Chapter 238: CH. 238 | A Worsening Problem

An Yue noticed the noise outside had finally quieted down.

She stepped out of the house and made her way toward the shop, where she found Lin Tian standing tall, gazing steadily ahead as though nothing troubling had happened at all.

"How’d it go? Did they try to force you into anything?" An Yue asked, unable to fully hide the worry in her voice.

Lin Tian caught the anxious look on her face right away. He tried to calm her down, telling her everything was fine and that she had no reason to worry about him.

He was relieved he’d already cleaned every trace of blood from the shop floor, so the place looked exactly as it had that morning, no sign anywhere that a fight had taken place. That alone gave him some peace of mind.

An Yue felt her shoulders relax, glad to see him standing there unharmed.

Still, it wasn’t in her nature to simply stay calm whenever a mob of angry men showed up threatening her husband, even knowing full well that he was the strongest cultivator in the entire Qin Kingdom. Knowing that didn’t make the fear go away entirely.

"Thank goodness. I was worried about you for a moment," An Yue admitted.

Lin Tian smiled and let out a small laugh. "No need to worry about me, I’m perfectly fine. If anything, I’m more concerned about them, considering how much bad luck they’re about to run into for crossing me."

"But so far, I’ve handled the situation well enough."

An Yue trusted what he told her. As evening settled in, she began closing up the shop for the day.

Around the same time, their delivery cart returned from the Lingxian Sect, where a shipment of weapons had gone out earlier that afternoon, with Wei Hutong at the reins.

Lin Tian turned and greeted him. Wei Hutong reported that he’d delivered every weapon safely without any trouble along the way.

Lin Tian looked pleased, already thinking he’d need his help again the next time something needed to be sent out.

Wei Hutong was more than happy to keep taking on the responsibility. After all, this was his job now, and he intended to do it wholeheartedly.

He parked the cart at the side of the building rather than the front, since the main entrance had already been shut for the night, keeping it safely out of reach of any wandering thief.

With the shop secured, Lin Tian and An Yue walked back to the house together. There, they settled in, working side by side to prepare dinner.

An Yue’s condition had improved considerably compared to before, whether thanks to all the rest she’d been getting or the herbal remedy one of the village women had brought over, it was hard to say for certain. Either way, the result spoke for itself.

These days she rarely felt sick or weak anymore. She could get through most of the day doing ordinary things, almost the way she had before the pregnancy began.

That was undeniably good news, and it lifted something in Lin Tian every time he noticed it.

"I’ll cook dinner for us tonight," An Yue offered.

"Sure, thank you, Yue’er," Lin Tian said, settling into a chair to wait.

But just as the smell of dinner began to fill the kitchen, Lin Tian felt something shift outside, an unfamiliar qi aura drawing closer to the house. He didn’t recognize whose it was, but there was no mistaking the strength behind it.

A knock sounded at the door. An Yue moved to answer it, but Lin Tian stopped her gently, telling her he’d handle it himself.

He walked over and opened the door slowly. Standing outside were cultivators wearing the robes of another sect, and just behind them, unmistakably, stood the four blacksmith shop owners, apparently having gone straight to the city authorities to report what had happened.

"Good evening," the lead cultivator said.

"We’re from the Yanzhe City authorities. We’re here to investigate an alleged case of murder and aggravated assault."

"Are you the one called Lin?"

"I’m Lin."

"Would you come with us? We need your testimony at the authority’s office," the man said.

Lin Tian let out a short breath, then turned to An Yue and told her he might be home late for dinner.

An Yue’s eyes widened at the news. She immediately stepped toward the door, offering to come along and give her own statement.

But the two cultivators shook their heads, explaining that witness testimony wouldn’t be needed until the investigation into Lin Tian himself had run its course.

Reluctantly, Lin Tian went with them, leaving the quiet of the village behind as he climbed into a waiting carriage bound for Yanzhe City.

Two carriages set off together, the first carrying Lin Tian, the second trailing behind with the four blacksmith owners.

Inside the carriage, Lin Tian tried asking what kinds of questions he might expect once they arrived.

But his escorts refused to say much of anything, only repeating that the details of the investigation fell strictly under the authority’s investigative staff, a division they had no part of.

The carriages rolled on until the lights of Yanzhe City came into view. Both vehicles pulled up in front of the city authority’s office, a separate building from the town ruler’s residence.

The place was larger than expected, with carriages coming and going and staff bustling in and out even at that hour.

"I couldn’t help but notice you’re wearing sect robes. Are you all cultivators?" Lin Tian asked as they walked.

"That’s right," one of them answered. "Ever since the Qin Emperor’s new decree, official governance of the cities has fallen under sect jurisdiction. Most of the authority’s staff these days come from various sects."

Lin Tian nodded along, feigning fresh interest, even though he himself had sat in on the very council sessions with the Qin Emperor where that decree had first been drafted.

They led him inside, the four blacksmith owners trailing behind to serve as initial witnesses.

They arrived at a small investigation room. Lin Tian sat down across from a desk where a stern-faced woman waited, wearing sect robes that matched the others’. Her nameplate read Guan Wei.

"So what’s this about?" she asked flatly.

"Suspected murder and assault," one of the escorts explained.

"Tch." She clicked her tongue, clearly irritated. "Damn killers, don’t even bother investigating, just execute them on the spot."

"You can’t simply do that. A proper investigation still needs to happen if justice is going to mean anything," Lin Tian said.

"Oh, listen to this. A killer, lecturing me about justice. Let me ask you something. When you killed those people, did you even think twice about it?"

"I didn’t kill anyone," Lin Tian replied evenly. "I don’t even know exactly what I’m being accused of."

A thin, knowing smile crossed her face. She raised her hand, a bright point of light gathering at the tip of her finger. Lin Tian watched her closely, already understanding what technique she meant to use.

He closed his eyes for a moment and quietly sealed away the specific memories tied to the bandit confrontation, burying them beneath layers of concealment so her memory-tracing ability couldn’t dig them out.

Without warning, she pressed her glowing finger to his forehead. She closed her eyes, letting the technique run its course to check the truth of his words.

The four blacksmith owners standing nearby looked almost triumphant already. Everyone knew memory-tracing techniques like hers were essentially foolproof.

They were certain she’d uncover the memory of Lin Tian cutting down every last one of the bandits.

Before long, the woman let out a short breath and released the technique. Both she and Lin Tian opened their eyes at the same time.

"Are you kidding me? He hasn’t killed a single person!"

"W-What?" one of the four blacksmiths stammered.

"But that’s impossible. We saw him kill those men with our own eyes!"

"And who, exactly, are you referring to?" Guan Wei asked, her patience thinning.

"That’s..."

None of them could bring themselves to tell her the truth. A man who killed bandits acting on their own crimes would face no punishment under the law.

Admitting that would mean letting Lin Tian walk free without so much as a warning.

"That’s... someone else. Not him."

"We can’t say who. All we know is he killed people, cut off their hands, their heads," one of them insisted, though his voice had lost most of its earlier conviction.

Guan Wei let out another short breath and waved over one of the other staff members, telling them to release Lin Tian, since there was clearly no case against him. Lin Tian rose from his seat, offered a polite word of thanks, and made his way out of the office.

The moment he stepped outside into the cool night air, his eyes cut sharply to the side, landing on the four blacksmith owners who’d caused him all this trouble in the first place.

"You’ve made a very serious mistake," Lin Tian murmured, his voice low and even.

"Just you wait! Your death is coming, and soon!" one of them shouted back, though the tremor in his voice betrayed how little confidence he had left.