Mengxia Pass

The only way to keep himself from getting dragged into Marquis Anqing's muddy waters was to pull Marquis Anqing out of them.

Clearly, Marquis Anqing had come in secret and would not let the news leak. Steward Liu was an old fox, naturally unwilling to get mixed up in those muddy waters.

All Lord Meng had to do was keep the news under wraps. Getting rid of Steward Sun was undoubtedly the simplest solution.

A petty, low-ranking functionary—who would care if he died?

He had completed the task entrusted to him by the royal court. With the Ghost Master as his lead, there was no way the people above him would doubt it.

And so, the assignment had been wrapped up to perfection.

Lord Meng was just about to leave when, with a rattling roll, a round object tumbled out of Deputy Head Official Chen's sleeve.

Lord Meng picked it up and saw that it was a Shadow-Sound Pearl. He activated its restrictions, and an image appeared, recording his conversation with Deputy Head Official Chen.

As it turned out, Deputy Head Official Chen had never fully trusted Lord Meng's account. To keep a fallback plan, he had taken the risk of secretly activating the precious Shadow-Sound Pearl.

Lord Meng truly hadn't noticed. How could he have known that this Lord Meng had also been plotting in secret?

By striking first, he had rendered all of Deputy Head Official Chen's careful scheming pointless.

"Pah! Shameless cur, you think you can frame me?"

Lord Meng casually flicked out a Blazing Ball, and Deputy Head Official Chen's corpse was instantly burned to ashes.

The desert sands were white as snow; the moon over Yan Mountain was like a hook.

In the capital, it was still early winter. But five hundred li to