A group of adults gathered at Prime Minister Song's house to accuse and scold An Zhongyi.
"This is truly ridiculous! Lord Wang is just a weak civil servant, how could he possibly be hiding weapons in his home with the intention of rebellion?! An Zhongyi must have bribed his servants to hide the weapons beforehand!"
"An Zhongyi is becoming more and more unscrupulous. First it was Censor Liu, and now it's Lord Wang. Who will be next? Maybe it's you and me right here!"
"Minister Song, tell me what we should do? If he keeps framing us like this, we'll all be dead."
The officials stared at Prime Minister Song who was sitting there silently.
The East Factory had deployed a lot of people everywhere along the road where Censor Liu and his family were exiled. Prime Minister Song naturally knew about this. He also knew that An Zhongyi had found out that it was Lord Wang who sent people to sow discord between An Jingzhi and An Zhongyi.
Prime Minister Song spoke in a calm tone, making it impossible to tell what emotion he was feeling. "An Zhongyi is demonstrating to us, in return. Lord Wang previously sent people to sow discord between him and An Jingzhi, and they followed the clues and found out everything."
Everyone was a little scared when they heard this. They also wanted to do the same thing at that time, but fortunately they were a step slow and were snatched away by Lord Wang.
When their first plan failed, they came up with another one. They wanted to send someone to get closer to An Jingzhi and continue to sow discord between the father and son, but it is still in the planning stage.
But judging from the current situation, most people present would not dare to do so.
"This? Lord Song didn't do anything. He just sent someone to say something in front of An Jingzhi. Why is An Zhongyi making such a fuss? Besides, didn't he succeed in sowing discord? I see that beggar An Jingzhi is actually very happy to have such a reckless and unscrupulous father! It's true, like father, like son!"
Prime Minister Song glanced at the other party calmly and said, "Alright, I called you here today not to listen to your complaints. From now on, you are not allowed to get close to An Jingzhi. An Jingzhi is An Zhongyi's life. If you touch him, An Zhongyi will fight us to the death."
Everyone was indignant, "Master Prime Minister, are we just going to give in like this? Are we willing to be governed by a traitor?"
Prime Minister Song's tone suddenly changed, becoming somewhat cold. "Give up? Of course not. It's just that An Jingzhi is his lifeblood. If we touch him and we're not sure we can kill him with a single blow, it will easily anger him. That's not good for us. An Zhongyi goes crazy and doesn't care about the consequences. What happened to Lord Wang today is just a warning. We need to stay low."
"Master Song, if you say so, then we should just do nothing and act like a fool?"
Lord Song clasped his hands lightly around the chair, his expression stiff, a flicker of discontent in his eyes. "Only the one who laughs last is the victor. An Zhongyi's prestige is at its peak, and even His Majesty trusts him. We simply need to wait until he becomes so rampant that even His Majesty can no longer tolerate him. Then we can present the evidence we've collected. Those who are destined for destruction will first be driven mad. Our retreat will only make An Zhongyi even more arrogant."
The officials were talking to each other.
"Master Song is right! We are just dormant temporarily!"
"Avoid its sharp edge and wait for its demise. Lord Song is worthy of being the Prime Minister."
"Yes, let's stay out of the spotlight for a while and see how An Zhongyi dies!"
After all the officials in the palace had dispersed, Lord Song's steward hurriedly walked up to him and whispered, "Censor Liu's family has been killed by people from the East Factory."
An Zhongyi took it seriously and soon found Liu Yushi's family. The East Factory's spies were all over the world, expanding step by step. Local officials were afraid of An Zhongyi's reputation and cooperated with the execution. Soon they found Liu Yushi's family hiding in a county town, and there was a group of people protecting them.
An Zhongyi ordered them all to be executed on the spot.
An Zhongyi's order would have been perfectly legal even if the emperor had questioned it. Censor Liu and his family had been sentenced to exile at the border, but they had escaped. Even if they had been assassinated, they had indeed disobeyed the emperor's order, so there was nothing wrong with killing them on the spot, and even less so with beheading the group of people who had rescued them.
After understanding everything, Prime Minister Song rubbed his forehead and said, "It seems that you win again this time. An Zhongyi, I want to see how far you can go."
The cup lid of the tea he was about to hold in his right hand suddenly fell to the ground. Then, like a fuse, it ignited all the anger in Lord Song's heart. He directly overturned all the tea sets on the table to the ground, vented his anger, and returned to his study.
…
An Jingzhi was checking the coal reserves all over the mountain. He was very satisfied after the inspection. The yields of the fields around the coal mountain were not very good, all of which were affected by the coal.
The Liu family bought those lands thinking that the coal on the mountain could be burned and they wanted to make money from this business. Later they found out that although the coal could be burned, it could also poison people. From then on, this land was abandoned by the Liu family.
However, some crops can still be grown on the land a little further away from the foot of the mountain. Although the yield is not that high, it is better than nothing.
"Young Master, be careful." An Jingzhi was supported carefully by the guards from the East Factory, fearing that he might get a little scratched and lose his life if he returned.
Before, in order to match An Zhongyi’s identity as a wealthy businessman, everyone called him “Young Master”. Now that his identity is clear, most people changed to calling him “Young Master”.
An Jingzhi was somewhat helpless as he was served so attentively, as if he was an old man in his seventies or eighties who had difficulty walking.
"Alright, alright, no need to be so exaggerated. I'm not legless."
The guards from the Eastern Depot smiled apologetically and continued to carefully protect him.
Helpless, An Jingzhi just ignored it.
When he reached the foot of the mountain and was about to return to the city, he suddenly noticed a group of people in ragged clothes in the distance. They looked at him from time to time, as if they wanted to approach him but were afraid.
An Jingzhi looked around. His posture was indeed enough to make ordinary people retreat. There were guards from the East Factory on both sides. Who would dare to get close to him?
Curious, he walked forward and looked at the group of people. "Everyone, what do you want to talk to me about?"
A slightly older man walked out, smiled at him tremblingly, and was about to kneel down when An Jingzhi hurriedly supported him.
"This old man, if you have anything to say, there is no need to perform such a grand ceremony. I hold no official position and cannot accept such a ceremony."
Seeing that An Jingzhi was so easy to talk to and his tone towards them was as gentle as a spring breeze, the tension of the old man in front of him eased a lot.
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