Xu Yuan glanced at the rolled-up paper intelligence report before him, feeling slightly surprised.
Surprised by how efficiently things were handled down here,
and surprised that the one who had delivered the report wasn't Zhou Chen, but this steward.
He had instructed Zhou Chen to handle this matter. Given Zhou Chen's current idle, carefree work style, he probably wouldn't have missed such a chance to ingratiate himself. Yet the report hadn't been delivered by Zhou Chen.
That left only one explanation.
The procedure didn't allow it. Zhou Chen had no authority to interfere with the Black Scale Guard, much less the Prime Minister's Estate's intelligence agency.
In that case, this matter was rather interesting.
The Prime Minister's Estate had many intelligence networks. The Black Scale Guard, where Ying'er came from, was only one of them.
The Tian'an Chamber of Commerce's subordinate businesses, such as brothels, restaurants, pawnshops, and money houses, also gathered intelligence.
Orders were issued from above, and intelligence was collected below. It was filtered layer by layer, useless information discarded and useful information retained. Finally, the compiled intelligence was sent back in code—and the people who received and handled it were merely estate stewards.
Their authority was greater than he'd imagined.
But Xu Yuan quickly came to terms with it.
The influence of the comics and anime he'd seen in his previous life had taken deep root.
It had made him instinctively feel that, in a world where the extraordinary existed, the power in one's hands had to be equal to one's own strength.
But cultivation talent and administrative ability weren't linked in reality. If a bunch of muscle-brained novices were put in charge of businesses, even the grandest family fortune could be squandered.
This kind of power structure was rather stable for those at the top. The