Following Censor-in-Chief Gu Chi, Minister of Personnel Luan Xin also submitted a request for a year's leave a few months later. The Ministry of Personnel's affairs would temporarily be handled by its two vice ministers and the four bureaus. Everyone had assumed Luan Xin would only take a year—he'd already used his previous leave in installments—but this time, he requested a full two years as well. During Court Session, the civil and military officials held their breath nervously, their hands trembling uncontrollably inside their official sleeves.
They waited for their sovereign's reply.
Please, please, please let her agree.
Duke Luan Yi was using up leave from his next cycle in advance. She had to approve it! If the Minister of Personnel didn't have enough leave, they were willing to donate a few years to him for free. He could have as much as he wanted! The officials felt as if each day lasted a year, until they heard the sovereign's reply, sweeter than music to their ears.
"Approved."
Everyone let out a long sigh of relief.
If they hadn't still been at Court Session, they would have high-fived the people beside them to celebrate.
When Luan Xin took leave and stayed away from the royal court for two years, the happiest people weren't him but the officials who had been tortured half to death by the Ministry of Personnel's annual evaluations. The exams got harder every year, so hard that they suspected Duke Luan Yi had once worked for the Ministry of Justice. Otherwise, how could he know so well how to torment them? Now that he was taking leave, could the little greenhorns in the Ministry of Personnel really make an exam difficult for people like them? How naive!
Hehehe, Luan Xin was leaving for two years.
That meant