Warehouse Keeper Luo lived in a state of perpetual, quiet sweat. His quarters were on the lowest level of the administrative wing, small and smelling of dust and old ink. When Li Fan slipped inside, the man jerked up from his stool like a startled rabbit, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
"Advisor Li! I—I have no business with you, I—"
"You have all the business with me, Keeper Luo," Li Fan said, closing the door softly behind him. He didn't advance. He made himself small, non-threatening, just a man in a room. "I'm not here from the Elder. I'm here about the crystals. Lot Seven-Xiang."
Luo's face went the color of old parchment. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do." Li Fan's voice was calm, a flat surface over deep water. "You logged them in. You signed the transfer to 'Project Foundation Reinforcement.' Your initials are on a page I have right here." He didn't show it. The threat of its existence was sharper. "I'm not here to condemn you. I'm here to show you your two paths."
He took a single step forward. "Path one: You stay silent. The crisis deepens. When it all unravels—and it will—Elder Liu will need a culprit. Someone who handled the logs, who managed the vault access. A lowly warehouse keeper, perhaps bribed by foreign agents. You'll be executed for treason. Your family will be stripped of everything. Your name will be spat on for a thousand years."
Luo's breathing was a ragged sawing sound. A sheen of sweat glistened on his brow.
"Path two," Li Fan continued, his tone shifting, offering a lifeline. "You are not a traitor. You are a loyal servant of the dynasty who, under terrible duress and fearing for your family, had the foresight to keep a second set of records. When the righteous investigation uncovered the plot, you came forward with the full, secret ledger to expose the real traitor. You become the key witness. You receive the Empress's pardon for your coerced role. Your family is protected. Your name is cleared."
He was painting a masterpiece of fiction, but he painted it with the brutal colors of truth. Luo's fear of Liu was immense. But his fear of being the disposable sacrifice was even greater.
"She… she would pardon me?" Luo whispered, the hope in his voice so fragile it hurt to hear.
"I will stand before her and swear that without your courage, the plot would never have been uncovered," Li Fan said, with utter conviction. It wasn't a lie. It was a future he intended to make true. "Your cooperation is the key. But I need the ledger. The real one. Not a page."
The internal war in Luo's face was painful to witness. Fear, hope, shame, and a desperate desire to survive clashed. Finally, his shoulders slumped. "It's not here. He'd check here. It's… it's in the floor of the back room of my cousin's tavern. The 'Drunken Mountain,' outside the western postern gate. Under the third flagstone from the hearth. The ledger is wrapped in oilcloth."
Li Fan nodded, committing it to memory. "When the time comes, you will testify."
"He'll kill me," Luo breathed.
"He'll try to kill both of us," Li Fan corrected. "But he'll have to get through the Empress first. Hold fast, Keeper Luo. Your redemption is coming."
He left the man sitting in his own private terror, but now with a slender thread of hope to cling to. The witness was secured. The evidence was located. The legal and political case was now airtight. For the first time, Li Fan felt the momentum shift. He had the pieces. He just needed to present them before the throne.
The feeling of cautious triumph carried him down the dim, deserted corridor toward his own quarters. He was already planning the next move—how to retrieve the ledger, when to approach the Empress.
The ambush came not with a whisper, but with a lazy, drawling word.
"Lost, mortal?"
Young Master Zhao stepped out from an arched alcove, blocking the corridor ahead. Two hulking cultivators, disciples from his personal entourage, fanned out behind him, their expressions bored and cruel. There were no hidden arrows here. No subtle poisons. This was brute-force impatience.
Li Fan's mind, still humming with strategic plans, went cold and blank. He stopped walking.
"Just on my way back," he said, his voice steady.
"I think you've walked your last walk," Zhao said, cracking his knuckles with a series of sharp pops. The sound was obscenely loud in the silent hall. "The Elder is tired of your games. Your whispers. Your… cleverness." He took a step forward. "No poison. No accidents. Just you. A clumsy mortal, who tripped and fell down a long, long flight of stairs. Who will question it?"
The two thugs grinned, cracking their own necks. They began to advance, spreading out to cut off any retreat.
Li Fan backed up, his back meeting the cold stone wall. He had no System shield left. No Seal that could stop a fist. No political gambit that worked at knuckle-range. Captain Ma was miles away. Xiao Lan couldn't help him here.
He had his wit, his words, and a body that was still fever-weak and bruised from the cavern.
Zhao's smile was a predator's gash. "Nothing to say? No last-minute insights? Good."
He lunged, not with spiritual energy, but with the simple, terrifying speed and power of a Foundation Building cultivator. His fist, aimed at Li Fan's face, was a blur.
The chapter ends with the wind of the punch gusting against Li Fan's cheek.