Chapter 89 This is how a petty person gains power.
Before the Great Sheng Empire, there were two empress dowagers. One was the empress of the late emperor. After the late emperor passed away, His Majesty immediately ascended the throne, and the empress naturally became the empress dowager.
The other is the biological mother of the current emperor and the carefree prince.
The two empress dowagers lived in the East and West Palaces respectively, sharing the same honor.
The one who passed away earlier was the Empress Dowager Dong, who was the late emperor's empress.
The one Yu Zixuan mentioned who was mentally unstable was the Empress Dowager Cixi.
That evening, the Yu family returned to the mansion. Upon learning that Yu Zhiyi had refused to help rescue Yu Jiaojiao, the young men were all very angry. The second young man, Yu Mingyu, had a cold glint in his eyes: "She thinks she's all grown up and no longer needs our Yu family. She's even stopped pretending."
Si Lang Yu Ninggui said with a nonchalant air, "That's how it is when a petty person gets ahead."
Yu Mengqin frowned: "Alright, let's not talk about unlucky people, let's get down to business."
Seeing that his brothers had quieted down, Minister Yu made the final decision: "Let's do as Zixuan said and go find that divine doctor."
Yu Mengqin's eyes flashed with a sharp light: "That's not enough. We need to link this matter to Jiaojiao so that His Majesty can see Jiaojiao's merits and make her atone for her crime."
Minister Yu clapped his hands: "Yes, yes! I will go to the palace right away and say that only Jiao Jiao knows where the divine doctor is, and only Jiao Jiao can persuade the divine doctor to come. In this way, Jiao Jiao will be released."
"Once the divine physician is brought in and the Empress Dowager recovers, His Majesty will surely be lenient towards Jiaojiao because of her contributions."
Zheng concluded, "If all else fails, we'll have to use that..."
Yu Zhiyi was unaware of the concerted efforts her family was making to rescue Yu Jiaojiao. That night, she had a rare dream.
In her dream, a little boy ran after her, and she couldn't shake him off no matter what she did. Finally, she stopped and glared at him fiercely: "I'm not your sister!"
The boy's eyes were innocent and his expression was honest. He wiped away the tears on his face and said, "Sister Yi will always be my sister. Xuan'er will never disown you."
"I know, someone must be bullying you. I'll go teach them a lesson!"
"Don't be afraid, Sister Yi, Xuan'er will protect you."
"When Xuan'er grows up, I will buy Yi-jie lots and lots of beautiful clothes and pretty hairpins, and I will also give Yi-jie a big estate so that you will never have to worry about food and clothing for the rest of your life."
When Yu Zhiyi woke up, she found her eyelashes were wet.
She wiped away the dampness with a blank expression and sneered, "I really shouldn't have gone to sleep."
In the following days, the Yu family did not bother her again, and Yu Zhiyi's mood calmed down.
That day, Du Ziheng came over excitedly: "Zhiyi, my bookstore is holding a literary competition, do you want to go and take a look?"
Yu Zhiyi was taken aback: "Literary Youth Competition? What's that?"
Du Ziheng explained, "Before, didn't my bookstore promise that we would hold a competition every now and then, and the winning student would receive a prize of ten taels of silver?"
"After I took over the bookstore, I continued this practice. From then on, the bookstore held a competition every month, and the winners were not limited to the first place, but the top three."
"Today is the monthly literary competition, would you like to come with me?"
As the saying goes, you should get up from where you fell down.
The bookstore incident made him lose face in front of Yu Zhiyi. After much agonizing reflection, he decided to make the bookstore a success and racked his brains to come up with a new policy.
The literary and artistic competition is just one of many methods.
In addition, he adjusted You Bingyue's strategy: poor scholars and peddlers who could not afford books could still read in the bookstore, but the bookstore would no longer provide free tea and snacks.
To prevent people from taking advantage of the situation in the bookstore, he also stipulated that those who read books for free must have a reflection within three days.
You can write down your thoughts or recite the contents of the book you are studying.
The bookstore will provide pencils, brushes, and paper.
A pencil is a convenient and portable pen made from charcoal. A hundred years ago, the eldest princess of the Galo Empire was the first to discover this type of pen and popularize it.
Pencils are inexpensive, costing only a few coins each, making them affordable for ordinary families.
However, this type of pen can only be used for daily practice and not for formal writing, because the writing is easily erased.
Nanfeng Bookstore will provide each participant with a pencil for practicing dictation, and will only provide a calligraphy brush during the official competition.
Whether it's reading, reciting, or memorizing, the bookstore won't charge you. The only requirement is that during the official competition, the essays written by the participants must be left for the academy to use for free.
A bright smile graced Du Ziheng's gentle face, his eyes gleaming: "Guess what the use is of these surviving articles?"
His bright eyes gleamed with a hint of anticipation and self-satisfaction.
Yu Zhiyi: "Those with mediocre handwriting will be bound together and provided to other scholars in the future. This will save on book costs and reduce wear and tear on existing books. Those with good handwriting will either be framed and hung in the shop for future readers to appreciate, or they will be given as prizes to scholars who achieve excellent results in later competitions."
"Whether it is hung up or given away as a prize, it is an incentive for scholars and can motivate them to make progress."
"Over time, the bookstore's reputation will truly spread, attracting more outstanding people to participate in competitions and read books. In this way, it can not only boost the business of the store, but also truly realize the role of the bookstore."
Du Ziheng's smile gradually froze.
Hmm.
His wife is too smart, which makes him feel like he has no sense of accomplishment.
However, a moment later, his smile became even brighter.
He felt that his good intentions had been appreciated and that he had met a kindred spirit.
But soon, that smile turned bitter.
He once thought his wife, whom he thought he would hate, understood him so well, but his soulmate, whom he thought was his soulmate, got angry with him over this.
Simply because he denied her efforts.
"Yes, my reforms did cause the bookstore to lose money in the short term, but! Which business doesn't need to invest upfront? And the so-called loss is just because I helped you purchase a large number of new books."
"These books will be sold in the future, or they will attract other people to read them. In any case, they won't grow wings and run away."
"Membership fees come in every month. This is only the first month, and we've already collected several hundred taels in membership fees. It will only increase in the future."
"It won't be long before the membership fees make up for the previous losses and turn the company into a profit."
"Why are you so impatient? Can't you wait a few more months?"
"Your so-called reforms are the real money-losers; they're completely useless except for wasting money on paper and pens!"
These questions gave him a headache.
Author's Note: Chapter 85 has been added, so today's update is equivalent to three chapters. Mwah!
Also, this book is a channel-published book, so it probably can't be tipped? (This is just the author's guess.)
There's also the story of Joseph Academy, which is related to the promotion of pencils. Basically, a time-traveling woman with a system didn't utilize pencils properly. Later, Princess Jialuo accidentally discovered the pencils' usefulness and took it upon herself to promote them. The time-traveling woman was unhappy and tried to take away the pencil's research and development funds, so Princess Jialuo used half of the pencil's profits to establish this academy, allowing children from poor families to attend school for free. Furthermore, she founded the first girls' academy in the Sheng Kingdom.
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