“This trip to Huizhou City is twenty li away. I must trouble the three of you to look after my brother!”

Hearing her words were not particularly soft, and seeing that the string of coins in her hand was only a few dozen wen, Michael Lewis gave a dry laugh and said, “We will do things by the book, and certainly won’t make things difficult for Young Master Warren!”

Seeing that Second Lady Warren believed him, but then quietly stuffed a handful of loose silver into her own bosom, Frank Warren knew she really didn’t understand the tricks of the trade—these men from the yamen were not so easily sent away! Still, he wasn’t afraid. For days, he had been getting up early to exercise, and in the afternoons he would go out for a stroll, greeting neighbors and chatting idly. Second Lady Warren would often share fresh food with the neighbors as well. As a scholar who humbled himself in this way, the villagers naturally had a good impression of him. Moreover, he had made arrangements in advance: when the officials arrived at the front door today, he had Seventh Warren go around to inform all the neighbors.

Sure enough, as he followed the three constables out the door, he saw that a crowd of a dozen or so people had already gathered outside.

“Brother Lynn was only following his parents’ wishes and wholeheartedly preparing for the exams. What crime did he commit to deserve this treatment?” The first to speak was an old man leaning on a cane. He stomped his cane forcefully and said angrily, “In these three years, our Songmingshan Village has produced only this one xiucai—who did he offend?”

“Brother Lynn, we’ll go into the city with you and ask the Grand Master to uphold justice!”

Seeing the ordinary farmers around them growing agitated, the lead constable among the three, Jack Hughes, who had previously kept a low profile, finally stepped forward to mediate: “The Grand Master is only summoning Young Master Warren for questioning. Fellow villagers, please don’t be anxious. We will escort Young Master Warren to Huizhou City and will do our utmost to protect him…”

Michael Lewis, being the nephew of Liu the household clerk, had skipped the stage of being a common yamen runner and directly became an assistant. Seeing Jack Hughes being so polite to a bunch of peasants, he couldn’t understand it at all, so he asked Mark Mason beside him, “This kid’s scholarly title is as good as lost, so why is Chief Xu still being so deferential to these villagers?”

Mark Mason always wore a smiling face, but if you thought he was kind, you’d be mistaken. Though he was a deputy, he was known as the “smiling tiger” of She County’s yamen.

He glanced at Frank Warren, who was helping Jack Hughes persuade the villagers, and said with a fake smile, “This is your first time in Songmingshan, isn’t it? Compared to Xixinan Village across the river, there are fewer people here, but they’re just as hard to push around! Did you see those houses in front of Songmingshan?”

He gestured toward the neatly arranged manors and said meaningfully, “It’s said that the gentleman of Nanming may soon be reinstated. Before he resigned, he was the governor of Fujian. If he’s reinstated, at the very least, he’ll be on par with his previous rank, if not higher! Otherwise, would there be only the three of us here today? For a xiucai with no great family background, if the Grand Master had personally issued a warrant, there would have been a dozen or more men rushing in!”

His own uncle was a household clerk, which meant he could swagger around the countryside. Plus, the scheme he and Chelsea Warren had painstakingly devised had come to nothing, so on this trip to Songmingshan, Michael Lewis had come with the intention of squeezing every last drop. He was full of anticipation on the way. But now, hearing the words “governor,” his heart skipped a beat.

The county’s registrar, scribe, and assistant magistrate were just for show. Above the household clerk was the county magistrate, above that the prefect, and the prefect was still far below the governor! Thinking back to the Wang family’s courtyard, with its well-kept, solid house and over a hundred mu of land, clearly a prosperous family, and yet after walking twenty li of mountain road for this errand, he’d only gotten a string of thirty or forty wen—he felt very dissatisfied.

“Even if they’re from the same village and clan, they’re not necessarily close. Besides, he’s just a gentryman idling at home. And that kid has committed a serious taboo. I heard that when the Grand Master came to Huizhou City before, he didn’t go to the prefecture but came to the county office instead, and he looked very displeased!”

Mark Mason left it at that. Hearing Michael Lewis’s tone, he could tell he still wanted to make a profit, so he simply folded his arms and said nothing more.

At that moment, the villagers who had gathered were gradually persuaded to disperse, leaving only three or five people. Michael Lewis strode over to Jack Hughes and deliberately said, “Chief Xu, there are only three of us here today, and things have been quiet—so why were there so many people blocking the way? If we end up delaying the Grand Master’s schedule, we’ll have to report truthfully that someone incited public sentiment and tried to oppose the imperial education administration!”

The remaining few people had already decided to accompany Frank Warren to Huizhou City. Hearing this, they all glared angrily at Michael Lewis. Michael Lewis didn’t care about these ordinary villagers and was about to add fuel to the fire when Jack Hughes saw several people in the distance carrying an empty sedan chair toward them.

When they got closer, a middle-aged man at the front stepped forward and bowed to Frank Warren, saying, “My master instructed us that the twenty li of mountain road is hard to walk, so we are here to carry the young master to Huizhou City in a sedan chair!”

As soon as Michael Lewis saw more people getting in the way, his face grew even darker. But before he could ask whose master it was, one of the older villagers who hadn’t left shouted,

“They’re the servants of the gentleman of Nanming! I knew it—Brother Lynn is a xiucai after all, the gentleman of Nanming would never stand by and do nothing!”

“After all, the gentleman of Nanming is both a senior and an elder—how thoughtful!”