"I have met Master Zhang."
Song Payun left the two servants outside and went in alone, bowing to Zhang Mingzhi very respectfully.
Zhang Mingzhi picked up the half bowl of remaining porridge. Well, it’s just cool enough to drink. Just now, it was because the porridge was too hot that our Lord Zhang almost choked to death on the bun.
Zhang Mingzhi mused over his rice porridge. He said Cambodian rice was delicious, much better than the rice grown by Qinghe in Xichuan. He didn't know why this place was so blessed with good natural conditions, with three or four harvests a year and such good rice. And yet, they could still starve to death...
"Students? I teach at Qinghe College. I've met all my students, but none of them are like you."
Zhang Mingzhi pretended to be ignorant even though he knew the truth.
"Master Zhang, some time ago, my father donated a scholar's title to a student, which allowed him to meet officials without kneeling."
Songpayun said calmly.
He had long expected that Zhang Mingzhi would cause trouble for him, so he didn't care about Zhang Mingzhi's sarcasm.
Of course, anyone with normal intelligence would say it doesn't matter when looking at Liu Sanwa and the straight knife standing aside.
"Scholar, there's no such thing in Qinghe. What does this mean? Primary school graduation?"
Zhang Mingzhi put down the bowl and looked at the plate of pickles next to it, but found that the pickles had been eaten up. However, if there were no cooked pickles with spicy oil mixed in the porridge, the porridge would become tasteless.
Zhang Mingzhi slapped the table, and Liu Sanwa immediately understood and turned around to call Song Wusao.
Zhang Mingzhi looked at Song Wusao, who was wearing a coarse apron and had an honest face. He knew that one should not judge a person by appearance. He was very clear about Song Wusao's battle record, so he said politely:
"Fifth sister-in-law, please give us some more pickles. And give this former scholar a bowl of porridge. He's a scholar after all, and you see how hungry he is."
Mrs. Song Wu readily agreed, and soon brought a small plate of pickles and a large bowl of porridge and placed them on the table in front of Zhang Mingzhi.
Zhang Mingzhi said that he asked for breakfast for Song Payun, but he didn't ask him to eat. He just picked up a pickle with chopsticks and looked at Song Payun with amusement.
Song Payun was a bachelor. He gave a self-deprecating smile, knelt on the ground, and said loudly: "I am Song Payun, a humble servant, and I am honored to meet the County Master."
Zhang Mingzhi looked very surprised. Seeing Song Payun kneeling firmly, he said calmly, "Hey, we're not in court, and I'm not wearing official uniform. Why are you doing this? Hurry up and get up. You haven't had breakfast yet. Come, have some porridge first."
Song Payun first thanked Zhang Mingzhi, then looked at the bowl of porridge, then glanced at the pickles, and hesitated.
Since he didn't know Song Wusao's battle record, he was not afraid of Zhang Mingzhi poisoning her, but who could have expected that he would be invited to breakfast today?
He had anticipated that things would not go smoothly today, and he might have to spend the whole day in the yamen with Zhang Mingzhi. In order to prevent Zhang Mingzhi from deliberately delaying his meals and starving him, he specially asked the cook to prepare an extremely sumptuous breakfast in the morning.
Let's put it this way, although Songpa's house in the county town is not as big as the farm outside, it is well-equipped with everything. The chefs prepared at least ten dishes for him early in the morning according to his instructions, including a sweet and sour pork base that is well-known in the southwest region. He completely ignored his image and forced all the food into his stomach, which made him walk carefully all the way, for fear that if he jumped around casually, the braised lion's head would fall out of his throat.
Now it’s okay, I still have to drink a bowl of porridge.
What the hell.
Also, are these people in Qinghe so poor that they have never had a full meal?
Whose bowl is bigger than his head?
This is not a bowl, it's a basin!
Song Payun thanked Zhang Mingzhi again, picked up the bowl, blew on it, gently touched his lower lips with the porridge, then took a breath as if he was scalded, and quickly put the bowl down again.
Using such superb acting skills, he expressed that it’s not that I don’t give you face, but that the porridge is too hot and I can’t drink it now. This should be fine, right?
Songpayun secretly admired himself.
"Okay, then wait a minute. Tell me, what's going on with Songpahuang?"
Seeing this, Zhang Mingzhi did not force it and asked straight to the point.
"Sir, we are truly unaware of what happened to Songpahuang."
As usual, come up and protest your innocence first.
"Although that person also has the surname Songpa, he is not even remotely related to our family. Not to mention the five generations of kinship, there is no such person in the family tree."
Having said that, Song Payun quickly pulled out a family tree from his bosom and respectfully handed it to Zhang Mingzhi with both hands, saying, "Please understand this, sir."
Zhang Mingzhi took it, flipped through it casually, and placed it on the table. He tapped the family tree twice with his right index finger and said, "Be more careful next time. The ink on this family tree isn't even dry yet. How come it's just been written?"
Song Payun was covered in cold sweat. As the incident happened suddenly, he had someone copy the family tree overnight. The rest of the book was exactly the same as the one in the ancestral hall, except that Song Payun's name was missing.
However, the Songpa family has grown too rapidly in recent years, with a large population. The genealogy contains too much content, and the copyist made mistakes in a hurry and made mistakes twice. He had to start over from the beginning, which wasted time.
I originally thought that if there were any mistakes in the copying, it would be fine, as I expected Zhang Mingzhi would not look closely. But in the end, based on the principle of being lenient towards the enemy, I still had someone recopy it.
I didn't expect such a mistake to happen.
While Songpayun was racking his brains to come up with an excuse, Zhang Mingzhi pushed the family tree to the ground and said, "It doesn't matter. We will all die in the end anyway. I won't kill people according to the list you gave me."
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