Chapter 18: The Reading

When the constables pinned Lin Yuan down, he didn't struggle.

This was what he had agreed to beforehand. No fighting back, no struggling, let them hit him.

The first rod, carrying the formidable hidden force of a Houtian martial artist, slammed down hard on his left shoulder, precisely where he had been injured the night before. True Qi penetrated the bone, the pain shooting along his meridians like a venomous snake to the tips of his fingers. His entire left arm instantly went numb, his knees buckled, and he nearly knelt down.

But he held firm, a fanatical gleam even flashing in his eyes!

Hit! Hit harder!

The second rod, with a whistling sound, smashed heavily onto his back.

The dull thud of bone and flesh colliding echoed out, drawing gasps of shock from the refugees below the stage.

"Stop!" a woman screamed.

Fang De stood behind the platform, his face as dark as water, a hidden killing intent flickering in his eyes.

He did not give the order to stop.

Lin Yuan was pressed firmly to the ground, his face in the dirt. He tasted soil and the strong metallic tang of blood in his mouth. He turned his head, swallowing the bloody froth in his throat, and roared like a madman—

"Wuwei County! Total registered households: one thousand, six hundred and eight! Fang De's register only lists three hundred and fifty households!"

"Gag him!" Fang De roared furiously.

A constable reached out to cover Lin Yuan's mouth. Lin Yuan didn't hesitate; he bit down hard on the hand.

The constable howled in pain, yanking his hand back and smashing a fist wrapped in True Qi into Lin Yuan's cheekbone.

A loud boom echoed in Lin Yuan's head, stars exploded before his eyes, and his vision turned blood red.

But his mouth was free again.

"Hanshan County! One thousand, two hundred and seventy households! The register only reported—"

The third rod whistled down, striking him viciously in the waist.

Lin Yuan's voice was cut off for a moment, but he forced it out again with a desperate, life-defying ferocity.

"—three hundred households!"

The refugees below had completely erupted.

They saw an imperial official speaking up for them, pinned in the mud and beaten to within an inch of his life. With every savage blow, he would cry out a county's name and numbers as if weeping blood.

They might not remember all the numbers, but they understood one bloody fact.

The men above had undercounted their lives, erased their fields, and turned their dead parents, wives, and children into non-existent wandering ghosts!

"They're beating him! The officials are beating him!"

"That lord is speaking for us, and they're trying to beat him to death!"

"Dog officials! Beasts!"

Curses, wails, and shrill roars of fury mingled together, soaring into the sky.

Old Yu and the other three, who had been prepared to cause trouble, were swept up in the furious tide of refugees and found themselves unable to move an inch.

Fang De watched the increasingly frenzied crowd below and began to feel panic.

His panic wasn't just about the refugees rioting. There was something else.

Where did Lin Yuan get his data from?

The duplicate land register.

The duplicate land register of Luzhou Prefecture!

That cursed thing should have been locked tight in the prefectural archives.

Fang De had made arrangements with Prefect Cheng Yuanshan beforehand; all the old accounts had been dealt with flawlessly. Even if Lin Yuan found them, he should only have found the fabricated false accounts.

But the numbers Lin Yuan was shouting weren't from the false accounts. They were the bloody, real numbers from the land register!

When did he get them?

Yesterday. He went alone to the prefectural city yesterday and returned first thing this morning.

Fang De's mind raced. He had sent people to find out who Lin Yuan met in the prefectural city, but the information hadn't come back yet. It was too late now.

"Chief Clerk Fang!"

Liu Fang could no longer sit still. He abruptly stood up from his chair, strode quickly to Fang De's side, and, shaking his folding fan, leaned in and whispered something urgently.

Fang De, his face ashen, nodded.

"All of you, stop!" he bellowed, projecting his voice with True Qi.

The constables withdrew their rods, retreating to the side with fierce expressions.

Lin Yuan lay on the ground, his back and waist burning with pain. The old wound on his left shoulder was completely torn open, bright red blood dripping from his sleeve onto the muddy ground with a plop, plop. He pushed himself up with his hands, swaying as he slowly rose to his feet. His official robes were covered in mud and bloodstains.

Fang De walked out from behind the long table.

His smile was back on his face. But this time, it looked worse than a grimace.

"Lord Lin, we could have talked this out properly," he said, spreading his hands, his tone so sincere it was as if he hadn't just condoned the martial artists' violence. "It's these crude subordinates of mine who don't know better, whose True Qi got out of control and offended you. I'll have them kowtow and apologize to you right now."

He turned and shot a cold, sharp glance at Tao Si.

Tao Si was stunned for a moment, then gritted his teeth and reluctantly cupped his hands towards Lin Yuan.

"My apologies, Lord Lin."

Lin Yuan didn't even look at him.

He bent down, picking up the scattered pieces of hemp paper from the muddy water one by one.

Two of them had dirty footprints on them, the corners torn, but the bloody numbers were still clearly legible.

He straightened his back, casually wiping the blood and grime from his face.

"Chief Clerk Fang," his voice was filled with a ruthless determination, "I'm not finished."

Fang De's eyelid twitched violently.

"Please, go on."

"I have the land register data for all eight counties." Lin Yuan held the stack of blood-stained hemp paper high, showing each page to the thousands of bloodshot eyes below the stage. "Hefei, Lujiang, Shucheng, Chao County, Wuwei, Hanshan, —"

"Lord Lin." Liu Fang suddenly spoke up.

He sauntered over, swaying his folding fan, putting on the compassionate, gentle, and proper air of a Censor.

"Your sincere love for the people, this humble official understands completely. However, disaster assessment and classification are official matters handled by the Ministry of Revenue according to regulations. It is perfectly normal for there to be discrepancies between land register data and disaster assessment data. Some household registrations were recorded before the flood. After the flood, with population movement and refugees fleeing famine and migrating elsewhere, the actual number of registered households would naturally plummet. Comparing pre-flood old registers directly with post-flood disaster assessment data is, methodologically speaking, biased."

After speaking, he swept his gaze over the rioting refugees below and smiled slightly, projecting his voice with True Qi.

"Fellow elders and villagers, do not worry. Every single tael of silver issued by the court will be distributed clearly and transparently into your hands. If anyone is missed, the government will issue supplementary payments later."

This official doublespeak was delivered flawlessly.

Some among the refugees were stunned, others were half-convinced, half-doubting. The roaring cacophony actually subsided a bit.

Lin Yuan stared fixedly at Liu Fang, a cold laugh echoing in his heart.

This supervising censor sent by the Second Princess, with his mouth full of benevolence, righteousness, and following the rules—in reality, from the moment they left Chang'an until now, no matter how many times Fang De moved the silver chests or changed the seals, he had pretended to be blind!

"Censor Liu speaks so beautifully," Lin Yuan nodded emphatically, then suddenly raised his voice to a shout. "Population movement, refugees migrating, can indeed cause data discrepancies. But how much of a discrepancy is normal?! Censor Liu, Hefei County had two thousand, one hundred and forty households, but you forcefully suppressed it to three hundred and eighty households. Is that a discrepancy?! That's devouring living, breathing people whole!"

"And Censor Liu," Lin Yuan took a fierce step forward, his aura overwhelming, "how exactly did Chief Clerk Fang's underlings conduct their disaster assessments?! Tao Si, at Willow Bend Village, didn't even count the refugees' shacks! He directly wrote 'approximately thirty households' on the register, but the actual number was seventy-two! Qian Er, at River Mouth Town, didn't even enter through the town gate! He wrote one hundred and fifty households, but the actual number was over three hundred! Wu Liu, at Nan Wan Village, took one look from afar on horseback, then turned around and left! One hundred and thirteen households, he wrote fifty!"

His bloodshot gaze swept over every corrupt official on the stage like a sharp sword.

"This isn't a discrepancy! This is treating human life as worthless grass! This is deliberately downplaying the disaster, so you can dip your hands into this eight hundred thousand taels of life-saving relief silver and stuff your own pockets!"

The area below the stage completely exploded.

The refugees heard the names of their own villages.

Willow Bend, River Mouth Town, Nan Wan Village—they were right there in that crowd, every word dripping with blood!

"Bullshit! I'm from Willow Bend Village! It really is seventy-two households!"

"River Mouth Town! Dozens of people drowned in the flood in our town! That dog bastard assessing the disaster didn't even look!"

"Give us back our life-saving silver! Let's fight them!"

Fang De's fists were clenched so tight inside his wide sleeves they trembled.

He never imagined that Lin Yuan hadn't just stolen the land register; he had even investigated every detail of the disaster assessment! Every village, every constable, what numbers they wrote—item by item, as clear as a death warrant.

This man had been planning to overturn the heavens from the very first day he left Chang'an!

Fang De took a deep, cold breath and turned to glare sinisterly at Tao Si.

Cold sweat poured down Tao Si's forehead like a waterfall.

He wasn't afraid of Lin Yuan, this seventh-rank civil official. He was afraid of these thousands of refugees completely losing control.

The refugees' eyes were all bloodshot, surging forward like madmen. Those two thin ropes couldn't possibly hold back this surging tide of popular resentment.

"Chief Clerk Fang," Tao Si leaned in, his voice vicious, "we have to control this scene, or it's all over!"

Fang De's face was grim.

"Men."

"Seize the seventh-rank Inspector Lin Yuan on the spot, on charges of disrupting disaster relief order and forging official court documents!"