The brightly lit hall was gradually surrounded by the sound of pipe music, and the wine and dishes were all served, but the chopsticks were placed on the side of the jade bowl, and no one moved for a long time.

"Why hasn't Zhu Xiangxian been here yet?" The prefect waited impatiently and asked the little official next to him, "How long has it been...... What the hell did he do? ”

"I saw him this morning, going from village to village."

"But ......"

Before the prefect's words could be spoken, he suddenly heard a shout from the next in the hall: "Squire Zhu is here!" ”

Everyone looked there, only to see a scrivener as a guide, lifting the curtain to attract the guests behind him, and only then did they see the face of the squire. I saw that he was wearing an old felt hat on his head, a cotton coat with seven patches, a fat figure, kind eyebrows, and a few locks of pale beard under his chin, looking like he was forty or fifty years old.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the grass people are late, please forgive this sin." With his stomach straight, he took two steps forward and respectfully confessed his sins.

The prefect blamed: "Squire Zhu, today is the imperial court official Lord Wan is here, and you are so neglected, what kind of system!" Do you have anything urgent that you can't put aside? ”

"Back to the adult, the villain just checked the school field in the village, and he really can't get out, I hope you can understand." Zhu Yangrui said.

"Gakuta?" When Wan Yuzhi heard these two words, he immediately became interested, got up and asked.

"Yes, Zhu has been very sorry in recent years because he saw that the children of Xiangzi had no money to go to school and could not be taught by the sages. Therefore, he invested in the construction of Yixue, and dedicated more than 50 acres of land under his name to the government as a school field for the turnover of Yixue. This year, I didn't feel that it was enough, so I bought four or five more to raise money and food for this purpose, and I didn't have time to celebrate my birthday, so I let my family enjoy themselves in the house. ”

When the prefect heard this, he was quite moved: "Squire Zhu, I said where are you going to have fun, it was for this good thing to benefit the people!" It is worthy of being a great sage on my side, and it can be a model for the master of all ages! ”

Everyone followed and complimented, and Wan Yuzhi also politely echoed twice, invited him to sit at the guest seat, and asked, "Then now, how many fields have you rowed out?" ”

Squire Zhu replied without hesitation: "1,700 acres." ”

Wan Yuzhi heard this number, and his eyes widened: "So many? The average gentry only donates twenty or thirty acres, which can be regarded as accumulating immeasurable yin virtue, and you throw away more than 1,000 acres in one breath, which is really a great hero that is rare to see in the ages! Presumably, the school must have been built grandly and magnificently, and one day it must be visited. ”

Zhu Yangrui's face turned pale for a moment, but he quickly returned to his original state: "Well, Zhu will definitely take you to visit at that time." ”

Yuyuki's doubts were not diminished by these three words, but at the banquet, it was not appropriate to ask too much, so he smiled lightly, changed the topic, and discussed the light gossip, until the evening, and the joy was dispersed.

Wan Yuzhi spent the night in Runing, and the next morning woke up early, urging everyone to pack up and hurry. The two little officials saw that he had become taciturn and resolute, as if he had changed people, and secretly wondered; But it was a good sign, and at last they were no longer frightened by the imminence of the time limit, so they set out with him without asking a word.

Within three days, Wan Yuzhi arrived in Xinyang, this time he resolutely resigned from the prefect's banquet, only a few words of greeting with him, and began to set up a director, collect documents, consider the case, and the people in charge of the army one by one to answer, the confession of each person in detail recorded, everyone admired his decisiveness.

But the so-called drunkard's intention is not to drink, Wan Yuzhi doesn't care about it at all, he just wants to deal with it as soon as possible to give himself time to think. Therefore, he did not send a person to prison for strict interrogation that day, but only said to the prefect: "I looked through the documents and found that Cun Zhao had indeed promoted many officers, and it would be too arbitrary to say that he was a minion of the party. The experiences of only a few people are unclear, and the suspicion is very high. ”

The prefect of Xinyang was taken aback and hurriedly asked, "Could it be that we really have eyes and ears here?" ”

Wan Yuzhi pretended to be angry: "I was ordered to investigate the case, how can it be fake!" ”

The prefect was stunned, suddenly broke out in a lot of cold sweat, and fell to his knees tremblingly: "The crime of despicability deserves death!" Dare to ask those people what their surnames are? I'm going to arrest them all!" ”

Wan Yuzhi saw that he was nervous like this, and his face softened: "Don't be anxious, don't you be anxious, won't you startle the snake in this way?" ”

The prefect was about to be confused by him, and his eyes gradually became confused: "Then what should I do?" ”

Wan Yuzhi smiled: "I have a plan." You and I will first stand still and wait patiently for a few days, one to paralyze the heart of a traitor, and the other to receive documents from all over the world to enrich the evidence; When the time is ripe, you can secretly allow someone to report anonymously, and you can catch it all. ”

The prefect was so tricked that he was already dazed, and finally had to respond and praise this 'clever plan'. Then he commanded: "Go back and give orders to the officials, and don't say that I will do it." Otherwise, those eyes and ears will suspect my intentions, and the plan will fail. The prefect did not dare to disobey, so he convened everyone to discuss and stopped the investigation of the case, and no one really suspected Yuzhi.

Wan Yuzhi returned to the official office, still did not forget the embarrassed appearance of the prefect, his heart was extremely happy, he couldn't help leaning on the desk, laughing loudly, and Gu Ziyan said: "That guy is also a stupid spirit, I haven't been in the office for a long time, and I can fold his face as an old official, so happy!" It seems that this group of old officials are just civilians, but they are incompetent people in the end, and they pretend to be calm on weekdays! I will definitely send this news to Ye Gong, so that they can also look at it and make fun of it! After that, he became more and more proud, grabbed a bamboo pen, and wrote quickly on the white paper.

Seeing that he was about to write to the last line, the end of the pen suddenly stopped, leaving a thick black mark on the paper. He 'tsk', suddenly shrunk the pen, and put it on the inkstone next to him, his expression was extremely serious, as if jumping from a sea of fire into ice water, and his mood was reversed in an instant.

He looked up at the white moon that was almost rising, and thought to himself, 'I can't get too excited. This is not even the first step, and the situation remains uncertain. Now there are still two small officials who follow from time to time, not leaving the left and right, if they are not dealt with first, I am afraid it will be difficult to interfere in the field system. However, they are not from our faction, and they do not know what kind of position they hold, and if they directly bribe, they may also cause trouble. It was all child's play before, and that's the most important thing now.........

He pondered it for a long time, but he had no idea, but he was freed from the immersion of joy, so he did not hesitate to pick up the letter of the invitation, crumpled it into a ball, and burned it slowly by the light of the candle.