Ning sat before the Major General, looking around at the others who had gathered before him. Now that he was here, he could see another Major here too, beside the woman.

It was a middle-aged man with a balding hairline, clearly hidden by the thin hat he wore.

‘So not even Cultivators can stop their hairs from balding away, huh?’ he thought. Although, given how real Cultivators had trouble with that, these men were doing more than fine for themselves.

“Now that you are here,” the Major General said. “We may proceed with business.”

Ning waited for the man to continue.

“Chief Officer Ning, do you know what you are here for?” the Major General asked.

“No,” Ning said. “Is it for promotion? Am I being rewarded for what I did? I expected a lot of things for my services but I never thought I would get to meet the Major General as a reward. It is an honor, sir.”

“Do not joke in front of me,” the man said with a glare. The other people around him frowned as well, listening to Ning.

Ning shrugged. “If that is not it, then I have no clue why I was brought here today,” he said. “As far as I was aware, I had done something good for the people, not bad.”

The Major General stared at Ning for a long while, trying to discern from his expressions whether he was lying or not. After a while, he decided to speak up.

“It has come to our attention that you have committed multiple crimes, each one more severe than the next,” the Major General said. “Do you know what these crimes are?”

Ning’s eyes narrowed. “Crimes?” he asked. They had to charge him with a crime to get him arrested certainly, but what crimes were they talking about? “Please continue. I would like to know what crimes I have committed as well.”

“So you will continue to feign ignorance?” the Major General asked. “So be it. I will now announce your crimes.”

Ning looked forward to seeing what his crimes were. Saʀᴄh the NvlFir.nt website on Ggl to access chapters of nvels early and in the highest quality.

“You have accepted bribery, taken part in creating the drug known as Dust, and finally… broken into someone’s house without their permission.”

The Major General’s words hung in the air like a heavy hammer, ready to come down for judgment at any moment.

Ning listened to the 3 ‘crimes’ he had committed and frowned. He supposed he understood the last one, but the first two? He had never taken bribes or helped the leader and others with making Dust. Where had that baseless information come from?

“The first two of those crimes are clearly wrong,” Ning said. “As for the last one, I can explain.”

“They’re wrong?” the Major General asked, scoffing as he did so. He did not believe Ning at all. “So I suppose you can explain this then.”

He took a piece of paper with something written on it that Ning couldn’t read from this angle and spoke it out loud. “On the 4th day of the 6th month, you received a direct transfer of 400 thousand Jiubels. You have no family or friends who could transfer that amount.”

“Upon further investigation, we came to learn that 400 thousand Jiubels was the exact amount transferred by the two criminals in City 3, Jay and Cenn. Which means, you have clearly been bribed from them. Do you deny this?”

Ning was surprised they found that information at all. He wondered why they had even looked into it, but that didn’t matter right now.

“Yes, I did receive it,” Ning said. “But I wouldn’t call it a bribe.”

“Oh?” the Major General leaned forward on the table. “What would you call it then?”

“Investment,” Ning answered. “I needed to get the two criminals invested in me so much that they would give away their suppliers. Major General, you see, I was deep undercover with the two criminals thinking they were the suppliers. But when I realized that they were not, I had to change my plans to meet with the real criminals.”

The Major General did not seem amused by the answer at all. The other two Majors also seemed to think that he was lying to get himself out of trouble.

“Okay, how do you explain getting paid 400 thousand without giving them anything in return?” the Major General asked. “From what I can gain from this piece of paper, it tells me that you made a promise to those criminals to protect them and get their money. However, you then went against their back and reported them once you met the suppliers and kept the money for themselves.”

“That is not true,” Ning said.

“Do not speak while I am speaking,” the man said. “You are in my court.”

Ning stared at the man for a long second and gave in. He let him speak.

“If this had ever been a part of your plan, you would’ve reported this bribe to your senior officer a long time ago. And yet we only found out after we were told by the criminals. Is that not suspicious to you?”

Ning sighed. “I did not get bribed. Instead, to get closer to them I sold them…” he paused. He thought for a quick second and sighed. He was going to have to reveal it, it seemed.

“… Dust. I sold them Dust.”

The entire courtroom was full of murmurs and conversations as many called for proper justice. They wanted Ning to be punished for his crimes.

Ning could see Redaime’s complicated look where it looked as though she wanted to help him but was unable to due to how low her status was as a Captain in front of Generals, Majors, and the Major General.

The Major General’s eyes widened at Ning’s confession. “You…” he slowly got angry. “I had hoped this part of your crime would be a lie that you could explain, but you… you sold Dust to the criminals? You were there to prevent it!”

‘Oh! Shit,’ Ning thought. In trying to get himself out of one trouble, he pushed himself into another one.

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