Yu Zi: "Could you write me a note?"
A note saying the only cure for her illness was a vacation?
Qi Miao couldn't help laughing. It was clear her friend was just about at her breaking point from the crushing workload. "Actually, there's another way."
Yu Zi perked up at once. "Go on."
"Wei Heng could hold a sword to Duke Kang's neck and see whether he values his life or something else more," Qi Miao suggested, offering a truly terrible idea.
Yu Zi's interest waned. "You think I haven't tried that?"
Qi Miao nearly choked on her own spit. It had only been a ridiculous idea she'd tossed out offhandedly; she hadn't expected her friend to have actually tried it. Judging by her reaction, it probably hadn't worked. "When? How did Duke Kang react? Did he fly into a rage?"
She hadn't heard any juicy rumors about the Ministry of Justice.
Nor had the two tacitly in-sync partners at the Ministry ever aired their dirty laundry in public.
Yu Zi said, "When? I think it was around my fortieth birthday. Anyway, it was years ago. I really couldn't take it anymore, so I drew my sword and told him to approve my leave. And guess what he did? That shameless bastard took off his belt before I could and hung it from the rafters."
He'd put on a show of saying Yu Zi didn't need to trouble herself with killing him; he could hang himself just fine. In short, she wasn't getting any vacation.
Yu Zi: [...]
She'd wanted to take off her belt and hang herself right beside him, so that anyone who walked in would see two corpses side by side, their tongues sticking out.
Qi Miao couldn't help clicking her tongue. "Duke Kang really is something."