Li Qingxian said, "I just came back from Lord Zhou. He said that was the case."
Han Anbo and Yu Ping nodded.
The Jia-Nine Office, which had been filled with voices, fell unusually quiet.
Li Qingxian asked, "Should we go see Captain Zheng today?"
Han Anbo said softly, "Brother Zheng is feeling stifled right now. Let's wait a few days before going."
Li Qingxian silently nodded. Zheng Hui had lost his True Essence, while he himself had been promoted to Tenth Rank and taken over as squad leader. Going now would only be rubbing salt in the wound.
Han Anbo smiled, his short brows and small eyes relaxing. "Don't overthink it. You taking over as squad leader is a good thing! If someone else came in, who knew how they'd torment us? With you as squad leader, Yu Ping and I can still have good days ahead. There's no need to rush Brother Zheng's matter. We can talk about it in a few days."
"Yeah, it's better than having an outsider take the position," Yu Ping said.
"By rights, a promotion to Tenth Rank calls for a grand celebration. But you don't seem to be in the mood, so we'll wait a while and invite Brother Zheng along. Don't forget the Flower Sea Strong Brew!" Han Anbo said.
"Alright!" Li Qingxian said.
"Oh, right. Is the matter of replacing the deputy squad leader true?" Han Anbo asked tentatively.
Li Qingxian snorted. "Lord Zhou said it was Wei Yong, the Director of the Finance Bureau, stirring things up. But Lord Zhou didn't seem to care much. I can't figure it out."
"Tell me the details. I'll help you weigh it up," Han Anbo said.
Li Qingxian recounted the whole matter.
After hearing it, Han Anbo smiled. "Lord Zhou isn't refusing to help you. He's testing you. That's how an uncle should be—he can't protect you all the time. A Subordinate Tenth Rank deputy squad leader is neither too high nor too low, just right to serve as your whetstone."
"I see." Li Qingxian suddenly understood.
"So you mustn't let down Lord Zhou's favor. Whatever happens, don't act on impulse," Han Anbo advised.
Yu Ping glanced at Han Anbo, then lowered his head and ate his glutinous rice cake.
Li Qingxian froze for a moment, then asked, "A squad can only have one deputy squad leader. What will you do?"
"Ah, I haven't entered the ranks. Whether I become deputy squad leader or not doesn't matter," Han Anbo said with an easy expression.
Li Qingxian kept a blank face, lowered his head, and pondered silently.
"Qingxian, you absolutely must not act rashly this time. You're a Night Guard, so you must follow the Night Guard's rules. Your performance will determine whether Lord Zhou can place you in an important position. Officialdom isn't like clawing and scrambling through the streets. Officialdom values rules, calculates interests, speaks of compromise, demands harmony, fights for positions, and contests power. But at the end of the day, either no blade is drawn, or once it is drawn, blood must be seen. As for the conflicts between the major factions, they've long been impossible to conceal. Blades have always been drawn, blood has always been shed. But we serve in the same yamen, so we can't do that."
"With all that talk, is there no talk of fairness and justice?" Li Qingxian retorted.
Yu Ping suddenly said, "Stop talking. If you keep going, I'll laugh so hard I spray food everywhere. Wasting grain isn't good."
"No wonder Captain Zheng was always scolding you. You deserve it!" Li Qingxian said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Han Anbo analyzed, "Pang Mingjing entered the Imperial Prison. As his immediate superior, Wei Yong naturally isn't willing to accept that. Since the hard road won't work, he'll take the crooked one. By their usual tricks, they'll deliberately find fault, provoke you, pick at your flaws, and ruin your reputation. The blade is already out of its sheath. If it doesn't see blood, it can only keep chopping. So you must keep your composure."
Li Qingxian remained silent.
"But don't be too afraid," Han Anbo said. "Over the next few days, I'll help you familiarize yourself with a squad leader's duties, so no one can find fault with you. I've served in several divisions of the Night Guard. My fighting skills aren't much, but my experience is decent."
Li Qingxian said, "Brother Han, you'll have to help me properly from now on. I truly don't understand all these twists and turns, and I can't be bothered to."
"You can't afford not to understand. If you want to rise in rank, you need to understand everything. Why do Confucianists, martial artists, demons, evildoers, and puppeteers smash their heads bloody trying to squeeze into the imperial court? Isn't it all to compete for a share of Fortune and strengthen themselves? The higher your rank, the more Fortune protects you, and the safer you'll be in these troubled times. The... Commander of the Night Guard is such a cautious man. He's never lost a battle in his life... well, he's never won one either. Yet isn't he still serving the court in exchange for a high rank? If you ask me, the Commander of the Night Guard is the smartest man under heaven." Han Anbo spoke earnestly.
Li Qingxian said nothing.
"So, endure the matter of the deputy squad leader for a while first," Han Anbo said.
Yet Li Qingxian smiled. "Don't worry. I'll think it over some more and make sure it's handled properly."
"That's good!"
"Oh, right, Brother Han. Tell me first how I should be a squad leader, what I should watch out for. I don't want to charge around blindly and ruin things."
"Whether Lord Zhou stands behind you or not, the most important person is your immediate superior—the head of the Street Patrol Office, Lord He Lei. You also need to slowly get acquainted with the heads of offices like the Accounts Office, Clerks' Office, Investigation Office, Mounted Patrol Office, and so on. Next come the Eighth Rank and Ninth Rank officials in each office..."
Han Anbo spoke slowly, and Li Qingxian listened slowly.
As he listened, Li Qingxian mulled things over. Whenever he did not understand something, he asked directly.
From beginning to end, Han Anbo's tone remained calm, without the slightest air of an elder flaunting his seniority.
After Yu Ping finished his pastries, he listened until his head swam. He rinsed his mouth, lay down on the bed, and went to sleep, planning to eat again after waking.
Li Qingxian spent the entire day learning how to be a squad leader.
That evening, Zhou Chunfeng's guard delivered a brand-new Subordinate Tenth Rank official uniform and the document confirming his rank.
Li Qingxian tried on the new official uniform, and Han Anbo and Yu Ping smiled as they praised him.
When the second watch sounded, squad leaders from every office called for lights out and everyone to bed.
Before long, thunderous snores rose and fell from next door.
Li Qingxian lay on his bed, his mind full of thoughts of how to be a Tenth Rank squad leader and how to become a Fate Arts Master. He could not fall asleep no matter what.
"Why not begin formally cultivating Fate Arts?"
Li Qingxian carefully considered the methods of cultivating Fate Arts.
Before entering the ranks, the Fate Measuring Sect's Book of Fate had been like a heavenly tome to him, utterly incomprehensible.
After entering the ranks, the profound knowledge of Fate Arts slowly melted like hard ice over a flame.
A Fate Arts Master's core ability was not observing Fortune, not knowing luck and misfortune, not telling fortunes. It was relying on one's own power to unravel the relationships within Fate Molds, sort out Heaven's Mandate and human fate, and influence—or even completely alter—a person's destiny.
They were not those who knew fate, but those who set fate.
Observing aura and reading Fortune were merely the most basic abilities.
Every high-ranking person was protected by the court's Fortune and their own Fate Mold. Only after performing Fate Reading and calculating a relatively clear Fate Mold could one determine their Fortune.
He had been able to see Dong Ying's Fate Projection because Dong Ying's Fate Mold and Fate Mansion were not strong. Even so, he had suffered a slight backlash.
More importantly, Dong Ying was only Tenth Rank, beneath notice. He did not even possess an official seal and had not received the court's Fortune protection.
His ability to see Ye Han's Fate Projection had relied entirely on the Heaven's Mandate Instrument acting on its own. Even then, Ye Han's Fate Mansion had resisted, preventing him from probing deeper.
After pondering for half the night, Li Qingxian decided to start with the basics.
To begin learning the Fate Measuring Sect's Fate Arts, one first had to spend a great sum to forge a Fortune Measuring Ruler and a Fate-Setting Scale.
One thousand taels of gold.
Li Qingxian was stunned. That was ten thousand taels of silver. His maternal grandfather's household had been ordinary, and he had ultimately stopped at Ninth Rank. Where could they have gotten ten thousand taels of silver?
"Could it be that they used the Li Family's assets? Then Mother couldn't afford good medicine..."
Li Qingxian temporarily set aside that thought.
"The Fortune Measuring Ruler measures Fortune, while the Fate-Setting Scale determines Fate Stars. It is also one of the rare Fate Artifacts capable of testing whether a Fate Star is real or hollow. But... why does the Book of Fate say that the Fate Measuring Sect's tools are inaccurate? Not only the Fate Measuring Sect—none of the Fate Arts schools, including the Heaven's Mandate Sect, are one hundred percent accurate."
Li Qingxian was bewildered for a moment, then realized this was one of the Fundamental Grand Laws of Fate Arts.
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