Over the next few days, Long Wushang pleaded illness and recuperated at home. He sent an official to deliver those case files to the Eastern Palace on his behalf.
Seeing this, Xu Tianran could only let the matter rest. He sent quite a few people with nourishing gifts to convey his concern, along with a secret letter expressing his hope that Long Wushang would leave the matter to him. He would certainly give him a satisfactory answer.
What Xu Tianran had not expected, however, was that his envoy would fail to even meet Long Wushang. He only saw Tang Ya, who said that her young master was resting and must not be disturbed.
When Xu Tianran learned of this, he actually breathed a sigh of relief. It was only natural for Long Wushang to be angry. As long as he refrained from making trouble for the moment, there was still room to maneuver.
Give him ten days or a fortnight-as long as he had enough time, he could naturally clean up the whole affair.
Yet matters were nowhere near as simple as he had imagined. Long Wushang's supposed recuperation was no concession at all, but another way of fanning the flames even higher.
Public opinion erupted first. As though someone were deliberately steering it, news that the empire's research funding had been illegally embezzled by high-ranking officials spread like wildfire among the major newspapers within just a few days.
At first, only a few small newspapers ventured tentative reports, but the news soon spread like wildfire throughout the empire.
Where exactly had the empire's research funding gone? Who exactly had tampered with the research budgets of Soul Engineers like them?
Whose pockets had swallowed the money that should have gone into Soul Tool development, military soul guidance technology, and the