If you die, I will be able to inherit your cultivation.

The courtyard returned to silence, as if nothing had happened.

The officials standing in the queue didn't dare to breathe.

Some people stared down at the tips of their boots, while others secretly wiped the cold sweat from their foreheads with their sleeves.

Several other clerks standing in the back row had pale faces and their fingers trembled slightly under their sleeves.

The Right Vice Minister, a third-rank official, was thrown out without warning.

Zheng Zhigan has the backing of a prestigious family; how many of these people don't?

But so what? In this mansion, the prestige of a noble family is worth less than a piece of toilet paper.

Zhou Ming paid no attention to the minor commotion just now. He took out a thick stack of mulberry paper that he had stayed up all night writing from his sleeve and handed it to Wu Shijun beside him:

"Lord Wu, this is the newly drafted law. You should take the lead in revising the new law as soon as possible."

After he finished speaking, he turned around and addressed the silent officials below the steps in a loud voice:

"Before the new law is officially implemented, all personnel involved in the revision are prohibited from leaving the premises or transmitting any information. Please keep this a secret."

After saying that, he turned and went back to the backyard.

As they passed through the moon gate, they summoned the commander of the guards and briefly explained the seriousness of the matter.

The entire drafting team of the new laws of the Ming Dynasty is currently imprisoned in this mansion.

Any draft that leaks out of the manor could lead to an early counterattack from powerful families.

Upon hearing this, the commander of the guards felt a chill run down his spine, clasped his hands in acceptance of the order, and turned to arrange the defenses, doubling the number of sentries at all entrances and exits of the mansion.

Wu Shijun carried the stack of mulberry paper back to the main hall in the front yard, sat down behind the desk, took a deep breath, and turned to the first page.

Then his fingers froze in mid-air.

The further he read, the paler his face became, the slower he turned the pages, and his fingers trembled almost imperceptibly.

The characters on the mulberry paper were sharp and ruthless.

The hereditary system of official titles and stipends was abolished, and a twenty-rank military merit system was implemented.

The household register was reorganized, with five households forming a group and ten households forming a group; if one household committed a crime, all nine households would be held jointly liable.

Minor offenses should be punished severely, and punishment should be used to eliminate the need for punishment.

Land was nationalized and distributed according to population.

This is not a revision of the law; it is clearly a proclamation of rebellion aimed at uprooting powerful clans.

He was knowledgeable about the law, and the reason Chunlan placed him in the position of Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Justice was precisely because he was thoroughly familiar with criminal laws and regulations.

Because he understood it, he broke out in a cold sweat.

Once this law is promulgated and implemented, the term "aristocratic family" will probably cease to exist in the entire Ming Dynasty.

The new dynasty had just been established and its foundation was not yet stable. There were warlords occupying the country from the outside and powerful families holding sway from the inside. If this law were to be implemented, it would be like pouring a ladle of cold water into a pot of boiling oil.

He closed the draft, stood up with a solemn expression, and called several doctors and officials he was familiar with to a side hall.

The group sat around a square table, scrutinizing each clause for more than half an hour.

Some argued that they should first speak with the Minister of State, while others believed they should jointly submit a memorial to His Majesty outlining the advantages and disadvantages. Still others simply wiped the sweat from their brows in silence.

Finally, they decided to ask Zhou Ming again.

Perhaps the Minister was only acting out of momentary anger; perhaps there is still room for negotiation and compromise.

Led by Butler Meng, the group walked through the veranda to the study in the backyard.

Zhou Ming was sitting behind his desk, flipping through the array jade slips he had taken out of his storage ring.

Hearing footsteps, he looked up and stared at the group with a puzzled expression.

Wu Shijun stepped forward, cradling the draft in his hands before his chest. His lips moved for a long moment before he finally managed to utter a complete sentence:

"My lord, this...this new law..."

He really didn't know how to phrase his words so as not to offend his unpredictable boss.

To say that the new law is too radical is to directly question the decision-makers' decision.

The adults probably know better than I do whether the powerful families will retaliate.

To say that the new dynasty's foundation is unstable and cannot withstand such turmoil is to teach adults how to behave.

Zhou Ming glanced at him, his gaze sweeping over the slightly crumpled draft in his hand.

He glanced again at the anxious and apprehensive faces behind him, picked up the teacup on the table, took a sip, and said in a calm tone:

"Just do your jobs and revise the laws according to the draft. Other things are not your concern."

The group exchanged bewildered glances upon hearing this.

Wu Shijun opened his mouth as if to say something more, but saw that Zhou Ming had already turned his gaze back to the jade slip in his hand, clearly indicating that he did not want to talk about this topic anymore.

He had no choice but to swallow back the words that were on the tip of his tongue, clasp his hands in a salute, and silently leave the study with a few colleagues.

For the next few days, the front yard of Zhou Ming's residence was brightly lit.

Forty or fifty officials from the Ministry of Justice were divided into several teams, each tasked with drafting a specific article, which was then reviewed and integrated by Wu Shijun.

The boundary between day and night becomes blurred between the turning of paper and the application of ink by the brush.

Some people were so sleepy that their eyelids were drooping, so they would doze off at the table for a while, then wake up, splash their face with cold water, and continue writing furiously at their desks.

The only sounds in the front yard were the rustling of paper turning, the gurgling of ink grinding, and the occasional hushed discussion.

No one dared to make a sound, and no one dared to complain.

During this period, not everyone was as honest as they appeared on the surface.

A minor clerk in charge of documents took the opportunity of emptying the chamber pot to slip a note into a crack in the wall, but Zhou Ming's divine sense caught it in less than a quarter of an hour.

He didn't alert the enemy; he simply walked to the wall, took out the note, unfolded it, and glanced at it.

The above is an outline of several new laws, clearly intended to be passed on to a certain aristocratic family outside.

After reading the note, Zhou Ming crumpled it into a ball and beckoned to the guards behind him: "Lock Wang Chunhua in the dungeon."

Over the course of a few days, these forty or fifty people all lost a significant amount of weight.

It wasn't that the food at Zhou Ming's residence was bad.

Butler Meng prepared three meals a day with a variety of dishes, including chicken, duck, fish, and meat.

Even for late-night snacks, they prepared steaming hot noodles.

Under the dual torment of such high-intensity work and invisible psychological pressure, even the best food tastes bland.

Although these people all practiced the Scripture of Salvation, they were able to maintain their physical strength and not decline under the operation of their magical power.

However, the sustained high level of mental stress caused everyone's eyes to become bloodshot.

The dark circles under their eyes were quite obvious, and several older doctors had noticeably more gray hairs at their temples.

When Wu Shijun respectfully presented the final revised version of the "New Laws of the Ming Dynasty" to Zhou Ming's desk.

He was so thin that his cheekbones protruded, and the jade belt around his official robe, which had originally fit him perfectly, had loosened by a whole circle.

But as he held the law book, his eyes were bloodshot, yet his gaze held a complex and inexplicable quality.

He revised this law word by word, and he knew every article and clause by heart.

He knew what it would mean once this law was enacted.

He also knew that from then on he would be a thorn in the side of the entire aristocratic class.

But now that things have come to this, he's already on Zhou Ming's pirate ship, and there's no other way but to row the ship more steadily and faster.