Yang Qing leaned back in his chair, already feeling the lingering fatigue of what was likely to be a tiresome case.

"What a mess.." he said.

"What a mess indeed..." Yu Gen said echoing his statement while Xia Ting was too absorbed in devouring the eight treasures soup to care about anything else.

"Which family do you want to start with?"

Yang Qing paused for a moment before he answered,

"Let's start with the Gui family, followed by the Zhang family, then the Cheng family, and finally the Mo family before finally finishing it off with the royal family and the Golden Bamboo Pavilion.All the concerned parties are close by?"

"Yes, they are all in one of the hidden realms used for palace court cases. They can all be summoned at a moment's notice via the teleportation rune link between your courtroom and the realm.."

"Good. We still have one hour left to go before we start, I'd like to use that time to go through the information again. If you and Senior Xia Ting have any other matters to attend to before the appointed time you can do so.." Yang Qing said as he placed his medallion on a specific spot on his desk, revealing a compartment surrounded by countless complex silver runes that looked to be isolating something.

With the medallion acting as the key, the runes, flashed and disappeared, revealing the contents beneath. It was talismans, talismans that contained what Yu Gen, Xia Ting, and the Yellow Plains County had dug up on the Red Maple Empire.

Earlier, after his encounter with the scion of the Golden Bamboo Pavillion, where he and the former emperor of the Red Maple Empire, along with the branch manager of the pavilion who were trying to capture Ellie, he had them investigated, along with the Red Maple Empire as a whole when he found out that a blood refining cultivator had close contact with one of the noble families. When the Wang couple came back, they admitted to having had run-ins with a few more blood-refining cultivators as they were wiping out the gangs within Purple Grass City.

Yang Qing had expected the investigation to be standard, just another day, digging up some forms of oppression and arrogance born out of those in power, but what he ended up digging up was a massive rotting corpse filled with all sorts of maggots slowly devouring it and since he was the one to trigger that excavation, he had no option but to be the one to clean the corpse and dispose of it properly.

"I'll be at the Celestial Soup Herb Garden. Yu Gen, tell me when it's time and Yang Qing, thank you for taking care of this big sister.." Xia Ting said as she flashed Yang Qing a grin while her mind wandered off again as she started muttering all sorts of delicious soups she was going to have during that one-hour timeframe.lightsnovel

"I told you, you shouldn't have told her about the card. I'll go with her to try and keep it reasonable.." Yu Gen said as he followed Xia Ting leaving Yang Qing alone whose eyes kept twitching as he stared at Xia Ting's departing figure.

lightsΝοvεl ƈοm "What did I do?" he muttered with worry.

Toward the end of his vacation, he met up with Yu Gen and Xia Ting to discuss the Red Maple Empire case. Before he took on the post as Branch Chief of the Deer Mountain Branch, he had already decided once he was back, the first case he would handle would be the Red Maple one.

When he was close to the end of his vacation, he met up with Yu Gen and Xia Ting so they could feel him in on the progress they had made, and as usual, the meeting was held in their favorite spot, the Celestial Soup Herb Garden.

Yang Qing out of politeness, and a little bit of smugness, offered to pay for their dishes, and in the process of paying, he casually revealed the purple amethyst card he was given by the restaurant, denoting him as one of their VIP members.

That reveal turned out to be a huge blunder on his part. Since knowing he was a purple amethyst cardholder, Xia Ting has been leeching off his privileges despite her being a cardholder herself.Yang Qing could only hope for Yu Gen to restrain her. She had only been using it for four days now, but he already owed the restaurant 600 middle-grade stones, and that was with them giving him a discount on their prices as a cardholder.

"Am I cursed? Why do I always end up with the worst parasites? First was that ungrateful weaver, then Ellie, and now Senior Xia Ting. Who's next? No, it can't go on like this!" Yang Qing worriedly said as his voice cracked with emotion at his growing burdens.

Yang Qing decided to distract himself from his crises by focusing on the case at hand which promised to be another handful itself. If there was one thing he was thankful for was, despite all that had been dug up, it would not be another Ice Emerald Sect saga, though it was damn near close.

Clearing his mind off distracting thoughts, Yang Qing poured a sliver of his spiritual essence into one of the talismans on his desk.

The talisman contained the general background of the Red Maple Empire as it touched on the important bits that would be relevant to his case.

The Empire has been around for close to 75,000 years which was pretty commendable for a country of its abilities. If it was ranked amongst its peers, the Red Maple Empire would be considered just below average at best, and those that were within that bracket were mostly young kingdoms, empires, and organizations.

Surviving for 75,000 years with the strength that they had in a place where the strong constantly preyed on the weak was a testament to the astuteness of their leaders and how well they directed the empire with each succession, their endurance, and their ability to adapt to circumstance and the best of all, luck which was usually the deciding factor in these things, where the strength you have just isn't enough to hold you through.