Strange Tales from the Northern Qi Dynasty

Chapter 43 New Officials

The inner courtyard was filled with torches.

In the night, the torches kept swaying, and the dark shadows on the ground also twisted. When a gust of wind blew, the dark shadows seemed to be dancing a strange and mysterious dance.

Liu Taozi leaned against the gate with a knife in his arms.

At this moment, he was staring at the dark shadow on the ground illuminated by the torch. The dark shadow was dancing for him, restless.

The inner courtyard was exceptionally quiet. In that row of houses, there were countless people huddled on their beds, shivering.

It was a sleepless night.

It wasn't just Zhang Li who was afraid, the other officials here were also afraid.

Zhang Li was covered with a quilt, curled up in a corner, half-closed his eyes, and even though he was sleepy, he couldn't fall asleep.

In a daze, I seemed to hear footsteps coming from the front.

Zhang Li woke up with a start and opened his eyes suddenly.

He looked up in horror.

Liu Taozi stood in front of him.

Zhang Li's whole body began to tremble, and his lips seemed to be stuck together and he couldn't open them at all.

He slowly closed his eyes, his whole face shaking.

"Jun Zhang."

"It's going to be daybreak."

Taozi spoke, and Zhang Li opened his eyes again. He got up and looked at the door.

"Its daybreak?"

"Not yet, but soon."

Zhang Li breathed a sigh of relief. He looked at Taozi and said, "I was frightened by you just now."

"Mr. Liu has been keeping watch all night. Thank you very much, thank you very much!"

Zhang Li said this and started to change into new clothes, but then he asked, "Is this night peaceful? Did you see any evil ghosts, Brother Liu?"

Liu Taozi's eyes were grim. "I'm not afraid of ghosts."

Zhang Li changed his clothes and nodded, "I think so. Peaches are the best for warding off evil spirits and killing ghosts. If there really are evil ghosts, they should be afraid of Liu Jun."

He walked to the door and said, "I have to go to Cao Gong to take orders. Brother Liu was busy yesterday, so you can rest today."

He didn't wait for Taozi to answer, turned around and left in a hurry.

Before the sky was fully light, the people in the inner courtyard had already tiptoed out. They looked suspiciously at Zhang Li's mansion and at each other.

"Do you think he's still here?"

"It's hard to say."

Just as they were talking intensely, footsteps were heard on the road leading to the middle courtyard, and everyone quickly fell silent.

Zhang Li appeared in front of everyone.

Everyone's expressions were quite interesting, some were surprised, some were disappointed.

He brought today's work and asked everyone to come out and listen.

Taozi also walked out of his house at this moment. Seeing Taozi holding a knife, everyone suddenly realized what was going on.

Tian Zili hurriedly walked to Taozi's side and stood together.

Zhang Li said: "As you all know, we are short of two people, so we will let Tian Zili and Liu Taozi take over."

"From now on, we will be colleagues."

Tian Zili smiled and saluted everyone, and many officials returned the salute with a smile.

Everyone's attitude towards Tian Zili is quite good, which shows that this guy spends a lot of money on a daily basis.

Zhang Li then began to announce today's tasks.

Although there are many tasks to do, they are far from being enough to exhaust everyone. The situation that occurred before was entirely due to the incompetence of the first two people.

They allocated work unreasonably and allowed the casual officials to bully the reserve officials.

Things that should have been done by the casual clerks and the substitute clerks were now done by the substitute clerks on behalf of the casual clerks. As a result, all the work fell on the substitute clerks' shoulders.

After assigning the tasks, Zhang Li reminded them, "Everyone, Cao Gong has issued an order. An official informed him that the scattered officials were not fulfilling their duties and only sent new candidates, which led to poor results."

"I hope you can exercise some restraint. If you cause any serious trouble, I'm afraid Lord Cao will hold you accountable."

No one spoke.

At this moment, someone suddenly said, "Zhang Jun! This is easy!"

The man stretched out his hand and said with a smile: "I was taking inventory in the armory yesterday and injured my hand. Please allow me to take a day off and let the substitute take my place. I think Cao Gong will not blame me if I do so."

Someone else echoed: "Yeah, I also caught a cold occasionally."

After seeing that Zhang Li was safe and sound, everyone quickly returned to their original state.

They didn't take the cowardly old man in front of them seriously at all.

Zhang Li spoke again, "It's not about fame, it's about the newcomers' lack of experience, so we still need you to lead us."

"It is precisely because they lack experience that we ask them to do more. If we don't give them opportunities to practice, how can they grow?"

"Zhang Jun! Just do as I say!"

The man interrupted Zhang Li again.

For a moment, everyone started chatting noisily. Zhang Li looked at everyone with a stiff expression.

"Your hand is injured?"

Suddenly, a question interrupted the noise.

The official with the sharp voice raised his head and looked at Taozi standing in front of him with disdain in his eyes.

"What does this have to do with you?"

"That hand? Is it seriously injured?"

Peach asked again.

The man was startled, looked around, raised his right hand jokingly, and asked provocatively: "Do you want me to show you?"

Taozi grabbed his hand, and under his astonished gaze, Taozi broke his right hand downwards. "Crack."

With a crisp sound, his wrist formed an exaggerated arc.

"what!!!"

the man shouted.

Taozi let go of her hand, and the man knelt on the ground in pain.

Fear flashed in the eyes of several people around, and they quickly took a few steps back.

Zhang Li looked at this scene in astonishment, and the corners of his eyes twitched involuntarily.

Liu Taozi looked at Zhang Li calmly, "Mr. Zhang, his hand is indeed injured. I'm afraid he can't do anything. You can let him take the place of the substitute for the time being."

Zhang Li pursed his lips and said, "Okay."

"Then who will take his place?"

"Yao Xiong."

"it is good."

Liu Taozi picked up the guy who was still screaming, as if he was picking up a chicken.

He walked quickly to the door and pushed it open.

When the substitute clerks heard the door open, they immediately stood up tremblingly.

I looked up and saw Liu Taozi standing at the door.

Everyone from the Law School was stunned.

what's the situation? ?

Today's Chief Official is Brother Taozi? ?

Liu Taozi threw the official in his hand out fiercely. The official fell to the ground, still screaming in pain.

"Officials are supposed to do things."

"If you do well, you can enter the inner courtyard. If you don't do well, you have to go to the outer courtyard."

“This is not a place to enjoy yourself.”

"Yao Xiong, come here."

Yao Xiong looked at the scene blankly, and walked to Taozi's side sluggishly. Taozi grabbed him and quickly brought him into the inner courtyard.

For a moment, the entire inner and outer courtyards were silent.

Yao Xiong stood here, looking around blankly. He still didn't understand what had happened.

The eyes of the scattered officials were filled with anger and hatred, but they did not dare to speak.

Zhang Li took a deep breath and said, "Don't delay anything. Let's get busy."

The scattered officials stopped arguing and left obediently.

"Brother Liu, you should stay and rest today."

Zhang Li gave some instructions and then took Yao Xiong to get his official badge and clothes.

Tian Zili walked to Taozi's side, and there were stars twinkling in his eyes when he looked at Taozi.

"Brother Taozi, you."

He stopped talking, as if he had made a decision, "Brother Taozi, I'm going to get busy first, I'll talk to you in the evening."

Yao Xiong came back soon, changed into new clothes that didn't fit him well, and looked at Taozi blankly.

"Brother, I made up for it?"

"Go get some work done!"

"only!!!"

Today's scattered officials were particularly silent, and no longer asked substitute officials to go out and do work on their behalf.

He is also quite serious when doing things.

When Yao Xiong woke up, he became a casual official. He is still not very sober now, but he is very serious in his work.

I don’t know why, although he was exhausted and completely collapsed last night, today, Yao Xiong felt full of energy.

He is not that tired anymore.

He had to go out to do some work that day, but it was the same thing, but he had a different feeling.

The county government has issued an order to thoroughly investigate the population inside and outside the city.

Almost all the scattered officials were sent out to do this.

At this moment, Yao Xiong was leading two substitute clerks and was asking the local clerk about the situation here.

"Sixty-two households, right? No need to change it? We can't make any mistakes."

"Yes, you can check them one by one. I just checked them recently and the situation of each household is recorded."

The village official with a white beard explained it to him.

Yao Xiong left here quickly.

The village official escorted him all the way out of the village. Only after he watched them disappear completely did he wipe the sweat from his forehead.

The white-bearded clerk just turned around and saw a man carrying a large musk deer on his back, staring at him.

The clerk paused and said, "You scared me. Sun Hu, are you back from hunting?"

The man nodded and looked into the distance again, "Is the county official here?"

"I'm just a casual official. They said they're going to check the household registration. I wonder if you'll have to do corvée labor again. Oh, you might as well not come back. There's too much corvée labor here."

As the clerk said this, he put his hands behind his back and left the place shaking his head.

The man carried the prey on his back and walked towards the dense forest not far away.

Hunters are different from farmers in that they often live outside of villages and often migrate with their prey.

The man walked into the house in the dense forest and suddenly dropped the musk deer in his hand.

"Xiao Wu! Let it bleed!"

(End of this chapter)