Chapter 56

Li Chenghuan's eyes sharpened, and Wang Dehai and Ao Jingchuan immediately lowered the curtain and returned to the outside of the carriage.

The two looked at each other in shock, not daring to say a word.

Lin Nanqi quickly rolled off Li Chenghuan and knelt down neatly: "Your Majesty, please forgive me!"

Li Chengqian straightened his clothes and said, "Get up."

Lin Nanjie then stood up and resumed his quail-like sitting posture, but this time his neck was even tighter.

[Why do my hands keep doing things that blaspheme the dragon's body? ]

【This can’t go on any longer.】

【Be careful of your brain moving. 】

Li Chenghuan sat upright, glancing at Lin Nanjie with the corner of his eyes, a look of self-examination on his face. He then caught a glimpse of the red patch on the other person's earlobe and neck, and his gaze paused, unable to look away.

I didn't expect that Lin Nanjie wanted me so much that he actually restrained himself from physical contact all the time.

What a...little eunuch with no self-control!

Thinking of Lin Nanjie's previous...unruly heart, Li Chenghuan's gaze towards Lin Nanjie's neck became more complicated.

Do you really want to contact him?

The unhappiness in my heart caused by Lin Nanjie's close relationship with Si Nanhao and Lu Chengzhou disappeared in an instant.

Judging from Lin Nanjie's previous behavior, it was probably just an excuse for himself, just like wanting to go to the princess's mansion.

What's even more bizarre is that just now in Chunfeng Mingyue Tower, when those two people said that he and Lin Nan had an affair, he was strangely silent?

Not angry, but thinking subconsciously.

The more Li Chengqian thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong.

No, as the emperor, he is tolerant.

He is also Lin Nanqi's master.

When the master sees his subordinates in danger, how can he not save them?

Yes, that's right.

Li Chengqian held the fan tightly.

Lin Nanjie only felt that the gaze falling on his neck was real, and his eyes became more and more terrified.

[Why does the dog emperor keep staring at my neck? Does he want to make me lose my head? ]

[As expected, he got angry because of the blasphemy against the dragon body. 】

Lin Nanjie really wanted to raise his hands to cover his neck.

Li Chengqian calmed down, retracted his gaze, and said slowly: "I'll remember this time. If you dare to do this again next time, I'll punish you with a stick."

Lin Nanjie's eyes were wide open.

[I've been hit twice already. If I really get hit, won't my butt get bruised? ]

[No, I have to find a chance to escape.]

Li Chengqian's eyes darkened: "If you dare to run away, you will be severely punished."

Lin Nanjie: [! Can he read minds? ]

The two men were talking in the carriage. Wang Dehai and Ao Jingchuan outside the carriage were startled and exchanged messages with each other.

Ao Jingchuan raised his eyebrows: So the emperor is so approachable. He didn't punish me after what happened just now? He even saved up the punishment for the next time?

Wang Dehai shook his head: The emperor has always been clear about rewards and punishments, but he is indeed a little abnormal towards Lin Nanjie.

Ao Jingchuan exclaimed: "So this is the current celebrity. I thought I was famous enough."

Wang Dehai rolled his eyes at him: "You are still too young." It's not red, but it's very black, like a halved egg, and you can't see anyone in the night.

Ao Jingchuan's eyes were as loud as bells: You old fool! Who are you scolding?

When we returned to the palace, it was already midnight.

After washing up in the main room of the palace, Lin Nanjie still slept on the low couch outside the Purple Palace.

After nine consecutive days of patrolling, Lin Nanjie was exhausted both physically and mentally. He fell asleep as soon as he touched the couch.

Li Chenghuan also fell asleep, but he did not sleep well.

He had a dream.

In the dream, many people looked at him expressionlessly and shouted in unison: Cut off your sleeves!

After a while, the Queen Mother burst into tears and said: I would rather have never given birth to such an evil creature like you!

Li Chenghuan wanted to speak, but no sound came out.

Then he was surrounded by a thick fog, and he walked forward, looking for something.

When he was exhausted, a familiar carriage suddenly appeared in front of him.

He subconsciously boarded the carriage and saw a person in it, with a veil covering his face, revealing only a pair of clear eyes.

The man had a strange body shape, extremely soft like a snake, with fair and delicate skin on his limbs, which were entangled in an ambiguous manner on him.

Li Chengqian didn't know why, but he felt dry in the mouth.

Unconsciously, the veil fell off and Li Chenghuan held his breath.

A handsome face appeared under the veil, which made him feel familiar and unfamiliar. The pair of dark and misty eyes looked at him: "This servant has desecrated the dragon's body again. Your Majesty, please don't blame me."

Li Chengqian woke up suddenly, his fingers tightly grasping the quilt beside him, and his forehead was covered with sweat.

Then, his expression changed slightly.

Because of the strange feeling below.

The next day, Lin Nanjie woke up when it was bright.

Calculating the time, Li Chengqian had already gone to court.

Lin Nanjie quickly turned over and got off the bed, but just as he left the Purple Palace, he ran into Li Chenghuan returning.

Lin Nanqi knelt down quickly.

Li Chenghuan was wearing a bright yellow court robe, his boots stepping on the gray-black floor tiles. He walked steadily past Lin Nanjie and went straight into the warm room.

Soon, from the warm room came the sound of a memorial falling to the ground and a voice of merciless rebuke.

The atmosphere in the Zichen Palace dropped to freezing point.

Everyone was too angry to speak out.

Lin Nanjie knelt on the spot.

[Why is he so unhappy today? Who made him angry again? ]

【I was fine yesterday.】

Lin Nanqi was puzzled when Wang Dehai walked up to him and said, "From today on, you don't have to work the night shift. The emperor wants you to work at the Yumaguan."

Lin Nanqi was stunned for a moment.

*

That's how Lin Nanqi arrived at the Yuma Prison.

As the name suggests, the Horse Guards was a place where the emperor raised horses, but that was not entirely true.

In fact, the former Yumajian still controlled the imperial army, but now it has been greatly weakened. Even so, the Yumajian also had the power to manage the imperial farm, run the imperial store, and manage the finances of the household department.

There are industries and money.

It can be said that the Yumajian was a very lucrative government office, and many eunuchs wanted to squeeze in to get a piece of the pie.

But Lin Nanjie is not.

He is a genuine Bima Wen.

Lin Nanqi stopped the hay cart in front of the stable, looked at the six horses in the stable, and sighed deeply.

What a great Bima Wen!

Lin Nan rolled up his sleeves and filled each trough with hay. He also touched the horses to cultivate their feelings. While the horses were concentrating on eating grass, he picked up the brush and scrubbed them. After brushing all six horses, he pinched his nose and cleaned the horse feces.

It is said that these are precious horses sent as tribute from the Western Regions, more valuable than humans, and they will be used in this spring hunt.

Lin Nanjie didn't know how valuable they were, he just knew they were very powerful.

It took him half a day to clean up the horse feces, and his body was soaked with sweat.

The sweat mixed with the smell of horses and feces almost made him vomit.

"Hey, you're being lazy!" a shrill voice came.

Hu Jinbao, who was in charge of the horses at the Horse Guards, came over with a swagger and said, "Have you brushed the horses clean? The spring hunt is coming soon. If the horses are not well cared for, you will be held responsible!"

Lin Nanqi glanced at him, did not argue with him, and picked up the brush to brush the horse again.

Hu Jinbao put one foot on the stable fence and watched Lin Nanjie working absent-mindedly.

"In this horse guard station, no matter how glorious and powerful you were in the past, you have to feed my horses obediently when you come here!"

Lin Nanjie knew that it was not a good time to confront, so he just kept working.

【When you are under someone's roof, you have to bow your head. 】

[Horse, horse, I have fed you for several days, can you repay him with a big cunt? ]

[…Forget it, what are you thinking about?]

Hu Jinbao knew that Lin Nanjie had worked for the Emperor before. The eunuchs all knew that a figure like Lin had suddenly appeared in the Emperor's court and was favored by the Emperor.

However, no matter how favored a person is, he will eventually fall from power.

When you arrive at the Yuma Prison, you will know how powerful Hu Jinbao is.

He shouted in a long voice: "Have you tried harder? Have you not eaten yet?"

Lin Nanqi put more strength in his hands but didn't say a word.

Hu Jinbao was annoyed: "You are showing off to me, your grandfather!"

Hu Jinbao pulled out the whip from his waist and was about to whip Lin Nanjie. But just as he entered the stable, a horse suddenly raised its front hooves and rushed towards Hu Jinbao.

Hu Jinbao was kicked by the horse's hoof in the air, his ribs hurt, and he flew out.

Lin Nanqi was stunned.

[As expected of a precious horse, it’s so good to kick! 】

Hu Jinbao got up from the ground, his eyes full of anger: "You are rebelling!"

He raised his hand to whip, but unexpectedly, the horse closest to him kicked again.

The kick was so accurate and powerful that Hu Jinbao vomited blood.

Hu Jinbao lay on the ground for a long time, staring at Lin Nanjie with rage in his eyes.

Lin Nanjie showed no sign of weakness and put his hands on his hips: "These are precious horses that were presented as tribute. If the emperor finds the whip marks during the spring hunt, I'll see how he punishes you!"

Hu Jinbao was dumbfounded. He didn't know whether to smoke or not, but he would not feel relieved if he didn't smoke.

"Just wait for me!"

*

Ten days later, it was time to announce the results of the imperial examination. Anyone whose family had someone participating in the examination was worried and prayed that their child would not fail.

However, at this moment, shocking news of scientific fraud broke out!

The whole city was shocked.

It turned out that during the imperial examination, candidates used poetry as a code word to collude with examiners to cheat.

The poem chosen as the code was from Wen Tingyun's "Shangshan Morning Walk", and the lines were separated as the code for collusion. Three candidates were caught using the word "Duling Dream" on their test papers. All the candidates involved were taken to the Dali Temple for interrogation. When they saw that the code in the test paper was accurately found, they panicked and were arrested by Zheng Yongnian and Fang Wenjue.

Two of the examiners involved in the case were also thrown into jail, and two other officials were replaced to mark the exam papers under the supervision of the chief examiner and Wang Wenhe.

After understanding the whole story, the students were even more shocked. Not only did they catch the cheating, but they also solved it quickly!

When I pulled out the radish, the mud came out and it was all in the pot!

This... the anger and injustice that I had felt when I heard about the cheating disappeared instantly.

They've all been caught, so there's nothing to worry about.

I heard that the first person to discover the fraud this time was the eunuch named Lin.

But considering that Eunuch Lin has made such a great contribution, he should be promoted to a high position, right?

No, Eunuch Lin is feeding the horses.

Lin Nanjie: ...Don’t cue me.

Ten days later, after repeated verification, it was finally time to announce the official results.

On the day when the results were announced, the capital city was extremely bustling.

Those who were checking the list, joining in the fun, and seeking a son-in-law under the list all gathered together.

The list of successful candidates for the imperial examination was crowded with people who had taken the imperial examination this year.

A student was looking for his name on the list and finally found it on the top three list. He was about to exclaim when he suddenly wondered, "Why isn't Mr. Jiang on the list?"

A voice beside him said, "It's not on the list of successful candidates. It's here!"

When people looked in the direction of the sound, they saw another list next to the list of successful candidates, which contained the names of those who had cheated in the imperial examination as a warning.

On the list were the names of Jiang Hanwen, Sun Zhenwen and others.

There were cries of surprise from the crowd: "Master Jiang is so talented in writing, but he actually participated in cheating?"

"Don't you know? In the previous poetry contest at Chunfeng Mingyue Tower, he lost so badly that he ran naked on the street."

"I guess he is too greedy. Before the imperial examination, it was rumored that Jiang Hanwen was the favorite to win the first prize, but there were so many talented people in this examination, such as Mr. Wen from Jiangzhou, Mr. Liu from Yangzhou, and Mr. Xi from the Imperial College. Their talents are far superior to his, but he has never boasted about them."

"You're right. Even in poetry, he can't compare to Lu Chengzhou who had slept for four days. He was too arrogant to win the championship."

"Hey! Lu Chengzhou is sixth in the second class!"

"What! Let me see, let me see!"

Lu Weitong was passing by in a sedan chair with a stern face and a very bad mood.

When I passed by the list of successful candidates in the imperial examination, I saw a sea of ​​black heads in front of the list, making it impossible to squeeze in.

He also thought of today's incident in the court, when the emperor publicly reprimanded the examiners and candidates who participated in cheating, with punishment ranging from imprisonment to exile. Jiang Hanwen was among them, and Lu Weitong couldn't even lift his head.

Jiang Hanwen was a distant relative of the Lu family. When he came to stay at the mansion, the head of the Jiang family even wrote a letter asking him to take care of him.

He thought that Lu Chengzhou was not very ambitious in his studies and would probably have no chance of becoming an official, so it would be good for him to cultivate Jiang Hanwen.

Who knew such a scandal would happen?

Lu Weitong looked extremely depressed and wanted to go home quickly to drink some Shaodaozi to relieve his boredom.

He lowered the curtain and told his servants, "Let's go. There's nothing to do in this bustling place."

There is no one on the list in his family, and he has no daughter, so he has no chance to be selected as a son-in-law.

Forget it, out of sight, out of mind!

At this moment, Lu Weitong vaguely heard someone shouting "Lu Chengzhou".

He suddenly had an idea, and ordered them to stop, calling a servant over: "Go and listen, who are they calling?"

The boy took the order and left. After a while, he squeezed out of the crowd and said breathlessly:

"Master! I got it! I got it!!!"

Lu Weitong's palms were sweating: "What's the winner?"

The servant was overjoyed: "Yes, Master! Master Chengzhou won! He is the sixth in the second class!"

Lu Weiyi grabbed the door of the sedan chair and leaned forward: "Quick, quick, quick! Let me down! I want to see it with my own eyes!"

As soon as the sedan chair was put down, Lu Weitong strode out and plunged into the crowd, squeezing his way to the front. His black gauze hat was squeezed off and his outer robe was torn into disarray. Finally, he squeezed to the front.

He searched the second-best list anxiously.

When he saw Lu Chengzhou's name, Lu Weitong's eyes lit up and he clenched his fists.

“Hit!”

“I got it!!!”

At this time, Lu Chengzhou was selecting women's jewelry in the Treasure Pavilion. His hands were covered with beads and he looked confused: "I don't know what the princess likes."

"Why not buy them all?"

Lu Chengzhou was happily about to pay when suddenly a loud shout came from the door!

"Little bastard!"

Lu Chengzhou was startled by the loud shout. He turned around and saw Lu Weitong standing at the door, holding on to the door frame while panting.

Lu Chengzhou took a step back subconsciously: "Dad, I won't go back!"

Needless to say, Lu Weitong was definitely here to arrest him and put him in solitary confinement.

Lu Weitong walked into the store and grabbed Lu Chengzhou's arm, and before he could catch his breath, he said, "You brat, you brat!"

Lu Chengzhou simply closed his eyes: "I won't listen, Dad, save your breath, I want to be a male pet!"

"You got it! You got it!"

Lu Weitong's voice was filled with joy and excitement: "Sixth place in the second class!"

Lu Chengzhou was stunned.

“I actually won?”

Lu Weitong paced back and forth excitedly: "Father will go back and prepare a banquet, and it must be grand!"

Lu Chengzhou was full of questions: "What's the point of preparing a banquet?"

Lu Weitong's face was filled with pride and he said, "Of course I am celebrating that you made the list and got a good ranking! In the past, your uncles always showed off to me, showing off how well their sons did in their studies. This time, it's finally my turn to be proud!"

Lu Chengzhou: "No."

Lu Weitong glared at him: "You are the father who insists on doing it!"

Lu Chengzhou said rebelliously: "Vulgar!"

Seeing that Lu Chengzhou had no interest, Lu Weitong gritted his teeth and said something shocking: "I agree that you should marry Princess Chang!"

Lu Chengzhou's eyes lit up: "Swing, swing, swing!"

After saying that, he couldn't help but ask, "Dad, why did you agree so readily?"

Lu Weitong snorted coldly: "The news that you went to the Princess's mansion to be her male favorite has spread everywhere. It doesn't matter whether I stop it or not."

Lu Chengzhou was immediately delighted and was about to go out.

Lu Weitong shouted from behind: "What are you doing?"

Lu Chengzhou: "I'm going to the Princess's Mansion to announce the good news!"

Lu Weitong wiped his face. How could he give birth to such a cheap son!

The Lu family's banquet was very lively that day. Lin Nanjie and Si Nanhao were also invited. After Lu Chengzhou toasted everyone, he found an excuse to sneak over to this table and quickly ate a few bites of food.

"I'm so hungry! My dad is such a jerk. He's been drinking with me for a while now, and I haven't eaten a single bite of food."

Si Nanhao looked at Lu Chengzhou and exclaimed in amazement: "In the past, I thought that your success in the imperial examination was just a blind cat catching a dead rat, but I didn't expect that you actually passed the imperial examination and became a Jinshi?"

Lu Chengzhou swallowed his rice and said, "I just have better luck in exams, but I can't compare to those really amazing people."

Si Nanhao crossed his arms and looked at Lin Nanjie again: "That day in Mingyue Tower, you asked Lu Chengzhou to go up to compete in poetry. Did you know at that time that he would win?"

Lin Nanqi blinked: "I don't know."

Si Nanhao: "Then you still let him go up?"

Lin Nanjie: "I heard that Lord Lu is well-known in the poetry world, so I think his son... won't be bad either."

Si Nanhao was skeptical: "Can this really be inherited?"

The praises from all around were endless, but Lu Chengzhou didn't care at all. Instead, he asked Lin Nanjie with concern: "How come I heard that you were transferred to the Yuma Supervisor?"

Lin Nanqi's face fell: "Alas, it is true."

Lu Chengzhou felt extremely sympathetic and helped him pick up several pieces of food with his chopsticks: "Eat more. You look tired and thin."

Si Nanhao patted his shoulder and said, "If anyone dares to bully you, tell me, your brother, and I will settle it for you."

Lu Chengzhou: "And I, I will ask the princess to see if I can get you to work in the princess's mansion."

Lin Nanjie sniffed and looked at the two of them gratefully: "Thank you."

The banquet lasted until midnight. Lin Nanjie walked straight out of Lu's house, a little drunk and staggering.

He looked up at the moon above his head. It was full and shining like a silver thread.

It's a bit like the moon I saw in the palace years ago.

Lin Nanjie walked while singing tunelessly: "When will the bright moon appear..."

The moon was setting in the west, hanging above the imperial palace.

Lin Nanqi looked at the towering palace buildings from a distance, frowning: "The dog emperor is so moody."

Just kick it away without any reason.

As he was walking, Lin Nanqi suddenly stopped, looked at the scene in front of him and muttered: "No, this is not the outer room."

He rubbed his eyes hard and saw the scene clearly.

"Oh, it's the governor."