It wasn't just the clubs that reacted fiercely; the citizenry was in an uproar as well.
"By the God of Order, how much do the King and the other lords spend in a year?" Whether in teahouses or taverns, on the streets or in workshops, people were all discussing the "Report."
Consequently, street-level gossip dissecting its text and speculating about the Royal Family began to spread.
"Let me tell you, one day I saw several boatloads of big white geese being sent to the Royal Palace..."
"To eat?"
"Heh heh, you guess..."
Some of them couldn't even recognize all the characters on the cover, with news spreading mainly by word of mouth, inevitably getting distorted as public opinion fermented. The poor simply couldn't imagine how the Royal Palace could spend such an astronomical sum. They could only guess that His Majesty ate white bread sprinkled with gold leaf every day and slept with hundreds of women...
