Under Liu Cheng's startled, suspicious, and grave gaze, Ma Accountant recounted everything from beginning to end in meticulous detail.
According to him, the people the Treading the Sea Gang lured into rigged gambling games and coerced with usurious loans were servants, runners, attendants, clerks, and others with little martial prowess. Once such people left a prince's residence, a government office, the Martial Prohibition Bureau, or the household of a high-ranking court official, they would struggle to retain the respect of ordinary people and earn substantial sums of silver. To preserve their reputations and positions, they were willing to submit to the Treading the Sea Gang, passing along information or opening convenient doors for it.
The Treading the Sea Gang had no ambition to influence the whole Flame Capital or control the affairs of the Imperial Court. It was already quite satisfied with what it had achieved.
But a little over five months ago, someone had abducted Accountant Ma's child and used him to force Ma to do their bidding.
Ma Accountant had fathered this child late in life, his only tender shoot. He normally feared dropping him if he held him in his palm, or melting him if he held him in his mouth. He quickly submitted and agreed to the person's demands.
The person therefore returned his child, but had fed him a strange poison that would flare up every seven days. Without the appropriate pill, he would die in excruciating pain. As long as Ma Accountant obediently followed instructions, however, the person would leave the antidote at his home two hours before the attack.
After gaining that person's trust, Ma Accountant had secretly taken his child to see renowned physicians in the capital. None of them had found any signs of poisoning, however. They had merely prescribed gentle,