Everyone exchanged glances and answered in unison. No one dared waste words.
Emperor Tianwu swept his sleeve. "Court dismissed!"
The crowd gradually dispersed, and the hall fell quiet until no one remained.
Yellow sand filled the skies over the borderlands, where life was dull year-round.
Recently, though, things had grown interesting.
The reason was the newly arrived Lord Qin.
The soldiers at the border all knew Lord Qin was a Special Envoy from the Imperial Capital, sent to oversee them.
Everyone also knew about the conflict between Qin An and the First Prince.
So quite a few people kept an eye on Qin An.
Lately, however, Qin An had settled into an astonishingly regular routine.
Each day, he was either in the kitchen or resting in his room. He barely went anywhere else.
Curious people went to the kitchen to ask about him, only to receive an answer that left them unsure whether to laugh or cry.
The border garrison had a great many officers, and feeding them each day cost an astronomical sum.
Its consumption of pigs, cattle, sheep, and other livestock was enormous.
The kitchen therefore had professional butchers who slaughtered livestock every day.
But lately, Qin An had taken over the butchers' work, staying in the kitchen to slaughter the animals himself.
No one knew why. The baffling arrangement left everyone scratching their heads.
Still, Qin An was causing no trouble, which set many minds at ease.
After a few short months, though, everyone grew more and more confused.
More bewildering still, after spending months in the kitchen, Qin An went into the border city and took over the blacksmiths' work too.
A thought occurred to many of them: had Lord Qin come all the way to the border just to amuse himself?
Of course, it