After spending a week in Zaofu catching up on all kinds of information, spending time with the family to get to know them better than what he'd learned from the series (which wasn't much), and learning Guo's acupuncture technique after finding him (he had treated Lin when she fell ill), Jin decided to check the state of the Earth Kingdom capital for himself.
Ah — Opal's bending?
She could have awakened her airbending powers during those days, but doing so would have set off alarms, and her visit would have been far too conspicuous in the scheme of things. It was better to wait until after the Harmonic Convergence.
He'd have to be careful; he didn't know whether Varrick would still sabotage Asami under these circumstances. In fact, if Asami didn't sign with the eccentric one, would Bolin still be a movie star?
Headaches for future-Jin.
The result of his visit to the capital was…
"The situation inside Ba Sing Se is worse than Suyin said," he concluded with obvious displeasure.
The walls that separated social classes were thicker, while the poorer districts received only minimal maintenance for essential services. Hygiene and food were questionable, either in quality or quantity.
With a lack of pharmacology experts or herbalists, people were being scammed into buying dry grass as if it were medicine.
Not to mention severe overcrowding in cramped neighborhoods and communities; Bolin and Mako's local family were a prime example.
It wasn't surprising that when Hou-Ting died at Zaheer's hands, the capital plunged into absolute chaos. One could imagine the amount of resentment and fury people felt toward a monarch who so plainly disregarded their plight.
People like Mako and Bolin's grandmother, who still believed the Monarch was flawless, were nearly nonexistent.
That the Queen hadn't died sooner was entirely thanks to the Dai Li.
He'd examined the capital top to bottom; he even sneaked into the palace while calmly dodging the formidable Dai Li, who still had the habit of clinging to walls and columns like geckos.
Once they entered his perception, the royal ledgers held no secrets from Jin.
"Calling her a leech would be an insult to leeches… or to whatever weird hybrid that exists in this world," he thought to himself as he scanned a few pages at random. "What kind of absurd luxuries are these?"
She had an expense line for giant mattresses stuffed with tortoise-duck feathers, and demanded that the mattress used each night be destroyed and replaced with an entirely new one.
How many tortoise-ducks were plucked daily to sustain that waste?
For food, she demanded no fewer than fifty dishes from different culinary cultures, just to choose one or two according to her whim and throw the rest into the fire. The cost of some of those dishes could support a four-person family in the outer ring for two to three months — and that's without being frugal!
There was always Flying Bison meat on the menu!
That species was protected by the current Air Acolytes, because even though Jin had saved a significant herd back then, they were still considered endangered…
"Damn, I wouldn't be surprised if the rumors that she ate Bosco as soon as her father died were true," he couldn't help but think of the only pure animal he'd met aside from the lemurs.
On top of that, she forced her Grand Secretary to taste the food to ensure it wasn't poisoned.
Not a poison taster — the guy who currently held Long Feng's post!
"Even Long Feng would have finished her off if anyone demanded this," Jin shook his head. "I have to find Gun."
Gun was the current Grand Secretary of Ba Sing Se and a trusted adviser to Hou-Ting.
Well, more than trusted — Gun was terrified of the Queen.
Finding him wasn't hard; the difficult part was getting him away from Hou-Ting. For that, Jin produced a handful of parrot-cats he'd found on the streets and tossed them near the Queen, who immediately ordered them captured so she would stop sneezing from her allergy.
As soon as Gun slipped away for a few minutes without threats of death or abuse, Jin spirited him off to an empty room with earthbending so the nearby Dai Li wouldn't notice.
"Who are you?" Gun asked, frightened. "What do you want?"
"You don't really recognize me?" Jin tapped himself, not even trying a dramatic shadowed entrance — he was in plain sight. "Come on, I heard you were very capable."
"Blindness, the mark on the forehead, an earthbender…" Gun studied his kidnapper. "Wait — are you Jin Beifong?"
"That's me," Jin nodded, pleased to be recognized. "Now—"
Gun moved faster than he looked for his age and grabbed Jin by the shoulders with force, catching him completely off guard.
Was he a powerful martial artist, and had Jin let his guard down because of his age?
"Please, kill the madwoman and take the throne!" he begged, weeping torrents. "I'll help you with whatever you need, please!"
Jin: ???
Hey, hey — that's not how the script goes!
Wait, if he asked him to take the throne…
"You know?"
"Of course!" Gun seemed to realize his behavior was improper, stepped back two paces, and made a practiced bow after straightening himself. "After years with that woman, I investigated every possible successor so I would spend as little time as possible serving that living nightmare," his voice trembled with emotion. "But in the secret royal records, there are only two people who can legitimately take the throne, and the most likely one until now was Hou-Ting's great-nephew — but he's a pampered idiot!"
True enough, Wu was the very image of a spoiled noble through and through; only by nearly dying a few times had he shown some growth, proving he wasn't entirely hopeless.
"The other person is you!" Gun continued. "But I haven't had the chance to confirm the rumors of your return until recently, when you defeated Amon. Even then, I couldn't find an excuse to look for you and try to persuade you. The most I managed was to block the news from reaching the Queen."
"You didn't tell the Dai Li?"
"Their control over them isn't as absolute as you think," Gun replied confidently. "On some matters, they even come to me instead of the Queen to make decisions."
Yes, Jin had dealt with the Dai Li seventy years ago; he had a pretty good idea of how they operated and how they decided whom to follow.
"Since you've done the research, I won't beat around the bush," Jin had limited time before the Grand Counselor would have to reappear. "Say the Queen dies at some point. Does my claim to the throne still hold despite my circumstances? Would Wu be a problem? How long would coronation take if we did it as quickly as possible?"
Yes — unlike when he'd lived in Aang's era, Jin had decided to take the Earth Kingdom throne by leveraging the Beifongs' secret bloodline ties to the royal family, a secret his father had revealed long ago.
He wasn't going to make Kuvira's colossal mistake.
After reclaiming and proclaiming the Earth Empire as a rebirth milestone following two years of crushing rebellions, Kuvira failed because she wanted to "recover" Republic City. In other words, she lost the largest kingdom in the world over a tiny city that occupied only a few hundred square kilometers — an insignificant corner whose value paled in comparison.
"It's valid," Gun — trained to answer with as few words as possible while conveying maximum information — said. "By bloodline, Wu can't compete, and the coronation, if I can prepare in advance without arousing suspicion and with the right conditions, can be carried out in a single afternoon."
The Grand Counselor understood the approach Jin suggested.
Seize the throne first — a lightning strike before anyone understands what happened — then handle the consequences.
The biggest problem afterwards would be public recognition of the new King, but Jin had enough renown and, if Gun wasn't mistaken, connections with all the towns, even with the Fire Nation years ago.
Legitimacy, connections, power, skill, cunning, an open mind…
Jin Beifong embodied what Gun considered a true monarch!
"Don't prepare anything, act as if nothing happened and as if you saw nothing," Jin warned after thinking for a moment. "It's better not to risk that old woman suspecting anything."
Gun looked at Jin speechless.
Isn't she technically older than you?
"The day I move against the Queen, leave a crack in the southwest corner of your room in the morning," Jin instructed — knowing how cautious the Dai Li were, this was discrete enough. "After that, you must do the following…"