I have the best bloodline

"Actually, field mice are different from rats. Fried field mice are a well-known snack to accompany drinks. They are quite common in the southern part of Xia Yu. I have eaten quite a few before."

After watching the magistrate angrily beat the registrar while standing in front of the gate, Zhou You, who had once visited the place, explained the difference between rats and field mice to Su Yan, Jun Xia, Feng Shiqi, and the anonymous person.

Field mice do taste good, and in the local area, eating field mice is a better way to control rodent infestations.

"Brother Su should know, right? He's craving fried field mice—those are the perfect snack to go with drinks."

Zhou You looked at Su Yan from the Southern State and asked him with a smile, wanting to gain his approval so that they could find a restaurant side by side and have a couple of drinks.

"Field mouse."

Su Yan thought about the field mice she had seen before, their bodies as large and fat as buildings, and her little face immediately tightened. She quickly waved her hands and said, "My mother doesn't allow me to get too close to those gangsters."

"The rats are so big that I can't eat them in a week. I'm already so full that I feel like throwing up."

Su Yan didn't know the situation in the southern part of Xia Yu, but the rats in the southern prefectures were all gangs and mingled in the underworld.

"hold head high!?"

Zhou You looked at Su Yan with a face full of question marks. The field mouse was only about the size of a palm, and this thing only took three bites.

Why do I have to eat here for a whole week?

"Haha, please excuse my poor performance."

The magistrate walked back to the back room with an embarrassed look on his face, and hurriedly called everyone to come down and let the cooks bring out the dishes.

Appetizers such as field mice, locusts, and frogs were all vehemently rejected by the county magistrate and county assistant. The welcoming banquet skipped the appetizers and started serving young chickens and fish. The main course was a wild boar that had been hunted.

………………

…………

"I wish you all good fortune in your military endeavors. The county magistrate, the registrar, and I are going to take a six-month leave. If anything happens, you can come to Jianghe Town to find me. If the trouble you cause is too great, I suggest contacting the Red King's Mansion."

After they had eaten their fill, the magistrate took the initiative to bid farewell to Su Yan and his party. He and the county clerk went to the kitchen and packed up all the field mouse soup and fried field mice to take with them. The yamen runners also all went home. Now, only the group from Yongle Academy remained in the huge government office.

"Let's all think it over tonight! Shiqi and I will go to the accounting office to check the accounts and take a look at the government office's cash and other valuables."

The situation inside the Flower City is so complicated that County Magistrate Luanming is wondering how to address it and achieve political success.

She simply took stock of the accounts, tallied the financial expenditures of the flower bureau, and saw if she could spare some funds to sustain their livelihood.

"Consider? What's the point of considering it? Given the current situation, it's impossible to achieve any political success, and we have no chance of getting our hands on Grand Tutor Jin's money."

Seeing that Princess Luanming had left, Zhou You leaned back in his chair and put his feet on the table, saying, "Brother Su, would you be interested in a spontaneous trip? It is said that many flower fairies live in the Flower Region."

"When the time comes, you will win her over with your charm, and I will step forward and use charcoal to draw her, recording those tiny, adorable flower fairies forever in the book."

The monks who participate in the academy's spring outing can make requests as long as they can achieve results that satisfy Grand Tutor Jin.

Zhou You came here for the purpose of making money. Now, seeing how difficult the situation is in Flower City, Zhou You plans to simply give up and drift through life until the academy's spring outing is over. After that, he will take a fairy boat back to Xia Yu City, retrieve his storage ring, and then travel to other beautiful lands.

No one would want to play cards here. What can four minor Golden Core cultivators do in Flower City?

I'm terrified of dying without knowing how I died.

"Taking photos of a flower fairy? You've probably never seen a brutal plant demon whose arms are thicker than your waist."

Listening to Zhou You's complaints about giving up, Su Yan secretly thought Zhou You was audacious, and then said, "Let's talk about those things later! Right now I want to rearrange a satisfactory dormitory room. I don't plan to sleep under the open sky and be exposed to the wind and sun."

"Let's go help out in the accounting office! Let's see how much cash the government has left for us to spend."

Although the situation in Flower City was difficult, it wasn't without solutions. Therefore, Su Yan did not despair about taking office as the county magistrate.

To achieve political success, one doesn't necessarily have to seize the interests of the local natives. As long as one finds a way to make money, one can use the name of the Xia Yu government office to invite various clans to conspire for the spiritual stones of the world.

Su Yan didn't care about these ways of making money; his reason for participating in the academy's spring outing was always because of Grand Tutor Jin!

He can teach me the ability to control water, and he can also teach me the secret techniques of the dragon race!

As for the 'method of condensing dragon balls', if Little Dragon Girl hadn't reminded him, Su Yan would have had no idea that the dragon balls of the dragon race needed to be condensed by himself, let alone that any being with dragon blood could refine them.

The Grand Tutor had many valuables on him, so Su Yan naturally planned to make some achievements here and try to get his hands on the hidden wealth of the Old Dragon of the South China Sea.

On the way to the accounting office, Zhou You was still complaining to Su Yan about how ridiculously difficult it was to go on a spring outing at the academy.

However, no one noticed that the nameless member of the royal family who had been following behind the two of them quietly turned a corner halfway there and went to the government warehouse alone.

The nameless man raised his wide sleeves, and several thin vines emerged from them, poking into the keyhole of the metal door.

"Click—"

The doors to the flower and plant administration warehouse opened in response.

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 166 Crimson King Territory's Top-Tier Protected Animals

"click"

The nameless man raised his hand and extended a plant root, inserting it into the door of the government warehouse without damaging it. He paid no attention to the swords and spirit stones displayed inside the warehouse, and went straight to the silver-made prison cell. He repeated his trick, his palm emitting a green light, instantly activating the prison cell's restrictions.

As the second door opened, the fox-eared girl, who had long since turned into a wooden doll and begun to mold, was once again exposed to normal temperature, and foul air flowed from the nameless man's feet into the warehouse.

"It's utterly absurd. A disgusting bunch."

The nameless man approached the wooden girl, raised his right hand, and let his wide sleeve slip down to reveal his withered hand. He then struck the wooden fox-eared girl's chest with a heavy blow, and countless plant roots surged into her body from the point of contact.

The nameless man suddenly took a step back and pulled his hand away from the girl's body.

Large amounts of wood chips, along with moldy dust, drifted into the cell, but the nameless man paid no attention to those insignificant things. His right hand, shaped like a knife or a spear, pierced directly into something among the thousands of drifting wood chips.

The index and middle fingers of his right hand, which resembled withered wood, held a drop of emerald green water that exuded a bewitching power.

The anonymous man put the drop of blood into a bottle, glanced at the filthy environment of the cell, and used a cleansing spell to sweep all the filth into a corner.

It can be considered as cleaning up the grave of the fox-eared girl.

After doing all this, the nameless man calmly closed all the warehouse doors and left the warehouse as if nothing had happened, sitting in the courtyard where the yamen runners usually practiced martial arts.

………………

The night passed uneventfully. The group assisting Princess Luanming in checking the accounts in the accounting office didn't seem to have much of a reaction to the disappearance of the nameless man. They even thought it was perfectly normal for him not to come to the accounting office.

Before joining the group, the nameless man had said that his main profession was a royal physician, and he did not intend to participate in the decision-making of the group. Therefore, no one found it strange that the nameless man did not come to the accounting office.

"It was even poorer than my aunt's brothel."

Su Yan, now transformed back into his fox form, emerged from the accounting office, shaking his head and swaying his body.

The entire flower and flower bureau had less than twenty catties of spirit stones in its accounts, and even if all the silver and gold were weighed together, it wouldn't amount to more than one hundred catties.

Flower City belongs to the indigenous autonomous region. The government does not need to worry about city renovation, defense, or soldiers. Naturally, land transfer fees and taxes are also unrelated to the government. Those are given directly to the Red King's Mansion. The only expenses that Flower City government needs to pay are the meals, salaries, and allowances of the government's yamen runners, cleaners, and cooks.

According to the account books, the twenty or so catties of spirit stones and gold and silver were saved up over time by the stingy Magistrate of Huahui County, who had not hired enough street cleaners and yamen runners as required by regulations. The magistrate planned to invest this money in additional agricultural research.

The Flower Bureau was so poor that Su Yan felt sorry for them. They had to cut back on their food and clothing for several years, and the county magistrate had to sweep the streets to save up enough money to barely make up for what he earned in a day at Ruchun Garden. And that didn't even include the money he earned from incense, candles, amulets, and tips for helping the ladies play mahjong.

The Flower Bureau was in a really bad state. If you ask yourself honestly, Su Yan's worst time was when he first left home, but even then, Su Yan had about two thousand catties of spirit stones in his pocket.

Although his storage ring has been confiscated, he can't find a single copper coin on his body.

However, Su Yan did not touch the spirit stones in the government office. He planned to go out and earn some spirit stones to build himself a safe fox den in the government office.

The county magistrate of Huahui County was so miserable that Su Yan couldn't bear to borrow money from the government office to cover his own expenses.

"Huh? Ahhhhhh—a fox!"

Su Yan walked in the courtyard, intending to find something to eat in the government office kitchen, but before she had gone far, she encountered the yamen runners and cooks who were coming to work. Before Su Yan could even speak, a shrill scream erupted from the other side.

The constables and cooks were terrified. Su Yan's ears were pierced by the scream, and she couldn't help but slap her head with her forepaws. Seeing this, the constables screamed even more in terror and scrambled away as fast as they could.

There's a sick fox in the government office!

"???"

Su Yan froze on the spot, a look of astonishment on his face as he stared at the constables climbing the tree to the roof:

"What are you doing?"

"In the territory of the Red King, because the tribal totems of different places are different, not all the people who newly joined Xia Yu love foxes as much as the people of Xia Yu do. Therefore, there is an ironclad rule in the territory of the Red King: no one may harm foxes in any form, and violators will be treated as traitors."

"Any fox that dies unnaturally must be investigated to find the cause and source of its death. If any signs of human interference are found, it must be executed according to the family tree or used as a sacrifice."

The nameless member of the royal family, sitting in the courtyard, spoke to Su Yan, informing him of an ironclad rule within the fiefdom of the Red King:

“You are a protected animal here,” the nameless man said calmly.

The fox was not important to the Red King, but the reputation of Yu the Great among the people and before the Emperor Wusheng was very important.

This is only one aspect. On the other hand, after the Red King issued this decree, those wealthy families, because of their large landholdings, would have a legitimate reason for the Red King to search their homes if any fox died on their territory.

The clans in the Red King's territory had long harbored resentment towards those completely unreasonable ironclad rules.

But as the old saying goes:

If the king wants the minister to die, the minister has to die.

The fox's death is nothing more than a pretext for legally seizing property from clans.

The kings of different surnames were not free to do as they pleased; their actions had to comply with the justice of the laws of Yu the Great.

We cannot confiscate the property of a clan without cause; otherwise, who will submit to Yu the Great and be subject to his rule in the future?

"The Red King's move is intended to scatter those clans. Therefore, the Red King's clans are all saying that when the Red King suspects you of fantasizing about rebellion, you'd better actually have the ability to rebel and raise an army. Otherwise, you will only lose all your wealth and leave your clan members homeless."

"Thus, the clan loses its most important cohesive force."

"You seem to know a lot about the Crimson King's fiefdom?"

Hearing the nameless woman's clear voice calmly recount the ironclad laws of the Crimson King's territory and the power struggles behind them, Su Yan looked at the nameless royal family member with astonishment.

"My master was born in the ancient Red King's territory, and I know a little about him from my time following him in cultivation." The nameless man didn't make things up; he directly stated the reason:

You scared those people.

The nameless woman glanced over and saw that after the yamen runners saw Su Yan's true form, they all started to scale the rooftops and climb onto the roofs of the government office or the treetops. She was genuinely worried that they might slip and fall to their deaths, so she told Su Yan that the Red King's ironclad rule told him not to reveal his true form to scare passersby.

"."

Su Yan glanced at the nameless man, then at the trembling constables on the roof of the flying house, who were terrified that he would die and ruin their family genealogy.

Su Yan, speechless, reverted to human form and angrily rebuked the constables and cooks:

"Open your eyes wide and take a look! I am a fox demon from the Southern Continent, not some sickly fox you're all clamoring about! I'm incredibly resilient!"