The court lackeys of the eight-hour workday

Chapter 388 Emperor
Forbidden City, Wenyuan Pavilion.

The second floor.

Zhu Yijing knelt outside the door with his head down, making no move, as if he had lost his soul, staring blankly at the ground in front of him.

Inside the door, Li Miao sat in front of Zhu Zai, holding the vermilion pen between two fingers and shaking it constantly, so much so that it made a whistling sound.

Zhu Zai sat in the main seat, but paid no attention to the vermilion brush, only rubbing his temples. After a long while, he let out a long sigh.

"Thanks a lot."

Li Miao raised an eyebrow.

"Hey~ What are you up to? This is really something new. It's been over twenty years, and this is the first time I've ever seen ivory."

"Get lost."

Zhu Zai cursed weakly, but instead of throwing things over as usual, he just kept shaking his head and sighing.

Li Miao twirled the pen in his hand and said absentmindedly.

"If you really feel bad about it, why not just let me have a good time in Shuntian and then give me a long vacation of two or three years? That way, I won't have to worry about things happening every few days and I won't be able to rest peacefully."

Zhu Zai pinched the bridge of his nose.

"At a time like this, let's not joke around."

"I'm not joking."

Li Miao casually tossed the vermilion brush onto the table.

"You shouldn't have stopped me at the beginning of this year."

Zhu Zai sighed again.

"It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I can't afford the hassle."

He reached out and pulled out a few documents from the stack of memorials several feet high on the table, handing them to Li Miao.

"Before, I was only in charge of criminal and prison matters, so I didn't realize how critical the situation was. But ever since I took over the world, I've realized that I'm already standing on the edge of a cliff."

Li Miao took the memorial, glanced at it, and frowned.

"This bad?"

"This is after local officials have embellished the figures. If we were to go by the actual figures, they would be reduced by at least another 30%."

Zhu Zai shook his head and sighed.

"The impact of the Ming Cult incident last year is not so easy to erase. You subdued those major sects at the Songshan Moon Appreciation Banquet, but ultimately, they still harbored other thoughts."

“If the rules for receiving rewards had not been established, they would not have given in so easily. But in the past six months, the amount of rewards paid out has been increasing, and the already strained national treasury is now almost empty.”

Li Miao frowned.

"How about giving away fewer rewards and more secret manuals?"

Zhu Zai shook his head.

"We can hold out for a while, but that's like giving them weapons and armor. You won't see the effects immediately, but once they reach a certain limit... they'll explode."

“The local garrisons were already rotten to the core. Once people’s hearts were stirred, no matter how many people you killed, it would be difficult to turn things around.”

"The imperial clan has been suppressed for many years and is no longer a force to be reckoned with. Killing them all will not fill the void. If those civil officials stir things up again, the local areas will descend into chaos, which will then drag the martial arts world into chaos as well. In that case, the Great Shuo will be lost."

"Not to mention the Tatars to the north and the Japanese pirates to the south."

Zhu Zaichao leaned back in his chair.

"Time... If we have five or ten years, and slowly work our way up the civil officials, cultivate the imperial family, and reorganize the army, we will eventually be able to settle the country down."

"But right now, the other side can't wait any longer."

"According to the information you brought back from Nanjing, the civil officials, military officers, eunuchs, and that damned Yingzhou have completely colluded and are preparing to launch an attack... At the latest, they will start making their move by the end of the year."

"We still have too few cards to play... Ultimately, the general trend and people's hearts are things you can't completely destroy."

After Zhu Zai finished speaking, he rubbed his temples and fell silent.

After a moment of silence, Li Miao twirled his fingers in thought before speaking.

"Either—" "You go if you want, but I can't leave."

Without needing to finish speaking, Zhu Zai already understood Li Miao's meaning.

“I am, after all, a descendant of the Zhu family and a descendant of the founding emperor. The affairs of this world were done by my Zhu family, and I must bear the responsibility for my ancestors. If I were to simply walk away, I would have no face to meet my ancestors in the afterlife.”

"As for you, if you want to leave, I'll officiate at your wedding and marry that Princess Gongyi to you. You can take your lovers and set up a stronghold in Songshan. With your strength, I doubt anyone will dare to cause you any trouble."

Li Miao waved his hand.

"It's not that bad, it hasn't come to that."

He twirled his fingers, pondered for a moment, and then suddenly changed the subject to a certain person.

"Speaking of which, it's been almost a year. Have you trained that person well yet?"

Zhu Zai knew he was referring to the emperor.

The matter was of great importance, and since they were currently inside the Wenyuan Pavilion, it wasn't appropriate to speak too clearly. Having no other way to resolve the immediate problem, Zhu Zai stood up and walked towards the door.

"Let me take you to see it."

Zhu Zai stopped as he pushed open the door.

Zhu Yijing was kneeling outside the door when he saw a pair of familiar boots stepping in front of him. He slowly raised his head as if he had lost his soul, his eyes bloodshot, and looked at Zhu Zai.

"Father……"

Zhu Zaiyi raised his hand.

Zhu Yijing felt that Zhu Zai would hit him as usual. Although he was feeling utterly hopeless, he instinctively raised his hand to block, shrank back, and closed his eyes to wait for the slap to fall.

After a long while, a long sigh was heard.

Zhu Zai's large hand touched the top of his head and gently rubbed it.

"Ugh……"

"Jing'er, get up. Haven't you had breakfast yet? Go find your mother to make you some calming soup, and get a good night's sleep."

After saying that, Zhu Zai withdrew his hand and walked away.

There was no scolding or beating as usual, but Zhu Yijing felt a sudden emptiness in his heart.

He would rather be beaten bloody by Zhu Zai than let Zhu Zai let him off so easily.

Because he knew that Zhu Zai would probably stop scolding or beating him in the future.

"Father……"

He spoke in a hoarse voice, turning his head to look at Zhu Zai's back, only to see that Zhu Zai had already stepped downstairs and did not look at him again.

Li Miao stepped out and patted him on the shoulder.

"You're awake now, come to my house for dinner."

They also left.

Zhu Yijing was left with no strength left. He collapsed to the ground, unable to utter another word.

Zhu Zai and Li Miao walked for a while, passing through several palace walls. Along the way, no one checked their identification tokens or verified their identities. Occasionally, when they encountered a few eunuchs, they would respectfully step aside and not dare to look directly at the two of them.

Li Miao's gaze swept over the eunuchs, and he narrowed his eyes.

He hadn't forgotten that in Nanjing, an officer from the Right Guard of the Imperial Guard had been found to have an unprinted imperial edict.

The imperial seal is currently with Zhu Zai, but the imperial edict is in the palace, with the emperor.

In other words, Liu Jin and his gang of eunuchs had already planted people in the palace and had even reached the emperor's side.

After observing the entire journey without discovering anything amiss, Li Miao set the matter aside and entered the emperor's residence—the Qianqing Palace—with Zhu Zai.

As soon as he entered, Li Miao immediately spotted the figure sitting on the dragon throne in the center of the hall.

Emperor.

(End of this chapter)