The day after that passed rather quickly and a lot of new discoveries were made during that time. Lin Mu, Hua San and Hua Wu were still in the court so they got to see everything first hand.
King Hong also realized that his kingdom was in a lot more trouble than was being let on to him. It had become especially severe in the past months, ever since he entered the 'seclusion' for his breakthrough.
There were piles of criminal matters that had accumulated and the poor department head of the law enforcement office was handling it as much as he could. He was also the reason why the entire structure had not collapsed yet.
That single man had somehow managed to keep the department running while pushing the incompetent fools he had for subordinates. This also kept the other departments running somewhat.
The King was highly impressed by this and even Lin Mu was since he had personally seen the man back then. The name of the man was Xian Po, and he had been the head of the department for less than two years.
He had been made one when the last department head died two years ago due to an unexpected illness. Of course, Lin Mu found this suspicious and so did adviser Liu. Upon a bit more investigation, it was found that the death of the former department head was also due to the orchestration of Fu Delun.
The minister of law had been in control of Gu Yao for a long time now and according to what Lin Mu could analyze, had been in that state for at least three years. Lin Mu felt where this was linked since there was no way Gu Yao came to the Hong Lin kingdom to personally control the man.
He thus asked Adviser Liu for the records and even the king agreed since he wanted to know the weak link in his administrator and where was it that everything started to go wrong.
It was then that he found out that minster Fu Delun had attended the wedding of one of the sect elders of Light Harmony sect. This was a mid ranked sect of a similar size as the Tri Cauldron peony sect.
It's located to the west of the Hong Lin kingdom and is also part of the Zither wind alliance now. It wasn't just minister Fu Delun that had attended it either. A lot of high officials from nearby kingdoms had done the same, and now it was safe to assume that all of them could be under the control of Gu Yao.
In the case of Hong Lin kingdom, it was especially bad since Fu Delun was the minister of law and thus his position was rather special. Other than the king and adviser Liu he was the only man who could command the military power of the kingdom and also influence the policies of the kingdom.
Whenever a problem happened and something needed to be done, he was the first one to hear it, and then if it was deemed worthy he would elevate it to adviser Liu who would then present it to King Hong.
But with Fu Delun in Gu Yao's control, one could only imagine the level of changes he could cause. Corruption was one big thing which he used to influence other ministers and officials of the kingdom.
Right now, the Hong Lin kingdom was in such internal peril that over half of its officials were corrupt. The public had long since felt their impact, but the King was grossly unaware. Adviser Liu had his suspicions too all this time, but due to the many diplomatic changes occurring across the empire, he had been busy outside.
One could only imagine the luck of King Hong that it wasn't adviser Liu that was controlled rather than Minster Fu Delun as it would have meant the end for the Hong Lin Kingdom effectively.
One must know that if the king died, the next in line for the throne would be his heirs. But Adviser Liu being their grand uncle, would be able to usurp power rather easily. After all, he had his Nascent Soul realm cultivation on his side.
Though Lin Mu also knew that there was an additional Nascent Soul realm cultivator hidden underneath the royal palace. But he didn't let that out. He also gave an excuse about how he found out about the records kept at the repository and the law enforcement department.
The excuse he gave was that he had some special skills. Seeing his standing, King Hong and Adviser Liu didn't question him in detail, of course. They could care less that Lin Mu may have just spied on their secrets as their entire kingdom was close to grave danger right now.
But in addition to this, there were still more shocking things to come. Lin Mu and the rest were drinking some tea in the royal court, nursing their headaches when an official came running in frantically.
"MY KING! MY KING! ADVISER LIU! DISASTER! IT IS A DISASTER!" the voice of the official could be heard coming right from the corridor.
Hearing this, the brows of everyone in the room furrowed even more. The headache that they had borne came back and the tea they had drunk was wasted.
"What is it?" King Hong questioned, no longer caring for decorum.
"The… the… The Royal Reserve Storage… its… it's empty!" The official spat out with difficulty.
"WHAT!?" Both King Hong and Adviser Liu said out loud.
Lin Mu and the two Hua brother also focused on the official as they quickly scanned him from top to bottom with their spirit senses. They couldn't help but be suspicious about everyone now.
"Are you sure? I literally checked the storage a week ago and everything was right there." Adviser Liu stated.
"That's the thing… the things in the storage were never there! We went to do a manual inventory today and discovered that the entire place is under an illusory formation. There are no actual items in it!"
