The River Opening Ox had died suddenly, fields had been flooded, and after asking three times in a row...
He knew.
Xingyi Marquis knew everything!
Otherwise, why would he bring it up himself and question them the moment he arrived?
He was waiting for him to confess!
A plaque reading "Jian River East River Conservancy Hall" hung in the main hall, while the screen behind the magistrate's desk bore a "Sea Water and Morning Sun Painting."
Throughout the vast Prefectural Office, officials high and low had fallen to their knees, trembling like chaff in a sieve.
Dark sweat soaked through their official robes, glaringly obvious.
Silence. Deathly silence.
"On... one year and two months ago... someone placed a massive silk order worth three million six hundred thousand taels. Mirror River had long been famed as Chaohu, thanks precisely to the water silkworm silk raised here—smooth and pure white.
"But aside from the yearly quota supplied to the court, the great households had long since seized all the farmland. There truly was no land left to spare. This official, no, this commoner then... then ordered rice paddies converted into mulberry fields!"
Sweat streamed from Deng Ming's temples like water pillars. He smashed his forehead against the ground, his trembling voice pouring forth like beans from a bamboo tube, rattling down onto the kneeling stones.
"Ha!"
The Golden Haired Tiger lay sprawled on the ground and yawned. Its long tail wagged lazily. The Mountain Pig stood ramrod straight at the entrance like a standard-bearer, every bristle on its back thrust toward the heavens.
Long E Ying reclined against the armrest, while Liang Qu sat boldly in a high-backed hardwood chair, his eyes lowered as he looked down upon them.
His divine might was unfathomable!
No one dared raise their heads. Only Deng