Chapter 120: Tactics (Part 2)

Chapter 120: Tactics (Part 2)

Zhong Junxiong was struck speechless for a moment.

A vast, nameless terror seized him.

Zhong Junxiong sidestepped that topic, instead asking to see his son.

Secretary Wen scratched his head: "Bad timing—everyone's already been shipped off to the mines."

Zhong Junxiong's voice suddenly shifted pitch, turning sharp and piercing: "—The mines?"

Secretary Wen had a spine no bigger than a sparrow's, and he nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden spike in Zhong Junxiong's voice.

"Yes." Catching the stormy look on Zhong Junxiong's face, Secretary Wen, still shaken, tried to reassure him, "The mines are shorthanded right now, so that's where they got sent. They eat and bunk there. Ha, the last guy built that coal mine like a fortress, complete with a watchtower—works quite well. Just a dozen or so local soldiers can keep 'em locked down tight—ain't nobody getting out."

Secretary Wen was a total blockhead, plain and simple—every word out of his mouth was blunt, ugly truth.

However, he was soft-hearted, easily swayed, and a real family man, so he did feel for Zhong Junxiong's fierce love for his son.

He softened his voice and clicked his tongue: "But under the Magistrate's rule, things there are a whole lot different than before. They eat decent at noon—got stewed cabbage on the menu."

But those words hit Zhong Junxiong's ears all wrong.

His heart felt like it was being ripped in two.

Dabao had been eating the finest delicacies and wearing silks and satins since the day he was born—since when did he eat stewed cabbage?

Most importantly, the mine shafts were so dark and brutal—it wasn't uncommon for a man or two to die down there.

Even if he stormed the yamen after, he wouldn't get a straight answer out of them.

He couldn't exactly make the County Magistrate pay with his own life for his son, could he?

Secretary Wen's blunt honesty left Zhong Junxiong feeling gutted.

He stumbled out of the yamen in a daze and headed home, where his wife came at him in a panic, demanding to know where their son was.

Not in the mood to deal with his wife's fussing, he just blurted out the truth: "The yamen wants money!"

His wife's jaw dropped, and she stared blankly for a long moment, tears pooling in her eyes, ready to spill but not quite falling.

After a while, she came to her senses, so mad she wanted to wring his neck: "Then give it to them! Like our family's short on pocket change or something?! How much do they want?"

"Two hundred taels!"

His wife grew even angrier: "Two hundred taels? I've got that. My dowry alone's close to three hundred. If you won't cough it up, I will!"

"They already hit me up once!" Zhong Junxiong flopped down into the head seat, huffing and puffing. "I already handed over five hundred taels before!"

His wife was rendered speechless.

Back in the day, she'd traipsed all over with Zhong Junxiong, so she wasn't completely green.

Putting two and two together, she smelled something fishy.

Twisting her handkerchief, she asked, suspicious, "Have you offended someone?"

Zhong Junxiong stayed silent.

Well, to be fair, he had indeed "offended" the yamen.

But what that "offense" actually was—that had to rot in his gut. He could never tell a soul.

Seeing him just shake his head, his wife shot to her feet and paced the hall like a whirlwind.

Since her husband wouldn't come clean, she mulled it over and naturally pointed the finger at outsiders.

"Fine, fine." She gnashed her teeth. "And here I thought we had some squeaky-clean County Magistrate—won't bleed the poor dry 'cause there's no money in it, so he decides to carve us up instead? He think we're pushovers or what?"

A sudden surge of heroine spirit welled up in her. Seeing her husband with his head bowed in silence, she swallowed her fury and softly patted his head, all tenderness: "Don't you worry! Clench that money tight—don't hand another copper to anybody. That's a bottomless pit—you could toss a thousand taels of gold and ten thousand of silver in and it wouldn't do a lick of good! We haven't robbed the Magistrate's money, nor have we taken his life. He's got our boy—he's just holding a card to scare us. If anything happens to Dabao in his hands, I'll torch the yamen to the ground—nobody's walking away clean!"

Zhong Junxiong was too worn out to speak.

His wife's words landed with real weight—they almost made him respect her.

But he really had tried to kill Little Master.

Otherwise, why would that Wen Ren suddenly go crazy and latch onto him like a pit bull?

Or maybe—was he just being paranoid, his guilty conscience messing with his head?

Maybe, like his wife said, that Wen Ren was a real pro at playing the long game—first building Nanting up with a big show, then treating the rich families like hogs to fatten up before the kill?

Zhong Junxiong pondered for a long while, then gave up in helpless resignation.

He couldn't figure it out, couldn't articulate it, and had absolutely no way to go to the yamen to demand the Magistrate's intentions.

In the end, all he could do was feel helpless.

He asked, "Then what about Dabao?"

His wife froze, fell silent for a moment, then took a deep breath, her voice tinged with tears: "He brought this on himself—let him suffer the consequences!"

That was what she said, but after retreating to her room and weeping for a good while, she decided she could not simply do nothing.

In this life, she had few accomplishments to speak of—this one son was all she had, and she couldn't let him suffer unjustly without a fight.

She steadied herself, summoned her personal maidservant, and took out some of her private savings, intending to stir up a proper commotion.

...

When word came that someone was causing trouble at the coal mine, Le Wuya was sitting by the corridor warming himself by the fire, nestled together with Er Ya, cracking melon seeds.

Le Wuya, breaking the rules, spat the shells everywhere; Er Ya was busily using her two front paws to sweep them into a pile, having a grand old time.

Having been kept out of the sun for so long, Le Wuya's complexion had grown far fairer than in autumn—so soft it seemed it might yield water at a pinch. When he blinked, his lashes fanned down, casting beautiful shadows beneath his eyes.

Secretary Wen approached with small steps, speaking in a hushed tone: "Magistrate, someone is causing trouble at the mine."

As he spoke, he glanced at Le Wuya's wound, then lowered his head.

The Magistrate ate and slept within the yamen, claiming to have caught a chill, but with everyone constantly crossing paths, quite a few people inside and outside the yamen had come to know that the Magistrate was injured.

Secretary Wen had a naturally loose tongue, often taking cases from the yamen home to gossip with his wife.

But this time, he went to work and handled affairs as usual every day, went home to cook, and never once mentioned the Magistrate's injury to his wife or children.

His thinking was simple: since the Magistrate intended to keep it hidden, there must be some deeper meaning he couldn't fathom.

His mind wasn't too sharp, so he figured he'd sit this one out.

Secretary Wen belonged to one faction, while Deputy Magistrate Sun belonged to another.

Deputy Magistrate Sun figured the Magistrate had total control in Nanting, and that his phony act now was no different from Zhao Gao pulling that "pointing at a deer and calling it a horse" stunt.

The Magistrate claimed he had a cold—who'd dare go around saying the Magistrate was hurt?

To him, this was clearly a loyalty test for the whole yamen crew.

He wasn't about to take that bait.

With everyone keeping their own counsel, the news of Le Wuya's injury was kept completely under wraps.

Secretary Wen laid out the whole mess at the mine in detail.

Four or five folks had kicked up a fuss, saying their husbands weren't gamblers by nature—they'd just walked past the gambling den's door and got grabbed by the Magistrate's men, probably as an excuse for the yamen to round up workers under the cover of a gambling bust.

Back in the day, the Nanting constables would've just cracked a few heads and sent them packing.

But over the last year, the officials and the folks had been getting along pretty well.

So suddenly having to bust out the clubs again, even they were hesitant.

So somebody rode fast to the yamen to ask the Magistrate what to do.

Le Wuya perked up: "How are they raising a ruckus?"

Secretary Wen, hands tucked in his sleeves, shot back just as eagerly: "I hear it's a civilized kind of protest—they're crying and talking, saying they won't budge till their men are let go."

Le Wuya: "Slick."

"You said it," Secretary Wen said, being the expert on this kind of domestic squabble. "If they were throwing a tantrum, we could handle 'em easy. But this quiet, polite stuff is the worst—if we lay a hand on 'em, we're the bad guys."

Le Wuya: "Let me go check it out."

Secretary Wen, who'd been hoping to grab some sunflower seeds, felt his easy mood evaporate: "Don't, your leg's—"

Le Wuya was pretty careful with himself, leaning on a pillar as he wobbled to his feet: "Go fetch a sedan chair."

Secretary Wen was stumped.

He blinked, couldn't think of anything else to say, sighed, and hightailed it out of there.

...

The Nanting coal mine was out in the sticks, but word of the ruckus got around, and plenty of folks were willing to hoof it three li just to see what was going on.

By now, the mine entrance was packed solid, people stacked in layers.

The mediation aunties, along with Yuan Zijin, had already shown up, talked hoarse from trying to reason with them, but the four women just sat there crying, not saying a word.

Yuan Zijin was hopping around to keep warm, trying to persuade them while thinking the whole thing was nuts.

He grabbed a second to whisper, "Third Aunt, aren't their husbands all deadbeat gamblers? Like, that Sister Hu over there—didn't her gambling husband beat her just two months ago? Both eyes black and blue. If you ask me, it'd be better if those guys croaked in the mine—done and dusted. Why even bother?"

The woman he called "Third Aunt" sighed: "Bull. You really think they don't know the score?"

Even if these men gamble away the family money, they still hold the household together.

If something happened to them in the mine, wouldn't the widows and orphans have their little bit of property grabbed by the clan right away?

And if their own families treated them like spilled water, with nowhere to go, they'd have no choice but to jump in the Nanting River.

Yuan Zijin was totally lost and wanted to ask more, but the crowd on one side suddenly split open.

A little gray sedan chair was carried in.

The sedan stopped, the curtain flipped up, and there sat Le Wuya.

He smiled before saying: "Quite the lively scene here."

The whole place went dead quiet.

The women were caught off guard too.

They'd come on Lady Zhong's say-so, having heard their men were sent to work in the coal mine, and scared something might happen to them, they'd rushed over in a panic.

They knew full well the Magistrate had cut taxes, built bridges and roads, and looked after folks—a once-in-a-century good magistrate. Making gamblers do hard labor was totally fair.

If they had any decency, they shouldn't have come to give him grief.

But you never knew what might happen at the mine.

I mean, didn't that Chang Xiaohu die last year?

If their husbands really died and they became widows, would the Magistrate be nice enough to give them a room in the yamen so they'd have a roof over their heads?

Lady Zhong had said that if they kicked up a fuss, the yamen would hand the men back just to keep the peace.

The Magistrate was a good man; he wouldn't just beat or arrest folks for no reason.

Caught off guard by this sudden news, they'd come to raise a stink.

But the Magistrate had actually shown up himself?

Le Wuya looked around, holding his hand warmer, and gave a big smile: "My leg's hurt, so I can't bow properly. Hope you sisters-in-law will forgive me."

At that, the crowd buzzed with murmurs.

The women were stunned, and once it sank in, each one felt a flush of embarrassment.

The Magistrate was hurt, and he'd come all this way for them?

Le Wuya was real friendly, talking slow and sounding totally reasonable: "I was thinking of having you all come to the yamen to sort this out, but then I figured—you sisters-in-law are already worried enough. If I sent someone to fetch you, you'd just get more scared, and that'd make me look like a bully of a magistrate."

"Today I'm not in my official robes, so I won't pull any magistrate rank. Sisters-in-law, how about we find a spot nearby out of the wind, leave the door open, and have a nice chat?"

With that, he turned to Yuan Zijin: "Master Yuan, I'll need your help."

Yuan Zijin gave him a suspicious look, thinking, is he really hurt?

But when a constable hoisted Le Wuya onto his back, everyone, including Yuan Zijin, was blown away.

Yuan Zijin didn't say another word, found a nearby clinic, asked the doctor on duty to clear a little space, and set up a quiet spot for them to sit and talk.

Le Wuya looked around, nodded, and smiled: "Good spot—I was just about due for a checkup anyway."

Le Wuya was younger than every single woman there.

Out of his official robes, with that clean, plain face of his, he looked just like a sickly kid from next door.

These women could wail and shout at burly men, slap their thighs and act tough, but faced with this pale young man, all they could do was stand there dumbstruck, hearts aching.

Le Wuya said in a gentle voice, "What are your husbands' names?"

After they stammered out the names, Le Wuya noted each one down and said, "Have the one surnamed Hu brought up out of the mine."

Upon hearing this, Sister Hu's spirits perked right up, and she squared her shoulders.

Before long, a scrawny man, face and hands black with coal dust, was brought out.

The moment he saw his wife standing there, he went blank for a second, then stared at her, dumbfounded. "What are you doing here?"

Sister Hu's voice trembled with tears: "I was scared you'd be—be having a rough time in there..."

"Suffering is exactly what's supposed to happen. You've been told time and again. Did you really think you were coming here for an easy ride?" Le Wuya pulled out his folding fan and jabbed it toward the Hu man. "Tell your wife what you do in there."

The Hu man hung his head and mumbled, "Just... pushing carts and hauling coal. They dig down below, I haul it up top..."

Le Wuya rested his chin on the fan and smiled. "Ladies, you see, not everyone goes down the mine. These new guys are all thumbs—I'm afraid they'd ruin my good coal, smashing it to bits with one clumsy swing of the pick."

The women looked at each other, unsure what to make of that.

They had never been inside a coal mine, figuring it was nothing but pits everywhere, everyone crawling underground like ants, life and death up to fate.

Le Wuya waved a hand, and the Hu man was taken back to the mine.

He went down the list, one by one: "The Zhang man's breaking coal; the Wang man's in the kitchen; the Lin man's working the bellows. You're all welcome to call your men out for a visit. But fair warning: you can see them, but every visit adds half a month to their sentence."

Sister Hu's head shot up, stunned.

The other women had been a little jealous that Sister Hu got to see her man, but after that, nobody dared feel jealous. They all hung their heads like scared quails.

Le Wuya's voice was soft, but his words carried weight: "Whether they are innocent or deserve their punishment, you ladies know best in your hearts. For the sake of decency, I won't summon your neighbors to testify. I have only one thing to say to you: a yamen that rewards and punishes fairly is what keeps things in order."

"You came here in a panic, accusing me of grabbing laborers on the sly. I get why you were worried, but I won't stand for being falsely accused."

"I won't punish you, because you all have children and parents at home to care for. But since you came here to make trouble, I can't just let it slide. So your four husbands each get five extra days. Any objections?"

They were dumbstruck, sniffling and sobbing, panicked and wronged all at once.

They knew their men all too well.

They were hopeless gamblers, beyond saving. If those men found out their wives had gotten them extra time, what would happen when they got out?

Sister Hu was the first to wail in protest: "Your Honor, we didn't want to come—it was... it was Madam Zhong who said they were working in the mine and something might happen to them..."

Le Wuya didn't get angry or annoyed. He just smiled and said, "Ah. Isn't Madam Zhong's son in the mine too? If she's so worried about him, why didn't she come herself instead of sending you all?"

They went stiff, faces blank, exchanging looks before wilting like frostbitten eggplants.

Sister Hu stammered, "You... you're really going to keep him five more days?"

Le Wuya nodded once.

"Then... could I go in too, do whatever work there is..." Sister Hu's eyes brimmed with tears as she spoke slowly. "His mother's always cursing me at home, saying I'm bad luck. If I don't bring him back, I don't dare go home by myself..."

Le Wuya's brow furrowed slightly.

Another woman, plump and sturdy, spoke up: "Your Honor, if you add time to their sentences and we don't go in to keep them company, we'll definitely catch hell when they get out..."

A third woman said through tears, "We're all under the Zhong family's thumb. I... I didn't really want to come..."

The fourth woman couldn't get a word out and just nodded hard at everything anyone said.

Le Wuya pressed a hand to his lips, thinking. "Do any of you have illnesses? No one with a contagious illness, and no one frail or sickly."

Seeing the magistrate soften, the four women nodded eagerly.

Le Wuya called over a female overseer from the mine and handed the women over to her.

...

To the onlookers, the Little Master was young, and if he said the wrong thing and got into a scrap with those shrewish women, it would be a hell of a show.

They couldn't get close, but they craned their necks, dying to see the fireworks.

But things went nothing like they expected.

The four women followed the magistrate into the clinic, sniffling, sat across from him for a bit, and not only stopped crying but got tamer, nodding along to everything he said.

In the end, they were led straight into the mine.

When they left, they even bowed to the Little Master and thanked him over and over, as if being sent into the mine was some kind of blessing.

Everyone watched, dumbfounded and impressed, and couldn't help thinking that the magistrate's face was just too charming for his own good.

Oh right, what did he say happened to him?

Ah yes, he was injured!

This injured magistrate had come all this way to settle their dispute—no beatings, no torture, just smooth talk that had them eating out of his hand. Now that was real skill!

After seeing off the four women, Le Wuya set down his steaming teacup. "Master Yuan, are you free for a bit?"

Yuan Zijin sure as hell wasn't going to stand there like a servant. He'd grabbed himself a cushioned stool and was still chewing over what Le Wuya had just done, his brow getting more and more creased.

Le Wuya leaned over and tapped his forehead with the fan. "What are you brooding about?"

Yuan Zijin rubbed his stinging forehead. "You hit me?"

Le Wuya smiled, propping himself up with both hands on the edge of the stool. "Got anything to do?"

Yuan Zijin said grumpily, "Haven't you done everything already?"

He muttered, "If you hadn't meddled, Third Aunt and I would have talked them into leaving long ago. ...What do you want?"

Le Wuya: "Carry me to the sedan chair."

Yuan Zijin looked at him as if seeing a ghost. "Wen Ren Ming Ke? What do you take me for?!"

"I take you for the second son of the Dragon Tiger General," Le Wuya said matter-of-factly. "Being of General Yuan's blood, surely you're not so..."

He looked Yuan Zijin up and down. "...so delicate?"

The veins on Yuan Zijin's temples twitched violently.

He rolled up his sleeves and hoisted Le Wuya, stool and all, in one go.

Le Wuya had never expected him to be such a brute; he swayed, nearly tumbling from mid-air.

Yuan Zijin strode forward, heading straight out of the medical hall.

Le Wuya, carried in his arms, was rather surprised: "Not bad, huh?"

Yuan Zijin gave a "hmph," the sound trailing off with a hint of pride: "Of course!"

Yuan Zijin had the bearing and looks of a dashing young gentleman, yet he seemed born with the brute strength of a wild ox.

Le Wuya calmly reviewed every bit of his interactions with Yuan Zijin and found that there were indeed signs all along.

The first time, he was punished by Xiao Qi to play the horse, dragging a carriage all the way to Shuntian Prefecture.

The second time, he took a sledgehammer the size of a bucket and personally smashed Dragon Tiger General's carriage to pieces.

Le Wuya gestured with his hands to gauge the hammer's size, realizing that if it were made of solid material, had he been the one swinging it, he'd be spitting blood after a few swings.

That kid managed to calmly smash the carriage into a pile of scrap metal, which was ample proof of his astonishing physical strength.

Yuan Zijin carried Le Wuya to the sedan chair, set him down casually, without a flush on his face or a gasp for breath, and proudly planted his hands on his hips, thinking, this so-called Wen Ren Yue is nothing much.

Le Wuya hopped into the sedan chair on one foot and waved at him: "Come in."

Yuan Zijin, all tense and on guard, refused to back down: "What for?"

Le Wuya: "To steal your soul and drain your energy."

Yuan Zijin was startled, and only after a moment did he realize Le Wuya was joking with him.

He patted his chest in lingering fear, putting up a tough front: "Oh my, I'm so scared."

Le Wuya gave a sly smile: "Dare you come in?"

Yuan Zijin steeled himself: "Fine, I'm coming in!"

...

Inside the warm sedan chair, Le Wuya looked him up and down.

Yuan Zijin pretended to be relaxed, fiddling with the ring on his hand, but in truth he was tense, his back stiff as a board, like he might bolt out of the sedan any second.

Le Wuya asked him with a smile: "With all that strength, why didn't you join the army?"

Yuan Zijin said nonchalantly: "I don't wanna deal with that kind of suffering. Besides, my big bro's already made a name for himself; they don't need another one like me."

Le Wuya leaned on the soft cushion with one arm: "I heard that when you go to mediate disputes, you always end up taking a beating. Why don't you fight back?"

Yuan Zijin scoffed: "If I fought back, wouldn't I mess someone up?"

He didn't dare say the second half out loud.

If I hurt someone, wouldn't you have even more excuse to come down on me?

But Le Wuya said cheerfully: "The truth is, you don't actually know how, do you?"

Yuan Zijin's hackles rose in fury, and he wanted to grab Le Wuya by the collar: "You, you—"

But the truth was, he really didn't know how.

His eldest brother wasn't as strong as him, but his wrestling was flawless; every time they sparred, he'd throw Yuan Zijin until he had no choice but to admit defeat.

As a kid, he wouldn't accept it, secretly cried, and worked his butt off, but after half a year of wrestling practice, he still couldn't match his brother, so he gave up in despair and switched from martial arts to books.

However, when it came to studying, he was even worse.

Day after day of just muddling along, he slowly turned into this empty-headed good-for-nothing, neither scholar nor fighter.

While Yuan Zijin was feeling sorry for himself, he didn't notice that Le Wuya's look at him had changed.

Old Tiger Yuan's little tiger cub, after eating grass for so many years, had turned into a useless straw dummy.

Yet, over these six months of hanging out, Le Wuya discovered that even though Yuan Zijin was everyone's punching bag wherever he went, getting hit and yelled at over and over, he could keep it to words and never throw a punch, never using his strength to push people around—that was a real virtue.

Yuan Zijin didn't want to talk about himself anymore.

Every time he did, it just made him sad.

He just changed the subject and asked outright: "Hey, Wen Ren Ming Ke, you strapped for cash?"

Le Wuya: "Hmm?"

"If it were me, I'd just pay off Sister Hu and the rest," Yuan Zijin said. "Aren't you just trying to look like the good guy in front of them? Why not just give them what they want most! They run the household with no income of their own, and their mothers-in-law and husbands can push them around—it's pitiful."

Le Wuya smiled: "If I give them money before noon, by afternoon the whole Nanting will know that anyone who raises a stink at my place gets paid."

Yuan Zijin was stunned.

He really hadn't thought of that.

Le Wuya rested his chin on his hand, gazing at him intently: "Master Yuan has really come a long way. Back when we first met, you were still yelling at the groom, but now you actually get how the common folks suffer."

Yuan Zijin froze, then turned bright red and hung his head, all his bluster gone.

Le Wuya nodded slightly, mentally adding another point in his favor.

Whether or not he could fix his flaws, at least he knew he had them.

Before they knew it, they'd reached the yamen gate.

"Keep working with the aunties and the girls," Le Wuya said as he was helped out of the sedan chair, turning back. "From now on, show up at the training ground at mao hour every morning."

Yuan Zijin instantly got suspicious: "What are you planning?!"

Le Wuya smiled sweetly: "To whip you into shape."

Yuan Zijin's hair stood on end, his spineless side showing: "You—you wouldn't dare! I'm not going!"

Le Wuya said lightly: "You don't have to come. I'll have Qin Xingyue come drag you over. Don't forget, I'm the one who pays your monthly stipend. Careful, I might just starve you till you leave Nanting."

Yuan Zijin's spineless side immediately took over; he stood frozen, totally lost, about to cry.

If he'd known this would happen, he might as well have swallowed his pride and clung to his dad's leg, bawling his eyes out.

Seeing Le Wuya lean on the runner's back to be carried inside, Yuan Zijin pressed his lips together and called out: "Wen Ren Ming Ke!"

Le Wuya turned his head: "What is it?"

Yuan Zijin couldn't hold back and finally asked the question that had been nagging him: "You... did you plan this on purpose?"

Le Wuya cocked his head: "Hmm?"

"I know the mines are short on workers." Yuan Zijin clenched his fists. "Did you send those women into the mines on purpose?"

Le Wuya laughed softly.

Even with all his scheming, he couldn't have predicted someone would cause trouble at the mines.

He was just going with the flow.

But instead of explaining, he gave a mysterious smile: "What do you think?"

With that, the yamen runner carried him into the yamen office, leaving Yuan Zijin standing alone, convinced and creeped out, his hair standing on end.

This guy is seriously scary!

...

Lady Zhong's initial plan had failed—the four women she'd sent to cause trouble had all been detained at the mines after their scenes didn't work.

The families of other gamblers, having witnessed what happened, immediately gave up any idea of causing trouble. They now regarded the Nanting coal mine as a hornet's nest, afraid they'd lose more than they'd gain.

Lady Zhong found herself without suitable pawns to deploy, reduced to sitting in her grand mansion, tearing her handkerchief in frustration.

Meanwhile, Zhong Junxiong received news that hit him like a bolt from the blue.

He asked anxiously: "Did you hear this clearly?"

The servant nodded vigorously: "Clear as day, no doubt about it. Many people saw it with their own eyes—the Master's leg is injured, and he needs help getting around."

Zhong Junxiong collapsed into his seat, his heart pounding so violently that his limbs went weak.

The Little Master's injury had come too suddenly. If it were mere coincidence, Zhong Junxiong wouldn't buy it.

Trembling with fear, he didn't dare continue his schemes against him. He immediately withdrew three hundred taels of silver from the family coffers and donated it to the yamen.

...

When the money arrived, Le Wuya was in the middle of quizzing Wen Ren Yue on classical texts.

He glanced at the hefty pile of silver, smiling nonchalantly: "Good. Have Shou Yue take it to Nanting Academy. Oh, did he say anything about letting Zhong Guotai go?"

Secretary Wen shook his head: "No, he didn't."

"Smart of him." Le Wuya waved his hand. "Go on."

Wen Ren Yue did a quick count: "There's an extra hundred taels."

"That's the rule." Le Wuya said. "I asked for two hundred, but he had to throw in extra to show he meant it. Keep it. Get more books for the students."

Wen Ren Yue: "That's a lot of money."

"Not nearly enough." Le Wuya closed the book and rubbed his injured calf. "My life is precious. How could this little bit of money possibly compensate?"

Wen Ren Yue seemed about to speak but stopped himself.

Le Wuya lifted an eyebrow: "Think it's too much?"

Wen Ren Yue shook his head.

Even now, whenever he looked at Le Wuya's injured leg, his heart would give a sharp twinge.

If something had gone wrong that night, his Brother Gu wouldn't be in this world anymore.

He spoke honestly: "I've never seen someone kill so slowly... I'm just not used to it yet."

"Think of it as a learning experience."

Le Wuya gripped the book, yawning lazily:

"Let me teach you something—even the most minor official in the bureaucracy, if they've got the will and follow the rules, can destroy most of the gentry and merchants in this world."

"Why else would so many people kill themselves studying to become officials?"

As Wen Ren Yue was pondering this, Qin Xingyue burst in, shoving the door open: "Master!"

Seeing his alarmed face, Le Wuya blinked: "What's wrong? Is the roof on fire?"

Qin Xingyue: "Jiang He's here, and his master—"

Le Wuya choked on his words, understanding immediately.

Cui Gangying had been sent to treat his injuries—how could he not report to the guy who hired him?

He gestured frantically: "Blanket! Blanket!"

Before Qin Xingyue could understand, Wen Ren Yue had already fetched a rolled-up blanket and quickly draped it over his leg.

Seeing his quick thinking, Le Wuya narrowed his eyes and gave him a sweet smile.

Wen Ren Yue let out a quiet sigh.

He remembered that when he'd discovered Brother Gu's injury, the man had shown it to him without a second thought.

Yet before this visitor from the capital, he'd got flustered and deliberately concealed it.

He was open with him, but closed off with that other person.

So who was the special one in his heart?