On May 1, the system tallied the results.
His foolishness value had gone negative.
What a tremendous irony. After toiling for four months, he was told on Labor Day that he had accomplished nothing.
Zi Shou took several deep breaths in succession and calmed down.
After all, he had expected this. That spectacle at court had been terrifying, wrecking his perfect plan. The few remedial measures he had taken had amounted to almost nothing.
Fortunately, he had seized the opportunity to lay out a new plan. He would have to be more cautious during this settlement period.
The Star-Plucking Tower would probably be finished soon. Once it was complete, he would have to keep putting up new buildings.
After learning that sea salt was harmful, the people of Guanjiangkou had stopped making offerings to the stone stele used in the earlier ceremony. A salt-buying frenzy had swept through the nobles, who had snapped up several batches of Hedong salt, driving up its price. If that lasted until the September settlement, it should bring in some foolishness value.
As for weeping at the Great Wall, that went without saying. One Meng Jiangnü was not enough. He needed to find hundreds of people to go weep together. Previously, the Northern Border had been too cold in the depths of winter; their tears had frozen when they went there, leaving nothing remotely moving about the scene.
He also needed to make proper arrangements for the Marquis of Hu and the Marquis of Gui, who remained in Chaoge. He had to find a way to make their tribespeople dissatisfied, preferably enough to stage a small riot. Then the ministers could berate him for stubbornly insisting on keeping the two marquises there and causing tribal unrest.
Xiqi should be the greatest source of foolishness value