The low-key prince summons trainees from the Imperial Household Department at the start of the game.

Lu Zhi only truly felt the difference in this world after breaking through to the fifth rank.

He circulated his righteous energy according to the Five Paths of Enlightenment, slowly releasing the pent-up emotions that had been building up in his chest for many years.

He advanced along the meridians and broke through to the fourth rank with almost no major obstacles, and then stepped into the fifth rank in a natural way.

When he opened his eyes, the duty room was still the same duty room, and the banana leaves outside the window were still the same few banana leaves, but the world he saw was different.

On the plaque inscribed with "A Bright Mirror Hangs High" in the main hall of the Yangzhou government office, a faint golden luster seemed to flow.

It wasn't paint, nor was it a reflection; it was a kind of aura that he had never noticed before.

He walked out of the duty room and stood in the courtyard, looking up at the pair of stone lions at the main gate of the government office.

The stone lion's eyes seemed brighter than before, and the stone ball it held in its mouth had a faint golden pattern on its surface.

It's like some ancient seal is slowly awakening.

He turned around and asked the clerk behind him if the paint on the plaque in the main hall had been recently repainted.

The clerk shook his head blankly, saying that the plaque was left by the previous prefect and hadn't been touched for many years.

Lu Zhi didn't ask any more questions, but stood there in silence for a long time.

He recalled an event from his previous life during the reign of Emperor Dezong of Tang.

That year, Guanzhong suffered a severe drought, and locusts darkened the sun. The Prefect of Jingzhao reported that it was a "warning from Heaven." Emperor Dezong of Tang was so frightened that he quickly issued an edict of self-reproach, which resulted in the Prime Minister Lu Zhi being punished.

His past self refuted this to his face, saying that it was not a warning from Heaven, but rather a result of neglecting practical matters.

In his previous life, he did not believe in ghosts or gods, nor in any so-called "warnings from Heaven," thinking they were just nonsense used to fool the emperor.

But in this life, he personally experienced the existence of the destiny of heaven and earth, and realized that he might have been wrong in his previous life.

There is indeed a righteous spirit between heaven and earth; it exists not only in people's hearts but also in all things in the universe.

When the energy of heaven and earth is stable, all things are in their proper place, just like a great river flowing smoothly.

When the energy of heaven and earth loosens, certain things buried deep beneath the riverbed will be stirred up.

After breaking through to the fifth rank, he vaguely sensed some things that he could not perceive before.

The golden sheen on the plaque above the main hall of the prefectural government office is a blessing bestowed upon Yangzhou by the imperial court.

Not only the Yangzhou government office, but every government office established by the imperial court is protected by similar aura, with the higher the rank, the stronger the aura.

As the Assistant Magistrate of Yangzhou, a powerful local official of the fourth rank, he naturally possessed an aura of good fortune.

This good fortune wasn't something he cultivated; it was bestowed upon him by the imperial court's system.

The Great Zhou Dynasty lasted for three hundred years. The founding emperor suppressed the dragon veins with his own power, gathering all the fortune of heaven and earth into the bureaucratic system of the court.

Every official is like a nail, driven into this land, using their own fortune to suppress those things buried in the soil that shouldn't have emerged.

He returned to his duty room and instructed the clerk to review the unusual records of various prefectures and counties in Yangzhou over the past six months.

The clerk quickly brought over a thick stack of files, which he flipped through one by one, his brows furrowing more and more as he read.

In Jiangdu County, a family's chickens all died overnight without any external injuries, and the coroner could not determine the cause of death.

A boatman at the South City Wharf said he saw green flames floating on the river in the middle of the night.

Three villages in Gaoyou County reported at the same time that the well water had turned bitter, and the villagers said it was because the Dragon King of the Wells was angry.

In the old ancestral hall at the entrance of Ganquan Town, which had been abandoned for many years, the night watchman heard crying coming from inside for three consecutive nights. When he went in to check after dawn, he found three empty bowls placed on the offering table by someone, with residual grayish-white powder at the bottom of the bowls.

These things, taken individually, are trivial matters that would not have attracted any attention in previous years. However, when viewed together, their timing and distribution coincide with the point after the beginning of spring when the energy of heaven and earth begins to loosen.

He spread out a blank sheet of paper and compiled these unusual records into a briefing, adding a note at the end of the briefing.

"There were more than ten such abnormal events, all of which occurred after the beginning of spring and were distributed throughout the various prefectures and counties of Yangzhou Prefecture."

"My subordinates investigated various places and found that such incidents often occurred in areas with weak fortune, such as abandoned ancestral halls, deserted villages, ancient wells, and old house ruins."

"These places have been uninhabited for a long time, and the imperial court's fortune is weak, making them most susceptible to being eroded by the yin energy rising from the ground."

"In my opinion, this is a sign of the loosening of the natural order and should not be taken lightly."

He sealed the report and, in the name of the Assistant Prefect of Yangzhou, submitted it directly to the Censorate in the capital and sent a copy to the Ministry of Rites.

At the same time, copies were made for Xu Jie and Yao Guangxiao.

Meanwhile, in Nanchang Prefecture, thousands of miles away, Xu Jie also achieved a breakthrough.

He circulated his righteous energy according to the Five Paths of Enlightenment, and his breakthrough speed was so fast that even he himself was somewhat surprised.

From the peak of the third rank to the fifth rank, he encountered almost no bottlenecks.

His mindset during his decades of forbearance in the Jiajing era of his previous life was extremely compatible with the "investigation of principles" and "comprehension" in this method.

His experience as a censor in Jiangxi during this lifetime, where he reviewed mountains of case files and handled countless complex cases, laid an extremely solid foundation for his upright character.

After the breakthrough, he stood in the courtyard behind the Provincial Surveillance Commissioner's Office, looking up at the plaque inscribed with "Clear Observation" on the main hall, and also saw the flowing light golden luster.

He remained silent for a moment, then suddenly recalled a strange case he had handled when he was an imperial censor.

A farmer's ox suddenly went berserk and killed its owner. When the yamen runners went to the scene to investigate...

They discovered a broken stele of unknown age buried beneath the cowshed, with inscriptions that were barely legible.

At the time, he only felt that the matter was strange, so he had someone dig up the stele and send it to the government warehouse for safekeeping, and later the matter was dropped.

Looking back now, perhaps the bull wasn't going mad, but rather was struck by some kind of energy emanating from the earth.

He returned to his duty room and received a letter from Lu Zhi.

He read the letter twice from beginning to end, and combined it with the "unsolvable cases" he had handled in Jiangxi, he had already formed a complete judgment in his mind.

He spread out paper and pen and wrote a letter to Lu Zhi and Yao Guangxiao respectively. In the letter to Lu Zhi, he clearly mentioned several judgments.

These strange events are not isolated cases, but rather the result of yin energy overflowing from the ground after the balance of heaven and earth's energy has weakened. Such problems are most likely to occur in places where the balance of the imperial court's energy is weak.

Although local government offices are blessed with good fortune, the coverage of grassroots levels below the prefecture and county level is uneven, requiring the dispatch of personnel for regular inspections and immediate handling of any problems discovered.

There are three types of processing methods.

Remove what can be physically removed, such as that broken stele.

If physical methods cannot eliminate it, suppress it with the luck of officials. The luck of court officials has a natural restraining effect on yin energy.

If local officials encounter situations that they cannot handle, they must report them promptly so that the imperial court can dispatch high-ranking civil or military officials to deal with them.

In his letter to Yao Guangxiao, he suggested establishing a unified reporting and handling mechanism for abnormal events at the six ministries level; otherwise, with each region acting independently, omissions are inevitable.

After finishing writing the two letters, he leaned back in his chair and looked out the window at the old locust tree that was bathed in the golden light of the setting sun.

Suddenly, he felt that in his previous life, he had endured decades of hardship during the Jiajing reign, personally bringing down Yan Song and reforming the court, and he thought that was his greatest contribution to the country.

Now he understands that the real power of the country is not just about the power struggles in the imperial court, but also about things that ordinary people will never know in their entire lives.

Those eerie things that are silently extinguished in the shadows, those sinister energies that are silently suppressed at the grassroots level.

The lights of countless homes were protected by the fortune and cultivation of countless officials like him who held both the dual identities of imperial officials and scholars.

This is the true power of the civil officials of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

Military generals guard the four directions, defending against visible enemies.

Civil officials govern the country by suppressing unseen threats.

The reason why the people of the Great Zhou Dynasty were able to live in peace and prosperity for three hundred years was not because the world was at peace.

It's because countless people like Zheng Ke are secretly nipping dangers in the bud, ones that ordinary people can't see.

Now that the balance of the universe is beginning to shift, all they can do is protect the land beneath their feet.

We must prevent those things emerging from the ground from disturbing the people, and we must also prevent anyone, whether a powerful family or a martial arts force, from taking advantage of the situation.