A few breaths later, both Huang Yan's cries and the shouts of the merchants died down.
Yet Qiu Yan's brow furrowed instead. He thought to himself, Huang Yan never spoke of it until the very end. Does he intend to hold this bargaining chip until the last moment, or does he simply not understand the stakes involved?
With that thought, Qiu Yan's gaze returned to the several letters on the ground.
Before entering the city, Qiu Yan had already learned of the situation through the restriction on Huang Yan. When Huang Yan arranged for people to distribute the letters, Qiu An had lain in wait accordingly and captured them in one stroke—once Huang Yan left the mountain stronghold, the formation diagram that suppressed and isolated Qiu Yan's restriction no longer affected him, allowing Qiu Yan to sense it.
Huang Yan's movements had never been secret to begin with. Even the reason these major merchants had betrayed the state had been verified by Qiu Yan through Huang Yan's itinerary. That was why he had changed his route several times before finally arriving in Ze Prefecture.
As for the purpose of these letters, the Heavenly Stars and Earthly Fiends Bandits intended to use them in the future to frame Qiu Yan and fabricate charges against him. Thus, every word in the letters had been carefully weighed, and the planned recipients were selected with great subtlety. Most were people Qiu Yan had encountered before, with whom he had some slight friendship or connection. They included not only the Grand Confucians and veteran ministers of the Eastern Capital, but even Zhou Guan, who had risen to become a county magistrate in Jiangnan Circuit, as well as Luo Jiayun and Zhang Zhen, who had only recently earned their jinshi degrees.
Such arrangements revealed a superior