Word flowed through the shadows of the Entertainment District and the courtyards of the powerful: the newly appointed Director Fang could alter lifespans in King Yama's ledger. So long as you could afford the price, whether you wanted dirt on an enemy, wanted a condemned prisoner to "die of illness," or wanted to learn the Imperial Court's most secret movements, you could find a satisfactory answer here.
Just days ago, Minister of War Zhang Yuanshan had stood impassioned in the Imperial Court, impeaching the Demon Suppression Division for drawing salaries while doing nothing. This morning, he had been stripped of his official robes and locked in Cell Block D. The charge was collusion with an enemy nation, and the evidence was so conclusive that even he could not dispute it. No one knew how the secret letters hidden in wall compartments had reached the Censorate. Only on the night Zhang Yuanshan entered prison did he see his former trusted courier in the neighboring cell-the coachman supposedly killed in a vendetta half a year earlier.
The coachman had not died. He had merely changed lodgings and, along the way, spat out every rotten account in his belly.
This was Fang Mo's business.
The gates of Block C, Room Shen prison were not locked. This place had already become the Divine Capital's largest Intelligence Exchange.
A carriage of black nanmu wood bearing the emblem of "Marquis Yongding's Estate" rolled through the puddles, its wheels wrapped in thick cotton cloth, and stopped soundlessly at a side gate. Several agile household servants filed inside carrying heavy camphorwood chests. A corner of one lid lifted, and the brilliance of jewels instantly pierced the corridor's gloom.
Qian Dagui sat in a Rosewood Grand Tutor Chair, holding a ledger thicker than a brick, his abacus beads clicking