Volume Two Chapter Three

With that, she raised her hands to remove the black gauze cap from her head, supporting it with her left hand at her waist while lifting her official robe with her right, bent her knees, and knelt on the ground.

"Judging by ritual laws and disciplinary codes, stepping down from the position at the Six Ministries is a given, but in this official's view, Academy Student Zhu should naturally be expelled from Dongxu Mansion and never hired again, so as to serve as a warning to others." Long Ang's brow was cold and detached, entirely unmoved by the "act of self-inflicted pain" before him. "Lord Nian, you are the one who initiated this. What do your think?"

Nian Youyu was silent for a moment. Although the person kneeling down in the hall possessed a cleverness that he found irritating, that unyielding integrity was cut from the exact same cloth as Xiaojiu. If the fellow had truly pocketed money, Xiaojiu would not have been out doing hard labor at such a tender age. Those food boxes one by one truly showed no signs of unearned, wasteful extravagance, and so his reasoning just now corroborated the flow of silver. Someone must have tipped off those subordinates in the Ministry of Works that this newly appointed Minister of Revenue--correction, this newly appointed official Zhu had gotten the job through the back door, possessed no real talent or learning, and understood nothing about building and repairing houses, making him extremely easy to fool. Hence, a ledger had ended up in his hands.

As for the person who had dug this pit behind the scenes, he already had a suspect in mind.

His dark eyes shifting, Nian Youyu cast a direct glance at Long Ang, the Minister of Rites seated opposite him, yet the other