Suzhou's Humble Administrator's Garden has lush trees and misty waters.

Outside Lanxue Hall, there are lush flowers and trees, and pavilions are shaded.

The atmosphere in the hall was quite stagnant.

The former Junior Minister Xu Fan was wearing a snow-blue robe with black edges, a net scarf on his head, and holding a two-wide bamboo board in his hands. He was examining his son's homework with a serious expression.

"'Mencius said that human nature is good, and he always mentioned Yao and Shun.' What is human nature?"

"Nature is the principle that people are born with from heaven. It is perfect and has never been evil." Xu Yuanchun looked extremely nervous, because every time he recited a word wrong, he would be beaten with a stick. "People were no different from Yao and Shun at first, but everyone..."

"Wrong!" Xu Fan shouted and hit him with a stick.

"Pah!"

"However……"

"Pah!"

"So..."

'Pah, pah, pah!'

Tears were streaming down Xu Yuanchun's face, and his right palm was swollen from being beaten, about half an inch high, and it was translucent in the light.

"You useless piece of shit! It's such a small amount of content and you still haven't memorized it in half a month!" Xu Fan waved the ruler angrily and hit his son in the face.

"Ah, ah!" Xu Yuanchun covered his head and dodged, feeling extremely painful.

"Speak up, you useless piece of shit!" Xu Fan was so angry that he almost fainted. His father had retired, and he had to step down too. The future of the Xu family depended on this rebellious son.

This unfilial son is becoming more and more useless. Not only does he have no talent in writing, he even makes mistakes when memorizing things by rote.

I don’t know where my former cleverness has gone!

It looked like someone was about to die. Fortunately, Xu Kun came back from outside and tried to persuade Xu Fan:

"Forget it, bro. It's no use beating him up if he's not that good."

As he said this he gave Xu Yuanchun a look, and Young Master Xu quickly ran away in a hurry.

Seeing that the punching bag had run away, Xu Fan threw away the ruler with a dark face and snorted, "Will the man surnamed Liu go?"

"How dare he not go?" Xu Kun sneered, "Unless he doesn't plan to stay in Suzhou anymore."

"Yeah." Xu Fan nodded and said, "That kid surnamed Zhao got carried away and actually wanted to occupy Xishan. He is sitting on a powder keg, so he can't blame others for setting it on fire."

"Brother, can we really cripple that kid by making some noise the day after tomorrow?" Xu Kun was a little confused.

"Don't be so naive." Xu Fan sneered and said, "If it was so easy to destroy him, would I let him...jump around until today?"

"This guy is very cunning and is especially good at building relationships." Xu Fan said, "He came to Beijing in November last year and left Beijing in May this year. In total, he only stayed in the capital for half a year."

After a pause, he said in an incredible tone: "But he became the nephew of Wu Zhongcheng, the godson of the eldest princess, and a close friend of Zhang Taiyue regardless of age difference. Even Hai Rui has some friendship with him, and he has accepted a large number of students."

"So amazing?" Xu Kun gasped, and couldn't help but admire this kid's ability to curry favor with powerful people. He could even hook up with Hai Rui...

"Actually, this is not so bad. After all, he took them down one by one." Xu Fan said with a look of horror, "Later, he opened a damn Xishan Company and actually took down almost all the dignitaries in Beijing. So much so that some people said..."

At this point, the former junior cabinet minister showed a look of shame and indignation, and after a while he said in a muffled voice: "If you are not a shareholder of Xishan Company, it means you are not qualified to be called a dignitary."

"So sad?" Xu Kun opened his mouth wide and asked curiously, "Then, big brother, how many shares do you have?"

"I had quite a few, but when I found out that Xishan Company was founded by that guy, I sold them all." Xu Fan said in a muffled voice.

"Why sell it? Keep it for Yuanchun and the others, maybe they can use it in the future." Xu Kun couldn't help but sigh with regret, then smiled and said, "I heard that the share price of Xishan Company has increased dozens of times. It would be great if you can make a lot of money, brother."

"It's not bad, at least I didn't have to pay..." Xu Fan's face turned red as if water was about to drip out, and he quickly coughed twice to get past this embarrassing topic.

"Now you understand how terrifying this kid is, right?"

"I see. This guy is really good at building relationships. If we don't trip him up a bit and let him repeat his old tricks in Suzhou and Songjiang, our lives will be difficult." After Xu Kun finished speaking, he felt it was a bit absurd and said, "This is our territory. Even if he comes from another place, we have to keep him in our way..."

"For such an enemy, it is better to overestimate than underestimate him." Xu Fan spat secretly. At the beginning, I also thought that the capital was my home ground. "We must take advantage of his unstable foothold and give him a head-on blow, so that we can suppress him forever!"

"I've heard that Yingtian Governor Lin Ruoyu hates evil, especially those bullies who bully the people and plunder their property. If there's a fight the day after tomorrow, he'll injure more than a dozen people." He said in a deep voice:

"When the time comes, we'll take the injured to the governor's office and accuse him of assaulting civilians and occupying their homes. Let's see how Lin Zhongcheng will deal with him!"

"At least, he won't be able to curry favor with the powerful anymore." Xu Kun couldn't help but laugh, "I guess he will even bring trouble to his father and lose the favor of the governor, right?"

"Zhao! Shou! Zheng!" When Xu Fan mentioned Mr. Zhao's name, he felt a dull pain on his face. He gritted his teeth and said, "Don't worry, we will take them one by one. No one can escape, young or old!"

Seeing his brother's tangible resentment, Xu Kun couldn't help but be secretly shocked, wondering what kind of hatred or grudge could make his elder brother hate those two men so much?

~~

Xu Yuanchun escaped from Lanxue Hall and did not return to the study immediately. Instead, he curled up beside the rockery by the lake, staring at the blooming lotus flowers in a daze.

His father's temper became more and more violent, and he would beat and scold him at any time.

Today, his father brought him to Suzhou to visit Lin Zhongcheng, but he was distracted when Lin Run asked him questions...

Naturally, Xu Fan was furious, so he used the excuse of checking his endorsement to find a random reason to beat him up.

The more this happened, the more Master Xu missed his days in the capital. He missed his random playmates, and even more so the elf-like Princess Lanling.

The emerald green lake was calm and waveless, reflecting the happy scenes in the capital.

Skiing, visiting temple fairs, watching lanterns, appreciating flowers, boating...

Looking back on those scenes, it was so joyful and satisfying.

But it made him feel even more lonely and cold.

Tears as big as beans fell down, and Xu Yuanchun sobbed helplessly.

"I wonder if Sister Mingyue and the others would think of me..."

'I don't want to study anymore, I want to go back to Beijing...'

'Help……'

Sad Xu Yuanchun took out a book called "A Brief Introduction to Nature" from his arms, hoping to read something that could relax him and divert his attention.

When he turned to the page about 'How the human eye sees things', he was suddenly attracted by an interesting experiment called 'Strange Disk'.

The book says that if you draw the broken down actions on pictures of the same size and insert the pictures on a zigzag cardboard plate, you will see lifelike moving characters.

This is called the 'persistence of vision principle'!

Xu Yuanchun couldn't help but feel his heart beating faster, just like the feeling he had when he first met the young county lord.

ps. The fourth update is here. I will definitely add another one. I will keep my word. However, it will be after 12 o'clock. Please read it tomorrow morning. Haha.