With his heart in a panic, Zhou Chengbing couldn’t help but urgently urge Hu Buwei. He was at a loss and just wanted to quickly escape this dangerous Qinglin County.

Hu Buwei, already irritable, became even more so with Zhou Chengbing’s urging, and he couldn’t help but look down on the anxious Zhou Chengbing.

Timid and weak with no abilities, always relying on others when things happen, if it weren’t for his good family background, Zhou Chengbing would be nothing.

Hu Buwei was smooth and shrewd, much better than these aristocratic young masters, yet due to his background, he could only be a servant. Fate is really unfair!

Despite his dissatisfaction, he still had to consider the situation at hand. Hu Buwei pondered that even if he couldn’t leave Qinglin County, he couldn’t stay in this inn, as County Magistrate Yin’s methods were formidable, especially his sharp tongue.

Back then, he angered the most esteemed Confucian scholar of the Zhou family to the point of losing his composure, publicly embarrassed, vomiting blood at home, and bedridden ever since.

It wasn’t that Hu Buwei underestimated his nephew and others, but if even the Zhou family’s meticulously groomed Confucian sage was no match for Yin Shuangshuang, it was only a matter of time before these three would confess under Yin Shuangshuang’s trickery.

Turning back to see Zhou Chengbing still looking at him with a face full of fear, Hu Buwei felt another wave of disdain.

This completely useless fool was suppressing him, making him have to wholeheartedly devise plans and provide support, which was truly frustrating.

No matter how unwilling he was, Hu Buwei could only wholeheartedly reassure Zhou Chengbing: "Master, don’t worry. Although my nephew, Xu Huirong, and Chai Pengfei have been captured, they still understand the seriousness of the situation.

As long as they don’t implicate us, they have a slim chance of being rescued by our Zhou family. If they betray us, given the Emperor’s disdain for aristocracy, the three of them surely won’t survive.

Even though County Magistrate Yin’s methods are formidable, prying open their mouths won’t be something that happens quickly. We’re not in immediate danger yet.

However, we really can’t stay at this inn any longer. Better to be safe than sorry, let’s quickly depart and hide in the house we arranged earlier to weather the storm.

Send someone out to scout the situation, and as soon as the people surrounding the county disperse, we’ll leave Qinglin County immediately.

Master, rest assured, locking down the entire Qinglin County is too extreme an action; it won’t last long, otherwise it would provoke public resentment.

She serves the Emperor and values public sentiment the most, so she wouldn’t dare to let the common people’s hearts turn against her. Just wait patiently, and it won’t be long before we can leave here."

Hu Buwei’s reassurance made Zhou Chengbing relax considerably. He still trusted Housekeeper Hu’s abilities, and since Housekeeper Hu was his mother’s confidant, he certainly wouldn’t harm him.

However, as soon as he started to relax, Zhou Chengbing anxiously urged Hu Buwei: "Since we can’t stay at the inn, Housekeeper Hu, let’s leave quickly to avoid unexpected troubles."

Hu Buwei was a bit helpless but still diligently said: "Master, please calm down. Allow me to retrieve our account books from this period. We cannot let County Magistrate Yin get hold of them."

"Then hurry up and get them, move quickly, we need to leave the inn as soon as possible." Hearing the commotion outside, although there was no sound, Zhou Chengbing’s anxiety grew more intense.

But Zhou Chengbing didn’t receive Hu Buwei’s response because suddenly the inn’s door was kicked open, and a large group of people stormed in.

Leading them were the constables Yan Shiyi and Yan Shier, along with two Hidden Guards from the Eagle Team who were skilled in searching. The four of them, along with the county soldiers assigned by Yang Yixuan, stormed into the inn.

Once inside, as per Yin Shuangshuang’s instructions, without listening to any nonsense, they tied up everyone in the inn and gagged them, then immediately searched the place, focusing on accounting items.

Yin Shuangshuang had anticipated that the inn’s people might try to escape, so as soon as she returned to the county, she assigned people to capture those in the inn.

The group searched the inn, with the two Hidden Guards from the Eagle Team being the most important. The Hidden Guards, having undergone special training, quickly found the hidden ledger in a concealed cavity in the wall.

Upon seeing the ledger, Hu Buwei’s face turned deathly pale, as this ledger recorded in detail how much iron ore he had transported to the Zhou family for smelting weapons.

............

Yin Shuangshuang had been busy the entire night, finally managing to sort everything out, arranging detentions, interrogations, and the proper recording and storage of accounts.

Among these, the incident where County Magistrate Chai Pengfei led his county soldiers to kill her was the most difficult to handle.

Sometimes, "the law does not punish en masse" is not because there are too many offenders to punish effectively, but because within that mass, it is unclear who is truly guilty and who was blindly coerced into following orders.

Much like Chai Pengfei’s county soldiers, most of them were ordinary people with no chance of an education, barely literate, extremely ignorant, and only knew to obey superiors’ orders.

As their superior, Chai Pengfei had the legitimate authority to command them; with even a casual excuse, or no excuse at all, he could order them to intercept and kill, and they would naturally comply.

They had no idea if the target was innocent or not, simply following the superior’s command, making them naturally blameless.

So in this case, "the law does not punish en masse" was not about letting offenders off but rather about not wrongful punishing the majority of innocent people, even at the cost of letting a few potential offenders go.

Even now, many of Chai Pengfei’s county soldiers were still bewildered and deeply frightened, continuously proclaiming their innocence in tumultuous waves of pleas, leaving everyone quite unsettled.

After much contemplation, Yin Shuangshuang realized that those in leadership had some level of insight and couldn’t be entirely unaware.

Moreover, with Chai Pengfei manipulating the county soldiers for his own purposes, those small leaders had to be his people; otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to command those ordinary soldiers who only knew how to obey.

As for the regular county soldiers, even if they were aware, they didn’t gain any benefits.

Chai Pengfei had previously used his own privately maintained guards to harm two County Magistrates, so those county soldiers likely hadn’t committed any serious misdeeds, and letting them go shouldn’t cause any issues.

Now that the weather had turned cold, Yin Shuangshuang hadn’t slept for an entire day and night, and everyone else had also been staying up, but others were healthy and an occasional late night wasn’t a problem, unlike Yin Shuangshuang’s weak body.

Her head was spinning repeatedly now, and she felt alternately hot and cold, as if she were feverish, yet she dared not rest.

Because there were still many tasks uncompleted, she feared that if she rested now, she wouldn’t be able to get up, not knowing how long she’d be bedridden before recovering.

At this moment, Heng Yue was busy brewing medicine for Yin Shuangshuang, while Ying Chang’an, with a discontented face, stayed by her side. He couldn’t bear to see Yin Shuangshuang ruining her health like this, yet he couldn’t persuade her to rest, so he just followed her around, taking her pulse from time to time.