Chapter 159 Reunion Banquet
Ministry of Justice.
Li Anning leaned back in his chair bored, thinking about other things.
I don’t know whether he can pass the imperial examination. If he can successfully enter the Ministry of Justice, I won’t have to guess every day whether he will come or not.
If he dares not to come, he will be absent from work.
In fact, she had always been like this before.
But she didn't know since when, she had become accustomed to seeing him whenever she looked up.
Li Anning sighed inwardly.
She knew it was not good, but she just couldn't control her inner thoughts.
Li Nuo walked into the yamen and asked, "Are there any cases these two days?"
Li An Ning was about to speak when he saw a faint lip mark on his face. The curve at the corner of his mouth gradually disappeared. He pointed at his own face expressionlessly and handed him the handkerchief.
Li Nuo realized something and wiped his face with a handkerchief, leaving a faint red mark on the white handkerchief.
Li Anning took back the handkerchief and asked, "How are your preparations for the imperial examination going?"
Li Nuo said: "Not bad."
Li Anning glanced at him.
While others were studying hard and practicing the six arts, he was either teaching Song Jiaren how to play the piano or hanging out with Fenghuang. He didn't look like he was preparing properly for the imperial examination.
By then, he won’t be able to pass the spring examination, let alone come to the Ministry of Justice to keep her company.
She glanced at Li Nuo and said, "The competition in this imperial examination is more intense than ever before. You should prepare carefully and don't indulge in love affairs all day long. If you fail, you will have to wait another four years..."
Li Nuo was surprised and asked, "Why is this session more intense than the previous ones?"
Li Anning rolled his eyes at him out of habit and said, "You don't even know these things. I really don't know what you've been doing these days. Don't you care about your competitors in the imperial examinations..."
Li Nuo really never cared about his competitors.
He is using cheats to gain money, why should he care about this?
He sat down opposite Li Anning and said, "Who is your competitor? Tell me about it..."
These were actually inside information. Li An Ning even asked someone to inquire about them. Unexpectedly, Li Nuo didn't care at all. Instead, she was worried about him.
She said unhappily, "There is a student in Jiangnan who is said to have a photographic memory since childhood. He can remember any book after just one glance. He is the top scholar in the rites department. Jinzhou has a rare music genius who appears only once in ten years. He has long vowed to win the top scholar in the music department. What's more different from the past is that most of the young talents of the major wealthy families will also participate in this imperial examination. Those who passed the imperial examination in previous years may not be able to pass the imperial examination this time..."
The Jinshi degree is not based on performance but on ranking.
In recent years, the imperial examinations have been conducted with the top 100 candidates selected, and whether or not one is admitted is closely related to the level of the same year's candidates.
If the levels of other candidates in the same class are average, there is still a possibility of getting into high school even if your ability is slightly weaker.
But if there are many strong people from the same class, some people who could easily make the list in previous years may not even be able to get to the last place on the list of Jinshi.
The imperial examination twenty years ago was undoubtedly extremely difficult.
During that imperial examination, many brilliant talents emerged, and people still talk about them today.
This year's imperial examination happened to be when the new generation of children from the major families had come of age, and other geniuses emerged, so the difficulty was naturally much greater than in the past.
After listening to Li Anning's explanation, Li Nuo realized that his luck was not good.
But he wasn't worried at all.
He was not completely sure of winning the top spot, but he was still confident of being in the top 100.
Seeing that Li Nuo looked indifferent, Li An Ning asked, "Tell me honestly, how confident are you that you will pass the imperial examination?"
Li Nuo did not boast first, shook his head and said: "How can I know now? Let's wait until we pass the spring exam..."
Li Anning seemed to care more about his imperial examination than Li Nuo himself.
My wife didn't even ask him about these things.
In the afternoon, when Li Nuo returned to the Song family from the Ministry of Justice, his wife had already returned.
They were reading books at the table, and Li Nuo would look up at her from time to time.
Song Jiaren noticed Li Nuo's actions, looked at him and asked, "What's wrong?"
Li Nuo lowered his head to read a book and said, "Nothing."
They kissed in the morning, but in the evening they pretended nothing happened.
But Li Nuo has gotten used to her like this.
Although she was too shy to say it, her body was quite honest.
At night, when they were going to bed, Li Nuo said, "My wife, let's go back to the Li family tomorrow and come back after the Lantern Festival."
Today is the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month, and the Chinese New Year is only a few days away.
She is already a married daughter, and strictly speaking, she is a member of the Li family.
There's nothing wrong with living in the Song Mansion on a daily basis.
However, on important festivals such as New Year's Eve and Lantern Festival, a married daughter is not allowed to stay in her parents' home.
This is the custom of Daxia.
Song Jiaren nodded and said, "Okay."
Naturally, she also understood these etiquettes.
After a while, they both went to bed to rest.
Because of the kiss during the day, Li Nuo felt that the relationship between the two seemed to have become closer, and the distance between them could naturally be closer.
So he moved closer to his wife.
His arm pressed against his wife's arm.
Soft, smooth, and cool.
Although the two of them usually share the same quilt, there is still some distance between them.
Song Jiaren closed her eyes and felt Li Nuo's movements. Her eyelashes trembled slightly, her heartbeat accelerated, and her body immediately became tense.
But the next moment, Li Nuo moved inside again and returned to his position.
My wife's body is really soft and smooth, but also really cold.
If it is summer, it must be very comfortable to sleep with her in my arms.
But it's winter now, and it's a bit unbearable to be so close to her...
…
The next morning, Li Nuo and Song Jiaren packed up their things, informed the old lady, said goodbye to Mu'er, and left the Song Mansion.
Song Muer stood at the door and waved to them. She waited until the carriage drove away before she walked back to the Song Mansion. As she walked, she muttered, "Where has Song Ning'er gone again..."
In the past few months, Song Ning'er has been elusive, and sometimes she is not seen for a whole day.
Every time she came back, she was very tired, and Song Muer suspected that she was practicing martial arts secretly behind her back.
However, she was not worried about it at all.
She has a beautiful sister to teach her, and she will never be able to catch up with herself...
Li Mansion.
Although this is his home, Li Nuo hasn't been back for a long time.
The mood I had when I left home last time was completely different from how it is now.
He held his wife's hand and stood in front of two adjacent courtyards.
In the past, my wife lived on the left and Li Nuo lived on the right.
The two of them stayed in the same room at the Song Mansion, but would separate again when they returned to the Li House.
But times are different now.
Li Nuo turned to look at Song Jiaren and asked, "Should we go to your place or to my place?"
Song Jiaren said softly: "All is fine."
Li Nuo finally chose to sleep in his room. When two maids came in with two quilts, Li Nuo waved his hand and said, "One quilt is enough. Take the other one back..."
Song Jiaren stood beside him and said nothing.
After the two maids left the yard with the quilt in their arms, one of them asked in surprise, "Young Master and Young Madam, could it be that..."
Another person said, "Of course they are. They sleep in the same bed and use the same quilt. I don't know what happened in the past few months, but the young master and the young mistress suddenly became so affectionate..."
"Nonsense, the young master now is no longer the young master before!"
"I heard that the young master wrote a lot of love poems to the young mistress!"
"Hehe, the young master is handsome and can write poetry, so it's normal for the young mistress to change her mind..."
…
For the next few days, Li Nuo basically stayed in the mansion.
As the New Year approaches, the imperial court is on holiday and the government offices are sealed. Except for the necessary staff on duty and prison managers, the Ministry of Justice is also closed. It will not reopen until the fourth day of the first lunar month.
However, these days, my father is still in the Dali Temple.
He did not return to Li's Mansion until noon on New Year's Eve.
Although the Li Mansion was not as lively as the Song Family, the decoration of the house on New Year's Eve was not casual at all.
The maids and servants decorated the palace with lanterns and colors. Li Nuo had just hung up a lantern when Prince Chun came in and said, "Stop working. All of you should go to the palace tonight to have a reunion dinner. A reunion dinner needs more people to be lively. I've asked someone to call An Ning..."
Every year on New Year’s Eve, the royal family would eat the reunion dinner together.
But since ten years ago, His Majesty has rarely appeared in public. At first, he would come out once a year on New Year's Eve to hold a family dinner in the palace, but later he simply skipped this event.
After that, each royal palace celebrated its own New Year’s Eve.
The fact that Prince Chun personally came to the Li family at such an important time and invited them to the palace for a reunion dinner showed that he really regarded them as a family.
Li Xuanjing said, "The mansion has already prepared the food, so I won't go to the palace to disturb you."
Prince Chun didn't listen to a word, sat down on the chair, and said, "What the hell are you bothering me with? Are you going or not? If you don't want to go, I won't leave today..."
Li Nuo and his family finally got on the carriage to Prince Chun's Mansion.
Although Prince Chun’s Mansion is large, it actually has only three owners, just like the Li Mansion.
Prince Chun, Princess Chun, and Crown Prince Li Yun.
Unlike other princes who all had a principal wife and several concubines, Prince Chun had only one principal wife and only one son.
Crown Prince Li Yun is a few months older than Li Nuo and has not yet married.
Li Anning's mother died early, and the royal family's family banquets had been cancelled for several years. On this year's New Year's Eve, Prince Chun had her invited to Prince Chun's Mansion.
Watching Li Nuo and Song Jiaren walk hand in hand into Prince Chun's Mansion, Li An Ning felt an indescribable feeling in his heart.
If she had known they were coming, she would not have come.
It's fine if you don't come, but if you come, you still have to see their love...
The man who once held her hand was now holding another woman's hand, and she couldn't feel any dissatisfaction about it. She felt bitter in her heart, and she had no one to talk to...
(End of this chapter)
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