I Rely on Beauty to Stabilize the Country - Chap 156
A few days after the imperial examination, news came out that Li Bao’s youngest son Li Huan was infected with Hualiu disease.
Everyone who heard this was in an uproar and couldn’t understand why the youngest son of such a great scholar as Li Bao contracted such a disease. Li Bao was also extremely ashamed and closed his house early and stopped accepting guests.
Li Bao has been highly praised in the past few days. Not only literati, but also secluded scholars from all over Daheng have written articles praising Li Bao for his punctuation marks. Letters are flying to Li’s house like snowflakes. Such a grand occasion made Li Bao feel a little elated. He seemed to be more than ten years younger all of a sudden. His face was rosy and he walked with ease.
The literati in the world respected him so much, and with the three generations of glory promised by the Holy One behind him, Li Bao had long forgotten the fear he felt when he promised the Holy One to be the first, and he only felt like he had been reborn.
But as soon as the news about Li Huan spread, Li Bao felt like he had been slapped loudly.
He has always been cautious, and his two stains were all because of Li Huan. Li Bao’s face turned red, he glared angrily at his youngest son on the bed, and kept saying: “Shame on you, shame on you!”
His eldest son was worried at the side: “Dad, if my brother’s illness is used to criticize me, how can I be an official? I have no honor and only make other people laugh. I feel ashamed after hearing this.”
“What do the people in the world think of us? The Holy One has already said that he will protect the Li family for three generations. But if the Holy One wants to support me but something happens, what will the Holy One think of me? My future cannot be ruined.”
Li Bao shouted angrily: “Shut up!”
Li Huan’s face turned blue, his lips trembled, and his handsome face now looked neither human nor ghost, extremely embarrassed. Li Bao usually favored his youngest son because of his cleverness and intelligence. The youngest son was good-looking and would please people, but since the last time he dared to break into the palace alone, Li Bao had become cold towards him.
How could a son with no fame be more important than an entire family?
He was suppressed by the Holy One because of the matter of his youngest son. Who knew that good and bad things depended on each other? With such good times in the past few days, how could he have known that Li Huan would be in trouble again.
When Li Bao thought that those literati and scholars would talk about him behind his back, he felt secretly angry. With a sullen face, he walked out of the house alone.
On the bed, Li Huan was sweating. His consciousness was blurry, but he also heard the words “Hualiu disease”.
Ever since he saw the Holy Master’s shocking glance three years ago, Li Huan’s romantic interests have changed from delicate women to beautiful men. Li Huan spent a lot of time and alcohol, but no matter how beautiful these men were, they only looked at the plum blossoms to quench their thirst. What he was thinking about was the Holy One, and he always remembered the Holy One’s angry look, the profile of his face, and his red ears. He really wanted to take a look at it again.
But before meeting the Holy Lord, he actually contracted such a disease.
Li Huan always felt something was wrong, but he couldn’t tell what was wrong. Not many people who suffer from Hualiu disease can survive well. Li Huan couldn’t help but feel unwilling when he thought of this. He stretched out his weak fingers to his waist and touched a delicate sachet.
Someone suddenly asked: “What is this?”
Li Huan subconsciously said: “This is a treasure.”
“Baby,” the man murmured, “that must be something good.”
Li Huan suddenly felt that this person’s voice was extremely unfamiliar. He was startled, but the next second he felt pain in the back of his neck and fell into deep darkness.
*
Xue Yuan’s men delivered the sachet to Xue Yuan.
Xue Yuan covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief and said casually: “Are you clean?”
“Don’t worry, sir. We have completely disposed of the sachet,” the subordinate said. “There will never be any trace of illness left.”
Xue Yuan nodded and slowly opened the sachet through the handkerchief. A hair strand slipped from the sachet, clearly visible on the light sachet.
Xue Yuan looked at the hair and frowned slightly.
Twisting the green silk with her fingertips, she walked slowly outside the door and faced the scorching sun. The green silk seemed to be plated with gold, so beautiful and bright in the light.
Xue Yuan’s expression suddenly changed. He turned around and took out the jade box hidden deep in the wooden box. In the white jade box were neatly trimmed hair strands. Xue Yuan picked up one of them and held it under the sun. Look, it’s exactly the same as the one in Li Huan’s sachet.
Like being carved from gold, it smells of wealth from beginning to end.
His expression darkened.
Li Huan is really brave and deserves death.
*
Gu Yuanbai was busy with the imperial examination and counting the number of Xixia people participating in the imperial examination. He did not notice that the youngest son in Li Bao’s mansion was sick.
After the imperial examination, the household registration statistics in Hunan and Jiangnan were completed, and the results were finally presented to Gu Yuanbai’s table. The previous situation of concealing and missing households was indeed very serious. After officials came to do the population census in person, there were more than 600,000 more farmers in Jinghunan alone.
This living labor force has been concealed until now.
Gu Yuanbai had long known that there would be an astonishing result after counting household registration and taxes. This project lasted for two to three years, ensuring that people as small as villages would be counted by the government. There were more than 600,000 rural households. How many acres of food can be grown?
The newly counted population of Jiangnan is 200,000 more than that of Jinghunan.
Although Gu Yuanbai had expected it, he still felt annoyed. In the memory of the little emperor, being the late emperor was tiring and painful, and a large part of the reason was due to the leakage of hidden fields.
So in the morning, he got angry, which was 30% real and 70% fake.
All the officials were also shocked by this result. After Gu Yuanbai got angry, the capital issued orders to all directions, asking all provincial governments to follow up on counting the number of household registrations. Now Jing Hunan and Jiangnan have the highest number of missing households. If those provinces If you can’t find out hundreds of thousands, it’s all fraud.
Before the mining, Jing Hunan was so barren that it had a workforce of 600,000. Judging from these two provinces, tens of millions of people in the country were not recorded in the government books.
The Holy Spirit lost his temper, and the local officials tightened their grip and began to count household registrations from bottom to top.
In addition to household registration statistics, Gu Yuanbai specifically asked them to open more schools in various places. He was afraid that it would take a few years before the student registration issue could be completed quietly.
And these things all take time.
While the court was getting busy, Gu Yuanbai packed his things and took his people to Xue Yuan’s Zhuangzi during the holiday.
There is nothing special about Xue Yuan’s village, only a dug pond and sweet-leaf grass all over the mountains and plains. He wanted to take Gu Yuanbai to the water. Gu Yuanbai looked at the sky and changed into a thin shirt at noon.
The pond occupies the best spring scenery in Zhuangzi. Once the courtyard wall is locked and the servants disappear, there are only two people in the courtyard, Gu Yuanbai and Xue Yuan.
Xue Yuan’s hands were loosely placed on Gu Yuanbai’s waist. He was not even wearing a thin shirt. He was only wearing a pair of boxer briefs that Gu Yuanbai sent someone to sew for him. The heat spread to Gu Yuanbai’s body, “Your Majesty, I’ll teach you.”
Gu Yuanbai said, “I will.”
Xue Yuan looked surprised, then smiled, “The saint came up to teach me, but I don’t know how to do it.”
Gu Yuanbai said sincerely: “Xue Yuan, your face is really getting thicker and thicker.”
When he entered the water, Gu Yuanbai thought that the water would be a little cool even under the scorching sun, but when he touched it with his fingers, he was surprised to find that the water in the pool was actually hot.
He couldn’t help but look back at Xue Yuan. At this moment, he suddenly felt, “The supervisory officer told me that you kept feasting day and night in Huainan, and big fish and meat became ordinary things. I thought you would gain some meat, but why did you lose it?” Looking at the clothes, there is no flesh at all?”
Xue Yuan kept his expression straight and told lies: “I can eat whatever I want without getting fat.”
In fact, he was afraid that Gu Yuanbai wouldn’t like it if he gained weight, so he spent a long time every day to keep his figure as handsome as before.
Gu Yuanbai believed it and got into the water from the edge of the pool. Xue Yuan was startled and suddenly followed him. The holy master in the water moved his legs and jumped out of the distance. Xue Yuan murmured: “You really know how to swim…”
He coughed, propped his arms on the edge of the pool, and said loudly: “The Holy Spirit has come to rescue me. I haven’t been in the water for a long time, and I have forgotten how to swim!”
Gu Yuanbai turned around to look, and saw black hair falling around, floating in the mist by the water. Xue Yuan was so stunned that he forgot what he had just said, buried himself in the water and chased in the direction of Gu Yuanbai.
Gu Yuanbai raised his eyebrows, and the water droplets on his face fell into the clear pool, “Master Xue, do you want to compete with me?”
Xue Yuan stretched out his hand and was about to grab his ankle. Gu Yuanbai dodged and the water made waves. Xue Yuan asked hoarsely: “Compared to what?”
“As soon as I entered your village, I saw sweet-leaf grass all over the mountains and plains,” Gu Yuanbai snorted, “A good village would not plant some famous flowers and famous grasses instead of planting cheap weeds all over the village. Brother Xue, you are really Rustic.”
Xue Yuan continued to approach him, “The Holy One likes sweetleaf grass.”
Gu Yuanbai, “Huh?”
“Your Majesty tasted it when he was in the summer palace, but forgot about it?” Xue Yuan said patiently, “When people have no money and are greedy, they will pick some sweet-leaf grass and eat it. You still say it is sweet.”
Gu Yuanbai said slowly: “I remember.”
Xue Yuan smiled and said, “There are so many sweet-leaf grasses. If Your Majesty wants to take a look at them later, you can pick a few leaves with me and have a taste.”
“Okay,” Gu Yuanbai suddenly said, “Xue Qing, call me by my name.”
Xue Yuan immediately changed his words, “Yuan Bai.”
“Be good,” Gu Yuanbai said with satisfaction, “If I win the competition with you, all the sweet leaves of yours will be mine.”
“Then if I win…” Xue Yuan said slowly, “I am two years older than you, you should call me brother Xue.”
Gu Yuanbai turned around and swam forward, “Whoever reaches the other side first will win.”
He is confident, skillful and long-legged. Now that I have beaten Xue Yuan so much, I don’t believe I can lose to him. But he didn’t expect how persistent Xue Yuan was about the word “Brother Xue”. Xue Yuan was cruel and showed no mercy to Gu Yuanbai. He reached the other side far first and then swam back to Gu Yuanbai. in front of.
“Your Majesty,” urged, “you lose.”
Gu Yuanbai looked at him uncertainly, shocked and unbelievable. Before he went over, Xue Yuan was already fucking back?
Xue Yuan circled around Gu Yuanbai, the water circle swaying in waves, “A gentleman’s words are hard to catch up with.”
Originally, this word was nothing. Brother was just brother. In modern times, it was nothing at all. Gu Yuanbai was even called daddy by many people. But now he was being stared at by Xue Yuan with a pair of burning eyes, being coaxed and urged in a hurry, and he didn’t want to say it so simply.
He watched Xue Yuan’s impatience with relish. When Xue Yuan finally stood up in a hurry, he said slowly: “Brother Xue, let’s go eat sweet grass.”
However, Xue Yuan plunged into the water violently, bringing up a rush of water, and occasionally heard a few excited roars.
Gu Yuanbai smiled and watched him running around in the pool, shaking his hands and feet, feeling the warmth in the pool, and then looked up at the clear sky, every cloud was beautiful.
What a great day.
While leisurely, Gu Yuanbai suddenly felt that he had forgotten something. His thoughts were slowed down by the water. He closed his eyes and basked in the sunshine for a while before he remembered that he had originally planned to find some children with good conduct as companions for Gu Ran while he was taking a nap.
Gu Yuanbai’s mind turned around, and the face of a little adult appeared – Chu Wei’s fourth uncle, Chu Yi.
