allonlinenovel Chapter 73 Review
Chapter 73 Review
It's too obvious. Zhu Ling shook her head.
"Officer Li, release him. You're acting like you're trying to silence him."
As she spoke, Xing Xiaoyu stepped forward, forcing Officer Li to retreat.
"Lord Zhu! I'm arresting an assassin! Why are you stopping me?"
Officer Li had a righteous look on his face, but it was all too obvious. He was also holding a knife and looked menacing. So everyone else around him kept their distance.
"This is none of your business. Get out of here, Officer Li. If you continue like this, I can only suspect you're trying to silence me..."
Regardless of what Officer Li was thinking before, anyone could tell from these words that Zhu Ling was doubting Officer Li.
Now, Officer Li could no longer act so aggressively and had no choice but to reluctantly withdraw his hand.
Xing Xiaoyu and Old Yang, who were with her, pulled the gardener Ding into the inner hall of the government office and kept him under strict guard.
All of these things were done in front of everyone.
"Everyone, I came to Changgan to govern the people here. I know some people may not like it. I don't care. Time will tell."
Zhu Ling continued to stand on the high platform, looking down at the crowd below.
"After this, I don't want to find any problems in my diet. If something similar happens again..."
Zhu Ling looked at them one by one. Some people's eyes were evasive, while others had different expressions in their eyes.
"I don't mind a fight to the death. Anyway, I'm all alone, and one of the only female Jinshi in our dynasty. At worst, I'll be written into history, and that will be my name in history. If I die a violent death in office... I guarantee that none of you will have a good time either."
After speaking, Zhu Ling went back inside, while Xing Xiaoyu dismissed everyone outside.
Back in his study, Zhu Ling remained seated, carefully examining the various documents he had collected.
"Do you think what you said today had any effect?" Xing Xiaoyu asked as soon as she entered the room.
"It's hard to say, but if I don't do anything, I might miss this opportunity. So, we might as well take this chance to give them a warning. If someone has evidence, they'll know our stance, and the mastermind behind it might have to consider the consequences of assassinating me. In any case, someone will definitely make a move immediately. We might as well be a little patient and see who comes out."
“Alright. I haven’t touched the problematic items in the government office’s kitchen, storeroom, and accounting office yet. I’ve been keeping an eye on those places. The only problem is that we don’t have enough manpower. My attention will probably be mainly focused on the accounting office. As for the kitchen, we can only use the excuse that there are problems with the kitchen to refuse food from them.”
Although Xing Xiaoyu was highly skilled in martial arts, she was sometimes overwhelmed. Although the two of them had thoroughly investigated all the problematic areas of the government office yesterday, they only found some issues in a few of the places mentioned above.
“The accounting office and the warehouse should be the focus. There are some discrepancies between the government office's accounts, the items in the warehouse, and the inventory records. Since corruption is rampant in Changgan, there might also be problems with the items stored in the warehouse. There must be some discrepancies.” Zhu Ling affirmed Xing Xiaoyu's decision.
"Alright, now that there are three of us, we should be able to eat normally without any problems. At worst, I'll just buy food outside every time, and that should be fine."
The two had almost finished discussing it when it was almost noon. "Xiaoyu, go to the shop called 'Zha Tianxia' near the entrance and tell the owner you want a 'medium-sized fried chicken nugget'. Also, buy some other snacks from them."
Xing Xiaoyu nodded, "Okay, I'll take care of it right away. We do need some manpower right now."
Through the owner of the "Bomb the World" shop, the news about Zhu Ling and Yun Qingjin was quickly delivered to Yun Qingjin. Daytime was indeed inappropriate, so as before, Yun Yuke and Yun Qingjin visited at night, unseen by others.
When the two groups met, they first exchanged recent intelligence.
“Changgan City is in a state of chaos. The biggest problem lies with this Marquis Ankang. I wasn’t sure if you could gather any relevant information before, and I didn’t have much substantial evidence, so I didn’t tell you much.”
After exchanging information, Yun Yuke first expressed her guilt, "I had doubts about Marquis Ankang before, but if it weren't for Aunt Hua's husband being associated with this Marquis Ankang, I wouldn't have dared to let you go head-to-head with this Marquis."
Zhu Ling waved her hand, "Sister Yun, we've known each other for a long time, don't say things like that. I know you always have a plan in mind when you do things."
After hearing what her friend knew, Zhu Ling spread out a piece of paper on the table and wrote down several names on it.
"Let's now review the entire situation in Changgan City."
"First is Marquis Deng Jixiang of Ankang. According to Sister Yun, although this marquis doesn't exactly oppress the people, his behavior is rather violent, and most people don't dare to get involved. In addition, this Marquis Deng has also started to get involved in the business world, and he often uses his status to influence others in the business world."
Zhu Ling circled the name of Marquis Ankang.
“That’s right. On the surface, I can’t get any evidence against this Marquis for the time being. The main reason is that our Yun family hasn’t been in Changgan City for long and hasn’t had much interaction with the Ankang Marquis’s family,” Yun Yuke added from the side.
"This kind of evidence is indeed hard to find. Unless there is obvious illegal behavior, the government really can't get involved."
Xing Xiaoyu made the judgment from the side.
"Secondly, there's the issue of collective corruption throughout Changgan City." Zhu Ling wrote the words "Changgan" on the paper.
"I've been organizing the accounts these past two days, and there's no record of this embezzled money in the government's books. That's for sure. How could such money be clearly written down on paper?"
Zhu Ling patted a stack of account books on the table. The account books had the words "Internal Public Accounts of Changgan Prefecture" written on them.
"Perhaps it's because I focused on this bribe money from the very beginning that I put the latest batch of money in the treasury, and no one has dared to touch it yet. So we don't know how this kind of money was distributed in the past. If we can find corresponding evidence here, we can catch these people in the government office on charges of embezzlement."
"The key issue is that this money is like a hot potato; no one is willing to take it."
Yun Yuke shook her head as well. "We merchants pay a batch of silver every three months. Apart from that, we pay taxes as usual. Everyone knows that this silver is specifically for taxes, but no one dares to interfere with it. When I first came here, my neighbors specifically reminded me not to have any objections to this silver. They said that someone had resisted it a long time ago, but to no avail. To save your life, it's better not to raise any objections."
"This amount of money is indeed not much, but if you do business elsewhere, you're bound to get ripped off." Yun Qingjin had experience from her previous life and had seen protection money being collected before. Although she hadn't seen many similar cases in this era, she had heard many different stories from different people while doing business, so she had some impression of them.
"I have a general idea about this money." Zhu Ling had gathered some information over the past two days, and although there was no concrete evidence, he had some ideas.
"The person who was most proactive and anxious about this money, ostensibly for consulting fees, was Officer Li. And I've heard some things about him; he's a gambler and likes to play a few rounds of gambling in his spare time."
"Then why would a gambler rarely go to the most famous gambling den in Changgan City?"