A Thought Arose, and Calamity Befell

"Is... is this true?" Yu Shang jerked upright in shock. "Take me there at once!"

Seeing Wu Kuang force himself to his feet, Yu Shang lowered his voice again. "Compose yourself and leave first. I will follow shortly. We will meet at the entrance to the mine cave."

Wu Kuang knew Yu Shang feared that too many eyes would arouse suspicion. He nodded at once in understanding, forcibly suppressing the panic on his face before striding out the door.

Not long afterward, the two of them slipped silently into the Cold Mountain Mine Cave, one after the other.

"Old Yu, look. The stone walls of this tunnel are raw and rough. It was clearly only carved out recently."

Yu Shang inspected it carefully, his face turning increasingly ashen. "The rock walls have only the crudest seals reinforcing them. Once the power of those seals is exhausted, disaster is sure to follow.

"This aura from the seals..."

By then, Yu Shang believed eighty percent of Wu Kuang's earth-shattering claim.

As he felt his way along the dark, winding mine passage and arrived directly beneath Cold Mountain County, where he saw with his own eyes hundreds of tunnels densely crisscrossing the ground like an anthill, the last shred of hope in his heart was utterly crushed.

"To complete such a colossal undertaking without anyone noticing—there is no one in all of Cold Mountain County besides Fang Xun who could have done it!"

"A county magistrate, and yet he could commit such a deranged atrocity!"

Yu Shang was shocked, terrified, and furious.

He simply could not understand Fang Xun's motives.

He was clearly on the verge of being promoted and transferred to the capital. Why would he insist on doing something so close to treason?

Yu Shang's eyelids twitched wildly, as though some great calamity were about to descend upon him.

If such a heaven-toppling disaster truly erupted in Cold Mountain County, then even if he somehow survived, he, as the county vice magistrate, would not be able to escape blame and would surely be implicated.

"No. This must be reported immediately!"

But as his thoughts whirled, Yu Shang suddenly calmed down.

Leaving aside the fact that he had been born and raised in Cold Mountain County and had no connections at court—

the only artifact in Cold Mountain County capable of directly reaching the imperial ear, the Governance Communication Mirror, was enshrined in the confidential records room of the county office, under Fang Xun's watch.

"For all I know, Fang Xun has already deliberately destroyed the Mirror. If I rashly force my way in, not only will I fail to send word, I will alert the enemy and invite a fatal disaster."

"The only plan now... is to seek aid directly from the commandery governor!"

Within moments, countless thoughts had passed through Yu Shang's mind, and he had already settled on a plan. He was about to send Wu Kuang in secret to Shuofang County, the seat of Cold Mountain Commandery.

But the words had barely reached his lips when another calculation abruptly arose in Yu Shang's mind. "Exposing such a heaven-shaking conspiracy will be a merit greater than the heavens. Once it comes to light, Fang Xun and Cheng Yishu, that acting county magistrate, will both be thrown into prison. When that time comes..."

"Of the seventy-three years of lifespan I borrowed from Heaven, only ten short years remain. If I cannot seize this chance to climb one more step, then when my final limit arrives, I will ultimately die and vanish from this world."

"Rather than sit and wait for death, I might as well stake everything on one throw!"

In the space of a moment, greed silently overwhelmed reason, and Yu Shang changed his mind.

He changed his tone. "I will personally make a trip to Shuofang and present this matter to the commandery governor. Constable Wu, return to the city and lie low. Do not breathe a word of this. I only fear that once Fang Xun realizes his scheme has been exposed, he will jump over the wall in desperation and drag the entire city down to the grave with him."

"The mine tunnels below have hollowed out the ground, leaving it fragile as paper. If no one maintains the seals, they may all collapse in an instant. When that happens, mountains will crumble and the earth will split. Cold Mountain County may not have a single survivor left."

Wu Kuang's face went pale as earth as he nodded heavily. "Old Yu, when do you intend to depart?"

"Time waits for no one. I leave now!" Yu Shang's expression was grim and murderous.

After climbing out of the bitterly cold mine cave, Yu Shang did not pause for even a moment. He raced straight toward Shuofang County.

With the howling wind in his face, he could not help but picture the glorious future awaiting him after he exposed the rebel faction and rose in rank and title!

He moved like the wind, and in barely an hour, he was nearly beyond the borders of Cold Mountain County.

Then, at that very moment...

Yu Shang's pupils shrank sharply. He suddenly saw a familiar figure standing silently ahead of him.

"Old Yu, where are you hurrying off to?"

There was not the slightest emotion in that voice. It was as biting as ten-thousand-year ice. It was Fang Xun!

Yu Shang's heart skipped a beat. He forced out a smile. "This subordinate... has a relative who was suddenly struck by a severe illness. I am hurrying to visit them."

"I have never heard that you have any friends or relatives in Shuofang. As a county official, abandoning your post without permission is a grave offense." Fang Xun's face remained expressionless.

Seeing Fang Xun's righteous and awe-inspiring facade, Yu Shang could no longer endure it. Tearing away all pretense, he cursed, "Fang Xun, why would you commit such a frenzied atrocity? Do you truly think you can cover the sky with one hand? Are you not afraid of the court's thunderous wrath?"

Fang Xun tilted his head slightly, his voice faint and eerie. "What nonsense is Old Yu talking about? Why can I not understand a single word? It seems age has finally caught up with you. You have gone mad."

Before the cold words had even faded, the character "Prison", its strokes sharp as blades, suddenly condensed in the night sky. It then exploded with a crash, transforming into thousands of gleaming golden chains that coiled around Yu Shang like venomous snakes, binding him tightly.

The following day, the strange disappearance of County Vice Magistrate Yu Shang and Constable Wu Kuang caused quite a stir in the county office, as expected. But after Fang Xun claimed that "the two had been dispatched on business under the commandery governor's secret orders," some people's suspicions were temporarily suppressed.

Before long, however, the attention of the city's people was drawn away by another major matter.

A piece of news spread rapidly throughout Cold Mountain County.

The strange weather of the past year, the horrifying flood in the middle of the year, and the increasingly scarce traces of new Cold Mountain Grass shoots nearby—

all signs indicated that the conditions for Cold Mountain Grass to grow had likely been affected.

It might even vanish entirely from this day forth!

This completely set the pot boiling.

In Cold Mountain County, those burdened with corvée labor made up eight or nine out of every ten people. Under Great Qian's harsh laws, they were required, without fail, to hand in one stalk of Cold Mountain Grass every year.

But as the saying went, even the cleverest housewife could not cook without rice. Now that the wilderness had been stripped of new shoots, no matter how vigorous their blood and qi or how ingenious their methods, those laborers could never conjure a stalk of grass from thin air.

Though they were unable to hand it in because of the irresistible changes of the times and seasons, the law was the law. Until it was amended, any violation would be punished according to its full severity.

For a time, panic and despair shrouded all of Cold Mountain County, and every heart was filled with dread.

The few remaining stocks that occasionally appeared on the market had their prices driven up dozens of times in an instant. Even so, they were always snatched clean the moment they appeared.

Just when they had been driven into a corner with nowhere left to turn, some laborers who had once entered the Cold Mountain Mine Cave for Changle Marquis suddenly came to their senses: perhaps a few seedlings still remained deep within those abandoned underground mine shafts!

This news, like a straw that could save a drowning man, spread from one to ten, then from ten to a hundred. In the blink of an eye, countless people driven to the brink of despair, as though clutching their final chance at life, surged toward the Cold Mountain Mine Cave like a tide.