<h4>Chapter 686 - Hong Lin Kingdom''s Secrets </h4>


    Lin Mu continued to listen to the conversion of the royal nephew, and uncle as they talked.


    "But what is it that they wanted with us, Uncle Kou?" The king questioned.


    "Oh, it was the same old, people needing thousand year old Hong Lin trees. I told him that we don’t have the location for any such trees as of now. Instead of that, we are willing to provide them some wood from our own reserve storage that they can take." Kou answered.


    Hearing this, the king furrowed his brows.


    "Hmm... the number of Hong Lin trees that reach a thousand years has greatly fallen over the years for us. I think it may be time to enact the measures father had chosen back then." The king spoke upon hearing Kou.


    "Those measures were controversial and you know that. If we really do announce them, our trade will fall and so will the taxes we gain from our people." Kou replied.


    "But if we really don’t do anything, we will be losing our heritage, the Hong Lin trees. You of all people should know well uncle, there must always be at least ten thousand year old Hong Lin trees living, or the entire forest will start to die.


    They are the mother trees that we protect, but if others cannot rece themter on, if some ident happens, we won’t be able to do anything and it will be toote to regret it." The King said in a concerned voice.


    <i>~Sigh~</i>


    "This is a problem that has troubled us for a long time now. Many past ministers and kings tried to find some solution, but it was never suitable for the time period. Even now, we cannot do it.


    It is unknown which trees have the potential to survive till a thousand years and be thousand year old Hong Lin trees. If we forcibly protect all trees and prevent them from being cut down, just for the fear that it might be the potential thousand year old tree, it will only cause an uproar." Kou exined.


    The King shook his head and closed his eyes to focus on his cultivation back again.


    Unknown to both of them, Lin Mu had heard their entire conversion, which could be considered to be very sensitive. Lin Mu had evidently gotten to learn several sensitive secrets of the Hong Lin kingdom.


    The first was that there were ten mother Hong Lin trees being actively protected by the royal family somewhere and that not all Hong Lin trees had the potential of bing a thousand year old.


    Lin Mu knew that there were actually people that sold Hong Lin saplings to various people. The customers for this were both the citizens from the Hong Lin kingdom and also other kingdoms.


    Several sects had bought them as well, just for the hope that the tree might reach thousand years and grow to be a thousand year old Hong Lin tree.


    But what they did not know was that they had been intentionally misinformed. If they did find out about this, there was a great chance they would be offended, despite the fact that the natural survival chances of a Hong Lin tree only decreased once it lived past five hundred years.


    In the entire Hong Lin kingdom, there were less than 5% of trees that were actually a hundred years or older. One could only imagine how difficult it would be for a Hong Lin tree to reach a thousand years.


    Lin Mu thought about this all and wondered if there was a way he could take advantage of this somehow.


    The King’s uncle took his leave and went back to his own room to cultivate for now. Lin Mu observed both of them for a while and saw that they were not doing anything other than cultivating and thus decided to take his leave.


    "I should get to the repository so I can see the records about me and the Hei corps..." Lin Mu muttered to himself.


    His spirit sense soon found the area where the repository was located. It was located right below where the king’s court was and even had a direct entrance to it from the back. Its main entrance for others though was from the floor below it.


    All of these, of course, were irrelevant to Lin Mu, and he directly descended into the repository. Luckily for him, there was no one in the hall for the time being and let him search it freely.


    ’It may be because the king is cultivating right above this that they decide to prevent others froming here and identally disturbing the king.’ Lin Mu thought to himself.


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    While the royal repository wasrge, it didn’t have the same number of documents and records as that of thew enforcement hall. Plus, the documents and records that were kept here were rather varied and contained more than just crime reports and such.


    There were official records of the Kingdom’s daily expenditure and functioning that went all the way back to over three hundred years, its history and genealogy of all the king’s and even several cultivation techniques.


    While Lin Mu found several of these documents interesting, he put off reading them for the time being and focused on the task for which he came here. After about an hour’s search, Lin Mu finally found the thing he came here for.


    "There it is... Lin Mu and Hei corps." Lin Mu picked up the two scrolls that were kept together, along with several other scrolls with sensitive information.


    Lin Mu first read his own scroll and then the scroll about the Hei corps.


    In his own scroll, there wasn’t anything that seemed out of the normal to him. It was just more and more orders about how to find and where to report the information about him.


    It was all general instructions that would be issued for most wanted criminals. But when he finally got to the scroll about the Hei corps, his eyes narrowed.