Chapter 522: Informants

Chapter 522: Chapter 522: Informants

For Shen Hao, the Imperial City was far from unfamiliar; this was hardly a place he’d "seldom set foot in."

The six men brought from Fengri City, including Wang Yiming, now had little room to maneuver. Not only were the Ministry of Justice officials watching them as though guarding against thieves, even Prince Shou’s Mansion was openly sending people to keep tabs, trying to probe their every move.

After the net tightened, Wang Yiming and the others seemed to settle down—besides going to the Ministry of Justice as insistently as sounding a drum to demand fresh case files, all other activity ceased. Even the investigation into the fragrant candy subsided.

It was all due to Shen Hao’s deliberate arrangements.

Earlier provocations were meant to create tension, but now that both sides had clearly shown signs of pressing back, it was time to clam up and "play dead," leaving the battlefield to the contest of force and subtlety.

But that didn’t mean nothing else was being done. In truth, ever since arriving in the Imperial City, Shen Hao had always been directing more than just those six from Fengri City. Not mobilizing the Fengri men nor borrowing the Jingxi Governor’s people was not out of hubris, but to signal to others that his "strength is limited." This fit his identity as someone temporarily "transferred."

But in reality, Shen Hao’s familiarity with the Imperial City came from Black Water Plan’s influence having long since stretched here.

The skittish vagrants and beggars on the street, the porters and touts waiting outside the Carriage and Horse Shop for jobs, even the drivers who only appeared at dawn to collect night soil from house to house... not every single one, but at least one or two out of every ten had already been infiltrated by the Four Divisions under Wang Jian’s command.

As the core stronghold of the Jingjiu Dynasty, the Imperial City was of course an absolute priority in the Black Water Plan’s blueprint. Leaving aside insiders like the Xu Family Sisters, already embedded deep in the dynasty’s halls of power, even these ghostly street-level agents gave Shen Hao countless opportunities to investigate what others would never notice.

For instance, investigating Qin Xiuyuan’s cause of death—inevitably he had to determine whether Qin died as he’d guessed, by ingesting poison disguised as "fragrant candy." If so, what kind of poison? And who administered it?

The very day he arrived, Shen Hao sent a subordinate to openly inquire at a fragrant candy shop in the night market—not only sending a signal to Prince Shou’s Mansion and the Major Case Department, but also to whoever had killed Qin Xiuyuan.

Rustle the grass and startle the snakes; see which way the venomous one runs.

And the ones watching the "grass" were precisely those street-level Four Division informants positioned early on.

This particular network was managed by Shen Hao in direct contact with Wang Jian, without letting anyone else, including Wang Yiming, in on it, and without approaching those spies directly.

The Four Divisions formed a firebreak between Wang Jian and the Black Water Plan, while the Impermanence Department under Zhang Liao served as a countermeasure within that firebreak—its purpose: to isolate the Xuanqing Guard from all the various outside secret agents and informants.

Just after arriving in the Imperial City and returning from the scene of the crime, Shen Hao received through Thousand-Mile Sound the first-hand information sent from Wang Jian.

It was about the current state of the Qin Family.

Reportedly, the Qin Family was in a state of fear and confusion. The head of the family had openly severed ties with the Third Branch—not just cutting business dealings, but also putting on a front of "dying without ever speaking again." At least on the surface, the Qin Family appeared ready to make a show of "righteousness and self-sacrifice."

Yet the information trickling in afterward proved there were still lingering connections. At the very least, Qin Xiuyuan’s daughter, Qin Xiangyu, had not been "implicated"; she hadn’t even shown up at the Third Branch residence, instead remaining at the First Branch as before, continuing life as the legitimate daughter of the main line.

Judging by this, the Qin Family was playing a double game—publicly cutting off the "unfilial descendant" Qin Xiuyuan, while still clinging to Qin Xiangyu as a honey trap for a golden son-in-law. They wanted to "have it both ways." It seemed the Qin Family’s ambition had not flagged in the least with Qin Xiuyuan’s death.

In addition, the Qin Family’s eldest daughter, Qin Yurou—whom Shen Hao watched closely—hadn’t shown the kind of anomalies he expected. She still kept to herself, rarely leaving her rooms, at most going to the palace to pay respects to the Empress, her days passing with apparent peace.

Unfortunately, everyone in the Qin Family household was old staff—the latest servants brought in were from more than two years ago—so the Black Water Plan had failed to infiltrate the Qin Mansion, leaving them unable to obtain inside information.

All they could glean were surface details—from the look on Qin Wenhe’s face when he came and went, and from the idle chatter of the mansion’s servants and porters, picking up scraps. Nothing deep could be dug up, but it was clear the entire Qin Mansion was on high alert, their mouths tighter than ever.

After Shen Hao inspected the crime scene and confirmed the investigative direction, the informants in the Imperial City immediately, under the Four Division’s guidance, launched a mosaic-like intelligence search, targeting the fragrant candy shops.

Fragrant candy—besides Qin Xiuyuan’s body, it was the closest clue to the murder’s trail.

Just as Shen Hao’s subordinate had learned before, someone as "high-profile" as Qin Xiuyuan was well-known in the candy shop circles. Not that he ate so much of the stuff, but because the shopkeeper and owners would actively advertise—such as, "Even the Third Lord of the Qin Family says our magnolia-flavored candy is the truest..."

Additionally, from information gathered by these spies, Shen Hao learned of an upper-tier "Bottle Society" within the Imperial City.

He’d heard of poetry societies, riding clubs, drinking circles and such before, but "Bottle Society" was a first; still, the meaning was obvious from the name.

The Bottle Society had become fashionable among the upper class of the Jingjiu Dynasty since eating fragrant candy became the rage. Only people of status and means could afford the exorbitantly expensive, non-essential fragrant candy. And what was the point in simply eating it? They used the opportunity to create a small circle—connecting over fragrant candy, deepening business ties and friendships. Wasn’t that even better?

So the containers for fragrant candy—the bottles—became a new "thing" among the Imperial City elite.

Shen Hao didn’t underestimate such seemingly peculiar circles. Many people bent over backwards to get in, not for the name, but for the social connections.

Qin Xiuyuan possessed a multi-beast purple jade fragrance bottle, sculpted by a famous artist—the only one of its kind in the city, worth a fortune, and highly prized. Rumor had it that someone had offered double the price for it, and Qin Xiuyuan had refused. Because of this bottle, he was well known in the circle and his favorite flavors of candy were widely recognized.

All this was painstakingly pieced together by Black Water Plan’s informants, coaxed bit by bit from the servants, dockhands, and restaurant waiters of various candy shops.

Seemingly scattered bits of intelligence, but once pieced and analyzed by the Four Divisions, progress was indeed being made.