After returning from Xu Qiuyan's place, I went straight to find Xie Yi.
I told him everything about the Administration Bureau.
Xie Yi seemed to have known about it already. He said, "What do you think about this?"
"Does what I think matter? Old Shu already said these twenty thousand people can't be handed over. He even specifically mentioned the Administration Bureau."
Xie Yi sighed. "What Old Shu is really worried about isn't the Administration Bureau as we know it, but the Fu Family of Lion City. Ever since Fu Ting of the Fu Family of Lion City set foot in Great Xia, Old Shu had been keeping an eye on him. He'd even guessed that the Fu Family was after these twenty thousand people. That was why he came to find you in person. He wanted you to keep the team firmly in your hands and not let anyone from the Fu Family take them away, no matter what. He told me this might put you in a difficult position, but there was no other way. You'll have to bear the burden for now. But as long as you hold on, he'll find a way to have people from other departments take these twenty thousand away."
So that was it. Old Shu had been targeting the Fu Family all along.
He was doing this to stop the Fu Family from taking these twenty thousand people away.
Within the Administration Bureau's system, whichever family took these twenty thousand people away would nominally place them under the Administration Bureau, but in reality, they would likely become that family's private property.
Although many of the Administration Bureau's assignments were handled by families leading their own people, these twenty thousand were special. They absolutely could not be allowed to become any family's private