The disgraced official I took care of was actually Zhu Houcong's childhood friend.

Chapter 226

Liu Damo was a clerk in Huating County whose main duty was to measure land.

Liu Damo was fully aware of the unsavory practices involved in land surveying, yet he was powerless to do anything about it.

Every time he worked, he could only watch helplessly as his colleagues measured out two or three tenths more land from the common people and two or three tenths less land from the gentry. As a result, the common people had no way to make a living and could only offer their land to the gentry or officials and then rent land from them to cultivate.

Liu Damo had always found it unbearable to watch such things happen, yet he was helpless to do anything about it. Many of his colleagues, seeing him so melancholic, said that he was too naive to be soft-hearted, and that he would harden his heart once he had seen more.

Perhaps, Liu Damo often said to himself.

But every time Liu Damo sees people lose their families and lives because of this, his heart still trembles.

Someone who can measure land must be quite good at numerology, otherwise they wouldn't be able to do this job.

Liu Damo's father taught him numerology from a young age, so that he could take over his father's job when he grew up.

Later, Liu Damo's father discovered that his son had a special talent for numerology. When Liu Damo was seven or eight years old, he had already surpassed his father in numerology.

Of course, this is also related to his father's mediocre knowledge of numerology. After all, for a clerk, numerology is enough to get by, and there is no need to learn it too deeply.

But Liu Damo was different. He was obsessed with numerology and had always studied it in great depth. Therefore, he found it increasingly difficult to tolerate the deliberate mistakes made by his colleagues.

However, he also knew that he dared not change anything on his own, otherwise he might not even know how he died.

Liu Damo struggled with this for many years, suffering greatly. In the end, he couldn't resist and secretly measured the land of Huating County by himself during his time off and recorded the findings.

Liu Damo has been doing this for more than a decade. Because he does it very discreetly and mostly in the name of the government, none of his subordinates suspect anything. Even if he is occasionally questioned by his superiors, Liu Damo has plenty of ways to cover it up.

Originally, no one else knew about this, and Liu Damo was quite safe. But the problem was that Liu Damo lacked sufficient awareness of the evil of those around him.

Liu Damo had an excellent relationship with a colleague, whom he even considered a brother. Once, when the two had drunk too much, Liu Damo couldn't help but boast about what he had done.

As a result, this person turned around and betrayed Liu Damo. The next day, after getting drunk at home, Liu Damo suddenly caught fire.

When Liu Damo woke up, he found that he had been rescued by Magistrate Nie, along with his wife and daughter.

Upon learning the truth, Liu Damo broke out in a cold sweat and wished he could slap himself. If he hadn't been so talkative, he wouldn't have brought such a disaster upon his family.

After this incident, Liu Damo's family naturally dared not show their faces again, and the official story was that Liu Damo's family had died in the fire.

In reality, Liu Damo's family, under Nie Bao's protection, dared not show their faces.

Until Zhou Chu arrived.

"My lord, this man is Liu Damo, whom I just mentioned."

Nie Bao had Liu Damo brought before Zhou Chu and said.

Upon hearing this, Zhou Chu looked at the man in front of him, who was nearly forty years old. Although he was not yet forty, he looked unusually old, not much different from his teacher Tang Bohu, who was over fifty.

That's normal. A person under such great psychological pressure, coupled with being a low-level clerk, wouldn't have a high quality of life, so they would generally age quickly.

"Liu Damo, this is Lord Zhou, a very powerful figure with connections to the heavens. In the entire Jiangnan region, only Lord Zhou can make decisions for you."