Liu Xian had been gone for a long time, and since there weren't many candles in the hall to begin with for the sake of romance, several more were extinguished, leaving the light extremely dim.
Zhu Yuanzhang sat alone, motionless, as if he wanted to sit there forever, not wanting to pay attention to anyone or be disturbed by anyone.
Even Han Fei's tentative knock on the door was startled away by a shout of "Get out of here!"
The servants were frantic, like ants on a hot pan. With a determined effort, they reported to Empress Ma. A short while later, Empress Ma delivered an imperial edict:
"Leave the emperor alone."
After an unknown amount of time, the group of people guarding outside the hall heard a mournful howl, followed by several more.
They stared at each other in astonishment. They knew that only the Emperor was inside, so what was that voice...?
Zhu Yuanzhang was furious and filled with hatred. The moonlight streaming in through the window shone on his face, making it flush red, and he gasped for breath in pain.
He muttered to himself, "I was so foolish, so careless. If only I had known earlier... I wouldn't have..."
Yin Zi Liu Xian only asked for the original 50,000, and Old Zhu was overjoyed, readily agreeing. Little did he know that fate had secretly marked a price for every bargain—
A temple dedicated to Liu Xian was built in every prefecture of the Ming Dynasty to enshrine the statue of Liu Xian.
Sounds simple, right? Hehe, the Ming Dynasty had a total of 159 prefectures, which meant there were 159 temples. Liu Xian even stipulated the size of the temples.
Zhu Yuanzhang knew with a little thought that the cost of building a Liuxian Temple would be at least a thousand taels of silver, plus a hundred acres of fertile land for each temple to support it.
Moreover, although Zhu Yuanzhang was stingy, he wasn't actually that obsessed with money...
Okay, even if he is, his heartache and resentment are mainly due to other reasons.
Liu Xian was ambitious, as could be seen by the Ming emperor and his ministers. He not only performed miracles in front of the people to spread his divine name.
To cast a statue of a god in silver, Liu Xian went so far as to incite the Ming army to wage war. All of this demonstrates one fact: Liu Xian had a very important purpose.
Zhu Yuanzhang asked Princess Nongyu, and received her answer:
"This demon immortal wants to be granted godhood." Princess Nongyu's face showed almost undisguised admiration and appreciation.
"Since ancient times, the path of the gods has been extremely difficult, especially after the immortals and gods went into hiding, making it even more difficult."
The spiritual energy is gradually thinning, and cultivators like myself, as well as demons like Liu Xian, are finding it increasingly difficult to survive in this world.
"I can only rely on the royal dragon aura to prolong my life, but this Willow Immortal has great courage and determination, daring to fight to the death by going down the path of the divine. I am not as good as her."
Zhu Yuanzhang remembers that he remained silent for a long time after hearing this.
For Liu Xian to achieve divine status, he would inevitably need the help of the imperial court in many ways, such as building a temple, which would be very difficult without the help of the government.
After learning all this, Zhu Yuanzhang had already planned to use these things to gain benefits at a crucial moment, but now, it's all for naught!
"Lan Yu, you are truly a good minister of mine!" The emperor's face was sinister, and every word seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth.
The most suspicious person who embezzled the silver was Lan Yu. Even if it wasn't him, as the highest-ranking official in the silver mine, Lan Yu was still culpable.
A few days later, Lan Yu, far away in Japan, received an urgent imperial edict from the emperor. The words on it, roughly summarized, were—
Get back here right now!!!
General Lan Yu was terrified and returned to the capital in a panic. He immediately tried to find out what was going on, but he couldn't get a single word out of him.
There was only one strange thing: everyone in the Ministry of Works seemed unusually busy, and they were walking so fast they were staggering. If you accidentally bumped into an official from the Ministry of Works, you might mistake them for a consumptive ghost.
He entered the palace with trepidation. The moment his knees touched the ground, a teacup was thrown at his head. He barely managed to dodge and took the hit.
What's wrong? Why is Your Majesty suddenly so angry?
Lan Yu pondered his past actions. Could it be that his suggestion to the Crown Prince—that His Majesty should enjoy his retirement early—had been betrayed?
Thinking of this, General Lan, who was known for his unyielding spirit on the battlefield, broke out in a cold sweat, his face turning ashen and ghostly.
He immediately demanded that the emperor kill only him and spare his family, when suddenly an angry shout came from above.
"You beast! I have repeatedly ordered that embezzlement is forbidden, yet you dare to steal from your own post..."
The emperor was still hurling insults when he saw his minister, seemingly overwhelmed with guilt, collapse to the ground and sob like a puppy.
Even the emperor found it hard to scold a grown man crying like this.
The fire in his heart slowly subsided, and he remembered that Lan Yu was the one he left for the Crown Prince to protect him. The founding heroes were almost the same age as him, and the Crown Prince still needed Lan Yu.
Let's just give them a small punishment as a warning.
Thinking of this, Zhu Yuanzhang sighed to himself, realizing that for Biao'er's sake, he would have to suffer some losses as a father.
So he waved his hand and said, "You beast, for the sake of the Crown Prince, I will spare you this time."
After thinking for a moment, he said, "You may be spared the death penalty, but you cannot escape punishment. You shall hand over 200,000 taels of silver to the national treasury."
Two hundred thousand taels? Lan Yu's eyes almost popped out of their sockets. He would admit to embezzling silver, but he had only embezzled forty-one thousand eight hundred taels!
Lan Yu remembered it very clearly, with both whole and odd amounts.
Perhaps it was his incredulous expression that offended the emperor. Zhu Yuanzhang narrowed his eyes, pointed at Lan Yu, and said in a low voice:
"What, you think it's too much? You beast, you only embezzled 100,000 taels of silver. If you had only embezzled 50,000 taels of mine, that would have been one thing, but you actually dared to embezzle 50,000 taels of Liu Xian's money."
This reminded him of his losses, and Zhu Yuanzhang said sternly:
"I'm only asking you to come up with an extra 100,000, instead of having you skinned alive. That's already out of consideration for the Crown Prince and the Imperial Grandson!"
Lan Yu nodded frantically, her mind a complete blank.
He really only embezzled 41,800 taels of silver. What did he mean by 50,000 taels? How did it become 100,000 taels? And then His Majesty asked him to give 200,000 taels!
We've really lost money.
Zhu Yuanzhang was still not satisfied, feeling that Lan Yu had been given too easy a chance.
After thinking for a while, he had a sudden inspiration and suggested that he send him to the Ministry of Works to manage the construction of the temple, so as to share the burden with the Minister of Works and prevent him from dying suddenly.
Lan Yu, who had been given another thankless and arduous task, felt bitter. After kowtowing and taking her leave, she kept thinking about what was going on with this amount of silver.
Unjustly accused, Lan Yu dared not utter a word to Lao Zhu, but secretly she went to investigate and was eventually amazed by what she found.
It turned out that the soldiers who followed him were greedy, but they didn't dare to take more than a dozen taels each, and they were not discovered.
The solution was to roll it into a silver ball and stuff it into the toilet... Ugh.
Lan Yu was wary of the emperor and dared not chase after the silver, so he had no choice but to swallow his pride and accept the loss.
But even including the soldiers' embezzlement, it would only amount to a maximum of 60,000 taels, so where would the 100,000 taels come from?
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