After receiving their orders, almost everyone went mad!
Everywhere rang with orders like, "If you fail to complete your mission, bring me your head!"
The Upper Capital Gao Lineage.
Inside a secret chamber, the head of the Gao Lineage looked ashen.
Two days earlier, with two thunderous explosions, the secret escape tunnels prepared when the lineage was founded, leading straight outside Upper Capital City, had been blown shut.
From that moment onward, everyone in the Gao Lineage had been placed under control, allowed to enter but not leave.
All that remained was to wait for evidence, and then arrests.
If the Gao Lineage ultimately proved innocent, all they would receive was an apology, perhaps with a little compensation.
But if their guilt was confirmed, if the evidence was conclusive...
The Gao patriarch understood as clearly as a polished mirror: this time, the Gao Lineage would probably not escape its doom.
"The walnut... the walnut..."
The Gao patriarch gazed at the perfectly round walnut in his hand, his expression somewhere between laughter and tears. "Master Bai, I finally understand what you meant... you were saying that my Gao Lineage... was this walnut. It looks hard, but beneath an iron hammer, it cannot withstand a single blow."
"Or perhaps you were advising me to give up early, to prize harmony, so that I could escape this calamity..."
"Hahaha..."
"Your divination was right. I was the one... who misunderstood..."
The Gao patriarch tightened his hand, and the walnut instantly shattered, turning to fine powder.
"My Gao Lineage... was once a house of generals for generations!"
The Gao patriarch choked, unable to speak. "All we sought were a few high positions, to take the lineage one step beyond the top of a hundred-foot pole... to preserve our ancestors' glory from falling. Why did