Chapter 2337 - 2072: Doesn’t Your Conscience Hurt

What are Pure Stream Celebrities? In Chen Xi’s words, they are public intellectuals, though different from the public intellectuals of later generations, as this era’s public intellectuals have a clear moral baseline.

If any moral issue arises, the whole group of Pure Stream Celebrities will spontaneously cleanse such scum to avoid tainting the entire group; after all, reputation is more important than life!

Thus, in maintaining moral standards, this group can still guarantee it, as their benefit relies on it.

Their reputation and current lifestyle are achieved through such moral maintenance; for the sake of reputation, for moral integrity, this group wouldn’t care even if they died.

Of course, there are also some who disguise themselves as Pure Stream Celebrities, but if they act for too long, too deeply in character, they themselves will be influenced, eventually defending moral standards with their lives.

This is a terribly fearsome group; simply put, these people are typically not afraid to die.

Though within the group, there are some oddities, overall, in this era, they belong to an elite group, at least the elite group involved in supervision.

Letting the people supervise officials, to be honest, is somewhat laughable. The masses indeed can oversee some things, but to whom do they report?

"The word ’official’ has two mouths," is not a joke. "Who in the court dares to accuse this official?" situations have indeed occurred; such supervision methods, without upper-tier support, are essentially a tease, and the upper-tier support, honestly, is not interested in managing these matters.

The so-called power derives from the people, who have the power to oversee, yet without corresponding channels, this is essentially self-consolation.

Thus, beyond the existing supervision system, Chen Xi created a new multi-functional fault-finding group, since Pure Stream Celebrities are always drinking, composing poetry, dancing, and admiring flowers, he gave them an opportunity to build a reputation.

Everyone received a carriage; if they decline it’s fine; let them feel the government’s respect, then send them to various places for oversight. They are not required to solve problems, only to discover them, to find the issues; solving problems is not something the bureaucratic system will allow for others to claim credit on.

More importantly, these tasks are voluntary; Chen Xi directly highlighted the dangers involved, including the possibility of personal safety being compromised; it’s voluntary in essence.

Under such circumstances, those willing to engage in supervision among Pure Stream Celebrities are actually very formidable; such individuals are nearly unlikely to be bribed.

Ironically, among these people, even when surrendering, they would only yield to big bosses, and some oddities even confront these bosses, like Mii Heng.

As for others trying to make them act against their will to work for them, forget it; even with a knife to their throat, they would still showcase their scholarly integrity. Such eccentric characters involved in supervision make Chen Xi curious about who would be bribed.

Indeed, it’s for this reason that this matter garners attention; otherwise, Chen Xi wouldn’t dispatch them for such tasks.

Although nine out of ten Pure Stream Celebrities look down on common folk, with a haughty demeanor, arrogantly peering down, you have to admit, they view middle-level and below officials with the same scorn, which can be regarded as equal treatment.

In this way, Chen Xi barely achieves the desired outcome. It’s unimportant how they view people; what matters is that after discovering issues, they absolutely won’t be bribed by county officials.

This is an important part of Liu Bei’s effective supervision; these Pure Stream Celebrities simply cannot be bribed. While they occasionally cause trouble, overall, their actions benefit the common people.

Thus, under Liu Bei, the common folk hold considerable respect for these Pure Stream Celebrities who look down on them. However, coming back to the point, many celebrities are likely preparing to confront Liu Ye soon, perhaps ready to advocate for the people.

Anyway, for these people, reputation over life; the village merging might get them criticized to death. Who knows how much dark material they’ve collected by now.

Yet if Liu Ye potentially, or rather likely, gets besieged by Pure Stream Celebrities, Chen Xi not only has no intention to stop it but feels a sort of secret joy inside.

Liu Ye has stirred trouble for Chen Xi numerous times; though Chen Xi doesn’t plan to pursue these things, seeing Liu Ye stumble into trouble still delights him.

After all, by then, the work is already done; even if Liu Ye gets surrounded by Pure Stream Celebrities, it has no major impact, making it occasionally enjoyable to watch the spectacle.

But considering the situation, if the village merging affair blows up and accusations reach Cui Yan, it could create quite the entertainment, and if Cui Yan has valid reasons, he would definitely seize the opportunity to fiercely confront them.

Given Cui Yan’s temperament, Liu Ye could end up thoroughly humiliated, since that guy is an upright official, and if I remember correctly, he’s also known for dying due to his stubbornness.

[Let’s hope no real fun comes out of this. If Cui Yan goes after Liu Ye, it’s possible that Liu Ye might be defeated, ugh. I should lend a hand to shield Liu Ye, can’t have him really defeated — fun is fun, but not to the extent of losing one’s life.] Chen Xi thought hesitantly.

"Zichuan, Zichuan..." Liu Bei said while reaching out to push Chen Xi.

"Uh, Lord Xuande, what’s up?" Chen Xi responded, looking at Liu Bei with confusion.

"You stopped responding while we were talking." Liu Bei said, somewhat speechless. Fa Zheng looked up and whistled lightly, as if to say, ’I know nothing, don’t look at me.’

"Uh, I was just thinking about some things; there might be some trouble coming up." Chen Xi said a bit awkwardly, as he hadn’t heard a word of what Liu Bei had been saying and had no idea how to pick up the conversation.

"Ah, never mind, it’s not a big deal anyway." Liu Bei said helplessly, brushing off the previous matter. Actually, Liu Bei had wanted to ask why we suddenly had so many troops, and all of them wearing armor that only general and officer levels could equip.

It’s just that Liu Bei’s brain hadn’t registered it yet. He knew the leaders of those troops, and because he knew they were his own people, Liu Bei hadn’t realized the significance yet.

Especially after they all changed into uniform armor and marched past Liu Bei in unison, it was the first time Liu Bei felt how strong he was.

It turned out that while battling the Huns, we hadn’t even used a third of our combat strength. How did I suddenly become so strong?

This dramatic change left Liu Bei quite shocked, much like suddenly finding out you’ve entered socialism after wearing patched clothes and drinking wild vegetable porridge just the day before. The leap is somewhat overwhelming.

Especially with the confirmation that all the weaponry had completed their nurturing, and that almost all the soldiers had been to the battlefield and seen blood, with hundreds of thousands having developed Elite Talent, Liu Bei couldn’t help but feel that he had suddenly become so strong he could fight several Cao Caos!

"The army is starting to look quite impressive." Chen Xi remarked, quite satisfied as he observed the neat marching, tidy equipment, and the quick conversion of soldiers displaying the radiance of Elite Talent.

"More than that, according to my calculations over the last couple of days, we should have a 400,000-strong elite army with Elite Talent." Liu Bei said excitedly. This was not just satisfaction; since the founding of the Later Han, this was certainly the most powerful armed force in history, now under Liu Bei’s command.

"No, only a little over 300,000, not yet 400,000." Chen Xi said casually, "And the armor is just barely fitting. It still needs some more nurturing to reach peak state."

"Zichuan, why are you such a wet blanket on such a delightful matter?" Liu Bei looked at Chen Xi, somewhat dissatisfied.

"The thing is, I’ve been working on this for years, bit by bit. I’ve verified it many times. For Lord Xuande it may seem like a sudden burst of strength, but to me, it’s the result of accumulated effort." Chen Xi said, wearing an exhausted and stressed expression. Fa Zheng rolled his eyes, not bothering to pay attention to Chen Xi’s words, as if to say, ’You’ve got a lot of nerve.’

"Ahem, although I completely don’t believe you were very tired," Liu Bei coughed twice, his expression becoming serious, "However, I still have to say, Zichuan, you have worked hard, and the same goes for Xiaoo Zhi. Without your efforts, there wouldn’t be the current me!"

Fa Zheng looked touched. Liu Bei’s acknowledgment was almost the greatest recognition of his work, though Chen Xi thought of his past and realized he hadn’t actually worked very hard. Perhaps it was Lub Su who had worked the hardest.

"Ah-choo!" Lub Su rubbed his nose, downed a cup of heavily sugared tea, and then went back to writing diligently. Under the overtime efforts of countless people, the Grand Canal finally reached the area around Mount Tai. Originally, it wasn’t supposed to pass there, but since Fenggao was the companion capital, it was diverted slightly to allow Fenggao to enjoy the benefits.

And the document Lub Su was currently reviewing was the one Wang Xiu sent to Ye City, regarding the Grand Canal’s construction.

"Those bastards all ran off, not one came back. Ever since they got clocks, once they skip work, they never come back. I need to find a way!" Lub Su grumbled about Li Youu and the others while diligently working.

That said, based on these days’ workload, Lub Su could finish everything each day.

This was also why Chen Xi and the others said there was nothing important recently. If Lub Su could handle these things, their consciences certainly wouldn’t hurt.

Forgot to mention, everyone had been taking special care of Fa Zheng lately. No one pursued him for skipping work, since he was about to hold a wedding banquet in a few days. But upon closer thought, it seemed that Lub Su’s wedding was also coming up soon, yet he still had to pull all-nighters working before the wedding...

Does your conscience really not hurt?