I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 51 Fate
Zhu Houxuan failed in steelmaking again. This should be the fifth furnace. However, these five failures also allowed him to vaguely grasp some tricks.

"Why is Shi Lu so interested in our alchemy?" Zhu Houxun secretly observed Shi Changshi who was peeking out from the city wall, "He must have come here every day for the five times the furnace was opened." Zhu Houxun drank a cup of cold tea in one gulp.

"Shi Changshi does come here every day, but if he wants to see, no one dares to stop him!" Qin Ming said, looking at Shi Changshi under the city wall.

"He comes with bad intentions! Forget it, let him go. I guess he won't be able to see anything." Zhu Houxun said after hesitating for a moment.

"Your Highness! Look!" Qin Ming suddenly pointed in a direction, "Aren't those the two uncles? I haven't seen them for a long time. They are also walking this way."

"Really? Looks like they're here to find me." Zhu Houxuan sneered, "Let's go! Let's go down and meet them!"

"Uncles, long time no see! I heard that you two went to Wuchang City recently," Zhu Houxuan greeted them.

"Hey, nephew! Didn't we go to Wuchang City to sell soap? We just came back, just came back!" Liu Changshou said carelessly.

"Thank you for your hard work, uncles. Let's go inside and talk!" After saying this, Zhu Houxuan took the lead and walked towards a lounge next to him. These two rows of lounges were specially reserved for the craftsmen to rest, and he occupied one of them.

"We also brought gifts for our eldest nephew. Come and try this watermelon." Liu Changyuan waved his hand and asked his followers to bring up two baskets of watermelons.
Zhu Houxuan looked at Liu Changyuan in surprise. After not seeing him for a few days, he found that he had made some progress!

However, when he saw so many watermelons, he really wanted to eat one, so he asked Qin Ming to cut one. He found that the flesh inside was white.

"Second uncle, are your melons ripe? Why are they all green?" Zhu Houxuan picked up the knife and opened several melons in a row, not believing in evil, and the result was the same.

"Make sure they're ripe! Can your uncle bring you some raw melon eggs? These are ripe and sweet, eat them quickly!" Liu Changyuan was unhappy.

"Why are you chopping my melon? Don't chop my melon. I've had enough and can't eat any more." Liu Changyuan stopped him.

Zhu Houxuan, unconvinced, split a basket of melons and found that they were all like this. He picked up a piece and ate it, but it tasted very lightly sweet, the flesh was very hard, and there were many seeds. He could not eat it after two bites.

Judging from the time, this melon is in season, so why does it taste so bad?
Zhu Houxuan quickly figured out the reason. The melons of this era had not been cultivated using various technologies of later generations, and that's why they looked like this.

Zhu Houxuan suddenly became uninterested. He was a prince of the Ming Dynasty, but he couldn't even eat a melon properly.

This matter is small, but similar matters are everywhere in his life, which is why he has to cause so much trouble.

"Distribute it to all the masters present here!" Zhu Houxun said to Qin Ming.

"Hey hey hey! How can you feed it to those servants?" Liu Changyuan hurriedly stopped them.

"I'm afraid my two uncles are not here just to deliver melons today?" Zhu Houxuan interrupted Liu Changyuan directly.

Liu Changshou and Liu Changyuan looked at each other, and then Liu Changshou said hesitantly: "Didn't we agree before that we would help you develop industry and commerce? Would we take you to do business? I see that the spinning mill and weaving factory are supervised by your tutor, and I think you need someone familiar to take care of you, so I want to help you manage the spinning mill and weaving factory."

Zhu Houxuan almost snorted. After he got the list from Concubine Liu, he found out that these two uncles were just nominal white gloves and the properties outside the mansion were basically not given to them to manage.

"I hand over the spinning mill and weaving factory to you so that you can molest the female workers?" Zhu Houxuan sneered. He had received news that these two uncles had gone to the spinning mill and weaving factory yesterday and molested the female workers there.

"What. What. Flirting? How can you wrongly accuse a good person? I was checking whether those female workers stole anything from the factory." Liu Changyuan's face flushed.

Zhu Houxun looked at his two uncles with a sneer, and he decided to make things clear today.

"Let's not talk about this first. How are the soap sales of the two uncles? Did you make any money?"

"We made money! We made money! We came here today to give money to our eldest nephew." Liu Changshou said hurriedly.

"Oh?" Zhu Houxuan was somewhat interested.

"Your second uncle and I worked hard to sell soap and earned a lot of money. We will give you half of it as we agreed."

Liu Changyuan put a small box on the table and said, "Nephew, please hurry up. We are all real relatives and we won't cheat you."

Zhu Houxuan opened the small box with great interest, and saw the familiar silver ingots of 50 taels each, and his expression became a little unhappy. One, two, three, four, five.

Five ingots in total - 250 taels of silver
Zhu Houxuan's expression suddenly became extremely brilliant.
"It's only been a short time, and you've earned so much silver. According to the original agreement, the silver earned will be divided equally between us. Don't you have to thank me and your uncle?" Liu Changyuan thought that Zhu Houxuan was intimidated by the silver, and continued.

"Enough!" Zhu Houxuan's face was extremely gloomy. He was completely disappointed with these two insect uncles. He decided to resolve everything quickly.

He took out an account book and held it in his hand. "Do you think I don't know? You are so stingy with the account office. I spent 10 taels of silver to get your soap account book!"

Liu Changshou and Liu Changyuan's faces were filled with fear and anxiety.

"Do you know what this is?" Zhu Houxun waved the account book in his hand, "My money! My money! You earned 2500 taels and gave me 250 taels. Do you think I'm a fool? How dare you?" Zhu Houxun's voice was so loud that even the craftsmen outside could hear it clearly.

Liu Changshou and Liu Changyuan wanted to say something, but they said nothing.

"You are my uncles! It's thanks to you that you are my uncles! Now take this silver and get out! Now! Right now! Don't appear in front of me again!" Zhu Houxuan roared.

Liu Changshou and Liu Changyuan hesitated for a moment, but finally ran away with the 250 taels of silver.
Zhu Houxuan was amused by their final action. It was really like a hopeless case of doing nothing!
When Zhu Houxuan's anger subsided, Qin Ming came up and said, "Your Highness, many people outside have heard what happened just now. If this matter gets out, it will also damage the reputation of the prince. Do you want everyone to keep their mouths shut and not spread this matter?"

Zhu Houxuan thought for a moment and said, "No need! What's the harm? I'm not the one who's embarrassed!"

The song ends and everyone disperses.

Mrs. Chen leaned her head against the back of the chair, unwilling to withdraw from the mood for a long time.

"Madam, this scene is over, we need to clear the place," the waiter at Changyinlou said in a low voice.

"Oh," Mrs. Chen woke up reluctantly, "May I ask when is the next game, little brother?"

"The next show is in the afternoon, but all the tickets are sold out."

"This is 10 taels of silver. Please help me collect the receipt."

The eighth furnace failed again. Zhu Houxuan stood on the city wall of Prince Jing's Mansion and pondered the gains and losses of this steelmaking.

His eyes were aimlessly scanning the things outside the mansion, and soon he saw a familiar figure.

"Isn't that Liu Hao who played Tang Monk?" Zhu Houxun said uncertainly, pointing at a figure.

The figure went out from the north gate of the palace, with a cloth covering his bald head and his sleeves covering his face.

"That's Liu Hao. He's very famous in Qizhou City now. He has to cover his face when he goes out for fear of being recognized." Qin Ming on the side also looked in the direction Zhu Houxuan pointed.

"Oh——" Zhu Houxuan's eyes followed Liu Hao as he walked out.

“Huh??? Why did he get on such a richly decorated carriage? Yes, that one.” Zhu Houxuan pointed in surprise at a carriage parked a hundred meters away from the north gate of the palace.

Qin Ming was very calm, "Your Majesty, you don't know yet, but the news has spread all over the palace."

"What's spread?"

"Liu Hao has been riding on that carriage these days. Many people in the mansion have seen it. I heard that this carriage belongs to a wealthy widow named Chen, who particularly likes the Tang Monk played by Liu Hao and has been attending every performance for 10 consecutive days." Qin Ming had a very strange expression on his face.

Zhu Houxuan watched silently as the carriage went farther and farther away in the sunset until it disappeared around the corner.

He sighed deeply.

Is this the fate of every actor who plays the role of Tang Monk?
I hope my good friend Liu Hao won’t cause trouble to me after reading this chapter…

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(End of this chapter)