Hmph, this Six Gates always claims to punish the treacherous and eliminate evil, calling themselves the guardians of justice, but in the face of such bastards, they can only tuck their tails like dogs and kowtow. Only heroic men like you can vent this anger for the people of Pi State.

Thank you so much."

Huangfu Yi was momentarily silent, his throat felt blocked.

The constable assumed he didn't want to drink anymore, so he put away the water bag and handed a pill-like object to his mouth.

"This is the Five-Grain Elixir Pill, made from grains and cereals. Eating one can stave off hunger.

The eunuchs in the palace are the stingiest. You've killed their people, and will definitely be put to death by public execution.

Oh well, at least you can die on a full stomach."

Huangfu Yi paused for a moment, opened his mouth to take the Five-Grain Elixir Pill, and nodded at the Pi State constable.

The constable from Pi State sighed,

"Heavens have no eyes; good people receive no good recompense.

This group of bastards can't think of overcoming the Central Plains, they just want to gain private benefits, eliminate dissidents, suppress loyalists, and oppress the people all day long.

If it weren't for my family holding me back, I'd have revolted long ago."

The constable sat beside him, shaking his head and cursing, recounting the various wrongs of the court officials, probably because he had been bottling it up for too long and was looking for someone who wouldn't report him.

Huangfu Yi just chewed on the Five-Grain Elixir Pill, listening to him speak.

These civil servants have seen it all; rather, they've seen too much of the dark side of society. Even cases like the one in Pi State are as numerous as cattle hair. They could talk about it for a day and night and still not finish. So the constable focused on discussing the three most representative figures of the current Immortal Palace.

The first person was the former General of the Southern Expedition. He was from the Wang Family, a cousin of the late Empress Dowager, the Prince Consort of the former Immortal Emperor, and a former leader of foreign relatives.

Back then, this General Wang, ordered to campaign south, held a large military force to fight demons and expand the borders of the Li Country. Later, when Northern Soldiers rebelled, he led troops back, and it was under the support of the General of the Southern Expedition that the Three Constellations Ministers could relocate the capital to avoid disaster and stabilize their foothold.

However, despite his merits in supporting the court's re-establishment, he was ambitious, keen on holding the court hostage, and had secret and open strife with the General of Cavalry guarding the north. Thus, when the Stone Dragon was trapped under Suiyang City, he even worried about the General of Cavalry gaining merit, so he withheld reinforcements and supplies, missing a great opportunity to quell the rebellion.

Later, this person took advantage of the rebel army's temporary chaos, secretly leading troops back to the capital, seemingly with intentions to rebel. Fortunately, he died suddenly on the way back, whether from illness or assassination, thus not causing too much harm. However, due to being implicated by him, the Wang Family, the leader of the Four Gates, also lost power temporarily.

The second person was the current Grand Tutor. He was from the Xie Family, the uncle of the current Immortal Emperor's Southern Empress, who replaced the Wang Family to become the new leader of the foreign relatives, temporarily stabilizing the court situation, easing the relationship between clans and Gate Valves, and becoming the rightful leader of the Immortal Gate, quite skilled indeed.

However, compared to overcoming the Central Plains, Grand Tutor Xie was more concerned with consolidating the Xie Family's power and maintaining harmony within the Imperial City. Thus, even though the Stone Dragon went mad, and the rebel army was fighting as a scattered mess, with us having the literal advantage, the Immortal Palace still didn't launch a full-scale counterattack. That's because the current court is on the brink of bankruptcy, with expenditures exceeding revenues, and going to war requires spending the Xie Family's dowry, forcing them to look at people's faces.

Of course, the constable doesn't care about whether General Wang did good or bad, nor does he comment on Grand Tutor Xie's governance. As a minor official, he can't eavesdrop at the Wang or Xie's house, but he has eyes and can see what the house slaves of these two families are doing.

Whether the general opens a government or the Grand Tutor is in court, it's the Gate Valve families, led by the Immortal Palace, that wield power. Since escaping south, to make up for the losses caused by the rebellion, these Three Constellations Noble Families forcibly acquired properties in the South for settlement, shielding and indulging house slaves in seizing properties and wealth without shame, doing whatever they pleased.

Today your General Wang collects a round of taxes with troops, tomorrow my Grand Tutor Xie reclaims a piece of land; one sings the last act, the other makes an entrance, coming up with various ways to seize the people's properties and lands, forcibly recruiting labor for private gardens, sealing woods and lands, forbidding personal firewood and fishing, occupying manors and fortresses, guarding the city themselves, breeding slaves and tenant farmers in thousands, appropriating good fields and mulberry gardens by tens of thousands to breed personal armies disguised as bandits, robbing passing merchants to amass fortune, all of these countless, destroying the court and social order by these Gate Valves and their protected house slaves.

Thus, as the finance of the Immortal Palace worsens day by day, and Jiangshan and Shiji become increasingly unstable and shaky, these Gate Valve noble families can shut their doors and have enough provisions to live on, with wealth accumulating and growing exponentially, becoming blood-sucking parasites on the backs of the people.

Local Vassal States and State Mansions dare not offend them while still needing to levy heavy taxes for rebellion suppression. Thus, taxes on commoners and lower classes become harsher, abusing civil power, causing the people to be unbearably burdened, escaping to mountains, lakes, and becoming bandits, leading to continuous uprisings and riots.

The Six Gates' watchdogs don't distinguish right from wrong, those giant greedy rats in court they cannot afford to offend, they don't dare handle or govern, so they focus on bullying the commoners. When people are forced with no way out and fight back and rebel, then the Criminal Department Government swarms out to capture the rebels, executing them 'publicly before all to rectify the situation,' all without addressing the root causes.

So now these constables can only work with a guilty conscience, wearied to death, following orders to please the eunuchs, even chasing all the way to Qianzhou to capture people, knowing they are abetting evil yet unable to help it. That's because their family's soft underbelly is in others' hands.

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