After failing the imperial examination, he began to wield immense power after entering the palace!

"what?"

The foreigner's eyes widened suddenly.

His hands instinctively grabbed Feng Bao's wrists and pulled him away with all his might.

But Feng Bao's hand remained as still as an iron clamp.

"Heh...heh..."

The barbarian let out rough breathing, his face turning from red to purple, and then from purple to black.

His legs kicked wildly on the ground, the soles of his shoes scraping against the blue bricks with a harsh sound.

"Lord, spare me, spare my life..."

Feng Bao just kept gripping his neck, looking at him coldly, his eyes showing no sign of coldness.

It's like watching a struggling grasshopper.

"Snap!"

Another crisp sound.

The guard's head was tilted to one side.

His body convulsed suddenly, then he collapsed to the ground, motionless.

died!

From the moment Feng Bao made his move to the moment the man breathed his last, only three breaths passed.

The room reeked of a nauseating stench of urine.

The remaining five guards had faces as white as paper.

They knelt there, trembling like leaves, their teeth chattering.

Two of them even had their crotches soaked.

"Whoosh!"

Feng Bao squatted down and wiped the blood off his fingers from the corpse's clothes.

He looked up again at the remaining five people.

"Let me ask one last time, what exactly happened today?"

"If you tell the truth, our family won't pursue the matter."

"Not telling the truth..."

He glanced down at the still slightly twitching corpse on the ground.

"That's his fate."

At this moment, the psychological defenses of the five guards completely collapsed.

"Master, spare me! Master, spare me!"

The leader of the guards fell to the ground with a thud, his head hitting the ground repeatedly.

"I'll tell you everything! I beg you, Master, spare my life!"

"explain."

The spies were trembling all over, their voices urgent and fragmented, as if they were trying to spill all their secrets at once:

"Today, Admiral Gao—no, Gao Jin—took out a portion of the silver he confiscated from Cao's residence and distributed it to everyone..."

He said that those who took the silver would be in the same boat from then on.

"Anyone who leaks what happened today will be implicated in this corruption and will die with it..."

"That's why...that's why we dare not tell the truth..."

Feng Bao's face gradually darkened.

"What a lapdog! He's got some tricks up his sleeve."

"Go on, what about Xu Biao? How exactly did he die?"

The guard swallowed hard. Since things had come to this, he had no choice but to tell the truth:

"I don't know the specifics, I only know that Gao Jin called Xu Baihu out."

"Then, after Commander Xu came in, he ordered us to confiscate their property and exterminate their entire family."

"After Commander Xu finished killing, Gao Jin suddenly turned on him, accusing him of indiscriminate killing, and ordered Commander Xu to be killed..."

The room fell silent for a moment.

Feng Bao closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Then, he opened his eyes, a cold smile curving his lips.

"Heh, first use money to win people's hearts, then use leverage to bind everyone."

"In the end, they used someone else to do their dirty work, sending our Xu Biao to his death."

"Killing three birds with one stone, leaving no room for error."

"That guy is ruthless!"

The barbarians knelt on the ground, not daring to breathe, their heads bowed so low they wished they could bury them in the ground.

Feng Bao suddenly stopped and looked down at them.

"How much silver did you take from him?"

The five guards trembled.

They eagerly pulled out the still-warm silver ingots from their pockets, holding them above their heads with both hands.

"We're all here! Not a single ounce has been touched! We beg Your Excellency for mercy!"

"Lord Supervisor, spare my life..."

Feng Bao looked at the silver ingots but did not accept them.

"Keep the silver."

"But from today onwards, you are the eyes of our family."

"We need to know everything Gao Jin does—who he meets, what he says, and where he goes."

"Well done. We'll let bygones be bygones."

"Can't do it well..."

He glanced at the corpse on the ground.

The meaning is self-explanatory.

The five guards felt as if they had been granted a pardon and kowtowed repeatedly.

"Your subordinate obeys! Your subordinate will do his utmost and will never dare to fail the Commander!"

"Get out."

The five people scrambled out of the secret room and disappeared into the night.

Feng Bao stood alone in the room, looking down at the corpse on the floor, his face as gloomy as the sky before a storm.

He crouched down and closed the foreigner's eyes, his voice extremely soft:

"Don't blame our family, it's just your bad luck."

"Zhao Fu, go and find that file."

Which one?

Feng Bao's lips curled into a sinister smile, and a calculating glint flashed in his deep-set eyes.

"The case of Zhou Wenyuan, the Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Justice, who forcibly married a woman and murdered her husband."

Zhao Fu was taken aback, clearly aware of the case.

After all, the person who committed the crime was one of Consort Xie's people.

"Chief Supervisor, haven't you been suppressing this case all along? You were planning to use it to blackmail Zhou Wenyuan..."

"I've changed my mind now."

Feng Bao leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers slowly on the armrest.

"Isn't Gao Jin supposed to be investigating a case?"

"We'll just give him one case to investigate; we'll let him investigate this one case."

"If he doesn't dare to investigate, that's dereliction of duty, and we'll have a perfect excuse to impeach him, ensuring he can never touch the Eastern Depot's files again."

"If he dares to investigate..."

Feng Bao's smile deepened, and the sinister aura on his long face almost overflowed.

"Zhou Wenyuan is one of Consort Xie's men."

"His investigation of Consort Xie's people is tantamount to stabbing Consort Xie in the back."

"What will Consort Xie think of him then?"

"A heartless ingrate who doesn't even spare his own people, would Consort Xie still dare to employ him?"

"He's in a dilemma: to investigate or not to investigate."

"I'm caught in the middle, neither inside nor outside."

After listening, Zhao Fu's eyes flashed with admiration.

"Your Excellency is truly wise."

"Go and do it."

"yes."

Zhao Fu turned and left, his footsteps fading into the distance in the empty corridor.

Feng Bao sat alone in the darkness, his deep-set eyes filled with calculation and ruthlessness.

"Gao Jin, Gao Jin, do you think you've secured your position in the Eastern Depot?"

"Let me tell you, in this Eastern Depot, no one can stand firm without my permission."

……

One hour later.

The Eastern Depot, the archives warehouse.

This was a huge warehouse, with wooden shelves densely packed on all four walls, piled high with rolls of yellowed files.

Li Fan spent most of the hour reviewing the cases and discovered that they all shared a common characteristic: they were either unsolved cases that were only half-solved.

Either it involves various forces, a hot potato that no one dares to touch...

Feng Bao cleaned up all these things very thoroughly, leaving not a single piece of truly crucial evidence.

"Tsk."

Li Fan tossed a case file back onto the table and rubbed his temples.

This old fox is more cautious than he imagined.

Just then, a polite voice came from the doorway.

"Admiral Gao..."