Shen Anlan Had a Good Sister with Drive and Ambition

At Emperor Hongyao's command, Great Qi's case-cracking team sprang into action.

A few days later, in Huai City, the heads of the Pei and Xiang families arrived at the Prince of Huai's residence.

They were already having some regrets. After all, when they went after Su Lingyu and her husband, the Welfare Pavilion had yet to appear.

They hadn't known Emperor Hongyao would place such importance on this kind of innovative technology.

Had they known even a little sooner, they wouldn't have dared make a move. This was Great Qi, not Southern Xia; they didn't dare pluck whiskers from a tiger's mouth.

But now that things had come to this, regret was useless.

"That little girl shouldn't know anything, right? Otherwise, why would she have left so quietly?"

"So what if she knows? Could an orphan girl like her possibly turn things around?"

"We can't afford to be careless about this. If that girl still has the improved method and the emperor takes notice of her, we'll all be in danger!"

"Everything has been arranged. What needed destroying has been destroyed, and whoever needed to keep quiet has kept quiet. The rest are all grasshoppers on the same rope. Even if they have suspicions, they'll have to investigate slowly; they can't arrest us outright!"

"True enough!"

"Besides, we have the Prince of Huai on our side!"

As the two family heads spoke, they looked ingratiatingly at the Prince of Huai in the seat of honor.

The Prince of Huai was also feeling somewhat unsettled. After all, neither his imperial brother nor even his eldest nephew was someone he could handle.

But looking at the two men before him, the Prince of Huai felt somewhat reassured. He was, after all, a close blood relative. Though he and his imperial brother had different mothers, his mother and the empress dowager were sisters of the same clan.

If the matter really came to light, then in the worst case, all he had to do was obediently admit his fault. His imperial brother would surely let him off and lay all the blame on these two men. They were the masterminds to begin with.

At that thought, the Prince of Huai raised his cup, looking completely at ease. "Don't worry. With me here, nothing too serious can happen."

The words had barely left his mouth when shouting suddenly came from outside the door, followed by the sound of hurried footsteps drawing ever closer.

Before the three could react, someone kicked the doors open.

They were just about to flare up when they saw that the newcomers wore brocade robes. Their leader was a deputy commander of the Subordinate Third Rank, equivalent to the second-in-command of the Brocade Guard.

With even him here, the two family heads instantly collapsed to the floor.

The Prince of Huai was still struggling to remain calm. "Barging into a prince's residence! Don't think that just because you're the Brocade Guard, you can..."

The deputy commander produced a gold command token. "By His Majesty's order, all suspects involved in the murder of Su Lingyu and her husband are to be apprehended!"

The two family heads' faces went deathly pale. The Prince of Huai sprang to his feet, about to erupt in fury.

But the Brocade Guard paid them no heed and immediately sent men to take them into custody.

When the three tried to call in their connections, they found the prefect of Huai City in the Huai City jail, likewise under arrest and scared out of his wits.

And the man who came to interrogate them was none other than the chief justice of the Court of Judicial Review.

"This is slander! What does the death of Su Lingyu and her husband have to do with us?"

"Where's the evidence? Without evidence, what gives you the right to convict us?"

"I won't say a word! I want to see His Majesty!"

The chief justice and the Brocade Guard deputy commander exchanged a glance.

What a joke. They already had the answers and were working backward to establish what had happened. Why would they need the suspects to admit anything?

Aside from the Prince of Huai, whom they couldn't easily touch, the others were tortured for confessions. When they couldn't get answers out of them, they turned to their trusted aides.

Within a day, the statements were signed and sealed with fingerprints. Only the Prince of Huai had yet to speak, but his subordinates had confessed everything.

Soon, the group was escorted back to the capital under guard.

During this time, the first batch of bamboo paper was successfully produced in a trial. It wasn't a standard production process; they had simply made a sample as quickly as possible. Once the trial succeeded, they could purchase raw materials in bulk for full-scale production.

Yan Xuetong was the person in charge of the trial.

Upon receiving the news, Emperor Hongyao immediately took his assembled ministers to the papermaking workshop. Naturally, Shen Anxin, as the crown prince's attendant, accompanied him on the visit.

When the carriages reached the northern edge of the city, Shen Anxin saw a vast tract of land guarded by the Gold Gourd Guard.

It looked like an enclosed area. Although people were going in and out, checks were extremely strict. A nearby sign read: Welfare Pavilion.

There was also a Welfare Pavilion in the center of the city. It was like a government office, receiving visitors and handling affairs.

Not only was there one in the capital, but branch pavilions were also being built in all the major prefectural cities. At the next administrative level down, personnel were assigned to government offices, effectively creating a dedicated post for seeking out talent and technology.

The Welfare Pavilion here, on the other hand, was dedicated to production.

Inside, the buildings stood in separate clusters. At present there were only two: a printing workshop and another for papermaking.

These technologies still had to be kept secret from outsiders, so the workshops had been placed here, with everything operated by the government.

Shen Anxin was stunned when she saw the whole complex.

Shen Anxin: [I didn't expect the court to be so efficient. They've already done so much without making a sound. That's amazing!]

Chacha: [The atmosphere in Great Qi really is good. This is the perfect stage for the ruler and his ministers to work with one heart and make their greatest push!]

The senior ministers accompanying them held their heads high and puffed out their chests. Of course it was.

Emperor Hongyao and Xiao Yanchen also had smiles in their eyes.

One idea from their little lucky star, one meeting among them, and afterward came work that went on day and night.

Earlier, the Lingering Voices of Immortal Sages had become essential reading for Great Qi's scholars, and people everywhere had been clamoring for copies. Fortunately, printing had arrived just in time to barely keep up with demand. The rush during that period alone had exhausted one vice minister and two assistant directors in the Ministry of Works.

Now, as long as paper production caught up with the pace of printing, everyone wouldn't have to work so hard through the night.

Though the process was exhausting, they were proud to see the results emerge one after another.

The sense of accomplishment from doing something so great, and the happiness of taking part in an undertaking worthy of a place in history, were hard to put into words.

Shen Anxin: [Looks like everyone's been working hard after court! No wonder they all seem half a beat slow to react during court. So it's because they're tired from working. Thanks for the hard work, everyone. You deserve praise! Little red flowers for you!]

The senior ministers accompanying them: ...No, hang on~ Why did her tone sound so off?

Also, the reason they were slow to react in court was her, all right?! They had to sift through countless explosive pieces of gossip for useful ones while also keeping their colleagues from fainting with shame and indignation. That wasn't easy either.

And finally... where were their little red flowers? Was she really giving them out?

Shen Anxin: [That's strange. Am I the only one who does nothing after court? This won't do. It proves the crown prince doesn't want to put me to work.]

The senior ministers accompanying them: If they really put her to work, wouldn't she be the first to protest?!

Chacha: [Host, didn't you say you didn't want to work?]

Shen Anxin: [I don't, but my brother has to earn the crown prince's favor and be entrusted with important duties! What if Shen Anlan is always left in a cushy post as nothing but a decoration? How would he get promoted and earn a higher salary, take on important responsibilities, reach the pinnacle of life, and become my backer then?!]

The others accompanying them: ...The point was the backer, right? She really was single-minded.

Shen Anlan had a good sister with drive and ambition. Never mind who it was that needed to be ambitious.

Xiao Yanchen stole a glance at Shen Anxin, amused. He wondered whether Shen Anlan, who would soon be back, would want to knock his little sister on the head when he heard her thoughts.