v4c37: The Legend of the Azure Heroes

The man known as the Special Inspector stared blankly at the transcript of the transmission he had received from Pale Moon Lake City. He could no longer hear the rest of the people in the room talking. The cultivators, the guardsmen, nor the people of Underbridge. They all had smiles on their faces, oblivious to the pounding in the Special Inspector’s ears. The room he was in had narrowed squarely onto the piece of paper in front of him.

 

It was a relatively short message, with a relatively short command. He read it again for the forty-seventh time since he had received it. The messenger was still in the room, waiting for his reply.

 

The characters remained the same, and he was not asleep. He had checked.

 

He had come to Grass Sea City because he was looking forward to a few minor cases of corruption or something. Stuff he could slap some nobles on the wrist, make them pay a fine, and then ride off into the sunset for. No risking his life, no cultivators, just a bit of a wipedown of the undoubtedly dirty windows without drawing too much attention. They could instead go through records, drink tea, and enjoy the beautiful city.

 

But then they heard the rumours. The rumours of slavery. His own Lord Father hated slavery—slaves didn’t pay taxes, and were an underclass stewing in resentment looking for the right opportunity to rebel and kill you. It was sound reasoning. The learned men of the cities had surely come to the same conclusion. What sort of fool would enslave his fellow subjects when instead one could have loyal and productive men—especially when the penalty for the crime was death?

 

The Special Inspector, eager for something simple, had chased that wild goose of a rumour. It was surely some baseless whisper on the wind they could waste their time on, and the nobles would laugh about the Special Inspector who had accomplished nothing during his stay instead of assassinating him, like what had happened to his predecessor.

 

It had been a great plan!

 

And then it turned out the rumours were true, and he and Han had found themselves neck deep in conspiracy.

 

He grimaced as he remembered himself and Han splitting up to cover more ground, at first convinced it was some minor thing. Instead, with the help of Lao, they had found out just how vast it had been.

 

It was sheer dumb luck that Lady Xinlai had arrived—and then luck again when Lady Cai Xiulan, the Demon-Slaying Orchid, and seven other cultivators arrived with Han. Cultivators who had been willing to help.

 

Without them… he had no idea what he could have done. It was too big for him. Much too big.

 

It seemed that everywhere he went, he would get involved in some incident that put him in way over his head, only for him to get out of it through dumb luck and the fact that he could keep his face straight even while he was gibbering internally with terror.

 

He came to understand why some spat the words ‘may you live in interesting times’ as a curse. The only question was… how long would his luck hold, especially with the way his life was going?

 

He looked down at the paper and at the relevant worlds on it. He read it for the forty-eighth time, wishing they would change.

 

They didn’t.

 

“…Your predecessor has been recalled. Take command, and take them all to heel. You shall be Acting Lord Magistrate?!” a boisterous female voice sounded from beside his ear as Lao read the confidential message from over his shoulder.

 

Of course, the pretty woman who he thought was just a simple flower seller had turned out to be one of Boss Tanhui’s closest friends, and had managed to sneak him into a heavily guarded noble mansion.

 

The rest of the conversation in the room stopped.

 

“You little wretch, you dare read over his shoulder?!” Xinlai demanded… even as she herself was clearly leaning over to catch sight of what he had been reading as well.

 

“Congratulations, Special Inspector.” Cai Xiulan said, inclining her head. He couldn’t even appreciate her melodious voice with how stressed he was.

 

The rest of the room erupted in well-wishes from others. He caught Tanhui and Rags’ eyes, the only people who seemed reserved.

 

The Special Inspector swallowed thickly, before plastering a smile on his face as Han clapped him on the back.

 

“It is a post I am ill-suited for, but since my superiors have spoken, I suppose all I can do is try to meet those expectations.” He felt rather close to screaming at the moment. “I must prepare the criers and inform my… predecessor. I also need to write a speech…”

 

Hopefully in his room. Heavens, how the hells was he supposed to hide this from his parents?! He had been telling them he hadn’t been doing anything exciting!

 

“Criers?” Tie Delun asked, his rough voice cutting through the welling panic. “Is there not supposed to be a formation that carries your voice throughout the city?”

 

The Special Inspector paused. Not many people actually knew about that system. “It’s been broken for centuries. Nobody could repair it, so it was left alone,” He replied.

 

Tie Delun pondered his reply, before nodding his head. “You write your speech. I think I may be able to do something about that.”

 

“I see. Then you have my thanks, and I shall take my leave,” The Special Inspector replied, collecting his brush and paper, barely holding himself together. He was a little worried that Xinlai was going to follow him, but instead her eyes were fixed on Delun.

 

“You can repair one of the Ancients’ formations?” Lady Xinlai demanded, an eyebrow raised.

 

“Yes,” Delun replied, his back straight.

 

Xinlai looked like she was going to spit blood.

 

“You would use your talents on this, son?” Tie Delan, the Sectmaster of the Hermetic Iron Sect, asked. His voice had an odd note in it, and the Inspector was sure he was missing something here.

 

“Our ancestors helped build this palace, I saw some of their marks in the halls. I would repair what was broken.”

 

The cultivators began laughing, but the Special Inspector tuned it all out as he wondered what he was going to write.

 

He managed to make it to his room before he threw up.

 

After regaining what he could of himself, he started writing his speech.

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Tie Delun took a deep breath as he touched the fresh carvings in the wall a day later. The entire system was elegant and surprisingly simple. It was like the resounding crystal dias at the Dueling Peaks in a way. The formation went out from a central room in the palace and to several pillars that were arranged around the city. From each pillar the speaker’s voice would issue forth.

 

There was little on the construction of Grass Sea City, truth be told. The formation for voice transmission was one of the few things that were really clear, if only because at one point there had been a plan to put the formation over the entire province.

 

The massive, wonderous bridges weren’t really considered as something amazing. They had truly just been bridges. The interiors of them were actually the real ‘main’ routes, meant to keep the sun off the workers, before the place was turned into a slum.

 

Once upon a time, their ancestors had been masons. People who had built cities and bridges, their hammers never meeting flesh, only stone.

 

He was glad that he could honour them this way… even if they probably would have sniffed at Delun’s lacking mastery.

 

It hadn’t taken too much to clean them off and recarve the formation. It was, surprisingly, mostly intact.

 

Of course, it wasn’t entirely that simple. They were missing the crystals that were supposed to sit atop the platforms, but they could use their own Qi to replicate the effect—so the rest of the cultivators had spread out, each of them standing atop a different pillair.

 

He tapped the formation. It seemed to pulse.

 

Satisfied, Delun rose and nodded to the mortal man who was waiting on his signal.

 

The Special Inspector. The mortal was a rare breed. He had managed to work nearly the same hours the cultivators had, doing paperwork and assisting them in every way he could, along with Sergeant Han. He had, according to Xiulan, held his own against the nest of vipers that was the previous Lord Magistrate’s household, completely unflappable.

 

He was a good man. Though Tigu got annoyed whenever she looked at him, because he looked very familiar to her. Xiulan, Yin, and Xianghua also seemed to think he looked a bit familiar as well, but they had mostly dismissed it as a coincidence.

 

Delun shook the idle thought away.

 

“Ready?” Delun asked

 

“Yes, Master Cultivator,” the Special Inspector replied, his voice mild and unwavering as always.

 

“Then… Three, two, one—” He pointed.

 

The Acting Lord Magistrate took a deep breath in the center of the formation and began to speak.

 

“My fellow subjects; Citizens of Grass Sea City. This Humble Servant of the Emperor is to now be the current Acting Lord Magistrate of Grass Sea City…”

 

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“By now, you shall have heard the rumours, and will have witnessed the aftermath of the events that have transpired. I am here to explain everything to you as best as I can.”

 

The people of Grass Sea City gaped at the pillars, things that had been used by children as climbing poles or notice boards by adults for generations. Now they resonated with sound, a cultivator standing atop them in the city squares.

 

Colourful characters lit up on the side of the pillars, and though the sound occasionally crackled oddly it was as if the speaker was right beside them.

 

But what was more impressive was the man speaking. His voice was calm, soothing, and full of authority, as he told them what had happened.