Armored Blades Like Clouds Encircle the Yamen, Lingering Sunset Covers the Ground, Killing Intent Deep

Creak—

The county yamen's gates slowly opened.

Dusk lay like spilled blood across the long street.

Wang Ji and Zhang Shen stepped over the threshold. The sight before them made even Wang Ji, a man long accustomed to the slaughter of battlefields, narrow his round eyes slightly.

Outside the yamen's main gates, the once narrow street had become a scene of murderous stillness.

More than fifty private soldiers stood in a tight formation, blades and spears rising like a forest, gleaming with a cold blue chill in the deepening twilight.

Yet directly before this array of weapons stood a purple sandalwood armchair, utterly out of place.

Zhang Zhong sat in it with the commanding ease of a lord.

He had changed into a black brocade robe embroidered with gold-threaded cloud patterns, a jade belt at his waist hung with dangling pearls.

At his side, a maid held a gilded incense burner. Wisps of sandalwood smoke curled upward beside him, strangely intertwining with the murderous air.

Another maid knelt halfway to the ground, using a silver spoon to scoop up a piece of osmanthus cake from a celadon dish and hold it to his lips.

Before him sat a small carved pearwood table, upon which rested a pot of hot tea, two plates of candied fruits, three kinds of pastries, even a bronze basin for washing hands and a spotless white silk handkerchief.

Two stewards stood waiting with their hands lowered at either side, as though they were not blockading the county yamen, but enjoying flowers and tea in their own courtyard.

Beyond them, the private soldiers' formation stood like an iron wall and a bronze rampart.

Tu Lie's mountain-of-flesh body stood at the very front of the formation. He looked over with a cold sneer, the scar on his left