Let Me Explain, Fairy
Chapter 899 - 562: Catching the Adulterer

Chapter 899: Chapter 562: Catching the Adulterer

The stars wheeled in their courses, and as night deepened, fine snow fluttered across the moonless dark sky.

With a soft click, the thick door of the inner courtyard of the Prime Minister’s Mansion quietly opened from the inside and snapped shut again instantly, the dim Inscription Lamps flickering as if short-circuited.

A layer of thin, gauze-like black substance engulfed Xu Yuan, rendering no shadow as he walked, ghostly as a Yin Ghost passing through.

This was a method of utilizing Xu Yuan’s Black Mist Spirit.

Spread out, the Black Mist Spirit could form a "Simple Dao Domain" to combat enemies; drawn close around him, it concealed his breath, his figure, even his presence.

A very useful technique, especially the latter.

In the future, when his cultivation was more profound, he might even be able to achieve effects seen in films from his previous life.

Xu Yuan walked slowly towards Xiangqin Pavilion, a look of weariness in his eyes.

That afternoon, no sooner had he and Ran Qingmo returned to the inner courtyard than Lou Ji had sent over the investigation files on the Qin Family.

But the files were brought in a horse-drawn cart.

Seeing the two full carts of various kinds of files made Xu Yuan’s scalp tingle, but he had to steel himself to review them for any useful information.

The review took up the better part of the day.

Ran Qingmo probably stopped her cultivation around the hour of Hai and told Xu Yuan that she was going to return to her guest residence to rest.

Does the Big Ice Lump need rest?

Not at all.

Even Xu Yuan himself no longer needed to sleep now, let alone Ran Qingmo, who was about to embark on the Integration Path—presumably, that old thing Ran Jianli had taught the Big Ice Lump some things she shouldn’t have known.

But today’s situation was special, and so Xu Yuan hadn’t insisted on keeping her.

After slipping out of the inner courtyard, since his home was really too big, Xu Yuan’s journey to Xiangqin Pavilion was akin to a joke from his previous life about needing to drive to the bathroom.

Moreover, since the Lake Heart Pavilion where Ran Qingmo stayed was exactly between the Prime Minister’s Mansion’s inner courtyard and Xiangqin Pavilion, taking a deliberately longer route meant Xu Yuan needed a full two quarters of an hour to reach there.

It couldn’t be helped; moving too quickly might expose his Energy Mechanism.

Tonight was a night of covert affairs; caution was the overriding priority.

However, Xu Yuan wasn’t too worried in his heart.

Because the Big Ice Lump was a good woman who wouldn’t randomly probe outside with Will-spirit or Origin Qi.

And even if she did probe, the soul mist around him could provide some obstructions.

What Xu Yuan was most concerned about was whether Lou Ji would try to interfere. After all, his methods for concealing his breath were completely ineffective against that older woman, who had been trying to disrupt his plans since daytime.

Honestly, Xu Yuan could understand why she was doing these things.

Because Lou Ji was an undisputed member of the Hawk Faction within the Prime Minister’s Mansion, the kind of Hawk Faction who aimed to add layers to his robe.

For this reason, she was also one of the main advocates for splitting up the upper echelons of the Earth Palace Remnants, unwilling to see them become a future problem.

But Xu Yuan didn’t want to follow the path she had laid out for him.

Even if the Earth Palace Remnants would become a problem, the prerequisite was to first win the upcoming war—if not, everything would be moot.

Through a series of events over the past few years, the Prime Minister’s Mansion had grown more powerful than any timeline within "Cangyuan."

With the main plot characters killed and Old Man Luo providing much information on resource-rich Secret Realms, both weakening the enemy’s power and enriching the Prime Minister’s Mansion’s war reserves.

The Shengshan County affair allowed the Prime Minister’s Mansion to extend its reach to Xize State through the Myriad Manifestation Sect.

And the full victory in the Barbarian Tribes’ War and the benefits it reaped need not be mentioned further; as long as they finished the war in the Northern Frontier and divided the productivity of the Sects in the Northern Three Provinces with the Imperial Family, the influence of the Prime Minister’s Mansion would expand further.

The Prime Minister’s Mansion was truly powerful, so much so that even the Imperial Family and the Sect Alliance had to momentarily stand clear, but a faint unease persisted in Xu Yuan’s heart.

As Xu Yuan understood more and more affairs, the memory of the Prime Minister’s Mansion’s mysterious collapse in the later stages of his previous life’s "Cangyuan" grew clearer.

In the complex timelines of "Cangyuan," the Prime Minister’s Mansion took at least seven years to battle from Di’an City to the Southern Borders, and at most over ten years, but in every case, the push back from the Southern Borders to Di’an happened in less than a year.

In strategizing over the world, Xu Yuan couldn’t match his father, but he could provide more chips for his father’s moves.

To the Prime Minister’s Mansion, the remnant Earth Palace folks were like a block of fine steel; segmenting them to supplement the edges of other blades could make them heavier, but forging this block of steel into a whole new blade would undoubtedly be more lethal.

Arriving smoothly at Xiangqin Pavilion, Xu Yuan paused briefly to discern the direction, and then quickly walked towards the courtyard where Xiao Bai resided.

There was no curfew in the Prime Minister’s Mansion, and though it was no longer considered late at night, most courtyards in Xiangqin Pavilion still had their lights on. Except for the few civil officers with exceptionally poor innate talent, the rest were basically Integration Body powerhouses capable of working in shifts around the clock.

As he approached Xiao Bai’s courtyard, Xu Yuan became increasingly tense.

It was not because of any notion like feeling timid near home, but because Lou Ji’s courtyard was only about a hundred paces from Bai Muxi’s.

Should he head over there, Lou Ji could undoubtedly hear him.

If she was in her courtyard, that is.

Thump thump...

Walking without leaving footprints in the snow, and just a hundred paces away from Xiao Bai’s courtyard, Xu Yuan unconsciously stopped, his heartbeat unintentionally speeding up a bit.

For afar, he could see the light of the Inscription Lamp in the old sister’s courtyard, its luminescence spreading far into the pitch-black and silent night.