Indeed, if he didn't agree, the edict probably wouldn't have been issued...
It must be said that there are advantages to having a one-man show. Now that Cheng Gujian has expressed his opinion, no one will be foolish enough to jump out and bang their head on the ground, putting on a show like "Your Majesty, please reconsider." Even if they have opinions, they have to keep them to themselves and complain after court or discuss them later. Those who oppose it now will definitely not have a good ending.
It was at this moment that Xu Shi strode into the palace gate—of course, not in that charlatan's outfit, but following local customs, he changed into a proper suit commonly worn by men in the Hualan Empire.
"...Student Dongfang Xiao greets teacher."
The little queen stood up from her seat, walked to her in person, knelt on one knee, and performed the proper student etiquette.
There will be no problem at all, even if it is taken as her showing her determination... The only thing that puzzles everyone is, Your Majesty, didn't you kneel a little too quickly?
"Your Majesty, there is no need for such formalities. Please rise."
Xu Shi smiled and helped her up. "I only started teaching and giving alms because I couldn't bear to see the suffering of the people. Calling me a teacher is too kind of me."
"How could that be? I also cannot bear to see such a state of misery."
Dongfang Xiao shook his head, his face filled with indignation and sorrow. "Since you, teacher, have the world at heart, I must also take action... Pass down my order: starting today, tally the losses suffered by the people the day before yesterday. All deficits will be covered by the royal family and distributed through the state religion. There must be no mistakes."
"Yes!" Someone immediately took the order and went to get things done.
Nobody seemed to think there was anything wrong with it—frankly, for them, the Holy Fire Cat Cult and such were definitely not new concepts; they'd been sipping from the royal discount pot for so many years, they were practically immune to any sensitivity to such things…
And the Holy Fire Cat Cult does indeed take charity as its doctrine, so this arrangement is not abrupt at all, but rather quite appropriate.
"Do any of you gentlemen have anything else to attend to? If not, the court may adjourn."
The young empress didn't linger; after a few polite words, she ordered everyone to disperse.
Nobody has anything to say... If someone really had something to say, they wouldn't have said it today. Although the morning assembly is short, it still takes a lot of time to process everything.
However, most people felt that in the past, Cheng Gujian had been in charge of the court meetings, and Dongfang Xiao was at most a mascot. Today, it was a bit of the other way around... In short, Her Majesty the Empress seemed more mature than before.
However.
What they didn't know was...
After the court session, Dongfang Xiao, under the pretext of "seeking guidance from the teacher," led Xu Shi into the imperial study. At this time, he had already changed his clothes in the other party's "threshold space" and respectfully knelt in front of the other party.
"Master, are you satisfied with my performance today?"
Please stop criticizing the imperial edict, which is written in a mix of classical and vernacular Chinese. The author only has an elementary school education, so it's already quite mind-bending to write something like this...
(End of this chapter)
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