Chapter 192 3/3

“Teacher Gou is amazing! He has taught us so much!”

“Teacher Gou knows everything!”

…

Gou Tongzhi couldn’t believe his ears. Did his son really have such abilities? But these people seemed sincere…

It appeared that Li Qingzhi was right; his son would be obedient and well-behaved if he stayed in Chongcheng County.

As Gou Tongzhi pondered this, the steward he had assigned to take care of Gou Ying approached, looking pleased to see him and leading him to find Gou Ying.

Gou Ying had just finished dinner and hadn’t yet gone to bed, so he hadn’t closed the door tightly. The steward called out “Young Master” and then led Gou Tongzhi inside. They first saw a screen, and as they walked around it, they found Gou Ying lying on the bed.

The young man, whom everyone was calling “teacher,” was lying on the blanket doing something… Gou Tongzhi couldn’t help but ask, “What are you doing?”

“Hatching chicks!” Gou Ying replied, then froze, “Dad?”

Why was his father here all of a sudden?

Gou Ying felt extremely embarrassed. Just then, he felt something move under his stomach.

He gasped and looked at the two eggs he had been incubating for several days.

Just now… did one of the eggs move?

Gou Ying opened the hollow wooden box, brushed away the cotton, and saw a crack in the eggshell.

This… this…

He hadn’t crushed the egg, so… was the chick hatching?

“I’ve hatched a chick!” Gou Ying cheered.

Gou Tongzhi: “…” What exactly was his son doing in Chongcheng County, and why was he hatching eggs?

Well, there had been signs. Since the publication of “Qiongdu Travels,” many people had been trying out various ideas from the book…

But he hadn’t expected his son to actually hatch a chick.

Gou Tongzhi, having never seen a chick hatch, was very curious. He moved closer to watch the chick pecking at the eggshell.

He wanted to help the chick, but Gou Ying said it wasn’t allowed. So he had the steward light a few more candles and sat nearby, watching slowly.

While Gou Ying’s chick was hatching, one of the two eggs that Qian Changsheng was incubating also began to move.

A brood of chicks often doesn’t hatch simultaneously. Typically, there’s some variation in timing, sometimes even by two or three days.

So that night, only three chicks hatched in total. The remaining one belonged to Chang Zhan and Chang Cui.

Still, everyone who witnessed the chicks hatching was very excited.

Qian Changsheng even cried. With red eyes, he told his mother, Mrs. Qian, who came to find him after hearing the news, “Mother, this is the chick I hatched. You must take good care of it…” He feared that after he passed away, no one would care for the chick.

This fluffy little chick was so adorable. He wanted to raise it well and take care of it for its whole life.

“Don’t worry, my son,” Mrs. Qian said, hugging her son and crying.

Li Qingzhi only found out the next day that chicks had hatched the previous night.

And that day, the remaining five chicks also hatched.

Their household suddenly had eight new chicks, which were very cute.

However, since different people had hatched these chicks, each person believed their chick was special and didn’t want to mix them up, insisting on raising them separately in their own rooms.

Li Damao and Li Ermao didn’t distinguish between themselves and were raising their two chicks together.

Li Qingzhi: “…” If they kept raising them like this, wouldn’t there be a lot of chicken manure around?

Unable to tolerate this, Li Qingzhi had a chicken coop built and persuaded Li Damao and the others to keep the chicks there.

Chicks are fragile and can easily die. Worried about the chicks’ health, Li Qingzhi used his special abilities to check on them…

Li Damao and the others treated the chicks like their own children, but in the end, it was him, the “grandfather,” who was most concerned.

Li Damao and the others were fine, raising the chicks roughly without much help needed. But Qian Changsheng and Gou Ying, being sons of wealthy families, were different. They used soft silk to make nests for their chicks, kept them in bamboo boxes, and had servants carry them around, taking meticulous care of them…

Both Gou Tongzhi and Mrs. Qian approved of their sons’ actions!

However, Gou Tongzhi and Gou Ying nearly had another argument over what to feed the chicks.

Li Qingzhi chatted with Gou Tongzhi and learned his reason for coming.

Gou Tongzhi had encountered many issues while handling government affairs. Since Li Qingzhi had learned a lot from chatting with Governor Zhang, he was able to offer some advice to Gou Tongzhi.

As for Gou Tongzhi’s romantic entanglement, Li Qingzhi warned him, “Sir, Prince Jin has always held a grudge against Governor Zhang and you. That woman might be working for someone…”

Gou Tongzhi shivered and became even more determined to avoid any entanglements with women until he secured his position as prefect.

Li Qingzhi’s warning was offhand, but unbeknownst to him, someone was indeed puzzled. Prince Jin wanted to trouble Governor Zhang, but they couldn’t infiltrate his circle, and even when they did, they couldn’t gather any useful information.

Upon hearing that Governor Zhang was close to Gou Tongzhi, someone suggested that Governor Zhang valued a scholar named Li Qingzhi…

So, they tried to use two honey traps.

Both traps failed!