Chapter 161: Wanting to Cry Without Tears

The imperial secret police descended upon the scene like a pack of ferocious hunting hounds. Lin Qi could not fathom how they had managed it; the dragon-cavalry troopers, stationed merely a stone's throw away and mounted on sprinting steeds, were actually outpaced by these men running on their own two legs. Witnessing these copper-hatted operatives arrive before the cavalry, Lin Qi raised his estimation of their capabilities yet again.

A dozen copper-hats with grim and stern expressions jogged up to number one, Holy Radiance Avenue, gasping for breath. Brandishing short copper-bound batons, they shouted harshly, demanding that the dozens of idlers loitering at the entrance disperse immediately. Yet each of these idlers possessed powerful backers behind the scenes; how could they possibly deign to look upon these common law enforcement officers with anything resembling respect?

The idlers merely chuckled and laughed aloud, completely ignoring the threats and reprimands of the copper-hats.

When one short-tempered copper-hat, cursing and swearing, brandished his baton to teach a certain idler a lesson, that very idler unhurriedly drew a silver crest from his pocket and flashed it. The officer froze abruptly, staring intently at the emblem. He then withdrew his baton and strode into number one, Holy Radiance Avenue, with a completely expressionless face.

The idlers burst into unified laughter. As the lackeys of the capital's top-tier aristocratic scions, borrowing their families' banners to intimidate these copper-hats was a vastly entertaining diversion. Watching the officers charge through the gates, the idlers, consumed by curiosity as to what could have possibly happened, swarmed in as well. Lin Qi grinned and followed right in their midst.

Jogging briskly along the shaded avenue for a short while, Lin Qi arrived before the three main buildings.

Elham stood before the doors of the main building with a complexion ashen as iron, his entire body trembling noticeably. Yana and Ling, who had always been as cold and unyielding as twin icebergs, were now deathly pale. Their vacant, unfocused eyes lacked any trace of expression as they stared blankly at a patch of the sky above, as if all vitality had drained entirely from their bodies.

As for Thorin, along with the two brothers Nightmare and Gloom, the three of them were in no better state. Shivering, they stood before the main building's entrance, their necks craned out like dead ducks, looking in utter bewilderment and helplessness at the ground-floor grand hall, now stripped bare save for a few bulky pieces of furniture.

The cavernous hall contained only furnishings too unwieldy to easily transport, yet even these pieces had suffered a cruel fate. The gemstones, gold, and silver originally inlaid within them had been meticulously stripped away, leaving the furniture looking like elderly women of seventy or eighty suddenly stripped of their heavy makeup—instantly becoming hideously grotesque.

The precious ornaments that once hung upon the walls had vanished without a trace, and the master-painted oil paintings, worthy of being called artistic treasures, had been sliced whole from their frames and carted away. Even the gold and silver inlay on the display cabinets had been gouged out entirely. Empty picture frames hung upon the walls like a row of silently shrieking mouths.

The hall's ceiling had originally featured an extraordinarily lavish chandelier, encrusted with thousands of soybean-sized diamonds. Once lit at night, the diamonds reflected the radiance in a magnificent spectacle impossible to describe for those who had never witnessed it—resembling thousands of tiny suns appearing simultaneously, their multicolored halos weaving a dreamlike, fairy-land atmosphere.

Yet that chandelier had now been thoroughly cleaned out. The thousands of tiny diamonds were gone; the pure gold chains suspending the fixture were gone. Of the massive chandelier, only a tangled, ruined skeleton was tossed haphazardly upon the floor, resembling nothing so much as a brutally abused, pathetic woman lying there limply.

Those ruthless thieves had even pried away the decorative paneling surrounding the fireplaces. Those ornamental panels were crafted from precious millennium-old aloeswood; warmed by the fireplace's heat, the wood naturally exuded a warm, sweet fragrance that possessed the power to soothe the mind and purify the air.

Yet every scrap of that millennium-old aloeswood had been pried off. The massive hearth resembled the toothless mouth of a ninety-year-old, its teeth entirely dug out, leaving behind only an unsightly, pitch-black cavity.

A copper-hat stared blankly at the hall, which looked as though it had been scrubbed clean by water, and muttered under his breath, "It's cleaner than a dog could have licked it."

The thunder of hooves rang out as a full hundred dragon-cavalry troopers galloped into the grounds, accompanied by dozens more copper-hats. The cavalry rapidly secured all entry and exit points of the estate, strictly forbidding any idlers from drawing near. The newly arrived officers exchanged stern, low-voiced words with their colleagues who had arrived first, and then split into two groups, heading toward the remaining two side buildings.

Lin Qi swayed his waist gently; no matter which building one looked at, the result would be identical. He had absolute confidence in the elite operatives personally trained by his old man; they would never miss a single item of value that could be conveniently carried away. A full twelve extended four-wheeled carriages, combined with the leg shackles still on Lin Qi's ankles and the spatial artifacts carried by Uncle Baal and Aunt Lily, had swept away every single thing of value across all three buildings.

Aside from the beds, sofas, and heavy wardrobes that were genuinely impossible to transport, everything else of value had been cleared out.

Even though those beds, sofas, and wardrobes were too cumbersome to move, all the inlaid decorations upon them had been entirely pried off. Even the large glass dressing mirrors attached to the wardrobes had been carted away along the way. After all, a single dressing mirror commanded a price of thousands of gold coins on the market; currently, only the cunning merchants of the Vias Commercial Federation held the secret to manufacturing them, keeping their prices consistently exorbitant.

Lin Qi heartily agreed with that copper-hat's remark. "Cleaner than a dog could have licked it"? Wrong—this place had been ransacked by a pack of over two hundred ferocious wolves.

Wearing a peculiar smile, Lin Qi edged closer to Yulian, who nonchalantly slipped a crest of the Titian family into Lin Qi's hand. With the dragon-cavalry and copper-hats swarming about, lacking the protective emblem of a noble house could genuinely prove troublesome. Lin Qi weighed the heavy crest in his hand, smiled cheerfully, and leaned lazily against a wall, squinting at Elham and his ashen-faced entourage.

Titian, too, was utterly dumbfounded by the scene before him. Just the day before yesterday, when he and Lin Qi had paid a visit, this place had been so luxurious, so decadent. Yet now? It differed very little from a slum. Cautiously walking up to Elham, he asked in a low voice, "What on earth happened? How did this place end up like this?"

Elham trembled and remained silent for a long while. Finally, his lips quivering, he spoke in a daze, "Yes... what happened? Uh, what happened? Why has it come to this?"

Elham squeezed his eyelids shut hard, looking as though he wished to weep, yet no matter how hard he tried, not a single tear emerged.

Watching Elham's pathetic little expression, Lin Qi felt an indescribable surge of elation.

Especially when he saw that pair of women who had once stood so high above others, who had once been so arrogant and accustomed to bossing people around, and who had deliberately tormented Lin Qi in the past, now reduced to a pair of withered firewood logs—that made Lin Qi feel even more triumphant.