The brightly lit hall was gradually surrounded by the sound of pipe music, and all the fine wine and dishes were served. However, the chopsticks were placed beside the jade bowl, and no one moved them.
"Why hasn't Zhu Xiangxian arrived yet?" The prefect got impatient and asked the clerk beside him, "What has he been doing for so long...?"
"I saw him this morning, humble, traveling between villages."
"But……"
Before the magistrate could say anything, he suddenly heard a shout from down the hall: "Squire Zhu is here!"
Everyone turned their attention there, and saw a clerk as the leader, opening the curtain and inviting the guests behind him to come in, and then they could see the face of the squire. I saw that he was wearing an old felt hat and a cotton coat with seven patches. He was fat, had a kind face, and had a few white beards under his chin. He looked like he was in his forties or fifties. .
"My lords, I am late, please forgive me for this crime." He held out his belly, took two steps forward, and bowed respectfully.
The prefect scolded: "Squires Zhu, today the imperial official, Mr. Wan, is here. How can I be so disrespectful to you for being so neglected? What urgent matter do you have that you can't put aside?"
"Replying to my lord, I was just checking out the school fields in the village, and I really couldn't get away. I hope you can understand." Zhu Yangrui said.
"Xuetian?" Wan Yuzhi suddenly became interested when he heard these two words, and stood up and asked.
"Yes, in recent years, Zhu felt very sad because he saw that the children from his hometown had no money to go to school and could not receive the teachings of the sages. Therefore, he funded the construction of a free school and dedicated more than fifty acres of land under his name to the government as a school field for the free school. It is used for turnover. This year it was not enough, so I bought four or five more houses. I raised money and food for this purpose. I was running around so much that I didn’t even have time to celebrate my birthday. I just let the family members enjoy themselves in the house. "
After hearing this, the prefect was actually quite moved: "Squire Zhu, I told you where you were going to have fun. It was because of this good thing that benefits the people! You are worthy of being a great sage to me and a role model to all generations!"
Everyone complimented each other, and Wan Yuzhi also politely agreed twice, invited him to sit at the guest table, and then asked: "How many fields have you rowed now?"
Without thinking, Squire Zhu replied: "One thousand seven hundred acres."
Wan Yuzhi's eyes widened when he heard this amount: "So much? Ordinary gentry only donates twenty or thirty acres, which is considered to have accumulated immeasurable virtue. You threw away more than a thousand acres in one breath. It's really A great hero who has never been seen in the ages! The school must be built magnificently, and one day we must visit it."
Zhu Yangrui's face turned pale for a moment, but he quickly returned to his original state: "Well, Zhu will definitely take you to visit when the time comes."
Yuzhi's doubts were not allayed by these few words, but at the banquet, it was not appropriate to ask too many questions, so he smiled softly, changed the subject, and discussed light business until the evening, when they left happily.
Wan Yuzhi rested all night in Runing, and woke up early in the morning the next day, urging everyone to pack up and leave. The two servants secretly wondered when they saw that he had become taciturn and resolute, as if he had changed into a different person; but this was always a good sign. Finally, they no longer worried about the approaching time limit, so they just followed it calmly without asking a word. He sets off.
Within three days, Wan Yuzhi arrived in Xinyang. This time he resolutely declined the banquet hosted by the prefect. After only chatting with him for a few words, he began to set up directors, collect documents, consider the case, and manage the military. The people answered one by one and recorded each person's confession in detail. Everyone admired his decisiveness.
But as the so-called drunkard doesn't care about drinking, Wan Yuzhi doesn't care about it at all. He just wants to deal with it as soon as possible to give himself time to think. Therefore, he did not send anyone to prison for rigorous interrogation that day, but only said to the prefect: "I looked through the historical documents and found that Cun Zhao did promote many officers. It would be too arbitrary to say that they were all party members and minions. There were only a few officers. The experience is unclear and the suspicion is extremely high.”
The magistrate of Xinyang was shocked and asked hurriedly: "Do we really have any eyes and ears here?"
Wan Yuzhi pretended to be furious: "I was ordered to investigate the case, how can there be any lies!"
The prefect shivered and suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. He knelt down on the ground tremblingly: "The crime of humble duty deserves death! May I ask what the names of those people are? I will arrest them all right now!"
Seeing that he was so nervous, Wan Yuzhi's expression softened: "Sir, please don't be impatient. Won't you just scare the enemy away?"
The prefect was almost confused by him, and his eyes gradually became confused: "What should we do?"
Wan Yuzhi said with a smile: "I have a plan. You and I will stand still and wait patiently for a few days. On the one hand, we will numb the hearts of the rebels, and on the other hand, we will receive documents from various places and enrich the evidence. When the time is right, we can secretly ask someone to complain anonymously. But you can catch them all in one fell swoop.”
The prefect was already dizzy after being tricked in this way, and finally had no choice but to respond and praise this 'wonderful plan'. Then he listened to his instructions: "You go back and give orders to the officials. Don't say that the plan is mine. Otherwise, if those eyes and ears hear this, they will doubt my intentions and the plan will fail." The prefect did not dare to disobey, so he summoned everyone to discuss it. , the investigation of the case was stopped, and as expected, no one suspected Yu Zhi.
When Wan Yuzhi returned to the official office, he still did not forget the embarrassment of the magistrate. He was so happy that he couldn't help but lean on the desk and laugh loudly. He said to himself: "That guy is also dull. I have not been in office for a long time. It’s so unpleasant to be able to disgrace an old official like him! It seems that these old officials only rely on the law to control their careers. After all, they are incompetent people who just pretend to be calm! I will definitely send this news to Mr. Ye, so that They also looked at me and made fun of me!" After that, he became more and more proud, grabbed a bamboo pen, and wrote quickly on the white paper.
Just as he was about to write the last line, his pen suddenly stopped, leaving a thick black mark on the paper. With a 'tsk' sound, he immediately retracted his pen and placed it on the inkstone next to him. His expression was extremely serious, as if he had jumped from a sea of fire into ice water, and his mood changed in an instant.
He looked up at the nearly rising white moon and thought to himself: 'I can't get too excited. This is not even the first step, and the situation remains unclear. Nowadays, there are still two petty officials who follow him all the time. If they are not dealt with first, it may be difficult to intervene in the land system. But they are not from my group, and they don't know what position they hold. If they bribe directly, they may cause trouble. Those were all child's play before, this is the top priority now...'
He thought carefully for a long time, but he still had no idea, but he had broken away from the immersion of joy, so he picked up the letter asking for credit without hesitation, crumpled it into a ball, and burned it slowly in the light of the candle. .
