The First Auxiliary Road from the Imperial Examination

It is not the behavior of a censor with integrity to refuse to respond to a war, so Sheng Yuan received a response not long after the invitation letter was sent out.

The interview was held in a side courtyard on the south side of the Classics Hall. Although it was not very big, it was quiet.

Although Sheng Yuan's invitation to the censors for a face-to-face interview had not been publicized, there were many people in the officialdom who were interested in goingssip, so almost everyone in the court knew about it before the interview even started.

It's just that knowing about it is not easy to get in and watch the fun; after all, the Classics Hall is where the cabinet offices are located and it is guarded by the imperial guards. Unrelated outsiders cannot even get close to it, let alone go in to listen.

At most, he would just wait outside the classics hall.

So, not long after, something happened that the officials could not understand.

The censor who was brave enough to accept the challenge entered the classics hall with high spirits, but walked out after more than an hour with a dazed look on his face. Others chased after him and surrounded him to ask questions, but he was also immersed in his own thoughts with dull eyes and slowly swinging his sleeves. No matter how much people wanted to find out, they had no clue.

Therefore, everyone could only speculate based on the actions of the censors and the Censorate; but who would have thought that the censors, who usually looked down on each other, would actually unite and cooperate this time, not only keeping silent to the outside world but also rarely arguing internally. The only difference that could be seen was that the Censorate increased the number of interviews in waves.

This change made the curiosity of the confused officials almost reach its peak; however, while everyone was scratching their heads, they were surprised to find that the usual quarrels in the morning court seemed to have disappeared, and the group of censors who used to regard their colleagues as their political achievements were actually silent, as if all their attention and enthusiasm were focused on the interview meeting in Shengyuan.

Although such an action was against the rules, the officials felt unprecedented peace and tranquility, and they all hoped that the interview at Shengyuan would last longer.

In this way, this tacit calm lasted until the aftermath of the farce faded.

The officials who had confronted the empress at the grand court meeting were demoted, punished, or dismissed. In the blink of an eye, these powerful officials completely disappeared from the sight of the people of Kyoto. On the day when the former Prime Minister Yan Yuan was ordered to retire and return to his hometown, almost no one saw him off. Occasionally, two colleagues showed up in a low-key manner, but they came and left in a hurry.

"I never thought that it would be you who would see me off." Yan Yuan looked at Sheng Yuan who had been waiting in front of the farewell pavilion for a long time, and he was stunned and a little dazed.

"I am here to wait for you, sir, under the order of your majesty and the empress." Sheng Yuan bowed and recited the instructions of Emperor Yanping and Sheng Ran, "... Your majesty and the empress thought of your hard work and could not bear to see you return home sadly, so they specially gave you this plaque with the words 'Thirty years of hard work, returning home with clean hands', and asked you to hang it in front of your residence."

Yan Yuan looked at the plaque in the guard's hand with a complicated expression. After a long while, he knelt down with a wry smile to express his gratitude.

"Sheng Wenzhen!" Before leaving, Yan Yuan squinted his eyes and looked at Sheng Yuan for a long time, and sighed softly, "It has always been difficult to be a minister of regent. If you want to retire safely by relying on your kinship, I'm afraid it will take some time to achieve it. You... take care of yourself!"

After saying this, he didn't care about Sheng Yuan's reaction. He flicked his wide sleeves, turned around elegantly, and strode towards his carriage.

Sheng Yuan was left alone, watching the group of people walking away, with an expressionless face and silence.

……

"Miss, my uncle asked me to go back to look for you, saying that the mansion is in chaos!" (End of this chapter)