392: Chapter 361: Scales 392: Chapter 361: Scales These are all my words.
Gray Rain widened his eyes, only to see the newly appeared man in black flipping left and right, taking so invaluable gold and silver jewels from the shelves, and packing them into a small cloth bag prepared in advance.
Wait a minute, sothing’s not right.
Generally, when a thief enters such a treasury, they would take anything they can get, eager to fill a sack, and cover themselves in rings and tools.
But this man in black only took a small cloth bag, and he looked calm and composed, only selecting high-value targets without even glancing at slightly cheaper treasures.
It seems he’s not here for theft but rather searching for sothing, using the act of stealing as a cover.
In the dark, Gray Rain looked suspiciously at Li Cheng, who mouthed silently, “Sikong Lan of the Jinyi Guard.”
Historically, the Jinyi Guard’s duties included but were not limited to guarding the emperor, monitoring literature and military, managing the imperial prison, delivering docunts, and supervising exams, functioning similar to a public security judicial agency.
As the Ming Dynasty’s system beca rigid, corruption within the Jinyi Guard escalated, with severe overstaffing and degeneration, inevitably declining until it perished with the Ming Dynasty.
A laughable fact is that the terrifying image of the Jinyi Guard with “imperial power, god-slaying privileges” in later artistic works is largely due to Chang Kaishen.
During the Republic, progressives angered by Chang Kaishen’s repressive rule, unable to openly criticize, would use critiques of Zhu Yuanzhang, who founded the Jinyi Guard, as an indirect attack on the various secret agencies of the Republic.
Zhu Yuanzhang was a monk and bald, just as Chang Kaishen was bald.
Both established their capitals in Nanjing, both led northern expeditions, and both purged their ritorious officials.
Thus, criticizing Zhu Yuanzhang was akin to criticizing Chang Kaishen.
In this modified martial arts universe, Emperor Yong’an ascended the throne as a teenager and imdiately seized control of the Jinyi Guard, cancelling the policy that allowed high-ranking literary and military officials to inherit their Jinyi Guard status, halting the trend of martial artists transforming into scholars.
At the sa ti, he extensively recruited the children of fallen soldiers into the Jinyi Guard, providing them with the best environnt to learn martial arts and reading, training with the martial arts secret books treasured in the inner palace.
This new batch of Jinyi Guards was absolutely loyal to the imperial power.
Emperor Yong’an stripped many unnecessary functions from the original Jinyi Guard, dedicating them to patrolling the empire, monitoring tax collections, and applying severe mory restoration techniques on any official or gentry daring to evade taxes.
With these loyal hounds, the emperor finally managed to secure sufficient tax revenue to implent infrastructure developnt, tax reform, mariti exploration, and colonization.
It’s in a subtle sense reminiscent of how the United States Secret Service was originally created to investigate counterfeit currency.
Sikong Lan, one of the nine Jinyi Guards on the island for this mission, at under twenty years old, is already a peak postnatal martial artist.
His mastered “Snow Stepping Cloud Picking Steps” is top-tier Qinggong, allowing him to move like a ghost among the shelves.
Failing to find the target after searching for a while, Sikong Lan scratched his head and cautiously took out a bamboo tube from his chest.
Opening the bamboo tube, he poured out a small, cute long-nosed mouse.
The Information Integration Glasses remotely identified the mouse as a [Treasure Sniffing Shrew], an indigenous species in this world, with a keen sense of sll, able to detect the scent of treasures from afar.
Holding the shrew high above his head, it sniffed the air and turned towards the northeast corner of the warehouse.
“What’s he looking for?” Gray Rain asked Li Cheng curiously.
“One piece, probably,” Li Cheng replied.
Sikong Lan moved silently toward the northeast of the warehouse, lifted a piece of luxurious Shu brocade used for concealnt, and found an iron box within the pile of brocade.
The iron box was heavy and sturdy, with a precise and complex large lock on the outside.
This didn’t surprise Sikong Lan.
He flexed his ten fingers, took out two bent thin iron wires, and inserted them into the lock, focusing on picking it.
In the dark, Li Cheng squinted his eyes and silently glanced at the drone remote control.
Strange, if Sikong Lan was stealing from the Tu Family treasury under the order of the Jinyi Guard, there should be fellow guards keeping watch nearby that the high-altitude drone could detect.
If he acted without orders, simply on his own, who instructed him to pick the lock on that box?
The other treasures in the treasury would be enough for an ordinary person’s lifeti wealth freedom.
While pondering, a new heat signal suddenly appeared on the remote control screen.
A third man in black, wearing night gear, was approaching the warehouse stealthily along the rooftop.
He clearly wasn’t allied with Sikong Lan, seeing the removed tiles and cut wood panels on the roof, he appeared shocked and instinctively drew a short sword.
Good grief, so many thieves tonight, is this a round of Fight the Landlord?
Gray Rain and Li Cheng almost couldn’t hold back their laughter while hiding in the shadows.
Sikong Lan remained fully absorbed in picking the lock, using a martial artist’s superb muscle control to ticulously feel the feedback from the iron wires.
Finally, with a click, the lock opened.
Sikong Lan took a deep breath and opened the box, unveiling a…
flat stone slab?
Li Cheng raised his eyebrows.
The slab was fan-shaped and as wide as an arm, crimson like blood, reflecting dazzling multicolored lights under the dim moonlight.
Upon closer inspection, clear growth rings like those found on trees could be seen covering the surface of the slab.
It wasn’t stone, but rather the scale of so super-giant creature…
Sikong Lan held the scale up high, a piece this large definitely couldn’t fit in the bag.
Skillfully, he took out a rope and began to tie the scale to his back.
However, the change in the dim moonlight shining through the skylight alerted him early.
Sikong Lan suddenly looked up, directly eting the eyes of the third man in black.
The latter neither left nor called for the Tu Family guards, instead directly jumped into the warehouse through the open skylight, lightly gripping the beam with one hand to remove the force and landing softly and silently.
Sikong Lan didn’t recognize the man in front of him.
Seeing the other not calling for help, he silently put down the small cloth bag filled with jewels and pushed it over with his foot.
The implication was obvious: the warehouse was full of treasures.
Both were here to steal, no need to tear each other apart with malicious competition.
Unexpectedly, the third man in black, or rather Zhang Fulu of Dragon Tiger Mountain, was completely unmoved, staring intensely at the scale on Sikong Lan’s back.
From Li Cheng’s perspective, the Information Integration Glasses·Revised with scanning skill activated could only read one piece of information from the scale.
[Divine Shedding]
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