Start to be a martial arts hero from the famous people of Hengshan

Chapter 59 Prime Minister
In the next few days, Ou Zanghua occasionally attended banquets organized by his classmates with Yang Shen, Zou Shouyi and Wang Dao to keep in touch with them.

Especially after Ou Zanghua's status as the top scholar in Huguang Province spread, more and more of his peers came to invite him.

"Sir, this is the 31st invitation this morning. We have enough money left over from the past two days to buy firewood. In addition, there are several people from some chamber of commerce who wanted to give me silver bills, but I refused them all." Qu Feiyan brought back another stack of invitations, with a hint of arrogance in her words.

"Just confiscate them. We don't need them."

While responding to Qu Feiyan, Ou Zanghua carefully sealed a thick letter and put it into a wooden box.

In the yard, Jie Qing was waiting for him.

So when Jie Qing heard Qu Feiyan's words, he was full of envy. This is the treatment of scholars!

When others give him money, he refuses to accept it.

Ou Zanghua came out with the box, handed it to Jie Qing, and said, "This is a letter I wrote to my wife, and a music score for my master. I'll trouble the brothers of the Beggar Gang to help me send it back to Hengshan. This is hard work money, please have some tea, brothers."

Jie Qing remembered his elder brother's words and immediately refused, "Brother Ou, please don't be so polite. My elder brother said that it is a blessing for brothers to work for Brother Ou, and we cannot accept this useless hard work fee."

"Even if your elder brother comes, he has to listen to me. Don't refuse. Just accept it!" Ou Zanghua smiled and put the banknote in Jie Qing's hand firmly.

"I will hand it over to my eldest brother when I get back. He will have the final say on how to deal with it." Jie Qing was a little confused about the relationship between the two, so he chose the simplest solution and handed it over to his eldest brother.

"All is fine." Ou Zanghua nodded, with a very casual attitude.

"By the way, Senior Brother Ou, this is what happened in the martial arts world recently." Jie Qing said, taking out an envelope from his arms and handing it to Ou Zanghua.

Ou Zanghua became interested and opened the envelope to read it. It turned out that there was fighting and killing every day in the martial arts world. Someone who became famous yesterday was killed in seconds by someone even stronger today.

Among the many messages, he quickly found what he wanted to know.

The first thing is that Lao Denuo returned to Huashan and seemed to have reconciled with the Songfeng Temple of the Qingcheng Sect.

The second thing is that after Lao Denuo left Qingcheng Mountain, the disciples of Songfeng Temple of Qingcheng Sect began to become active in the martial arts world and began to move towards the Fujian area.

"Alas," Ou Zanghua sighed. The second victim of "Swordsman" is about to appear. It is really a matter of time and fate.

At this time, Xiang Danian's voice came from outside the door again. Qu Feiyan went out to take a look, and after a moment she ran in excitedly and said, "Young Master, this is the invitation from the Prime Minister!"

Ou Zanghua took it and took a look, and found that it was indeed a hometown banquet hosted by Li Dongyang, inviting all the scholars from Huguang to get together.

That afternoon, Ou Zanghua, accompanied by Xiang Danian, went to Xiaoshi Yongfang, where Li Dongyang organized a hometown banquet.

When Ou Zanghua arrived, more than ten of the thirty or so candidates who were going to take part in the imperial examination had already arrived.

A slender, well-mannered middle-aged man came over, looked at Ou Zanghua, smiled and greeted him, "Jingyu, I heard you were here before, but I never had the chance to meet you. Today I finally meet you."

"Brother Shangbin, long time no see." Ou Zanghua quickly bowed and greeted him.

This man's surname was Yu, his given name was Shouguan, and his courtesy name was Shangbin. He was Ou Zanghua's senior at Shigu Academy and took good care of him.

The two walked in while chatting. It is always a happy thing to meet old friends in a foreign place.

Yu Shouguan also introduced two good friends to Ou Zanghua, Wu Yin, whose courtesy name was Hucheng, was from Xiangyin, Huguang, and Sun Jifang, whose courtesy name was Shiqi, was from Huarong, Huguang.

When four people get together, there are more topics to talk about.

Sun Jifang looked at Ou Zanghua and suddenly said, "I received a letter from home the day before yesterday. My mother is nearly sixty years old and she especially enjoyed watching Liu Hai Kan Qiao today."

"I worked on this in my spare time. It's my honor that your mother likes it." Ou Zanghua smiled and said calmly.

As many Huguang scholars arrived, Li Dongyang walked out with the support of Li Zhaofan.

This prime minister of the Ming Dynasty had three sons and three daughters, but only his eldest daughter lived a long life. His eldest son died of illness at the age of 27, his second son died of illness at the age of 10, and his concubine died at the age of one. Li Zhaofan was originally the son of his fourth brother Li Dongming, and was adopted by him as his heir.

Seeing the Prime Minister come out, all the candidates stood up, bowed their heads and said, "Students greet you, sir."

Li Dongyang is the chief examiner of this imperial examination, and the teacher of everyone present. It is such a private occasion, so it is most appropriate to call him "Master".

"Today is just a gathering of fellow townsmen. There's no need to be polite. Please take a seat!" Li Dongyang looked at everyone and said in a gentle tone.

"Thank you, sir." Everyone bowed again before sitting down.

Li Dongyang had a calm look and talked about intimate topics, asking about family situations, whether the young people were married, recent changes in their hometown, whether they had any doubts about their studies, etc.

Things like drinking games, writing poetry, and discussing political affairs, which are standard features of literary gatherings, are not available here.

Everyone was a little uncomfortable at first, but under Li Dongyang's approachable guidance, everyone gradually relaxed and gave fewer and fewer official answers when answering questions, and mostly relied on their own original ideas.

Ou Zanghua was called out several times, and he answered according to his own ideas. Li Dongyang just smiled and nodded, without saying anything bad or giving any advice.

After the banquet was over and the scholars left, Li Dongyang returned to his study with the help of his stepson.

He sat on the armchair, and the gentleness on his face disappeared instantly, as if he had just been acting out a play.

Li Zhaofan saw it and stood aside, not daring to speak.

After a while, Li Dongyang slowly said, "Ou Zanghua and Yu Shouguan are steady and practical, but they are different. Can you see that?"

Li Zhaofan opened his mouth but couldn't utter a word for a long time.

Li Dongyang sighed secretly and comforted gently: "It's okay, just listen more, watch more, and talk less in the future."

"Yes"

Li Dongyang ignored his stepson and continued thinking.

That day, after Liang Chu discovered that Emperor Zhengde was acting abnormally, he learned from some spies in the palace that he was reading a storybook.

In the cabinet's view, this was a great thing. After all, the emperor, who was the most dramatic, was finally willing to sit down and read a book instead of doing anything else. It was simply great!

But after Zhengde left the palace to find the author of the storytelling book, and this author happened to be a juren who participated in this year's imperial examination, Ou Zanghua's name had already appeared on the desks of the cabinet leaders.

Li Dongyang originally could have held this hometown gathering or not, but in order to meet Ou Zanghua in advance, he forced himself to hold it.

Judging from the results, Li Dongyang was quite satisfied with Ou Zanghua's performance.

He is neither arrogant nor impetuous, pragmatic and truth-seeking, and has a conscience. Even Li Dongyang could not tell what Ou Zanghua really wants.

He is more like a passer-by, observing everything in the world from a different perspective.

Thinking of this, Li Dongyang sighed secretly: "Innocent and free from desire, the heart is free, and the years pass slowly and gracefully."

A few days later, in the Imperial Examination Hall, the two chief examiners and eight co-examiners gathered together to start filling in the A-list, also known as the main list.

Starting from the sixth place, the decision on the ranking from the sixth to the eighteenth place is mainly in the hands of the chief examiner, but the top five candidates have to be decided by everyone together.

The co-examiners have the power to refute the top answer selected by the chief examiner, so the final top answer must be the one that everyone agrees on.

After much discussion and comparison, the final ranking was handed to Li Dongyang.

He looked at it, smiled and nodded, saying, "Very good."

(End of this chapter)