Heaven's Formula

More than half a month ago, the other party was still his guide, but now the status of the two is very different.

Seeing him return, the receptionist quickly bowed and asked, "Master, do you have anything else to say?"

"How many people were there in the headquarters before?" Xia Fan asked straight to the point.

"Uh... For alchemists, there are 16 people, three of them are divine judges, and one is engaged in it."

"What about non-alchemists?"

"That's a lot, about forty or fifty."

"But now there is no one in the command department!" Xia Fan raised his voice, "Yuan Zong was transferred away, and Zhang Shen was sentenced to die. There are only two people. Where are the others?"

"My lord..." The receptionist hesitated for a moment, "Since the news of your succession arrived, they have dismissed all non-alchemist members one after another, and the remaining alchemists were either transferred to other departments or chose to report illness, so ...There will be no one else in the command department for the time being."

"Transferred to another department? Who said that?"

The receptionist showed a embarrassed expression, "At that time...you hadn't taken over the post yet."

When he said that, Xia Fan understood everything.Because the handover was not carried out on the spot, Yuan Zong could completely say that the transfer was a previous decision.Of course, this kind of thing cannot be done by one person, and someone needs to cooperate with him.In other words, other undertakings are blatantly on the opposite side of themselves.

He is now a veritable commander-in-chief.

"Since these people don't even want to stay with the command department, can I just get rid of them?" Xia Fan said in a deep voice.

"Of course, you are in charge of the Ministry of Command. But you can only remove positions like god judges. Their status as alchemists is in the charge of the headquarters. As long as no obvious mistakes are made, Gyeonggi Prefecture will not deprive them of this official title."

"Then what about the new alchemists? I remember you said that we are the first batch to come."

"My lord, in fact, the second batch of newly promoted alchemists came to the mansion to report two days ago. There are six of them in total. But..." the receptionist hesitated to speak.

"But what? Say it. It's not your problem, and I won't blame you."

"If the academic department thinks that they have not completed the basic teaching and have not met the standards for performing tasks, they can not be released to the command department."

Well, Xia Fan rolled his eyes in his heart, since there is such a rule, then he must not be able to get anyone.

In the same way, it can be deduced that the Ministry of Finance will not approve the various expenses he applied for.As for the recording department...it doesn't matter if they support it or not.

The princess was right when she said that she would encounter many difficulties at the beginning, or in other words, the actual situation was even more difficult.

If he was just the representative placed by the princess in the mansion, he would slowly win over and lure him afterwards, and with a little more effort, the other three departments would put down this unhappiness and join together again.

But what he wants to do is to completely eliminate the evil spirits, the kind that pulls out the roots together.

The divergence of interests between the two sides is so great that there is no possibility of reconciliation at all.

The Privy Council of Jinxia City has already regarded him as an obstacle.

After leaving the front hall, Xia Fan suddenly saw two familiar figures.

Wei Wushuang and Luo Youer.

Chapter 84 Restructuring the Headquarters

"Brother Xia—!"

From far away, Wei Wushuang waved his arms and shouted.

This was the first person Xia Fan greeted him after he entered the Privy Council.

"Why did you come here?"

"I heard about you." Wei Wushuang trotted over and said, "Someone in the recording department is talking about seeing a new job coming."

Xia Fan nodded, then looked at Luo You'er, "Sorry, I haven't visited you since you were injured."

"If you were not injured, it must be your fault. But since you were also injured, then we are even." The little girl said impartially.

He smiled wryly, "How's the situation in the Privy Council recently?"

"It's very bad." The fellow frowned, "There have been a lot of comments about you recently, and the content is not very good..." He hesitated for a while, and finally did not say what the bad content was, "Me and Miss Luo I have also received multiple hints and reminders, let us not work with you again."

"And you refused." Xia Fan said slowly.

He knew this without asking - if the two agreed, they wouldn't come up to talk to him at this moment.

Luo You'er said crisply, "I don't think you did anything wrong."

"I... think so too," Wei Wushuang paused, "I'm just worried about how Brother Xia will deal with it. Now you are a thorn in the eyes of others."

"Why don't we go to the office and discuss in detail?" Xia Fan raised the corner of his mouth.The more this is the case, the less likely he is to admit defeat.

"office?"

"Well, the lobby of the command department will be my office from today on."

……

Back in the lobby, the first thing Xia Fan did was to push down the mahogany table and drag it to the bottom of the steps so that three people could sit at the table.

He also secretly thought that when he was free in the future, these stairs would have to be knocked down sooner or later-such a good hall, to deliberately create a sense of overlooking, wasted so much space, it was a hole in the head.

"Brother Xia, this table...is probably very expensive." Wei Wushuang gasped.

"It's okay, I'm engaged, and now I'm in charge of the affairs of the Ministry, let alone a table." Xia Fan waved his hand indifferently.

Then he fetched a pen and ink, spread out a piece of paper, and wrote a large character "人" on it.

"You're asking me how to deal with it, and that's what we're going to do first."

"Hmm...that makes sense." Luo You'er pretended to be contemplative, "If there is no one around, I would even have to do the cleaning myself."

"If only it was that simple." Xia Fan smiled, "Don't forget what the command department does—once there is an evil event breaking out in the surrounding area, the command department has to be responsible for eliminating the evil spirits. If the soldiers do not move, the evil spirits will cause a lot of casualties. That is a real dereliction of duty. When the higher-ups ask for responsibility, the Ministry of Command will undoubtedly bear the brunt of it."

"With the three of us alone, I'm afraid it will be difficult to take care of it." Wei Wushuang agreed.

"Yes, the busier you are, the easier it is to make mistakes. In addition, dealing with evil spirits is inherently risky. If there is another mistake or omission in clues or intelligence, the result may be more satisfying to them than dereliction of duty."

Xia Fan looked at the two, "I don't know if the same situation exists in other counties, but the incident in Gaoshan County can at least calm them down for a while. However, evil spirits will appear sooner or later, whether it is accidental or man-made - before that, The command must expand its team to deal with related incidents."

"Where did you come from? The alchemists of the Privy Council now think that you will be kicked out sooner or later, and it is unlikely that you will go against the intention of the other three ministries."

"Maybe we can buy it?" Luo You'er suggested, "When we were in Qingshan Town, this was what the big brother talked about the most."

"If the bribe is useful, I still have some money left." Wei Wushuang quickly calculated, "It's just that the other party can spend more money to buy it back. Unless the prince is here, I don't have much confidence that I can win the business... ..."

"By the way, where is Wang Renzhi?" Xia Fan suddenly remembered that there was such a person.

"According to the Wang family, he was frightened by the evil incident and needs a long-term recuperation."

Can't tell me you're sick?Xia Fan was thoughtful, and this was somewhat different from what he heard from the princess—when Ning Wanjun and Wang Yi'an met, the latter seemed to hope that his second son would behave in front of the princess.

Could it be that he changed his mind because of the news that he took over the command?

However, Wang Renzhi was not the focus of this matter. He put aside all these thoughts and returned to the topic, "I do need money, but you don't need to pay for it. Besides, I have no plan to recruit people from the government."

"If you don't come from the mansion, then where?" The two asked in confusion.

"I once borrowed a venture capital investment." Xia Fan smiled slightly.

Wei Wushuang's eyes widened, "You mean... those candidates who failed the bachelor's exam?"

"But they can't be counted as alchemists, right?" Luo You'er also discovered the key problem.

"Indeed, those who are eliminated will not be named in the headquarters, so I am recruiting temporary workers who have no establishment."

"Temporary...worker?"

"Of course, it can also be called a reserve." Xia Fan nodded, "The next examination is three years later, and I can let them learn spells in advance and be familiar with the affairs of the Privy Council. And you can accumulate meritorious service. Once you pass the scholar examination, you can skip the new promotion stage and directly take up senior positions in the government."

"Is this... doable?" Wei Wushuang murmured.

If he is still working in the command department three years later, it is naturally not feasible.But if he is the Prime Minister three years later, with the support of the princess, it will not be difficult to fulfill these promises.

"I'm worried that if they haven't passed the examination, they will be prone to problems." Luo You'er whispered.

It should be said that they failed Li's test.Xia Fan touched his forehead silently, "This is the only way for us to gather people who are angry. And the difficulty in eliminating evil spirits is to collect information. As long as someone leads them and makes sufficient preparations, eliminating evil spirits does not require six Just ask questions."

"That seems to make sense."

"By the way," Xia Fan looked at Luo You'er, "Do you have your senior sister's contact information?"

"Senior Sister's ranking must be going to Gyeonggi," Luo You'er clapped her hands and said, "Ah, I forgot to write her a letter!"

"By the way, give me one too."

"You want her to help you?" The little girl pouted, "It's impossible."

"How will you know if you don't try?" Xia Fan sighed, "Fei Nian and Fang Xiandao have also gone to Gyeonggi, I'll write a letter for each of them."

Since the strength of the main force is lacking, improving the level of the team leader is undoubtedly a solution.Whether people will come or not is another question--it doesn't cost much to write a letter anyway.

In addition, Xia Fan thought of another person.

His master, Zhao Dahai.

Chapter 85 The Sword of Slaying Evil

Master doesn't have many other advantages, but he is definitely first-class in terms of prudence, and he is sophisticated, so it is definitely the best choice for leading a group of rookies who are new to the industry.

It's just that he's used to being comfortable, and it's hard to say whether he is willing to help him or not. It may be difficult to persuade him simply by writing a letter, and he may have to come to the door to try it himself.

Xia Fan pressed down on this thought, and wrote another word "herringbone" under the person.

"To tell you the truth, I took over as the commander for one purpose - I hope that in the area under my jurisdiction, such things will never happen again. Evil spirits should be banned, and they can be banned!"

He spoke loudly.

The expressions of Wei Wushuang and Luo Youer also became serious.

"Brother Xia, this is not an easy task."

"Well, it may take many years, but if no one starts, we will never see that day."

After the Privy Council became independent with six departments, it has indeed greatly strengthened its own resources and strength, so that the evil disaster brought about by the fall of Yongguo did not destroy the entire human settlement.But a hundred years has turned it into a behemoth, and at the same time it has also made it no longer pure.Too many interest entanglements may have caused a distance between the local Privy Council and Gyeonggi Province.

What he cares about is whether this is unique to the Qi country, or is it the same for the other five countries?

"If you want to intervene effectively, you have to intervene in local affairs—at least the criminal investigation part has to be done by ourselves. If you believe in the judgment of the local government, it is easy to be kept in the dark." Xia Fan clicked on the second character, "We have to form a criminal investigation team to work with alchemists."

"I see." Wei Wushuang suddenly said, "You are really thoughtful."

Luo You'er blinked, "This should be much easier to recruit than alchemists."

"That's right." Xia Fan smiled, "It's hard to recruit people who are angry, but there are as many ordinary arrests as there are."

As long as he is paid properly.

In this day and age, there are no professional criminal investigation colleges, and detectives are also low-status positions in the government. The so-called experienced detectives are all fed by cases.They also have no establishment and will not be named in the official department, so it is very convenient to dig a corner.

The first candidate that came to Xia Fan's mind was Li Xing, whom he had met once in Fenghua County.

Although he didn't have much contact with him, he left a good impression on the first meeting. He has a flexible mind and a clear logic in doing things. It is a rare figure in the police team to be able to do these two things.

Since I have to go back to Fenghua County to find my master, I might as well stop by and meet this head catcher.

"However... I have one concern." Wei Wushuang paused, "The source of those evil spirits—what are you going to do with them? The government will definitely not accept this kind of hot potato, and even go further, as in the case of Gaoshan County. , they themselves are inseparable from the source."

"Xie Chong is an enemy, so the source of Xie Chong is naturally an enemy." Xia Fan said after a moment of silence, "Since the other party is an enemy comparable to Xie Chong, it is very clear what to do."

Treat your friends like a spring breeze, and treat your enemies like a cold wind.

"Alchemists should not only carry mahogany swords, medicine guides and talismans, they need to be equipped with another weapon."

The two did not answer the conversation, they may have realized Xia Fan's determination.

"——a gold and iron weapon, it is not used to infuse energy to slay demons, but to slay wicked people. In the first class after the introduction of new alchemists, we should also clearly tell them that it is not only evil spirits that alchemists are fighting against. , is also the evil of the world.”

……

It takes two days to go to Fenghua County, and one day to ride a horse. Today is more than half past, and Xia Fan plans to start again tomorrow morning.

Since the headquarters was empty, he simply spent the afternoon shopping with Li.

One can imagine the feeling of being bored at home alone. Going out for a walk can not only understand the people's livelihood in Jinxia City, but also see if there is a chance to encounter clues of the flower imprint.

After buying two bunches of candied haws for Li to eat, Xia Fan walked along the street to the dock area.

According to Wei Wushuang, there is a mixed flow of people there, and it is also a gathering place for various gangs.If you go alone, don't go into alleys or unmanned lanes, otherwise you may be robbed.In addition, don't carry a money bag with you to avoid pickpocketing.

In short, it is a place that normal residents rarely go to.

In order not to attract attention, Xia Fan also changed into a set of ordinary clothes on purpose. The plain linen underwear is just like ordinary people's attire.Li Ye is roughly the same, just with an extra bamboo hat.

He originally thought that the dock area would be empty, after all, it was a lawless place, but when he arrived, he realized that there were more people here than the market.A large number of sailboats were piled up around the trestle, and shirtless porters continued to load the goods onto the ships.And these goods are exactly white salt.

Similarly, he also found that it was impossible to tell which gang these porters belonged to just by looking at them from a distance—after all, they didn't have names on their heads, nor did they have marks that symbolized the faction on their bodies.