Mortal Mage

There is a small lake in the back garden of Taihe Palace, and a pavilion on the lake.

Li Si sat in the pavilion, with two palace maids and a young eunuch standing beside him. He drank tea in one hand and held Li Xucheng's storage ring in the other, looking at it for a long time.

Zhang Mingxuan stood aside.

"Zhang Mingxuan, you are very brave. You even dare to touch Li Xucheng." Li Si's tone was a little angry, but his eyes could not hide the joy.

"I have no money."

Zhang Mingxuan was straightforward.

"You have no money, so you go and confiscate the government officials? You are really not afraid of death."

"I've made up my mind. I will live in the palace from now on." Zhang Mingxuan said while gritting his teeth as he felt the pain from the knife wounds on his body.

Li Si glanced at Zhang Mingxuan and could vaguely see bandages wrapped around his legs and shoulders under his official uniform.

He took out a brown pill from the sachet on his waist and threw it to Zhang Mingxuan; "Eat it, it's your reward."

Zhang Mingxuan hurriedly caught it and ate it without thinking.

The sachet on Li Si's waist must be a storage bag. He is just a mortal, and if the emperor wants to kill him, he would not resort to despicable means such as poisoning.

Suddenly, Zhang Mingxuan felt a slight burning and itching in his shoulders and legs. Within three or five breaths, he began to sweat all over. After a few more breaths, the puncture wounds on his body had scabbed and healed, and he felt a slight itch.

Zhang Mingxuan hurriedly kowtowed and said, "Your humble servant Zhang Mingxuan, thank you for your grace!"

There was a hint of joy in Li Si's eyes, but there was anger in his tone;

"But I must remind you not to touch the royal family."

"Also, even if you lived in the palace, I couldn't protect you."

"Let Liu Lizheng go to the inner treasury to collect the 1.2 billion deficit of the Ministry of Revenue this month."

After saying that, Li Si stood up from the stone bench in the pavilion and pounded his waist. "It's not appropriate for you to arrest corrupt officials without a reasonable reason." After thinking for a long time, he said slowly, "I will give you the title of a thousand-householder of the Feather Guard, and you can raise the staff yourself."

"Reform is not the point. The point is that I don't want all the criticism to be directed at me. Do you understand?" Li Si pinched his waist and scolded Zhang Mingxuan.

"Wei Chen understands!"

Zhang Mingxuan bowed and said.

After leaving the back garden of Taihe Palace, Zhang Mingxuan first followed a young eunuch to the Attendant Bureau to receive a pure gold Qianhu waist badge and a set of dark red Feather Guard Qianhu official uniform.

Then he asked the eunuch from the Ministry of Revenue to go to the Lingyu Guard East Factory Yamen to bring Wang Han and Guo Zhuoran under his command. Then he and Liu Lizheng went to the treasury to withdraw 120,000 taels of gold to the Ministry of Revenue.

In Taicang Empire, one tael of gold can be exchanged for one thousand taels of silver.

Li Si gave 120,000 taels of gold, which could be exchanged for 1.2 billion taels of silver on the market.

Zhang Mingxuan sat in the Zhenghe Hall of the Ministry of Revenue, stroking his chin and carefully checking the accounts; "Where did all this money go?"

The salaries of officials in the Taicang Empire are paid once a year, so the 1.2 billion taels of silver do not include official salaries for the time being. The main purpose is to fight the Tianze Empire, and 500 million taels of silver are needed to pay for military supplies and soldiers' salaries. In addition, 100 million taels are used for reimbursement of various government offices in Taihe City, and the remaining 600 million taels are used for a variety of purposes.

Zhang Mingxuan waved his hand and cut 600 million taels of funding, the purpose of which he could not understand.

In this way, there will be a surplus of 600 million taels this month.

"Since Li Si has directed all the conflicts in the Taicang Empire against me, then let him target me." Zhang Mingxuan finally understood that this money had to be spent on research one by one, whether it was as small as a piece of paper in the government office or as big as a temple on the mountain, every penny had to be spent.

"Since you asked me to fake reform, I don't want to bother to help you."

The more he looked at the thick account book, the more he felt something was wrong. Initially, he took the imperial examination in order to revitalize Taicang. Now, there were always cultivators in the palace. He no longer had the energy to revitalize the empire. He also needed time to practice.