Chapter 285: Even a shit basin would find him smelly

Yu Dayou said not to let base scholars enter the army, and the Ming Emperor immediately agreed. On military affairs, Zhu Yijun attached great importance to the opinions of military generals because the Ming Dynasty had experienced similar things.

In the Hongwu years, Xu Da threw base scholars into the military, and they were tempered of all those stinky habits. However, after Xu Da and Zhu Yuanzhang passed away, this method didn't work well anymore. The most typical example was the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunwen.

Zhu Yunwen also stuffed base scholars into the army. Zhu Yuanzhang could suppress them, but Zhu Yunwen couldn't. Many affairs of the army began to rot rapidly. This group of scholars, full of twists and turns and tricks, showed off their power in the army, relying on the Emperor's emphasis on scholars, and became even more unscrupulous.

The Yan Prince's mansion started with eight hundred Iron Forest troops and won repeatedly. The more they fought, the more people they had. The Ming army suppressing the Yan mansion was defeated repeatedly. Honestly, the Yan Prince Zhu Di's military talent was indeed strong, but it also had to do with the official army's cooperation being too tacit.

These scholars were like pieces of stinky shit in the army, and the army's combat effectiveness dropped rapidly. The ones fighting for their lives on the front line were the soldiers and generals, and the ones taking the credit were these guys. That would be fine, but these guys were also desperately dragging their feet in the back.

It was simply... simply.

For example, on the 23rd day of the fourth month of the fourth year of Jianwen, the official army won a victory. Originally, the morale was high, and the Yan Prince Zhu Di was on the verge of having to retreat. But Huang Zizheng, Qi Tai, and others in the court told the Jianwen Emperor: "The Yan army has gone north. We should summon Hui Zu back. The Chen Qiao incident cannot be guarded against."

Huang Zizheng and Qi Tai naturally had people in the official army. They said they received secret reports that the Yan Prince had suffered a defeat and had already gone north, so it was better to summon Xu Hui Zu back. Otherwise, if there was another Chen Qiao mutiny, how could they guard against it?

The Jianwen Emperor agreed with what the two said and summoned Xu Hui Zu back, leading to He Fu being unable to support himself alone. In the Battle of Lingbi, the official army was defeated.

The Jianwen Emperor lost the general trend, and the Yan Prince Zhu Di went south to the capital and became Emperor.

This was the bad consequence of these base scholars participating in military secrets. This was also the reason why Yu Dayou opposed it. Throwing these base scholars into the military to be tempered was absolutely a good method, but one had to be able to suppress this group of dogs. Otherwise, this group of guys would only play a negative role in the military.

Military affairs are major events of the country and must be handled with caution.

What is more interesting is that in the eyes of some court officials, Wan Shihe being able to live until now is very strange.

Wan Shihe came from the Jin Party, but had an extremely close relationship with the Zhejiang Party and the Chu Party, and even played the role of a peacemaker at times. This kind of wall-grass would inevitably be attacked by both parties at the same time when major events were encountered, eventually losing

Yet Wan Shihe lived very well in the imperial court.

He sat firmly as the Minister of Rites and then went to the Ministry of Personnel to become the Heavenly Official. All day long, he ignored the affairs of the Ministry of Personnel and instead pointed fingers at rites and laws; his main style was simply being abstract.

Everyone says Wan Shihe is a fence-sitter, but in fact, Wan Shihe has always been a firm, unwavering member of the Emperor's faction. He operated in the court as part of the Emperor's faction, and the foundation of his standing tall and never falling was the Emperor.

Wan Shihe had a heart of compliance. He knew his abilities were limited, and the administration of officials was the core of the imperial court's power. He became the Minister of Personnel, but Wan Shihe never changed the rules of the Ministry of Personnel, letting His Majesty hold the power over personnel, while he survived by seeking refuge under His Majesty.

This was Wan Shihe's way of survival; he lived very well, lived prosperously, and lived out his own style.

Wan Shihe held the incriminating evidence against Xu Jie in his hands. With the court's direction unclear and the Emperor having not expressed a clear stance, Wan Shihe chose to ask first. If the Emperor was not prepared to let Xu Jie die now, then Wan Shihe did not intend to let the miscellaneous gazettes stir up public opinion. If His Majesty intended for Xu Jie to die now, then it could be reported.

"An anonymous informed source" — this identity is truly very useful, and it is also an important tool for Wan Shihe to control public opinion.

"Present it." Zhu Yijun attached great importance to Wan Shihe's memorial. After opening it and reading the entire memorial, he fell silent. After he applied the vermilion mark, he handed it to Feng Bao and said to Wan Shihe: "Report it."

Lu Diaoyang received the memorial and read it for a long time, then handed it to Wang Chonggu, exhaled a breath of turbid air, and closed his eyes to rest his mind.

"Has this old official gone mad?" After Wang Chonggu finished reading, his face changed drastically as he handed the memorial away.

"I have heard of this Huishan Hall in the Southern Yamen as well." Hence Hai Rui expressed his opinion after finishing the memorial. He said with a sense of loss: "I originally thought it was Xu Jie seeking fame, but I did not expect it to be seeking profit."

After Wang Guoguang and Zhang Xueyan finished reading, their faces were full of horror, and they passed the memorial down again.

Huishan Hall had seven locations in Songjiang Prefecture and sixteen locations across the fourteen prefectures of the Southern Yamen. Over twenty-three years, it provided charity to over 67,000 people, but only 130 to 140 survived to adulthood. In these twenty-three years, the survival rate was less than three per thousand.

At the foot of Yufeng Mountain in Kunshan, there was a Huishan Hall that provided charity and raised children everywhere. Behind the archway of this Huishan Hall, the terrain rose sharply; this was Kunshan's largest mass grave. A small path trodden out by footsteps led to a small tower. Walking along this path, one could reach this solitary little tower.

The small tower was about three zhang high, built of roughly chiseled stones piled up haphazardly without square or circle. The stone tower was conical, and inside was a pit.

The small tower was built against the mountain, with blue skies and white clouds, surrounded by graves, looking somewhat simple and elegant. However, as soon as one approached, one could smell a nauseating, strange odor. Inside and outside the tower, some baskets were thrown about very casually. These baskets contained fragmented, rotting flesh, and the entrance to this stone tower could only accommodate the size of a basket; inside were all dead children.

Abandoned infant towers — there was one not far from every Huishan Hall.

Those stone towers were extremely foul-smelling, so much so that even wild beasts dared not approach. The infants thrown in to rot as fertilizer were something even these wild beasts dared not approach.

The reason the survival rate was less than two per thousand was not just that the Huishan Hall raised the children to death.

According to the report of an informed source, the rule of the Huishan Hall was that those with deformities were beaten to death without exception; those without deformities were all raised, and by the age of nine or so, they began to be sold. The jargon for this was "leaving the pen."

The human traffickers from the human tooth agencies would come to this Huishan Hall to stock up. At this time, the boys and girls in this great charity hall who were slightly better looking would all be sold. The remaining crooked melons and cracked dates were sold to poor families if they were girls, and castrated to become eunuch slaves if they were boys.

Jiangnan had a strong culture of eunuch slaves. By the Chongzhen years, there were many slave rebellions in Jiangnan, where servants rose up, held knives to kill their masters and their sons, burned everything instantly, and extended to every wealthy household in the countryside, all of which were burned and looted.

Clearly, Huishan Hall was a business, and a business that was dirty to the extreme.

"Minister Wan, who revealed this matter to Minister Wan? Does Xu Jie know about this?" Zhu Yijun asked with a furrowed brow and an unkind tone.

Wan Shihe bowed his head and said: "An informed source revealed it to me. He is a human trafficker from a human tooth agency. I had the Songjiang Inspector visit and investigate; it was not fabricated."

"As for whether Xu Jie knows, I believe he knows. These sixteen locations of Huishan Hall are all human purgatories. Even if he were unclear, by just checking the accounts slightly, with Huishan Hall earning so much money, Xu Jie ignoring it means he knows in his heart exactly what kind of business it is."

Wan Shihe did not believe Xu Jie did not know. People can lie, but silver cannot. With so much silver, Xu Jie would know clearly after one glance at the Huishan Hall's account books.

"I thought he was just greedy for profit and corrupt," Zhu Yijun said with a complex expression.

When Zhu Yijun left the Yicheng Bo's mansion, he told Zhang Juzheng that even if one speculated about the base Confucian scholars with the greatest malice, one would still overestimate their bottom line. This sharp boomerang hit Zhu Yijun fiercely.

Zhu Yijun had already exhausted his limits to speculate on their evil, but he still underestimated the evil they committed.

Did Xu Jie still need others to pin the blame on him? Even the blame itself would find him too foul.

Wang Chonggu was a merchant who liked making money very much, and he was also very good at making money. However, going to the borderlands to trade meant putting one's head on one's belt; the Northern Tatars, horse bandits, and the bitter cold of the borderlands — selling goods to the borderlands indeed earned a lot of money. But the money Xu Jie earned this way was truly heartless.

The money the Shanxi merchants earned was also heartless money, but the money Xu Jie earned this way was truly jaw-dropping.

"He still has the nerve to label himself a decent person. Do decent people earn this kind of money?" Lu Diaoyang had read the Embroidered Uniform Guard's intelligence reports. Xu Jie said he was a decent person who did not touch evil businesses, but the things he did himself were also very evil.

Wan Shihe judged that Xu Jie must have been informed. This Huishan Hall was originally a matter of supporting the people to gain temporary fame, but Huishan Hall had earned over 500,000 taels of silver in over twenty years. It was impossible for Xu Jie not to know. Even if no one had reported it, as a person as shrewd as Xu Jie, could he not have guessed?

"I remember when the Master lectured to me, he once spoke of 'Why use an ox cleaver to kill a chicken?' I said to the Master: 'The gentleman is the one who governs people. If the gentleman does evil, the country suffers great evil; if the gentleman does good, the country enjoys great good.' This is called: 'The gentleman learns the Dao and loves people.'"

"'Learns the Dao and loves people, learns the Dao and loves people, ah.'" Zhu Yijun repeated it, his expression becoming somewhat despondent.

Xu Jie was the former Grand Secretary of the Great Ming!

He was habitually corrupt and used his power to seek profit for himself — that would be one thing; the world was generally like this, and anyone with a bit of power thought about cashing it in. It was not strange for Xu Jie to seek wealth with the power in his hands while governing the country. But why did he have to earn even such dirty money? He was proficient in Confucianism, passed the imperial examinations, became a Jinshi, became a Grand Secretary, and became the head of the government. Was this how he learned the Dao and loved people?

"This matter of Huishan Hall is getting to the bottom of it. This Xu Jie sold people, and these people still have to thank him, the great philanthropist Xu, for his great kindness and virtue!" Hence Hai Rui, however, said with a heavy face and extreme disdain.

According to the laws of the Great Ming, it was impossible to convict Xu Jie, because in this business, Xu Jie earned money but did not commit a crime.

Once Hence Hai Rui spoke, the court officials also came to their senses. In this process, Xu Jie fulfilled his reputation as a great philanthropist. Those parents who handed their children to Huishan Hall actually generally knew the children's fate. This business had lasted for hundreds of years. Due to natural and man-made disasters, the landless people could not even feed themselves, let alone their children. Even knowing that their children would be worked to the bone after entering Huishan Hall, it was still much better than not being able to survive with their parents.

These children's parents and these children needed to be grateful to Xu Jie, because Xu Jie raised the children.

On what charges could Xu Jie be convicted? Xu Jie did not force buying or selling; it was the parents who took the initiative to send them to Huishan Hall. Xu Jie did not excessively mistreat them either. Those children in the abandoned infant towers were either deformed or seriously ill, and many did not have much time left. Huishan Hall just abandoned the children who died in the abandoned infant towers once again. The ones who abandoned the children first were their parents!

Pity the hearts of parents everywhere.

Who made the parents send their children to Huishan Hall even though they knew it was a place that ate people without spitting out the bones?

Who made these parents landless and drifting, leaving them with no fixed place to live?

The world was trapped by the six words "land annexation," which were placed before the Emperor in a bloody reality.

In the thirty-fifth year of Jiajing, Zhang Juzheng, holding an official position, receiving the people's offerings, and traveling around, became more and more restless as he walked, and more and more terrified as he saw more. He resolutely returned to the imperial court precisely because of these six words.

Zhang Juzheng had many, many things to say, and many, many things to do. He put his unity of knowledge and action into practice.

The West worships viewing money as a devil that stirs the heart, while the Great Ming has deep taboos against hoarding and profiting. Money is just money, but money brings countless filth.

"He has managed to get both the reputation and the benefits into his hands. Truly a good method! Worthy of being a scholar of the Great Ming!" Zhu Yijun slapped the table, his tone surprisingly calm.

Xu Jie, good method!

Zhu Yijun had Wan Shihe publish the filth and ugliness of the Huishan Hall that Xu Jie had set up. Zhu Yijun sent a letter to the Southern Yamen. Four days later, Zhu Yijun received Luo Bingliang's intelligence report. Luo Bingliang said that such charity halls were very common in Jiangnan. With the clearing of land and returning of fields, this business was becoming harder and harder to do. Several abandoned infant towers had been torn down by poor people and laborers to plant crops. If His Majesty were stronger, he could come to Jiangnan to see for himself. The Southern Yamen and Zhejiang were both slowly getting better. This is the significance of the country's revitalization and the reality of the importance of the country's foundation.

The imperial court is fulfilling its original duties.

What is the country's foundation? The country's foundation is the people.

Zhu Yijun looked at Luo Bingliang's intelligence report for a long, long time, feeling somewhat despondent, yet also somewhat fortunate. Fortunately, the Great Ming is getting better.

At this time, inside the Western Earth City, Zhang Juzheng found his way to Xu Jie's mansion in a rage, holding a miscellaneous gazette in his hand, which he smashed directly onto Xu Jie's face. With unprecedented anger, Zhang Juzheng pointed at Xu Jie and said sternly: "Xu Jie! You are unworthy of being a teacher!"

Zhang Juzheng, a student whom Xu Jie had taught at the Hanlin Academy.

It was also because of this teacher-student relationship that when the Emperor dealt with Xu Jie, he always had to give Zhang Juzheng some face.

Zhang Juzheng never expected that Xu Jie could do such a thing. His anger was understandable. After entering the Grand Secretariat, Zhang Juzheng thought he had long passed the age of showing his emotions. The fifty-something-year-old Zhang Juzheng truly could not understand Xu Jie's greed, having no bottom line to this extent.

A righteous gentleman finds it hard to imagine the evil of a villain.

"Did I do it myself? Did I do it myself? In the entire Southern Yamen, whose family doesn't have this kind of business? Could it be that only the Southern Yamen has it? Those Yangzhou slender horses, Datong wives, West Lake boat girls, Mount Tai nuns, and Sichuan embroiderers — did they grow out of the soil?!" Xu Jie stood up abruptly and smashed the miscellaneous gazette in his hand heavily onto the table, equally angry.

"Is it my fault? Datong has this kind of business, Hangzhou has this kind of business, Yangzhou has this kind of business, Yanzhou also has this kind of business — the world is full of this kind of business! The Great Ming is rotten! Completely rotten! Rotten to the core, rotten and oozing pus everywhere! Rotten to pieces!"

"Is this my fault? Emperor Shizong lived in the Western Garden for twenty-five years, letting the Yan Song faction run rampant and act recklessly. The late Emperor didn't even make a sound. Did I create the world's refugees? Wang Chonggu settled 190,000 refugees in Xuan-Da! 190,000 able-bodied men! Refugees who can flee are all the young and strong; those who cannot flee died on the road long ago!"

Xu Jie's voice was even louder than Zhang Juzheng's. Ever since Wan Shihe led the public opinion and completely exposed the evil Xu Jie had committed, Xu Jie had been extremely angry. He didn't know what he was angry about. He knew those businesses would be exposed sooner or later. The little Emperor and Zhang Juzheng were both the kind of people who killed and then punished the heart. By exposing his evil deeds, they could wield the knife cleanly when they killed him.

Xu Jie's anger was not because his crimes were exposed; he was likely angry at himself. As he was about to close his eyes, looking back on his life, he had achieved nothing and lived in vain. Despite having astonishing talent, he used it to do these things. Xu Jie was likely angry about this.

"Then you still shouldn't have done it!" Zhang Juzheng naturally knew what these five types of local specialties were. He had heard of them. That such things happened to Xu Jie was something Zhang Juzheng found hard to accept. In his heart, no matter how rotten Xu Jie was, he shouldn't have rotted to this extent.

"I shouldn't have done it? Why shouldn't I have done it? If I don't do it, there are plenty of people who will!" Xu Jie pointed at Zhang Juzheng, his face flushed red. He waved his hand, pushing everything on the table everywhere, and said loudly: "Zhang Juzheng, do you think that by your own strength alone, you can clarify the universe and make the Great Ming clear and bright?"

"Let me tell you, let alone one Zhang Juzheng, even ten or a hundred would never be able to turn this murky world into something crystal clear!"

Zhang Juzheng, on the contrary, was no longer angry, looking at Xu Jie with a hint of disdain.

Seeing Zhang Juzheng not speaking, Xu Jie raised his head like a victorious rooster, sneered, and said: "Why aren't you speaking? Zhang Juzheng, what is the use of you doing all this? You are still alive, the little Emperor fears you, obeys you in everything, and fully supports your New Policies. But what about when you die? Let me tell you, 'relying on favor to usurp the power of the sovereign's majesty — why be surprised when death comes and humiliation follows!'"

"That is the Emperor! You demand so much from the Emperor; when you are gone, that will be the time for him to vent his anger."

"Hahaha!" Zhang Juzheng suddenly laughed with relief, laughing very wantonly, laughing very heartily. A question that had troubled Zhang Juzheng for a long time suddenly had an answer in this argument. He suddenly had a sincere expectation for the future of the Great Ming.

The question that had troubled Zhang Juzheng for a long time was: Can the Great Ming truly be revived?

The answer had already surfaced, and that is: Yes, it can.

Zhang Juzheng sat down leisurely, even looked at a cup of tea, and said very calmly: "Where do you see that His Majesty fears me, this Grand Tutor? It is I who fear His Majesty. You have put the cart before the horse."

Zhang Juzheng was truly fed up with the little Emperor's big hammers and small hammers smashing against his rock-solid ideological steel seal. That was the value system he had formed throughout his life, all of which had been destroyed by the little Emperor. Those sentences of "I have doubts" were like "I have goods," constantly hovering in Zhang Juzheng's mind. This mourning leave and resignation, on the contrary, made him feel relaxed.

Escaping the essential work of being a Grand Tutor and lecturing was indeed a shameful act of a coward, but Zhang Juzheng's few remaining ideological steel seals really could not be shattered anymore. When the mourning leave ended, whether he returned to the court or not, he would no longer have to face the indescribable ideological giant hammer.

Zhang Juzheng put down the teacup, stood up, and said: "Seeing you, my understanding of the theory of contradictions has deepened a bit. The Great Ming is very large, and there are many people. In the Great Ming, there are hundreds of millions of people. Among these hundreds of millions, everyone's thoughts are different, their cognitions are different, and their thinking is also different. This is the overbearing nature of the theory of contradictions. When one learns to view a problem dialectically, many confusions are easily resolved."

"Some people are willing to shed blood and sacrifice their lives for the Great Ming, even if it means losing their lives, such as the night scouts and the distant beacon tower guards. Others rack their brains to harm the public to benefit themselves, willing to harm the interests of a larger group to satisfy the interests of their own small group, such as Wang Shizhen, such as you, Xu Jie."

"What I want to do is to find those who care about the world, who worry before the world worries and enjoy after the world enjoys, and screen them before His Majesty. Officials should be selected based on talent, and His Majesty should use them based on talent."

Xu Jie's hand trembled slightly, and he frowned, saying: "Zhang Juzheng, is this your first day as an official? So naive. That set of 'the sovereign is holy and the officials are wise, and the world is peaceful' is enough to fool the little Emperor; don't fool yourself."

"No, no, no. I didn't believe in 'the sovereign is holy and the officials are wise' before, but I believe it now. Goodbye." Zhang Juzheng said no more; when words don't agree, half a sentence is too much.

The Great Ming is very large, and there are many people. When there are many people, it becomes noisy. As a supporting official, on the road of the New Policies in the future, what Zhang Juzheng needs to do is to find those who want to do things, are willing to do things, and can do things, and send them before His Majesty, letting His Majesty exert their abilities. Then the Great Ming can be revived.

This matter is not complicated; as long as sufficient conditions are given to define it, it can be done.

Xu Jie is a Grand Secretary, and Zhang Juzheng is also a Grand Secretary. There is a gap between Grand Secretaries; different paths mean they cannot work together.

The condition for all this to be established is that the little Emperor whom Zhang Juzheng personally taught is truly very wise.

Zhu Yijun sneezed heavily and tightened the dragon cloak on his body. The weather had suddenly turned cold in the past few days. In the weather of the late spring chill, even the spring breeze had become a bit sharp, blowing into his neck like a bone-scraping knife, causing pain.

"Creak!" Wang Yaozhuo closed the window of the Imperial Study in the Guanghan Palace, slightly panicked, and complained that the window had made a strange noise. Zhang Hong hadn't applied any shark oil for lubrication, interrupting His Majesty's train of thought, which was disturbing the imperial presence.

"You've come over?" Zhu Yijun put down his pen. He put down the memorial in his hand; there were still a dozen or so that needed Zhu Yijun's personal approval, to be sent to the Wenyuange tomorrow morning. Minor matters are sent to the various ministries, and major matters are brought to the court for discussion.

This is Zhu Yijun's daily work. Because he went to the Western Hills to play for a day, he had to work an extra night shift to make up for it.

"This late spring chill is the most annoying. Just a while ago, I had the Xixin Office stop the fire in the warm pavilion, and today it's cold again." After paying her respects, Wang Yaozhuo sat to one side and lit the lamp a bit brighter.

The pen His Majesty used was a hard pen, an ink-sac hard pen, which was a pen sent by the Royal Academy of Things. The tip of the pen had a white copper bead, which made writing smooth and extremely convenient to use.

Zhu Yijun picked up a memorial and rambled on: "Back then, that Lu family from Shanzhou, I remember, also did this disgusting business. Xu Jie is the same; they are truly birds of a feather, carved from the same mold. Today, the Master went to reason with that old immortal Xu Jie. Xu Jie's words were all fallacies, but one sentence was very correct: the number of refugees in the world is truly not something he created, but the imperial court."

"The imperial court's interference in local areas has been long absent, letting it grow wild, without regulating the increasingly intensified contradictions. One day, the people will shout that sentence: 'When will this sun perish? We will perish with you!'"

During the Xia Dynasty, Xia Jie compared himself to the sun, benefiting the world. Facing Xia Jie's tyranny, the people who could no longer bear it said that even if you are truly the sun in the sky, we will perish with you.

Coincidentally, the sun and moon make "Ming" (brightness). If the imperial court continues to be absent and does not fulfill its functions, there will be such a day.

Zhu Yijun continued: "Luo Bingliang wrote to say that the Great Ming is much better now. The business of the Xu family's Huishan Hall is far worse than before. Nine out of sixteen locations have collapsed, and the others are barely maintaining. Wherever the clearing of land and returning of fields is executed well, the business of the Huishan Hall has collapsed."

"Sometimes I also wonder, when the Minister of Revenue Zhang Xueyan said he wanted to clear the land of the world, I didn't agree. Was I right or wrong?"

"What did the Master say?" Wang Yaozhuo did not understand state affairs, but she understood everything His Majesty said. This was how she came into the palace. She could be the Empress because after entering the palace, her appearance and figure attracted the attention of the Empress Dowager. The two Empress Dowagers had only one requirement regarding the Emperor's marriage, and that was that she be good at bearing children, as they were anxious to hold a grandson.

His Majesty did not have the energy for romance, which was why Wang Yaozhuo picked up a heavenly windfall.

It was already late at night, and His Majesty was still at his desk approving memorials; he truly did not have that energy.

"The Master said not to be too anxious. Eat rice one mouthful at a time, walk the road one step at a time. The dog licks the flour, the chicken eats the rice, the candle burns the copper lock — one day it will be finished." When Zhu Yijun spoke of Zhang Juzheng, he also revealed a smile. These three things were allusions from Journey to the West, which Zhang Juzheng used as a metaphor.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

"Then follow the Master's words." Wang Yaozhuo also said with a face full of smiles, imitating Zhu Yijun's tone.

She was teasing Zhu Yijun. When Zhang Juzheng was in court, Zhu Yijun liked to say this sentence very much. Since Zhang Juzheng gave his opinion, and the Emperor also felt the same, then take it slowly. Matters of land cannot be rushed; people could even kill each other over the soil of the ridges in the fields.

"Bold!" Zhu Yijun was not angry, however, and grabbed at Wang Yaozhuo.

Wang Yaozhuo dodged lightly, stood up, her eyes smiling into crescents, and said: "Come and catch me."

Wang Yaozhuo floated away, but Zhu Yijun did not move, instead continuing to read the memorials. And the floating Wang Yaozhuo looked at the Emperor at his desk, then looked at the shark oil she held in her hand, and sighed heavily. She competed for favor with state affairs and failed; the tricks the old nannies taught her were not used.

One cannot blame her for not trying hard. His Majesty felt it should be discussed after the wedding. The third day of the third lunar month is the wedding day, and there are only five days left.

Shark oil is a top-tier natural biological lubricant, cough cough. Begging for monthly votes, Awoo!!!!!!!!!

(End of this chapter)