AUBTN -Chapter 75 Securing the Evidence

Jiang Ruyi stared at Jiang Huai, her eyes filled with hatred.

She unfastened the small, dark, inconspicuous pendant at her waist.

It was a half-moon-shaped piece of black jade.

Although it was covered in scratches, and dirt clung stubbornly to it…

In that instant, Jiang Huai felt as if struck by lightning, his whole body collapsing weakly to the ground.

The Yin Key!

It really was the Yin Key!

He had been searching for it for ten whole years! Scouring every inch of the Shen Mansion!

And yet, it had been in this little girl’s hands all along!

“Impossible… impossible…”

Jiang Huai’s face went ashen, his lips trembling. “How… how did it end up with you…?”

Jiang Ruyi raised the jade pendant and suddenly laughed, tears streaming from her eyes as she did so.

“Uncle, do you remember?”

“When I was five, you left me to starve in the West Courtyard. I was digging for worms under a tree to eat when I found this.”

“I thought it was pretty, so I kept it.”

“All these years, every time you beat me, scolded me, I protected it with my life, because it was the only thing in this house that truly belonged to me.”

“Who would have thought…”

Jiang Ruyi spun sharply toward Shen Jue and Lu Yan, raising the jade pendant high, shouting hoarsely until her voice broke:

“Sir! This is the key!”

“I am reporting Jiang Huai! He has secretly colluded with enemies, forged weapons illegally, and plotted against the loyal and righteous!”

“The very ground beneath the Jiang Mansion is full of his crimes!”

A thunderclap split the sky.

The main hall fell into dead silence.

Su Hewan stood to the side, watching this unfold, a mixture of emotions swirling in her heart.

【Jiang Huai schemed with every trick, yet in the end, he was defeated by the hands of the one he looked down on the most—the ant he casually trampled.】

【Is this the irony of history?】

Shen Jue took the Yin Key from Jiang Ruyi’s hand, and from the ashen-faced Jiang Huai, he also retrieved the Yang Key.

The two keys united in his palm.

Seamlessly.

A complete Yin-Yang fish, emanating a faint, cold light.

Shen Jue turned to Lu Yan, a teasing curve forming at the corner of his mouth.

“Lu Yan, what are you waiting for?”

“The dirty work that’s left… is for your Jinyiwei to handle.”

Lu Yan cast a long, meaningful glance at Shen Jue, then shouted:

“Jinyiwei, attention!”

“Enter the secret chamber! Search for evidence!”

“Jiang Huai and his followers—arrest them all! Any resistance is to be met with deadly force!”

“Yes, sir!”

The deafening response echoed throughout the Jiang Mansion.

Yu Qing watched Jiang Huai pressed to the ground by the Jinyiwei, then glanced at Shen Jue and Lu Yan standing in the hall—opposed, yet oddly harmonious.

She couldn’t help but pat her chest.

【Phew… so this is how the big players coordinate?】

【One controls the scene, one delivers the output, and the other… uh, leads the way?】

The stone door to the secret chamber was opened!

The glow from the firecracker torches banished the darkness, illuminating piles of ledgers stacked to the ceiling.

Lu Yan strode forward and casually pulled out a book.

The cover bore no markings: “This is the general ledger.”

His voice low, he quickly ran his fingers over the yellowed pages.

As the pages turned, his brows furrowed tighter and tighter.

“How could this be…”

“What is it?” Yu Qing leaned over, and after just a glance, she inhaled sharply.

“Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands… how many zeros are there after this? Has Jiang Huai emptied the entire national treasury?”

This wasn’t just salt tax—it was the very lifeblood of the people!

【Oh my goodness! This sum could probably buy me ten siheyuan compounds in modern Beijing!】

【Poverty really limits my imagination… so this is what ancient corrupt officials’ joy looks like?】

But Su Hewan had no mood to joke. She leaned close to Shen Jue, her gaze sharp as it scanned the “flow” column of the account book.

“This isn’t right.”

Su Hewan pointed out calmly.

“Although Jiang Huai minted weapons privately, the accounts don’t match. Look here—only thirty percent of the silver flowed to Prince Ning’s fief, used to buy iron and recruit soldiers.”

“And the remaining seventy percent?” Lu Yan suddenly looked up.

Su Hewan extended her finger and pressed heavily on the bright red seal at the very end of the ledger.

Two vermilion characters stood out clearly—Changsheng (Longevity).

“Seventy percent of the massive funds were laundered through underground banks, continuously funneled into a capital account codenamed ‘Changsheng,’” Su Hewan’s mind raced.

“This isn’t a person’s name—it’s a vast organization, or rather… a codename.”

【Changsheng? Doesn’t that name have a weird cultish vibe?】

【Wait… Changsheng… the late emperor… elixirs?】

Su Hewan suddenly turned to Shen Jue. She remembered this might have something to do with the Shen family!

Sure enough.

Shen Jue’s eyes were fixed on the two characters.

“Changsheng…”

He murmured the words between clenched teeth.

“So that’s how it is… so that’s how it is!”

Suddenly, he let out a low, sinister laugh.

“Our family investigated for ten whole years, thinking all that silver had been swallowed by that old scoundrel Prince Ning… but the real treasure was fed to ghosts!”

Su Hewan’s heart skipped a beat, and she instinctively gripped Shen Jue’s icy wrist.

“Chief Overseer… what are you thinking?”

Shen Jue didn’t pull away. He just stared emptily into the void.

“In his later years, the late emperor was obsessed with alchemy, trying to ascend and achieve immortality, chasing the illusory art of eternal life.”

Shen Jue’s voice was flat, as if recounting someone else’s story.

“At that time, my father served as Minister of Revenue. He discovered a huge deficit in the treasury, vast in sum and with an unclear destination. He reported it overnight, but that very night, the entire Shen household suffered catastrophe.”

“They thought Prince Ning had meddled, but now it seems what my father uncovered wasn’t corruption—it was touching the emperor’s wrath. This money was meant to fund the Changsheng project!”

Everyone recalled what Prince Ning said before his death—the Shen family’s demise was merely a knife; a knife’s killing depends on its owner.

Now it seemed the late emperor had simply pinned the Shen family’s destruction on Prince Ning!

Letting Prince Ning take the fall!

Lu Yan clenched the handle of his embroidered spring knife until it creaked.

“To seek immortality, one would drain the blood of the entire populace? Even framing the loyal and exterminating a family?”

“Is this… royal dignity?”

Yu Qing shrank back, hugging her arms tightly.

【Good grief, this plot took a dark turn, huh?】

【All for a few heavy-metal-laden pills, killing so many people? The late emperor was ruthless.】

“Heh.” Shen Jue let out a cold, mocking laugh.

“What dignity do the dead need?”

But the late emperor was dead, the Shen family would never revive, and everything had changed beyond repair.

He slammed the ledger shut, his knuckles white from force.

“Take the items away!”

Deep in the night, under the corridors of the Jiang Mansion’s side wing,

Shen Jue stood with his hands behind his back, his flying-fish robe glinting coldly under the moonlight.

“Master Shen.”

Jiang Ruyi emerged from the shadows, coming up behind him, and solemnly knelt, performing a deep bow.

“Jiang Ruyi, pays respects to benefactor.”

Shen Jue didn’t look back, speaking lightly: “Rise. Our family cannot accept such a grand gesture from Miss Jiang.”

Jiang Ruyi stood and produced a sheepskin scroll from her bosom, presenting it with both hands.