Hold His Hand

The next day, Lu Yanzhou went to King Rui’s teahouse to meet King Rui.

Lu Yanzhou knew that King Rui must have sent someone to watch him, so he didn’t hide anything about what he did, and told all the things he did in Jingning Temple, and said: “The crown prince is really angling for fame, I act like this and he really treats me differently.”

King Rui already knew that Xie Chengze had delivered things to Lu Yanzhou several times, he also felt that Lu Yanzhou had done a good job, so he looked at Lu Yanzhou affectionately and said, “Jizhi, you have worked hard.”

Lu Yanzhou pretended to be flattered: “It’s my honor to be able to work for wangye.”

Lu Yanzhou accompanied King Rui in a play, as for what kind of play…it was naturally the play in which he had the deepest affection for King Rui and was willing to devote himself to King Rui until he died.

In the process of acting, he also discovered that King Rui should know the original owner’s feelings and intend to guide him.

He also thinks so. If King Rui didn’t respond, how could the original owner fall deeper and deeper?

Lu Yanzhou didn’t tell King Rui about Xie Chengze’s physical condition or even his sexual orientation, he only said some things that Xie Chengze said when he talked to him: “I have only met the crown prince three times, so we didn’t talk much.”

Knowing that Xie Chengze even gave Lu Yanzhou the books that Wang Linyuan personally wrote and commented on, King Rui said: “He values you very much, he probably wants to cultivate you into a confidant. You can stay by his side and wait for the opportunity.”

Lu Yanzhou immediately agreed. King Rui saw that he agreed, so stretched out his hand to hold Lu Yanzhou’s hand and said something like if he can achieve great things in the future, he will treat Lu Yanzhou well.

Fortunately, he probably felt disgusted with himself because he didn’t like men, so he quickly let go of Lu Yanzhou’s hand, otherwise Lu Yanzhou won’t be able to bear it.

After making a bunch of promises, King Rui said, “Are you still short of money?”

Lu Yanzhou was kind and generous, with a distressed look on his face: “Recently, the expenses are a bit high…”

King Rui immediately said: “I will tell the accountant to give you some later.”

Lu Yanzhou was moved: “Then, thank you, wangye!”

Lu Yanzhou used to work purely for King Rui. After all, King Rui is a prince, even if he has ‘respect for the wise’, he will not be too close to Lu Yanzhou.

But now King Rui needs Lu Yanzhou to get close to the crown prince, and the crown prince is extraordinarily generous in his actions, even giving away notes written by Sir Wang Linyuan…In order to prevent Lu Yanzhou from joining the crown prince, King Rui’s attitude towards Lu Yanzhou changed drastically, he was extremely generous in giving Lu Yanzhou money.

When Lu Yanzhou met with King Rui, he didn’t provide any useful information, but took away a lot of money.

After returning to Jingning Temple, Lu Yanzhou gave the money to Lu Rong.

Lu Rong asked, “Where did the money come from?”

Lu Yanzhou said: “King Rui gave it to me. He asked me to approach the crown prince and wait for an opportunity, so he naturally had to give me money.”

Lu Rong looked at the bank note in her hand and didn’t know what to say for a moment.

Then, Lu Yanzhou said: “Seventh sister, you take this money and use it to help the poor people. The crown prince likes simple and kind people, I want to perform the show well.”

Lu Rong could only agree.

As soon as Lu Rong agreed, Xie Chengze sent someone to deliver something. What he sent was a high-quality inkstone, ten high-quality brushes, and some exquisite food.

Lu Yanzhou accepted the gift with a smile, then asked Chang Feng to take out a wooden box and give it to the other party as a gift in return.

Then, when he returned to the room, Lu Yanzhou put away his smile and said to Lu Rong: “Compared to King Rui, the crown prince is still more generous. This inkstone is very valuable, there is probably only one in the East Palace.”

Lu Rong wanted revenge wholeheartedly, but seeing her younger brother like this, she always felt a little uncomfortable.

However, she had to admit that her little brother was quite powerful.

This…King Rui and the crown prince are giving her brother money!

Lu Yanzhou suddenly said: “By the way, seventh sister, it will take some time to deal with King Rui and the others, but the Han family…I can make them suffer for what they did years ago.”

Hearing the word ‘Han family’, Lu Rong trembled. She suddenly raised her head to look at Lu Yanzhou.

A cold light flashed in Lu Yanzhou’s eyes: “Isn’t it just for fame and fortune? Now I want them to fetch water from bamboo baskets.”

The Han family that Lu Yanzhou mentioned was the family that was engaged to Lu Rong back then and later sold Lu Rong.

Old master Lu saved the life of the Han family back then. At that time, it was a chaotic period. The Han family, who was barely regarded as a scholarly family, couldn’t survive the troubled times, so they joined the Lu family.

After the founding of the Great Jin Dynasty, the children of the Han family all had official positions, so they no longer relied on the Lu family. However, the Han family and the Lu family were still close at that time. Therefore, Lu Rong got engaged to the second young master of the Han family at a young age.

Seventeen years ago, something happened to the Lu family. They didn’t ask the Han family to intercede for the Lu family. They only asked the Han family to save Lu Rong. At that time, Lu Rong’s father, who was Lu Yanzhou’s second uncle, knew that the male would not be able to save, so they use all their money as Lu Rong’s dowry and sent her to the Han family, hoping that the Han family would treat Lu Rong better.

There is a saying that the guilty fall short of a married woman. In the previous dynasties, even if officials were sentenced to punish nine clans, it was only for men while the wives and daughters were just demoted to slaves.

In fact, they don’t dare to kill them all today. They mainly target the Lu family, actually, the men of the Lu family. At that time, the younger generation of the Lu family divorced their wives, so those women also got their lives saved when they returned to their natal families.

Therefore, the Han family could definitely keep Lu Rong safe.

Even if the Han family forced Lu Rong to become a nun, Lu Rong and Lu Yanzhou would not hate them, but in the end…they sold Lu Rong.

And, they sell her to that kind of dirty place too!

Of course, there were other reasons why Lu Yanzhou was so anxious to attack their family that he couldn’t even wait until the new year.

The Han family now belongs to the crown prince party, and the person in charge of the imperial examination happens to be the father of Lu Rong’s ex-fiance!

This person is very good at pleasing people but he is only average in learning. Back then, he became Wang Linyuan’s student by sending money and things to Wang Linyuan, who had some difficulties in his family then.

This Master Han is a villain through and through. He also has a fatal flaw, that is, he loves money.

In addition, his life was so smooth these years that he seemed to be floating.

Adding these two things together…This Master Han collected some money from Juren before the spring exam. Although he didn’t reveal the exam questions, he also pointed out some directions.

Some officials greeted him on behalf of their children, and he obliged.

The original owner met Lu Rong before new year eve, before the start of the Spring Festival. At that time, Lu Rong’s husband had just been torn to pieces by five horses, so Lu Rong’s obsession with revenge was very deep.

Seeing this, King Rui used Lu Rong and the original owner to deal with the Han family, intending to cut off the crown prince’s arm.

So, together with the original owner, Lu Rong incited people in the capital to make trouble after the spring exam, and spend money to ‘human lives’, so the people, who sold their lives, stop the crown prince’s carriage to sue the Han family for robbing people’s fields and forcing people to die. After suing, they were immediately run over.

With such a multi-pronged approach, Xie Chengze naturally wanted to investigate the Han family, and then found out many problems.

Let’s not talk about the spring exam for now. The Han family used to work on a post outside, and they have done a lot of messy things. Not only have they neglected human lives, they have even embezzled disaster relief funds!

It was also because of this that no one found out that the person who made the initial complaint was fake. Even the Han family themselves thought that someone among them had indeed done that.

In short, after all the trouble, the Han family was gone.

This incident has a great impact on the crown prince. This is the first time the crown prince presides over the spring exam, and he uses his people but it ended up like this…The crown prince’s prestige in the court plummeted, and the people on King Rui’s side have become more and more arrogant.

People outside who don’t know the truth think that the crown prince and the Han family were together, so they also think that the crown prince’s virtue is just like that too.

That Master Han is a rotten egg full of cracks. Sooner or later, there will be flies staring at him. Even without him and Lu Rong, King Rui would definitely do something if he found something wrong after the spring exam.

As long as the task is set…Master Han won’t be able to resist the investigation!

Rather than letting King Rui do something after the spring exam, it’s better to pull Master Han off his horse before the spring exam. Like this, the impact on the crown prince will be smaller.

If the crown prince handles it properly, he can even earn a reputation as a wise and righteous person.

Even if the crown prince didn’t do anything…it’s not a bad thing, at least he got rid of a moth around the crown prince.

The crown prince is the orthodox one, as long as he doesn’t make a big mistake, King Rui won’t be able to do anything to him. In the original owner’s memory, King Rui has done so many things, then finally got his wish to move into the East Palace after killing the crown prince.

If Lu Yanzhou didn’t have the original owner’s memory, it would be difficult to find evidence against the Han family, but he has the original owner’s memory.

In the original owner’s memory, all the things that the Han family has done have already been investigated and interrogated, including…the Lu family’s incident seventeen years ago, those evidence was provided by the Han family.

In order to show his loyalty to the current emperor, Master Han not only sold Lu Rong but also forged some evidence that the Lu family intended to rebel.

Lu Rong said: “The Han family is in full swing, it’s not easy to deal with them.”

“Seventh sister, don’t worry, I have a way to deal with them.” Lu Yanzhou said.

When Lu Yanzhou was talking with Lu Rong, Xie Chengze had just received the gift from Lu Yanzhou.

The sesame balls sent by Lu Yanzhou have not been finished yet, so what is it this time?

Opening the wooden box, Xie Chengze saw a small bamboo toy. This is…a small roller that will roll when he presses it with his fingers?

This thing is very interesting, but not exquisite. Lu Yanzhou gave it to him because it was made by Lu Yanzhou himself?

Xie Chengze saw the word ‘Lu’ engraved on the roller and liked it even more.

He played with it for a while, then put it away on his bedside.

Although he knew that he should stay away from Lu Yanzhou, after thinking about it for a long time… Xie Chengze still planned to go see Lu Yanzhou again in a few days.

A few days passed in the blink of an eye, and Xie Chengze came to Jingning Temple again.

Lu Yanzhou was very happy to see Xie Chengze, so he took Xie Chengze for a stroll around Jingning Temple and talked with him by the way.

When the two were chatting, Lu Yanzhou tested him a bit. He pretended to unintentionally mention that some sinecure officials were corrupt and tend to accept bribes.

Xie Chengze disliked such people most.

“If brother Cheng is an official, he must be a good one.” Lu Yanzhou laughed.

Xie Chengze also laughed: “Jizhi will definitely become a good official.”

“Brother Cheng said so, I will definitely live up to Brother Cheng’s expectations!” Lu Yanzhou assured, and then asked Xie Chengze: “Brother Cheng, I am going to teach the children to read today, do you want to come with me?”

When Lu Yanzhou has time recently, he will teach the children to read and write.

Not only the children here can learn, but also the children in the village can come to learn. He even built a house as a classroom for this purpose.

In order to ensure lighting, the windows in this classroom are very large, and the windows are not closed during class. They were as cold and dirty as they can get.

They didn’t have a complete set of desks and chairs, so they mostly used some stones and wood as stools, and sat in the classroom messily.

The teaching environment was poor, but Xie Chengze still agreed, so he followed Lu Yanzhou into the classroom without any disgust.

Xie Chengze’s teachers were all great scholars. He was eager to learn back then, so he was able to sit on the stool for an hour when he was still not as tall as the dinner table.

Seeing the children Lu Yanzhou teaching couldn’t sit still on the stool as if there were thorns on the stool made him feel strange. He didn’t know how to teach them, so he stood aside in a daze.

Seeing him like this, Lu Yanzhou was a little amused. He took a copper hand stove and handed it to Xie Chengze, so that Xie Chengze wouldn’t be cold. After thinking about it, he asked Chang Feng to find a sheepskin cloak with a hat and put it on for Xie Chengze.

Xie Chengze, who was like a banished immortal standing there before, when wrapped in this sheepskin cloak, he seemed a little down to earth in an instant, it was also really warm…

Lu Yanzhou didn’t think it was enough, so he called again: “Chang Feng, go and get another hand stove and some boiling water, and a small table too.”

Chang Feng quickly brought the hand stove and a small table, then Lu Yanzhou moved a stool for Xie Chengze to sit on and put the hand stove in front of him, so that the heat could warm his legs.

The small table was placed by Xie Chengze’s hand. After setting everything up, Lu Yanzhou said, “Brother Cheng, if you feel cold, drink some hot water.”

Xie Chengze was dumbfounded by Lu Yanzhou’s actions: “I’m not teaching children with you here, I’m clearly watching you teach children while warming up.”

“I like when Brother Cheng looks at me.” Lu Yanzhou smiled.

Xie Chengze smiled at Lu Yanzhou, then quickly turned his head and made a gesture of drinking tea with both hands, as if he wanted to drink tea to relieve his embarrassment.

However, he didn’t have the teacup in his hand, instead he had the copper hand stove that Lu Yanzhou gave him.

The copper hand stove was brought to his mouth…Xie Chengze froze but Lu Yanzhou smiled.

Afraid of Xie Chengze’s embarrassment, Lu Yanzhou didn’t laugh out loud, but quickly put away his smile and started to get down to business.

While telling stories to these children, he taught them common words.

Of course, he didn’t forget Xie Chengze. He would talk to Xie Chengze from time to time, then asked Chang Feng to fry some pumpkin seeds for Xie Chengze to eat.

Xie Chengze: “…” Sitting like this in front of the classroom, he looked like a landlord supervising the work of the long-term workers.

It felt quite good?

Xie Chengze felt very comfortable chatting with Lu Yanzhou, and watching Lu Yanzhou teach also made him feel happy.

In the palace, he lived every day with great cautiousness. Only when he came to Jingning Temple could he relax.

It’s just that Lu Yanzhou occasionally does some intimate actions with him, which always makes his heart beat uncontrollably.

This was an extremely novel experience, and while he felt it was inappropriate, he couldn’t help but look forward to it.

Just as he was distracted, Xie Chengze suddenly saw Lu Rong standing at the window with her child on her back. At this moment, Lu Rong’s child was awake and was looking at him with wide eyes.

He smiled at the other party, thought for a moment, then grabbed a handful of pumpkin seeds and walked over, handing them to Lu Rong: “Sister-in-law Zhu, do you want some pumpkin seeds?”

Lu Rong took the pumpkin seeds and whispered, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Xie Chengze said, “It’s cold outside, why don’t sister-in-law Zhu take the child back to the house first.”

Lu Yanzhou spoke highly of the Zhu family’s wife, saying that she was very capable, so Xie Chengze also treated her differently.

Of course, there was another reason for Xie Chengze to talk to her, that is, every time he saw Lu Rong walking around with the child on her back, he would be worried that the child would be frozen.

“Mm.” Lu Rong responded and left with the child on her back.

It wasn’t until it was dark that Lu Yanzhou sent Xie Chengze away. When Xie Chengze left, he still didn’t forget to give Xie Chengze another clay pot filled with sesame balls.

When Xie Chengze’s carriage disappeared, Lu Yanzhou reluctantly looked away.

How wonderful the last world was. After he took Xie Chengze back from Xie’s house, Xie Chengze stayed by his side and never left, but this world is different.

There is a big gap between him and Xie Chengze’s identities, and Xie Chengze is also very busy, so it takes several days for them to meet each other.

After the spring exam and he passed the palace exam, he will become an official. He wondered if he could see Xie Chengze a few more times then.

As for the relationship between the two of them…Lu Yanzhou was not in a hurry.

At this moment, there are many things between him and Xie Chengze, so he wants to wait for these things to be resolved before confessing his love to Xie Chengze.

Of course, this does not conflict with his desire to get along with Xie Chengze.

Thinking of what to do next, Lu Yanzhou restrained his emotions, but in the blink of an eye, he saw Lu Rong standing not far away.

Ever since Lu Rong learned that Lu Yanzhou intended to seduce Xie Chengze, she felt very complicated. This time when Xie Chengze came over, she even observed carefully from the side.

Lu Yanzhou was caring towards Xie Chengze, he was indeed deliberately seducing him, and judging from what she saw…Xie Chengze had already taken a fancy to Lu Yanzhou.

Xie Chengze is the crown prince, if he hadn’t taken a fancy to Lu Yanzhou, how could he be willing to stay in such a place for a day?

Even the not-so-tasty food they cooked, Xie Chengze ate it up without any disgust.

“Seventh sister, what’s wrong?” Lu Yanzhou asked.

Lu Rong shook her head: “Nothing.”

“By the way, Seventh Sister, is the money I gave you enough?”

“Enough, what’s the matter?” Lu Rong asked.

Lu Yanzhou lifted the corner of his mouth: “Tomorrow I’m going to ask King Rui for money, I should be able to get a lot.”

Lu Rong: “…”

The next day, Lu Yanzhou did go to find King Rui.

Of course, he didn’t go to King Rui to ask for money, but to ‘show merit’ to King Rui: “My lord, I have been with the crown prince recently and I learned that the crown prince plans to promote Master Han after the spring exam next year. The crown prince even asked Master Han to contact many candidates and wanted to train them as his own people.”

“Is this really true?” King Rui asked hastily.

“It’s definitely true, the crown prince has been talking to me a lot.” Lu Yanzhou said.

Because of his heart disease, Xie Chengze never cared much about power, so he would not try his best to attract courtiers like King Rui.

As for those juren, he will not send people to contact them! That Master Han came into contact with those Juren purely to make money for himself.

However, King Rui always felt that Xie Chengze’s appearance of not caring about anything was just an act, so he believed it when Lu Yanzhou said it.

After he believed it, he became a little anxious – how many people can Xie Chengze recruit after one imperial examination!

Many of these juren were from officials, if they became the crown prince’s people, their families would naturally side with the crown prince too.

The point is, the crown prince doesn’t need to spend even a copper coin to do this!

What about him? In fact, he also had contact with some Juren, but although those Juren were friends with him, they would not work for him. However, if the crown prince talked to them, they would definitely side with him.

Who made the crown prince the right one? At present, most of the affairs in the imperial court are handled by the crown prince.

King Rui was going crazy with jealousy: “What should I do?”

“Wangye, I met someone before. He said that he has a handle on Master Han. If we can pull Master Han off the horse at this juncture, and then make things worse…Wouldn’t wangye be the one to preside over the spring examination then.” Lu Yanzhou said.

He told Lu Rong that he wanted to avenge Lu Rong and get rid of the Han family, but he didn’t have this ability himself, so he could only borrow another person’s knife to kill.

As for who to borrow this knife from…Naturally, it is from King Rui.

“Who are you talking about?” King Rui immediately asked.

Lu Yanzhou said: “He’s a traveling merchant from Gun Prefecture. It is said that when Master Han was an official in Gun Prefecture, he embezzled the money for disaster relief.”

“Does that person really have evidence?” King Rui asked again.

“There should be, it just, he wants money.”

King Rui stood up, walked back and forth eagerly, then finally said: “Money is not a problem, you must get the evidence!”

After finishing speaking, King Rui felt heartache: “Get as much money as you want from the accountant!”

“Thank you, wangye! It’s a pity that I don’t have much property in my family, so I can’t share wangye worries…” Lu Yanzhou looked guilty.

Hearing what Lu Yanzhou said, King Rui remembered how generous Lu Yanzhou had been before.

At that time, he only needed to ask Lu Yanzhou to do things without having to pay him! Lu Yanzhou has always done it by himself!

Thinking how Lu Yanzhou had given him a lot of money before, King Rui didn’t feel so sorry for the money at this time: “How can I keep using Jizhi’s money? Jizhi, don’t worry. Although it’s a difficult time for us now, wait for the future…this king will definitely give you a thousand acres of fertile land!”

Lu Yanzhou looked excited: “Thank you, wangye!”

After Lu Yanzhou returned to Jingning Temple, he gave Lu Rong the money he got from King Rui again.

Lu Rong: “…” Her brother really got money from King Rui!

This is a scam for money and sex…

But this is what the dog emperor asked for! If the dog emperor hadn’t harmed the Lu family…As the ninth young master of the Lu family, why would her brother need to do this?

Lu Yanzhou knew that Lu Rong would feel a little complicated.

He let Lu Rong continue to struggle and began to sort out all the crimes Master Han had committed according to the original owner’s memory.

He was very busy for the past few days, so he never sorted it out.

Lu Yanzhou actually didn’t have any concrete evidence, but after he wrote down all the things that the Han family had committed, how could King Rui not find the evidence easily.

He believed that King Rui wouldn’t let him down.

As for Xie Chengze, he can remind Xie Chengze in advance so that Xie Chengze won’t worry about this matter.

In addition…What he gave Xie Chengze before was not a toy, it was his improved waterwheel.

In order to avoid being found out by the heavenly dao, he had to be careful. However, waterwheels appeared on earth in this period, so it didn’t matter if he took it out.

When Xie Chengze promotes it, it will be a good thing for the country and the people.