"Hmm." Yin Wujou nodded, his fingers tightening slightly as he gripped the dossier. "This case from ten years ago wasn't about foreign enemies stealing the files; it was about the court internally altering the regulations for spiritual veins and fabricating evidence to cover up crimes. All the evidence, names, and details are here."
A faint hint of understanding flashed across Snow Empress's eyes, showing no surprise whatsoever.
Having spent years navigating the fringes of the court and investigating secrets, she had witnessed firsthand the power struggles among the elite and the hypocrisy of the court, and had long since seen through such schemes and plots to cover up crimes and deceive the world. Most of the so-called earth-shattering cases were merely fig leaves used by the top powers to conceal their own greed and guilt.
"The three people on the ground are remnants of the old dynasty's spies," the Snow Empress stated calmly. "They are extremely tight-lipped, making interrogation impossible. They have no identification or tokens on them, leaving them completely untraceable. Killing them is pointless, but keeping them alive is troublesome."
Yin Wujou raised his eyes. "How should we handle this?"
"Keep them alive." Snow Empress's tone was firm and clear. "These three are living leads. The person behind them must know about the unusual activity in the old building tonight, and will definitely continue to send people to investigate and track them in the short term. Keeping them alive will allow us to lure them out, follow the clues, and uncover the remaining forces behind the scenes and the core person in charge."
Her gaze fell upon the case file, and she continued, "Now that we have the evidence, we should not be high-profile or rashly expose them. The other side has been entrenched in the court for ten years, their power is deeply rooted, and their informants are everywhere. Acting hastily will only put us in danger and destroy all the evidence."
Yin Wujou wholeheartedly agreed.
Holding a sharp blade, do not rush to draw it. Holding the truth, do not rush to proclaim it.
Only by patiently lying low, proceeding step by step, and thoroughly understanding the opponent's current power structure, the people in power, and the pattern of their plans, can one strike a fatal blow, completely turn the tide, and truly get back to the right path.
"Let's retreat first," Snow Empress decisively stated. "This place has been exposed, our spies are missing, and the person behind it will surely be on alert. They'll definitely be conducting a large-scale search of the area around the old building in the coming days. Staying here any longer will only increase the danger. Let's take the files and leave, conceal our movements, and wait for the right opportunity."
Yin Wujou nodded, carefully putting the scroll away close to his body, tucking it away securely in his inner pocket, protecting it layer by layer. This scroll of paper was now more precious and more dangerous than any divine weapon.
The two did not linger and turned to leave the secret room.
The moment I stepped out of the secret chamber, the stone door behind me slowly closed automatically, the array patterns disappeared again, the sealing power restarted, and the underground secret chamber returned to silence, as if nothing had changed in ten years, and tonight's opening and exploration had never happened.
Inside the passage, the Spiritual Power field returned to normal, and all traces of its opening were erased by the array, leaving no flaws, so that no one could follow up or investigate.
The two walked quickly up the stairs, traversing three floors, and returned to the lobby of the old building.
Inside the hall, the three spies were still firmly bound to the ground by the Spiritual Power bands, unable to move. Their faces were pale, their breaths were weak, and their eyes were filled with fear and resentment.
Snow Empress glanced at the three of them and said calmly, "Take them away."
With a wave of her hand, three gentle streams of Spiritual Power enveloped the three figures, lifting them steadily into the air. She could take them with her without expending any extra effort.
The two turned and walked out of the old archive building. The night breeze blew in their faces, dispelling the cold and dampness of the underground chamber and bringing the cool air of the late-night streets.
The moon was already setting in the west, and dawn was approaching. A faint, pale white light was beginning to appear on the horizon, signaling the end of the long night and the coming of daylight.
At the moment dawn broke, the Snow Empress was already standing in an abandoned hunter's stone house thirty miles outside the city.
Three spies were casually tossed into a corner, their Spiritual Power bindings tightening like pythons, turning their faces pale but leaving them speechless. The Snow Empress leaned down, her fingertips gripping the chin of one of them, forcing him to look up, her gaze icy and sharp. She didn't speak, but silently observed the almost numb, resolute stillness in his eyes, confirming her judgment—these three were tools that had truly undergone death training, and further torture would be futile.
She released her grip and took a half-step back.
Yin Wujou took the dossier out of his pocket and flipped through it again by the light filtering through the roof tiles, his brows furrowed. He had only skimmed the contents during his hasty evacuation last night, and only now, upon closer inspection, did he notice an extremely hidden layer on the last page of the dossier. If it weren't for his exceptionally precise fingertip senses, he wouldn't have been able to detect the almost non-existent difference in thickness between the pages.
" Snow Empress," he whispered, "There's something else inside."
He used his Spiritual Power to slowly iron open the glued area of the cover and end page, revealing a layer of dark yellow silk as thin as a cicada's wing. The writing on it was extremely small and dense, a secret record that Yun Su with a needle tip dipped in ink. The contents on the silk were more straightforward than the main text of the dossier—there were nine key figures involved in the incident that year, the leader of whom was Liu Yanzhao, the eldest son of the Grand Tutor Liu Chongguang, who was then the Deputy Commander of the Imperial City Bureau and in charge of coordinating and scheduling the spiritual veins. The other eight belonged to the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Rites, and the Spirit Vein Bureau, with the lowest official rank being a fourth-grade official, forming a tightly knit network of relationships that stretched across the court and the country.
What truly Yin Wujou was a line of small characters at the end of the silk scroll. " Liu Yanzhao is still alive, living in seclusion in his old residence in the Southern Frontier, secretly leading the remaining members of his gang's underground network, and has not stopped for ten years."
Liu Yanzhao. Yin Wujou was no stranger to this name. Ten years ago, when the Spirit Vein Case was making headlines, Liu Yanzhao happened to resign from his post to observe mourning for his parents and returned to his hometown. Since then, he had faded from the court and never appeared in any formal occasions again. Everyone thought that he had long since retired to the countryside and was no longer concerned with worldly affairs. However, Yun Su's secret record clearly stated that Liu Yanzhao had always been secretly controlling the remaining forces. For ten years, he had never stopped monitoring the old site of the Spirit Vein Bureau and had never given up searching for the ironclad evidence left by Yun Su.
Those three spies from last night were most likely sent by Liu Yanzhao.
After reading the contents of the silk scroll, Snow Empress's expression remained unchanged, but Yin Wujou noticed that her fingertips tightened slightly for a moment. For the first time, he caught a faint emotion in this usually calm Snow Empress —a sullen anger that had been toyed with by her prey for many years.
"Do you know him?" Yin Wujou asked.
"I don't know him," Snow Empress answered decisively. "But I investigated a hidden line involving the old residence in Southern Frontier, which was intercepted and killed three times, destroying all the clues. Now it seems that those interceptions were all his doing."
She turned and walked towards the three spies in the corner. She looked down at them for a moment, then suddenly squatted down, raised her hand and pressed it against the forehead of one of them. Her Spiritual Power seeped into the depths of his spiritual meridians like mercury. The spy trembled violently, his teeth clenched, and veins bulged on his forehead, but he couldn't even let out a scream— the Snow Empress had sealed the meridians at the root of his tongue.
Yin Wujou watched this scene with bated breath. He had heard of the Spiritual Power soul-searching technique, a method of investigation that severely damages one's consciousness. At best, the soul-searched person's spiritual veins would be damaged and their mind would be confused; at worst, they would die instantly from spiritual collapse. Moreover, the information obtained from the soul-searching was extremely fragmented and chaotic, and crucial details could be missed with the slightest carelessness. The Snow Empress had always disdained using such methods, yet she had acted without hesitation, showing that her patience with Liu Yanzhao had been completely exhausted.
After about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Snow Empress withdrew her fingers, her expression still cold, but the cold light in her eyes was even stronger.