Emperor Kang Jing promoted him with a stroke of his pen.

　　The original governor’s surname was Mo. In May of this year, he received a transfer order from above and an imperial decree, and his position was changed again. Now he is the governor of Wannan Prefecture, a fifth-rank official.

　　Lord Mo was stunned at first, then burst into tears of joy. After asking for details, he found out that it was Gu Zhao who won the third place in the imperial examination and talked to the emperor about fertilizers…

　　The eunuch who was passing the message said with a smile, “Gu Tanhualang is indeed a good talker, but the fact that Lord Mo was able to mobilize him should be thanked to Lord Chu. Fortunately, it was Lord Chu who was present at the time and mentioned Lord Mo’s name twice.”

　　After hearing the inside story, Lord Mo was naturally moved. It was because he and Lord Chu were from the same hometown and came from the same place. Lord Chu must have given him some advice because of their friendship.

　　At that time, Lord Mo thought that he must visit Lord Chu in the capital to give gifts during the New Year this year.

　　Let’s not talk about this.

　　In a small restaurant in Beijing, Gu Zhao said, “Brother, you should be more cautious when you arrive at the Fan Mansion tomorrow.”

　　”I’m not a fool, so I won’t speak nonsense in front of Lord Fan,” said Zheng Hui.

　　Seeing that it was getting late, Zheng Hui rushed to pay the bill, and said with a smile: “Now that my salary is high, I will pay. If one of you two gets promoted, I will not be polite in the future and will eat and drink exclusively for you two.”

　　”Thank you very much for your kind words, big brother.” Gu Zhao bowed with a smile.

　　Zheng Hui also knew that he had to make witty remarks and polite remarks to save the two people’s face.

　　They each took a mule cart home.

　　Zheng Hui arrived at the mansion in less than half an hour. The Zheng family bought a three-story house with a small garden behind the main courtyard, a row of sheds and stables.

　　”The Second Master is here.” The driver stopped the car in front of the door, waited for the Second Master to get off, and then went forward and knocked on the door.

　　The one who opened the door called out to the Second Master and waited for him to come in. The driver outside then got on the carriage, drove the carriage around to the back door, unloaded the carriage, fed the horses and other sundries.

　　Zheng Hui entered the second door and his wife came to meet him and helped him undress.

　　”My husband, have you been drinking?”

　　”I had nothing to do this afternoon, so I had a few drinks with Jinxin and Zhaodi. It’s no big deal.” Zheng Hui went into the main hall to change into his official uniform. Tang Rou took out a single piece of clothing and helped her husband change into it, so that he could relax.

　　Mother Zhang poured some hot tea and brought it over.

　　Mother Zhang and her husband both followed him to Beijing. Although it was not a contract to sell their bodies, people tend to go to high places and water flows to low places. The Zheng family was in a very good situation before. Now that Zheng Hui was an official in Beijing, Mother Zhang’s family did not think much about it and urged Mother Zhang to go to Beijing with them.

　　If the second young master becomes rich in the future, the whole family will benefit.

　　So Zhang’s mother and her husband came over.

　　Tang Rou naturally preferred to use the familiar rather than the unfamiliar, especially when she was in a strange place, she would feel more comfortable with her own people. So in the Zheng family’s three-story house, Zhang’s mother still did the cooking and laundry work, while the men of the Zhang family worked as doormen in the outer courtyard and did some shopping work.

　　After a while, the Zheng family wanted to buy two more servants, a rough maid to help Zhang Mama, and a younger maid, both of whom would be indentured. The maid would be more convenient for taking care of Yingniang. But the time was short, and they had not picked a suitable one.

　　You can’t be too good-looking. Zhang’s mother told Rouniang.

　　I was afraid that if I became outstanding in appearance, I would be bold enough to climb into the bed of the Second Master after a few years. But I couldn’t be too rough and ugly, otherwise it would scare Yingniang and bring shame to the Zheng family when guests came.

　　And then I never found the right one.

　　The couple sat down and talked for a while. Zheng Hui held his daughter in his arms, smiling, and said, “Our daughter Ying was born on September 9th, and his son was born on September 6th. What a coincidence.”

　　”Daddy, look at Yingniang, is she pretty? My mother drew her for me.”

　　Yingniang celebrated her third birthday more than half a month ago. She is four years old now. Although she is still young, she already has the appearance of a beauty. She has two buns on her head, a chubby face, a pointed chin, round and dark eyes, and a little red on her eyebrows.

　　Now she raises her head and acts coquettishly to her father.

　　Tang Rou laughed and said, “I was drawing my eyebrows this morning, and she came over and said she wanted to apply some too.”

　　Zheng Hui looked at it carefully and said, “Let Dad take a good look.”

　　Yingniang leaned forward and asked her father to take a good look at her.

　　”It’s beautiful. My girl Ying is beautiful, and your mother draws well too.”

　　Yingniang was shy and happy.

　　”Go play with Mother Zhang for a while. Mom and your father have something to talk about.” Tang Rou coaxed her daughter out.

　　Zheng Hui put his daughter down and saw Yingniang went out. Tang Rou smoothed her husband’s clothes and said coquettishly, “Yingniang is grown up now. You can’t hold her anymore. If you continue to spoil her, it will be difficult for her to find a husband in the future.”

　　”Yingniang is still young. If it’s hard to find her, I’ll go find the boy from Jinxin’s family. He’s still young.”

　　”You’re talking nonsense again.”

　　After joking, the couple talked about serious matters. They were going to visit their eldest sister, the third young master Fan, at the Fan Mansion tomorrow. Tang Rou said she had prepared all the gifts she brought, and asked if he wanted to add some.

　　Zheng Hui said that it was not necessary. It was too heavy a gift for him, a minor official of the sixth rank. He would do the same every year and there was no need to set the precedent. They were not real relatives. After he finished speaking, he realized what was going on and asked Rouniang whether she had a good relationship with her eldest sister.

　　Tang Rou smiled and said, “We were quite harmonious at home. I thought that my husband was working in the capital, and since this was our first visit, it would be better to get closer to him so that we can visit each other more often in the future.”

　　”Then add another one.” Zheng Hui said.

　　If Gu Zhao was here, he would have emphasized the words “quite harmonious” and Tang Rou’s concern for Zheng Hui’s future, and would have visited more often for Zheng Hui’s future, even if she had not gotten along with her elder sister before. But Zheng Hui only heard that the relationship was okay, and that he should visit more often in the future.

　　Come to think of it, Rouniang’s only relative in the capital is her elder sister at Fan’s.

　　So Li added another old mountain ginseng.

　　The next day, the couple took Yingniang to Fan Mansion by mule cart. Fan Mansion was not far from Zheng’s house, and the mule cart arrived in about two quarters of an hour. However, the mansion was much larger than Zheng’s house, with five entrances and five exits.

　　It has been almost two years since Fan Min was transferred back to Beijing. Unlike those minor officials from small families, although the location is a little far away, his house is big and well decorated, and it cost more than ten thousand taels when he bought it.

　　The Fan family had a large population. Without mentioning Fan Min’s concubines and illegitimate children, we could only say that the legitimate children were three sons and two daughters, and both daughters had married out. Tang Rou’s legitimate sister married the third legitimate son, Fan En.

　　The three members of the Zheng family entered through the side door. Zheng Hui stayed in the front yard and was received by Fan En, while Tang Rou led her daughter into the back house.

　　Fan En was three years older than Zheng Hui. He was not good at studying and had no official position. He was idle at home all day. In the early days, the Fan family donated money to send their son to the Imperial Academy as a student. But Fan En had been in the Imperial Academy for less than two months when he got into a fight with someone and broke the head of the person who was also a student and whose father had a higher position than his father.

　　Fan Min wrote a letter to apologize personally. After that, the Fan family stopped their son from pursuing higher goals, as long as he did not cause any trouble that would affect the family.

　　When they reached the age of marriage, they naturally couldn’t look for someone higher up – the noble Fan family was too far away to marry a lady. Not to mention that Fan En had a bad reputation, it would be difficult to deceive her if they used some connections. So they could only look for someone lower down.

　　Otherwise, if the daughter of Magistrate Quliang married the third son of a fifth-rank official, that would be marrying up.

　　Fan En did not take his brother-in-law seriously who married a concubine’s daughter. It was said that his family used to be engaged in business selling medicinal materials. Now he was a minor official in the Ministry of Rites. He knew that the Ministry of Rites was a very leisurely and unprofitable place and it was not easy to get promoted.

　　After just a few words, he was about to go out and take Zheng Hui out for a drink. He knew there was a small courtyard outside the house, with skinny horses brought from Yangzhou. They looked a bit plain, but they were varied and clean.

　　Zheng Hui frowned as he listened. Before he could say anything, the servant outside the door hurried in, knelt on the ground and said, “Third Master, the master has sent a message, asking you to take Lord Zheng to the Duanzheng Courtyard.”

　　Duanzhengyuan is Fan Min’s study courtyard.

　　The most feared person in Fann’s family is his father. He was originally happy to hear the content of the message from the servant, but he was so scared that he kicked the servant. The servant rolled over and crawled back, kneeling down properly.

　　”Did you go and file a complaint?”

　　”It’s unfair, Third Master. How dare I?”

　　”Tell me in detail what the master said.” Fan En didn’t even dare to call him father.

　　The boy knelt down and repeated the words verbatim: “Master said: Zheng Hui from the Ministry of Rites is here? Let this wicked boy bring someone over.”

　　Then it’s not about him, but about Zheng Hui. Fan En understood, and even didn’t mind the servant imitating him and calling him “evil son”. He even looked happy and said to Zheng Hui: “Let’s go, my father wants you to go over.”

　　While this unfortunate guy is being tested by his father, he can just slip away and have some fun.

　　Zheng Hui frowned and followed Fan En, thinking all the way. Although he was a brother-in-law of the Fan family, Fan En had never looked at him straight in the eye. It was natural that Lord Fan Min, whom he had never met, would not take his distant relative seriously.

　　It definitely wasn’t because of Rouniang, so it must be something else.

　　After much thought, the only thing related to Lord Fan Min is Zhaodi’s method of fertilizing the fields.