This morning, as soon as he reported in, Wang Jian was summoned by Chen Tianwen to the Public Office for a conversation. He couldn’t help but feel a little puzzled; after all, there shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary lately.

The Black Banner Battalion of Li City now showed signs of "independence," the Hundred Households of the Guard had already stopped trying to control them, direct jurisdiction fell entirely to the Thousand Households Station’s Black Banner Battalion—even though, in name, they were still an institution of the Li City Guard Station.

With this, Wang Jian’s status in Li City was elevated; even though he remained an officer of the Small Banner level, none of the city’s prominent figures dared to underestimate him.

As for Chen Tianwen, who took over Shen Hao’s position, Wang Jian and other old hands like Zhang Liao didn’t have much reverence, just an ordinary superior-subordinate relationship. After working together for a while, they always felt that compared to Shen Hao, following Chen Tianwen obviously lacked potential—in other words, there wasn’t much enthusiasm.

Earlier, they’d helped Flying Dragon handle a few rivals in the black market. Wang Jian didn’t go—it was Zhang Liao. Besides those, nothing much had happened lately, right?

He pushed the door open, and Chen Tianwen greeted him with a broad smile, handing him a transfer order.

"Congratulations, Wang Xiaoqi! You’re off to Fengri City, sure to rise on the wind. One day you’ll soar even higher!" Chen Tianwen was uncharacteristically cordial to Wang Jian. The transfer order came out of nowhere; they hadn’t even communicated about it beforehand. But Wang Jian wasn’t one of his people anyway; if the higher-ups wanted him transferred, Chen Tianwen had no reason to hold him back.

After reading the transfer order, Wang Jian’s mind buzzed, but instantly he was elated. He thanked Chen Tianwen and went back to perform his handover, passing the affairs of the Jia Flag to a former School Commander. Who would take over his post would be Chen Tianwen’s decision later.

Returning home, Wang Jian shared the news of his job change, and everyone was tremendously excited. Clearly, someone in Fengri City was promoting Wang Jian, and that person, needless to say, must be the newly appointed Hundred Households Officer, Shen Hao, who had only arrived less than half a year ago.

Not waiting for the date on the transfer order, Wang Jian left for Fengri City two days early.

When he arrived, Wang Jian still held the rank of Small Banner Officer, but didn’t get a concrete assignment—seemed like a sinecure? He’d already been in Fengri City for two days, and had only met the deputy Hundred Households Officer, Wang Yiming; he hadn’t even seen Shen Hao’s face.

Suddenly, his heart sank a little.

It wasn’t until the afternoon of the third day that Wang Jian, with a restless heart, finally met Shen Hao.

"Sit down. I was out for a bit. How many days have you been here?"

"Reporting to sir, your subordinate has been here for three days."

"Heh, didn’t I ask you to come today? Got impatient? Was everything properly handed over back in Li City? Don’t leave a mess for Chen Tianwen!"

"Sir, please rest assured—the handover in Li City has been completed. Now with nothing to do, my mind feels quite empty these days."

"Want to work? Heh, that’s no problem. I brought you here precisely to put you to work." Shen Hao took out a Black Water Plan operational document from his drawer and handed it to Wang Jian; it wasn’t complete, only the black market section.

Shen Hao had given it careful thought before—Flying Dragon was still quite reliable and easy to control, but once things expanded, a big portion of authority would inevitably shift to newcomers like Zhang Lie, who were actually people from the Governor’s Office or, to be precise, Jiang Cheng’s men. At first glance, it seemed fine, but Shen Hao thought he needed something stable for himself, in case of accidents.

So, it was necessary to add another layer of oversight atop Flying Dragon and Zhang Lie, and Wang Jian was the person Shen Hao trusted and could use.

With Wang Jian leading, he could take over the Black Water Plan’s information relay for the black market section. First, the plan’s troublesome matters could be distanced from Shen Hao; second, it could also leave a buffer for Zhang Lie and the Governor’s Office in certain areas.

Wang Jian took the document and his hands trembled twice just reading the first page, his heart surging with shock; he never expected Shen Hao would entrust him with something so crucial in Fengri City. He originally thought he’d be joining the Hundred Households’ Personal Soldiers.

"Tell me your thoughts."

"Sir, I—I feel anxious...not sure if I can shoulder such a heavy task."

Wang Jian wasn’t stupid; on the contrary, he was very sharp-minded. The descriptions in this document were simple but packed with information. If he accepted the whole thing, it would be a massive gray information channel; he’d never done anything like this before. He was excited but nervous, because if it backfired, it could literally cost him his head.

"I have faith in you."

"Then I will do my utmost not to disappoint your trust, sir."

"Good. Tonight, Flying Dragon will come to your place. Your first task is to guide him in organizing and monetizing the existing black market information channel—build an efficient information screening and document storage process, fast. This shouldn’t be hard for you, I remember you did this in Li City."

Wang Jian relaxed a bit at these words; if it was just screening information and setting up the document process at first, he had no problem.

"Remember, this task is currently top secret. For now, your identity is Patrol Officer in the Black Banner Battalion, with no fixed jurisdiction. Within Fengri City’s territory, you can patrol and conduct covert investigations freely. No one’s going to check your movements, which makes it easier for you to operate.

I’m giving you one month. After a month, I want to see results."

Wang Jian quickly agreed, already thinking through how to proceed.

That night, Wang Jian waited in the rented house on the west side of town until midnight before he heard a knock. Opening the door, he found the now-plump Flying Dragon.

"Wang Xiaoqi, it’s been ages but you’re still dazzling as ever!"

"Flying Dragon, no need for formalities. I never thought we’d end up working together one day."

"Haha, that’s fate for you."

Truth be told, Wang Jian looked down on Flying Dragon—a non-tiered black market middleman. But he never expected this broker would become a "colleague" someday.

That night, Flying Dragon stayed in Wang Jian’s room and talked for ages, not leaving until dawn.

Unlike Zhang Lie and his sort, Wang Jian might be weak in combat, but he was skilled at building internal structures. That made the clueless Flying Dragon suddenly see the path forward.

After that, every three days, Flying Dragon would secretly meet Wang Jian, not necessarily in Fengri City; the time and place were always arranged in advance.

First, they organized a few people to collect all daily transaction information from the underground black market—the first step. The collected information would go to step two: sorted by specialists—for instance, "magical artifact transactions," "general spirit stone transactions," "grain transactions," etc., with bulk trades specially noted.

The third step was screening the sorted information, selecting anything that suggested collusion with government officials for priority investigation.

Finally, information confirmed accurate would be handed to Wang Jian to handle.

At the same time, all verified information would be archived in the Document Library.