Therefore, from the high ranking to the low ranking officials in the city, all tucked their tails between their legs and conducted themselves with integrity. However, they might be able to refrain themselves for a short period of time, but it won’t last long. In the long run, it was impossible for them to make enough money from their official post to make up for their daily expenses.
Even though they are taking precautions now, there are still many people who continued to fall into Gong Jue’s hands. As a result, Gong Jue’s existence became a thorn in everyone’s heart and a knife in everyone’s head!
The emperor doted on and trusted him the most; he was even in charge of the entire imperial guards. No one in the entire capital have more soldiers than him! It can be imagined that he was an existence that people both hate and fear!
Now that Gong Jue decided to climb up the ranks, he needed to abolish the Department of Punishment that was set up by the founding emperor of the dynasty. He needed to expand Zhao Prison’s role and to do that, he needed to annex the Department of Punishment, becoming the new judicial structure.
His Zhao prison was different from the Department of Punishments; his prison will include three joint hearings. In addition, his Zhao prison will only obey to the emperor and his words.
Not only did the fourth prince have a role in a criminal trial in the Department of Punishments, he had his people heading two of the other three departments. As a result, he naturally became the next target Gong Jue needed to dealt with.
Last time, the Department of Justice had botched two of its trials by wrongly carrying out justice, putting the entire Department of Justice in deep trouble. The emperor was furious when he found out and had almost punished them! However, Imperial Consort Long had suddenly became pregnant, the emperor was overjoyed by the news and put a lid to the matter regarding the mistakes the Department of Justice had created.
It was such a pity because he had almost succeeded.
Gong Jue looked at the man in front of him, the Right Imperial Censor of the Department of Censorship, Zhou Buping. Suddenly a ray of light flashed in his eyes.
This person was very capable, especially in a critical life and death situation, he was still able to discover two injustices carried out by the Department of Justice from over ten years ago. He was a talented person.
Although the Department of Justice was spared during the last incident, it must’ve left a seed of doubt and dissatisfaction in the emperor’s heart. He must hit that spot once again.
Therefore… he decided to give Zhou Buping another chance.
As Gong Jue thought about it, he got out of bed and walked in front of Zhou Buping.
Gong Jue’s sudden closeness made Zhou Buping’s flinched uneasily. he was really afraid of the young Gong Jue. To him, Gong Jue was like a ghost, he would always give you a fatal blow in the most unexpected places and at the same time, he was high above others while holding no regard for the life or death of the people around him.
Zhou Buping had personally seen Gong Jue ordered the execution for 300-400 people! He had watched on as the executioner beheaded all 300-400 people without even blinking his eyes.
Many of the commoners had cried out in fear, not daring to look at the scene. Even the officials who had accompanied Gong Jue to the scene had turned pale. However, the corners of Gong Jue’s mouth was curved into a smile and he appeared to be very delighted by the scene.
At that moment, he knew that he couldn’t offend this young man.
But as if he was not unfortunate enough, Gong Jue had still found him. At the beginning… he was greedy for money and promotion, so he embezzled the money that was supposed to be used for disaster relief. As a result, the areas affected by the disaster was sent rotting old rice. A lot of the rice wasn’t edible, so many people starved to death.
He had assumed that the matter had passed, but he didn’t expect this incident to be investigated and fall into Gong Jue’s hands…
He buried his head lower as he thought of this; his heart was pounding so fast that it was about to burst out of his chest. The closer Gong Jue got to him, the faster his heart was beating!
It was clear to him that the life and death of the people involved in that case was now completely in Gong Jue’s hands.
