You're Strong But Now You're Mine-Chapter 41: Treat Hemorrhoids Later

The territory of Radiance was not small. Even though Leyu had never looked at a detailed national map, just judging by the scale of a rough one, Radiance was about as large as the East Asian landmass in her previous life.

Compared to that massive territory, Radiance’s administrative divisions were absurdly crude. The whole nation had been split into nine major administrative regions, subdivided into prefectures, counties, townships—basically, someone had taken a Sudoku grid and slapped it onto the country, with every square inside the divide lumped into one administrative region. It was practically child’s play.

It might have made more sense to call them war zones instead of administrative regions.

Even in Radiance’s heartland—Jinkai District, which was directly ruled by the Imperial Court—there were forces like the Blizzard Guard, the Constitution Guard, and the Palace Guard fortifying Yanjing. The surrounding eight administrative regions that bordered the frontiers all had their own border armies, each with centuries of history and the pride and longing of the locals, much like the Linhai Army was for the Star Engraving people.

Add in Radiance’s enormous population, the industrial revolution-level productivity, and every administrative district naturally became a country within a country; troops of battle-hardened veterans at their beck and call, granaries stuffed to the brim, and a vast pool of people to draw from. Now, with the old emperor dead at home and an uprising in Skyrim, any ambitious bastard not considering a revolt was just wasting the perfect opportunity fate had handed them.

So, it was hardly out of the ordinary that people like Lv Zhong and Ding Yi harbored ambitions of reversing imperial power and trying to overthrow the Imperial Court of Radiance.

The throne’s a revolving seat—next year, it’s my family’s turn.

"Don’t blame this humble subject for being disloyal," he thought, "the damned throne is just too tempting..."

Leyu had no idea what possessed the Radiance Imperial Court to divide up their territory in such a haphazard way, but the court certainly wasn’t as naive as they appeared, letting borderland factions balloon unchecked. Before the Skyrim uprising, the Imperial Court still held absolute power over all official appointments and enforced a triennial evaluation system, rating governors’ merits then shuffling, promoting, or demoting them as needed to keep anyone from building their own local power base.

On top of that, the court had implemented an almost perversely strange policy: rule by outsiders.

Every administrative region’s highest leader was known as the Governor, and yet, at the same time, each region contained a prefecture directly ruled by the Court—completely off-limits to the local Governor. Generally, these directly administered prefectures were the most developed cities in the region, economically, culturally, politically, and industrially!

So, while the Governor wielded immense power, he still couldn’t touch the strongest city in his territory! He could negotiate with the local Prefect, but if the Prefect didn’t play ball, the Governor had zero authority to order him around!

This was the Imperial Court’s obvious ploy—if a Governor went rogue, the directly ruled prefecture was a nail driven deep into his domain, accounting for twenty to forty percent of the region’s power. There was no way to ignore it.

If, on the other hand, the massive directly administered prefecture went rogue, the Governor could surround it with the other counties, and because of the subtotal siphon effect the big city had on the surrounding areas, the other counties would never act as one with it. "Compared to switching sides, maybe it’s actually smarter to crackdown on rebels while looting the local fat cats."

And the absolute worst scenario was when both the Governor and the Prefect went rogue at the same time.

"But looking at the current struggle between Governor Lv Zhong and Prefect Ding Yi," Leyu thought, "clearly the policy worked—the most powerful Prefect, Ding Yi, would never yield to Lv Zhong, and as for Lv Zhong, in charge of the Chenfeng region, he’d inevitably want to subdue Star Engraving Prefecture."

"If both sides have their own ambitions, peace is basically impossible—it’s always going to be a dogfight."

Inside the Zhou family residence, the Statistical Department agents glanced at each other in uncertainty. Old Master Zhou’s words dumped a bucket of ice water right over their heads.

Could Prefect Ding really defeat Governor Lv?

"If we pick a side this early, and Governor Lv wins in the end, the Statistical Department’s definitely headed for a purge."

Lanyan was Prefect Ding’s student—that much they’d heard. But they themselves only worked for Prefect Ding—they were mercenaries at best. Anyone posted to the Statistical Department clearly had no grand ideals—anyone like that would’ve been kicked out ages ago. Whoever remained was just a ruthless, reputation-be-damned, climb-the-ladder cutthroat. So, of course loyalty was in short supply.

"And if tagging along with Prefect Ding turns out to be a one-way ticket to hell..."

At that thought, several agents quietly lowered their gun barrels, faces wavering as they glanced at the captain and vice-captain. Chen Fu’s expression didn’t change, but he was looking straight at Leyu—it seemed he planned to echo whatever Leyu decided and say ’me too.’

Bam!

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out. The ground before Old Master Zhou now had a fist-sized hole.

"Traitor scum," Ailili said, aiming her pistol at Old Master Zhou and marching forward with a pair of cuffs, "still trying to sow chaos and smear Director Lan, even at death’s door, huh?" she said, "Let’s see how tough you talk once you’re in the Statistical Department!"

Old Master Zhou’s body trembled, but he still shot back, "If you arrest me, there’ll be no going back! I’m Governor Lv’s longtime friend! Whatever you do to me, Governor Lv will pay it back, tenfold!"

"Almost forgot we had a Lan Yan groupie here..." Leyu laughed, saying, "Old Master Zhou, what’s with the shouting? You trying to make sure everyone hears you recruiting the Statistical Department? Didn’t realize you were so loyal to Lv Zhong—as if you’d sacrifice everything to sow discord between the Statistical Department and Prefect Ding. Is this what they call a suicidal double agent?"

With that reminder, the agents snapped out of it—so many prying eyes here, anything Old Master Zhou said would be on Prefect Ding and Director Lan’s desk in no time. Governor Lv’s threat might be distant, but Lan Yan’s punishment was right in their faces!

"I’m telling the truth—don’t say I didn’t warn you!" Old Master Zhou grew anxious. He hadn’t wanted to say this in front of everyone, but if they dragged him into the Statistical Department, he was as good as dead—Lan Yan wouldn’t listen to his pleas, but maybe he could sway a few agents. "Spare us, and when Star Engraving Prefecture falls, I’ll guarantee your lives—"

Bam!

Without hesitation, Leyu fired her pistol, the bullet winging Old Master Zhou’s ear and peeling off a thin strip of scalp.

Old Master Zhou fell completely silent, knees buckling as Ailili cuffed him.

"Nice shot." Chen Fu whistled, signaling the others to arrest the suspects, "Never saw you practice shooting before—guess you’ve got some skills after all."

"No," he thought, "I swear Qian Yuliu’s style has nothing like this."

Because a moment ago, he’d aimed at the floor in front of Old Master Zhou...

Leyu stared down at the pistol. Who knew why, despite aiming low, the shot had flown high—maybe the recoil was too much. "Apparently Qian Yuliu’s school flunked me on guns," he thought, "which means no chance of being an ADC."

"Ailili, Zhou Guangshi, take five men and escort the prisoners back to the Statistical Department. Everyone else, we’re off to hunt our next target."

"Go hunting?" Chen Fu was puzzled at first, but then it dawned on him, "Oh, you mean those fat merchants are our wild game, right? Let’s go hunting!"

As she returned to the armed light truck and prepared to get in, Leyu suddenly had a hunch and glanced at Chen Fu beside her.

"What’s up... huh?!"

Before Chen Fu had finished speaking, he felt something smack his head—a sharp pain followed. He clutched at the spot, looking around, "What just hit me?"

"A pebble," Leyu said, "it bounced away after hitting your head."

"Who threw the pebble?"

"Maybe a crow tried to grab it to drop in a bottle for water, but it slipped and fell on your head instead?"

Chen Fu spent half the drive trying to figure out why a crow would need pebbles to drink water. Leyu sat in the passenger seat, stuffing the stone into her deep blue coat, then unwrapped the piece of silk around it. On it were the coded words from Yin Yinyin’s ’WeChat’ today—

’Come late for hemorrhoid treatment.’

"Damn, no wonder he didn’t care if the rock hit someone!"