The Imperial Palace.
While the Empress and Xia Ying caught up on their various affairs, back at the throne room Minister Yao, who work under the ministry of justice Brought up the widespread of drugs in the capital. He pointed out that a lot of young scholars fell victims to addiction.
Emperor Zhong had high ambitions to Annex the other states so thoughts of losing new talents to opium addiction annoyed him. Lu Yaozhu had predicted that it would. Emperor Zhong ordered Minister Yao together with Minister Hua to look into the case.
Lu Yaozhu and Lu Yingjie didn't express any interest so as not to tip the Shi family off. As far as they never got involved in the investigation, everything would go swiftly. The Emperor wasn't on guard of Minister Yao, he wouldn't question any of his actions nor defend the Shi family once their involvement was discovered.
