The silver coat took the order and went to show Li Zhixing in.

The moment Li Zhixing stepped through the door, he could feel something was off. Every face in the room was black.

Geng Jing looked at him. "What brings Lord Li here? Is there something you need from Geng here?"

Li Zhixing paused, puzzled. "Didn't Geng the Purple Coat send for this old man?"

Now it was Geng Jing's turn to be baffled. "Lord Li, are you sure there's no mistake? I never sent anyone for you."

Li Zhixing looked thoroughly confused. "That can't be right. A silver coat came to the Ministry of Justice and said the Left Chancellor and the others had been colluding with some Myriad Nations Society, and that he'd been sent on Geng the Purple Coat's orders to ask me over to help with the investigation."

Geng Jing shook his head. "I never sent anyone to ask for Lord Li."

"Then what's going on?"

Geng Jing shook his head again. He didn't know either.

Everyone looked at one another. They were all old hands at court, and they could all tell something wasn't right.

Ji Mingchen said, "It's almost as if someone deliberately gathered us all in the Inspectorate."

Geng Jing's eyes flickered, as though something had suddenly occurred to him. He turned to Li Zhixing. "Lord Li, are you sure the man who came for you was one of our Inspectorate's silver coats? Did you check his waist tally?"

Li Zhixing said, "He was wearing an Inspectorate fish-scale coat and came in your name, so this minister didn't check his waist tally."

Geng Jing's pupils shrank. "Damn it. They've lured the tiger off the mountain." (TL Note: 調虎離山, "lure the tiger off the mountain," one of the Thirty-Six Stratagems: draw a strong opponent away from his own ground, then strike there while he's gone.)

Li Zhixing still hadn't caught on. "What do you mean?"

Geng Jing's voice was grave. "So that's why they were acting so openly: to muddy the waters, so we couldn't guess what they really meant to do, and…