The Dragon and the Phoenix Chick

Chapter 21: Sleeping Dragon and Phoenix Chick

Huh?

There were actually two people?

Lin Wen froze for a moment, then was instantly overjoyed.

What a blood-profit!

I only meant to find one, yet both the Sleeping Dragon and Phoenix Chick had fallen into my hands. How could the world remain unsettled when a tiny county city held two such masters at once?

Hahaha, this lousy spell had finally made me feel good for once!

Lin Wen immediately called out, "Zhao Minggong!"

A white-haired old man bowed and answered, "This subordinate is here."

Lin Wen took one look. Wasn't this the mayor of Huai Town? The one who had just shouted that Huai Town had no deputy mayor.

The moment he activated [Aura Reading], Lin Wen saw, for the first time, a classic example from the textbook's aura diagrams.

A Hidden Dragon in the Abyss.

A pure-white stream of aura shimmered with a blue-green luster. Its form was a disc at the bottom, like a dragon fallen into a deep abyss. Mist and clouds billowed above it, like a great boulder pressing down on its head. Its radiance was not conspicuous, yet neither did it fade.

Move away the boulder, and the dragon soared into the nine heavens. Press the boulder down, and the dragon lay subdued until death.

The explanation beneath this example ran to a full 9,400 words. Lin Wen had remembered only these few lines. The general meaning was that one possessed immense talent but had never met the right opportunity.

Once luck arrived, it truly could not be stopped.

Could it be that my enormous fortune was already taking effect?

Delighted, Lin Wen thought, Wasn't this like pulling an SSR the moment I raised my hand for a single draw?

"Good. From now on, you are the deputy county chief. When I'm away from the county, you will represent me with full authority in handling affairs."

The appointment came too quickly, like a tornado.

The entire conference room suddenly fell silent. Everyone stared blankly at the county chief and the white-haired Zhao Minggong. The quicker minds were already racing at light speed, pondering their relationship and the deeper implications of this appointment. The slower ones were still trying to figure out what was happening.

And the one who found it most unbelievable was Zhao Minggong himself. He had been a town mayor for thirty-six years and had long since given up hope.

Who would have thought that flowers could bloom again in his twilight years?

For a moment, he could not speak. He could not tell whether this was real or merely a passing joke from the county chief. In the past, from the initial arrangement to the final decision, word of a deputy county chief appointment would start circulating at least a year in advance.

And now? One second, or two?

Lin Wen declared loudly, "From now on, take all your matters to Deputy County Chief Zhao Minggong!"

The crowd looked at one another.

He was serious?

Could an appointment be made like this? Had it been prepared beforehand, or was it a spur-of-the-moment decision? Was there some hidden scheme?

After a while, someone said in a low voice, "The appointment of a deputy county chief must be voted on by the county government councilors and submitted to the governor's office for approval."

Lin Wen simply did not want to repeat himself anymore. "Fang Weiwei! Read the relevant clauses on command authority to this idiot a hundred times!"

Only then did everyone remember that this was an exceedingly rare holder of command authority—indeed, perhaps the first ever in an inland region of the Empire considered stable.

He had that authority!

He could even mobilize the Imperial military! No wonder Garrison Commander Fang Dashan obeyed his orders so readily!

He was serious!

In an instant, everyone lifted their heads, their eyes blazing as they stared at County Chief Lin.

Lin Wen called out loudly, "Qin Luoshuang!"

He called twice, but no one answered.

Apparently, she was not an official in the conference room.

Lin Wen called out, "Which of you knows Qin Luoshuang?"

Everyone looked at one another and shook their heads.

In the end, a staff member responsible for guarding the water dispenser said quietly, "There's a new female colleague named Qin Luoshuang."

Lin Wen immediately said, "Go bring her in."

A moment later, a young woman with disheveled hair, her face covered in bandages and dressed in very ordinary clothes, was brought inside.

Lin Wen frowned. There seemed to be nothing special about this woman. Her aura disc was shaped like a goose egg, murky and inscrutable. He could make nothing of it, except that there was no black aura.

"Your name is Qin Luoshuang?"

The woman replied quietly, "Yes, County Chief."

Lin Wen hesitated slightly. But this name was not something like Zhang San, Outlaw Extraordinaire. There was no way two people could share it within such a small area.

Yet compared with the Sleeping Dragon image from earlier, this Phoenix Chick seemed a little too inconspicuous.

No!

Back then, Pang Tong had been just as inconspicuous. Old Liu had sent him to serve as magistrate of some tiny county, where he drank for half a year. When Old Liu could no longer stand it and came to question him, Pang Tong put on a show and cleared all the backlog in a single day.

Isn't that exactly like me right now?

Lin Wen's heart stirred, but he could not directly promote her to deputy prefectural governor. If Old Liu had promoted Pang Tong from the start, would there have been any chance for that later display?

He pointed at Zhao Minggong beside him and said, "You are his assistant now. In a moment, you will handle all prefectural affairs together with him."

This arrangement was perfect.

Lin Wen was quite pleased with himself.

The key lay in that phrase: "handle together," not "assist in handling." This was called staggered competition.

With two people of equal ability, they were bound to refuse to yield to each other. Once they shone like the sun and moon vying for brilliance, wouldn't all these affairs melt away like ice and snow?

Ahahaha!

Zhao Minggong and Qin Luoshuang both caught the specific wording Lin Wen had used. Their expressions were unreadable, both filled with disbelief.

I need to leave quickly, lest some extra complication arise and dust settle upon my Dao Heart.

Lin Wen thought this as he swiftly said, "The meeting is over. Dismissed!" At the same time, he strode forcefully toward the exit.

He moved so quickly that by the time everyone came to their senses, he had already reached the door.

Zhao Minggong shouted, "Prefectural Governor! Huai Town has no official in charge!"

Lin Wen replied, "You can concurrently serve as Huai Town's mayor yourself! You can decide such a trivial matter on your own; there's no need to come to me."

Zhao Minggong still wanted to speak, but the prefectural governor had already vanished without even a shadow in sight.

When he turned back, everyone present was staring at him with burning eyes.

Upon returning to the prefectural governor's office, Lin Wen had originally intended to study spells, but garrison commander Fang Dashan followed him in.

Lin Wen had no choice but to chat with Fang Dashan for a while using the Seven Apertures Exquisite Heart. For some reason, its effect was exceptionally good this time. Fang Dashan quickly came to regard the prefectural governor as a kindred spirit and a superior he could go all in on without reservation. On the spot, he swore unconditional loyalty, thumping his chest until it rang with bang bang, declaring that so long as it was the prefectural governor's command, he would brave boiling water and raging fire without hesitation, and never so much as furrow his brow before mountains of blades and seas of flame.

After seeing Fang Dashan off, Ma Baojia, the Public Security Department's senior public security officer, came uninvited.

He was the third-ranking figure in the Public Security Department after the department head and deputy department head, though in reality his authority was limited, far inferior to that of the deputy department head.

But both the department head and deputy department head had been implicated in treason, so he was now the highest-ranking one left.

Lin Wen gave the man a look. He was rather greedy for power and fond of money, with wisps of black drifting through his qi, accounting for roughly five percent of it.

He could only barely be put to use.

Lin Wen had him temporarily take charge of all routine work in the Public Security Department, restore order, and dispatch fifty public security officers and guards tomorrow to await orders.

Finally came the eunuch Xu Kangxing—no, the chief eunuch. That meant he supervised the people of the Inspectorate; he was, in name and truth, the Inspectorate's third-ranking figure, with far greater authority than a senior public security officer.

Lin Wen instructed him to keep the rebels securely detained, investigate and gather evidence of all their crimes, and destroy the false evidence they had fabricated to frame the wise and mighty prefectural governor. At the same time, he rejected Xu Kangxing's request to hunt down potential rebels—what a joke, that was a genuine Sword of Damocles. One misstep, and a great mass of bad karma would come surging in.

After dealing with this string of mundane affairs, Lin Wen studied spells for a while longer. From them, he caught a glimpse of the splendor of the cultivation world and imagined how, when roaming the cultivation realm, he might use these spells against powerful enemies to turn defeat into victory from a desperate situation and slaughter in all directions.

As his thoughts deepened, his heart fluttered and his spirit swayed, his mind racing with longing. He could barely wait to reincarnate into the cultivation world at once.

But reason stopped him in time. He now understood well that only by properly cultivating the physical world would his start in the cultivation world proceed more smoothly, allowing these soul-stirring scenes to appear more often and more frequently. Otherwise, merely hiding in the shadows for hundreds or thousands of years to accumulate strength, seek opportunities, and secretly seize luck would be torture enough.

Though he could not reincarnate immediately, savoring the dream had cleansed his spirit. All the fine dust he had picked up during the day was washed away, and his spiritual platform became pure and spotless once more.

After another night's sound sleep, his state of mind recovered, and he was once again filled with energy and drive.

Primordial Spirit: 15%.

Recovery exceeded!

What delighted Lin Wen even more was that, for no apparent reason, he had gained over ten additional points of good karma compared with yesterday!

Lin Wen's first thought was: Has the good karma from rebuilding the homeland arrived already?

But he quickly realized that was impossible. The construction teams had not even returned yet, and the funds had only just been counted. It could not have arrived so quickly.

Then where had it come from?

Thinking back over what he had done yesterday, suppressing the riot could not be it. If it were, he would have received it long ago; it would not have been delayed until now.

That left only one possibility: promoting the Crouching Dragon and Phoenix Chick.

Had they handled the miscellaneous affairs so well that they had shared some of the good karma with him?

Or had he gained good karma because his recognition had allowed them to soar into the sky and fulfill their ambitions? Or was it both?

Lin Wen did not yet know, but it was absolutely because of them. Of that, there was no doubt.