When Song Ning had climbed into Yao Qianjin's room to look for the household registration booklet, she had also happened to see a few other things.
In the villages she had mentioned to Yao Qianjin, the reported acreage of farmland differed from the actual acreage.
The grain each village handed over every year was calculated according to the reported acreage.
Naturally, Yao Qianjin and those villages' officials had been pocketing the surplus grain.
Over the years, those small amounts had added up. A careful accounting would reveal an enormous sum.
If discovered, this would constitute embezzlement of state property.
Even execution would not be an excessive punishment.
There was no getting around Yao Qianjin when it came to the political vetting for the National College Entrance Examination.
If he put obstacles in her way, he could prevent her from attending university.
Although she could ask Gu Zheng for help and try to draw on the military's influence.
The truth was, she was still one of Gu Zheng's prime "suspects."
In Hua Country, political vetting was a very serious matter.
Other things might be negotiable.
But this-
She could not be certain where Gu Zheng stood.
Since she had such powerful leverage over Yao Qianjin, she might as well use it.
Whatever conditions she set, however much he suspected or resented her...
His only choice would be to agree.
As for her promise to Yao Qianjin that she would not tell anyone about this matter.
She would keep it, too.
Reform and opening-up had already begun, and the system of everyone eating from the same communal pot was about to end.
The policy of allocating farmland to individual households was already being trialed and would soon sweep across the country.
When that happened, every plot would be carefully measured right before