Jiang Yingcheng had reached a crucial point in her gossip feast. At the sound, she looked up with concern, confirmed that nothing serious had happened, then happily lowered her head and threw herself back into her grand gossip-eating enterprise.
Jiang Yanchuan, however, let his meaningful gaze linger on Eunuch Changshun's face for a long moment, then glanced thoughtfully at General Kan's memorial. Finally, he gave his wrist a slight turn-
Smack!
The memorial that had been lying neatly on the Writing Desk suddenly fell to the floor. Eunuch Changshun froze, then slowly lifted his gaze from the memorial and met Emperor Mingze's unmistakably urging look.
In an instant, he understood what that look meant-
Pick it up, read it aloud, and steer the conversation back to business.
Eunuch Changshun: "..."
Eunuch Changshun's heart filled with bitterness.
Under normal circumstances, when the emperor accidentally swept a memorial onto the floor, even if he had to step forward to retrieve it, he absolutely could not peek at its contents.
But there were exceptions.
If the emperor needed him to read a memorial aloud or sort the memorials by importance and urgency, he could act as a soulless page-turning machine.
But...
Neither of those situations had anything whatsoever to do with the one before him.
To rashly peek at its contents without Emperor Mingze's prior permission, then "accidentally" read them aloud...
If word of this reached those ministers, their memorials impeaching him would pile up as high as the "little mountain" on today's desk!
What kind of earthly torment was this?!
Swallowing his bitter tears, Eunuch Changshun took a deep breath and abruptly stepped forward, with almost the resolve of a man marching bravely to his death-
He picked up the memorial, fumbled its pages in a panic, caught an accidental glimpse, and