Lord Val, the Grand Chancellor, liked things to make sense. He was a man of logic. But a week after Jian was hurt, he was very frustrated. The official search for the attacker was going nowhere. Every clue led to a dead end. The dart used to hurt Jian was common and impossible to track. The light that fell looked like an accident. No one saw anything clear in the crowd.
Val walked back and forth in his office. He saw the reports on his desk as proof of his failure. Jian was still very weak and talking about an "Archivist" who was "erasing history." Val thought this was just crazy talk from a sick man. He believed in real enemies like spies or rival leaders, not ghosts who changed history.
Still, he felt something was wrong. An attack in the palace should have left some kind of proof. It felt like a piece of the puzzle was missing.
He started thinking about Princess Zhen and Wen Zhi. They were there when Jian fell, and they had talked to him right before. Lately, he noticed them watching the palace investigators. They weren't being loud, but they seemed very curious. They talked in secret and looked very serious.
Val noticed everything. He wondered if they knew something they weren't telling him. At first, he thought their talk about "coldness" was just a childish story. But now, since he had no other clues, he began to wonder if they were right.
One afternoon, Val went back to the Hall, where Jian was hurt. He looked at the broken light one more time. As he touched the metal, he found something tiny. It was a small piece of dark, smooth metal stuck in a crack. It did not match the rest of the light. It was a very small detail, but it did not belong there. This little discovery made him start to doubt that the fall was just an accident.
Wen Zhi noticed that the Grand Chancellor was acting differently. He could see that Val was frustrated and starting to question the official story. Wen Zhi's silver power told him that Val was beginning to have doubts.
Wen Zhi decided to take a risk. He saw the Grand Chancellor in a hallway and walked up to him, acting like it was just a chance meeting.
"Grand Chancellor," Wen Zhi said with a polite bow.
"I hope Prime Minister Jian is feeling better."
Val nodded quickly.
"He is still weak. And our search for the truth has found very little."
Wen Zhi waited a moment before speaking.
"It is very strange," he said in a calm voice.
"That light was so heavy. It makes me wonder if the fall was the only danger or if someone had a more secret plan."
He chose his words carefully to hint at a mystery. Then he added, "I remember seeing a strange scratch on the broken metal. It looked like it was made by a sharp tool, not by the fall." He hoped this would make Valerius think about the strange things he had found.
Val stopped walking. He looked interested. He hadn't told anyone about the tiny piece of smooth metal he found, but Wen Zhi's talk of a "sharp tool" matched his own thoughts. It made him sure that someone was hiding the truth.
"A tool mark?" Val asked, his face looking serious.
"I will have the pieces checked again. Thank you, Wen Zhi."
Val did not fully trust the two young people yet. He thought their powers were strange. However, he was a practical man. If they had information that could help him find the truth, he was willing to listen. He started to see them as helpful sources instead of just kids.
The Grand Chancellor went back to his office. He had the broken pieces brought to him again. He looked at them even harder this time. He found the tiny piece of smooth metal again. After what Wen Zhi said, he looked very closely at the broken edges. He didn't see a clear tool mark, but the strange piece of metal felt very important now. It didn't belong there, and it proved that the fall wasn't as simple as it looked.
Val began to think about Jian's words again. He thought about the names "Archivist" and "erasing history." Maybe Jian wasn't just talking nonsense because he was sick. Maybe he had found a secret truth. The idea of people changing history seemed hard to believe, but a secret plan to hurt Jian with no clues left behind seemed very possible now.
Valerius knew he needed more information. He couldn't talk about a secret plot without real proof. So, he started his own quiet search. He didn't use the main team of investigators. Instead, he looked at Jian's recent work and the old books Jian had been reading. He asked Jian's helpers about his interests and what had been worrying him lately.
He was now very suspicious. The Grand Chancellor, who usually liked things to be simple and logical, was starting to doubt the official story. He didn't fully trust Wen Zhi and Zhen yet, but he was starting to think the truth was hidden in small details he had missed. The shadow of the archivist was now making him doubt everything, even his own investigation.