The Emperor went in circles scolding him in the letter. In order to counter him, Yuanying read it twice. The more he reads, the angrier he gets and he immediately pen a reply. First of all the internship has been decided much earlier, what’s the point of saying goodbye? Am I never coming back?!

Then he began to write about his creative concept. The main aim was to commemorate contribution of individuals to the country so how can the drawing not include the worthy acts of these individuals? How do we convince people that these individuals had done great for the development of Tang Empire?  He firmly believes that he is not wrong. If you don’t believe me, brother, please ask others about their opinion!

Anyway Li Jing likes it very much!

The Emperor was able to blatantly scream at Li Yuanying in letter but Yuanying is not able to give such a blunt reply. He could only implicitly ask If “Brother have not slept well recently? If you don’t sleep well, your brain will be confuse, your temper bad and you will curse others. I suggest you get some good sleep.  Work will never finish as therefore we must take good care of our bodies and live to be a 100 years old.

Of course, him holding back in his reply is only Li Yuanying’s own perception. When the others read his reply they felt that it was better for him to not write a replying letter.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m just expressing my concern for brother’s health! He scolds me so much but I still care about him. This is call repaying evil with kindness!” (Li Yuanying)

Since they were not able to convince Li Yuanying, his friends gave up and let him hand it over to the palace guards.

Early next morning the guards delivered the letter urgently. The Emperor got his reply right after court session. After screaming at his younger brother via a letter yesterday, he was feeling much relieve. Hearing a reply, he immediately wanted to read it.

After reading, his face turned black. Did the brat just call him bad brain?

Now that the Emperor is feeling bad, no one else should have a good day! He called on Yan Liben to visit the pavilion and comment on the 24 portraits.

Yan Liben’s injury was not serious and just needed a few days of rest. Since the task was given to someone else, he happily skip his responsibility of completing the final portrait. Hearing that all 24 portraits are completed but the Emperor is in a bad mood, he quickly wanted to find out what the painting looks like.

After viewing it, Yan Liben was without words.

If Li Yuanying gave his all and properly completed his task, their differences in skill mastery is obvious. But his drawing was drawn to be lively, capturing all the attention.

But then again, there’s a  saying that calligraphy and painting skills are God given talent. If you have 3 points in talent, you can still paint a passable work with 7 points of hard work. If you have 9 points in talent, simply flicking your brush will still give you a good piece of work.

Yan Liben believed that his talent is not bad, otherwise His Majesty wouldn’t ask him to paint all kinds of things. But Li Yuanying’s ability to grasp  charm is really enviable. Whether it is a person or a horse, he can find inspiration accurately. If he didn’t know Li Yuanying and Li Jing’s age difference, Yan Liben would have thought that the boy had met the young Li Jing in person!

Yan Liben sighed and said to the Emperor: “His Royal Highness Prince Teng has captured the charm of an individual very well and his paintings are vivid. I feel ashamed. Your Majesty, please get Prince Teng to repaint the remaining 23 paintings.”

Li Er wants to torment Li Yuanying but didn’t he run away to Hu County? He has even found a house to settle in, isn’t it obvious that he won’t be staying just for a day or two. Li Chunfeng had already decided on an auspicious day to hang the portraits so how can he postpone and wait for Li Yuanying? Besides, the child has never met Du Ruhui and Yin Kaishan, how is he going to paint blindly?

“Yuanying has gone to Hu County and will not be back for another 2-3 months. It’s up to you, Yan to take care of this portrait.”

Although His Majesty did not specify if Yan Liben should repaint all 23 paintings or just Li Jing, he told him about Prince Teng’s “creative concept” that was written eloquently. Follow this concept and try his best to reflect why each individual were selected to Lingyan Pavilion.

No matter how stupid Yan Liben was, he still understood that His Majesty wants him to paint according to this “creative concept” and was not satisfied with the existing 23 portraits. In the end, he had to draw based on Li Yuanying’s portrait of a falcon and a horse!

Yan Liben wanted to vomit blood.

For the initial 23 portrait, he had spent many months completing them. Not only did he  visit each person personally, he also had to listen to their stories and their family members comments. It isn’t easy to paint to their satisfaction.

Finally he got everyone satisfied. As soon as Li Yuanying’s painting was hung up, everyone has a new idea!  At least, His Majesty implicitly stated that Fang Xuanling and Zhangsun Wuji saw the work yesterday and felt that it needed changing as they were uncomfortable and unhappy with it.

Great. The top 3 most powerful figures in Tang wants it changed, how can he go against it?  

Yan Liben retreated with a sad face.

When Yan Liben returned, he met Yan Lide who has just returned to his duty. Seeing Yan Liben’s bitter face, Yan Lide asked with concern: “What’s wrong? Why is His Majesty looking for you?”

Yan Liben’s face became even more bitter, he pulled his brother to sit down and started complaining.  Originally he was just angry that Li Jing’s leopard rush at him and so abandoned his job. Unexpectedly, Li Yuanying took over and now the Emperor and his ministers are not satisfied with the original 23 portraits!

Yan Liben omitted the part about him deceiving Li Yuanying but Yan Lide still pick up that something was wrong: “Why did His Majesty ask Prince Teng to do it?” He got along with Yuanying and knew about his talent in art but most people thinks he’s just a playful, uneducated little prince. Not many knows about his talent in painting!

Seeing no way to hide, Yan Liben admitted that he was the one who proposed that Li Yuanying take over.

Hearing this, Yan Lide didn’t sympathize with Yan Liben’s pitiful experience but laughed: “Don’t you deserve this?”

Yan Lide advised his brother: “I don’t want to lecture you but you shouldn’t have done this. Even if you know about Prince Teng and Duke Wei’s good friendship, you cannot tell this to the Emperor. One is a vassal prince and the other a military commander who once commanded a large army. Luckily the Emperor did not become suspicious otherwise there will be big trouble.”

Yan Liben was render speechless before he objected: “Anyway, one is at odds with your son-in-law, and the other with your in-laws. Isn’t it that they get into big trouble?”

Yan Liben was being tactful when he say “at odds”. In reality, Li Yuanying and Li Tai had a big feud. He killed Li Tai’s dream of becoming the crown prince and he would definitely want the boy dead! Yan Lide’s daughter is married to Li Tai and they have 2 kids. Isn’t this big hatred?

As for the enemies on the other side, they are Li Jing and Tang Jian. Another one of Yan Lide’s daughter is married Tang Jian’s son, who holds a grudge against Li Jing. To put it simply, in order to win a war against the Turks, Li Jing attacked without any care for Tang Jian who was in the Turks’ territory as an envoy.

Therefore, him tricking Li Yuanying and Li Jing is the right thing.

Yan Lide went silent and did not mention the unbelievable fact that he and Li Yuanying were on very good terms.

“But did you manage to trick them?” His Majesty is not suspicious of Li Yuanying but instead want all 23 portraits to be reworked!  “When Prince Wei left, I saw him off. He said some things to me. I didn’t believe it at the time but now I do.” (Yan Lide)

Yan Liben asked curiously: “What are you talking about?”

“He said that Prince Teng is a very evil person. Anyone who wants to harm him will not only fail, but will also harm himself.”

Li Tai knows this very well. Every time he goes to His Majesty to complain about Li Yuanying, he end up helping Li Yuanying increase his presence and favorability. Later, he wanted to harm him but fail and was cast away to his fiefdom in embarrassment.

Li Tai values his children so when Yan Lide came to see him off, he updated that he has asked that Yan Lide be reinstated to his original post and request that his mother-in-law visit Princess Yan more often. Husband will not be around so she will need her maternal family’s support.Upon leaving, Li Tai told him something well hidden in his heart, saying that Li Yuanying is evil!

Yan Liben was completely silent after hearing brother’s message.

Be more careful in the future and stop digging holes for yourself. This is the painful experience that Prince Wei had to learn.

The evil Li Yuanying started his internship and because of Xu Jingzong’s instructions, everyone was polite to him. It was summer, the spring plowing is done and the year-end assessment is not due yet. The county government was actually free and there weren’t much work to do.

Li Yuanying couldn’t sit still and asked Xu Jingzong for something to do. Since he has been an official for many years he’s quite flexible. He will not let Li Yuanying touch the registration account but suddenly came up with a mission: Go conduct a population survey.

Of course, he was not comfortable with Li Yuanying and his friends running around so he made a group of government officials escort them, saying that this was a common practice when conducting population surveys. He is mainly worried that some citizens might be unreasonable and unwilling to cooperate. Seeing  Yuanying listening attentively, Xu Jingzong share the task in a serious manner: “First of all, we must record the ‘five-nine’. Every family who has people who reaches the age of 19, 49, 59, 79 or 89.

“Why?”

You serve the military at 19 and a citizen must take time to do voluntary labor for the county yearly. If there is a war, you must be ready to be drafted at any time. After the age of 49, your physical strength declines and you can replace military service using money and silk. After 59, nothing is expected from you and you will even get a drink paid by the county at the end of each year.  By the age of 79 and 89 these are elderly people. The more number of elderly people, the more prosperous a country is. Therefore, they must be given special treatment. Those serving the county government will need to pay them a visit in person to express their concern.

Li Yuanying understood. Looks like there’s much to learn. He asks if there’s anything else to pay attention to. After writing them down, he patted his chest and assured: “No problem, leave these to us, we will figure them all out!”

“No rush, just take your time. We only need to finish the written report by year end.”

Yuanying was motivated. He went back and explained o the others about the mission and immediately made preparations. He went and check out previous years’ report an ask those in charge about their experiences and finally worked together to make a specific action plan.

Li Yuanying was busy while  Xu Jingzong’s chief clerk was praising him for his cleverness: “The county magistrate has brilliant plans. This way these noble people can have lots of fun.”

Xu Jingzong stroked his beard and nodded. He came up with this task so that the children can go out for sightseeing, so that he didn’t have to worry about them messing around in the county government office!

Notes from the author:

Villain of the Tang Dynasty: This guy is really evil!

The admonisher of the Song Dynasty: That Wang Xiaoyu is really an evil thing!

Young Prince: What? What are you guys talking about?

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