Supreme Golden Palace

Chapter 14 Government Affairs

it's getting dark,

At Banzhengfang, at the Duke of Qi's mansion, the carriage slowly approached the mansion, and servants hurried forward with footstools. Lü Yongji leaned slightly to the side, first sticking his foot out of the carriage door, then slowly stepped forward and stepped onto the footstool to get out.

"Master," the family steward who had been waiting in front of the mansion gate for a long time hurried down the stairs and stepped forward to support Lu Yongji.

When Lü Yongji saw the housekeeper, his expression suddenly turned cold, and he asked, "Lü Quan, has that unworthy bastard returned home?"

Housekeeper Lu Quan waited carefully beside him and said with his head down, "My lord, the prince has returned home and is now studying in the other courtyard. He previously instructed the mansion not to disturb him in the other courtyard unless necessary."

"Humph, studying?" Lu Yongji was obviously a little skeptical. Finally, he frowned and thought for a while, then sighed, "Forget it. No matter whether he studies or not, as long as this evil creature stays in the mansion peacefully, it's a good thing. You keep an eye on the prince, and don't let him run away again."

Lü Quan replied, "Yes,"

Looking at Lu Quan with a submissive look on his face, Lu Yongji sighed inwardly.

Lü Quan and Lü Yongji were childhood friends, having been together since childhood, sharing the same fate as peeing and playing in the mud. Later, Lü Yongji rose to prominence thanks to a kind aunt, but he never forgot his childhood friend and brought Lü Quan with him to Daxing, where he became the head of the household.

The reason why Lü Yongji had banished Lü Quan to Mount Zhongnan was because he was truly worried about his son, so he sent his trusted confidant Lü Quan there. With Lü Quan watching over him in Mount Zhongnan, Lü Yongji felt somewhat more at ease.

"This unfilial son, instead of being the dignified prince of Qi, insists on seeking the truth. I think he's just bored. It's because our Lu family is prosperous now. If it were ten or twenty years ago, he would have been struggling to make a living in the dirt. How dare he think of such nonsense?"

Lu Yongji looked at the tall gatehouse in front of the mansion, the vermilion gate, and the golden nails neatly inlaid on it, and murmured, "It's a pity that my parents died young. They suffered a lifetime. After finally having good fortune and becoming a royal relative, they didn't get to enjoy this blessing."

"Lü Quan, how about finding that evil creature a job to do first?"

Lu Yongji walked up the stairs slowly and said to Lu Quan beside him, "Now that you have a job, I think you can calm down. Going crazy all day like you are now is not a long-term solution. It's okay while I'm here, but when I'm gone, that evil creature will suffer."

Lü Quan, who was supporting Lü Yongji, cautiously looked at his master's face and advised, "Master, you can't say that. You are an old man with a long and healthy life. You have to watch your son get married, build a career, and become famous. How can you say such unlucky words?"

Lu Yongji snorted and said, "I don't even dream of becoming famous or having a wife and a house. If this evil creature can get married and give me a little grandson to cherish my joy, then I can die with peace of mind."

As they talked, the two of them crossed the courtyard, the moon platform, the Qingchi, and entered the front hall. Lü Yongji took off his plain clothes and changed into casual clothes. He sat on the cross-bed and asked Lü Quan to sit on one side. Suddenly, he said quietly, "What do you think, is it possible for our family to have a closer relationship with the emperor?"

Lü Quan was stunned for a moment, then said in astonishment, "A closer relationship? My Lord, the emperor's five princesses have all been surrendered."

Lu Yongji waved his hand and said, "Isn't there already a widowed princess now? I saw Lanling when I went to the funeral today. This little girl is so pitiful!"

Princess Lanling was married to Wang Fengxiao in the first year of the Kaihuang Emperor's reign. She was only seven years old at the time, and now a widow at the age of eleven, she was truly a pitiful person. When Lü Yongji attended the funeral, he saw Princess Lanling crying like a little tearful child, and he felt a little sad.

Later, when returning home, Lu Yongji thought about his useless son again. He wondered if the Duke of Qi could still keep his title and salary if his generation was over and the next generation had little affection for the royal family.
That's why Lu Yongji suddenly had an idea, wondering if he could strengthen his relationship with the emperor. If he could get Princess Lanling to surrender, the Duke of Qi's mansion would be worry-free for at least three generations.

Lü Quan hesitated for a moment and said, "Sir, will the emperor agree to this marriage?"

Although Princess Lanling was already a widow, she was still a princess after all, and the Emperor's daughter had no trouble finding a husband. The possibility of Princess Lanling marrying into the Duke of Qi's mansion was extremely small. However, if this marriage were to happen, the benefits to the Duke of Qi's mansion would be enormous.

"Don't worry about whether the Emperor agrees or not. Let's prepare here first. Princess Lanling will need three years to finish mourning and marry again. During this time, I will try to persuade the Emperor to speak and see if His Majesty will agree. As long as His Majesty agrees, this matter will be settled."

Lu Yongji rubbed his eyes in distress and said, "And that evil creature must have a proper job. If he continues to be as unfilial as he is now, even if I risk my life and bring my long-deceased aunt to him, the emperor will not agree to this marriage."

"Alas, this evil creature!"

Seeing Lü Yongji's annoyance, Lü Quan comforted him softly, "Your Excellency has good intentions. The prince will understand one day."

Lu Yongji instructed Lu Quan, "I don't need him to understand. Go prepare a business card and present it to the Ministry of Personnel. Say that the prince of Qi County wants to enter the government through family connections. Let the officials in the Ministry of Personnel take care of the arrangements."

At the beginning of the Northern Sui Dynasty, there were only four ways to enter the officialdom, namely recommendation, military merit, civil service, and family patronage. Among them, only military merit and civil service were something that children from poor families could even think about. Recommendation and family patronage were always the private domains of the Guanlong nobles, the powerful families, and the nobles.

------

Zhangtai Courtyard,

Lu Shang looked relaxed as he quietly flipped through the Taoist scripture manuscripts he had collected before.

Ever since he got the "Secret of Jinhua from the Founder of Fuli", Lu Shang has gained something different every time he read these ordinary Taoist scriptures.

The secret of Jinhua in Chapter Twelve is obscure and difficult to understand. Each sentence of the scripture can even have dozens or hundreds of interpretations, and these interpretations are contradictory to each other, and even mutually reinforcing and restraining each other. The more Lu Shang comprehends it, the more he feels his own insignificance and the lofty and vastness of the Tao.

It was precisely because the meaning of "The Secret of Jinhua by the Founder of Fuli" was difficult that Lu Shang began to pay attention to the basic Taoist scriptures, hoping to use these Taoist scriptures to accumulate his own Taoist cultivation, and then study the obscure twelve chapters of the Secret of Jinhua, which might bring him different gains.

Although Lü Shang called the Taoist of Mount Zhongnan his master, the Taoist never truly accepted him into his fold. Without a teacher to teach him the true meaning of the "Fuli Patriarch's Golden Flower Secret," Lü Shang was left to explore on his own, interpreting the twelve chapters based on his own understanding.

"Lü Shang,"

Just as Lü Shang was absorbed in reading the Daoist scriptures, a soft shout startled him awake. He saw Lü Yongji, with a stern expression, pushing open the vermilion door of the pavilion.

"Father," Lu Shang responded softly when he saw that Lu Yongji looked uneasy.

Lu Yongji snorted coldly, "You still know that I am your father, you evil creature, so willful and reckless that you dared to go to Mount Zhongnan to become a monk and study Taoism."

"Tell me about the good things you've done. Is there anything in this world you wouldn't dare do? If you weren't my only son, I'd want to kick you out for the sake of the Lu family's legacy, lest those scholars and officials laugh at my humble family background and my poor parenting skills."

Lu Yongji was obviously a little annoyed. The fact that Lu Shang had abandoned his home and ran away to Zhongnan to seek the truth had become the talk of the entire capital. From the powerful to the common people, everyone was talking about it. Even when he entered the palace to meet the emperor, Emperor Yang Jian asked him about it.

This made Lu Yongji quite angry. Although he later deliberately demoted Lu Quan to Zhongnan to take care of Lu Shang, and invested a lot of manpower and material resources at the foot of Zhongnan Mountain, fearing that his only child would suffer in the mountains, this does not mean that he had no grudges about Lu Shang's departure.

Lu Yongji's face was as gloomy as water. He continued, "When you wanted to learn Taoism before, I let you do it. But I didn't expect that you would become so obsessed with it that you couldn't even stay in the Duke's Mansion. You had to run away to the deep mountains and old forests, sleeping in the open air, braving the wind and rain, and you didn't want to suffer any hardship."

"Now, I've become a laughing stock among the nobles of the capital. Let them laugh at me. I came from a humble background and am used to swallowing insults. I'm thick-skinned and it doesn't matter. But what about your future? Do you still want a future?"

Lu Shang remained silent. He had never truly considered his future. Compared to seeking immortality and longevity, the so-called glorious future of the mundane world was worthless in his eyes. Moreover, with the demise of the Second Emperor of Sui, what was the point of pursuing a future for him as a relative of the emperor?

Even if you want a future, you should cling to Li Yuan. Compared with Yang Jian's irritability, Li Yuan is famous for his loyalty to his friends. If you make friends with Li Yuan and then wait for Erfeng to be born, you can cling to Erfeng's thighs and reap the benefits for three hundred years.

It wasn't that Lü Shang was ungrateful and unwilling to protect the Sui Dynasty. As a relative of Yang Jian's mother, he wouldn't have failed to do so if he truly could. It was just that even King Yang Lin, descended from the planet Ketu in the upper realm, couldn't defy the trend of the Sui Dynasty's demise and the rise of the Tang Dynasty. So, how could Lü Shang defy the will of heaven?

The only thing Lu Shang could do was to take away one or two direct descendants of the Yang family when the Sui Dynasty was about to collapse, hide them among the people, let them multiply and leave some roots for the Yang family, so that he would not let down the honor and wealth given by the Yang family.

"well,"

Looking at Lu Shang, who was thinking silently with his head down, accepting the scolding, Lu Yongji said helplessly: "Forget it, you evil creature, you are really my evil star. Who made you my only son? Even if I have to shamelessly go to the palace to beg the emperor, I can't let you ruin your future."

"I've already had Lü Quan submit a business card to the Ministry of Personnel, allowing you to enter the government through family connections. The Ministry will have a decision in three to five days at the least, or a month at the most. For the next few days, stay home and study hard. Don't dwell on those troublesome things. Do you understand?"

Before leaving, Lu Yongji thought for a moment and finally said, "Although I am the Duke of Qi, I was granted the title by my royal family. I cannot compare to those pillars of the country who have made great contributions and have a deep foundation. Our Duke of Qi's Mansion cannot withstand any disturbance."

"When I'm around, I can still rely on my old dignity to let you do whatever you want. But when I'm gone, let's see what you, this evil creature, will do."

(End of this chapter)