Chapter 96: The Emperor Of Four Strikes?! We’ve Fainted From Anger Again! 【 Monthly Ticket Bonus Update 5 】
“Emperor! Emperor, what’s wrong?!”
Liu Sanwu and Mei Yin, temporarily dismissed by Old Zhu, rushed in without hesitation upon hearing the commotion from Old Zhu’s bedroom.
What met their eyes was complete chaos.
Cries, footsteps, and the clatter of objects all intermingled.
“What’s going on? How could this happen?!”
Mei Yin looked around, quickly fixing his gaze on Jiang Huan, and rapidly asked, “Commander Jiang, I demand an explanation!?”
“Imperial Son-in-Law Mei, stop causing trouble here.”
“What do you mean causing trouble!? Who!? Who angered the Emperor to the point of fainting?! This is outrageous! Treasonous! Unpardonable!”
Liu Sanwu angrily interrupted Jiang Huan, then turned his gaze to Zhan Hui, saying with murderous intent: “Zhan Hui!? Was it you?!”
“No, no, no, it wasn’t me, it was Zhang Biao! He asked me to submit this memorial! I don’t know anything.”
Zhan Hui waved his hands repeatedly, desperately trying to distance himself from Zhang Biao.
Although he knew that explaining to Liu Sanwu and the other official would be futile, it was all he could do at the moment.
Liu Sanwu frowned deeply and pressed, “What memorial?”
“It’s, it’s that…”
Zhan Hui trembled as he pointed to the memorial that had fallen by the imperial couch.
Liu Sanwu immediately followed his finger and picked it up in two quick strides.
Suddenly, Mei Yin beside him reminded him:
“Scholar Liu! What are you doing?! This is a memorial only the Emperor can read?!”
“Foolish!”
Liu Sanwu exclaimed in fury, “This is evidence of plotting to murder the Emperor!”
Hearing this, Mei Yin was stunned, and then saw Liu Sanwu abruptly open the memorial.
Boom!
With just one glance, he knew he was dead!
His hands trembled, the paper rustling loudly.
His expression shifted from uncontrollable anger to shock, then to absurdity, and finally to an extreme, inexpressible distortion.
Zhu Yuanzhang couldn’t kill Zhu Chongba?
Over eighty-seven thousand taels?
More than a hundred vermin?
Secret letters from princes and the imperial harem?
Labor fees? Dining fees? Work injury compensation fees?!
In the end, the court still owed them three thousand taels?!
Mad!
This world has gone completely mad!
This Zhang Biao is no subject at all!
He’s an ancestor! A living ancestor come to collect debts!
In a single day… he unearthed so many old debts? Caught so many vermin? And brought in over eighty thousand taels of silver?!
This should have been an immense merit!
A great achievement worthy of enfeoffment!
But the method! The attitude! This crazy self-destruction!
Liu Sanwu felt his temples throb, his mind about to explode!
At this moment, Mei Yin couldn’t help but ask curiously, “Scholar Liu, what treasonous content is on this memorial?”
“Uh,”
Liu Sanwu snapped back from his shock at the question, looking at Mei Yin with a complicated expression, “Imperial Son-in-Law Mei, do you want to see?”
“Can I see it?” Mei Yin cautiously replied.
Liu Sanwu thought to himself, “You certainly can.”
He quickly threw this hot potato away.
Mei Yin was successfully implicated.
They came in as a pair, and they would go out as a pair.
Damn you!
Liu Sanwu! You’ve ruined me!
Upon seeing the contents of the memorial, Mei Yin’s soul nearly flew out of his body, and he inwardly cursed Liu Sanwu to his heart’s content.
And then.
“Uh…”
An extremely weak, yet thunderous groan echoed in everyone’s ears from the imperial couch.
Everyone immediately shouted, “Emperor! Emperor—!”
Old Zhu’s eyelids twitched violently a few times, and he slowly, laboriously, opened a slit.
His cloudy eyes rolled slowly, sweeping over the panicked imperial physicians, the ashen-faced eunuchs, Jiang Huan kneeling and trembling, and finally settled on Zhan Hui, who had collapsed on the ground like a puddle of mud.
At first, his gaze was somewhat unfocused and lost, but it quickly sharpened into an icy, bone-chilling glint, and a palpable killing intent born from extreme humiliation and mockery.
He didn’t erupt immediately, but maintained a strange calm, his voice hoarse and weak, yet each word was like a blade, clearly chiseling into everyone’s ears:
“Stop wailing. I’m not dead yet.”
These words made everyone freeze, their crying ceasing abruptly.
Old Zhu laboriously raised the hand not holding the memorial, pointed at Zhan Hui on the ground, and said in a tone as flat as if he were ordering a dish for dinner: “Jiang Huan.”
“Your subject, your subject is here!”
Jiang Huan jolted and practically crawled forward a couple of steps.
“Take Duke Zhan…”
Old Zhu paused, as if gathering strength, or perhaps savoring the words to come:
“To the Imperial Prison. ‘Entertain’ him well. No one is allowed to visit without my decree.”
“And also this… ‘gift’!”
His gaze fell on the ham rolling on the ground, his lips twitching, with an expression of extreme, absurd disgust: “Take it away… feed it to the dogs.”
“Yes! Your subject obeys!”
Jiang Huan, as if granted a reprieve or receiving a death warrant from the King of Hell, quickly waved for the wolf-like Imperial Guards to step forward.
Hearing the word “Imperial Prison,” Zhan Hui’s vision darkened, and he lost the strength to beg for mercy. He was dragged away like a true puddle of mud.
The ham, symbolizing his undeserved disaster, was also picked up with disdain and taken away.
After dealing with Zhan Hui, Old Zhu’s gaze swept over Liu Sanwu and Mei Yin, and he said calmly and indifferently, “Did you two read that memorial?”
“Plop!”
Liu Sanwu and the other official immediately knelt down and hastily began to argue.
“Emperor, we were merely worried, we had no intention of offending, it’s just that Zhang Biao is too arrogant!”
“Yes, Imperial Father, Zhang Biao he…”
“Enough!”
Old Zhu impatiently waved his hand, interrupting them, “If you read it, you read it. It’s good that you read it. I want you to spread the word for me that Zhang Biao spoke wildly, repeatedly broke taboos, and even made me faint!”
“Make sure everyone knows, let everyone in Yingtian Prefecture know!”
“I fainted, completely lost consciousness!”
After saying this, he took several deep breaths and, with the help of the imperial physicians, slowly sat up.
Then, he closed his eyes. Although his chest was still heaving violently, the world-destroying rage seemed to have been forcibly suppressed, transforming into a deeper, more terrifying coldness.
The room fell into a deathly silence once more, everyone holding their breath, awaiting the thunderous wrath.
However, when Old Zhu spoke again, his words were unexpected.
He softly called out, “Yun Ming.”
“Your servant, your servant is here!”
“Go to the Imperial Treasury…”
Old Zhu’s voice was still hoarse, but carried an indisputable, eerie calmness:
“Allocate five thousand taels of silver. No, eight thousand taels! As a reward to all the officials who assisted Zhang Biao in the audit and investigation today, as ‘labor fees’ and ‘compensation fees’.”
“Ah?”
Yun Ming thought he misheard and stared blankly.
Even Jiang Huan, Liu Sanwu, Mei Yin, and the imperial physicians were stunned.
The Emperor, after being angered to the point of fainting, still wanted to give money?!
And so much of it?!
“What?”
Old Zhu, hearing no reaction, suddenly opened his eyes, bloodshot, and stared at Yun Ming, his voice suddenly rising slightly, with a gnashing of teeth: “Are you deaf? Didn’t you hear clearly?!”
“I heard clearly! I heard clearly! Your servant will go now!”
Yun Ming, terrified, scrambled away.
Old Zhu then looked at Jiang Huan again, calmly and indifferently, “Jiang Huan.”
“Your subject is here!”
“Take your men to Zhang Biao’s ‘temporary storeroom’. Guard all the recovered illicit funds for me, untouched! If even a single tael is missing, I’ll skin you alive!”
Having said that, Old Zhu paused, then coldly added:
“He likes auditing, doesn’t he? Let him audit! Ministry of Works, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Rites! Let him audit them one by one! I want to see how many pustules there are in the Great Ming Dynasty!”
“After he’s finished auditing…”
Old Zhu’s teeth gnashed, and a ferocious smile appeared on his face, “I will settle the ‘final accounts’ with him… slowly!”
“Yes!”
Jiang Huan understood instantly.
The Emperor didn’t just want to kill Fu Youwen, Ru Chang, and the other vermin he knew about; he wanted to kill those unseen, hidden vermin, the rats.
Only by eliminating these vermin and rats could the Great Ming have an eternal future.
As for Zhang Biao and his group, they were merely the Emperor’s chess pieces, to be executed after use.
And letting him take charge of Zhang Biao’s “loot” was simply to force them to continue auditing, so he could monitor them.
Perhaps in the future, the Imperial Guard could learn something from their methods.
With this thought, Jiang Huan dared not show any negligence and immediately complied.
Having done all this, Old Zhu seemed to have exhausted all his strength and slumped back down, coughing violently. The imperial physicians rushed forward to attend to him.
After a long bout of coughing, he finally caught his breath, his gaze listlessly fixed on the ornate ceiling of the hall, his hand still tightly clutching the memorial.
The only sounds in the room were his heavy breaths and the gentle clinking of the medicine bowl.
Suddenly, he murmured almost imperceptibly, as if to himself, his voice so low that only the imperial physician nearby could vaguely hear:
“Audit… checking accounts… Humph, humph.”
“Want to have fun? Want to seek death?”
“I won’t let you die.”
“And three times a day he strikes the Emperor? Four times?! You scoundrel!”
“Since you don’t want to be my ‘blade’, I’ll treat you like a ‘mad dog’ with no one to control it.”
“I want to make those you bite to actively jump out and beat the dog.”
His voice grew fainter and fainter, finally dissolving into a long, weary sigh mixed with boundless wrath and a peculiar calculation, and he slowly closed his eyes.
The bedroom fell silent again, but this time, it was a dead silence more terrifying than the temporary lull before a storm, with undercurrents surging.
Everyone knew that this matter could never end here.
The Emperor’s calmness was more terrifying than his rage.
The Great Ming Empire was likely about to usher in four major cases.
Thinking of the bloody storms of the previous three major cases, everyone felt their scalps tingle and a chill run down their spines.
This Censor named Zhang Biao was truly terrifying.
With his own strength, he had stirred up a storm.
“All of you, leave.”
Old Zhu’s voice rang out again, carrying an unquestionable, imperial coldness.
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