In the thirteenth year of the Tianbao era: I became Yang Guozhong's eldest son.

As Han Jitong finished speaking, it was as if he had finally released some of the pent-up anger that had been building up in his chest all the way.

He looked up, and for the first time, his eyes weren't entirely filled with repression.

There was an added layer of inexplicable fatigue.

"My lord."

"The reason I dared to flee to you with these things today is not because I truly trust you."

"It's because the villain knows that if he doesn't escape, he'll truly face certain death."

"But I also know that if you really want to secure your position in Yanjing County, the county magistrate's seal alone is not enough."

"That place..."

He swallowed hard, as if he was finally about to utter the most important sentence.

Everyone around the fire was looking at him.

Han Jitong said slowly:

"It was never in the hands of the county government."

The mountain wind was pressing down from the top of the valley.

The flames were blown low.

Yang Xuan lowered his eyes and looked at the old books and charts on Han Jitong's lap. After a moment, he slowly raised his hand and picked up the top book of well-related subjects.

The paper is damp, and the edges are soft.

......

The fire in the valley burned until late into the night.

Han Jitong's shoulder had just straightened back, and he was still feeling weak, but his forehead and temples were covered in sweat.

But he refused to lie down, instead sitting by the fire, spreading out the old notebooks one by one, as if afraid that if he closed his eyes, these pages would fall back into someone else's hands.

Yang Xuan didn't go back to the car either.

He sat on a flat stone by the fire, wearing an outer robe, with a thin felt covering his legs, and flipping through an old book of well-related lessons from three years ago.

When the book was opened, the first thing that came out wasn't the accounts.

It smelled of dampness and moldy old paper.

The edges were soft, and there were several black marks on the pages from oily hands. Cui Shen sat beside him, taking the pages one by one, his gaze growing increasingly somber with each reading.

"There's no problem with the well course."

He said in a low voice.

"At least this first one is fine."

"The problem is with this book of destiny at the back."

As he spoke, he placed the two booklets together and pressed his finger down on the numbers on the two pages.

"From the same well, in the same month, the well's records showed a yield of 176 dan of salt, but the subsequent transport records showed only 112 dan."

"The loss of these sixty-odd loads wasn't a matter of a single day; it was a gradual process."

"Some were changed to the name of transportation, some to wear and tear, and some were simply stuffed into empty names."

Ah Fu squatted by the fire, listening until his teeth ached.

"Can this even be accounted for?"

"This isn't about settling accounts."

Han Jitong held his injured arm, his voice hoarse.

"This is account laundering."

"If it were just a matter of stealing a few loads of salt, the subordinates could have divided it among themselves, and it wouldn't have rotted like this. The fact that the accounts could be cleaned up like this shows that there are people at all levels to take over."

Yang Xuan turned to the next two pages and suddenly stopped.

There was a very faint mark on the corner of that page, as if someone had made a hasty correction and then hurriedly wiped it with a damp cloth, but it wasn't completely clean.

He looked up at Han Jitong.

"Is this a page from Qing'ao Well?"

Han Jitong's Adam's apple bobbed, and he nodded.

"Yes."

"These pages are the dirtiest."

"That's what I was most afraid to touch before."

"Because with other wells, at most the well head and the brokers would take a few more bites. Qing'ao Well is different. Many people are involved in it. Everyone says it belongs to the government, but everyone knows it's not in the government's hands. However, no one is willing to say it out loud."

The flames subsided for a moment, then leaped up again.

Instead of asking "who has it?", Yang Xuan closed the book and changed the subject.

"What should I see first when I enter Yanjing County tomorrow?"

Han Jitong was stunned for a moment.

He originally thought Yang Xuan would continue to press on the account, Mo Sanwen, and who took the credit.

Unexpectedly, the first question the new magistrate asked was what to look at upon entering the city.

This is what a capable person is.

No matter how realistic the account is, you still have to look at the people and the shell on the ground first.

He paused for a moment before slowly saying:

"Don't go to the government office yet."

"You can take a look at the sheds at the city gate."

"If the first thing people look at at the entrance isn't the travel permit or the official's identity, but what's in the cart, then half of this county town is already rotten."

"Then look at the people standing at the entrance of the yamen."

"Who is the most attentive, who seems the most honest, and who always looks outward—those people are probably not just making a living from the county."

"at last……"

He paused here, his voice lowering.

"If you enter the county, you can still see salt carts from Qing'ao Well leaving the town, but no one in the government office mentions how much salt each well produced that day, so there's no need to guess anymore."

"The most valuable things in this place never even went through the county government."

Cui Shen wrote down every single word of those sentences.

Pei Zhao sat not far away wiping his knife, not interrupting, but he memorized all three phrases: "the shed at the entrance," "the people standing at the yamen entrance," and "the salt cart from Qing'ao Well."

Yanhe listened quietly the whole time.

Only now did she speak:

"Which spot in the county is the most slippery?"

Han Jitong looked up at her.

Along the way, he had come to realize that this princess was not just there to suffer and make up the numbers.

Her questions were never trivial.

"The gatekeeper, the warehouse clerk, the one in charge of the salt tax register."

"And the soap-head."

"These people may not hold high positions, but they've all gotten their share of the kickbacks. They're not in charge of passing on messages, giving orders, or deciding who gets in and who gets out; they rely on these people."

"If there really are eyes and ears in the county government, they are most likely hiding in these places first."

Yang Xuan nodded.

That's enough.

"Let's rest tonight and head into town tomorrow."

After saying that, he rewrapped the book and told Cui Shen to put it in his document bag. He also told Wen Bo to watch Han Jitong drink his medicine.

After everyone dispersed, Cui Shen did not leave immediately.

He held the old books in his hands and asked in a low voice:

"My lord, when we arrive in the county tomorrow, if it's truly a mess, shall we take over the official seal first, or examine the accounts first?"

Yang Xuan leaned against the stone, his face appearing even paler in the firelight.

"There's no rush."

"Let's see who can't sit still first."

"Before we even entered the county, someone snatched our bags at Guijianpo. This shows that what the people in the county are afraid of is not me, the new magistrate, but that these old records have really fallen into my hands."

"The more afraid you are, the more likely you are to act first."

"I'll see who in Yanjing County will be the first to stand up for someone else."

That night, the wind in the valley was more humid than it had been in the previous days.

In the latter half of the night, a faint fog began to rise.

When we broke camp early the next morning, the grass and leaves in the mountains were full of moisture. As the wheels rolled over them, a salty, fishy smell mixed with the smell of rotten wood wafted out from the mud.

Dou Ping said that this is a common smell near the well site.

Afu didn't believe it at first.

He didn't believe it until they had walked for another hour or so.

Because the road ahead is truly starting to change.

First, we encountered a salt cart.

It wasn't just one or two vehicles.

There were three or five carts covered with coarse felt, their wheels weighed down, and the carts were covered tightly, but the edges were still covered with a layer of whitish salt.

The animals pulling the cart were so thin they were practically skin and bones, but the guards all had fierce eyes. If anyone approached, their first reaction wasn't to give way, but to see if you dared to look at them for long.

Further ahead, there were salt porters.

The weight of their loads made their necks hunch, yet they walked with incredible speed. Some had festering sores on their ankles, which they hastily wrapped with cloth, but they kept going.

There are two abandoned brine pits left over from salt production by the roadside. The water is grayish and swarms of flies around them.

Wen Bo frowned as he looked at it.

"The people here risk their lives for salt."

Han Jitong sat in the passenger seat, his face still pale, but he replied in a low voice:

"The salt that you risk your life for may not even make it into the county treasury in the end."

After traveling a while longer, the outline of Yanjing County finally came into view.