All the members are good people, only the host is a pervert

In early summer in Yangzhou, the heat was stifling. Wang Tongchun, the newly appointed Yangzhou magistrate, sat in the back hall of his office, beads of sweat oozing from his forehead.

It was not because of the weather, but because of the document that had just been delivered and was on the desk.

Her fingers were shaking slightly, and she could barely hold the thin piece of paper.

The four big red characters "Dismissal and Investigation" hurt her eyes.

"How could this happen..." Wang Tongchun muttered to himself, his voice trembling with disbelief. "I've only been in office for a mere two weeks, and I've only collected eight thousand taels of money for maintenance. How could I have been punished by the Censorate?"

She suddenly raised her head and looked at the teacher's wife standing beside her: "Go and check! Who is stabbing me in the back?"

Of course, it was on the night she received the money that Lin Ruan sat down at her desk and wrote quickly, listing in the memorial the details of Wang Tongchun's acceptance of the money for maintenance, as well as the various chaotic phenomena of collusion between the Yangzhou officials and the salt merchants.

The teacher's wife replied "yes" timidly, and was about to leave when she heard hurried footsteps outside the door.

A yamen runner rushed in in a panic: "Sir! This is bad! The Censorate has sent soldiers to surround the government office! They say they are conducting a search and seizure by imperial order!"

Wang Tongchun's legs gave way, and she nearly fell to the ground. She forced herself to stand, only to see a group of guards in flying fish uniforms striding in, led by none other than Gu Mingyi, the official historian of the Yangzhou Censorate.

She was dressed in official uniform, had a slender figure, a pretty face, and a pair of phoenix eyes that revealed an aura of majesty without even being angry.

Gu Mingyi held a yellow silk imperial edict in his hand, his voice as cold as ice: "The Emperor, by the Mandate of Heaven, decrees: Wang Tongchun, the co-magistrate of Yangzhou, has been corrupt and perverted the law since taking office, accepting bribes of 8,000 taels from salt merchants. He is to be immediately dismissed and investigated, and all the stolen money must be confiscated. All officials in Yangzhou must return all the 'maintenance money' they have collected within ten days. Those who fail to do so will be charged with corruption! This is my decree."

Wang Tongchun's face turned pale as death, and he fell to the ground. "Master Gu! I am wronged! This maintenance fee is a common practice in Yangzhou, and all the previous Tongzhi have collected it. Why is it that only I..."

Gu Mingyi sneered, "Sir Wang, I'm doing this by order. If you have any grievances, you can appeal to the Ministry of Justice." She waved her hand, "Come here, remove Wang Tongchun's official hat and take him to the prison to await trial!"

The Jinyiwei immediately stepped forward, roughly pulled off Wang Tongchun's official hat, picked him up and dragged him out.

Gu Mingyi watched him being dragged away expressionlessly until Wang Tongchun's voice disappeared outside the government office.

What Wang Tongchun said was right. Which official in Yangzhou had not received maintenance silver from salt merchants?

But this matter should not be made public, nor should it be known to the emperor.

Wang Tongchun, this idiot, took money in an unclean way and was caught, which implicated the entire Yangzhou officialdom.

She deserves to die.

Gu Mingyi turned to the trembling teacher's wife standing nearby and said, "Pass on my order. All officials in Yangzhou Prefecture must gather at the Censorate at noon tomorrow. I will personally supervise their return of the stolen goods."

The teacher's wife nodded repeatedly and said, "Yes, yes, I will pass the message on right away."

In the Yangzhou government office, the officials' faces turned pale as paper in an instant after receiving the imperial edict.

Officials who had received money for their daily needs were now in a state of panic, some trying to raise money, while others sat in the government office sighing and lamenting, filled with regret.

The scenes of chatting and laughing and secretly colluding with the salt merchants in the past have now turned into endless fear.

"This Wang Tongchun has done so much harm to others! He deserves to die!"

"Hmph, what should I do now? If I can't pay the money, I'm afraid my official hat will be in jeopardy!"

"Lord Lin, aren't you anxious?" Everyone in the Censorate also received the money, but compared to the anxiety of others, Lin Ruan was the same as usual.

"Why should I be in a hurry? I have already spent the money I had. I wrote a letter home yesterday and asked someone to send the banknotes to the palace to apologize to His Majesty." Lin Ruan said nonchalantly.

"At worst, I'll get scolded by His Majesty. It's only a few tens of thousands of taels of silver. What's the big deal if I accept it? Your Majesty is my cousin. Can you chop off my head for this?"

Everyone: ...

But no matter how Lin Ruan behaves, her identity is bound to make people with ulterior motives look at her with suspicion.

But in the end, no one had any evidence to prove that Lin Ruan had tipped off the secret. Men of letters were ruthless, preferring to take detours and slowly work their way through things. Unless pushed to the limit, they were rarely willing to directly dirty their hands and take someone's life.

In the panic, officials tried their best to collect money and hand it over. The corruption in Yangzhou officialdom suffered a severe blow for the first time under this decree.

At the same time, Lin Ruan did not stop. She decided to strike while the iron was hot and started her second step of the plan.

By the time Lin Ruan walked out of the government office, Yangzhou City was already in an uproar. The news spread like wildfire through the streets and alleys, and the people were whispering and discussing it.

Lin Ruan sat on her horse, listening to the street talk, her lips curled up slightly. She looked up at the sky, and saw that the sun was already setting. She said to Zhezhi beside her, "Let Lin San, Lin Si, and Lin Wu go to the salt field."

Zhezhi was stunned: "Sir, going to the saltworks at this time? It's almost dark."

Lin Ruan said calmly, "It's better to go after dark."

The Yangzhou Salt Field is located thirty miles east of the city and is an important salt production base for the Lianghuai salt transportation.

At dusk, the salt workers finished their day's work and sat in groups of three or four in front of their simple shacks, eating coarse grain cakes with pickles.

Lin San changed into a set of coarse cloth clothes, and with Lin Si and Lin Wu, who were dressed in the same way, he quietly blended into the group of salt workers.

"Auntie, can I have a bowl of water?" Lin San deliberately lowered his voice and pretended to be exhausted.

A middle-aged female salt worker with wrinkles on her face looked up at her, sighed, and scooped a bowl of turbid water from the bucket beside her and handed it to her: "Drink it, we are all miserable people."

Lin Ruan took the bowl of water and pretended to drink it in big gulps, but her eyes were observing her surroundings.

Most of the salt workers were dressed in rags and had sallow complexions. Many of them had festering wounds on their hands and feet from being soaked in salt water for a long time.

"Sister, how long have you been working in this salt field?" Lin Ruan put down the bowl and asked casually.

"Ten years," the middle-aged female salt worker said with a wry smile. "From the time I was twenty until now, my body is almost broken."

"I'm new here, and the foreman said I'll make fifteen cents a day. Sister, you're an experienced worker, so you must earn more than me, right?"

"A lot?" The female salt worker said, as if she had heard something funny. "It's all the same. Twenty wen a day, and the foreman deducts five wen. At the end of the month, I'm lucky to get four hundred wen."

Lin San feigned dejection. "I heard the salt merchants were incredibly wealthy, and I thought any little money they made would be enough to feed my family. But I was tricked into signing a work contract, and the wages I received weren't enough to support myself. I said I wanted to leave, but the foreman said I signed for twenty years, and if I left, I'd have to pay two hundred taels of silver."

"Alas," the older woman sighed, "Everyone ends up like this! I don't know if I can live to see ten years from now."

A younger salt worker nearby couldn't help but interject, "Are they rich? They're just sucking our blood! We only get one cent for drying a pound of salt, and they sell it for ten or twenty cents!"

"That's right!" another salt worker complained indignantly. "The price of salt went up last year, but our wages didn't increase a cent!"

Lin San exchanged glances with the other two.

Lin Si lowered his voice and said, "Sisters, do you know? I heard that an imperial edict has arrived in the capital to crack down on these corrupt officials. The new Tongzhi was arrested a few days ago for accepting money from salt merchants!"

"Really?" Several salt workers immediately gathered around, with hope glittering in their eyes.

"Sisters, we work so hard but earn so little money. Are we willing to continue like this?" Lin Si asked softly.

A salt worker sighed helplessly: "What can we do even if we are unwilling? Those salt merchants are so cruel and ruthless, what can we do?"

Seeing this, the confidant took the opportunity to say, "You may not know this yet, but my husband's younger brother's wife has a cousin who works in the government office. She says that the higher-ups are keeping a close eye on us in Yangzhou, especially these salt merchants. If we go to the prefect to complain now, she won't dare to refuse to help us."

The salt worker was skeptical and said, "That's impossible. It's not like there haven't been salt workers who have complained in the past. Not only did the prefect ignore them, but sometimes they even got beaten out."

"Oh, you don't know. It's said that the emperor has ordered that the officials hand over all the money they collected from the salt merchants. Even a small yamen runner like her cousin handed over forty or fifty taels of silver."

At first, the salt workers were hesitant, but after a few days of persuasion from their confidants, a few brave workers finally stood up and said, "Let's fight! We don't believe that no one can help us!"

"Yes! Sue them!" Lin Runwu struck while the iron was hot. "We have strength in numbers. Let's go to the government office together and see if the prefect dares to do nothing!"

Three days later, in the early morning, hundreds of salt workers gathered in front of the Yangzhou prefectural government office.

They were dressed in rags and had haggard faces, but their expressions were resolute. Leading the group was the middle-aged female salt worker who had spoken with Lin Ruan that day. She held high in her hand a joint petition signed with her handprints.

"Please, sir, help us!" the salt workers shouted in unison, and the sound made the sparrows under the eaves of the yamen flutter and fly up.

Inside the government office, Yangzhou prefect Sun Xiuying was pacing restlessly in the back hall. She was about fifty years old, overweight, with a round, greasy face.

"What a bunch of troublemakers! They chose this time to cause trouble!" Sun Xiuying cursed with gritted teeth.

The teacher's wife beside him said cautiously: "Sir, more and more people are gathering outside. If we don't open the hall, I'm afraid there will be chaos..."

Sun Xiuying glared at her teacher's wife: "Don't you know that I'm here to make you talk nonsense?"

She sat in the lobby, looking at the dirty salt workers below, her brows furrowed, her face full of impatience: "What's the matter? Tell me quickly!"

A salt worker bravely stepped forward and said, "Sir, the salt merchant, Mrs. Wu, has withheld our wages. We can no longer survive. Please help us!"

Sun Xiuying waved her hand casually and said, "I understand. This government will investigate. You can go back first." After that, she no longer paid attention to the salt workers and stood up to leave the court.