Chapter 57: Honey Trap 2.0 Part 3

Wei Qingya suppressed the shock in his heart and continued.

As the pages turned, his fingertips grew colder. In the nine years since Emperor Rui took the throne, he had completely exhausted the treasury accumulated by generations of ancestors.

“This…”

Dizzied by the rows of numbers, he closed his eyes, his voice dry. “The accounts show that last year, not only was there no surplus, but there was a deficit of 470,000 taels?”

Gu Huaiyu was long accustomed to these bankrupt accounts. Seeing the man’s reaction, he even managed a joke. “Has Master Wei never seen such a ‘poor’ ledger before?”

The Annual Tribute demanded by Eastern Liao truly did not exist. If it did, he wouldn’t have been forced to break ties with them now.

Nor would he have had to watch the people of Jiangzhou lose their homes while unable to provide a single cent of relief, forced to wait until the refugees entered the capital before trying to “mend the fold after the sheep were lost.”

A layer of fine sweat broke out on Wei Qingya’s forehead.

In his years of business, he had seen deficits, but for a national treasury to have such a massive shortfall was unheard of.

More terrifyingly, this deficit was simply “filled into the coming year’s expenditures.” This meant that before this year’s revenue had even arrived, the treasury was already burdened with a debt of 470,000 taels.

An empire with an annual revenue of nearly ten million taels was actually spending more than it earned.

Who would believe it if told?

Wei Qingya instantly understood why, upon their very first meeting, this Chancellor he so admired was willing to entrust him with such a heavy responsibility.

It was because there was no other choice.

The country was rotten to the core. If it wasn’t resuscitated now, the nation would fall.

Gu Huaiyu had chosen him because he valued his “ability to generate wealth.” Knowing his worth, Wei Qingya steadied himself and reopened the ledger, focusing specifically on the income column.

A moment later, his brow twitched. His finger stopped.

“Strange…”

Wei Qingya rapidly scanned the ledgers from the last three years. The more he looked, the stranger it became.

Every year, after the national deficit was recorded, there was an entry for a large “undisclosed” supplementary payment.

This sum was consistently around 500,000 taels, appearing precisely at the most critical moments—disaster relief, military pay, bridge repairs, granary restoration. It was this “miraculous funding” that had kept Great Chen from collapsing until now.

It could be said that this money was Great Chen’s lifeline. Without this annual infusion, the land would have been covered in corpses, refugees would have risen in revolt, and officials would have openly joined bandits. How could the empire have maintained even this surface level of glory?

“Chancellor Gu.” He pointed to the vermilion line, asking thoughtfully, “Is this sum the additional revenue from the Salt and Iron Commission?”

Gu Huaiyu glanced at him and gave a mocking, honest sneer. “That is the money the officials of the Salt and Iron Commission paid as ‘tribute’ to me.”

Wei Qingya was stunned for a moment before the realization hit him like a physical blow.

One of the crimes this Chancellor was infamous for was “selling offices and titles.” Everyone knew Chancellor Gu was obsessed with wealth and had slapped price tags on every grassroots position within the salt and iron systems.

For years, he had been the target of the Pure Stream’s vitriol, cursed and pointed at by scholars across the land.

Now, it appeared all that money had been poured directly into the holes in the national treasury.

Gu Huaiyu didn’t care to discuss these messy affairs. He leaned back in his chair with a weary, lazy posture, his fingertips tapping rhythmically against the desk. “It isn’t that I am righteous. It’s simply that disaster relief, military pay, and river works… these funds cannot be missing.”

Wei Qingya’s heart shuddered.

How was this Chancellor greedy for wealth? He was clearly weighing the lesser of two evils.

Money gained from selling offices might be “dirty,” but it solved the urgent crises. And those who bought their way into office mostly preyed upon wealthy merchants—which was still better than starving disaster victims or provoking a border army to mutiny.

Wei Qingya’s throat felt tight, his eyes shining with an intense light as he stared unblinkingly at Gu Huaiyu.

He had thought the storytellers were exaggerating, making Gu Huaiyu out to be too much of a legend.

Now that he had seen it with his own eyes, he realized those stories didn’t even capture a tenth of the man before him.

This Chancellor had used every unsavory method in the book—selling offices, eliminating rivals—anything to protect this teetering dynasty. He had even been willing to crush his own reputation with his own hands.

Seeing that the man remained silent for a long time, Gu Huaiyu narrowed his eyes in displeasure. “Do you find my methods beneath contempt?”

Thud.

Wei Qingya suddenly dropped to his knees. He reached out and grabbed the hem of Gu Huaiyu’s sleeve. “The fact that the Chancellor is willing to share these secrets with me means you treat me as one of your own!”

“Since I am your man, my money is your money!”

“To tell you the truth, I have quite the family fortune…”

Gu Huaiyu froze visibly, his clear eyes clouding with a hint of bewilderment.

He tilted his head in confusion, a lock of black hair sliding off his shoulder. For a moment, he looked genuinely stunned.

He hadn’t even begun to use any “gracious treatment of scholars” tactics yet; he hadn’t even had time to offer the man a meal or a change of clothes. Why had this person suddenly surrendered so completely?

Is this man possessed?