The headquarters of the Dongdu Judgment Hall.
It sat in the outskirts at the very north of Dongdu.
Bordering the Dongshen Mountains, which held off the north wind and its damp, it was built against one of them, Mount Nanxuan.
In architectural design it somewhat resembled the Demon-Purging Bureau.
The outer precinct, built at the foot of the mountain, was a modern-style public court district that handled ordinary secular cases. The inner precinct, built halfway up, was a compound district in the old Chinese manner, devoted to disputes and cases between Sword Maidens and Blade Wielders.
Joining inner and outer precincts was a spiral stairway of plain grey stone brick, nearly eight metres wide, running from the foot of the mountain all the way to the flat ground at the summit and threading the whole complex.
At the top of the stairway, on the summit a thousand metres up, sat the Presiding Justice's council chamber and office. Going up the stairs, every hundred metres there was at least one trainee Judicator on station.
Apart from this route, the Judgment Hall's internal lift reached only the halfway point five hundred metres up, and to get to the summit one still had to come back to the stairs.
Which meant the road of this visit to Feng Rui would be anything but easy.
***
After a short while of walking.
Ke Jie, who had chosen to enter his transformed state, and Bai Wuxie rode the lift together to the halfway point and stepped onto the spiral stairway up the mountain.
On the way up.
Every hundred metres there was a platform for rest.
The Sword Maidens on station at each platform did not know Ke Jie, but on seeing the Sword Maiden Longquan, Bai Wuxie, leading the way, they waved the pair through one after another.
After all, they had all heard that after last night Longquan had broken through to the Drawn Realm and grasped Sword Intent in one stroke, and was tipped to become the new Deputy Presiding Justice, in line to inherit the Presiding Justice's mantle in time.
Whatever unflattering talk there had once been about Bai Wuxie could not stand for a moment before absolute strength.
And so the two climbed the mountain road with unexpected ease, passed through the council chamber, and arrived at the door of the Presiding Justice's office.
"Tok, tok-tok."
Bai Wuxie was the first to knock.
"Blade Wielder Blood Demon of the Demon-Purging Bureau's Joint Combat Division, come at invitation to call on the Presiding Justice of the Judgment Hall."
Ke Jie, standing behind her, said it evenly.
After a brief silence.
"Come in."
Feng Rui's voice, bland as water, came from behind the door.
"Creak."
Bai Wuxie pushed the door open and went in.
Ke Jie followed close behind.
What met his eyes was an office quite unlike what he had imagined it ought to be.
Plain, unadorned redwood fittings.
A quiet, cramped working space.
A brown desk, an old wooden door, and thin sunlight falling through the side window onto the wooden floor sketched the whole of this Presiding Justice's office.
Apart from the Presiding Justice Feng Rui seated in a wooden chair behind the desk, and the wooden bookshelf behind her packed with bamboo-slip volumes of case files, there was not a trace of the grandeur the post ought to carry.
She seemed to guess what Ke Jie was thinking.
"Well? Not quite what you pictured, is it, Ke Jie?"
Deep-green eyes narrowing slightly, Feng Rui gave a mild smile and set aside the airs of a Presiding Justice for the moment.
"A little."
Ke Jie did not drop his guard, and answered to get by.
He set the Presiding Justice's badge Feng Rui had given him earlier on her desk, as a show of deference.
"No need to be tense. Right now I'm speaking to you as Wuxie's master. You can go into detail, can't you?" Feng Rui glanced, as if idly, at Bai Wuxie sandwiched between the two of them.
The hint in her words was unmistakable.
At that.
"What I pictured was a little more stately, more sacred."
Ke Jie let the tension inside him ease a little.
"Then that wouldn't be our Judgment Hall's usual style, low-key and restrained, lean and capable. It would be what that crowd of saints at the Pilgrim Court go after." Feng Rui answered in a tone very nearly joking, and her eyes slid to the silent Bai Wuxie.
"Wouldn't you say so, my disciple?"
The implication being that this disciple of hers was really better suited to joining the Pilgrim Court, and had come to the Judgment Hall instead.
"M-Master! Don't be like that."
The moment she caught the teasing.
Bai Wuxie panicked on the spot.
"Ahem. Back to business." Done teasing her beloved disciple, Feng Rui straightened her face and looked at Ke Jie coldly. "I called you here for two things only."
"First. After a night's deliberation by our Judgment Hall, I am personally conferring on you the Dongdu Judgment Hall's own Honorary Judicator badge. Holding that status, you may exercise within the Dongshen Region the powers our ordinary Judicators hold. For the specifics, ask Wuxie."
"Second. After investigating through the night, our Judgment Hall turned up some very interesting leads. Everything behind this Blade Demon night attack is in the file on my desk here, along with some conjectures and thoughts of my own that I've put in order. It's yours to read for now."
That said.
"Whoosh! Whoosh!"
Two key items were tossed to Ke Jie.
One was a palm-sized honorary badge, its face identical to an ordinary Judicator's, its rim patterned in red flames to stand for the Dongshen Region.
The other was a bamboo-slip file, thin and light, brand new, already unrolled.
"My thanks, Presiding Justice."
With that brief expression of thanks, Ke Jie put the honorary badge away while he skimmed rapidly through the file in his hand.
Only a few breaths passed.
He had roughly extracted, summarised and understood the information in the file, and in his heart a rough blueprint and plan had faintly taken shape.
To be precise, there were only three main points in the file.
Point one. The Blade Demon that attacked in the night had in life been a retired Blade Wielder of the Dongdu Demon-Purging Bureau, code name "Grey Tiger", at the Sheathed Realm of the Sheath Tier. In his youth he had made an enemy of the Wrath Blade King, one of the Eight Blade Kings, and the investigation showed he had recently been in contact with the Circuit Attendant Sword Fiends of the Myriad-Fiend Empire.
Point two. The dense, wide-ranging shadow fog witnessed briefly at the scene was suspected to be the work of a Sword Maiden of the civilian faction the Nation of Night. When the Nation of Night's representative in the Dongshen Region was questioned afterwards, they met it with silence and evasion. Suspicion of the Nation of Night remained.
Point three. On the Blade King Empire's side, every regional Blade King government, including the Dongshen Region's former Wrath Blade King government, now a provisional joint Blade-and-Sword government, had shown indifference to the attack on Ke Jie, son of the Blade King, taking it even less seriously than the Sword God Dynasty had.
From the above, Ke Jie pieced together in his heart a rough version of the truth.
The attack on him had been no accident. It had been inevitable.
Among the Eight Blade Kings of the Blade King Empire there was one, or more than one, who did not want to see the Wrath Blade King's son alive.
Nor was the Sword God Dynasty wholly an enemy. Of the seven Sword Gods, the six still living had by no means all taken part in the event called the "spiriting-away of the Wrath Blade King" that was in truth his encirclement and killing. There was strength for revenge to be won over and united.
What had directly taken part in and driven the Blade Demon night attack was the Myriad-Fiend Empire of Half-Fiends and Sword Fiends. Whoever meant to kill by a borrowed blade through it was someone else again.
If the Nation of Night was still a pure faction that kept faith with the Sword God of Time, the younger sister of that singular pair, the Twin Sword Gods; if it was still the Nation of Night that served shadow and moon; then, as heir to the Sword God of Time's Twin Sword Souls, he was bound to make contact with the Nation of Night and find a way to win its strength.
Friend or foe was clear in an instant.
All at once the revenge plan, which had looked rather hollow, was filled in a great deal.
"Heh."
Ke Jie gave a small laugh from somewhere real.
He set the file back on the desk.
"Master, may we leave now?"
Bai Wuxie asked, at Ke Jie's side.
"You may."
Feng Rui nodded lightly.
Everything she had wanted to convey had been conveyed to Ke Jie.
Naturally there was no need to carry the conversation any further.
At that.
"This junior takes his leave. I hope the Presiding Justice will excuse me."
Ke Jie, calm again, hesitated no longer, made a parting bow, and turned to leave with Bai Wuxie.
Almost in the instant his front foot crossed the threshold.
From behind came an instruction, weary in tone and no less gentle for an elder's, weighted with meaning:
"Ke Jie, son of the Blade King. If in future I am not at Wuxie's side, please take good care of her in my place. Whatever it is you mean to do, please do not let it hurt her."
"That is all...... Within what is in my power, I will give the two of you a certain amount of help."
"But if you break your word, my attitude will be quite another......"
His steps paused briefly.
"It's all the same to me."
A cold reply.
Ke Jie closed the door all the same and left.
What he and Bai Wuxie would take part in next was... the welcome ceremony of Team B, Joint Combat Division, Demon-Purging Bureau.