Chapter 516: Secret Chamber Gathering

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I trust you all have heard of what recently transpired in Liaodong? In one night, every prefecture in Liaodong was assailed, flames leaping to the heavens, turning night into day. The most tragic was the Lu family of Fenghua: their ancestral halls were set ablaze, the family's pillar, Lu Yuzhang, perished without a trace. A second-rank gate clan that had just begun to show promise was uprooted completely." Zheng Jizhi paused for effect, then asked, "Who do you all think is the hand behind this?"

"They are deserters from the thousand-household commander Su Ce of the former Japanese district, who became bandits in the forests and committed crimes in Liaodong." A quick-tongued person interjected, "It is written in black and white in the official gazette."

"What is written in the gazette is only what those above have carefully chosen for us to know."

Zheng Jizhi sneered, "Do you think the true secrets would be written there? Can what is written be trusted?"

"Of course not. It was I who was short-sighted."

Zheng Jizhi gave a snort. Under the eager gaze of the crowd, he continued: "Such a swift invasion, so fierce in its momentum and so great in its force, can be called the largest-scale attack our Confucian order has suffered in recent years. More crucially, the attackers were able to complete the entire scheme silently under the very noses of the Lu family—that is what truly chills one to the bone when one thinks about it!"

"Consider what the Lu clan of Liaodong is. A first-rank gate clan that rose swiftly in just two generations from father to son. Apart from being slightly lacking in deep-rooted heritage, their ability to control their base likely surpasses even those old-lineage clans within the Two Capitals and Thirteen Provinces."

"Lu Ning, who now controls the Lu clan, is a man of heroic and ruthless ambition. When even our old master of the Liu clan in Jinling mentions him, he laughs and calls him an insatiable watchdog. Yet even he was momentarily at a loss during this attack. This shows that the other side's strength is at least not inferior to a first-rank gate clan. If the culprit were merely a few stray dogs, as the gazette claims, that would be a far-fetched tale, a laughable blunder!"

Zheng Jizhi said, word by word: "The true murderer is someone else."