Chapter 681 - The Law Enforcement Records
For Lin Mu, entering the place was a piece of cake. No security was enough for him and even the formation arrays couldn't do much since he was able to just go around them. Quickly bypassing them with Phase and Fade, Lin Mu appeared underneath the second ring of the royal palace.
"Hmm… now which one is the law enforcement building?" Lin Mu wondered as he spread his spirit sense around.
A minute later he found the place he was looking for and moved towards there. He checked to see for people and saw that there were easily over a hundred people working in there currently.
Lin Mu thought for a bit and picked his tactic so that he would not be seen. The tactic was one that he had used many times before. He would appear from solid objects and just store the records he wanted before taking a look through them.
He would do this until he found the right record.
"Though it might be better to just ask someone where they were… but that has its own share of different problems." Lin Mu muttered to himself.
He began his search and ended up spending six hours in it. Despite his spirit sense, the number of records in the law enforcement record room were simply massive. He reckoned that these were all records from a long time ago and thus had reached such a number.
Lin Mu even found several records that dated back to over three hundred years ago. There were records for petty crimes such as unruly behavior and public nuisance all the way to murder and treason.
Though the area where the records for treason or high crimes were stored was under extra security. Lin Mu had to spend some extra time unraveling the formation so that he could enter it. That was where he finally found the record he was looking for.
Lin Mu took one of the scrolls that had a stamp imprinted on its seams that read 'Treason'. He opened it up and read its contents, but was then shocked.
'All official correspondence and documents related to the Hei corps and their reports are to be stored in the royal repository.
—By the order of Minister of Law, Fu Delun'
"Why would they need to move it there? Is there something more to it?" Lin Mu couldn't help but wonder.
According to what Lin Mu knew, the orders to keep watch on the activities of Hei corps were issued to every sect and kingdom on the continent. Which meant that it wasn't a secret and even public knew about it.
Thus, this extra secrecy increased Lin Mu's wariness for it.
"If they have done this for the Hei corps they should have done the same for me too, shouldn't they?" Lin Mu guessed. "Let's see if I can find anything on myself."
He then searched for any documents or records related to him and found them rather quickly. They were stored in the same section as well, and there was only one single scroll there. Seeing it, Lin Mu had a bad feeling.
'All official correspondence and documents related to the person 'Lin Mu' and his reports are to be stored in the royal repository.
—By the order of Minister of Law, Fu Delun'
"The same… this minister of law Fu Delun seems suspicious… according to what the merchant's informants provided us, there were public reports about the Hei corps. The latest report was from eight months ago as well.
This must mean they added this new order between that time. Is there perhaps any date here?" Lin Mu wondered.
He checked the scrolls and the shelf they were stored, but there were no dates mentioned there.
"There should be a separate register for this, you'll need to find that." Xukong suggested Lin Mu.
"Ah, I'll do that then, senior." Lin Mu replied.
Lin Mu took another half an hour to search and found the register. But he also encountered a problem. The register was being used by several people right now. It was kept with the head of the department, and he was currently doing work with the registry involved.
"Taking it from him would be possible, but would only cause an alarm. I'll need to wait till he is done…" Lin Mu muttered to himself.
He wondered if he could find it just by looking from above, but that was a far fetched possibility. The register was several thousand pages thick and was over two meters long. Not to mention finding it like this, even a person who had the registry in his hand would take a while to sift through the pages and find the correct entry.
"Sigh, isn't this too inefficient? Can't they just put the registry in a jade slip?" Lin Mu couldn't hole but say.
"Well that is how it is done in sects, but here since there are commoners who are not cultivators working, you can understand how that method might not work." Xukong replied.
"Oh, yeah. That's true as well." Lin Mu nodded his head in understanding.
'Hmm… I guess I'll keep an eye on this with my spirit sense while I go check other documents. Maybe I'll find something useful.' Lin Mu thought.
He then split a separate spirit sense tendril that kept a watch on the head of the department who had the register and went to check other documents. He ended up spending over seven hours like this and it was the afternoon of the next day by the time the man was done.
The head of the department was also a cultivator, thus it made sense that night time didn't really matter to him as much, plus seeing the work that needed to be done, he was portably compelled to finish it as well.
"The man definitely looks tired…" Lin Mu said upon seeing the eye bags on the man's face.
The man was in the mid stage of the Qi refining realm, which was probably quite high for an official of this level. And despite that, he had been tired out working just a single night.