The foreman still signed the statement.
Although he did not know who had ordered him to do it, the fact that they had been the ones who built the embankment and that the river dike had collapsed was already sufficient evidence. Together with Jun Huailang’s records and drawings, both witness and material evidence were present. With these, the people responsible could be dealt with.
But Xue Yan suppressed all of this evidence.
“I know who they are.” When he took the written accusation, Xue Yan said to Jun Huailang. “The people in the capital, the people in Jiangnan—I know them all.”
Jun Huailang looked at him in surprise.
Xue Yan continued, “But they have hidden themselves well. The things they have done openly that can be caught right now aren’t enough to move against them.”
Jun Huailang asked, “Then what are you planning to do?”
At that, Xue Yan smiled faintly at him.
“Since they haven’t done it, then let them do it.” Xue Yan’s fingers slowly tapped against the tabletop. “When they are pushed to a certain point, even if the crime means the extermination of nine clans, they will still take the risk and give it a try, won’t they?”
Jun Huailang was slightly stunned.
Xue Yan leaned toward him.
“Their arrangements are indeed quite thorough. But if something goes wrong, they can still end up trapped by their own schemes.”
As he spoke, he raised his eyes toward Jun Huailang.
“When that time comes, even if they want to live, it will be difficult.”
The Xue Yan before him was both unfamiliar and familiar. Although the light in his eyes was cold and ruthless, for some reason, it made Jun Huailang feel at ease. He could not help but feel that Xue Yan was reliable.
Even Jun Huailang’s reason could hardly resist this feeling.
Before he could speak, Xue Yan patted him on the forehead.
“Besides, you don’t need to deal with these matters. It will only exhaust you, and it’s dirty.” He curled his lips into a smile, and the sinister look in his eyes instantly disappeared. “You only need to watch and see how the people who wanted to harm your father die.”
It took Jun Huailang a moment to find his voice again.
“…Then, aren’t these pieces of evidence useless?” he asked.
Xue Yan let out a low laugh.
“How are they useless? They’re very useful. I kept them precisely because they’re useful.”
Jun Huailang looked puzzled.
Xue Yan continued, “Once their own net has wrapped itself around them, even if these pieces of evidence cannot directly point to them as the ones who did it, they will become the final rope used to gather in that net.”
He said, “After all, a ruler’s suspicion has never needed evidence to truly point to someone.”
——
Thus, starting from this day, Jun Huailang acted as though he did not know that the collapse of the embankment had been caused by people. He never mentioned the matter again.
Jinling was still shrouded in continuous rain.
Starting from the northern side of the city, thirty percent of the city had been submerged by the river. The breach in the embankment had still not been repaired, and the river water continued pouring into the city without stopping. For now, the soldiers had temporarily blocked it with sand and stones, but the moment another heavy rain came, it would immediately be washed away.
Thus, on the second day after the breach, Jun Huailang went to find Prefect Shen.
At present, not a single official in Jinling had ever served in the Ministry of Works, much less had any experience with constructing river embankments. The Jinling embankments had been repaired by the previous prefect more than ten years ago, and ever since then, they had been practically indestructible. Such a severe disaster had never occurred before.
Now, the officials were all helpless before it.
But Jun Huailang was different.
In his previous life, in order to investigate the truth behind the charges that his father had embezzled funds, he had thoroughly studied the flooding disasters in Jiangnan from beginning to end. Now, not only did he have considerable knowledge of repairing embankments and controlling floods, he also knew exactly how the embankments had been repaired in his previous life.
He went to find Prefect Shen precisely because he wanted to help him with this matter.
With Xue Yan, there was no need for him to worry about the Xu family and Guo Rongwen anymore, and he did not possess Xue Yan’s ability to contend with them.
What he could do well, and what he had to do, was to protect the people of Jinling as much as possible in this lifetime.
Naturally, he could not tell Prefect Shen directly about his rebirth. He only said that he was quite interested in water conservancy and had studied many texts, then offered Prefect Shen his views on how the embankment should be constructed.
After listening, Prefect Shen also felt that his proposed method was feasible. He therefore agreed and put the embankment repairs under the name of Duke Yongning, allowing Jun Huailang to take full charge of the work.
Thus, Jun Huailang led the soldiers and supplies assigned to him. Every day, he left early and returned late, going to the breach in the embankment to find suitable terrain and positions, and working to divert and block the river water.
Repairing the embankment was the most urgent matter at present. Besides that, there were also the tens of thousands of displaced people in the city.
The number of people who had escaped and those who had been rescued was enormous. There was not enough room to accommodate them inside the city, so they were all transferred to the area outside the southern suburbs. During these days, the officials of Jinling were all busy with this.
Those disaster victims had all suffered damage to their homes, and most of their household possessions had been submerged by the river. Thus, even ordinary necessities such as food, clothing, housing, and transportation had become problems throughout Jinling.
Food prices in the city soared, and for a time, ordinary people were all filled with anxiety.
But none of this affected the wealthy merchants and powerful gentry from enjoying themselves.
These days, now that the flooding had only just settled down somewhat, a piece of news began circulating among Jinling’s upper circles.
Qingyue House in Spring Water Alley in the southern part of the city would be auctioning off the first night of its famous courtesan in a few days.
Brothels and pleasure districts were hardly uncommon in Jiangnan. It was common for a brothel to promote one or two famous courtesans as rare commodities, then sell their first night at a high price.
But what was unusual this time was that the girl being auctioned was the famous Lady Yujing of Qingyue House.
It was said that Lady Yujing was only fifteen years old. She was born with extraordinary beauty and could also play the pipa so wonderfully that it was astonishing to hear. One month ago, when Lady Yujing first appeared in public, she had only needed a single drum dance to stun everyone present, and her name had become famous throughout the city.
But Qingyue House treasured this girl immensely. Over the course of a month, they had barely arranged for her to perform a few times.
Yet the more they did this, the harder it became to obtain admission tickets to Qingyue House. Quite a few wealthy merchants and powerful gentry had thrown away huge sums of money simply to catch a glimpse of Lady Yujing.
And now, this girl was going to be auctioned.
Even more unexpectedly, Qingyue House had announced that whoever offered the highest price, if willing to pay ten times the auction price, could directly redeem Lady Yujing’s freedom and take her home.
Everyone said that the owner of Qingyue House must not want to remain in Jinling for long and was trying to exchange the girl for money as soon as possible before running away. But even so, it could not stop many people from rubbing their hands in anticipation, eager to take the beauty home.
For a time, because of Lady Yujing, Jinling—which was filled with displaced people everywhere—unexpectedly regained a few traces of prosperity.
Meanwhile, the Jinling prefectural government was solemn and grim.
Every local treasury stored grain, fodder, silver, and gold. These were kept precisely so that in the event of a major disaster like this, they could be taken out for disaster relief.
Now, grain had to be distributed to the disaster victims, while the silver and gold had to be counted and used to purchase food and medicinal supplies from merchants. Thus, the entire treasury needed to be thoroughly organized and accounted for.
A few days earlier, Prefect Shen had already begun handling this matter. As for who should be responsible for counting the treasury, he had even specifically gone to ask Xue Yan.
“Can’t you decide such a small matter yourselves?” At the time, Xue Yan had merely raised his eyes indifferently, obvious impatience in them. “Who usually handles it?”
Prefect Shen hurriedly said, “It is Vice Minister Guo under Duke Yongning.”
Xue Yan nodded, hiding all his calculations deep within his eyes.
“Then let him handle it.”
Usually, matters involving silver, money, grain, and provisions were assigned to Guo Rongwen. Prefect Shen himself did not know who the spy within the government was. The reason he was informing Xue Yan now was simply because the matter was important and he needed to report it to him.
Hearing Xue Yan’s approval, Prefect Shen hurriedly agreed and was about to leave.
Just then, Xue Yan called him back.
“Wait,” he said.
Prefect Shen immediately stopped.
Xue Yan asked, “The silver and grain are kept separately, right?”
Prefect Shen hurriedly answered, “Yes.”
Xue Yan said, “Having one person do both will be too slow. Counting the grain and provisions is troublesome, so let Guo Rongwen handle that. As for the silver and money, I don’t trust anyone else. Prefect Shen, you count it yourself. As for the matter of arranging the disaster victims, hand that over to Duke Yongning for now.”
Prefect Shen hurriedly accepted the order and withdrew.
Thus, the grain and silver in the government treasury were accounted for by the two of them according to Xue Yan’s arrangement.
And today, the secret letter was delivered to Xue Yan’s desk.
Just as expected.
That boy Xu Cong’an had learned that Yujing was going to be auctioned and immediately began raising money.
But how much money did he have on hand? This place was so far from the capital that he had no way to ask his family for it, and it was even more impossible for him to ask his father for money to redeem a courtesan.
So, he immediately went to find Guo Rongwen.
Xu Cong’an was the precious grandson of the Xu family’s only male heir for three generations. Even if Guo Rongwen did not have the money, he would not dare say that he did not.
But buying a person—and a famous courtesan of Jinling at that—required an enormous sum of money, and he had nowhere to obtain it.
It was precisely at this moment that the Jinling government treasury was placed into his hands.
Sure enough, he immediately transported large quantities of grain away and, taking advantage of the soaring grain prices in Jinling, sold the government’s grain to merchants. Then, during the night, he fabricated the accounts and managed to cover up the enormous hole.
But he did not know that the merchant he had found was someone Xue Yan had already bribed.
Under the pretext of recording the movement of goods, that merchant signed a contract in duplicate with Guo Rongwen, clearly recording how much grain was bought and sold and how much money had been paid.
Guo Rongwen urgently needed the money and did not want to get entangled in unnecessary details. He also knew that there was a huge gulf between officials and merchants, and that an ordinary grain dealer would not know the names of the people within the government. Thus, he confidently signed and stamped the contract.
He did not know that immediately afterward, that signed and stamped contract, together with the secret letter, was placed on Xue Yan’s desk.
Xue Yan picked up the secret letter and smiled faintly.
Now, Guo Rongwen’s crime of embezzling the grain intended for disaster relief was proven beyond doubt. And when the Xu family’s young master publicly spent a huge sum to buy a courtesan, once the source of that money was investigated, there would also be a direction to follow.
Guo Rongwen had embezzled the money, and the money had gone to the grandson of Chancellor Xu.
At this point, even if Emperor Qingping were blind, he would not be unable to see that there was something going on between them.
Xue Yan leisurely put the letter away.
Jinbao, who was standing beside him, saw that he had finished reading the letter and hurriedly asked, “Master, the grain merchant is also asking what he should do afterward.”
Xue Yan’s movements paused.
This was normally not something he would ever need to consider.
What he needed to do was lure Guo Rongwen into embezzling the money and then leave behind evidence.
As for the grain merchant, he had bought the grain at a price ten percent lower than the actual price and had made a huge profit from it. All Xue Yan needed to do now was seal that man’s mouth and let him quietly make his fortune while pretending he knew nothing about the matter.
As for where the grain went or whom it was sold to, he was too lazy to care.
But Xue Yan hesitated.
He suddenly thought: If Jun Huailang knew that he had used disaster-relief grain as bait to lure Guo Rongwen into taking the bait, what would he think?
He seemed to… care quite a lot about those people in the city whose faces he did not even recognize and whose names he did not know.
Xue Yan paused, then asked, “…Where did Jun Huailang go today?”
Jinbao hurriedly replied, “The heir went to the river embankment first thing this morning. I heard that after he comes back from the embankment after dark tonight, he is going to the disaster victims’ camp south of the city.”
Sure enough.
Xue Yan sighed.
“…Spend another twenty percent more and buy back all the grain in that merchant’s hands.” He put down the secret letter and said, “Send it outside the city tonight. Just say that I donated it.”
Since childhood, he had experienced every kind of human warmth and coldness, and he had never had parents to teach him how to be a person. Naturally, he had little empathy and only knew how to weigh gains and losses.
But what could he do?
He was not kind.
But the person he loved was the most kind-hearted and soft-hearted person of all.