With a reputation of 70,000, one leader travels across countless worlds with his adventure team.

King Robert instructed the Royal Council to celebrate Ned's accession to the throne as Hand of the King by holding a tournament. However, the cost of the tournament was a real burden for Ned, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Littlefinger Baelish, stabbed Ned in the back by telling him about the royal family's debt of 600 million gold dragons.

Upon hearing this, Ned forgot all his shock at how they owed so much money and angrily questioned the ministers present, "How could you allow such a thing to happen?"

"The Chancellor of the Exchequer is only responsible for finding funds for the King; it is the King and the Prime Minister who spend the money!"

Littlefinger Baelish explained that he didn't want Ned to target him; his style was to cause trouble in secret, and if he were too high-profile, his future plans would be impossible to implement.

What he didn't know was that Bran in the North wasn't injured or had his leg broken. The assassin he sent to kill Bran to frame the Lannisters was blocked at the gate by the guards Jori had assigned to protect Bran, as I had informed him beforehand. Catelyn was also informed of the situation, so she didn't go south.

"Jon Irene would never allow Robert to squander money like this!"

Ned Stark was now somewhat enraged, and his words were devoid of any respect.

"Although Lady Eileen has offered wise advice, His Majesty the King may not heed it!" Grand Scholar Paisell explained to Ned.

"Our king calls these things a few coins!" The brainless Renly was adding fuel to the fire for Ned.

"I'll talk to him tomorrow. We can't afford such an extravagant and wasteful competition!"

Ned suppressed his anger, clenched his fists, and said firmly.

Ned glanced at the ministers and thought, "Brother Bai Ze is absolutely right. Not a single one of them is sincere! If I hadn't known their true colors beforehand, I would have been nothing more than their puppet after arriving in King's Landing!"

"There's no need to discuss the rest further; we'll talk about it after I've finished discussing it with the King!"

Ned interrupted the discussion as everyone was trying to come up with a plan, and glared at Littlefinger Baelish, who was still trying to stir things up.

He noticed that several ministers were looking at him, waiting for him to speak.

"Please forgive me, gentlemen, I am quite tired from my journey," Ned said, covering his face in discomfort.

“You are the Hand of the King, Lord Stark, we are at your beck and call,” Varys said, seemingly with sincerity.

"Okay, that's enough for today!"

Ned addressed the group, then rose and left the council chamber.

Back in the Prime Minister's Tower, Ned sat in the Prime Minister's office, rubbing his face uncomfortably, and suddenly remembered what I had told him: "Walls have ears."

He immediately called Jori and Viyampour from outside and beckoned them to be quiet. The wind from Blackwater Bay blew along the coastline toward King's Landing and the Red Keep, and a faint hissing sound came from the gaps in the walls.

Ned waved Sir Jory aside and told him to put his ear to the wall and listen. Jory walked to the wall and slowly started walking along the wall behind the Prime Minister's chair, gently tapping the wall. After a few steps, he felt the sound of the wall change, so he stopped and tapped around the wall again.

"Ta-da...Ta-da...Empty!!"

The sound changed a little to the right →_→. Jori tried to find his way around, and the bricks below him all made a hollow sound. Ned and the other two exchanged glances, realizing that someone was listening to the Prime Minister's Tower.

Jori looked at the marks on the wall and said, "Sir, the marks on the wall are very old; this place must have been here for a long time!"

Ned knew the seriousness of the situation; it seemed someone had been listening to the Prime Minister's Tower for a long time.

"Jori, find a dozen or so tight-lipped retainers and guards, and have them check every room in the Prime Minister's Tower to see which rooms are being monitored and where the secret passages lead. If any of them lead outside the city, we might be able to use them."

Ned hadn't forgotten what I'd told him. Judging from today's meeting, these people would never let him leave King's Landing easily, and there was still a lot of trouble ahead!

 …

While Ser Jori was leading the Wolfsburg guards on a clandestine nighttime inspection of the Hand's Tower, Jon Snow accompanied Tyrion Lannister to the highest point of the Wall. Jon Snow watched helplessly as Tyrion stood atop the wall and urinated towards the outside of it.

After Tyrion finished freezing the bird, Jon Snow looked at Tyrion and said:

"I really don't want you to leave, Lannister!"

Tyrion looked at Jon Snow and said, "If the cold were gone, this would be a nice place, but unfortunately it has taken root here!"

"Will you stop at Winterfell when you go back?" Jon Snow asked Tyrion.

"Probably," Tyrion replied. "King's Landing is a long way from here, but we still want to enjoy the feather bed."

"If you happen to pass through Winterfell and see my brother Bran, please say hello to him. I miss him dearly, and I will definitely go back to see him whenever I have the chance."

"Ok!"

Take care, Jon Snow.

"My lord, I wish you a safe journey!"

 …

Arya, unable to bear doing needlework and learning etiquette every day in King's Landing, ran off to play on the rooftop outside Ned Stark's room. Little did she know that Ned Stark had prepared a surprise for her!

They found Syrio, who had served as the chief swordsman under the Sea King of Braavos for nine years, to be Arya's swordsmanship teacher. Arya happily followed her teacher to practice swordsmanship. Ned stood not far away at the door, watching the earnest Arya. The sound of the wooden swords clashing seemed to transform into the sounds of war, the clash of weapons, making Ned's face extremely solemn.

After inspecting the rooms in the Prime Minister's Tower, Jori sought out Ned to report on his findings. Ned led Jori to a small, empty garden. Looking around, they saw no one. Jori handed Ned a map and said:

“We searched the Prime Minister’s meeting room and found secret rooms on the two floors where the Prime Minister and his family live, as well as in the Prime Minister’s meeting room. We also found the access routes!”

"There are so many!" Ned looked at the map in disbelief. Almost every important room the Prime Minister could access had a secret passage for eavesdropping.

“That tunnel! Where does the exit lead?” Ned asked quickly.

"In the basement, there is a large tunnel. We also found dragon bones in the tunnel. It should be the passage that the Targaryen family provided for the dragons to travel from the dragon's lair to the Red Keep. The passage leads south and eventually to the vicinity of Blackwater Bay outside the castle. The exit is very well hidden!"

“I had Harris and his men guard the basement area, using it as a training ground for the guards. This would block outsiders from entering the Prime Minister’s Tower without arousing suspicion.”

Jori came up with a brilliant idea to thwart any attempts to sneak into the Prime Minister's Tower to eavesdrop.

“Very good, Jori, this method allows you to guard the retreat route and also protect the Prime Minister’s Tower from leaks. It’s an excellent idea!” Ned was very satisfied with Sir Jori’s arrangement!

 …

Time flew by, and the news of the king's upcoming tournament caused knights and swordsmen from all over to flood into King's Landing every day, much to the dismay of Genos Slytherin, the Golden Robe commander in charge of maintaining order in the city. He then sought help from the King's Council.

The problem of insufficient funds was passed on to Littlefinger Baelish, while the issue of insufficient manpower was not addressed by Ned's own guards, but rather by the King's brother, the Minister of Justice, Renly.

If there are no manpower, have Genos Slint find mercenaries to keep the fighting going until the tournament ends.

Knowing the ministers of the Grand Council harbored ill intentions, Ned did not send his own guards to protect the Prime Minister's Tower or the escape route to the basement. Protecting himself and his family was what Ned was thinking about now.

After the meeting, Grand Maester Paisell approached Ned and told him what Eileen was doing before she died, hoping to get Ned to investigate the cause of Eileen's death and thus lure him into a trap.

The Grand Maester's deliberate revelation of Irene's dying words, "Caste strength," and the book she left behind—the genealogy and history of the major noble families of the Seven Kingdoms—further fueled Ned's suspicion that Irene's sudden death was a conspiracy.

To lure himself into investigating further, Ned didn't say much to the Grand Maester. He took the book and returned to his room in the Tower of the Head. In the corridor outside his room, he saw Arya standing on one leg and learned that this was Syrio's training for her. Seeing his daughter's happy and serious expression, Ned became even more determined to bring them safely back to the North.

The next day, Littlefinger deliberately approached Ned and told him about Irene's whereabouts before her death, hoping to get Ned to continue investigating Irene's death. Ned remembered what I had told him, "Don't believe Littlefinger!"

Therefore, Ned was very wary of this Chancellor of the Exchequer, let alone the fact that he was involved with his own wife, which Ned could not tolerate.

This time, instead of investigating the address Littlefinger Baelish had given him himself, he sent someone to investigate while everyone in the castle was out. While Ned was busy scheming against the ministers at the King's Council, Arya, while chasing a cat, discovered Varys and Governor Illyrio having a secret meeting in the passageway outside the basement. She learned that they were the ones who had guided her father to investigate the cause of death of former Prime Minister Irene, and she immediately ran back to the Prime Minister's Tower to find her father.

While Ned was in the Prime Minister's office reviewing the genealogies and history books of the major noble families of the seven kingdoms, he heard Arya urgently calling him. Ned let Arya in to speak, and Arya ran to Ned's side and said:

"While I was chasing the cat, I overheard Lord Varys and Governor Illyrio talking in the passageway outside the basement..."

After listening to his daughter Arya recount the events, Ned became even more convinced that the courtiers were trying to steer him toward investigating Lord Arya's death. This further convinced Ned that Jon Arya had been murdered, not died of a fever.

Ned tells his daughter Arya not to tell anyone what she saw, and to practice swordsmanship diligently with her teacher Syrio. He also tells her that once she has mastered the sword, he will ask the tavern owner, Bai Ze, to give her a real sword. Hearing her father's promise, Arya happily runs to tell Syrio the good news.