Chapter 566: Wu? Mistake?

"There is no such thing as fair or unfair. You are all great contributors to our Huaxia, and you are all people who deserve to be enfeoffed. You have worked hard for Huaxia your entire lives; when you grow old, you should naturally enjoy yourselves in ease."

Wu also smiled knowingly, but for him, how he fared did not matter; the focus was on his children. His sons were no longer the priority; his four sons were already middle-level officials in various departments. Of course, not every one of them was equally capable; the others were either in the Ministry of Agriculture or the Ministry of Works, serving as specialized talent.

As for his daughters, the older ones had long since married, and having not learned much, they were now just ordinary people. The two younger ones had barely managed to become officials. In Wu's view, his sons and daughters were already very successful. The entire Huaxia government apparatus did not have many people, yet his own sons and daughters occupied a large portion of it.

There were also sons and daughters who specifically farmed and worked the land. After all, his family's land could be said to be the largest in all of Huaxia. If one were to speak of private land, Baifeng did not have his own farmland, but all the farmland in Huaxia belonged to Baifeng.

Some of his grandchildren were already married. Wu's family could be said to be extremely vast. This was inseparable from the fact that Baifeng had continuously rewarded them with women in the early days. Baifeng could recognize all of Wu's sons, but the grandchildren were a different story; Baifeng had no way to remember so many people.

And there were no fewer than twenty families like Wu's in Huaxia. Enfeoffing them was meant to reward them, but at the same time, it was also the first stage of breaking up their family power—which required a justification.

A landlord is not necessarily a powerful official, but a powerful official is certainly a landlord. Huaxia's entire promotion system and talent selection system were relatively well-developed, but if one were to really speak of it, Huaxia was a bit too small, and there were too few cities, making it easy for such massive family powers to emerge.

Although Baifeng was the Royal Family, how many people were in Baifeng's own family? Baifeng only had two wives and three children. He wanted to have more, but unfortunately, Heaven did not grant his wish. It remained to be seen whether Changle and Yulong could have more children later on.

The land around Huaxia could no longer be divided among these large families. They had already purchased many Slaves themselves and had enough grain to hire tenant farmers. In the future, cities must be built in distant places, and then people from these large families must be sent to those places to reclaim wasteland. Baifeng did not want the only city in all of Huaxia to be his own Huaxia City.

"Alright, I agree to let you go and negotiate. Forget about the Suiren clan; they don't even know what their situation is right now, and the road there is not easy to travel. You should just go to the Xuanyuan Tribe. Xuanyuan will not act rashly, and the whole journey is by Boat, so you will be more relaxed."

Wu bowed to express his thanks, feeling very happy.

"I have already thought of your surname. However, I don't think there is any need to show you more for you to choose from. Your surname shall be set as 'Wu'."

Baifeng wrote the character "Wu" on paper and let Wu look at it.

Wu had originally thought that his own name would be used as the surname, so he was somewhat puzzled. However, the paper Baifeng handed over made Wu even more confused: "King, this character looks somewhat unfamiliar. It seems like the character for 'mistake' without its radical, but I have never used this character before."

"Wu is very suitable for you, especially considering your current state and your beginnings. 'Wu' means to speak loudly; it is a person with a large mouth speaking. Look at you—as a Wu, or now in the Ministry of Rites, don't you need to speak loudly? The pronunciation is also very similar to your name. Therefore, I think this surname is the most suitable for you."

Wu's brain was thinking incessantly, and then he asked: "But why is the character for 'mistake' not a good meaning?"

"Speaking loudly is nothing, but if one speaks loudly too much, or if what one says does not conform to reality, won't that lead to mistakes? This is the charm of characters. To tell the truth, characters are like things born from Heaven and Earth; they are perfect and flawless!"

Wu also opened his mouth wide. Was the King praising himself? But it did make sense; the characters were created by the King, and in reality, it was just as the King said—every stroke and every line had its own meaning.

"King, you are absolutely right. The characters you created are indeed perfect and flawless."

Baifeng felt guilty hearing this, but he really did not dare to claim this credit. However, he could not explicitly say that he had plagiarized Cangjie's work, so he had to say: "Characters were not created by me; they were created by the Son of the Heavenly God. I have only learned some of them. There are still many, many characters that I do not understand. I have said this from the very beginning."

Although many things Baifeng had produced were inconceivable and truly seemed like the work of the Son of the Heavenly God, after slowly understanding them, people discovered that this was actually something human power could achieve. However, no one had ever doubted the claim that Baifeng was the Son of the Heavenly God. If it was something humans could not think of, wasn't it taught by the Son of the Heavenly God?

However, because of this surname Baifeng gave him, Wu also felt that this might be Baifeng's way of pointing something out to him—that he should not say things he shouldn't. Perhaps he had already said something he shouldn't have without realizing it. This name was very likely a punishment for him.

Thinking of this, sweat began to stream down Wu's head. He slowly stood up, then knelt down tremblingly. He did not say anything about being guilty, because since the King had given him this surname without explicitly stating anything, it meant he would not be held accountable. So, he kowtowed to Baifeng: "Thank you, King, for bestowing this surname!"

Baifeng helped Wu up, but Baifeng had not thought that much into it. If there is a fault, correct it; if not, encourage oneself—that was all. His intelligence system had not mentioned a single error by Wu, so Baifeng still trusted Wu one hundred percent. He also truly wanted Wu to spend his later years well.

After rising, Wu did not sit down again but bowed respectfully: "King, I will withdraw first to prepare for my departure to the Xuanyuan Tribe. I will not disclose today's events to the outside, including to my family and children."

Baifeng waved his hand: "It's nothing. The situation now is different from last time. You can feel free to talk about it; you can even hold a grand banquet to celebrate in advance. It's just that when you return and I hold a grand ceremony to bestow you a title and surname, you won't be as excited then."

Wu did not say anything more, just slowly retreated, and then closed the door for Baifeng.

Wu no longer had the relaxed excitement he had when entering. Everyone saw that Wu's expression was somewhat serious and thought Baifeng had refused his request to negotiate, so they teased: "Wu, the King still cares about you old man; he didn't agree to let you go, did he? If you ask me, you should just stay in Huaxia and enjoy your blessings. Haha!"

Wu squeezed out a smile: "No, no, the King has already agreed. I will go and negotiate with Xuanyuan. It's just that I might really be too old and am a bit tired now, so I'll go back and rest well for a while, skipping work. You all go ahead with your tasks."

The crowd looked at each other, somewhat puzzled, but they still cared about the old man and told him to walk slowly and not to rush. There were people busy in the Ministry of Rites now, so it didn't matter if he skipped work for half a day.