Becoming a god starting from blacksmithing

Chapter 30 Meeting Su Qingyan for the first time

It was still dark.

Shen Chi heard footsteps in his sleep. More than one. The footsteps were synchronized. The sound came from the first floor, growing closer and closer.

The footsteps stopped at his door. The door was then pushed open.

Shen Chi sat up.

Five people were standing at the door.

Shen Chi had seen the leader last night. She wore the exact same uniform, had the same hair tied up, and was the same expressionless face. But in her hand, it was no longer a roster—it was a scroll stamped with a vermilion seal.

She looked at Shen Chi, her gaze calm.

"Shen Chi of Qingxi Town. You are involved in the murder case of the Qingxi Town executioner and are found to be possessing forbidden techniques of the Mo Sect. The Enforcement Hall hereby issues your arrest in accordance with the law."

Shen Chi walked to the table. He wasn't surprised. He knew this would happen the moment she glanced at his chest last night.

A noise came from the opposite room—Mo Huaizhou was awakened. The door was pushed open halfway, and Mo Huaizhou peeked out, his gaze sweeping over the law enforcement team at the door, his fingers already sliding towards his cuffs.

Shen Chi glanced at him. His gaze was simply—Don't move.

Mo Huaizhou's hand stopped at his sleeve.

Shen Chi glanced at the hundred-forged hammer beside his pillow.

"Can I bring the hammer?" he asked.

The leader glanced at the hammer. "Confiscate it temporarily. If there's nothing wrong after the interrogation, we'll return it to you."

Shen Chi did not argue.

The leader tilted his head slightly, and the enforcers behind him made way for him.

"Walk."

As Shen Chi walked past her, he caught a faint scent of ink. The smell made him turn his head slightly.

------

The streets of Tian Shu City were deserted in the early morning, and all the windows along the street were dark.

Shen Chi noticed that the woman leading the group had a very rhythmic pace. Each step was almost the same distance, neither too fast nor too slow. There was a small patch of wear on the inside of her sleeve, the edges of which were frayed. It was a mark left by long hours of writing at a desk.

He glanced again at what was hanging from her waist. A bunch of brass keys, about four or five, each a different shape. One of them was particularly old, its edges worn smooth and shiny, with a dull yellow luster. He memorized the shape of that key.

After walking two streets, the stone building of the Hall of Law Enforcement came into view. It was gray and three times the size of the Hundred Crafts Office.

At the far end of the first floor of the Enforcement Hall, there was a cell. It wasn't large. Three steps wide and four steps deep. The walls were made of solid stone, and there were no windows. The only light came from the crystal lamps in the corridor outside, which shone through the iron bars on the door. In the center of the room stood an iron chair, welded to the floor. In front of the chair, a pair of shackles were nailed to the floor, with small black fragments embedded on the inside.

The leader gestured for him to sit down. Shen Chi sat down.

An enforcer crouched down and fastened his ankles into shackles. The moment the black shards touched his skin, his heart clenched—it was a dull, oppressive feeling.

Shen Chi glanced at his chest. He could feel it—the shackles were indeed pressing down on his heart seal, but after the bronze seal was perfected, the suppressive force was not as unbearable as before.

She didn't say what that person saw when they glanced at her chest last night. She sat down at the table opposite the iron chair. She unfolded the arrest warrant and laid it flat. Then she took out a stack of blank files, an inkstone, and a pen from under the table. She ground the ink, dipped the brush, and wrote a few words on the first line of the files.

Then she looked up at Shen Chi.

"Name."

"I already said that last night."

The leader didn't change her attitude because of that answer. She wrote "Shen Chi" in the name field. The handwriting was neat and straight.

"age."

"Seventeen."

She wrote a few strokes, then put down her pen and placed her hands folded on the table.

"When did you awaken?" The tone was not probing.

Shen Chi was taken aback. The question wasn't "Are you a Keeper of the Promise?", "Who is your father?", or "What are you doing in Tian Shu City?"—she was asking "When?".

"After Gray Eyes attacked Qingxi Town. I can't remember the exact date."

The leader didn't press further. She changed direction.

"Why come to Tian Shu City?"

Shen Chi fell silent. He couldn't answer this question honestly. He couldn't mention Wan Juan Lou, his father's message, or that Huo Wei had told him that Tian Shu City could resolve the doubts he wanted to know.

The leader didn't urge him. She waited three breaths, and seeing that Shen Chi didn't speak, she didn't press him, but instead turned to another page of the file.

"A relic of the Mo Clan. You have a hammer forged from Mo iron, don't you?"

"That's a hundred-forged hammer."

"Who gave it to you?"

"Mo Chenzi".

The lead writer paused for a moment. Less than half a breath later, Shen Chi noticed.

"Mo Chenzi. The number one weapon master in Tian Shu City, a peak weapon king. Is he dead?"

"……yes."

The leader didn't ask any further questions. She wrote a line on the file, put down her pen, looked up, and met Shen Chi's gaze.

"My name is Su Qingyan."

These words came too suddenly. Shen Chi looked at her again. She didn't avoid his gaze. The two stared at each other for a moment. There was no hostility, no contempt, only pure observation—she was looking at him, without any preconceived notions.

Shen Chi gleaned a judgment from that glance: she was indeed different from the other members of the Enforcement Hall. The Su Qingyan that Old Man Mo had mentioned was right before his eyes.

------

A silence lingered in the cell for a while. Shen Chi then spoke up.

"Is this how everyone in your Enforcement Hall handles cases?"

"Then what should we do?"

How many people have you interrogated?

"That's enough."

Shen Chi didn't know why he asked the next question, but the words were already out: "How many of you felt after the trial that 'I was wrong from the start'?"

Su Qingyan did not answer immediately. She looked at Shen Chi, a very subtle change in her gaze.

"You are the first person to interrogate the interrogator while being interrogated."

She didn't answer the question. But Shen Chi noticed that her pen paused on the paper for a moment.

The interrogation did not continue. Footsteps came from the end of the corridor, heavier and more urgent than those of the law enforcers, carrying an unyielding sense of pressure.

The footsteps stopped outside the cell door. A voice came from outside:

"Judgment by the judge. This is the transfer of custody document."

Shen Chi's heart skipped a beat. He looked at Su Qingyan.

She didn't get up. She turned her head and glanced in the direction of the door. She looked down at the transfer document slipped through the crack in the door, stamped with the vermilion seal of the Judgment Division, the seal bright red and clear.

She confirmed the seal was correct. But she didn't accept it.

She stood up and walked to the door. She didn't open it completely, only a crack. Her voice came through the crack:

"I'm presiding over this case. No one can mention it until the trial is over."

There was a moment of silence outside the door. The voice rang out again, colder than before: "Lawyer Su, an order from the Adjudication Division."

Su Qingyan's answer remained unchanged, even his tone was the same: "My case is not yet finished."

Silence fell again outside the door. This silence lasted even longer than the last. Shen Chi sat in his cell, unable to see what was happening outside, but he could sense it—the two people outside hadn't left immediately, but they hadn't spoken again either. They were waiting for Su Qingyan to give in.

Su Qingyan did not back down. She stood there in the crack of the door, like a gate, stuck in place.

Finally, footsteps sounded. They faded into the distance.

Su Qingyan closed the door and locked it. She turned and returned to the table, sitting down. Her fingers paused briefly at the edge of the file, as if pressing on something, before she picked up her pen again.

Shen Chi watched her pick up the pen—her hand was very steady, exactly the same as when the interrogation began.

Why did you stop them?

Su Qingyan didn't look up, her voice calm: "Because my case hasn't been finished yet."

Shen Chi didn't ask any further questions. But he knew in his heart that Su Qingyan wasn't a member of the Adjudication Division. The Enforcement Hall had its own rules, and she had her own. Moreover, she wasn't afraid to defy the Adjudication Division for the sake of her own rules.

He glanced down at the shackles on his ankles. The black fragments were still faintly glowing; the heart imprint was suppressed, but it was still beating. He looked away from the shackles and swept his gaze across the cell wall.

There were scratches on the corner of the wall. They were very shallow, almost invisible unless you looked closely. It looked like someone had scratched the stone wall with a fingernail or a piece of iron; the strokes were broken and intermittent, showing that the carver had worked very hard. He squinted, only able to make out a few blurry outlines. He memorized the location.

------

Su Qingyan put down his pen and closed the file.

She stood up, without looking at Shen Chi, and said only one sentence: "That's enough for today. We'll continue tomorrow."

She walked towards the door and paused there. "Someone will bring you food."

The door opened. She stepped out. The sound of the bolt hitting the floor was deep and echoed for a moment in the empty corridor.

The cell was plunged into darkness. Crystal lights from the corridor seeped in through the gaps in the iron bars of the door, casting pale white shadows on the floor.

Shen Chi thought of A-Zhu. He knew she would wait for him.

He then remembered Mo Huaizhou's hand resting on his sleeve. He knew he understood that look in his eyes.

Shen Chi slowly clenched his fist.

What truly brought him to this position wasn't the shackles and chains binding his heart. It was the look in Su Qingyan's eyes—she wasn't confirming whether he was a criminal. She was confirming whether she could trust him.

He loosened his fist and glanced again at the shackles on his ankles. The black fragments gleamed faintly in the darkness. He then looked at the marks on the corner of the wall.

The prison cells in the Hall of Law Enforcement were left by our predecessors.

We'll continue tomorrow.

Then let's continue.