Hu Xiaotian betrayed nothing as he said, "Has something big happened? The atmosphere at the yamen feels rather different today."
"Lord Xu called us together for a meeting," Liu Baoju said. "What? Isn't that why you're here?"
Hu Xiaotian cursed inwardly. Xu Qinglian, you old turtle! You're determined to shut me out of the circle of power. Something this big happened, and you didn't even bother telling me? Screw you! His face, however, was wreathed in smiles. "Heh, heh, of course. I received the notice too."
Liu Baoju naturally understood what had happened and laughed to himself. The brat's still trying to gild his own face. Who doesn't know Xu Qinglian is bent on trampling you underfoot?
The two entered the main hall together and found practically every clerk in Azure Cloud County, great and small, assembled there. County Magistrate Xu Qinglian sat solemnly at the head of the hall, with his adviser Xing Shan standing beside him. Xing Shan's face was so bruised and swollen that even his own parents would probably have failed to recognize him. He had truly become a dog-headed adviser.
At the sight of him, Hu Xiaotian could not help chuckling, drawing everyone's eyes. Utterly indifferent to their stares, he pointed at Xing Shan. "Adviser Xing, what happened to your face?"
Xing Shan stared at Hu Xiaotian with venomous resentment. On his way home from the Wild Goose Tower that day, someone had suddenly pulled a sack over his head. As if raining blows down on his head and face had not been enough, they had stripped him naked afterward and hung him upside down from the Old Pagoda Tree. Half of Azure Cloud had heard about it. Never in his life had Xing Shan suffered such a monstrous humiliation. No matter how he thought