Emperor Kang Jing looked at Wang Zetian. Wang Zetian had already found out the name of the county magistrate of Gu Jinshi’s hometown at that time and handed it to him directly. Emperor Kang Jing took a look and vaguely remembered that there was such a thing. It seemed that it was a memorial submitted by Fan Min, the governor of Wannan Prefecture, two years ago.

　　At that time, Emperor Kang Jing was celebrating his 60th birthday. He saw the flowery articles on the memorial, saying that the world was peaceful and the crops were abundant, and that his efforts to govern the country moved the heavens.

　　Emperor Kang Jing had seen many such flattering memorials, and he did not take them seriously at the time. It was just that the time to submit the memorial to praise his achievements was very good, and the amount of grain reported was indeed a bit more, so Emperor Kang Jing was very pleased and picked up his pen to transfer Fan Min.

　　Now, listening to Gu Zhao’s words, a series of things came into focus.

　　The county magistrate of Ningping Prefecture was not a man who was only interested in personal gain but did nothing.

　　Emperor Kang Jing did not show much expression at the time, and later asked Fan Min in detail.

　　Fan Min, the fifth-rank magistrate of Wannan Prefecture, has been transferred to Beijing and is now a Beijing official, a fourth-rank assistant minister of the Ministry of Revenue.

　　Let’s not talk about these for now. Anyway, everything was settled at that time. It turned out that such a thing really happened. When listening to what Gu Zhao said, he found that it was not just official clichés. Emperor Kang Jing was slightly moved and then greatly admired him. He praised Gu Zhao for having the integrity of a scholar, which was as it should be.

　　What it means is that after studying, one should serve the Dali Dynasty. This is the model.

　　Things went smoothly after that. Emperor Kang Jing immediately promoted Gu Zhao to the third place in the imperial examination and said that your knowledge is still a little lacking, especially your calligraphy, so you should go to the Hanlin Academy to hone your skills.

　　Emperor Kang Jing had been the emperor for so many years that he was so happy that he did whatever he wanted. He raised Gu Zhao’s rank and awarded him 100 taels of silver. Maybe he thought that giving it to only one person was too much attention, so he gave it to both the top two candidates. The general meaning of his words of encouragement was: work hard for Dali, and I will naturally not treat you unfairly.

　　This has also become a good story.

　　Afterwards, the three top scorers rode their horses through the streets to the Qujiang banquet. Gu Zhao attracted a lot of attention because of his good looks, his reply in front of the palace, and the silver he was rewarded with. At that time, he overshadowed the top and second place winners.

　　There’s no way around it, Gu Zhao is quite popular, it’s just a natural thing.

　　The newly-crowned third place winner is really handsome, but it’s a pity that he has already been married and married into the wife’s family.

　　Ah? The third place winner is a son-in-law?

　　So what if he marries into the wife’s family? His Majesty praises the integrity of scholars.

　　Gu Zhao simply and frankly described the situation at that time, and finally said modestly: “So I didn’t tell my family about the 100 taels of silver reward, I was embarrassed.” After all, with his level, he really couldn’t bear the third place in the first class.

　　After listening to this, Li Zhouzhou felt a chill in his spine, even though his husband’s words were simple. If his husband had been implicated because he married into his family, it would have been terrible. Fortunately, he heaved a sigh of relief.

　　”No more talking, let’s eat.”

　　Gu Zhao saw Zhou Zhou’s face was a little pale, so he knew that he must be frightened, so he changed the subject and said that his family would host and invite his second brother’s family to eat out. But after saying that, he remembered that it was not appropriate because Mr. Liu was still pregnant, so he immediately changed the subject and said, “In a month or two, our family will come up to attend the second brother’s happy event.”

　　The atmosphere in the living room suddenly became relaxed and cheerful.

　　The Yan family was happy. Grandma Yan and mother Yan asked the guests to sit still and wait for a while, as the food would be ready soon. They also asked their son/grandson to entertain the Li family guests well.

　　The Li family is truly the benefactors of the Yan family.

　　Willow said with his belly sticking out, “Fubao is asleep, why don’t you put him in my room first so he can sleep better.”

　　”Okay.” Li Zhouzhou carried his son to the main house.

　　Yan Jinxin took Gu Zhao and Uncle Li to the west house to settle down.

　　The Yan family’s two-story courtyard has three main rooms, all of which are spacious. The middle one is used as the living room, the two rooms on the left and right are the rooms of Yan’s father and mother, and one side is Yan’s grandmother’s room. Yan Jinxin and Liu Shu sleep in the east wing, and the next room is Yan Jinxin’s study.

　　The sheep brought by the Li family were finally able to settle down and stay in the stable and become friendly neighbors with the mules.

　　After dinner, the Li family had to look for a house and could not delay any longer. After all, staying at the Yan family was not their own home. The sun was scorching and Fubao was still confused after drinking milk. Yan’s mother said that if they left Fubao with them, nothing would go wrong.

　　Li Zhouzhou believes in willow trees.

　　It would also be more convenient to leave Fubao at Yan’s house.

　　”If he cries, bring the lamb over and let him look at it and touch it, and he will stop crying.” Li Zhouzhou also has experience.

　　Liu Shu patted his chest and said, “Brother Zhou Zhou, don’t worry, Fubao will be taken good care of.”

　　Fubao didn’t cry until they left, and Li Zhouzhou felt relieved. But in fact, after they left for about a minute, Fubao saw that everyone looked unfamiliar, without his father, father, or grandpa. He pouted and was about to cry. Liu Shu quickly said, “Uncle will take you to see the lambs. Fubao, please don’t cry, okay?”

　　Fubao shed tears.

　　Liu Shu was anxious to hold the baby, but Yan Jinxin scolded him, “How big is your belly? How can you hold a baby?” He carried Fu Bao to the yard to see the lamb. Fu Bao stayed in the uncle’s arms, and was even more scared. He originally shed tears, but now he cried loudly.

　　”Is it because your face is too dark that Fubao is scared?”

　　Willow was anxiously behind him, “Fubao, Fubao, look at uncle. Uncle is not dark-skinned. Look at uncle…”

　　But in the end, the lamb made him stop crying.

　　After two days of searching for a house, I went to see the three-courtyard house that Liu Shu mentioned, which cost more than 900 taels that afternoon. It was indeed much more spacious, with a row of back rooms added at the back, where the servants slept. There was a stable on the side between the main courtyard and the house for raising mules, sheep, etc.

　　Like the courtyard of the Yan family, the stables and mule carts were built with a small corner door on the side of the main house behind the main house, separated by a wall, and the side room was used as a stable. It was close to the living area, and it was smelly when the weather was hot. The back of the three-story courtyard was more convenient like this.

　　Of course, the price is also twice as high. It is actually not convenient to clean up the house because there are too many houses.

　　A house without people living in it loses its vitality and needs to be repaired and the tiles replaced after years.

　　”I think the Yan family’s house is very nice.” Li Da said after looking at the three-story courtyard. This house is too big, even the gentry in the town don’t live in such a grand style. When he saw this big courtyard, he felt uneasy.

　　Then let’s look at the second courtyard. Gu Zhao also had the same idea.

　　Even if servants are added in the future, the front house can be used for living.

　　”I clean the mule place every day, wash it diligently, and build a wall. It doesn’t look smelly to me.” Li Da said this to Zhao’er and Zhou Zhou behind the broker’s back.

　　The real estate agent who just sold them the house praised the three-courtyard house, referring to the convenience of the small courtyard at the back.

　　It’s not worth paying half the price just for this space.

　　Li Zhouzhou wanted to buy a house that was closer to the government office where his husband worked, so he wanted to take a look ahead.

　　But the courtyard closer to them, although it was a second courtyard, was small and run-down, with poor lighting, and the furniture needed to be replaced. I don’t know how long it had not been used, and the walls were dirty and covered with dust. They didn’t get the good houses because they were sold out early because of connections.

　　If we extend it a little further, the quality of the yard will be much better.

　　It may take about a quarter of an hour to walk to Yan’s house. The courtyard also has two entrances, but there are differences between two entrances, just like the difference between modern three-bedroom houses, large three-bedroom houses and compact small three-bedroom houses, and the difference between the fine decoration delivered by the developer and the fine decoration that the owner spends a lot of money on.

　　This yard is beautiful and the furniture rarely needs to be replaced. It is slightly larger than the Yan family yard and much more spacious. The decoration is also good. The paint on the corridor is new and it looks like it was painted not long ago.

　　”Why is such a nice house empty and no one wants it?” Gu Zhao asked the broker.

　　The broker bent over and smiled apologetically, “You don’t know, the original owner of this house was a seventh-rank official in the capital, and now he is said to have been transferred to a fifth-rank official outside. I didn’t know before that the house had just been renovated, and now he is in a hurry to sell it.”

　　It seems that he has been promoted, but there is still a gap between local officials and Beijing officials. If he is promoted in Beijing, then he will not be promoted to the fifth rank in the local government.

　　The courtyard cost a lot of money. The cost of this two-story courtyard was almost as much as the three-story courtyard next to the Yan family. That one cost 900 taels, and this one cost 700 taels. Of course, there were two more side rooms, and each cost about 40 taels on average. The Yan family only cost 23 or 24 taels.

　　It’s settled.

　　The final price was reduced by another 20 taels, and the final price was 680 taels. The following days were spent moving and settling down, and Zheng Hui’s family also arrived during this period.

　　But unfortunately I didn’t buy it here.

　　The Hanlin Academy is one lane away from the Imperial Palace, and the Ministry of Rites is not in this direction, but on the other side. In order to make it convenient for work, Zheng Hui naturally chose the courtyard that is closer first. The Ministry of Rites looks quiet at first glance, and the government office is far from the Imperial Palace, so there are more options for buying a house, and the price is slightly lower.

　　The difference between the hot circle and the warm circle can be seen.

　　Zheng Hui was also busy looking after the house, so Gu Zhao said that they would talk about it after they were settled. Now the three of them were in Beijing, so they didn’t mind meeting and talking every day.

　　On September 6, Willow gave birth to a boy.

　　Li Zhouzhou had settled his family down. He estimated that Xiaoshu would be born soon, so the Yan family even invited a midwife. He would go to check on Xiaoshu every day. He had some experience with giving birth, so he wanted to reassure Xiaoshu and tell him not to be nervous.

　　Who knew that he was leaving that evening and Xiaoshu wanted to see him off, but Li Zhouzhou said it was not necessary. As he was talking, he saw Xiaoshu’s pants were wet and he immediately understood.

　　He asked why Xiaoshu was urging him to leave today.