A few days after the palace examination, Li Bao's youngest son, Li Huan, was rumored to have contracted the disease of philandering.
The people who heard of this matter were in an uproar, how could they not understand why Li Bao, such a great scholar, the youngest son of his family would have contracted such a disease. Li Bao also shameful, early closed the door of the house no longer accept guests.
Some days ago, Li Bao was highly praised, not only by the literati, but also by the great scholars who lived in seclusion in different parts of Daheng who had written articles praising Li Bao for his offering of punctuation marks, and the letters even flew to Li's residence like snowflakes. This kind of situation makes Li Bao a little fluttering, he seems to be a dozen years younger, his face is rosy, walking is also a step of the wind.
The literati under the sky are so revered themselves, and there is the promise of the saint of three generations of glory in the back, Li Bao has long forgotten the original promise of the saint to do the head out of the fear, only to feel like a new life.
But as soon as the news of Li Huan got out, Li Bao was as if he had been slapped loudly.
He had been cautious for a lifetime, and both times he was tainted because of Li Huan. Li Bao's face reddened as he glared angrily at his young son on the bed, unable to stop himself from saying, "Shame on you, shame on you!"
His eldest son was anxious: "Father, if my brother's illness is criticized, how can I still be an official? I'm ashamed to hear it, and I'll let others laugh at me."
"What will the world think of us? His Holiness has already said that he will keep the Li House intact for three generations, but if this happens when His Holiness wants to promote me, what will His Holiness think of me? My future can't be ruined."
Li Po shouted angrily, "Shut up!"
Li Huan's face was green, his lips trembled, and his handsome face had now become inhuman and wretched. Li Bao usually because of the young son's resourcefulness and cleverness will be extra favored him, the young son looks good, will be pleasing to the people, but since the last time he dared to intrude into the palace alone, Li Bao on him cold down.
How can a son without merit be more important than an entire family?
He was clamped down by the saint because of his young son, who knows that the blessings and the misfortunes of the same, some days ago that scenery, which can know that this will be Li Huan broke into trouble again.
Li Bao thought of those literati great Confucian will be talking about him behind the back when he felt dark fire, he sullen face, alone out of the door of the house.
On the bed, Li Huan was sweating coldly, his consciousness was blurred, but he also heard the words "willow disease".
Since three years ago, after seeing the Holy Spirit of that glimpse, Li Huan flirtation object from the soft women to the beautiful men. Li Huan spends a lot of time drinking and drinking, but even if these men are so beautiful, they are just looking at plums to quench their thirst. He was thinking of the saint, remembering the saint's angry look, the side of the face and red ears, he really want to look at it again.
But before he met His Holiness, he had contracted this dirty disease.
Li Huan heart always feel wrong, but can not say where it is wrong. There are not many people who can survive the disease, Li Huan thought of this, can not help but feel resentful in his heart, his feeble fingers reached out to his waist, and came across an exquisite scented bag.
Someone suddenly asked, "What is this?"
Li Huan subconsciously said, "This is precious."
"Baby," the man muttered, "that must be a good one."
Li Huan suddenly realized that this person's voice was extremely unfamiliar, his heart was startled, however, the next second was a pain in the back of his neck, and he fell into a deep darkness.
*
Xue Yuan's men delivered the scented bag to Xue Yuan.
Xue Yuan held a handkerchief over his mouth and nose and said carelessly, "Is it clean?"
"Don't worry, my lord, we've already disposed of the scented bag," the henchman said, "There will never be any trace of disease left."
Xue Yuan nodded and slowly opened the scented capsule through the handkerchief. A strand of hair in the scented capsule slipped from it, clearly distinguishable on top of the light scented capsule.
Xue Yuan looked at the strand of hair and frowned slightly.
Fingertips twisted the green silk, slowly walked to the door to the hot sun, the green silk as if gilded layer of gold, in the light of the beautiful translucent brilliant.
Xue Yuan's complexion changed suddenly, he turned around and took out the jade box hidden in the depths from the wooden box, in the white jade box is the root of the hair that is neatly organized, Xue Yuan picked up one from it and took a look at it under the sun, such as the one in the scent capsule of Li Huan, which is exactly the same.
As if carved out of gold, it smelled rich from head to toe.
His face clouded over.
Li Huan is really bold and deserves to die.
*
Gu Yuanbai was busy with the Imperial Examination and counting the number of Western Xia people participating in this imperial examination, and did not notice the matter of Li Bao's young son contracting the disease in his house.
After the palace examination, Jinghu South and Jiangnan two places of household registration statistics has been completed, the results finally presented on the table of Gu Yuanbai. The previous concealment of the leakage of households is really very serious, officials personally door to door after counting the population, Jinghu South alone will be more than 600,000 farmers.
This living labor force has been hidden until now.
Gu Yuanbai had long known that there would be a shocking result after counting the household registers and taxes, this project lasted a full two to three years, ensuring that people as small as villages would also be counted by the government, over 600,000 farming households, how many acres of grain could this grow?
Jiangnan's newly counted population is more than 200,000 more than Jinghunan.
Although Gu Yuanbai had expected it, he still felt annoyed in his heart. In the memories of the young emperor, the late emperor was a tired and bitter man, and a large part of the reason was because of the hidden fields and leakage of households.
So in the morning court, he was three parts true and seven parts false, and he lost his temper once.
The officials were also shocked by the results, Gu Yuanbai angry, the capital issued an order to the four sides and asked the provincial government to follow the statistics of the number of households, and now there are Jinghu South and the number of leakage of households in the south of the front, those provinces if you can not find out hundreds of thousands of people are in the falsehoods.
Jinghu South had six hundred thousand men even before the digging was so barren, and with these two provinces presuming the whole country, ten million men were not recorded in the official pamphlets.
As soon as His Holiness lost this temper, the local officials tensed their skins and began to count the household registers from bottom to top.
In addition to the matter of statistical household registration, Gu Yuanbai deliberately let them set up more schools in various places, afraid to wait until a few years later, under the subtle influence can make the matter of school registration inaugurated.
And all these things take time.
While the court place was busy, Gu Yuanbai packed up his things and led the people to step into Xue Yuan's manor at the time of the rest day.
Xue Yuan's manor is nothing special, only a dug out pool and mountains of sweet leaf grass. He wanted to take Gu Yuanbai to teal, and Gu Yuanbai looked at the sky and changed into a thin shirt at noon.
The pool occupies the best piece of spring scenery in the manor, and once the courtyard wall is locked, the slaves fade away, and there are only two people in the courtyard, Gu Yuanbai and Xue Yuan.
Xue Yuan's hand rested loosely on Gu Yuanbai's waist, he wasn't even wearing a thin shirt, only a four-cornered underwear that Gu Yuanbai had sent someone to sew for him, and the hot air smoked onto Gu Yuanbai, "Your Holiness, I'll teach you."
Gu Yuanbai, "I will."
Xue Yuan's face showed surprise, then he smiled, "Then the Holy Spirit came to teach the minister, and the minister did not meet."
Gu Yuanbai said from the bottom of his heart, "Xue Yuan, your cheek is really getting thicker and thicker."
When he got into the water, Gu Yuanbai had thought that even with the blazing sun, the water should be somewhat cool, but with a touch of his fingers, he was surprised to find that the water in the pool was actually hot.
Can't help but look back at Xue Yuan, under this glance, it suddenly felt, "Supervisory officials said with me that you in Huainan day and night banquets and drinks constantly, big fish and meat have become ordinary things. Originally thought you would grow some meat, how come you took off your clothes and took a look, a little bit of false meat did not grow?"
Xue Yuan said blindly without changing his face, "I can't get fat from anything I eat."
In fact, it is afraid of growing meat Gu Yuanbai do not like, every day to spend a long time to make their own body shape to maintain the same handsome appearance in the past.
Gu Yuanbai believed it and went down from the edge of the pool. Xue Yuan was shocked and steeply followed, the holy on the water has scurried out a long way with a movement of the legs, Xue Yuan muttered, "Still really knows water ......"
He coughed his throat, his arm propped up on the edge of the pool, and said in a loud voice: "Your Holiness come to save me, I have not been in the water for a long time, I have forgotten how to teal!"
Gu Yuanbai turned back to look, and his green silk drifted down around him, floated up in the mist by the water. Xue Yuan was so mesmerized by what he saw that he forgot what he had just said, and buried himself in the water and chased after Gu Yuanbai.
Gu Yuanbai raised his eyebrows, the water droplets on his face popping down into the clear pool, "Is this Lord Xue's way of comparing himself to me?"
Xue Yuan reached out and was about to grab his ankle, Gu Yuanbai dodged, the current cut wave marks, and Xue Yuan asked in a mute voice, "Than what?"
"As soon as I entered your manor I saw the mountains of sweet leaf grass," Gu Yuanbai grunted and laughed, "A good manor, not planting some famous flowers and grasses to plant a manor full of cheap weeds, Xue brother, you can be really rustic."
Xue Yuan continued to come closer to him, "His Holiness likes Sweet Leaf Grass."
Gu Yuanbai, "Huh?"
"His Majesty tasted it when he was in the summer palace, but have you forgotten?" Xue Yuan patiently said, "The small grass leaves on the ground, the people will pick some sweet leaf grass to eat when they have no money and have a craving, you will still say sweet."
Gu Yuanbai slowly said, "I remember."
Xue Yuan smiled, "With so many Sweet Leaf Grasses, if Your Holiness wants to go and take a look at them in a while, you can also pick a few leaves with me to taste them."
"Good," Gu Yuanbai suddenly said, "Xue Qing, call me by my word."
Xue Yuan immediately changed his words, "Yuan Bai."
"Good boy," Gu Yuanbai was satisfied, "If I win the competition with you, all these sweet leaf grasses of yours will be mine."
"Then if I win ......" Xue Yuan said slowly, "I am two years older than you, you should call Xue brother."
Gu Yuanbai turned around and swam forward, "Whoever reaches the other shore first wins."
He was very confident, with skill and long legs. Now that he had beaten Xue Yuan by so much, he didn't believe that he could lose to him. But he didn't realize how persistent Xue Yuan was about the term "Brother Xue", Xue Yuan had a hard time and showed no mercy to Gu Yuanbai, reaching the other side of the river first, then swimming back to Gu Yuanbai upside down.
"Your Holiness," urged, "you lose."
Gu Yuanbai looked at him with an uncertain expression, struck with disbelief. He hadn't even gone over yet, and Xue Yuan had already fucking run back?
Xue Yuan circled around Gu Yuanbai, the water circle swinging in waves, "A gentleman's word is a team of horses."
Originally, this word is nothing, brother is brother, put in modern times is nothing at all, Gu Yuanbai has also been called father by many people. But now he was Xue Yuan a pair of burning eyes staring, was coaxed urgently, and did not want to say so simply.
He watched Xue Yuan's impatience with relish, and only when Xue Yuan finally stood up in a hurry did he slowly say, "Brother Xue, let's go, go eat sweet grass."
Xue Yuan, however, plunged headlong into the water, bringing up a gasping rush of water that occasionally resounded with a few excited roars.
Gu Yuanbai smiled as she watched him scurry around in the pool, wiggling his arms and legs, feeling the just-right warmth of the pool, and then looking up at the miles of clear sky, where every cloud was nice to look at.
What a day.
While relaxing, Gu Yuanbai suddenly felt as if he had forgotten something. His thoughts were slowed down by the water, and he closed his eyes to bask in the sunlight for a while before remembering that he had originally planned to take advantage of the recess to find Gu Ran a few children of good character to serve as companions.
Gu Yuanbai's mind spun, and a small adult's face emerged - Chu Wei's young fourth uncle, Chu Liang.