Aldo arrived here without stopping, not sleeping a single wink along the way.
For these past three days, he hadn’t gone anywhere.
He just holed up in the guest room arranged by the Merchant Guild, even having his meals delivered by a clerk.
He didn’t dare go out.
It wasn’t that he was afraid of getting lost; he was afraid of running into people he shouldn’t and saying things he shouldn’t say.
He had been at Wangfeng Fortress for decades.
What big storms and waves hadn’t he seen?
But this was the headquarters.
People coming and going spoke in hushed tones.
In a place like this, a country bumpkin manager like him felt uneasy even breathing.
Moreover…
The Guild Master had left him hanging for a full three days.
During these three days, Li Ya hadn’t seen him, but the necessary work hadn’t been neglected.
Aldo’s entire resume had been turned inside out.
His date of birth, his employment date, his previous positions, the cargo manifests he handled each year, even a bad debt of three hundred gold coins from twenty years ago had been dug up.
Several accountants had worked through two all-nighters to thoroughly investigate his background.
An old manager who had been at Wangfeng Fortress for twenty years, shipping four large batches of goods without losing a single one.
Either his luck was absurdly good.
Or…
There was a mole.
On the evening of the third day, someone finally knocked on his door.
“Mister Aldo, the Guild Master requests your presence.”
By the time he was led into that sixth-floor office, it was already dark.
The night view of the Main City spread in from the floor-to-ceiling window, like a carpet of shattered gold.
But he had no mind to appreciate it.
Because his legs were trembling.
“Sit,” Li Ya pointed to the chair opposite her.
She didn’t get up, still holding a pen in her hand, with several documents spread out on the desk in front of her.
Her tone wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t warm either.
Aldo sat down, only occupying the front third of the chair, afraid his travel-worn clothes might dirty it.
After finishing with the document, Li Ya lifted her eyelids to look at him.
No pleasantries, no small talk.
She got straight to the point, asking decisively: “Tell me about those four shipments. How were they transported? Who escorted them? Don’t leave out a single word.”
Aldo swallowed hard.
“The first shipment was at the beginning of last month…”
He began to recount, starting from their departure from Wangfeng Fortress.
The chaotic rocks of the Grey Rock Ridge Path, camping in a side valley, the sound of hoofbeats in the middle of the night.
His telling wasn’t thrilling, but it was thorough, down to the smallest detail, even mentioning what they ate that night.
“…and then that bald bandit led his men and surrounded us.”
At this point, Aldo unconsciously lowered his voice.
“More than thirty people, all on horseback, holding torches. I thought it was over then.”
“Wait.”
Li Ya raised a hand to stop him.
“You said there were over thirty bandits, fully armed, on horseback. You only had seven or eight mercenaries under you. One charge from them could have flattened you. And then you tell me, you won?”
“Yes…”
Aldo’s voice grew weak.
“It wasn’t us who won. It was that gentleman.”
“That gentleman?”
“Mister Rex. He was a guard I hired temporarily at Wangfeng Fortress.”
Aldo wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“I saw he had unusual skills, and he seemed to be in great need of money, so I…”
“In need of money?”
Li Ya caught that word.
“Yes. When he arrived at Wangfeng Fortress, he didn’t even have a horse. He walked on his own two feet.”
Li Ya leaned back in her chair but didn’t press further about the money issue.
“Continue.”
Aldo recounted the events of that night truthfully and in full detail.
How the torches went out, how the bandits scattered in the darkness, how the bald one was subdued, and even the batch of clumsy bandits who caught up the next day and couldn’t even find their way.
Li Ya showed no change in expression throughout.
“You’re saying that one person, using a few stones, dealt with over thirty bandits?”
“Yes.”
“No one was killed?”
“Not a single one.”
Aldo paused, as if recalling Rex’s exact words at the time.
“He said… it wasn’t necessary.”
“What’s his name?”
“Rex. He only told me his given name, not his family name.”
Li Ya nodded, signaling for him to continue.
The next three shipments, Aldo recounted a bit faster than the first.
The second and third were completely uneventful; they didn’t even see a ghostly shadow on the road.
But the fourth time, something unexpected happened.
“We were taking the Grey Rock Ridge Path, and just before reaching Frostwind City, we encountered two Giant Bears.”
Aldo’s voice began to tremble again.
“Those bears were terrifyingly huge, standing taller than the carriages when upright. The mercenaries were petrified, the horses panicked. I thought we were really done for this time.”
“And then?”
“And then…”
Aldo took a deep breath.
“I only saw Mister Rex draw a longsword from a mercenary’s waist and then charge forward.”
He paused.
“I swear!! It was the first time in my life I’d seen a sword that fast. I couldn’t even see clearly what he did. By the time we regained our senses, both bears were already dead.”
Li Ya looked at him without speaking immediately.
Aldo nervously added, “Guild Master, everything I’ve said is true. I wouldn’t dare lie, and I have no reason to lie. That gentleman’s swordsmanship… I’ve never seen anyone else in my life who could compare.”
Li Ya was silent for a moment.
“You may leave for now. Stay in the Main City for a few more days. I still have questions for you.”
Aldo stood up, hesitated for a moment as if wanting to say something, but in the end, he only gave a bow and slowly retreated.
Only when the door closed did he feel that the clothes on his back were already soaked through.
After Aldo left, Li Ya didn’t move immediately.
She finished handling a few urgent documents, read through the Frostwind City transport report once more, and only then, late into the night, did she summon Victor.
When Victor entered, Li Ya was standing by the window.
The Main City’s nightscape spread out beneath her feet, but she wasn’t looking at the lights below; her gaze was directed further north.
“Uncle Victor.”
“I’m here.”
“Help me investigate someone.”
She turned and walked to the desk, pointing out the note in Aldo’s report for him to see.
“Rex. Only a given name, no family name. My intuition tells me he’s from the Empire. Help me dig and see if we can find out more.”
“As you wish, Miss.”
What the Merchant Guild never lacked was connections and information.
Although the Empire wasn’t their home turf, decades of business dealings meant they had all the necessary connections.
One night was enough to turn someone’s background inside out.
Early the next morning, the report was already on Li Ya’s desk.
Victor stood before the desk, his expression somewhat subtle.
Li Ya glanced at him but didn’t ask why, directly opening the report.
First line:
>-Rex von Klein, current head of the Klein Duke Family of the Empire. One of the Empire’s Four Great Dukes.-<
“Klein?”
Li Ya frowned.
“Is that the… Klein family that once produced three Dragon Knights?”
“Exactly.”
Victor nodded.
“But that was a very, very long time ago. The Klein family today… is practically an empty shell. They hold the title of Duke in name only; the real power has long been divided among other families.”
Li Ya continued flipping through.
The second page was Rex’s personal history: outstanding talent and diligent studies from a young age, widely regarded as the hope for the Klein family’s revival.
But at the age of fifteen, he mysteriously disappeared.
For a full five years, his whereabouts were unknown, his fate uncertain.
He returned on his own at age twenty.
After that, his temperament changed drastically.
He no longer practiced swordsmanship, no longer studied magic, idling away his days, labeled by the Empire’s noble circles as “the Klein family’s waste.”
Not long ago, at his birthday banquet, he was publicly rejected by his fiancée, after which his father exiled him to the North territory.
Li Ya read these lines twice, then slowly closed the report.
“Waste?”
She repeated the word.
Victor didn’t respond immediately.
His expression remained that restrained one, but Li Ya could tell he himself didn’t quite believe everything written in that report.
“That’s what the news from the Empire Capital says.”
Victor carefully chose his words.
“Miss, based on my personal feeling…”
He paused.
“This young man named Klein seems like someone who doesn’t want others to know what he’s doing.”
Li Ya looked at him and smiled.
It was the first time in months she had laughed out loud, genuinely finding it interesting.
The corners of her mouth lifted, her eyes slightly narrowed.
She quickly returned to her efficient expression.
But Victor, having watched her grow up, naturally could tell that the Miss had taken a great interest in this so-called “waste.”
“Uncle Victor.”
Li Ya stood up and walked to the window, her fingers lightly tapping the window frame.
“Here.”
“You tell me. A person disappears at fifteen, missing for five years. After returning, everyone calls him a waste. Rejected, exiled, thrown into the desolate, uninhabited North.”
She turned around.
“And then this person, alone on the border, deals with over thirty fully armed bandits using a few stones. Later, with one sword strike, he kills two Giant Bears.”
She leaned against the window frame, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Does that sound like a waste to you?”
Victor didn’t answer.
He knew the Miss wasn’t really asking him.
“It doesn’t,” Li Ya said to herself.
“This doesn’t sound like a waste. This sounds like someone…”
She thought for a moment, finding a word.
“This sounds like someone who doesn’t want to be found.”
Victor nodded.
“You mean, Miss, those five years of disappearance might not have been simple.”
“Five years.”
Li Ya repeated the number.
“A fifteen-year-old youth, missing for five years. Returns and changes. Not weaker, but changed… changed to not wanting people to know how strong he is now.”
She had seen this type of person before. In the business world, the most dangerous opponents weren’t the ones who bared their teeth and claws, eager to show all their cards.
It was the ones who clearly had ability but played dumb.
Because you never knew what else they were hiding.
“Uncle Victor. Isn’t there a batch of goods recently that needs to be shipped north to the Empire? I recall the route passes near the North border?”
“Are you suggesting, Miss…”
Li Ya didn’t answer immediately.
She walked back to the desk, reopened the report, her gaze falling on the last line: “exiled to the North territory.”
“Let’s not rush. Let me think.”
Victor stood there, looking at the Miss’s profile.
She stared at the report, a trace of that earlier smile still lingering at the corner of her mouth.
Victor knew this expression too well.
It was the same expression the Miss wore every time she set her sights on prey at the negotiation table.
“Is Aldo still in the Main City?”
“Yes. As per your instructions, he is to stay a few more days.”
Li Ya closed the report and put it away in a drawer.
“Tell him there’s another shipment to be made soon. Let him decide the route, but…”
Li Ya leaned back in her chair, rocking slightly.
“I will be going along. I’ll be troubling you to handle things here for a while.”
“Understood, Miss.”
Victor gave a slight bow and then left.
The office fell quiet.
Li Ya sat for a long time, her fingers resting on the cover of that report.
The corner of her mouth lifted once more.
At this moment, she was particularly curious to know what expression this so-called “waste” of the Empire would have when he saw the famously capable her.