Hot flashes

"Wu Huai-ren's folded paper?" Zhou Heng asked.

Xiao Jue opened his eyes, his gaze falling on the ever-growing stack of memorials on the table. "He wants silver, food, and soldiers."

Zhou Heng put down his book, walked over, picked up the folded document, and read it through. After reading it, he put the document back on the table and sat down next to Xiao Jue.

Xiao Jue reached out and took Zhou Heng's hand in his palm, gently rubbing his thumb on the back of Zhou Heng's hand.

"Tell me," he began, his voice neither loud nor soft, as if asking a trivial question, "Should I grant permission, or not?"

Zhou Heng remained silent for a moment, looked into Xiao Jue's eyes, and smiled.

"You already have a plan in mind," Zhou Heng said, pulling his hand out of Xiao Jue's grasp. He stood up, walked back to the couch, sat down, and picked up the mathematics textbook again. "Do you still need to ask me?"

Xiao Jue's lips curved slightly. He picked up a vermilion pen and wrote a few words on Wu Huai Ren's folded document: "Understood. The imperial envoy shall handle the disaster relief matters as appropriate."

The phrase "handling the situation as it comes" is better than "acting expediently." At least "acting expediently" has a limit; it knows what can and cannot be done.

"Camera handling" is different; it all depends on how you interpret it. You can interpret it as "I trust you, you handle it yourself," or you can interpret it as "I won't stop you, but you'll have to take responsibility if something goes wrong."

When Wu Huai-ren received this reply, his expression was quite interesting.

In the capital, Xiao Jue was holding several key figures from aristocratic families in court, preventing them from leaving the capital and denying them the opportunity to mobilize troops.

The military commissioner of Jiangning Prefecture submitted a memorial, stating that a local uprising was imminent and requesting the mobilization of troops to suppress it.

Xiao Jue wrote four words in his reply: "Appeasement is paramount." The military commissioner then submitted another memorial, stating that the gathering of disaster victims might lead to a major upheaval and requesting reinforcements. Xiao Jue wrote four more words in his reply: "Avoid escalating the situation."

The military commissioner was in a hurry; his third memorial was long and urgent, with increasingly vehement wording. Xiao Jue read it and wrote six words: "I understand. Wait."

Wait. Wait for what? The military commissioner only knew that if they waited any longer, the disaster victims in Jiangnan would tear down the city walls of Jiangning Prefecture.

The heads of the powerful families were also anxious. They sent several groups of people to the capital to meet with Xiao Jue, to explain the severity of the situation in Jiangnan and the urgency of the peasant uprising, and to request the court to send a large army to suppress it as soon as possible.

But their people couldn't even get into the palace gates; the petitions they sent went unanswered.

Cui Yin sat in his study all day, a chess game in front of him, the black and white pieces intertwined, neither willing to give way. He stared at the game for a long time, then suddenly reached out and overturned the chessboard.

The chess pieces scattered all over the floor, white and black mixed together, rolling under the desk, under the bookshelf, and into the crack of the door. He stood amidst the mess, panting heavily, the muscles in his face twitching.

"What exactly does he want?" he asked, his voice so loud it sounded like he was shouting, but he was alone in the room and no one answered him.

On the night the soup kitchen was overturned, several neighborhoods in the west of the city were thrown into chaos.

At first, a group of starving refugees rushed onto the street, shouting at the closed grain shops and pawnshops. As they shouted, some people picked up stones from the ground and smashed the doors. Then, some people rushed inside.

The shopkeeper had long since fled, and all the valuables in the shop had been moved out, but there were still several hundred bushels of grain piled up in the granary, which the shopkeeper hadn't had time to move.

When the disaster victims saw the sacks of grain, their eyes turned red. They rushed over and tore open the burlap with their fingernails. White rice poured out from the holes and spilled all over the ground. More people rushed over and scooped it up with their hands, clothes, and hats. Those who had no containers stuffed the grain into their mouths, chewed it dry, and swallowed it. They choked and rolled their eyes, but they couldn't bear to spit it out.