Echoes of My Heart Throughout the Court

Chapter 270: The Boundless Grace of the Emperor! (1 / 2)

[Old Liang’s two children truly have guts—one is in love with the Emperor’s mother-in-law, while the other resorted to threatening examiners to cheat in the imperial exams. In a way, they really have surpassed their father.]

…But this wasn’t exactly the kind of “surpassing one’s teacher” that deserved praise!

Hearing Xu Yanmiao’s inner thoughts, Liang Rui lowered his head and covered his face in despair. He stretched and curled his fingers, trying his best to hide his entire face.

Seriously. He would have preferred if his son were a little more “mediocre.” Just a little.

[Oh, so that’s how it happened! The Tai’e Sword—he won it by debating Buddhist scriptures with the monks in that temple! To get his hands on that sword, he spent five years studying Buddhism in earnest! He woke up at the crack of dawn every single day to recite sutras and contemplate Buddhist philosophy, even earlier than the monks in the temple.]

[This relentless determination to pursue his goals… In a certain sense, Old Liang’s teachings were quite successful. Even the old abbot, who had spent seventy-two years as a monk, couldn’t out-debate him and called him a living Buddha.]

The Minister of Personnel: “Actually… Guangcai*, maybe…?”

Could it be that you didn’t fail at teaching him, but instead, taught him too well?

Liang Rui buried his face deeper into his hands, wearing a mask of pain. “Sir, please stop talking.”

The Minister of Personnel silently patted his shoulder in consolation.

Having a son who takes after you too much isn’t necessarily a good thing.

[So that’s how he got the hush money for Wu Jijiu—but how did he find out the accounts were off?]

[W-Wait a minute?!]

[Each imperial exam only appoints ninety examiners, and according to the rules, no official can serve twice within three exam cycles. Eliminating those from the previous two cycles, that leaves a pool of 180 officials.]

[Then, from the remaining 1,008 capital officials, remove military officers, officials ranked sixth grade and below, and grand ministers of the second rank. From the remaining third to fifth-rank civil officials, pick one with a prestigious scholarly reputation who hasn’t served as an examiner in the last two cycles—then bribe him?!]

[And if the first choice doesn’t accept the bribe, just move on to the next one until someone does?!]

[That’s… genius.]

[Flies don’t land on eggs without cracks. To find out which eggs have cracks, just poke all of them. If someone accepts a bribe once, they’ll accept it a second time, right? Once you mark them, all you have to do is wait—based on Daxia’s selection rules for examiners, it’ll only take a few years before that person is assigned to oversee the imperial exams. And when that time comes, you’ll know—‘This guy took my bribe. He’s corrupt.’]

[Wow—]

Xu Yanmiao let out a long, drawn-out gasp in his mind before stabbing another knife into Liang Rui’s heart: [Well, your son definitely listened to you.]

[Back when you were teaching him, you specifically told him: ‘If you want to achieve your goals, you must make use of other people’s greed.’]

[And you even gave detailed, real-life examples, just in case he didn’t understand.]

The surrounding officials listened in silence as Xu Yanmiao mimicked Liang Rui’s voice in his head.

[Your old man—me—when I first took office in Tianmen County, I borrowed ten loads of silver and pretended to be a passing merchant! You think bandits wouldn’t rob me when they saw all that silver? And once they had so much money in their hands, you think they wouldn’t start dreaming of a better life?]

[At the time, I was just a captive, but I had a silver tongue. With some careful persuasion, I convinced the bandit leader to take advantage of the fact that the new county magistrate didn’t know the local situation. He decided to turn over a new leaf, become a rich landowner, marry a wife, and buy a few hundred mu of farmland to live a peaceful life by the hearth. As for his little underlings? He’d keep them as his private guards.]

[That’s way better than licking blood off the edge of a knife every day.]

[Hehehe!]

The other officials: “……”

We may not know Liang Rui very well, but we’re pretty sure he wouldn’t say things like that!

Outside the public bathhouse, Liang Rui’s brow twitched. He lowered his hands from his face and tried his best to defend himself: “The events are correct, but I did not explain it to my son like that.”

He really wasn’t that gleeful about it!

The Minister of Personnel hesitated. “…So, your son really did learn from what you taught him?”

—Just… in a somewhat warped way.

Liang Rui: “……”

Stop stabbing the heart! I’m about to cough up blood!

He spent his whole life refining his experiences, breaking them down to teach his son—not for him to use them like this!

[Once the bandits left Guanyin Lake, which was easy to defend but hard to attack, and transformed from outlaws into legitimate landowners, Liang Rui, as the county magistrate, finally had room to maneuver. Two years later, he wiped them all out in one fell swoop.]

[Whoa! Would this be considered using softness to overcome hardness? Or is it some kind of military strategy? Either way, that’s amazing!]

[I take back what I said about “the student surpassing the master.” Luring a corrupt official into accepting bribes and persuading a group of hardened bandits to abandon their way of life are definitely not on the same level. Xiao’er Liang is far behind.]

Xu Yanmiao called Liang Rui “Old Liang,” Liang Youwen was “Little Liang,” and as Liang Youwu was Youwen’s younger brother, he naturally became “Second Little Liang.”

At this point, the officials of Daxia had no energy left to complain about how Bai Ze* always came up with these bizarre nicknames.

“Hiss—whether in eloquence or intelligence, Liang Guangcai is leagues ahead of his son.”

“He was only twenty-one at the time! His younger son is already twenty-six or twenty-seven, and the gap is more than just a little.”

“I still don’t get it—what exactly is Liang Youwu after? If he has this level of ability…”

At that moment, Xu Yanmiao suddenly blurted out:

[Wouldn’t it be better for Second Little Liang to just become a Jinyiwei?]

“Absolutely not!!!” An official slammed the water’s surface and shot to his feet in agitation.

The force of his voice nearly shook the bathhouse.

If someone like him joined the Jinyiwei, would they officials even have a future left?!

[Eh?]