She didn't need ironclad proof. Even a flimsy piece of evidence would be enough. After all, her goal was to arouse the Judgement Family's suspicion and get them to investigate the High Tower Clan Leader... Once that happened, the Judgement Family would surely find the connections and evidence she couldn't.
Charos was finished.
She finally allowed herself to smile.
After much careful thought, Milady had a letter ready by the third day.
The letter was printed in ink on expensive, imported Chang'an paper. The salutation read, "To the esteemed Mr. Charos"—the leader of the Tower family—and it was signed, "Your loyal Hanrui Flower."
In the letter, Hanrui gave Charos a detailed report on the casino's performance over the last three months, explained the reasons for a sharp increase in several expenses, and mentioned the names of a few people responsible for its operation... Every word and every sentence indicated that the casino was Charos's business.
Of course, all the information was real, gleaned from the records Milady had seen in the accounting room that night.
Finally, she pressed the seal of "Hanrui Flower" firmly at the bottom of the letter.
Getting the letter into the hands of a key figure in the Judgement Family also took some serious thought. The Tower family was now one of the powerful Political Families, and if her carefully crafted letter fell into the hands of some low-level clerk, there was no guarantee they wouldn't intercept it to curry favor.
She couldn't even fully trust the peripheral members of the Judgement Family... This letter had to be delivered to someone with a direct conflict of interest with the Tower family.
Milady had previously known nothing of the political and business networks of Haidu's upper echelon, so she was now just stumbling around, searching blindly. In the words of Chang'an, it was a classic case of "hugging the Buddha's feet at the last minute." However, her persistence paid off. Just as Milady was about to burn out from exhaustion, she inadvertently learned that the Sea City Commander's younger clan sister was also the owner of the largest casino in Haidu.
'This might be the best destination for the letter, right?'
A high-ranking member of the Judgement Family who also personally ran a casino... Milady couldn't think of a single reason why this person would be willing to let the High Tower Clan Leader off the hook.
On the first day after she managed to get the letter into the person's hands, she felt as if a huge chunk of her own body had been carved out.
The nerves that had been stretched taut suddenly went slack, and the suppressed exhaustion washed over her like a tidal wave. After returning home, she collapsed onto her bed and slept for an entire day.
She didn't know how long it had been since she'd had a proper night's sleep. This time, she slept so deeply and for so long that she lost all track of time. When she finally woke, she was dazed and disoriented for a long while, unable to remember why her mother still wasn't home even though it was already evening.
By the fifth day after sending the letter, she couldn't even eat.
A Political Family secretly developing its own businesses was a major affair with wide-reaching implications. Five days was probably not enough time for the Judgement Family to complete an investigation.
But even though Milady understood this, she was still so anxious she couldn't sit still, wishing she could know the result immediately. She endlessly ran through various possibilities in her mind, trying to analyze what could go wrong and guess how far the Judgement Family's investigation had progressed... During this time, a clerk from the clan affairs office came to her door only once to press her about the "pollution clearing" duty. Milady pretended she wasn't home and didn't even open the door.
Never mind that she still had a good amount of the money she'd won from Wei Lian; even if she didn't have a single cent left, she would never go do that "pollution clearing" work.
She would rather starve to death, but before she closed her eyes for the last time, she had to see Charos fall from power.
On the eighth day, the doorbell to Milady's home rang again, this time insistently.
Milady's first thought was that the clerk had come back to hound her about the pollution clearing duty. She merely glanced toward the door before turning her attention back to her nautical charts.
She had been looking at nautical charts for the past two days to calm herself down. She kept thinking that once Charos was convicted, perhaps she would go to sea, or maybe to Yunzhong. In any case, she would go see a different world, just as her mother had hoped.
However, the person outside today was surprisingly patient, ringing the doorbell five or six times in a row. Just as Milady was getting annoyed enough to go back inside, she heard a woman's muffled voice from the doorway—"Is little Di home? It's your Fourth Aunt!"
'...Who?'
There were too many clan members she was related to but rarely saw. Milady thought for a moment, unable to imagine what would cause a distant, unfamiliar relative to suddenly show up at her door.