Bringing the Railway to Daming

"Is this Ru porcelain of yours fake?" Liu Ruoxue asked.

"Nonsense!" the man exclaimed, standing up abruptly. "This is my family's heirloom Ru porcelain, how could it be fake? You must pay me compensation, or I'll report you to the authorities!"

Upon hearing the man say he would report the incident to the authorities, Zhao Min'er panicked even more and said, "Ruoxue, what should we do? Should I just pay the compensation?"

Upon hearing this, the other man lying on the ground immediately yelled, "Ouch! My leg must be broken from being kicked. If you don't pay my medical bills today, I'm going to report you to the authorities."

"You're all university students, right? Being sent to see the authorities is not only embarrassing, but I've also heard it will be recorded in your files."

Seeing the two men taking advantage of the situation, Liu Ruoxue laughed in anger and said, "Fine, report it to the authorities then. I want to see how the government will handle this case!"

Just then, a patrol team noticed the commotion and came over.

"What happened?"

Upon seeing the patrol officers, Zhao Min'er became noticeably more nervous.

The younger of the two men looked nervous, while the older one remained quite calm and spoke first: "Officer, these two women are bullying me. Not only did they smash my cousin's ancestral Ru porcelain, but they also hit me. You must uphold justice!"

The patrol captain looked at Liu Ruoxue and the other two and asked, "Is that so?"

Liu Ruoxue said, "His Ru porcelain is probably fake. As for hitting him, who told him to start groping my classmate right away?"

The patrol captain picked up the shards of celadon porcelain from the ground and examined them.

Ru ware originated in the Tang Dynasty and reached its peak of fame in the Northern Song Dynasty, becoming the foremost of the five famous porcelains of the Song Dynasty. Even during the Ming Dynasty, although Ru ware was still being produced, its price remained quite high. If it was an antique porcelain piece that had survived from the Song Dynasty, it would be even more expensive.

However, even with the patrol captain's knowledge, although he felt that the porcelain looked like Ru ware, he could not determine whether it was genuine or not, let alone its age.

So he said, "Come with me to the yamen to explain yourselves."

After saying that, he gestured to the other patrol officers to take the men away.

Zhao Min'er and the woman with the oval face were being taken away by patrol officers for the first time, and they were visibly nervous and frightened. Liu Ruoxue, however, gestured for them not to panic...
···
Liu Mansion.

In the central courtyard, in a side hall, Zhu Huilan was looking at the family's account books with Su Caiwei. As the Liu family invested in more and more properties, Su Caiwei had to manage more and more accounts. She was too busy to handle everything herself, so she not only trained several capable maids to help, but sometimes Zhu Huilan would also help with the work.

Seeing that it was almost lunchtime, Su Caiwei glanced outside and couldn't help but ask, "Why hasn't Ruoxue come back yet?"

Zhu Huilan said, "Ping An has already returned, why don't we call him over and ask him?"

Su Caiwei said, "The two of them don't go to the same school, so I'm afraid Ping An doesn't know about Ruoxue either?"

It turns out that although Liu Ruoxue and Liu Ping'an went to school together and were always in the same grade, her academic performance was only average because Liu Kuan was lenient with her, or rather, he was not as strict with her as he was with his son.

Therefore, Liu Ping'an was admitted to Peking University, while Liu Ruoxue could only attend the Women's College—and even then, she was a few points short. It was only through Zhu Huilan's secret connections that she was able to enroll.

Zhu Huilan said, "Why don't we just ask him over?"

After saying that, he gestured to the maid to go and call for help.

Liu Ping'an arrived quickly and bowed to the two women, saying, "Mother, Aunt."

Liu Ping'an, who is one year younger than Liu Ruoxue and is already sixteen years old, has grown into a handsome young man. He inherited Zhu Huilan's appearance and is much more handsome than Liu Kuan.

Moreover, he is intelligent, well-mannered, excels in his studies, and comes from an extraordinary family background, exuding the air of a refined gentleman.

Zhu Huilan asked directly, "Is Ruoxue's school closed today? Do you know why she hasn't returned yet?"

Liu Ping'an looked helpless. "My eldest sister is at a women's academy. How would I know?"

Just as Zhu Huilan was about to say something, a maid dressed in a school uniform suddenly entered, saying in a flustered manner, "Madam, something terrible has happened! The eldest young lady has been taken to the county government office by the patrol officers!" "What?" Zhu Huilan and Su Caiwei were both surprised to hear this, but neither of them panicked.

Zhu Huilan immediately asked, "What exactly happened?"

This maid was one of the two maids who had been disguised and following Liu Ruoxue to protect her. Upon hearing this, she immediately told Liu Ruoxue what had happened on the street.

Just as she finished speaking, Liu Kuan returned to his residence after leaving his post, bringing with him a "distinguished guest"—Old Zhu, Zhu Yuanzhang.

Zhu Huilan immediately had her maid recount Liu Ruoxue's ordeal again.

After listening, Old Zhu sneered, "Judging from what this girl said, the two people Ruoxue encountered were most likely trying to scam her. As long as the officials in Jiangning County who are handling this case are not confused, nothing will happen to them."

Liu Kuan also said, "In later generations, there were indeed many people who used this method to stage accidents for extortion, but I didn't expect it to happen now."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, “It’s not just now, it’s been around since the end of the Yuan Dynasty. We’ve seen it countless times—of course, back then I was just a poor monk and was never targeted by these kinds of scammers.”

Liu Kuan then asked doubtfully, "The laws of the Ming Dynasty are still quite strict, and the capital is right under the emperor's nose, yet there are still such swindlers—aren't they afraid that their tricks will be exposed by the government and brought to justice?"

Zhu Yuanzhang said, “These kinds of cases are not easy to solve—he claims the porcelain is an heirloom Ru ware. Even if the item is fake, he says he was deceived by his ancestors, so what can the government do to him? At most, they can detain him for two days and teach him a lesson.”

Upon reflection, Liu Kuan realized that this was indeed the case.

He then said, "However, if such a person repeatedly uses this trick to deceive people and is caught by the authorities, they should be able to be punished, right?"

Zhu Yuanzhang: "Of course—but we estimate that such a person will not commit crimes repeatedly in one place in a short period of time."

While the two were talking, Zhu Huilan went to order the kitchen to prepare more food—not according to the standards for entertaining truly distinguished guests, because in recent years, Zhu Yuanzhang would often come to the Liu residence under the pretense of visiting his daughter, grandson, and granddaughter to freeload meals, but in reality, he would come to chat with Liu Kuan.

After a while, Zhu Huilan started treating them like ordinary guests.

Liu Kuan and Zhu Yuanzhang had been chatting for a short while when Liu Ruoxue returned.

Liu Kuan was quite concerned about his daughter and immediately asked, "Is everything alright? What was the verdict from the Jiangning County government?"

Liu Ruoxue first shook her head to indicate that she was fine, then said angrily, "Those two people's so-called ancestral Ru porcelain has been identified as fake, and it's not even Ru porcelain, but the county government's criminal division only detained them for two days."

After saying this, Liu Ruoxue noticed Zhu Yuanzhang sitting inside. Her eyes lit up immediately, and she ran over to shake Zhu Yuanzhang's arm, saying, "Grandpa, you have to do something about this—those two swindlers are disgusting. I don't know how many people they've cheated."

"Stop shaking me, or I'll make Grandpa dizzy," Zhu Yuanzhang said with a smile. "The county government can't really deal with the two people you mentioned right now, but we'll send a member of the Imperial Guard to keep an eye on them and make sure they get what's coming to them."

Liu Ruoxue asked happily, "Really?"

"Would we lie to a little girl like you?"

Afterwards, Liu Kuan and Lao Zhu asked Liu Ruoxue for the details of the incident. Afterwards, they praised her, feeling that she had handled it very well. Putting everything else aside, at least she protected the vulnerable classmate from being taken advantage of.

After lunch, Liu Ruoxue, Liu Pingan, and the other children left.

Su Caiwei also went to handle affairs in the manor.

Only Liu Kuan and Zhu Huilan remained to accompany Zhu Yuanzhang.

"Looking back now, it seems that your decision not to send your children to a large charitable institution, but to a regular school, and then to have them conceal their identities at university, was actually a very good method of upbringing."

"Putting everything else aside, at least the children can make friends from different social classes and truly understand the situation of different groups of people."

"Do you think that members of the royal family, even Wen Yao (Zhu Xiong Ying's eldest son), could also be sent to university?" (End of Chapter)