Who said the eldest daughter is crazy? She's clearly a woman of high rank and influence in the

After she finished speaking, the two of them fell silent for a moment. The wind outside the window rustled through the old cypress tree in the courtyard.

Xi Yueli said softly, "Your Majesty can just call me Yueli in private."

The king looked at her, paused for a moment, and then the corners of her mouth curved slightly, revealing a shy smile.

"...Okay, you can call me A-Zhao in private." After saying this, she seemed a little embarrassed herself, picked up her teacup and took a big gulp, but the tea had long since gone cold, and she wrinkled her nose at the bitterness.

The two sat facing each other across the desk. The sunlight slowly shifted an inch from behind the window paper, illuminating the memorials and secret reports spread out on the desk with a warm, golden glow.

The king put down his teacup and resumed his dignified posture as a monarch, though the smile on his lips remained.

"Yueli," she said, "from now on, you keep an eye on Tuoba Lie in the court. I'll intercept his underhanded moves. Fu Yuan has paved the way for you, and I'll cover for you. Neither of us will have to bear the burden alone."

Xi Yueli looked at her and nodded. When she stood up, the king also stood up. The two looked at each other across the desk for a moment, then she turned and walked out.

As she reached the door, the king's voice came from behind, carrying a much thinner smile than before: "Yue Li, if your Prince Chen of Daying continues to linger on the border of Beishuo, I won't keep it a secret for him."

Xi Yueli paused slightly, but she didn't turn around. Her ear tips turned red. "...Your Majesty, you can decide what to do."

As she stepped out of the door, she heard a very soft laugh behind her. The door closed behind her, and Xi Yueli stood on the stone corridor outside the Imperial Study, the afternoon sunlight filling the entire corridor.

She walked along the corridor toward the Imperial Preceptor's bedroom, her steps lighter than when she came.

At the corner of the stone corridor, a young palace maid dressed in blue cloth squatted behind a pillar, peeking out half her head and giving her a timid smile while clutching an unopened packet of candy—A-Yuan.

Xi Yueli stopped a step as she passed by her, bent down and gently patted the top of her head, then continued walking forward.

Ah Yuan hugged the bag of candy and shrank back behind the pillar, burying her face in her knees, her ear tips as red as two little shrimp.

Three days after the court assembly ended, Xi Yueli retrieved the first hidden chess piece from Fu Yuan's memory.

That person sat in the most inconspicuous corner of the military supplies department, guarding the largest accounting warehouse in the entire Northern Shuo Royal Court, and had been doing so for a full ten years.

When Fu Yuan placed him in office, he was just a clerk who was ostracized. He was good at accounting but was suppressed by his superiors and could not be promoted. When Fu Yuan passed by the military supply department, he gave him a promotion and taught him a faster way to calculate the core data.

Later, he rose through the ranks to become the chief clerk of the military supplies department. All the accounts he handled were meticulously recorded, including every single illicit expenditure.

When the Left Prime Minister requested the accounts for the past three years under the pretext of "checking military supplies," no one in the Military Supplies Department thought much of it. Checking military supplies before winter every year was a routine procedure. The Registrar presented the accounts as usual and reported each item in a step-by-step manner without changing his expression.

But when Zuo Xiang, in front of all the clerks, unfolded one page of the account and pointed to the last line of numbers marked in red ink, the entire supply depot fell silent.

In the past three years, 230,000 taels of silver were divided into 17 transactions, under the names of "purchase of winter clothing for border troops", "advance payment of horse feed" and "repair of barracks". Each of these transactions could be traced back to the private account seal of the Regent's Palace.

When the message was delivered to the Hall of Diligent Governance, Xi Yueli was sitting behind the Grand Preceptor's desk, flipping through a scroll of border maps.

The Left Prime Minister stood before the desk and placed the copy of the account book in front of her. "Two hundred and thirty thousand taels. The oldest entry was the 'Advance Payment for Horse Feed' from two years ago in the first month of the lunar calendar, which was forty thousand taels. The most recent entry was the 'Emergency Repair of Barracks' which was just completed last month, which was forty thousand thousand taels."

Xi Yueli looked down at the rows of numbers on the paper and gently tapped the date on one of the rows with her fingertip.

"Two years ago, in the first month of the lunar calendar... in the same month he embezzled this money, a private military granary appeared west of Shuofeng Pass. Fu Yuan found out the amount of grain stored back then, but he couldn't find out the source of the funds. Now the two things match up."

She folded the page and tucked it into her sleeve. "Tomorrow at the court assembly, distribute copies to all officials of the third rank and above who are present."

The Hall of Diligent Governance was quieter the next day than the day before.

Each civil and military official had a thin booklet in their hands. The first page contained a summary of the military supplies department's accounts for the past three years. Seventeen expenditures were circled in red and followed by a line of small print: "Transferred to the Regent's Palace Private Accounts."

As Tuoba Lie entered the palace, the sunlight fell directly on the shoulders of his dark red python robe.

His expression remained unchanged, and his imposing figure still commanded respect as he moved among the civil and military officials. However, when his gaze swept over the book in each person's hand, his steps noticeably paused for a moment before returning to normal.

After the Queen entered the hall, she hardly said anything. She sat down and raised her hand to signal the Left Prime Minister to begin.

The Left Prime Minister stepped forward and read through the seventeen accounts in front of everyone. With each entry he read, the silence in the hall deepened. Some of the civil officials began to look down and flip through the books on their desks, while several generals who had been standing ramrod straight began to exchange uneasy glances.

When Tuoba Lie read the thirteenth stroke of the poem, his gaze swept over the assembled officials and landed on the position of the Imperial Preceptor, his finger pointing in the direction of Xi Yue Li.

"A mere young girl, who has only been in charge of the Northern Shuo royal court for five days and can't even speak the complete Northern Shuo dialect, dares to bring up the old accounts of the Military Supplies Department?" Tuoba Lie's voice was filled with suppressed rage.

"Military supplies accounts are audited annually, and have always been jointly reviewed by the Ministry of Revenue and the Military Supplies Department. Who do you think you are, to interfere?"

"Two hundred and thirty thousand taels? Do you know how many legal ways there are to transfer two hundred and thirty thousand taels through the books? If the Left Prime Minister can't find the entries, it's because he's old and blind. What can a little girl from the south like you understand about military supplies?"

When he said the words "young girl," several pairs of eyes in the hall turned towards Xi Yueli at the same time. Among those eyes were those waiting to see her make a fool of herself, those worried for her, and those watching coldly without saying a word.

Xi Yueli sat in the rosewood armchair, her posture unchanged from beginning to end, her back straight, her hands folded on her knees, the crescent-shaped hairpin shimmering slightly in the sunlight.

After Tuoba Lie roared, the hall was quiet for a couple of breaths. Xi Yueli tilted her head slightly, looked at the Regent standing in the center of the hall with a flushed face, and slowly spoke.

"I truly do not understand military supplies."

Her response was too flat, so flat that Tuoba Lie's roar was like a punch thrown into a pile of cotton, all his strength failing to produce an echo.

The gazes that had been waiting to see her make a fool of herself began to soften, and some people's smiles froze in mid-air before they could even curve upwards.

"Ke Chen knows how to read the accounts." Xi Yue Li reached out to the table, picked up the book, and turned to the first page.

"On the seventeenth day of the first month, 40,000 taels of silver were advanced for horse feed, handled by Liu Qian, the deputy commissioner of the military supplies department. On the same day, the Regent's Palace accountant issued a receipt for 40,000 taels of silver, with the item listed as 'purchase of 60 fine horses from the north'."

"But the record of horses entering the stables of the garrison at Shuofeng Pass that day was zero. Whose private stables did these sixty fine horses enter? Shouldn't the Regent explain this to everyone?"

She turned to the second page, "August 23, 12,000 taels for barracks repairs, handled by Li Mao, engineer."

"But the next day, a new heated pavilion was built in the backyard of the Regent's Palace. The timber was golden nanmu transported from the south, which is not produced locally in Beishuo. Was that 12,000 taels used to buy the timber, or to hire craftsmen from the south?"