Zhao Yuan walked to the window and gazed at the deep night sky. A knowing smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"Ke'er wants justice, and Li'er wants power. They're both just pawns on the chessboard. But this Third Prince wants to flip my board... Good. Very good."
"I'd like to see just how fiercely your fire can burn."
The next morning, the thin dawn mist had yet to lift.
But inside the Ministry of Revenue, the atmosphere had already frozen solid.
Zhang Tingyu, Minister of Revenue, sat upright in the main hall. He had been awake all night, and dark circles shadowed his eyes. The tea before him had been replaced three times, yet he hadn't taken a single sip. It had long since gone cold, just like his heart.
"Did you all understand?" he asked, his voice as hoarse as if it had been scraped with sandpaper.
Below him, the left and right vice ministers and the directors of the various bureaus all lowered their heads in unison. No one dared answer.
Last night, the black-clad palace eunuch who never showed his face had passed along a single, casual verbal instruction from the palace. It had sent the entire Great Xia treasury—the Ministry of Revenue—into a silent upheaval.
"His Majesty is mindful of our hard work. He said that autumn grain had just been brought into storage and the accounts were complicated, so the occasional discrepancy was unavoidable."
Zhang Tingyu had turned those words over in his mind more than a hundred times. Each time, they tasted different, until only one taste remained: bitter. A bitterness that cut to the bone.
What did "unavoidable" mean?
Was this boundless imperial grace, consideration for his ministers? Nonsense! His Majesty had personally handed them a knife, handle toward them, blade