Female-to-male: I live on farming

On the other side, after seeing Lu Youqing and his group leave, the chief clerk leaned over to County Magistrate He and whispered, "Sir, these people are from the Zuo family. Should we really handle this impartially?"

County Magistrate He looked at him as if he were an idiot and said in a deep voice, "Lock him up as a pretext and release him tomorrow when you find a reason."

Upon hearing this, the chief clerk immediately felt relieved.

He saw that County Magistrate He was unusually respectful to Lu Youqing, which was different from the past, and thought there would be some changes. It seemed that he was still the same as the previous ones, but he was just an outsider and had no power in the local area, so what if you were the county magistrate.

"Be careful recently. I always feel that this newcomer is scheming and difficult to deal with."

"Don't worry, sir. Even if she has extraordinary means, she has to obey us in our West Sea if she is isolated and helpless."

……

Li Nanqiao took Lihua to clean up the inner courtyard. The inner courtyard had not been lived in for a long time and was full of dust, so they could only clean up the room they were going to live in first.

Lihua had nowhere to go and was afraid of retaliation, so she begged Lu Youqing to take her in. Lu Youqing felt sorry for her and agreed to let her stay.

For fear of being looked down upon as useless, Lihua cleaned extremely hard. She worked efficiently and with her help, Li Nanqiao saved a lot of effort.

"Sir, County Magistrate He has put those men in jail." Yang Ping was tall and strong with firm muscles, standing in front of Lu Youqing like a statue made of steel.

Lu Youqing was sitting in front of a simply tidied desk, writing a letter to Qin Ke to report his safety. Before leaving, Qin Ke had repeatedly told him to write to him often to reassure him. When he heard Yang Ping's report, his amber eyes were stained with the deep night color, and he said in a cold voice: "It seems that he is not so unscrupulous yet. Keep an eye on him first, and he will take action in two days."

When entering an unfamiliar place, one should first throw stones to ask for directions. Those people were the stones thrown by Lu Youqing.

On that day, the news of the arrival of the new Xihai County Magistrate reached the ears of those who were interested, and those people were quietly released by County Lieutenant He in the early morning of the next day.

Lu Youqing remained calm and rested for a day before going to the yamen to work the next day. County Magistrate He was still respectful to her on the surface and gave her whatever she wanted, including files and tax books from previous years. However, Lu Youqing just flipped through them casually and threw them aside.

"Madam, don't you need to read these?" Li Nanqiao was a little puzzled.

"It's just a superficial effort to deal with the inspection. I'm afraid no one knows where the real account book is hidden." Without even raising his head, Lu Youqing began to look through the population register and government office list.

No wonder the power of the county magistrate was hollowed out, and the orders he conveyed were pretended to be obeyed but secretly disobeyed. Nine out of ten officials in the government office were people inserted by the three prominent families, and whether it was the county lieutenant or the chief clerk, they all had marriage relations with the three families.

Lu Youqing only had one day off when his door was crowded with people coming to visit him and bring him gifts. Most of them were valuable gifts from local wealthy businessmen.

Li Nanqiao followed behind Lu Youqing and collected the gifts. She was terrified when she saw the pile of gifts. Unlike Lu Youqing, who had been in the capital since she was a child and had seen a lot, she was from a poor family and had never seen such a scene.

"Madam, what should we do with these things?"

Lu Youqing looked over with cold eyes. In previous years, Xihai cried poor due to tax collection. It seemed that all the money was earned by these people. The gentry were rich, but the people in the county government were poor.

"Put it away after registering it."

Li Nanqiao moved closer and asked in a low voice, "Madam, what do you think they mean by this? Bribing you?"

"Bribing and winning over the people first is the cheapest way. I guess it was the same for the previous county magistrates. If I didn't know how to handle the current situation, I would have used courtesy first and then force."

If she is willing to stay steady and be her mascot in Xihai County, she can enjoy a very comfortable and easy life.

Unfortunately, she is not the kind of person who is short-sighted and will be tempted by the immediate benefits, nor is she afraid of the dangers involved.

However, the current situation is that the government has been sidelined. If you want to clear up the West Sea, the formal channels will definitely not work. It is better to take an unconventional approach. Thinking of this, Lu Youqing suddenly frowned and said lightly: "What has Lihua found out?"

"She hasn't come back today. When she comes back, I'll ask her to come see my wife."

Part of the reason why Lu Youqing kept Lihua was that she was a native of Xihai after all, and it would be better for her to get information from her than for them to get to know the place in an unfamiliar place. So the next day, she arranged for someone to go with Lihua to inquire about the news of the third lady of the Bai family.

Lihua came back in the dark. Lu Youqing knew that her every move must be monitored, so he asked them to hide their whereabouts carefully when asking for information. When she came back, she was led over the wall by someone.

There was a dim candle burning in the study, casting a hazy light on the whole room. The light flowed and shone on the woman sitting on the armchair.

"My Lord, I have heard about it."

Lihua lowered her head slightly, feeling that no matter how many times she looked at him, she would still be amazed by his appearance and her heart would be slightly moved.

"Tell me about the third young lady of the Bai family."

Lihua collected her thoughts and reported all the news she had heard in the past few days: "It is said that the third daughter of the Bai family is not actually born to the concubine, but was born to the Bai family master when he was away from home in his early years. However, for some reason, only the third daughter was taken into the mansion and registered under the name of concubine Liu. In recent years, there has been little news about the third daughter outside, until this year, when it was suddenly reported that she was going to marry into the Zuo family and become the second wife of the Zuo family's young master."

Lu Youqing's expression remained calm as he picked up the white jade teacup and took a sip.

"The young master of the Zuo family is already in his thirties. It is said that he already has several concubines in his house. He is old enough to be the father of the third young lady." Lihua felt very unfair when she said this and felt that the third young lady was very pitiful.

Although Lihua was smart, her abilities were limited and this was all the information she could gather. After listening to her, Lu Youqing waved his hand and asked her to go down and rest first.

"Yang Ping, go find someone to find out who Miss Bai San's biological mother is. This matter happened a long time ago, and I'm afraid we need to trace it back to the source to find out."

Although Yang Ping is a military man, he has done the work of catching spies in the past, so this matter can only be left to him.

He County Magistrate and the Chief Clerk found that the new county magistrate was unusually quiet after arriving here. He just strolled around every day, looked at files, chatted with people about local customs and practices, or even took his maid to stroll leisurely on the street.

"After all, she is a woman. She only knows how to draw her eyebrows and make eyes. She is no different from those people in the backyard. She will never amount to anything." Upon hearing this, the chief clerk smiled contemptuously, and the fear of Lu Youqing in his heart quietly dissipated.

Although County Magistrate He did not say anything, his posture and expression clearly showed that he agreed with his evaluation.