The entire Xue family was framed, and she was reduced to a performer registered in the pleasure quarters. Then the current Minister of Personnel used her as a pawn, personally handing her over to the cold-faced censor Lu Heng.
A young top scorer and the Censorate’s sharpest blade, Lu Heng was upright and free of worldly desires. Yet he accepted this source of trouble.
At court the next morning, officials jointly impeached him, accusing him of hiding a criminal’s daughter and indulging in her charms.
Everyone said she was a beauty who would ruin his future. Only the emperor saw through it with a single remark: “A spotless minister is the most frightening kind. Give him a weakness, and he can become a loyal subject.”
As political confrontations grew ever more turbulent, he used his official robes to shield her from every accusation. She put aside her timidity and brought out the evidence her father had left behind, helping him expose the wrongful case from years ago and bring the staggering corruption in the grain transport system to account.
The world laughed at the censor for loving a lowborn orphan girl, unaware that the cold, powerful minister’s only weakness in this life was someone he was willing to stand against the corrupt officials of the entire court for.
Good writing. The author has a delicate heart with seven orifices.