kvmb Chapter 337: Yang Hongyu sent you?
Chapter 337: Yang Hongyu sent you?
"Sir Wang." Su Yue put down his chopsticks, his smile not reaching his eyes. "I am here to control the floods under the order of the emperor for the benefit of the people on both sides of the strait, not to drink and chat. Tomorrow morning, I need to check the river engineering accounts for the past years. Please give me a favor."
Minister Wang's face changed. "This is against the rules! The account books need to be approved by the Ministry of Works..."
"What a coincidence." Liang Junze suddenly pulled out a scroll of official documents from his sleeve. "Before leaving, Minister Li gave me a special warrant."
Under the candlelight, the seal of the Ministry of Works was bright red and glaring.
Prefect Zhao's forehead was covered in sweat. He forced a smile and said, "Master Su, why are you so anxious? Flood control is not a one-day job. Why not first..."
"Your Excellency," Gu Qingyan suddenly said, his voice cold and hard, "The 'Steamed Yellow River Carp' on your table is made with fish caught this year, right?"
Zhao Zhifu was stunned: "Of course..."
"But the three counties downstream were flooded, and the fishermen have already lost their harvest for over a month." Gu Qingyan's hawk-like eyes swept across the table full of delicacies, "Where did this fish come from?"
In the dead silence, Su Yue slowly stood up and said, "It seems that you gentlemen are busy with official business. I will not bother you any more."
She walked away, Liang Junze and Gu Qingyan following closely behind. It was only after she left the government office and felt the night breeze blowing against her face that she breathed a sigh of relief.
"Yuer." Liang Junze put a cloak on her, "Next..."
"Check the accounts." Su Yue looked up at the inky black night sky and spoke word by word, "Get to the bottom of it."
Before dawn, Puyang City was shrouded in thick fog, and the sound of dew dripping from the eaves of the post station could be clearly heard.
Su Yue tapped the table with her fingertips, and the account book spread out in front of her was yellowed by the candlelight.
Liang Junze was circling suspicious entries in another book with a red pen, while Gu Qingyan stood in front of the window with his arms folded, scanning the street with his eyes like a hawk.
"Last March, we purchased 2,000 cubic meters of stone." Su Yue paused on a line of ink, "But there's not even a decent stone on the embankment."
Liang Junze suddenly put down his pen. "What's even more bizarre is this entry: 'April of the Bingshen year, eight thousand taels of silver paid to Yang for labor and materials,' but next to it is the note 'old materials for new use.'" He picked up a receipt tucked away in the book. "But the inspection form signed by Yang Hongyu herself says 'newly mined bluestone.'"
Gu Qingyan sneered: "What a good way to make new use of old materials."
The sound of night watchmen's drums came from outside the window, and Su Yue rubbed his swollen temples.
Since the banquet ended in a bad mood that day, the Puyang officialdom suddenly became rigid.
The River Administration claimed that the accounting office was on fire, and the Household Registration Office said that the chief clerk was in mourning. Even the simplest list of migrant workers had to be repeatedly requested.
"Sir!" The postmaster knocked on the door in a panic. "Liu, the head of the Ministry of Works, wishes to see you."
When Liu Yun stepped into the room, there was still fresh mud on her official boots.
This sixth-rank official sent by the Ministry of Works had vowed three days ago to cooperate in the audit.
"Sir Su." She took the tea Liang Junze handed her, but didn't drink it. She just stroked the rim of the cup. "Let me be frank - the Yang family has been entrenched in Puyang for a hundred years. Even the retired emperor had to give them some face."
Su Yue raised her eyebrows: "Master Liu, have you been bribed? Or do you want to keep things quiet?"
"You misunderstood," Liu Yun said with a wry smile. "This morning I went to check the roster of river workers, and guess what? The old clerk in charge of the treasury had a heart attack on the spot." She pulled a prescription from her sleeve. "The doctor prescribed three taels of golden bird's nest as the lead medicine."
Liang Junze's eyes flashed - this was a naked threat.
"Besides..." Liu Yun lowered her voice, "Do you really think Yang Hongyu dares to take 100,000 taels of silver alone?" She dipped the tea in the water and drew a symbol on the table, then quickly erased it.
Su Yue's pupils suddenly shrank. That was the secret sign of the Rui Palace!
When the rainstorm suddenly hit, Su Yue was taking the pulse of a little girl with a fever in the disaster relief camp.
The thatched hut was leaking everywhere, sewage was flowing on the ground, and several skinny men with pale faces were huddled in the corner - in this world where women are dominant, male disaster victims are not even qualified to receive porridge.
"Boil mugwort in water and rub it on the child." She took off her cloak and wrapped it around the child. She turned to the yamen runner in charge of the porridge stall and said, "From today on, grain will be distributed according to household size, regardless of gender."
Before the yamen runner could respond, a sneer came from behind him: "Lord Su, you have such great authority." Yang Hongyu stepped into the mud in her deerskin boots. "The rules of Puyang were set during the reign of Emperor Taihuang."
"The Grand Emperor has decided to 'allocate food according to the number of people'." Su Yue took out the "Da Ming Laws" from her bosom, "The word 'people' doesn't say there should be a distinction between men and women." She deliberately knocked the spine of the book against the fish symbol on her waist, and the sound of the metal collision made Yang Hongyu's face change slightly.
On the carriage back to the inn, Su Yue took out her tablet and hurriedly recorded her observations. Gu Qingyan used her body to block the window slit while Liang Junze massaged her temples. "Are you really going to touch the Yang family?"
"More than that." Su Yue pulled up the photos of the account books she secretly took last night. "Their methods of embezzlement are too skilled. There must be someone behind them..."
Before he could finish his words, the carriage suddenly stopped.
A feathered arrow was pinned to the frame of the car. The bloodstained cloth wrapped around the arrow's tail bore only six words:
【Those who meddle in other people’s affairs will die】
Liang Junze wiped some powder from the arrow shaft and sniffed it: "Arsenic."
"That's great." Gu Qingyan grinned and polished the lighter. "I was just worried I'd run out of excuses to search the Hedao Office."
At noon, Su Yue arrived at the disaster camp alone.
The days of confrontation made her urgently need to take a breath, and she wanted to see with her own eyes the distribution of disaster relief food.
The camp was filled with the mixed smell of herbs and decaying things.
Several skinny men were cooking porridge, with thin rice soup bubbling in the iron pot.
Seeing the figures in official uniforms appear, they hurriedly knelt on the ground, revealing the scars of whipping on their backs.
"Get up." Su Yue bent down and helped a white-haired old man up. "Have you received your food today?"
The old man trembled and dared not answer, but the little girl next to him suddenly spoke: "The official said... that the granary was flooded and we have to wait another three days."
Su Yue felt a tightness in her chest. Just as she was about to ask, she heard a hoarse female voice behind her: "If you really want to know why the Yellow River burst its banks, I have a story."
Turning around, I saw a hunchbacked old woman leaning on a charred jujube wood stick.
Her left sleeve was empty, her right eye was covered with a film, but the other eye was frighteningly bright.
"Twenty years ago, Prince Ning'an came to Puyang to control the flood." The old woman pulled out a rusty bronze plate from her bosom. "That night, there was a thunderstorm, and she took three hundred of her personal soldiers to inspect the dike, and the result was..."
The four characters "Ning'an Guards" on the bronze plaque were soaked with blood.
That night, Su Yue was studying the bronze medal given by the old woman under the lamp when suddenly there was a sound of breaking tiles outside the window.
Gu Qingyan's knife was faster than Jingxing's. With a flash of cold light, a crossbow arrow was cut in mid-air. The dark blue light on the arrowhead showed that it was quenched with poison.
"Be careful!" Liang Junze extinguished the candle and protected Su Yue behind the couch.
Outside the courtyard wall, there was a clatter of footsteps, at least twenty people. Gu Qingyan licked the blade and smiled grimly, "I can't help it anymore."
The sound of fighting lasted for half a quarter of an hour.
When the last man in black was kicked into the house, Liang Junze's jade hairpin was against his throat.
"Did Yang Hongyu send you here?" Su Yue squatted down and pulled off the assassin's veil - it was the guard of the Bai Ri granary.
The man in black sneered, "Sir, why are you asking when you already know the answer? You should have thought about this when you checked the accounts."
"Really?" Su Yue pulled a letter from her sleeve. "It's a pity your master doesn't know. This morning I sent the evidence of Yang's corruption, along with the accounts of Prince Rui's Mansion, to the capital."
The assassin's expression suddenly changed.
"Oh, right." Su Yue gently unfolded the letter. "It was written on a horse given by the Empress herself. It should have already...passed Xuzhou by now?"
When the morning light pierced through the thick fog, the Puyang government office was surrounded by the imperial guards.
Zhao Zhifu was dragged out in disheveled clothes, still wearing slippers: "I want to see the Queen! I am the wife of Princess Rui--"
"Forget it." The imperial envoy sneered, "Prince Rui has been imprisoned this morning, and now she can't protect herself."
Su Yue stood outside the crowd and watched Yang Hongyu walk out wearing shackles.
The once arrogant river supervisor now looked ashen, but suddenly roared as he passed by Su Yue: "You think you won? The things buried under the ground in Puyang are enough to turn the entire Mingxi Kingdom upside down!"
Liang Junze frowned: "Is she bluffing?"
"No." Su Yue looked towards the Yellow River. "Maybe it's an unknown secret."