Even the Last Foundation Stone
"The head of the Lee Family must die."
Yeon So-hyeon's orders were absolute.
"Even in the very moment he surrenders and offers cooperation, that man will gather remnants by any means behind the scenes and hone the blade of his counterstroke."
Yeon So-hyeon's resolve was lucid and cold.
"Therefore, sever the head. Remove the enemy's center of gravity."
And after that—
"With their command structure shattered, the Lee Family's sitting officials will either scramble for personal survival or begin moving for revenge."
There, Yeon So-hyeon would reveal his next card.
"Commit the Kong Family. Crush them utterly before they can even set the board."
The Luoyang Local High Court.
Judge Lee paced frantically about his chambers.
"Heavens… what am I to do?"
For some time now he had been on the verge of stripping off his judicial robes, only to stop, straighten his formal attire again, then reach to remove them once more—repeating the cycle without end.
Is it more advantageous to the family if I remain here in full robes, holding the chambers?
Or should I, even now, race to my wife's family or my maternal kin and beg for aid…?
The garments beneath his loose judicial robes were already soaked through with cold sweat.
He buried his face in his hands.
Why has no instruction come from anyone? Where is the Family Head? The elders? Can it be that not a single soul managed to leave the main house?!
If the family still sent no word, there was no more time to wander in indecision.
Steeling himself, he removed the judicial cap from his head.
It was time to move—to do something, anything.
At that moment the chamber door burst open.
Startled, Judge Lee whirled, then exhaled in relief the instant he recognized the face of the man who entered.
"Why, if it isn't Judge Kong."
He wiped the sweat that had run down his brow with his sleeve and immediately flared into anger.
"Really now! Even for you, this is too much—barging into a fellow judge's chambers without so much as a knock! What of basic courtesy…?!"
His tirade died on his tongue.
The expression on Judge Kong's face—always so mild—had hardened into something cold and rigid, almost unrecognizable.
"W-what is the matter?"
At the question, Judge Kong opened his mouth.
"You will have to come with us to my family as well."
Behind him, the investigators under his command stepped into view.
They were fully armed.
The instant he saw them, Judge Lee jammed the judicial cap back onto his head.
"I am a sitting judge!"
Then, adopting the same magisterial air he wore on the bench, he shouted,
"You mean to seize this official on your own authority?! Whatever the reason, the arbitrary abduction and detention of a sitting judge is a crime grave enough to bring Imperial Inspectors down upon your heads—you know this, do you not?!"
"Of course I know. I am a judge myself."
The Kong Family judge nodded.
Had he been a Cheong Family judge, there would have been no way forward.
But he was Kong, not Cheong.
And this matter was not the will of any single man; it was the will of the family.
"But you are no longer a judge. So it no longer matters."
If the man was difficult to touch because he was a judge, then simply strip him of that status.
"W-what nonsense is this?!"
Judge Lee stumbled backward, crying out.
"A-a High Court judge cannot be stripped of office until every legal procedure has been—"
His voice was cut short by a finger-strike launched from an investigator's hand.
"Take him."
Pressure-point strikes left him momentarily paralyzed. Investigators swarmed in, gagged him, and bound him hand and foot.
They did not forget to tear the judicial robes from his body as well.
In the space of a breath he was trussed, a hood pulled over his head so that no one would recognize him, and hauled away.
After he had been dragged off like a sack of cargo, the Kong Family judge stood gazing into the empty chambers.
"…Judge Kong."
A voice called him.
"Yes, Chief Justice."
The Chief Justice of the Luoyang Local High Court regarded him with a sour expression.
"This time I will turn a blind eye because the Kong Family pleaded so earnestly, but there will not be a second time. You must remember—"
"Chief Justice."
The Kong Family judge cut him off.
"Nothing happened here today."
"Th-that is so. This High Court was exactly as usual today. Of course."
As he spoke, the Kong Family judge ripped the nameplate bearing Judge Lee's name from the door.
"Judge Lee, upon the discovery of grave personal misconduct, wrote out his own resignation this morning and vanished."
It was an act and a tone of voice that, under ordinary circumstances, a mere judge would never dare direct at the Chief Justice.
"Y-yes. You are quite right."
But the man before him was no longer a mere judge; he was the executor of the will of the Kong Family of the Sixteen Imperial Capital Families.
"Well then. I myself have a great deal of work piled up, so I will take the liberty of leaving first."
His mild expression restored, he bowed politely to the Chief Justice.
As he turned away, the Chief Justice forced the words out with difficulty.
"…J-Judge Kong!"
"Yes, Chief Justice. You called?"
The Chief Justice glanced carefully around once more and asked in a low voice,
"…I had heard that the previous generation of Family Heads on Mount Beimang do not share the same intent as the current Sixteen Families. How is this possible?"
A man of his station at a local High Court had, of course, received a visit from the First Young Master's people only yesterday.
Those visitors had stated clearly that the previous Family Heads of the Sixteen Imperial Capital Families were moving independently of the current Heads' will.
They had also driven home the point that no one was to dare meddle in the political strife between the Luoyang Sword Family and the Sixteen Families.
Yet today this judge surnamed Kong was clearly acting not on the private will of some former Head on Mount Beimang, but on the collective will of the entire Kong Family.
"…I will tell you only one thing."
The Kong Family judge stepped close and whispered into the Chief Justice's ear.
"The Head of the Kong Family is not in the Imperial Capital. He is the one who resides on Mount Beimang."
"……!"
The Chief Justice's eyes flew wide.
"Th-then that means…?!"
The Kong Family judge raised a single finger to his own lips.
"……"
The Chief Justice clamped his mouth shut and nodded frantically.
Cold sweat now soaked the deep creases of his face.
"You need only remain still. There is nothing else you need concern yourself with."
The Kong Family judge spoke in a kindly tone and a quiet voice.
"At this very moment, today's attendance register is being rewritten. And not a single person who saw Judge Lee report for duty will open their mouth."
From the court troops who had guarded the entrance at the start of the day, to those who had assisted Judge Lee, even to the fellow judges who had exchanged casual conversation with him that morning—
All of them.
At this moment they were swearing oaths of silence under the hands of the Kong Family's people.
Just as the Chief Justice himself was doing.
"…P-please convey my deepest regards to the Family Head."
At the Chief Justice's words the Kong Family judge smiled faintly, turned, and vanished down the far end of the corridor.
And it was not only at the High Court. Across the whole of Luoyang, similar scenes were unfolding.
"L-let me go! Do you know who I—!"
A sitting Lee Family official, struck hard in the gut, rolled his eyes and collapsed. They bound him, stuffed him into a sack, and sealed him inside a chest with only a few air holes.
"Please! Whoever you are, spare my life at least…!"
One who had been racing to his wife's family for help surrendered without resistance, accepted a gag, had a hood pulled over his head, and was loaded into a carriage.
"How can you do this to me?!"
Another man screamed as he was dragged away by strangers of unknown identity.
He had been betrayed by a friend he trusted.
"Forgive me. You knew I was a graduate of the Kong Family's Great Academy, did you not?"
"Th-the Kong Family's Great Academy?! Why in the world would the Kong Family…?!"
And so it went.
Those who recognized the card Yeon So-hyeon had played all came to the same realization: from the very beginning there had never been a hole through which they might escape.
Every person transporting the abducted sitting officials of the Lee Family was heading, without exception, toward the Kong Family estate on Mount Beimang.
Mount Beimang, the Kong Family estate.
"The operation at the Luoyang Local High Court has just been reported complete."
"The operation at Luoyang's Second Wharf is complete."
"The operation along the Mangyang Road is proceeding smoothly…"
"The one who had hidden himself with the Huang Family was taken with the Huang Family's full cooperation…"
Every final report converged upon a single man.
"Excellent. Truly excellent."
The old man seated in the wheeled chair nodded again and again, his expression one of deep satisfaction.
To the outside world he was known as the previous Family Head; in truth he was the Family Head of the Kong Family—Kong Ryang.
"Hear me, all of you."
He raised a thin hand.
Every gaze in the room locked upon him.
"You must make certain that all of Luoyang understands."
An aura so fierce it belied his bedridden state crushed the assembly.
"What manner of family the Kong Family is, and what manner of man this Kong Ryang is."
The members of the Kong Family bowed their heads even lower.
"That even sitting officials can vanish without a trace, without so much as a mouse or bird knowing…"
Kong Ryang bared his teeth.
"You must burn that terror deep into their bones."
He was the leader of the Central Kingdom's reformist faction, yet he was far from the pure, incorruptible official who clung only to the righteous path.
How could a mere clean-handed bureaucrat have remained at the Emperor's side for so many long years?
He followed a greater cause, and that alone set his purpose apart from the other old wolves of Mount Beimang who hungered only for power.
But he, too, was unmistakably one of those old wolves.
And not merely any wolf—he was the most savage of them all, the one who had endured and endured for decades, grinding his blade in silence, maintaining the balance as the leader of a reformist minority in that rotten political arena of the Imperial Capital.
"From this day forward, everyone will know with perfect clarity that the Kong Family stands behind the First Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon."
The Lee Family main house.
"Here are the Lee Family documents you spoke of."
One investigator slipped up, avoiding other eyes, and reported via close-range sound transmission.
The chief investigator accepted the documents, checked them, and answered in the same manner.
"These documents were never discovered in the first place. Understood?"
"Of course. I collected them myself and never entered them into the evidence list."
"Good. Return to your original duties."
The chief investigator nodded and turned away.
That had been the last of them.
Now he had to report to the one who had issued the secret orders.
"Family Head."
The chief investigator, a man of the Cheong Family, approached his own Family Head and handed over the documents wrapped in a shabby cloth.
"Is this everything?"
"Yes. This is essentially the maximum that can be gathered at the present moment."
Lord Cheong, Head of the Cheong Family, opened the cloth and examined the contents.
Land deeds from Luoyang and across the Central Kingdom, documents of ownership for buildings, bonds held by the Lee Family, promissory notes, various certificates, thick bundles of high-value drafts—everything that related directly to the Lee Family's wealth.
"Well done. Stay and oversee the site yourself until the very end."
"Yes, Family Head."
Lord Cheong approached Yeon So-hyeon, who was reviewing ledgers together with the judges.
"First Young Master."
"Lord Cheong."
Yeon So-hyeon noted the bundle in the man's hands, exchanged a silent greeting with the judges, and turned away.
Once the two of them had reached a place free of other eyes, Lord Cheong immediately passed the bundle to Yeon So-hyeon.
"As the First Young Master requested, I excluded bulky items such as gold coins and treasures and packed everything else."
Receiving the bundle, Yeon So-hyeon wore a mischievous, teasing smile.
"To think that the upright and incorruptible Head of the Cheong Family would divert property that ought to be returned to the national treasury."
Lord Cheong's expression did not so much as flicker; he merely shrugged.
"I have no idea what the First Young Master is talking about. The investigation has already concluded that every last bit of the Lee Family's wealth disappeared with the Lee Family Head when he absconded."
At that, Yeon So-hyeon laughed.
"The investigation already finished? As expected, the judges of the Cheong Family are the most capable in all of Luoyang."
Lord Cheong laughed as well at the jest.
"In this particular field, our family is the best in the Central Kingdom."
There was no way an investigation that should have taken days could already be complete.
Lord Cheong was simply informing him that the result had already been decided.
He stroked his beard and deliberately looked off into the distance.
The renowned Judge Cheong Hyo.
He swore upon his life that nothing like this had ever happened before in all his years.
"…Even if we confiscated this wealth, it would only pass into the hands of men no better than the Lee Family dogs and be put to the same uses."
Far better to entrust it to Yeon So-hyeon.
"I ask that the First Young Master put it to meaningful use."
Yeon So-hyeon gave the bundle a little shake.
"My thanks for your cooperation, Lord Cheong."
Then he bared his teeth in a smile.
"Now it is time to tear out even the last foundation stone of those Lee Family bastards."