Phoenix Spirit Guards, then branched off into all manner of embellishments.
Some said he was exceptionally greedy, others claimed he had peculiar tastes. Some said he was wildly lustful and kept several hundred concubines, and that he withheld compensation to support them.
Though the vividly detailed reasons differed, every one of them began with the accusation that he, the Minister of Military Affairs, had embezzled and withheld the compensation due to fallen Phoenix Spirit Guards.
This filled Chen Denglong with profound fear.
If only one or two people said it, he could directly imprison them on charges of slander, or even kill them.
Slandering the Minister of Military Affairs was a grave crime.
If hundreds or thousands spread the matter, he could still deploy troops to arrest them and punish them with the whip.
But when tens of thousands, when everyone inside and outside Phoenix City was spreading it, Chen Denglong was stuck in the mud.
The mouths of the masses could melt gold; accumulated slander could grind bones to dust!
If this continued, the claim that Minister of Military Affairs Chen