Chapter 40: Lu Feng
Two thousand [Truncated: Max tokens]
Those few managers who were driven out hadn’t gone far and were eavesdropping outside the door. How could they not know that their debts weren’t being disbursed because of those grand excuses, but because the managers were playing tricks?
While the brother and sister were still there, they swarmed into the Yuqing Room again, looking at the three managers with ambiguous expressions. “Can our families’ money be given out too?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Manager He looked as if he had swallowed a fly, his face extremely unpleasant. “If anyone takes the money and dares to speak nonsense outside, you’ll regret it!” After speaking, he quickly apologized to Lu Yun, “Young Master, I wasn’t talking about you.”
Lu Yun stood there expressionlessly, watching the stewards finish their accounting. Only then did he and Lu Ying leave.
The brother and sister, holding the note, left the Finance Department. They didn’t go to exchange the money immediately. Two thousand guàn of money weighs several thousand catties, and they couldn’t carry it all back. They would have to have their family find a carriage to fetch it another day, or negotiate with the treasury to exchange it for silver.
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As the brother and sister left in anger, Manager He was almost bursting with rage. He managed to hold on until noon, then he quickly left the Finance Department and went to Lide Ward, which was separated from Lu Ward by a wall. This was where the elders and stewards of the Lu Clan resided. With high walls, large courtyards, and interwoven pavilions, it was much grander than Congshan Ward.
Manager He arrived outside a large courtyard at the far east end. The house servants at the doorway knew him and, seeing Manager He’s grim face, teased him, “What’s wrong, Old He? Did your wife get stolen?”
“Shut your damn mouth!” Manager He was full of frustration and had nowhere to vent it, so he couldn’t speak kindly. “Is the Young Master at home? I have an urgent matter!”
“He is…” The house servant was embarrassed and lost interest in chatting with him further.
Before he finished speaking, Manager He darted inside. The house servant spat at his retreating back, “What a thing, he’s nothing more than one of our dogs!”
Manager He walked through layers of corridors, passed through a moon gate, and arrived at the East courtyard. Under a trellis of climbing wisteria with blooming purple flowers, a handsome man in his early twenties, wearing a silk shirt, was lazily resting with a pretty maid fanning him. The pretty maid was also gently fanning him with a silk fan.
Another pretty maid knelt beside him, peeling lychees with her delicate hands and feeding the white, glistening fruit into the young master’s mouth. The two pretty maids looked identical, like twin lotus flowers.
Seeing Manager He enter, the young master smiled and greeted him, “It’s better to arrive early than to miss the timing. These are freshly delivered Lingnan lychees, have one yourself.” As he spoke, he spat out a seed from his mouth, and the pretty maid beside him quickly caught it and placed it in a celadon dish by her side.
“Young Master, you are truly blessed.” Manager He looked at the twin sisters, but his heart ached. He had spent six thousand guàn of money to buy them, yet he hadn’t enjoyed them at all.
While speaking, Manager He took off his shoes and sat down on the mat, his face full of misery. “I won’t eat the lychees. I feel like I’m eating bitter herbs no matter what I eat now.”
“What’s wrong? Who dares to make you, Manager He, eat bitter herbs?” The young master was named Lu Feng, the son of Lu Jian, the Third Steward of the Lu Clan. The Eight Great Stewards of the Lu Clan each managed a different department, and Lu Jian was in charge of the Finance Department.
“Alas, it’s some reckless youth named Lu Yun!” Manager He sighed.
“Lu Yun?” Lu Feng felt the name sounded a bit familiar. It seemed people had been mentioning it a lot lately, and his reputation was quite good. He couldn’t recall who it was for a moment.
Manager He then embellished the previous events and told Lu Feng about them.
Lu Feng’s expression gradually turned grim. When he heard that the stewards had taken a full eight thousand guàn from the accounts by using Lu Yun as an excuse, his face turned completely purple! He sternly exclaimed, “Good! Good! A total of ten thousand guàn!”
The pretty maid was sweating profusely from the pain, but she dared not make a sound, only enduring his rough handling.
Lu Feng was still not satisfied. He kicked Manager He, roaring, “Why don’t you just die?!”
Manager He dared not dodge and was immediately kicked onto his back. He quickly got up, prostrated himself on the ground, and cried, “Young Master, firstly, that Lu Yun knows martial arts, and secondly, he insisted on going to Sanwei Hall to seek justice! I was also afraid of the situation escalating and not being able to control it…”
“You managed to control it, but when will my deficit be filled?!” Lu Feng was so angry that he smashed the cups and plates beside him, scattering fiery red lychees all over the ground. He stared intently at the lychees and gritted his teeth, “Good! Lu Yun, Lu Ying, you dare to extort even from me. Do you really not know how to write the word ‘death’?!”
“If they could return the money, those families would certainly return it obediently,” Manager He quickly said.
“I want them to return it with principal and interest, and be ruined!” Under the summer shade of flowers, Lu Feng, enraged, said fiercely, “Go and find Leopard!”
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The next day, the steward of the mansion, along with two guards, drove a carriage to the north to retrieve the two thousand guàn of money.
Two thousand guan of money filled a cart to the brim. The horses pulling the cart snorted, pulling with effort under the urging of the horsewhip, their wheels leaving deep ruts in the ground.
The Lu Clan, renowned for its scholarly family tradition, has always prioritized its reputation and been most generous to its own kin, offering the largest settling allowance among the seven clans. This was precisely what Lu Yun found puzzling: why was the Lu Clan’s congee kitchen the most stingy of all the clans? Did that not represent the Lu Clan’s reputation?
Lu Ying naturally wouldn’t think so much. It was the first time she had seen a cart full of money, and she was inexplicably excited. She patted Lu Yun’s back and laughed heartily, “How about it, isn’t Elder Sister amazing!” completely disregarding whose merit this actually was.
Lu Yun smiled and nodded, then immediately said seriously, “Elder Sister, those people suffered a loss they cannot speak of and likely won’t give up. During this time, it’s best not to leave the house.”
“This Miss is afraid of them?!” Lu Ying’s little face was flushed with excitement. She waved her small fists and said, “Elder Sister has also trained!”
“…” Lu Yun looked helplessly at Lu Ying, unwilling to dampen her spirits. With her meager kung fu skills, she couldn’t even defeat a Yellow Rank opponent.
For the next few days, Lu Yun and Lu Ying were inseparable, and nothing unusual was discovered. In addition, he was busy with his own plans and couldn’t follow Lu Ying all day. He ordered his guards to protect her well, and if Lu Ying needed to go out, the strictest protective measures had to be implemented.
This day was the East Market’s grand bazaar, and several childhood playmates came to Congshan Ward to ask Lu Ying to go shopping with them. Lu Ying hadn’t left Congshan Ward for days and was already bored stiff, so she readily agreed. Before leaving, she greeted Lu Yun outside the East Wing Room.
Lu Yun was flipping through the thick stack of account books in front of him. Hearing his elder sister say she was going out, he naturally began a series of admonishments.
“Got it. Be back soon, and don’t go to any deserted places…” Lu Ying muttered dismissively. “You’re so young, but more nagging than Grandpa.” With that, she stuck out her tongue playfully at Lu Yun in protest before leaving with her young lady friends, chatting and laughing.
Lu Yun shook his head helplessly and continued to look through the account book in his hand. When he finished one and put it aside, he saw that the blue cover was written with ‘Ministry of Works Initial Nine Years Ding Mao Expenditure Book’. That was actually the Ministry of Works expenditure record preserved in the Ministry of Revenue Archives!
This was naturally a state secret, one that even Lu Xin was not qualified to see. Yet now, a thick stack of it lay before Lu Yun.
This account book naturally did not fall from the sky; rather, it was the result of Lu Yun’s excursions over the past few nights. He spent three days mapping out the terrain and guard situation of the Ministry of Revenue Archives. Because they were years-old archives and not particularly valuable, the archives’ defenses were quite lax. Lu Yun infiltrated the archives with no effort and found the Ministry of Works’ expenditure records for the past year, then stealthily stole them out.
It’s easy to stir up trouble for the Emperor and the Xiahou Clan. As long as someone under the Xiahou Clan is placed directly in front of the Emperor, I don’t believe the Initial Emperor can resist kicking them!
But it’s not that easy to do. First, the target chosen must be high-ranking and very useful, so as to truly hit the Xiahou Clan where it hurts! Furthermore, there must be sufficient evidence and strong reasons to make the Initial Emperor resolute in making a move against someone from the Xiahou Clan!
The target Lu Yun chose was the current Minister of Works, Gao Guangning, the guy ranked twenty-seventh on his blacklist!
Gao Guangning came from a humble background. He toiled in the officialdom for twenty years, only to become a minor seventh-rank minister. After Emperor Qianming ascended the throne, he perceived the Emperor’s sharp desire for reform. With his essay “《On Equalizing Land and Strengthening the Nation》,” he gained Emperor Qianming’s favor. Within a year, he was promoted six ranks, becoming a fourth-rank Minister of the Imperial Secretariat, in charge of confidential documents, serving as the Emperor’s advisor, and assisting Emperor Qianming in his centralizing reforms.
However, this very person, who was deeply favored and highly esteemed by the Emperor, betrayed Emperor Qianming during the Baoen Temple Incident. He forged an imperial decree to withdraw the guards outside Baoen Temple, creating an opportunity for the rebels to march in unopposed and surround the Emperor!
After the Initial Emperor ascended the throne, the officials from the humble families promoted by Emperor Qianming all fell from power. However, Gao Guangning, relying on his merits from the rebellion, sought refuge with the Xiahou Clan and continued to soar to high officialdom. Six years ago, he was promoted to Minister of Works, in charge of all construction engineering affairs under heaven! For the past three years, the Great Xuan Dynasty’s number one project – the Yellow River control and embankment construction – was completed under his supervision!
However, the embankment was not completed for a full year before it collapsed over a thousand li during this year’s flood season, with raging floods submerging seven or eight prefectures in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, affecting millions of people!
However, the strange thing was that no one had yet written a petition to impeach Gao Guangning, as if everyone believed that the collapse of the newly built embankment had nothing to do with him, and that it was all Heaven’s fault…
Lu Yun insisted on investigating to see if he was responsible!
However, finding any clues amidst the incredibly cumbersome account books was no easy feat. Lu Yun had been poring over account books for a whole morning without much progress and was about to go out for a walk to chat with the Old Master before continuing. Suddenly, he heard the sound of hurried footsteps approaching from a distance.
“Young Master, this is terrible! Miss has been kidnapped!”
