Chapter 309: Disappearance

Chapter 309: The Disappearance

Xie Biaoan slowly pushed open the door, holding an electronic document in his hand. His handsome face was lined with fatigue.

His expression was unusually haggard, looking even more weary than when he had arrested Gong Qinghong half a month earlier.

Xie Biaoan glanced at Li Jun with a hint of resentment and said weakly, "Hundredth, I have something to report."

"Why call me Hundredth? We're brothers; just call me Li Jun."

When Li Jun had been deep in thought earlier, his stern demeanor had suddenly softened. He now happily embraced Xie Biaoan, pushing him onto the chair that symbolized the Hundredth, while he stood obediently aside.

"Over the past period, all the official business in the household has been entrusted to you, Little White. It's been quite a burden for you."

Li Jun smiled and raised his thumb, "But the results are indeed significantly visible. Our household is now so well-organized and orderly, and you, Little White, have made an indispensable contribution. I, as the Hundredth, am ashamed to compare myself to you!"

Rustle!

Just as the words left his mouth, the lights above the two of them suddenly flickered.

In the dim light, Li Jun looked embarrassed and asked softly, "What's going on? It's not that we're out of power, right?"

"The Inspection Office hasn't gone crazy enough to dare cut off our electricity yet."

Xie Biaoan glanced at Li Jun with a sour expression, "Moreover, the household's internal facilities, including a Huangliang host and various anti-hypnosis and anti-wiretapping equipment, are all dedicated lines, so there won't be any power outages."

"Then what is this?" Li Jun smiled awkwardly.

"It's routine equipment maintenance. In theory, this should be the responsibility of a specific person, and it should be reported to you by Fan Wujiu."

"Then why did you come, Little White? Where is Fan Wujiu?"

Xie Biaoan's eyes narrowed slightly, emitting a faint cold light, "He should be in the Bai Di Mixed Hall now, debating with a group of women."

"Then what about this little flag, Yaksha?"

"He's probably just entering the first level of the seventh circle."

"Then the ghost."

"Don't ask anymore. Now, except for the brothers who are unlucky and have to guard, everyone in the Hundredth's household has gone to the Bai Di Mixed Hall to provide guidance. And they all say it was approved by you, Jun Ge."

Li Jun instinctively scratched his head, suddenly remembering the matter.

Fan Wujiu had asked him to go with him in the afternoon, but he had told Fan Wujiu to take the brothers first, saying he would follow later, and had asked Fan Wujiu to have Tang Po leave two of the most skilled warriors behind. "Now there's no chance for a sparring session."

Xie Biaoan's eyes flickered, "What did you say?"

"N-nothing. I'm just curious, Little White, why aren't you with everyone else? This is such a rich battle; you should be leading by example."

"I'd love to lead by example, but I need time. There's so much official business that I still haven't been able to finish!"

Upon hearing this, Xie Biaoan's face turned bitter. Compared to Ghost King Da, Li Jun, the Hundredth, was just a laissez-faire manager.

Although Li Jun was a new official and unfamiliar with the operations of the Xijiao household, Xie Biaoan, as the head of intelligence and internal affairs, had a responsibility and obligation to assist him.

But Xie Biaoan never expected that Li Jun would dump all the work on him.

This left him with no time to enjoy any flirtation. Now, the backyard is on fire, with several people demanding to sever contact with him.

"You know, Little White, although I'm not as illiterate as Fan Wujiu and Horse King, I don't know many characters either. I really can't handle these official documents."

Li Jun spoke solemnly, having learned the tenacity of Fan Wujiu to a hundred percent.

"So we're the only ones in the household who can read?"

"The burden is heavy, Little White, and you're working hard. Once the Inspection Office's husband temple opens, I'll be the first to take them there for retraining."

Li Jun's expression was solemn, and he bowed to Xie Biaoan, who had a stern face.

"Ah."

Xie Biaoan let out a long sigh, too lazy to argue with Li Jun anymore. He raised his hand and turned on the electronic document on the desk, pushing it towards him.

"This is a letter specifically sent by the Inspection Office to our household, addressed to Hundredth Li for personal receipt."

Li Jun leaned forward and glanced at the screen, which showed a scroll bearing the seal of the Dog Mountain City Inspection Office, bound with red silk, with the words "Dog Mountain City Imperial Guard Hundredth Yan Jun, personal receipt" flashing beside it.

Li Jun tapped the screen, and the scroll slowly opened.

The content unfolded, revealing a handwritten thank-you letter from Yang Baishe, several hundred words long.

In short, it was a thank-you note for the donation of ten million treasure banknotes by the Dog Mountain City Imperial Guard household.

"These scholars are really different. They did a good job."

Li Jun's face couldn't hide his radiant smile. Yang Baishe had praised him to the skies in the letter, calling him a model of the Imperial Guard.

"If you donated ten million treasure banknotes to me, I could do even more creative things."

Xie Biaoan said irritably, "But it doesn't matter. Our household doesn't lack this kind of money now. Spending ten million treasure banknotes to build a good relationship with the new concurrent official is not a loss."

"Tenacious and magnanimous!"

Li Jun hurriedly praised him, scanning the thank-you letter from start to finish again, and asked doubtfully, "Who is this Yan Jun? Is it a nickname that Yang Baishe gave me?"

"Imperial Guards on the front lines must use aliases, even for internal correspondence."

From the moment he entered the room, Xie Biaoan's stern face finally showed a hint of a smile.

"Now, the entire Japanese district knows that Dog Mountain City has lost a difficult-to-deal-with Ghost King and gained a more ferocious Yan Jun."

"This alias is quite impressive."

Li Jun nodded and smiled, then asked, "By the way, how is the situation with the old ghost in the Thousandth's household?"

"I just asked. He's still in treatment. The damage to his mech body is not serious; he just needs to replace the damaged parts. The key issue is the injury to his mech heart and brain tissue."

Xie Biaoan breathed a sigh of relief, "The old ghost's rank is lower than Lu Chengjiang's, and his military order is naturally suppressed by the horizontal order. During the forced escape from the battle, he suffered significant internal injuries. If the Thousandth's household can't treat him well, he may have to be sent back to the imperial homeland."

"Sending him back to the imperial homeland is also good. The old ghost is old enough to rest now."

"He probably won't want to go back."

Xie Biaoan shook his head, "The old ghost has no relatives in the homeland anymore. Here, he at least has us."

"Then, after the old ghost's injuries heal, we'll all go to Liaodong with him."

Li Jun's mouth twitched with a cold smile, "We'll go to the Lu family and ask for a hefty medical fee."

"I think that's a good idea!"

Xie Biaoan nodded and smiled, sliding his hand across the electronic document, "The next matter that needs Jun Ge's decision is the allocation of martial arts points within the household."

"For the 'Shantytown Hong Gao Attack Case' and the 'Lu Chengjiang Rebellion Case,' the Ministry of War has allocated a total of three thousand martial arts points to us."

"Is this number appropriate? Has anyone deducted from it?" Li Jun asked sternly.

He had heard from Fan Wujiu about the Ministry of War and the Northern Patrol Inspectorate's nature. Local households usually have to give up some of their reported achievements to them.

If a household hasn't established good relationships, they might even lose the majority of their points.

This is a well-known unwritten rule within the Imperial Guard. However, Li Jun clearly had no interest in following it.

In the past, he was just a little flag, and these matters were not his responsibility. But now that Li Jun had become a Hundredth, he naturally couldn't let others feed off him.

Making the brothers bleed and cry was something that would never happen under Li Jun's leadership.

This was a lesson he had learned from Zhao Ding, the helmsman of the Po Gang Society.

At that moment, Li Jun’s eyes betrayed a faint intent to kill, as he waited patiently for Xie Bian’s response.

“There was no embezzlement, and what’s more, it was an unprecedented increase of two tenths.”

Xie Bian had clearly never encountered such a situation before, and his expression appeared somewhat uneasy.

Usually, these greedy vampires in the imperial heartland would be given a huge favor if they could eat less than what was reported above.

Not to mention this time they not only didn’t eat, but also spat out a lot!

“When things go wrong, there must be something fishy.”

“There have been so many unusual things lately, it’s not a big deal.”

Compared to Xie Bian’s caution, Li Jun was quite casual and waved his hand, “They dare to give it to me, they dare to eat it, once it enters my stomach, there’s no reason it won’t stay there.”

“Hmm.”

Xie Bian replied, and continued, “To eliminate Jun, you need to customize a non-standard giant embroidered spring knife, and there are still about two thousand five hundred points left. I have preliminarily drafted an allocation plan.”

“The rest is up to you to distribute, I trust you to handle it. But there’s one thing: I give my martial arts points to the injured and fallen brothers, I’m a Wu Xu, so those points are useless.”

Li Jun fully embodied his hands-off management style, even entrusting the distribution of martial arts points—which other hundreds of households valued most—to Xie Bian.

In the face of such unconditional trust, Xie Bian was at a loss for words, both amused and embarrassed.

But seeing Li Jun’s resolute attitude, he could only reluctantly agree.

“One last thing.”

Xie Bian’s expression became solemn as he brought up another document on the electronic desk.

“This is a joint investigation document sent by the Jinyiwei of Laizhou Prefecture. They are asking us to help investigate a missing person case.”

“Laizhou Prefecture, is that Zhai Mangcang’s side?”

Li Jun looked surprised and asked, “What kind of missing person case requires such a big deal? Could it be that a prince or grandson is missing?”

“It’s not worse than a prince or grandson—it’s a Dao Xu and Yin Yang Xu person!”

Xie Bian said solemnly, “I have investigated some basic information, and in Laizhou Prefecture alone, there are dozens of people missing, neither alive nor dead!”

“Moreover, these missing people have one thing in common: they all have varying degrees of Huangliang authority. And when they disappeared, their authority also disappeared in the Huangliang dream world!”