At the heart of the Dayin Imperial City stood Kunpeng Palace.
Kunpeng Palace was where the Dayin Emperor held court assemblies, grand banquets, received foreign envoys, and met with feudal lords from all directions on great ceremonial occasions.
At the very core of Kunpeng Palace was the Fuyao Hall.
This was the main hall where the Dayin Emperor gathered his ministers to hold grand assemblies and discuss the state’s most important affairs.
The base platform of Fuyao Hall carried the meaning of ‘like a great roc spreading its wings, soaring straight up through the nine heavens.’ The platform rose nine levels high, each level standing nine zhang tall, and the bottommost layer was square-shaped with sides measuring nine li in length.
At the very top of these nine stacked platforms sat Fuyao Hall itself, clad entirely in dark azure-black, featuring tiered eaves and intricate brackets.
The entire structure was immense, resembling a great beast crouching high above, gazing down upon the countless mortals below.
Such a massive Fuyao Hall — Lu Jin stood on the steps at the base of the platform, chatting closely with several powerful eunuchs: the chief eunuch of the Treasury Supervision, the chief eunuch of the Military Arms Supervision, and others.
These senior eunuchs had witnessed Lu Jin’s divine abilities during last night’s purge of the female ghost.
They were trusted confidants of both the Empress Dowager and the Emperor and knew Lu Jin was destined to rise swiftly to power.
So Lu Jin behaved respectfully toward them, and they in turn smiled warmly and sought to build rapport.
Just as the conversation was getting lively, Lu Yu stormed over, panting as he abruptly pointed at Lu Jin’s nose and launched into a furious tirade.
He hurled insults like “ill-fated degenerate,” “ungrateful mutt,” “shame to the Jingyang Lu clan,” and more.
Lu Jin and the eunuchs were all shocked by his outburst, but Lu Yu kept spewing venom without stopping for quite some time.
“Enough! Lu Jin, you don’t deserve to be part of our Jingyang Lu clan anymore!”
“I’ve already told Lady Tian’en Hou. You, your father, your grandfather, and your great-grandfather — four generations — are all cut out of the clan records. From now on, you’re no longer family of the Jingyang Lu!”
“Go home and arrange for a mortician and craftsmen to exhume your great-grandfather’s remains from the ancestral tomb!”
“Also, your grandfather died in battle with no remains. That grave full of ceremonial burial clothes, exhume that too and bury it in some random mountain ravine.”
“Honestly, you infuriate me to no end.”
“You unfilial wretch! You’ve thrown away a heavenly match with the Bai family’s lady and instead joined the eunuch faction!”
“What have we Lu brothers ever done to you?” Lu Yu scolded Lu Jin, while the eunuchs looked on, unsure how to react.
But to insult Lu Jin as a “eunuch faction” member in front of these powerful eunuchs?
That was not something they liked at all.
The chief eunuch of the Treasury Supervision chuckled softly, stepped down from the steps, and blocked Lu Jin’s front.
With a slap, he brushed away Lu Yu’s pointing finger: “Lord Laiguo, what has our family done to you?”
Lu Yu glanced nervously at the cold stares from the eunuchs who were glaring daggers at him.
His heart tightened and a chill ran through his body.
He didn’t have the guts to go up against these imperial supervisors.
He opened his mouth, stammered a few times, but couldn’t say a single word.
Another eunuch dressed in a purple robe, with a majestic horned prawn embroidered on his chest and nine blood-red stars across his back, cackled like a hen after laying eggs, wobbling as he walked up to Lu Yu.
“Lord Laiguo, from now on, we’ll get along better... Before the new year, on the ninth day of the eleventh month, your steward forcibly bought two hundred acres of prime irrigated land for the Silver Wheat Mill, causing the deaths of three honest farming families — twenty-three people in total.”
Lu Yu hurriedly shook his head: “I didn’t!”
“On the seventeenth day of that month, your steward forcefully took three young girls from a good family and broke the legs of their father and brothers. When they reported it to the civil officer at Min’an Ward, your family issued a public letter and vigorously suppressed the case.”
Lu Yu’s eyes snapped wide: “I did not!”
“On the first day of the twelfth month, the anniversary of the Late Emperor’s passing, all military nobles and officials were required by law to stay home to bathe, fast, and offer incense prayers... Yet that night, you were at ‘Swallow Sparrow Tower’ battling two famous courtesans.”
Lu Yu’s face drained of color: “I absolutely did not!”
The eunuch smiled coldly and jabbed multiple times into Lu Yu’s chest: “If you say you didn’t, then you didn’t. What can a few poor servants like us do to you? But Lord Lu Jin here is the Emperor’s man. For you to insult the Emperor’s close aide so recklessly in front of us...”
Lu Jin smiled brightly, waving a hand at the eunuchs: “Old Ma, old Ma, it’s my uncle, what of it? What’s the big deal if he scolds me?”
“But you’re right. I am indeed a close aide to the Emperor, so when you scold me, it’s like scolding the Emperor himself!”
“Uncle, how many black files are there on you in the Palace Supervision archives?” Lu Jin laughed and asked the eunuch surnamed Ma in front of Lu Yu.
Ma chuckled kindly: “Not many, not many. Compared to other nobles, it’s rather few — just around twenty-odd jin.”
The black files listing illegal and improper deeds weighed more than twenty jin?
The Palace Supervision’s main job was to monitor nobles and officials, record their wrongdoings as secret files, and when necessary fabricate charges to imprison them, strip ranks, confiscate properties, exile, or even execute entire clans!
Looking at Lu Jin’s crimson robe and the great prawn emblem over his chest, Lu Yu suddenly realized just what position he now held.
Cold sweat broke out across his brow.
If the founding Lord Laiguo were still alive, no eunuch in the Palace Supervision would dare treat him this way — a slap would send them sprawling, if not half-dead.
But the current Laiguo Mansion... the current Lord Laiguo, Lu Yu himself!
Lu Yu’s waist bent slightly.
He trembled and said: “Those things are utterly fabricated! Our Laiguo Mansion is a family of scholars. We would never do anything like taking lands or forcing villagers’ daughters, let alone acts of great disrespect!”
“One thousand guan coins — let’s settle it today.” Lu Jin smiled at Lu Yu, “Today, we let it go like this... We’ll settle the rest slowly in time. Hah, move my ancestral tomb?”
There was a sharp murderous intent behind Lu Jin’s words.
In past and present life, to touch someone’s ancestral tomb was deep blood feud that could only be settled with death.
Lu Jin smiled kindly at Lu Yu, eyes bloodshot like a badly wounded beast, his whole body emanating an urge to spill blood.
If Lu Jin were only a sixteen-year-old youth, he would have already drawn his blade and slain Lu Yu on the spot!
“Lord Laiguo, if you want to move the tomb, fine, I’ll do it after I finish my work in the next couple days... But the young man is poor — I ask you to pay the full fee in advance.” Lu Jin pressed his left hand on the dagger’s hilt and spoke deliberately, word by word: “Otherwise, if I accidentally damage the Feng Shui of your ancestral tomb during the move... hehe!”
Lu Yu’s eyes widened as he angrily shouted, “You dare?”
Lu Jin lowered his voice, smiling broadly: “Guess? I’m ‘eunuch faction’ — I’m shameless. You think I don’t dare?”
The eunuchs chuckled loudly.
Each smiled brightly, very pleased.
Lu Jin’s ruthlessness and fierce aura suited them perfectly.
Exactly — this was how the Palace Supervision should act toward nobles and officials.
This was how the Emperor’s close aides behaved, how their ‘eunuch faction’ kin carried themselves!
Just then, steady footsteps sounded.
Bai Changkong and several court officials in purple robes, serene and composed, walked this way.
“Lord Laiguo, here you are.” Bai Changkong waved to Lu Yu with a smile and said, “After the Lantern Festival, at Cuiwei Peak, for this year’s first Hawthorn Witchery Examination, I’d like to invite you to serve as the recorder. Perhaps you’d deign to accept?”
Lu Yu, frightened into silence by Lu Jin earlier, was instantly overjoyed.
He practically danced and threw off Lu Jin, rushing before Bai Changkong to bow deeply, almost hitting his head to the ground.
The nobles nearby sneered, smirked, envied, or whispered as they gradually approached, hoping to connect with Bai Changkong through Lu Yu.
Lu Jin cleared his throat heavily.
Lu Yu shuddered, straightened up, hesitated a moment, then turned back and ran over to Lu Jin.
He pulled a White Deer coin out from his sleeve and stuffed it to Lu Jin: “I won’t quarrel with you. The family has the right to discipline you if you err — even the Emperor and Empress Dowager can’t meddle with the Jingyang Lu clan!”
When he said ‘Jingyang Lu clan,’ Lu Yu seemed to draw limitless strength from thin air, his presence returning in full force, cheeks flushed red.
Lu Jin smiled, glanced at the characters on the White Deer coin, and casually handed it to the eunuch surnamed Ma.
In his rush, Lu Yu had mistakenly drawn a White Deer coin clearly marked ‘valued at two million qian.’
Lu Jin had asked for about a thousand guan, or a little over a million — Lu Yu lost a lot there.
Bai Changkong’s expression tightened as he watched.
He pointed at Lu Jin and said aloud, “Fallen willingly, beyond cure.”
Several senior officials in purple robes cast deep glances at Lu Jin, their eyes full of curiosity.
He’d rather join the eunuch faction than marry Bai Changkong’s granddaughter.
This... tsk!
Worth looking into carefully.
Lu Jin responded with a polite bow to Bai Changkong, smiling: “I pledge loyalty to the Emperor. How is that falling willingly? Hmm...”
He fell silent, narrowing his eyes as he appraised Bai Changkong fully.
Unexplainably, Bai Changkong felt a chill running down his spine and all his hair standing on end under Lu Jin’s gaze.
“This mutt has a ghost about him,” Bai Changkong thought, recalling the ghost hunt spectacle in the imperial city last night.
Somehow, he connected that whole thing to Lu Jin.
He gave Lu Jin a long, steady look, then beckoned to Lu Yu, who eagerly followed, and together they returned to the line of civil officials.
Sharp sounds split the air.
On the nine-tiered platform, strong eunuchs cracked their clean whips loudly.
Soon after, golden bells chimed, jade chimes rang, and clouds clappers sounded in succession.
Before Fuyao Hall’s gates, nine huge bronze cauldrons were lit with roaring flames.
Baskets of rare precious incense were poured like water into the cauldrons, sending fragrant smoke spiraling into the sky.
“Form ranks!” A small eunuch’s long shout echoed down from above.
Lu Jin stood on the steps, watching nearly ten thousand civil and military officials below forming orderly lines according to their ranks.
(End of chapter)