"Yes, yes, it's all my fault. I should have listened to my mother." An Jingzhi admitted his mistake quickly. It wasn't his fault anyway. The original owner was indeed blind.
Queen Mother Zhou didn't know what to say. Even though he was her son, being cuckolded was an intolerable scandal for any man, let alone the emperor.
In fact, the mother and son had had several quarrels before because of Concubine Yi, and their relationship was not as close as before.
After dealing with Concubine Yi, An Jingzhi would often go to the Empress Dowager's Cining Palace to pay his respects, and the relationship between mother and son also eased a lot.
"Zhao'er is a good child. Although her words are sometimes unpleasant to the ear, she is pure-hearted and can't hide her feelings. She speaks her mind. I can see that she truly loves you."
It's more than just love, her whole heart is focused on her son and she can no longer see anyone else in her eyes. But liking an emperor is a very painful thing, because the emperor's heart cannot be focused on only one woman.
It is true that the late emperor had devoted his heart to her, but he also used many tricks. If she had not used any tricks at all, would the late emperor still love her so much? The queen mother thought of this and shook her head.
If she doesn't use some means, it's uncertain how long she can live.
Life is difficult for women in the harem, so when she sees that Queen Zhou Wenzhao is innocent and all her thoughts are revealed on her face, she will take extra care of her, express her love, and hope that she can always live a carefree life.
Although she was favored by the late emperor in the harem, her life was not smooth sailing. She had lost a child, a girl, who died prematurely at seven months old.
The Empress Dowager often wondered if her daughter, who died just after birth, were still alive, she would probably be as old as Zhou Wenzhao, right?
After An Jingzhi had come into contact with the queen a few times, he actually realized that she was indeed a heartless girl, cute and adorable, with all her likes and dislikes revealed on her face.
After living in the palace for a few years, the other party began to control his temper a lot.
But when facing An Jingzhi, he couldn't help but reveal his true self.
"I understand, mother. Wen Zhao is indeed a good girl."
Perhaps it was because the wind was particularly gentle tonight, or perhaps it was because the night was particularly beautiful, the Queen Mother suddenly felt a strong desire to talk.
She couldn't help but tell An Jingzhi about her unborn daughter, whom she had never mentioned to anyone.
"It would be great if your sister were still alive."
An Jingzhi was a little surprised, but not surprised. Whatever happened in the harem was normal.
The original owner did not remember this incident, and the Queen Mother had never told her son about it.
He said, no wonder the Queen Mother had such a good impression of the Queen and often supported her. Even when the original owner wanted to demote the Queen to the cold palace, the Queen Mother disagreed.
It turned out that he placed his feelings for his daughter on the queen.
…
"Brother Chang, how are you doing with your studies? This arithmetic is too difficult! I haven't even had time to memorize the textbooks these days. This arithmetic makes me dizzy and I can't understand it at all." The visitor complained.
A thin and frail man, who looked obviously malnourished, smiled and said, "I think it's okay. In fact, arithmetic is quite interesting if you get into it. I used to like arithmetic, but unfortunately I couldn't read all the books for the imperial examination, let alone these arithmetic. Now I can finally read them openly."
"Oh, I don't know what His Majesty is thinking. He suddenly wants to add arithmetic. Arithmetic is 100 points. If you don't get 30 points, you won't pass even if you do well in other subjects. But arithmetic is too difficult. I don't even know if I can get 30 points! It's so hard."
"Your Majesty must have his own ideas. In fact, if you only need to get 30 points out of 100 to pass, it shouldn't be that difficult. You have practiced the classics and the Four Books and Five Classics. As long as you work harder on math, you should be fine. I'm in a terrible situation. I only know a little math, and I haven't memorized everything else. I don't know how difficult this year's policy essay will be."
Speaking of arithmetic, the friend gained a bit of confidence. He patted Chang Bo on the shoulder and said confidently, "I've inquired. This year's examiner is Grand Tutor Zhou. Grand Tutor Zhou is a man of integrity and prefers pragmatic answers. Our policy essays should just be realistic and not over-the-top."
"Brother Wen Zhen, how about this? I'll teach you arithmetic, and you'll teach me policy. We'll both improve."
"Okay! Let's do it!"
…
Seven months passed in a flash, and the imperial examination was held as scheduled.
Many students looked worried when checking in.
An Jingzhi attached great importance to this imperial examination. He set up a group of supervisory guards in the palace to specifically monitor the acceptance of bribes and the disclosure of examination questions.
Actually, quite a few people were caught.
In order to ensure fairness, the three examination questions previously set by Grand Tutor Zhou had been abandoned. An Jingzhi asked him to set a few more, and he kept the questions personally. Grand Tutor Zhou himself could not go out until the day of the imperial examination.
After giving the questions, he stayed at home and refused visitors.
All the daily necessities for his family were provided by the palace, and no one was given the opportunity to inquire about the news.
Many people suspected that An Jingzhi was taking advantage of this situation to take revenge on Grand Tutor Zhou. After all, Grand Tutor Zhou had always contradicted him in the court before, and he was unable to do anything about it for a while because the other party was his teacher, the minister of state left by the late emperor, and his father-in-law.
This time, I'll put him in confinement as soon as I get the chance.
If the Queen could return to her parents' home as usual, Grand Tutor Zhou would probably think the same.
After being busy for most of his life, he was a little uncomfortable with the sudden free time of this month, but he felt it was pretty good to live a leisurely life without being disturbed by anyone.
The arithmetic test paper was written by the emperor himself, and he had also seen it. Although he didn't understand arithmetic very well, he could see that a lot of effort had been put into this test paper.
No matter what, as long as the emperor is doing his job properly, he will not be considered to have let down the late emperor's trust and instructions.
When the imperial examination began, Grand Tutor Zhou, as the main invigilator, had to stay for several days.
An Jingzhi believed in Grand Tutor Zhou and believed that if he were to supervise the exam, there would definitely be no mistakes.
Everyone in the court knew that Grand Tutor Zhou was an upright scholar. With him as the chief examiner, the other deputy examiners did not dare to interfere. Otherwise, how could they not deal with Grand Tutor Zhou, who even dared to contradict the emperor?
From time to time, Grand Tutor Zhou would patrol the examination hall and spotted some candidates with cheat sheets. He collected them and saw that they were actually using cheat sheets for math. Where could they have copied math? Their cheat sheets were useless, so seeing the bitter look on the back of their math papers and their panicked movements made them easy to spot.
He brought a useless cheat sheet and sacrificed his own fame.
All the candidates who were caught cheating were stripped of their titles and were forbidden to take the exam again for the rest of their lives.
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