Chương 184: Chapter 185: The Secret Police

The beaten man knelt on the floor of the audience hall, one eye swollen shut, and straightened his spine as far as his ribs allowed.

"This one is Envoy Sparrow of the Embroidered Uniform Guards. Imperial Secret Police." His voice came out thin. He stopped, breathed, and continued.

"Field agent of Lord Deng Huaixuan. Voice of the Emperor's justice in the Savage Mountains." He had delivered that introduction hundreds of times, in tribunals and teahouses and the private chambers of trembling sect masters. He had never before delivered it while bleeding from the mouth. Grayscroll did not move. The Embroidered Uniform Guards. They were the Imperial secret police.

The organization that answered only to the Dragon Throne, and had erased entire bloodlines for offenses smaller than the one currently dripping onto his floor. The organization he bribed, every month, through Lord Deng Huaixuan, to keep the Emperor's eyes away from the fog. And he had just beaten Lord Deng's envoy. The two Gold Core disciples flanking the prisoner went white. They kowtowed without anyone ordering them to. T hey dropped to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the floor, arms flat, palms down.

The impact cracked the floor's polish. Neither of them rose. Grayscroll was out of his chair before the second impact, down the dais steps, pulling bandages and spiritual medicines from his storage ring as he crossed the hall. He knelt beside Envoy Sparrow and pressed a healing talisman to the man's face with his own hands.

"This lord offers his most sincere apologies." His voice was steady. His hands were not.

"An impersonator has been operating in Stonehaven. Wielding secret police credentials, extracting funds in the name of the Embroidered Uniform Guards. When this lord's subordinates reported a masked, elderly official demanding an audience..."

"You assumed." Sparrow pushed himself upright, ignoring both the pain.

"And your assumption led to violence against an agent of the Dragon Throne." He retrieved his identity token from the floor and held it up, letting Grayscroll see every formation line.

"Do you see this? This is the seal of the Emperor's eyes and ears. When this one presented this token, a civilized cultivator would have bowed. You ordered your disciples to 'beat him thoroughly.'" Behind them, the two Gold Cores had not moved. They would hold that kowtow for the remainder of the week.

"Now that you have seen the genuine article," Sparrow said, "surely even you can recognize how foolish you were to be deceived by a forgery. What did this impersonator present? Some crude imitation scratched onto jade?" Grayscroll was quiet.

"Lord Grayscroll?"

"Envoy." Grayscroll chose his words carefully.

"The impersonator's token was not a forgery. This lord examined it personally. It was identical to Lord Deng Huaixuan's." Sparrow stared at him.

"A fraud," he said slowly.

"Has been running loose in the Savage Mountains. Swindling every sect that opens its gates. Carrying a genuine token of the Embroidered Uniform Guards. For months." Envoy Sparrow slammed both hands on the floor.

"Does Lord Grayscroll take this one for a fool?" Grayscroll said nothing. Something in that silence made Sparrow stop. He had expected denial. Excuses. The silence meant the sect had no explanation either. What kind of criminal could make a mockery of the Dragon Throne and live to try again? He buried the thought.

"Enough." Sparrow put his token away with a snap of his sleeve, and with it, apparently, the entire preceding conversation.

"This one did not travel from Fog City to discuss forgeries. Petitions have reached the Imperial Court. Families of disciples who entered your inner selection and did not emerge. Grieving mothers. Vengeful fathers."

"This lord designed the selection within the law," Grayscroll said.

"Disciples sign away their rights upon entry. The Silent Peak seals one hundred candidates on a mountain and admits the sole survivor, and imperial examiners audit that process every cycle and praise it for its fairness." He had a memorandum on the subject, cross-referenced, in the third drawer of his desk.

"Orthodox practice can be audited," Sparrow said.

"Yours cannot. Your fog conceals everything. The selection grounds. The methodology. No one outside your council knows what happens inside." The profundity that made the entire soil farming operation possible was also what made it indefensible, and he could not open the fog to auditors without exposing everything. The envoy went on.

"Lord Deng has been understanding. Tribute buys understanding. But the petitions are mounting, and certain court factions are asking questions that tribute alone cannot silence." He set a jade slip on the desk.

"The tribute must triple." Grayscroll's chest went cold. Triple. The current tribute already strained the operation. Every cupful of T4 soil sent to Lord Deng was a cupful they could not sell. Every spirit stone spent on the Court's silence was a spirit stone that could not recruit outer disciples. And recruitment was already failing. Every cultivator eating Leo Chen's wheat was a cultivator who did not need to gamble on inner disciple selection.

"The demand is considerable," he said.

"This lord will require time to arrange..."

"Lord Deng is not a patient man." Sparrow folded his arms.

"The next selection is in what, six weeks? Triple the extraction volume. Fill the quotas."

"Recruitment has become difficult. Alternative employment has emerged..."

"The Guano Gang." Sparrow waved a hand.

"Lord Deng is aware. Surely the supreme power of Stonehaven, the unified might of thirty-seven sects, can handle a Foundation Establishment gang." Grayscroll's jaw tightened. He was a Nascent Soul Lord with three hundred years of cultivation, and he spent his days navigating the moods of Foundation Establishment juniors.

"The gang's members are protected by the beast clans. Direct action would provoke retaliation."

"Then indirect action." Sparrow shrugged.

"Kidnap their laborers. Feed them into the fog. The matter resolves itself." Grayscroll's hands went still on the desk.

"No."

"No?" Because there was a difference. Disciples weighed the risk and chose the fog of their own free will. Remove that, and the operation stopped being a harsh selection and became something with a different name. A name the Court had exterminated sects over, a name he had spent his entire life keeping out of the same sentence as his own.

"Kidnapped cultivators do not cooperate," he said.

"The extraction requires willing participants. Diggers who believe they are earning advancement. A kidnapped victim does not excavate soil in the window before death. They fight. They flee. They waste resources." Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Sparrow's expression flickered.

"More importantly." Grayscroll leaned forward.

"Kidnapping transforms this operation from rigorous selection into demonic practice. The Court tolerates harsh trials. It does not tolerate demonic sects.

"That is Lord Grayscroll's problem to solve. Lord Deng wants soil." The envoy stood.

"If Lord Grayscroll cannot deliver, perhaps Lord Grayscroll should enter the fog himself and demonstrate the proper technique." The threat hung in the air.

"However." Sparrow's tone shifted.

"Lord Deng is not unreasonable. He understands that circumstances in the Savage Mountains have grown... complicated." He paused at the door.

"Lord Deng is prepared to assist." Grayscroll waited.

"A conflict will be engineered. Between certain human factions and the beast territories to the north. Spirit stones will be stolen. Breeding grounds will be violated. The beasts will retaliate." Grayscroll's blood chilled. The beasts would retaliate. They would empty their territories. Every clan, every bloodline, every fang old enough to fly or crawl, would pour out of the mountains in a single mass, drowning everything in their path. Cultivators had a name for it. A beast tide.

"Cities will burn. Sects will fall. And the survivors will flood toward Stonehaven, seeking the protection of the strongest power in the region." Sparrow glanced over his shoulder.

"The Heavenstone Sect will weather the storm. Others will not. Recruitment will cease to be a problem."

"You are proposing..." Grayscroll stood from his chair.

"A beast tide. You are proposing to engineer a beast tide."

"Lord Deng is proposing a solution. The details are not this one's concern." He stepped through the door. A moment later he stepped back into the doorway, smiling.

"Before this one departs. The impersonator. The fraud with the Secret Police token. This one would like to speak with him." Grayscroll blinked.

"The impersonator operates from the beast territories. He is... difficult to locate."

"Then locate him." Sparrow's voice hardened.

"A man disgracing the Embroidered Uniform Guards walks free in this Lord's jurisdiction. That is unacceptable. Arrange a meeting. Send a message. Do whatever it takes." He produced a message talisman and tossed it onto the desk.

"Contact this one when you determine the fraud's location. This one will handle the rest."

The message talisman came down on Human Hut Mountain around midmorning and hovered over the long table where Mike was shelling peanuts and Arthur was cleaning his toenails. Mike checked the talisman first. He read it. He read it again.

"There's an Embroidered Uniform Guard flying up the east valley." Mike's voice climbed.

"A real one. He's been flashing an identity token at every checkpoint and demanding to speak with you." Arthur sat up.

"Well, it's about time," he said.

"That's my second secret police identity token. Been wondering when they'd deliver it."

"Deliver it? Arthur, nobody is delivering anything. That is a federal agent coming to arrest you."

"Kid, in my day, when a man drove your merchandise right up to your front door, you didn't ask a lot of questions about his job title." Arthur stood and stretched until something in his back popped.

"You signed for the package."

"No." Mike stood up so fast the peanuts scattered.

"No, Arthur. Absolutely not. Leo told us, he specifically told us, no trouble this week. He has a game Saturday. The Commanders, Arthur. We are keeping a low profile."

"He's demanding to see me. By name." Arthur pulled the La Ferrari Eclipse out of his dantian and stepped aboard.

"Now that's customer service. You don't get that anymore. Everything's press one for this, press two for that. This fella flew out here personally. With my token. I respect that."

"It's HIS token!"

"It's in transit," Arthur said.

"Possession's nine tenths, kid. The last tenth is what I'm flying out to settle."

"That's a REAL secret policeman!"

"So am I. Got the title from Lord Hollowfang, fair and square."

"Fair and square? Arthur, what does fair and square mean in that sentence?"

"Means there were two of us and I squared it." He took off.

"ARTHUR." Mike scrambled for his own sword. He hung in the air, watching the Eclipse shrink toward the east valley, and ran through his options. Chase him and arrive too late to matter. Message Leo mid-practice and ruin his week over something no one could stop now. He descended, sat back down at the table, and swept the peanuts into a pile.

"I was inside," Mike said to the mountain air, rehearsing.

"I didn't see anything. I was inside the whole time."

Envoy Sparrow had delivered his introduction hundreds of times. He had delivered it while bleeding from the mouth on Grayscroll's floor, and even then, even kneeling, it had landed. The Gold Cores had thrown themselves into a kowtow and held it, faces to the stone, too frightened to rise. That was the power of the Embroidered Uniform Guards. Today's delivery would be his finest. He would strip the fraud of the token, beat him thoroughly, and drag him back to Fog City in chains. Lord Deng would be pleased.

He would restore the Guards' honor. He checked his robes. Adjusted his posture. Ran the introduction once more under his breath, marking the pause before "voice of the Emperor's justice." A sword came from the west. Sparrow squinted. The flying sword was high-end. Very high-end. The sword touched down. The man who stepped off it was elderly. Shrewd-looking, exactly as described. Sparrow sneered.

"You have my token on you?" Arthur scratched his ear.

"Careful with it, that's an heirloom. Been in the family since this morning." Not the opening Sparrow had prepared for, but no matter. This was the moment.

"This one is Envoy Sparrow of the Embroidered Uniform Guards, Imperial Secret Police, field agent of Lord Deng Huai..." The first strike took Sparrow across the ribs. The second knocked him onto his knees again. The third hit him somewhere in the back of the head, and after that, he lost count. He was on the ground. His face hurt. His storage ring was gone. Arthur stood over him, going through the ring's contents.

"Token, token, where'd they pack my... there it is." He held it up to the light and turned it over.

"Yeah, that's mine. Good craftsmanship. Not as nice as my first one, but you never love the second the same way." He tucked it into his own storage ring, then paused and looked down at Sparrow. He patted Sparrow's cheek. The touch sent fresh waves of pain through the envoy's skull.

"Safe travels."

Grayscroll stood on the Stone Viewing Pavilion, alone, watching the lights of Stonehaven flicker in the dark below. He came here when his conscience required attention. He looked at the jade slip Sparrow had left. Triple the tribute. Two years ago, there had been no tribute. There had been no Heavenstone Sect. There had only been thirty-seven sects clustered around a profundity no one could enter, debating two terrible choices. Sell their disciples to the central provinces as mercenaries.

Or disband, and watch elders who had cultivated for centuries wither and die of old age. The sects of Stonehaven had chosen neither. They had noticed Leo Chen's operation. If a handful of Foundation Establishment juniors could profit from the profundity, surely thirty-seven sects could do the same. It had taken months to figure out the rules. Many had died. But eventually they built a system. The internal disciple selection. Grayscroll had approved it. For the greater good. He looked at Stonehaven again.

The lights were brighter now than they had been a year ago. The walls stood taller. The markets stayed open later. Hundreds of thousands of cultivators slept safely behind those walls. All of it built on the backs of disciples who had walked into the fog. It was for them, Grayscroll told himself. It had always been for them. He squeezed the jade slip until his knuckles went white. Lord Deng demanded the tribute triple, because the soil's value had collapsed. This was all Leo Chen's fault.

If the boy had never spread word of the contamination, buyers would still buy, the tribute would remain affordable, and the next selection could stay small. Every additional body the fog required was a body Leo Chen had made necessary. Grayscroll told himself that. It got easier every time. Now he had a plan to convince everyone else too. He would issue the order tomorrow. When the beast tide came, every elder and inner disciple would fight on the walls themselves, defending the refugees within.

The Guano Gang would see. The civilians would see. Everyone who whispered about the sect's secrets would watch the Heavenstone Sect's chosen hold the line, and they would understand. The inner disciple selection had a purpose. When the heavens collapse, it is the giants who hold them up. The Heavenstone Sect would save Stonehaven from the beast tide. Grayscroll nodded to himself, and some of the weight lifted from his shoulders. He turned to walk back to his study. Then he stopped. Something was wrong with the air.

He inhaled, and his nose wrinkled. A smell had reached the pavilion. Sharp. Acrid. An earthy funk that made his eyes water. He had never encountered anything like it. Below, in the city, voices rose. Shouts. The sound carried up the valley walls, and he caught one word, repeated over and over, in tones of fury and disgust. Guano. Grayscroll did not know what guano was. He knew only that it had something to do with Leo Chen's operation, and that the processing was rumored to be extraordinarily unpleasant.

But why would there be guano in Stonehaven?