If he pushed the case away, that would be dereliction of duty.
If he accepted it, then the eyes of the Eastern Palace and Prince Yan's Mansion, along with the Emperor's Imperial Guard, would all be fixed on his little Shuntian Prefecture.
Feng Yuan closed his eyes in anguish.
He could almost see three blades hanging over his head, each gleaming with cold light.
What kind of mess was this?!
"My lord, then... what should we do with them?"
"What should we do?" Feng Yuan's eyes snapped open. He clenched his teeth and made up his mind. "We'll handle it by the book!"
"Put every last one of them in custody! Verify their identities and enter them in the register! List the charges as 'merchants accusing one another, suspected fraud'!"
"Then," he whispered to the prefectural deputy, "lock them all in the innermost 'Stillness' cells. Without my written order, no one is to visit them or interrogate them!"
"Give them good food and drink. Don't let them die, and don't let them escape! Just keep them in there!"
The prefectural deputy's eyes lit up. "You mean... stall for time?"
"What else?" Feng Yuan shot him an irritated look. "When immortals fight, the best thing for us mortals to do is dig a hole, bury ourselves in it, and climb out after the fighting's over."
"Make this case as complicated as you can, and investigate every detail! Check the accounts, question the witnesses, search for physical evidence... Stall for as long as possible!"
"Once the Crown Prince and Prince Yan have decided the victor, we'll see how things stand and hand these people over to the winning side."
Feng Yuan let out a long breath, feeling like a genius.
This "stalling tactic" was practically the first rule of survival in officialdom.