Infinite Professions from a Pearl Collector
Chapter 32 - 30: Assassination by Flying Saber

Chapter 32: Chapter 30: Assassination by Flying Saber

The person who arrived was, of course, Chen Ye.

He was, of course, aware that the barbarians on the grassland had attacked the border passes, their forces marching straight for the Capital City.

The reason he had come was to see how these powerful noble families would react.

Would they share the fate of the nation, or surrender before the battle even began?

The outcome was just as he had predicted. These noble families had no backbone. Even before the main army arrived, they were already contemplating surrender.

A cold smile flashed through Chen Ye’s mind at the thought.

With his current abilities, it wouldn’t be too difficult to sneak into the study and slaughter every member of the Lin Family in the room.

But Chen Ye had no intention of doing so.

Because there was no point.

Especially for a man like Lin Hong, death was by no means the most terrifying fate.

The most terrifying thing was to be forced to watch everything he had spent his life building—the family’s honor, its immense wealth, his descendants’ future—all vanish into thin air, crushed into dust.

Now *that* would be the most devastating form of revenge.

And the current situation presented the perfect opportunity.

In the Imperial Palace, the Emperor, Yang Zhao, was like a cornered beast.

His failure to capture the Stepping Moon Thief was already a great loss of face. Now, with the Barbarian Race at the city walls and the regional armies refusing to act, he was growing increasingly restless.

The Emperor desperately needed a victory—even an internal one—to restore his crumbling authority and intimidate his duplicitous officials.

Therefore, if he just handed over proof that the Lin Family was colluding with the enemy, Yang Zhao would, like a shark that smells blood, pounce without a moment’s hesitation and tear the Lin Family to shreds!

Of course, the noble families in the Capital City were all interconnected, their roots deep and tangled. Normally, even if Yang Zhao wanted to make a move against the Lin Family, the other families would likely intervene, and the matter would ultimately be reduced to a minor issue.

But Chen Ye knew that this so-called solidarity only existed when there were no fundamental conflicts of interest.

In reality, these same noble families were rife with internal strife and scheming.

Furthermore, if the Lin Family were to fall, its vast assets and vacated positions of power would become a massive prize for the taking.

When that time came, their so-called allies would be even more eager than the Emperor to pounce on the remains and carve them up.

The only difficult part of the entire plan was figuring out how to deliver the evidence to the Emperor in a plausible manner.

’I need to find someone with enough status and influence to act as the tip of the spear. Most importantly, this person must harbor a deep-seated hatred for the Lin Family.’

’I’ll hand them the knife, and they’ll do the stabbing.’

’But who in the Capital City could possibly have such a major feud with the Lin Family?’

A figure immediately surfaced in Chen Ye’s mind.

Just as he was lost in thought, Lin Hong’s voice rang out again. "Here is a letter. De, I’m entrusting this matter to you. Take it, leave the Capital City at once, and head for the front lines. Deliver this letter to Yelv Khan of the Grassland."

"Yes, Patriarch!" a steady male voice replied from inside the room.

"Don’t worry. I established contact with Yelv Khan’s younger brother through our trade routes two years ago. They won’t give you any trouble once they see you’re from the Lin Family."

At these words, a chill ran not only through the Lin Family members in the study, but through Chen Ye on the roof as well.

’What a man, this Lin Hong. Such deep cunning!’

’To think he began laying the groundwork two years ago, securing an escape route for himself.’

’With noble families like this gnawing away at the foundations of the state from within the imperial court, how could the Great Zhao Dynasty possibly survive?’

’But none of that mattered to Chen Ye. If a dynasty like Great Zhao was to fall, then let it fall. It wasn’t worth a second thought.’

What interested him was the letter Lin Hong had given to his subordinate, De.

Chen Ye remained on the roof ridge, waiting. A moment later, a burly, powerfully built man strode out of the house and hurried off.

Chen Ye moved, silently trailing behind him.

De rode straight for the city gates. It was the dead of night, and due to the Emperor’s earlier decree imposing a curfew, the gates had long been shut.

But the Lin Family had been operating in the Capital City for a century, and their influence permeated every corner of it.

De didn’t head for the main gate. Instead, he made his way to a more secluded section of the city wall, where a city guard officer was already waiting.

After a brief exchange, the officer waved his hand. Several of his Personal Guards immediately stepped forward, quietly opened a small section of the gate, and let De out.

Once outside the city, De spurred his horse, and the fine steed galloped off, its hooves a blur as it raced toward the northern wilderness.

Shortly after the man left the city, Chen Ye leaped down from the wall and followed close behind.

Even without a horse, Chen Ye was not slow in the slightest.

He moved like a wisp of smoke skimming the ground, using the tall grass and the darkness as cover, rapidly closing the distance to the horse and rider ahead.

As the distance shrank, Chen Ye suddenly flicked his wrist. A Small Knife shot from his hand, becoming a silver streak that vanished into the night.

A dull thud echoed.

The galloping De ahead went rigid, the tip of a blade suddenly protruding from his throat.

He pitched forward off his horse, twitched a few times, and then fell still.

Having lost its rider, the horse ran on for several dozen more meters before slowing to a stop. It turned its head, looking back in confusion at its fallen master.

Just then, Chen Ye’s figure emerged slowly from the darkness.

He walked over to De’s body and saw that his head had been crushed in the fall. He was as dead as could be.

Chen Ye bent down and quickly retrieved a wax-sealed message tube from inside the man’s robes. After confirming it was what he sought, he turned and headed back toward the Capital City.

Although the city gates were heavily guarded, they posed no challenge for the likes of Chen Ye. Once he had slipped easily back into the city, he made a beeline for Assistant Minister Lu’s Mansion in the North City.

Meanwhile, in Assistant Minister Lu’s Mansion, the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, Lu Ying, was sitting listlessly in his study.

His son, Lu Jingcheng, had also set aside his books for the day and sat beside him with a gloomy expression.

After a long silence, Lu Jingcheng couldn’t hold back any longer. "Father, the state of the nation is in such decline. The Grassland Wolf Riders will be here any day. If the Capital City falls, it will be an absolute catastrophe."

Lu Ying sighed. "Of course I know. Once the city is breached, the common people will face untold suffering, becoming slaves under the blades of a foreign race."

"Have none of the high officials at court thought of a way to deal with this?" Lu Jingcheng pressed.

"A way?" Lu Ying laughed bitterly. "Today in court, His Majesty asked the noble families to donate some silver for military expenses. And the result? Not a single one of the civil and military officials in the entire hall said a word."

"In the end, His Majesty had to force them. Only then did Duke Ying and a few others reluctantly fork over one thousand taels of silver each."

"Hah, one thousand taels! You must understand, a single meal for those men can cost more than that!"

Lu Jingcheng fell silent.

He harbored grand ambitions of setting the world right, but the more he confronted the utter corruption of the Great Zhao’s court, the more he felt a bone-deep sense of powerlessness.

As father and son sat in silence, a cold gleam suddenly shot through the window. With a sharp THWACK, it embedded itself deep in one of the study’s support pillars!

The sudden intrusion startled them both, and they leaped to their feet.

When they focused their eyes on it, they saw it was a Flying Saber. The blade was still vibrating, and tied beneath the hilt was a letter!