Echoes of My Heart Throughout the Court-Chapter 342: The Stupidity Tax! New

So… which one of his ministers had this twisted sense of humor?

[Oh! It’s you, the new Minister of Works, Bing Hui.]

[Minister Bing, aren’t you just a little too fond of amusement? Did you choose this pair of lovers just because you enjoy watching them look humiliated as their partner is pulled into the room—or both of them serve you together?!]

[How utterly bored do you have to be to come up with this?!]

[Is this one of those stories—gambling-addict dad, sickly mom, student sister, and a broken him?]

The old emperor scoffed. “What kind of nonsense is this?”

Then firmly declared, “Just a game.”

The new Minister of Works, Bing Hui, avoided the strange looks from his colleagues, his eyes darting around.

It’s just that… at first, it was a spur-of-the-moment idea. He wanted to see if the guy would secretly become someone’s lover behind his uncle’s back. He’d expected some struggle, some rage, then a reluctant agreement. But instead, the guy had agreed cheerfully on the spot.

Well, that killed the fun.

So then he upped the ante—said he wanted to take the uncle as well.

And to his surprise, the guy actually did sneak off behind his uncle’s back to offer themselves both!

—That kind of “behind the back.”

So…

Well…

Minister Bing Hui cleared his throat: “Don’t you all think it’s kind of funny?”

The other ministers stiffly shook their heads.

Minister Bing let out a cold laugh. “Gambling-addict dad, sickly mom, student brother, broken girl.”

And the key point: “A girl.”

“Tsk—”

The ministers gave a few awkward coughs, brushing away the fantasies in their heads and quickly changing the subject. “Let’s move on, move on!”

Minister Bing put his hands on his hips, pretending to adjust the belt at his waist.

[No wonder, I was wondering where Yaozu got so much fabric from—it was Minister Bing who gave it to him.]

[So stingy!]

[How is this guy even stingier than the old emperor or Mr. Extra Tips… He keeps a mistress, and the gifts he gives are leftovers meant for his wife and concubines.]

[His wife and concubines even know about it, and they’re not the least bit bothered?!]

[Is this what they call “mastering the art of managing women”? But it still feels off somehow…]

Minister Bing quickly dropped his hands from his hips.

—Sure, he was stingy, but getting called out for it in public like this still made him a little embarrassed.

[Damn! The stuff he gives his wife and concubines is basically like buying something on Pinduoduo with 9.9 yuan and free shipping!]

The officials of Great Xia were still trying to figure out what “Pinduoduo” was, and what “9.9 yuan with free shipping” meant, when the next sentence hit them:

[Said the family was eating carp, but used the regular kind that costs about 16–17 copper per jin and passed it off as premium Yellow River carp that costs 120 per jin. Regular carp has coarse meat and a muddy taste. Yellow River carp is one of the Four Famous Fish—he really had the nerve to serve that substitute?!]

What?!

He passed off cheap carp as Yellow River carp?!

This caused a full-blown uproar among the central court officials.

Come on, man—what’s the angle here? If you want to be frugal, be frugal. If you want to accept bribes, then just do it discreetly. But fake Yellow River carp… do you not eat this yourself?

[He does! He eats it himself and actually enjoys it.]

[Sometimes when he goes to a real Yellow River carp vendor and sees a dead one, he buys it at a discount. Then he slathers it in garlic paste so it tastes the same as fresh fish!]

[He’d serve it at dinner and tell his wife it’s a premium Yellow River carp, specially bought for today because “it’s an important day for us.”]

[His wife would be thrilled… Damn, and then he’d pull the same trick on his concubines, his mistress, a distant cousin, and even his close female friend—classic “heart-shaped stone” scam. Other people give the same stone to seven different women and say it’s for their “one true love.”]

[You? You get one dead fish, disguise it as a fresh one with garlic paste, and gift it over and over again—saying it’s a special day each time!]

Minister Bing let out a theatrical “Aiya!” and spoke self-righteously.

How was that his fault?! Yellow River carp was expensive! If dead fish were cheaper and he had a way to make them taste like live ones, why waste good money?

And it’s not like it was rotting meat that had been dead for days—just freshly dead! Why wouldn’t it be edible?!

His colleagues: “……”

They started frantically recalling whether the food at his family banquets had ever tasted… off.

Back in the bedchamber, the old emperor, lying stiff as a corpse, was so shocked he nearly sat up in resurrection.

Yuan Zheng, this is the Minister of Works you recommended to Us?!

You said he was stingy, but you never said he was this stingy!

With someone like this in the Ministry of Works, would he cut corners to save money?!

—If the Minister of Revenue had heard that thought, he would’ve complained: Impossible. Your Majesty, he just wants to save money. You sound like you’re worried he’d save on your life next.

Xu Yanmiao kept flipping the pages. Honestly, he thought someone this frugal could easily be turned into an adjective, like “Scrooge” or “Grandet.”

[He even gave his wife and concubines bangles made from resin, pretending they were made of high-grade icy jade, and they didn’t notice! They loved them!]

[Wow. Everything in his household—whether for his own use or for his wives and concubines—is gold-plated. The family always thought it was pure gold. Hilarious! I mean, who cuts open their own belongings to check, right?]

[And that blood-stained jade pendant that his concubine had discarded—he’d sewn it into a live lamb’s thigh, left it there for years, then dug it out later, and voilà, red streaks appear!]

[Then he gave that to Yaozu. LOL. And Yaozu proudly shows it off every day.]

[6666! I don’t even know what to say anymore.]

[He even gave his father-in-law what he claimed was an ancient bronze cauldron from the Warring States era. Loads of people were jealous and offered to buy it. But his father-in-law, following his daughter’s advice, never sold it—turns out, it was just something cast in the last ten years, corroded with acid, painted with dragons in wax, and—bam!—instant “thousand-year-old relic.”]

[His wives and concubines figured it out years ago: everything in the house, whether for themselves or for him, or gifts from him—all fakes.]

[That bronze vessel he gave Yaozu? Claimed to be two or three hundred years old—actually buried in salty ground just two or three years ago.]

[And that parrot he gave Yaozu’s uncle—same size as a chicken! The uncle always thought he just didn’t teach it to talk properly. Who would’ve guessed the “rare creature” was just a chicken, plucked a special way so it regrew green feathers?! Unbelievable. Keeping a lover and still too stingy to give a real parrot? Die from stinginess already!]

[No wonder his wives and concubines didn’t mind him giving things away—they were all fake! Every last one!]

The court was utterly dumbfounded.

Even Gao He secretly gave the new Minister of Works a thumbs-up.

He couldn’t compete. Seriously—who could? This man didn’t just own counterfeits; he lived in them. And willingly, at that.

The most outrageous part? Bing Hui used all these fakes himself, too!

Minister Bing smiled to himself, not the least bit ashamed—in fact, proud. “Do you know how much household wealth I save each year?” He raised a finger. “At least this much!”

The other ministers twitched at the corners of their mouths. “Money isn’t saved that way.”

Minister Bing: “If you don’t save it, then you’re just missing the money you could’ve saved.”

Minister Bing: “A thousand-year-old turtle that grows hair is a rare treasure. That so-called ‘living jade’ turtle you all fought over at auction for 40,000 coins? I rubbed ginger juice on the shell of a regular turtle. Grew green hair in no time. Saved me the full 40,000. Hah!”

Other officials: “…It’s not about the money.”

That was a thousand-year-old green-furred turtle! What they paid for was the rarity! How can a regular turtle growing green fuzz compare?!

Minister Bing, full of pride: “If our principles don’t align, we can’t work together!”

Then he stepped out of line and backstabbed the little pet he’d been toying with all this time: “Your Highness, this man is my kept lover…”

Jiabao’s face went pale in an instant.

Even though he had gone along with it, he still hoped to appear pure and innocent in the eyes of others.

Minister Bing: “The silk cloth he had came from me. It has nothing to do with the weavers in Luo County. The reason I gave him defective goods is because I often wear defects myself. Other than being slightly less comfortable, they’re perfectly wearable—so I gave them to him.”

Jiabao could no longer stay kneeling: “You gave them to me?! I thought they were swapped by some petty villain along the way!”

Minister Bing frowned: “Who told you that?”

Jiabao was on the verge of losing it: “I guessed!”

Who would have thought a full-ranking minister (even though he was just a minor official back when Jiabao became his lover) would give defective goods to his kept man?!

Jiabao: “No, wait! You showed me the certificates! Those fabrics—sand-spun cotton, Shu brocade, Changshan silk—all had origins! You told me which shops wove them, which embroiderers worked on them!”

Minister Bing: “That kind of thing is easy to fake.”

Jiabao was completely rattled: “Then… the high-grade paper you gave me…”

Minister Bing: “It was used paper I collected. You can rub off the old ink with the white frost from melon rinds—it makes the paper look good as new.”

Jiabao swayed on his feet: “Then… the humanoid He Shou Wu root you gave me, said to be worth tens of thousands…”

Minister Bing: “It was just a yam.”

Jiabao’s vision went black. He barely managed to stay upright: “At least the honey was real, right…”

Minister Bing gave an awkward laugh: “I had a guy. There are beekeepers who feed their bees sugar water—it boosts production, but the honey ends up tasting sweet with a hint of sugar. I exposed them, so they sold it to me cheap.”

Jiabao lost it: “Why are you like this?!”

Minister Bing, innocently: “That honey—just because it had some sugar in it, doesn’t mean it wasn’t sweet, or didn’t taste like honey! It just wasn’t premium. Spending tons of money on pure honey is totally unnecessary, it’s extremely… extremely…”

Xu Yanmiao blurted out instinctively: “…a ‘stupidity tax’?”

Minister Bing’s ears perked up. He shouted, loud and clear: “Yes! It’s a complete stupidity tax!”

—Even just from the phrase, anyone could understand exactly what it meant.

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Minister Bing argued passionately: “As long as clothes are wearable, what’s the big deal about fake fabric just for show? Young people shouldn’t be so vain! That He Shou Wu root—you never ate it! You just used it to show off. If that’s the case, why pay a premium? A yam works just fine! Used paper can be made white again—why spend big on new paper? It’s such a waste—wasn’t the ‘recycled’ paper perfectly usable?!”

His colleague, wearing real Shu brocade out of “vanity”: “???”

The colleague who spent a fortune two months ago on a humanoid He Shou Wu root for his collection: “???”

The colleague who considers writing on new paper wasteful: “???”

Bing Hui, what exactly are you trying to say?!

After a brief silence, Jiabao whispered weakly, “Wasn’t there anything real?”

Surely everything couldn’t have been fake from beginning to end—at least the chamber pots he sold were real, right?

Minister Bing: “Of course, every—”

Before he could finish the words “every month’s salary you get,” the officials of Great Xia heard Xu Yanmiao clearly and articulately say:

[Sure there is. The aphrodisiacs you and your uncle took—those were definitely real.]

Minister Bing immediately felt the sharp, awkward gazes of his colleagues stabbing him in the back like needles.

He took a deep breath and silently thought: Xu Lang, there are some things you really don’t have to say out loud.

[Oh! You mean the virility tonic…]

Minister Bing shrieked, “A-anyway! That’s that! Your Highness! This case can now be ruled on!”

Xu Yanmiao’s commentary was abruptly cut off.

But now the other officials were scratching their heads, clearly curious.

What virility tonic?! Was it effective?! Don’t just stop there—share the good stuff already!

We desperately need that too!

But being a forever-single college student, Xu Yanmiao had no need for such things. Since he’d been interrupted, he simply shifted focus back to the Crown Prince’s ruling.

The Crown Prince: “…”

Actually… this stuff… I…

Forget it. I’ll ask Minister Bing about it later.

After two deep breaths, the Crown Prince looked to Jiabao and said, “False accusation warrants punishment. You had no proof when you claimed that Marquis Xie covered up for the weavers of silk…”

Jiabao, in a panic, blurted out, “I—I was misled by the assistant magistrate of Luo County!”

The Crown Prince ignored him and continued, “But it was you who struck the drum to petition for justice. And from your earlier words, you clearly knew the silk came from Minister Bing. Yet you still chose to falsely accuse the weavers—this too is a punishable offense…”

Recalling the laws of the Xia Dynasty, he delivered his judgment: “You accused Marquis Xie of bending the law for personal reasons—had that been proven, Marquis Xie would have been executed. You accused the weavers of selling fake silk—had that been proven, they would have had to refund the money and be flogged forty times.”

“Thus, you shall first be flogged forty times, and then—”

Jiabao, shocked and terrified, collapsed onto his rear, mouth gaping but speechless.

His knowledge of the law was poor. He was used to lying and bullying his sisters at home, and never expected that one careless accusation would lead to this kind of outcome—

“Execution after autumn.”

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